Note: This was a poster, and adopted into a blog post by the author, Ned Nikolov, specifically for WUWT. My thanks to him for the extra effort in converting the poster to a more blog friendly format. – Anthony
Expanding the Concept of Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect Using Thermodynamic Principles: Implications for Predicting Future Climate Change
Ned Nikolov, Ph.D. & Karl Zeller, Ph.D.
USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins CO, USA
Emails: ntconsulting@comcast.net kzeller@colostate.edu
Poster presented at the Open Science Conference of the World Climate Research Program,
24 October 2011, Denver CO, USA
http://www.wcrp-climate.org/conference2011/posters/C7/C7_Nikolov_M15A.pdf
Abstract
We present results from a new critical review of the atmospheric Greenhouse (GH) concept. Three main problems are identified with the current GH theory. It is demonstrated that thermodynamic principles based on the Gas Law need be invoked to fully explain the Natural Greenhouse Effect. We show via a novel analysis of planetary climates in the solar system that the physical nature of the so-called GH effect is a Pressure-induced Thermal Enhancement (PTE), which is independent of the atmospheric chemical composition. This finding leads to a new and very different paradigm of climate controls. Results from our research are combined with those from other studies to propose a new Unified Theory of Climate, which explains a number of phenomena that the current theory fails to explain. Implications of the new paradigm for predicting future climate trends are briefly discussed.
1. Introduction
Recent studies revealed that Global Climate Models (GCMs) have significantly overestimated the Planet’s warming since 1979 failing to predict the observed halt of global temperature rise over the past 13 years. (e.g. McKitrick et al. 2010). No consensus currently exists as to why the warming trend ceased in 1998 despite a continued increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. Moreover, the CO2-temperature relationship shows large inconsistencies across time scales. In addition, GCM projections heavily depend on positive feedbacks, while satellite observations indicate that the climate system is likely governed by strong negative feedbacks (Lindzen & Choi 2009; Spencer & Braswell 2010). At the same time, there is a mounting political pressure for Cap-and-Trade legislation and a global carbon tax, while scientists and entrepreneurs propose geo-engineering solutions to cool the Planet that involve large-scale physical manipulation of the upper atmosphere. This unsettling situation calls for a thorough reexamination of the present climate-change paradigm; hence the reason for this study.
2. The Greenhouse Effect: Reexamining the Basics
Figure 1. The Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect as taught at universities around the World (diagram from the website of the Penn State University Department of Meteorology).
According to the current theory, the Greenhouse Effect (GHE) is a radiative phenomenon caused by heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere such as CO2 and water vapor that are assumed to reduce the rate of surface infrared cooling to Space by absorbing the outgoing long-wave (LW) emission and re-radiating part of it back, thus increasing the total energy flux toward the surface. This is thought to boost the Earth’s temperature by 18K – 33K compared to a gray body with no absorbent atmosphere such as the Moon; hence making our Planet habitable. Figure 1 illustrates this concept using a simple two-layer system known as the Idealized Greenhouse Model (IGM). In this popular example, S is the top-of-the atmosphere (TOA) solar irradiance (W m-2), A is the Earth shortwave albedo, Ts is the surface temperature (K), Te is the Earth’s effective emission temperature (K) often equated with the mean temperature of middle troposphere, ϵ is emissivity, and σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) constant.
2.1. Main Issues with the Current GHE Concept:
A) Magnitude of the Natural Greenhouse Effect. GHE is often quantified as a difference between the actual mean global surface temperature (Ts = 287.6K) and the planet’s average gray-body (no-atmosphere) temperature (Tgb), i.e. GHE = Ts – Tgb. In the current theory, Tgb is equated with the effective emission temperature (Te) calculated straight from the S-B Law using Eq. (1):
where αp is the planetary albedo of Earth (≈0.3). However, this is conceptually incorrect! Due to Hölder’s inequality between non-linear integrals (Kuptsov 2001), Te is not physically compatible with a measurable true mean temperature of an airless planet. To be correct, Tgb must be computed via proper spherical integration of the planetary temperature field. This means calculating the temperature at every point on the Earth sphere first by taking the 4th root from the S-B relationship and then averaging the resulting temperature field across the planet surface, i.e.
where αgb is the Earth’s albedo without atmosphere (≈0.125), μ is the cosine of incident solar angle at any point, and cs= 13.25e-5 is a small constant ensuring that Tgb = 2.72K (the temperature of deep Space) when So = 0. Equation (2) assumes a spatially constant albedo (αgb), which is a reasonable approximation when trying to estimate an average planetary temperature.
Since in accordance with Hölder’s inequality Tgb ≪ Te (Tgb =154.3K ), GHE becomes much larger than presently estimated.
According to Eq. (2), 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.
B) Role of Convection. The conceptual model in Fig. 1 can be mathematically described by the following simultaneous Equations (3),
where νa is the atmospheric fraction of the total shortwave radiation absorption. Figure 2 depicts the solution to Eq. (3) for temperatures over a range of atmospheric emissivities (ϵ) assuming So = 1366 W m-2 and νa =0.326 (Trenberth et al. 2009). An increase in atmospheric emissivity does indeed cause a warming at the surface as stated by the current theory. However, Eq. (3) is physically incomplete, because it does not account for convection, which occurs simultaneously with radiative transfer. Adding a convective term to Eq. (3) (such as a sensible heat flux) yields the system:
where gbH is the aerodynamic conductance to turbulent heat exchange. Equation (4) dramatically alters the solution to Eq. (3) by collapsing the difference between Ts, Ta and Te and virtually erasing the GHE (Fig. 3). This is because convective cooling is many orders of magnitude more efficient that radiative cooling. These results do not change when using multi-layer models. In radiative transfer models, Ts increases with ϵ not as a result of heat trapping by greenhouse gases, but due to the lack of convective cooling, thus requiring a larger thermal gradient to export the necessary amount of heat. Modern GCMs do not solve simultaneously radiative transfer and convection. This decoupling of heat transports is the core reason for the projected surface warming by GCMs in response to rising atmospheric greenhouse-gas concentrations. Hence, the predicted CO2-driven global temperature change is a model artifact!
Figure 2. Solution to the two-layer model in Eq. (3) for Ts and Ta as a function of atmospheric emissivity assuming a non-convective atmosphere. Also shown is the predicted down-welling LW flux(Ld). Note that Ld ≤ 239 W m-2.
Figure 3. Solution to the two-layer model in Eq. (4) for Ts and Ta as a function of atmospheric emissivity assuming a convective atmosphere (gbH = 0.075 m/s). Also shown is the predicted down-welling LW flux (Ld). Note that Ld ≤ 239 W m-2.
Figure 4. According to observations, the Earth-Atmosphere System absorbs on average a net solar flux of 239 W m-2, while the lower troposphere alone emits 343 W m-2 thermal radiation toward the surface.
C) Extra Kinetic Energy in the Troposphere.
Observations show that the lower troposphere emits 44% more radiation toward the surface than the total solar flux absorbed by the entire Earth-Atmosphere System (Pavlakis et al. 2003) (Fig. 4). Radiative transfer alone cannot explain this effect (e.g. Figs. 2 & 3) given the negligible heat storage capacity of air, no matter how detailed the model is. Thus, empirical evidence indicates that the lower atmosphere contains more kinetic energy than provided by the Sun. Understanding the origin of this extra energy is a key to the GHE.
3. The Atmospheric Thermal Enhancement
Previous studies have noted that the term Greenhouse Effect is a misnomer when applied to the atmosphere, since real greenhouses retain heat through an entirely different mechanism compared to the free atmosphere, i.e. by physically trapping air mass and restricting convective heat exchange. Hence, we propose a new term instead, Near-surface Atmospheric Thermal Enhancement (ATE) defined as a non-dimensional ratio (NTE) of the planet actual mean surface air temperature (Ts, K) to the average temperature of a Standard Planetary Gray Body (SPGB) with no atmosphere (Tgb, K) receiving the same solar irradiance, i.e. NTE = Ts /Tgb. This new definition emphasizes the essence of GHE, which is the temperature boost at the surface due to the presence of an atmosphere. We employ Eq. (2) to estimate Tgb assuming an albedo αgb = 0.12 and a surface emissivity ϵ = 0.955 for the SPGB based on data for Moon, Mercury, and the Earth surface. Using So = 1362 W m-2 (Kopp & Lean 2011) in Eq. (2) yields Tgb = 154.3K and NTE = 287.6/154.3 = 1.863 for Earth. This prompts the question: What mechanism enables our atmosphere to boost the planet surface temperature some 86% above that of a SPGB? To answer it we turn on to the classical Thermodynamics.
3.1. Climate Implications of the Ideal Gas Law
The average thermodynamic state of a planet’s atmosphere can be accurately described by the Ideal Gas Law (IGL):
PV = nRT (5)
where P is pressure (Pa), V is the gas volume (m3), n is the gas amount (mole), R = 8.314 J K-1 mol-1is the universal gas constant, and T is the gas temperature (K). Equation (5) has three features that are chiefly important to our discussion: a) the product P×V defines the internal kinetic energy of a gas (measured in Jules) that produces its temperature; b) the linear relationship in Eq. (5) guarantees that a mean global temperature can be accurately estimated from planetary averages of surface pressure and air volume (or density). This is in stark contrast to the non-linear relationship between temperature and radiant fluxes (Eq. 1) governed by Hölder’s inequality of integrals; c) on a planetary scale, pressure in the lower troposphere is effectively independent of other variables in Eq. (5) and is only a function of gravity (g), total atmospheric mass (Mat), and the planet surface area (As), i.e. Ps = g Mat/As. Hence, the near-surface atmospheric dynamics can safely be assumed to be governed (over non-geological time scales) by nearly isobaric processes on average, i.e. operating under constant pressure. This isobaric nature of tropospheric thermodynamics implies that the average atmospheric volume varies in a fixed proportion to changes in the mean surface air temperature following the Charles/Gay-Lussac Law, i.e. Ts/V = const. This can be written in terms of the average air density ρ (kg m-3) as
ρTs = const. = Ps M / R (6)
where Ps is the mean surface air pressure (Pa) and M is the molecular mass of air (kg mol-1). Eq. (6) reveals an important characteristic of the average thermodynamic process at the surface, namely that a variation of global pressure due to either increase or decrease of total atmospheric mass will alter both temperature and atmospheric density. What is presently unknown is the differential effect of a global pressure change on each variable. We offer a solution to this in & 3.3. Equations (5) and (6) imply that pressure directly controls the kinetic energy and temperature of the atmosphere. Under equal solar insolation, a higher surface pressure (due to a larger atmospheric mass) would produce a warmer troposphere, while a lower pressure would result in a cooler troposphere. At the limit, a zero pressure (due to the complete absence of an atmosphere) would yield the planet’s gray-body temperature.
The thermal effect of pressure is vividly demonstrated on a cosmic scale by the process of star formation, where gravity-induced rise of gas pressure boosts the temperature of an interstellar cloud to the threshold of nuclear fusion. At a planetary level, the effect is manifest in Chinook winds, where adiabatically heated downslope airflow raises the local temperature by 20C-30C in a matter of hours. This leads to a logical question: Could air pressure be responsible for the observed thermal enhancement at the Earth surface presently known as a ‘Natural Greenhouse Effect’? To answer this we must analyze the relationship between NTEfactor and key atmospheric variables including pressure over a wide range of planetary climates. Fortunately, our solar system offers a suitable spectrum of celestial bodies for such analysis.
3.2. Interplanetary Data Set
We based our selection of celestial bodies for the ATE analysis on three criteria: 1) presence of a solid planetary surface with at least traces of atmosphere; 2) availability of reliable data on surface temperature, total pressure, atmospheric composition etc. preferably from direct measurements; and 3) representation of a wide range of atmospheric masses and compositions. This approach resulted in choosing of four planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, and four natural satellites – Moon of Earth, Europa of Jupiter, Titan of Saturn, and Triton of Neptune. Each celestial body was described by 14 parameters listed in Table 1.
For planets with tangible atmospheres, i.e. Venus, Earth and Mars, the temperatures calculated from IGL agreed rather well with observations. Note that, for extremely low pressures such as on Mercury and Moon, the Gas Law produces Ts ≈ 0.0. The SPGB temperatures for each celestial body were estimated from Eq. (2) using published data on solar irradiance and assuming αgb = 0.12 and ϵ = 0.955. For Mars, global means of surface temperature and air pressure were calculated from remote sensing data retrieved via the method of radio occultation by the Radio Science Team (RST) at Stanford University using observations by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft from 1999 to 2005. Since the MGS RST analysis has a wide spatial coverage, the new means represent current average conditions on the Red Planet much more accurately than older data based on Viking’s spot observations from 1970s.
Table 1. Planetary data used to analyze the physical nature of the Atmospheric Near-Surface Thermal Enhancement (NTE). Information was gathered from multiple sources using cross-referencing. The bottom three rows of data were estimated in this study using equations discussed in the text.
3.3. Physical Nature of ATE / GHE
Our analysis of interplanetary data in Table 1 found no meaningful relationships between ATE (NTE) and variables such as total absorbed solar radiation by planets or the amount of greenhouse gases in their atmospheres. However, we discovered that NTE was strongly related to total surface pressure through a nearly perfect regression fit via the following nonlinear function:
where Ps is in Pa. Figure 5 displays Eq. (7) graphically. The tight relationship signals a causal effect of pressure on NTE, which is theoretically supported by the IGL (see & 3.1). Also, the Ps–NTE curve in Fig. 5 strikingly resembles the response of the temperature/potential temp. (T/θ) ratio to altitudinal changes of pressure described by the well-known Poisson formula derived from IGL (Fig. 6). Such a similarity in responses suggests that both NTE and θ embody the effect of pressure-controlled adiabatic heating on air, even though the two mechanisms are not identical. This leads to a fundamental conclusion that the ‘Natural Greenhouse Effect’ is in fact a Pressure-induced Thermal Enhancement (PTE) in nature.
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. Thus, Earth and Titan have similar NTE values, yet their absolute surface temperatures are very different due to vastly dissimilar solar insolation. While pressure (P) controls the magnitude of the enhancement factor, solar heating determines the average atmospheric volume (V), and the product P×V defines the total kinetic energy and temperature of the atmosphere. Therefore, for particular solar insolation, the NTE factor gives rise to extra kinetic energy in the lower atmosphere beyond the amount supplied by the Sun. This additional energy is responsible for keeping the Earth surface 133K warmer than it would be in the absence of atmosphere, and is the source for the observed 44% extra down-welling LW flux in the lower troposphere (see &2.1 C). Hence, 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!
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, i.e.
Figure 5. Atmospheric near-surface Thermal Enhancement (NTE) as a function of mean total surface pressure (Ps) for 8 celestial bodies listed in Table 1. See Eq. (7) for the exact mathematical formula.
Figure 6. Temperature/potential temperature ratio as a function of atmospheric pressure according to the Poisson formula based on the Gas Law (Po = 100 kPa.). Note the striking similarity in shape with the curve in Fig. 5.
where NTE(Ps) is defined by Eq. (7). Equation (8) almost completely explains the variation of Ts among analyzed celestial bodies, thus providing a needed function to parse the effect of a global pressure change on the dependent variables ρ and Tsin Eq. (6). Together Equations (6) and (8) imply that the chemical composition of an atmosphere affects average air density through the molecular mass of air, but has no impact on the mean surface temperature.
4. Implications of the new ATE Concept
The implications of the above findings are numerous and paradigm-altering. These are but a few examples:
Figure 7. Dynamics of global temperature and 12-month forward shifted cloud cover types from satellite observations. Cloud changes precede temperature variations by 6 to 24 months and appear to have been controlling the latter during the past 30 years (Nikolov & Zeller, manuscript).
A) Global surface temperature is independent of the down-welling LW flux known as greenhouse or back radiation, because both quantities derive from the same pool of atmospheric kinetic energy maintained by solar heating and air pressure. Variations in the downward LW flux (caused by an increase of tropospheric emissivity, for example) are completely counterbalanced (offset) by changes in the rate of surface convective cooling, for this is how the system conserves its internal energy.
B) Modifying chemical composition of the atmosphere cannot alter the system’s total kinetic energy, hence the size of ATE (GHE). This is supported by IGL and the fact that planets of vastly different atmospheric composition follow the same Ps–NTE relationship in Fig. 5. The lack of impact by the atmospheric composition on surface temperature is explained via the compensating effect of convective cooling on back-radiation discussed above.
C) Equation (8) suggests that the planet’s albedo is largely a product of climate rather than a driver of it. This is because the bulk of the albedo is a function of the kinetic energy supplied by the Sun and the atmospheric pressure. However, independent small changes in albedo are possible and do occur owning to 1%-3% secular variations in cloud cover, which are most likely driven by solar magnetic activity. These cloud-cover changes cause ±0.7C semi-periodic fluctuations in global temperature on a decadal to centennial time scale as indicated by recent satellite observations (see Fig. 7) and climate reconstructions for the past 10,000 years.
Figure 8. Dynamics of global surface temperature during the Cenozoic Era reconstructed from 18O proxies in marine sediments (Hansen et al. 2008).
Figure 9. Dynamics of mean surface atmospheric pressure during the Cenozoic Era reconstructed from the temperature record in Fig. 8 by inverting Eq. (8).
D) Large climatic shifts evident in the paleo-record such as the 16C directional cooling of the Globe during the past 51 million years (Fig. 8) can now be explained via changes in atmospheric mass and surface pressure caused by geologic variations in Earth’s tectonic activity. Thus, we hypothesize that the observed mega-cooling of Earth since the early Eocene was due to a 53% net loss of atmosphere to Space brought about by a reduction in mantle degasing as a result of a slowdown in continental drifts and ocean floor spreading. Figure 9 depicts reconstructed dynamics of the mean surface pressure for the past 65.5M years based on Eq. (8) and the temperature record in Fig. 8.
5. Unified Theory of Climate
The above findings can help rectify physical inconsistencies in the current GH concept and assist in the development of a Unified Theory of Climate (UTC) based on a deeper and more robust understanding of various climate forcings and the time scales of their operation. Figure 10 outlines a hierarchy of climate forcings as part of a proposed UTC that is consistent with results from our research as well as other studies published over the past 15 years. A proposed key new driver of climate is the variation of total atmospheric mass and surface pressure over geological time scales (i.e. tens of thousands to hundreds of millions of years). According to our new theory, the climate change over the past 100-300 years is due to variations of global cloud albedo that are not related to GHE/ATE. This is principally different from the present GH concept, which attempts to explain climate changes over a broad range of time scales (i.e. from decades to tens of millions of years) with the same forcing attributed to variations in atmospheric CO2 and other heat-absorbing trace gases (e.g. Lacis et al. 2010).
Earth’s climate is currently in one of the warmest periods of the Holocene (past 10K years). It is unlikely that the Planet will become any warmer over the next 100 years, because the cloud cover appears to have reached a minimum for the present levels of solar irradiance and atmospheric pressure, and the solar magnetic activity began declining, which may lead to more clouds and a higher planetary albedo. At this point, only a sizable increase of the total atmospheric mass can bring about a significant and sustained warming. However, human-induced gaseous emissions are extremely unlikely to produce such a mass increase.
Figure 10. Global climate forcings and their time scales of operation according to the hereto proposed Unified Theory of Climate (UTC). Arrows indicate process interactions.
6. References
Kopp, G. and J. L. Lean (2011). A new, lower value of total solar irradiance: Evidence and climate significance, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L01706, doi:10.1029/2010GL045777.
Kuptsov, L. P. (2001) Hölder inequality, in Hazewinkel, Michiel, Encyclopedia of Mathematics, Springer, ISBN 978-1556080104.
Lacis, A. A., G. A. Schmidt, D. Rind, and R. A. Ruedy (2010). Atmospheric CO2: Principal control knob governing earth’s temperature. Science 330:356-359.
Lindzen, R. S. and Y.-S. Choi (2009). On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data. Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L16705, doi:10.1029/2009GL039628.
McKitrick, R. R. et al. (2010). Panel and Multivariate Methods for Tests of Trend Equivalence in Climate Data Series. Atmospheric Science Letters, Vol. 11, Issue 4, pages 270–277.
Nikolov, N and K. F. Zeller (manuscript). Observational evidence for the role of planetary cloud-cover dynamics as the dominant forcing of global temperature changes since 1982.
Pavlakis, K. G., D. Hatzidimitriou, C. Matsoukas, E. Drakakis, N. Hatzianastassiou, and I. Vardavas (2003). Ten-year global distribution of down-welling long-wave radiation. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 3, 5099-5137.
Spencer, R. W. and W. D. Braswell (2010). On the diagnosis of radiative feedback in the presence of unknown radiative forcing, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D16109, doi:10.1029/2009JD013371
Trenberth, K.E., J.T. Fasullo, and J. Kiehl (2009). Earth’s global energy budget. BAMS, March:311-323
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This post is also available as a PDF document here:
Unified_Theory_Of_Climate_Poster_Nikolov_Zeller
UPDATE: This thread is closed – see the newest one “A matter of some Gravity” where the discussion continues.
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I can always tell when a post here has the Warmistas shaking in their boots: all the trolls and sock puppets show up in high dudgeon. Now we even have JohnWilkesBooth, a sock puppet’s sock puppet. This paper has given the Warmista cause a serious kick in the “Jules.” Or joules.
Yes, Stephen Wilde, I remember well your post along very similar lines from some time back. NIce.
G. Karst: have no fear. the media may ignore it, but most scientists will not, including those who know little about climate. They will be intrigued to see this methodology and will explore it for themselves. Remember, Climatology, as practiced, depends on the fact that there are very few “in the know.” The more who know, now, the greater the Team’s shame.
Lucy: Good answer. AGW was never about science; it’s about the greatest power-grab in the history of mankind. And they almost got away with it.
Kevin Kilty:
December 29, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Thank you. I suppose I should have rephrased the term “is not its work a constant?” as “is it not constantly doing work?”
You say; “…the work done is then related to how much vertical distance one moves a mass and the size of the mass.”
As I interpret your explanation gravity will produce a given gas density through moving atmospheric molecules vertically (well towards the centre of Earth’s mass anyway) to occupy a smaller volume than otherwise would be the case.
However in order to maintain surface atmospheric density through the pressure resulting from the work done on the mass of the atmosphere above; it seems to me that it must constantly do work to counter the tendency of those same molecules to push each other away – even though there is no apparent vertical movement. In other words work is being done even though the pressure / density is not changing.
What am I missing?
PS I apologise for taking you away from the kids at tea time. They are far more important than this discussion.
Kevin Kilty says:
December 29, 2011 at 4:49 pm
wayne says:
December 29, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Well, what do you know? It is calculable. Using the alternate Ideal Gas Law equations I just gave above, they give these results for the three major planets with known atmospheres. …
OK, then do the following. There is pressure at altitudes of, say, 100km or 500km above the earth. Please use your modified equation to calculate the temperature up there.
>>>
Well I don’t think the temperature outside the International Space Station is relevant here. Please, no more herring, I’m full. Besides, I’m celebrating an apparent end of my two year+ trek through the dark “CLIMATE SCIENCE” forest.
Lucy Skywalker says:
December 29, 2011 at 4:10 pm
“Huffman is vindicated, as I’ve long felt he deserved. Probably trickles of people have been visiting his pages and thought about his stunning table of correlation of temperatures of Venus and Earth based solely on pressure and distance from the Sun.”
I have been there myself several times. And never found a logical fallacy about his Venus argument. I am very interested in the warmist’s response to it.
I often get shouted down on this one so I’ll approach it from a slightly different angle.
Clue 1. A real greenhouse gets warm by constraining convection!
Clue 2 when confronted with that, “but it cools quickly at night due to radiation!” No, that’s due to conduction through the, (usually 2mm glass,) and thence convection.
Let’s put another form of greenhouse up for examination, the conservatory. Double, triple, or in extreme climes, even quadruple glazing works just fine! (There seems to be a diminishing returns barrier at quadruple.)
Losses now become minimal! In fact, losses via the frame become more critical, which is why modern frames have thermal breaks. This implies surface radiative losses are minor!
DaveE.
Nick Stokes,
isn’t ready to admit that this isn’t a redo of adiabatic heating any more than a number of the posters.
If you don’t understand why this is NOT saying that adiabatic heating sets the temperature, please ask questions of the poster or Stephen Wilde!!
Joel Shore says:
December 29, 2011 at 9:33 am
“This paper will be ignored because it is pseudoscientific nonsense that would never pass peer review in the scientific community. Its only purpose is to fool those who do not have the scientific background to recognize its glaring errors.”
Such an open mind, It takes my breath away :).
J.
Theo Goodwin says:
December 29, 2011 at 5:06 pm
“Apparently, you are not aware that mainstream climate science recognizes no natural processes apart from radiation transfer in the Earth-Sun system.”
That would probably be because there is no other process apart from radiation transfer in the Earth-Sun system. Conduction and convection don’t work across a vacuum. All energy entering and leaving the earth does so via radiation.
We have very accurate figures for how much energy enters the system at the top of the atmosphere. The problem is we don’t have accurate figures for how much energy leaves at the top of the atmosphere or its frequency distribution. Approximately 35% is reflected and thus does not raise surface temperature. The keyword here is “approximate”. It’s plus or minus a few percent. A one percent inaccuracy is equivalent to all the modeled anthropogenic forcings combined. The models cannot be tested when the means of measurement have grossly insufficient precision. That’s one source of imprecision. Another source of error is that we cannot accurately measure how much thermal radiation comes from the surface where we experience it and how much comes from the cloud deck where we don’t experience it. So we can’t tell apart evaporative cooling from radiative cooling without an accurate measure of temperature gradient from surface to mid-troposphere. The only way the models can be tested is by prediction of the future and comparison of the future when it arrives. To the climate boffin’s great distress but as of yet little chagrin the predictions have failed most spectacularly in the past decade where atmospheric CO2 has been increasing at a record pace but global average temperature has not budged. In any legitimate scientific endeavour this constitutes falsification of the models but climate science turned into climate dogma decades ago.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 29, 2011 at 5:12 pm
“There has been some confusion caused by Harry Huffman, Claus Johnson and others by virtue of their contention that there is no greenhouse effect when actually they mean that i) above is untrue whilst they accept ii) to be true (I think).”
Stephen, it is Claes Johnson;
http://www.csc.kth.se/~cgjoh/
HA! I’ve been supporting this general concept for about 4 years, now. However, all I could offer is some empirical evidence and common sense. Congrats to these guys for finally putting all the physics together in a nice package that should make all the know-it-alls (including most “skeptics” reconsider their positions ! And may the warmistas have some great nightmares over this one, LOL!
Very interesting. Some quick comments:
1) It seems quite a stretch to suggest that the Earth is 133K warmer than it would be without a greenhouse atmosphere. Even a simply comparison to the moon, without any atmosphere at all, but similar solar heating and allowing for the slight differences in albedo and internal thermal energy, shows that the “133K warmer” figure seems wildly inaccurate. The moon’s surface temperature averages about -23C, which is of course slightly colder than the -18C the earth would be without greenhouse warming, and this makes sense when accounting for the factors allowed for above, but your assumption that the earth would average about -118C (or -133C lower than the current average) without an atmosphere simply doesn’t seem to compute.
2) Also, the “extra” energy in the atmosphere (more than supplied by solar alone) comes from the earth’s own terrestial LW, which must be added to the total energy budget. When considering this LW, earth’s energy budget balances (almost), without need for the energy from atmospheric pressure.
3) Finally, the diurnal atmospheric temperature changes are quite within all theoretical limits to a high degree of accuracy by measuring standard downwelling solar SW, downwelling LW, and upwelling LW, when considering standard greenhouse theory (i.e. the forcing caused by clouds at night for example) without need for introducing changes in atmospheric pressures – which may or may not follow diurnal patterns as SW and LW radiation patterns do.
Again, an “interesting” theory, but it doesn’t stand up to basic physics.
Phil’s Dad says:
December 29, 2011 at 5:25 pm
“However in order to maintain surface atmospheric density through the pressure resulting from the work done on the mass of the atmosphere above; it seems to me that it must constantly do work to counter the tendency of those same molecules to push each other away – even though there is no apparent vertical movement. In other words work is being done even though the pressure / density is not changing. What am I missing?”
You’re missing a way to convert this constant work into a perpetual motion machine. Once gravitationally compressed it takes work to uncompress it. You have to raise the mass of air against the force of gravity to uncompress it or put it in a bottle and expend energy with a vacuum pump. Extracting useful energy to perform work from gravitational potential energy only comes from dropping deeper into the gravity well. It requires the expenditure of energy to raise it out of the gravity well. An sterling example of this is hydroelectric power. Solar energy is absorbed by water which then rises until it condenses. Upon condensation is still has gravitational potential energy. If it evaporates at sea level and ends up as water at a higher elevation then we can get some work out of it as it flows downhill deeper into the gravity well. There’s no free lunch to be had here.
The truth might be somewhere in the middle:
The mass of the atmosphere determines the effective radiation height.
The lapse rate determines the surface temperature.
Between TOA and surface the necessary energy transport via conduction, convection and radiation is established.
This is the only way to explain Venus huge surface temperature. “Closing of the window” will not do it because the window is already very small on earth.
We need a theory to explain all temperature profiles in our solar system, and this gets closer than ever before.
I forgot to mention; Steven, you might want to click on the “Climate Thermodynamics” link.
That will bring you here;
http://www.csc.kth.se/~cgjoh/climatethermoslayer.pdf
…if it wasn’t for those meddling Canadians…
Stephen Wilde says: “Have I missed something?”
Yes, Stephen, you have missed something. Radiation with frequency below the cut of frequency for the absolute temperature, T of the surface (such cut off frequency being determined by Wien’s Displacement Law and being equal to kT/h where k=Boltzmann’s constant, h=Planck’s constant) cannot be converted to (additional) thermal energy in that surface.
In other words, even if it exists, back radiation cannot warm the surface.
That is what Prof Claes Johnson has proved with a detailed mathematical derivation, and what Prof Nahle has proved empirically. See links here http://www.climate-change-theory.com/RadiationAbsorption.html
This is the real breakthrough this year which we all need to heed.
Chesty Puller says:
December 29, 2011 at 5:17 pm
The albedo of Venus is 0.70 while the albedo of the earth is 0.30. The lesser distance from the sun is precisely negated by the higher albedo.
>>>
No, you are confused and mixing visiual geometric albedo with Bond albedo.
Earth’s Bond albedo is ~0.306
Venus’s Bond albedo is ~0.90
(by NASA data anyway)
She, in the short term, will make any attempt to understand her moot, just out of spite.
In the long term, She has forces that can be called upon to destroy any theory.
The pressure at the bottom of the atmosphere is trivially equal to the weight per unit area of the column of air above it. The temperature depends on entirely different factors, in particular how difficult it is for heat to be transferred upward through the layers, and ultimately radiated away into space. The equilibrium of incoming and outgoing radiation is the key to understanding the problem, and the authors really have nothing interesting to say about this.
I understand quite a bit about atmospheric physics and thermodynamics, and for the life of me I can’t figure out exactly what the authors are trying to say. The “thermal effect of pressure”, for example, is a completely meaningless phrase to anyone who understands statistical mechanics. The paper is also weirdly written, by the common standards of presentation in the mathematical sciences. If I were refereeing it, I would surely reject it for lack of clarity.
Sorry, folks, this is going to go down in history as another Gerlich and Tscheuschner – my prediction is that it will be so radioactive that no one will cite it within a month or so.
Albert Einstein says:
December 29, 2011 at 10:13 am
Why should anyone take any account of what an assistant examiner in a patent office says?…
I believe the poster is on the right track but they mightly confused the situation because they have rediscovered Lapse Rate and given it a new name. I would expect that most atmospheric scientists already take the lapse rate into account when calculating atmospheric temperature profiles.
I want to clarify the issue of work. As a parcel of air moves upwards it does not do work against gravity because the mass of air will be exactly counter-balanced by the same mass moving downwards nearby. Gravity combined with the gas properties determines the average pressure gradient. As the air rises it undergoes isentropic expansion because it is doing work against the rest of the atmosphere. The isentropic expansion, as opposed to adiabatic expansion, means the the air temperature falls significantly. It is this expansion related cooling that determines the average dry lapse rate for the atmosphere. The opposite effect occurs when the air decends and warms as it has work done it by the surrounding atmosphere. These effects would not occur if the atmosphere was not compressible as with water.
It has also been stated by others that if the atmospheric gases didnt not contain any IR absorbing/emitting compenents then atmocpheric convection would not occur because it is driven by the transfer of heat from near the earth’s surface to the TOA where the heat can only be radiated to space. If the air could not cool down and decend the convection would cease.
Compliments Ned and Karl on correcting the foundational integrals.
This thermodynamic theory can be complimented by incorporating:
1) A thermodynamically rigorous lapse rate that incorporates the absorptive/radiative properties of the greenhouse gases. See: Robert H. Essenhigh, Energy & Fuels 2006, 20, 1057-1067, “Prediction of the Standard Atmosphere Profiles of Temperature, Pressure, and Density with Height for the Lower Atmosphere by Solution of the (S-S) Integral Equations of Transfer and Evaluation of the Potential for Profile Perturbation by Combustion Emissions”
and
Sreekanth Kolan, Study of energy balance between lower and upper atmosphere
2) A quantitative Line By Line radiative model to evaluate atmospheric absorptivity/emissivity as a function of elevation, temperature and composition. e.g. Ferenc Miskolczi’s HARTCODE.
The stable stationary value of the earth’s global average atmospheric Planck-weighted greenhouse-gas optical thickness FM Miskolczi – Energy & Environment, Volume 21, Number 4 / August 2010 Pages243-262
See further pubs at: http://miskolczi.webs.com/
3) A earth heat engine climate model to evaluate temperature variations and winds from equator to the poles. e.g.,
Thermodynamic optimization of global circulation and climate, Adrian Bejan and A. Heitor Reis Int. J. Energy Res. 2005; 29:303–316
4) David Stockwell Accumulation Theory 22 Aug 2011 – relating the Pi/2 (90 deg) lag in ocean temperature from TSI oscillations.
5) Ed Fix Ch.14. The relationship of sunspot cycles to gravitational stresses on the sun
(Search for <Barycenter”) in Evidence Based Climate Science 2011 Don Easterbrook Ed.
See also comments above ref to:
The “GREENHOUSE Effect” As A Function Of Atmospheric Mass
Jelbring, Hans, Energy & Environment · Vol. 14, Nos. 2 & 3, 2003, pp 351-356
Jelbring, H. R. Thesis 1998. Wind Controlled Climate. Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm University. 111pp.
The Thermodynamic Relationship Between Surface Temperature And Water Vapor Concentration In The Troposphere, William C. Gilbert Energy & Environment · Vol. 21, No. 4, 2010 pp 263-276
Yes indeed, very interesting. I have no idea how valid the particulars are but I concluded long ago that the global climate must be ‘driven’ by the kind of variety of factors suggested here. So I applaud this kind of big thinking.
Look forward to seeing how it stands up to real peer review, by real objective scientists.
But it will never pass the kind of rigorous pal review demanded by the IPCC. It appears to be lacking sufficient social engineering levers.
Chesty Puller says:
December 29, 2011 at 5:52 pm
“Once gravitationally compressed it takes work to uncompress it.”
I would not argue that point. I suggest that if you removed the force of gravity it would uncompress pretty quickly. The work would be done by the kinetic energy already in action but previously constrained by the work of gravity acting on the atmosphere (and thus manifest as heat).
“Once gravitationally compressed…” rather suggests that gravity stops acting on it when it reaches an equilibrium pressure. I had imagined the stasis was due to equal and opposite forces in action. If you remove one the other becomes immediately apparent.
PS The perpetual motion thing was rather unkind.
The problem I have with the IGL, ideal gas law, is the way AGWScience Fiction uses it. Let me explain.
When I first began investigating AGW claims I noticed a lot of arguments about ‘back-radiation’ and saw that convection and thermodynamics had been thrown out to emphasise radiation, but I could find no arguments about something that puzzled me, the claim that carbon dioxide was well-mixed in the atmosphere and that it could accumulate in the atmosphere for hundreds and even thousands of years. I was questioning an avid promoter of AGW at the time and asked him to explain the reasoning behind these claims, he is a physics teacher (PhD).
He told me that carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen are ideal gases, that they obey the ideal gas law, in particular, he said that, ‘the atmosphere is empty space’, that ‘molecular collisions are elastic’, that ‘these gases are travelling at vast speeds through empty space continually colliding with each other and so becoming thoroughly mixed’.
I said that doesn’t make any sense, carbon dioxide is heavier than air and will therefore always sink displacing air unless work is being done on it. He said ‘not so’, that ‘carbon dioxide becomes very quickly so thoroughly mixed through these ideal gas collisions at immense speeds that it takes a great deal of work to separate it out’.
I gave him real world examples of carbon dioxide heavier than air separating out and sinking to the ground – breweries, volcanic venting – and with his moderator privileges, his post denying this disappeared, but, he still claimed that becoming thoroughly mixed as per ideal gas scenario is what would happen even if ‘an amount of carbon dioxide decended to the ground by taking the whole package of air it was in with it’, still unable to credit carbon dioxide with real world properties.
Leaving that aside for then, I asked him to confirm what he was claiming for CO2 in how it became well-mixed. I suggested a thought experiment: that in a room a volume of carbon dioxide had pooled on the floor, there was no work done to alter any of the conditions in the room from what it was that allowed the CO2 to pool, no windows opened, no fan put on. I said the carbon dioxide being heavier than air would remain pooled on the ground. He said the carbon dioxide would immediately begin to move at great speeds colliding with the other molecules in the air of nitrogen and oxygen and would become very quickly thoroughly mixed.
I known I’m right and he wrong. Real world observation proves it, basic real world physics understands and explains it.
What we have here is, astonishingly, the ideal gas law non-properties actually, physically, being given to real gases.
The Ideal gas is of course entirely imaginary, no real gas obeys the ideal gas law.
What AGWScience Fiction Inc’s meme producing department has done here is to create an imaginary world, the ideal gas world, and claim it is our real atmosphere.
From this all else follows: this fantasy world doesn’t have convection, it doesn’t have the water cycle cooling the Earth when lighter than air water vapour takes up the heat and condenses out to fall as rain as carbonic acid, because ideal gases don’t have weight or inelastic collisions.. They skip over all these real world scenarios because they don’t fit in with their ideal gas volumeless empty space atmosphere of their imaginary world. They have no sound in their world so they can’t hear this…
Instead they talk about ‘sinks’ and somehow unexplained how half the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere ends up in these sinks while the rest stays up in the air accumulating still thoroughly mixing in elastic collisions.
And don’t expect any more internal cohesion in their claims then there is between their imaginary world and our real world, like, how can this be if they claim carbon dioxide levels have been constant around 280 ppm for hundreds of thousands of years and only man’s recent imput from burning coal raising the levels? We should be choc a bloc full of carbon dioxide instead of it continuing to be a trace gas.
So, the only way one can use ideal gas law is by bringing in all that it excludes, that is, real world properties of gases such as volume, inelastic collisions (attraction), weight relative to each other (gravity), and so on, and the real world methods of heat transfer including conduction and convection, and weather, follow.
What I would like to see, and not only because the maths language is not one I use with ease, is the real basic properties and processes discussed in English. What this discussion so far shows, is people so busy doing the maths they’re missing out concepts and using imaginary concepts and talking at cross-purposes, which is how all these discussions invariably end up.