Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
A couple of apparently related theories have been making the rounds lately. One is by Nikolov and Zeller (N&Z), expounded here and replied to here on WUWT. The other is by Hans Jelbring, discussed at Tallblokes Talkshop. As I understand their theories, they say that the combination of gravity plus an atmosphere without greenhouse gases (GHGs) is capable of doing what the greenhouse effect does—raise the earth at least 30°C above what we might call the “theoretical Stefan-Boltzmann (S-B) temperature.”
So what is the S-B temperature, theoretical or otherwise?
A curious fact is that almost everything around us is continually radiating energy in the infrared frequencies. You, me, the trees, the ocean, clouds, ice, all the common stuff gives off infrared radiation. That’s how night-vision goggles work, they let you see in the infrared. Here’s another oddity. Ice, despite being brilliant white because it reflects slmost all visible light, absorbs infrared very well (absorptivity > 0.90). It turns out that most things absorb (and thus emit) infrared quite well, including the ocean, and plants (see Note 3 below). Because of this, the planet is often treated as a “blackbody” for IR, a perfect absorber and a perfect emitter of infrared radiation. The error introduced in that way is small for first-cut calculations.
The Stefan-Boltzmann equation specifies how much radiation is emitted at a given temperature. It states that the radiation increases much faster than the temperature. It turns out that radiation is proportional to absolute temperature to the fourth power. The equation, for those math inclined, is
Radiation = Emissivity times SBconstant times Temperature^4
where the Stefan-Boltzmann constant is a tiny number, 0.0000000567 (5.67E-8). For a blackbody, emissivity = 1.
This “fourth-power” dependence means that if you double the absolute temperature (measured in kelvins), you get sixteen (2^4) times the radiation (measured in watts per square metre, “W/m2”). We can also look at it the other way, that temperature varies as the fourth root of radiation. That means if we double the radiation, the temperature only goes up by about 20% (2^0.25)
Let me call the “theoretical S-B temperature” the temperature that an evenly heated stationary blackbody planet in outer space would have for a given level of incoming radiation in W/m2. It is “theoretical”, because a real, revolving airless planet getting heated by a sun with the same average radiation will be cooler than that theoretical S-B temperature. We might imagine that there are thousands of mini-suns in a sphere around the planet, so the surface heating is perfectly even.
Figure 1. Planet lit by multiple suns. Image Source.
On average day and night over the planetary surface, the Earth receives about 240 W/m2 of energy from the sun. The theoretical S-B temperature for this amount of radiation (if it were evenly distributed) is about -18°C, well below freezing. But instead of being frozen, the planet is at about +14°C or so. That’s about thirty degrees above the theoretical S-B temperature. So why isn’t the planet a block of ice?
Let me take a short detour on the way to answering that question in order to introduce the concept of the “elevator speech” to those unfamiliar with the idea.
The “elevator speech” is simply a distillation of an idea down to its very basics. It is how I would explain my idea to you if I only had the length of an elevator ride to explain it. As such it has two extremely important functions:
1. It forces me to clarify my own ideas on whatever I’m discussing. I can’t get into handwaving and hyperbole, I can’t be unclear about what I’m claiming, if I only have a few sentences to work with.
2. It allows me to clearly communicate those ideas to others.
In recent discussions on the subject, I have been asking for that kind of “elevator speech” distillation of Jelbring’s or Nikolov’s ideas, so that a) I can see if whoever is explaining the theory really understands what they are saying and, if so, then b) so that I can gain an understanding of the ideas of Jelbring or Nikolov to see if I am missing something important.
Let me give you an example to show what I mean. Here’s an elevator speech about the greenhouse effect:
The poorly-named “greenhouse effect” works as follows:
• The surface of the earth emits energy in the form of thermal longwave radiation.
• Some of that energy is absorbed by greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere.
• In turn, some of that absorbed energy is radiated by the atmosphere back to the surface.
• As a result of absorbing that energy from the atmosphere, the surface is warmer than it would be in the absence of the GHGs.
OK, that’s my elevator speech about why the Earth is not a block of ice. Note that it is not just saying what is happening. It is saying how it is happening as well.
I have asked, over and over, on various threads, for people who understand either the N&Z theory or the Jelbring theory, to give me the equivalent elevator speech regarding either or both of those theories. I have gotten nothing scientific so far. Oh, there’s the usual handwaving, vague claims of things like ‘the extra heat at the surface, is just borrowed by the work due to gravity, from the higher up regions of the atmosphere‘ with no mechanism for the “borrowing”, that kind of empty statement. But nothing with any meat, nothing with any substance, nothing with any explanatory value or scientific content.
So to begin with, let me renew my call for the elevator speech on either theory. Both of them make my head hurt, I can’t really follow their vague descriptions. So … is anyone who understands either theory willing to step forward and explain it in four or five sentences?
But that’s not really why I’m writing this. I’m writing this because of the claims of the promoters of the two theories. They say that somehow a combination of gravity and a transparent, GHG-free atmosphere can conspire to push the temperature of a planet well above the theoretical S-B temperature, to a condition similar to that of the Earth.
I hold that with a transparent GHG-free atmosphere, neither the hypothetical “N&Z effect” nor the “Jelbring effect” can possibly raise the planetary temperature above the theoretical S-B temperature. But I also make a much more general claim. I hold it can be proven that there is no possible mechanism involving gravity and the atmosphere that can raise the temperature of a planet with a transparent GHG-free atmosphere above the theoretical S-B temperature.
The proof is by contradiction. This is a proof where you assume that the theorem is right, and then show that if it is right it leads to an impossible situation, so it cannot possibly be right.
So let us assume that we have the airless perfectly evenly heated blackbody planet that I spoke of above, evenly surrounded by a sphere of mini-suns. The temperature of this theoretical planet is, of course, the theoretical S-B temperature.
Now suppose we add an atmosphere to the planet, a transparent GHG-free atmosphere. If the theories of N&K and Jelbring are correct, the temperature of the planet will rise.
But when the temperature of a perfect blackbody planet rises … the surface radiation of that planet must rise as well.
And because the atmosphere is transparent, this means that the planet is radiating to space more energy than it receives. This is an obvious violation of conservation of energy, so any theories proposing such a warming must be incorrect.
Q.E.D.
Now, I’m happy for folks to comment on this proof, or to give us their elevator speech about the Jelbring or the N&Z hypothesis. I’m not happy to be abused for my supposed stupidity, nor attacked for my views, nor pilloried for claimed errors of commission and omission. People are already way too passionate about this stuff. Roger Tattersall, the author of the blog “Tallbloke’s Talkshop”, has banned Joel Shore for saying that the N&Z hypothesis violates conservation of energy. Roger’s exact words to Joel were:
… you’re not posting here unless and until you apologise to Nikolov and Zeller for spreading misinformation about conservation of energy in their theory all over the blogosphere and failing to correct it.
Now, I have done the very same thing that Joel did. I’ve said around the web that the N&Z theory violates conservation of energy. So I went to the Talkshop and asked, even implored, Roger not to do such a foolish and anti-scientific thing as banning someone for their scientific views. Since I hold the same views and I committed the same thought-crimes, it was more than theoretical to me. Roger has remained obdurate, however, so I am no longer able to post there in good conscience. Roger Tallbloke has been a gentleman throughout, as is his style, and I hated to leave. But I did what Joel did, I too said N&Z violated conservation of energy, so in solidarity and fairness I’m not posting at the Talkshop anymore.
And more to the point, even if I hadn’t done what Joel did, my practice is to never post at or even visit sites like RealClimate, Tamino’s, and now Tallbloke’s Talkshop, places that ban and censor scientific views. I don’t want to be responsible for their page views counter to go up by even one. Banning and censorship are anathema to me, and I protest them in the only way I can. I leave them behind to discuss their ideas in their now cleansed, peaceful, sanitized, and intellectually sterile echo chamber, free from those pesky contrary views … and I invite others to vote with their feet as well.
But I digress, my point is that passions are running high on this topic, so let’s see if we can keep the discussion at least relatively chill …
TO CONCLUDE: I’m interested in people who can either show that my proof is wrong, or who will give us your elevator speech about the science underlying either N&K or Jelbring’s theory. No new theories need apply, we have enough for this post. And no long complicated explanations, please. I have boiled the greenhouse effect down to four sentences. See if you can match that regarding the N&K or the Jelbring effect.
w.
NOTE 1: Here’s the thing about a planet with a transparent atmosphere. There is only one object that can radiate to space, the surface. As a result, it is constrained to emit the exact amount of radiation it absorbs. So there are no gravity/atmospheric phenomena that can change that. It cannot emit more or less than what it absorbs while staying at the same temperature, conservation of energy ensures that. This means that while the temperature can be lower than the theoretical S-B temperature, as is the case with the moon, it cannot be more than the theoretical S-B temperature. To do that it would have to radiate more than it is receiving, and that breaks the conservation of energy.
Once you have GHGs in the atmosphere, of course, some of the surface radiation can get absorbed in the atmosphere. In that case, the surface radiation is no longer constrained, and the surface is free to take up a higher temperature while the system as a whole emits the same amount of radiation to space that it absorbs.
NOTE 2: An atmosphere, even a GHG-free atmosphere, can reduce the cooling due to uneven insolation. The hottest possible average temperature for a given average level of radiation (W/m2) occurs when the heating is uniform in both time and space. If the total surface radiation remains the same (as it must with a transparent atmosphere), any variations in temperature from that uniform state will lower the average temperature. Variations include day/night temperature differences, and equator/polar differences. Since any atmosphere can reduce the size of e.g. day/night temperature swings, even a transparent GHG-free atmosphere will reduce the amount of cooling caused by the temperature swings. See here for further discussion.
But what such an atmosphere cannot do is raise the temperature beyond the theoretical maximum average temperature for that given level of incoming radiation. That’s against the law … of conservation of energy.
NOTE 3: My bible for many things climatish, including the emissivity (which is equal to the absorptivity) of common substances, is Geiger’s The Climate Near The Ground, first published sometime around the fifties when people still measured things instead of modeling them. He gives the following figures for IR emissivity at 9 to 12 microns:
Water, 0.96 Fresh snow, 0.99 Dry sand, 0.95 Wet sand, 0.96 Forest, deciduous, 0.95 Forest, conifer, 0.97 Leaves Corn, Beans, 0.94
and so on down to things like:
Mouse fur, 0.94 Glass, 0.94
You can see why the error from considering the earth as a blackbody in the IR is quite small.
I must admit, though, that I do greatly enjoy the idea of some boffin at midnight in his laboratory measuring the emissivity of common substances when he hears the snap of the mousetrap he set earlier, and he thinks, hmmm …
Robert Brown says at 1/17 8:38am:
“If the upper atmosphere is not permitted to cool via radiation, this heat transport continues until there is no lapse rate…”
Willis 2nd mechanism doesn’t specify “upper atmosphere is not permitted to cool via radiation” which is unnatural. If Willis’ 2nd mechanism upper atmosphere is made of matter (N2, O2) above zero absolute temperature initially by conduction from the BB surface (& it is by his specification) then his upper atmosphere can radiate heat away to space as all matter > 0K can do & that energy radiating away is equal to incoming energy, thus there is a lapse rate in real nature & energy conservation.
See Willis top quote verbatim: “Now suppose we add an atmosphere to the planet, a transparent GHG-free atmosphere.”
Robert Brown also says:
“…(transparent non-GHG) atmosphere warms to a uniform temperature from top to bottom that matches the surface temperature underneath…”
Again, no lapse rate is not a property of natural transparent non-GHG atmosphere real matter &”no lapse rate” is not specified in Willis’ 2nd mechanism.
Willis’ 2nd mechanism planetary has planetary BB at surface T – delta T plus transparent non-GHG atmosphere in the presence of gravity arrives at T + delta T by conduction from the surface. All matter (O2 and N2 included) above absolute zero emits thermal radiation to adjust Willis’ 2nd mechanism to one observing conservation of energy.
This means Robert Brown must agree with N&Z for lapse rate in Willis’ 2nd mechanism which will be warmer near the surface (T + delta T) due to conduction + non-GHG atmospheric matter’s radiation than the thermally radiating only Willis’ 1st mechanism planetary BB at surface T.
This delta T comes from conduction & gravity causes that by acting on atmosphere with ideal gas law (if shut off gravity then get cooler near surface and eventually go back to 1st mechanism, no atmosphere and no delta T). This means Willis’ proof which doesn’t consider conduction, is not of nature and does violate energy conservation as Willis’ writes. Willis needs to include thermal conduction in his 2nd mechanism for a valid Q.E.D, if there is one – I don’t see it.
Summary: Willis’ 2nd mechanism w/radiation at TOA will emit same as Willis 1st mechanism at surface, no energy conservation violation. Sun energy in = sun energy out both 1st & 2nd mechanisms. But through conduction, gravity & the ideal gas law Willis 2nd mechanism atmosphere near the surface will be at T + delta T and the BB surface will be at T – delta T.
N&Z put a number to delta T in a 3rd mechanism that excludes radiation only for simplicity, Robert Brown may disagree with the number. Tell us why when you have studied up on it.
Note: CO2 (which doesn’t exist in Willis’ 2nd mechanism) especially has a huge peak to emit/absorb thermal radiation in the IR band so that’s even another mechanism, the GHGs.
Sorry, wordy: this is no elevator speech since mine for N&Z stands above at 1/16 2:46pm.
anna v says:
January 16, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Phil. :
January 16, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Absorption and emission are symmetric conditions quantum mechanically. If a line exists it can be excited, meaning it can absorb the same line. The ambient electromagnetic spectrum is a continuum as the black body radiation shows (frequency is 1/wavelength).
OK so far.
The high tail of the kinetic energy distribution always has enough energy to excite and ionize some of the gas during a collision , though it would be quite rare.
That would be the understatement of the century! Taking your example of Argon, although the result would be about the same for N and O:
If we calculate the Boltzmann distribution for 300K and approximate the energy needed to ionize Argon as 15.8eV then the fraction having energy above that threshold is about 10^-139.
I.e. the chance of it have happened once between the birth of Christ and now in our atmosphere is less than 10^-100, quite rare indeed!
Argon, as all molecules will also have the continuum radiation arising from the collisions distorting its field and creating continuum levels that can absorb and emit radiation.
There is no physical bulk matter that will not radiate as a black body.
I assume you mean a grey body? As I’ve pointed out here many times the emission of N2 is many orders of magnitude less than CO2 and H2O in the Earth’s atmosphere, as is the collisional emission. Anna you claim to have a physics education, you should know better than to post this nonsense, it’s the sort of thing expected from Smokey!
Leonard Weinstein says:
January 17, 2012 at 8:27 am
Anna & others that think a non-greenhouse gas emits thermal radiation:
Yes there is some radiation even from non-greenhouse gases, but it is so small compared to the ground radiation and greenhouse gas radiation that it can be considered zero for the analysis. Keep in mind that a room full of air has a finite probability to all move into one end of the room and suffocate you. I don’t think that would make you worry. When probabilities many orders of magnitude smaller than important details are invoked, you are really grasping at straws.
Welcome to the club Leonard, it’s a game of whack-a-mole, but the moles keep coming back up!
DeWitt Payne says:
January 17, 2012 at 8:17 am
“Then you’re doing the integration incorrectly. The emissivity doesn’t drop below 0.9 until you get to an angle between 65-70 degrees. 90% of the area of the hemisphere is covered by a solid angle of 130 degrees.”
You have gotten your angular coordinates reversed. In these plots, the observation angle is at zero degrees when you are at the top of the hemisphere. The incremental area ratio is sin(theta)*d_theta, where theta is the observation angle. The integral from zero to 65 degrees is 1 – cos(65) = 0.58, so 58% of the area is in what you call the “solid angle of 130 degrees”, by which I assume you mean the area of the sphere bounded by its intersection with a 130 degree cone.
DeWitt Payne says:
January 17, 2012 at 8:23 am
“That’s the Laplacian of the temperature, i.e. the kinetic energy, not the total energy.”
The total energy includes the potential energy of the gravity well, AND the orbital energy of the individual particles which, when they are not colliding with one another, are in orbit about the center of the spherical mass of the planet. This energy is a constant, therefore it can be neglected.
The atmosphere is not homogeneous, because of the change in density. But, the density is decreasing exponentially, while incremental volume of progressively higher altitude shells is increasing with radius squared. No matter how you scale it, you cannot ratio out an exponential function with a quadratic factor.
“The same thing is true if the temperature decreases with altitude, heat flows upward.”
Yes, that is something which has been mostly neglected in the discussion. Heat is flowing upward due to the conductive interface with the surface. I touched on the here and the next two subsequent posts.
So, what happens to that upward heat? It is fairly clear that it will accumulate until significant ionization occurs, which allows for electrical discharge and ionized air glow, releasing bundles of extremely high energy photons in the UV range (recall that UV photons are on average three orders of magnitude more energetic than IR photons, so it doesn’t take a lot to balance things).
This is the problem with the “thought experiment” process. It can help you familiarize yourself with concepts, but it is not a real experiment and, if you’ve neglected something important like the electrical characteristics of matter, your conclusions may bear little relationship to reality.
In the end, all these random discharges will make the system effectively chaotic, so there really is no equilibrium of any kind ever established. Which leads us to:
“There is no thermal equilibrium if there is a difference in temperature.”
Bingo!
dr bill says:
See here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/17/thanks-and-apologies/#comment-867434
Phil. says:
January 17, 2012 at 11:23 am
Leonard Weinstein says:
January 17, 2012 at 8:27 am
“Yes there is some radiation even from non-greenhouse gases, but it is so small compared to the ground radiation and greenhouse gas radiation that it can be considered zero for the analysis.”
Prove it. UV radiation is 1,000 times more energetic on average than IR, so even if it is 0.1% of the total, it is just as great an energy mover.
It is likely that, to the extent that GHGs dissipate energy from the atmosphere, they are only displacing what would otherwise be radiated away from other processes. So, even if you can argue that, on Earth, there is no other significant radiation, it does not provide information for what would happen with the GHGs removed, i.e., if their effect would be compensated.
Phil.
January 17, 2012 at 11:17 am
You are being offensive, but I will by pass it.
No radiation means no radiation, if the rate is small, it will take longer to cool, but cool it will.. Physical matter radiates as a grey body ( and if you had read my earlier comments you would see that yes, I mean emissivity times black body) and cannot be used as an argument in a proof by contradiction.
I am amazed that people can think that bulk matter composed of atoms and molecules at a temperature T will not radiate.
Robert Brown says:
January 17, 2012 at 8:38 am
“…it warms to a uniform temperature from top to bottom”
Impossible in a spherical distribution. See my comments elsewhere.
“If the upper atmosphere is not permitted to cool via radiation, this heat transport continues until there is no lapse rate for a superconducting/non-rotating Earth, or it drives lateral transport of heat from warmer regions to cooler ones to increase the net cooling of the planet relative to the initial condition of no transport but yes differential heating.”
Given that it is impossible for there not to be a lapse rate, this rings of the old “irresistable force meeting the immovable object” conundrum. It is a signal that something is physically untenable in the thought experiment.
I have found an answer: ionization of the upper reaches of the atmosphere can produce the electrical discharge needed to move the heat energy away.
Bart:”You have gotten your angular coordinates reversed. In these plots, the observation angle is at zero degrees when you are at the top of the hemisphere. The incremental area ratio is sin(theta)*d_theta, where theta is the observation angle. The integral from zero to 65 degrees is 1 – cos(65) = 0.58, so 58% of the area is in what you call the “solid angle of 130 degrees”, by which I assume you mean the area of the sphere bounded by its intersection with a 130 degree cone.”
I could be wrong here but I believe the plots you are referring to from Science of Doom are referring to the angle and changes of a satellite rotating around the Earth and Dewitt is referring to the emissivity changes following from the Earth’s movement around the Sun. It seems obvious to me because the satellite is much closer to the Earth much greater changes in the relevant angles are possible. OTOH, I may be missing the point entirely 😉
Cheers, 🙂
Anna V and Bart
“cannot be used as an argument in a proof by contradiction”
“It is a signal that something is physically untenable in the thought experiment.”
Of course there is something wrong with the thought experiment. That is the whole point!
General structure of the argument
1. start with a postulate
2. follow said postulate to its logical conclusion
3. check conclusion against known physics
and now
a) either the conclusion agrees with known physics, which is actually the uninteresting case because it does not even show that the initial postulate is correct, only that it is not obviously wrong
or b) the conclusion is incompatible with known physics, which is the interesting case, because it does show that something is wrong with the starting point.
So in this case the assumption that the atmosphere is completely 100% transparent leads to nonsense. So that must be wrong. Now you have to decide whether Willis’s assertion that the gravity only model, neglecting radiation entirely, is equivalent to claiming that the atmosphere is transparent. Well, is it?
Willis, re N&Z – you can only get energy from gravity once. If N&Z are correct, then I’ve got a nice gravity power plant for you: http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:_Hidro_–_Water_Pressures_Energy_Conversion_%28WAPEC%29
NB. We’re talking ‘elevator argument’ so don’t get picky with the word “get” above.
shawnhet says:
January 17, 2012 at 12:36 pm
“I could be wrong here…”
You are. The experiment was on the ground. Read up on it at the links provided in previous posts.
jimmi_the_dalek says:
January 17, 2012 at 12:56 pm
“Well, is it?”
I resolved the problem. The atmosphere will conduct heat to the top, where it will accumulate until it activates a release mechanism. There really is no other physical possibility.
Bart,
You’re right and I was wrong about the area. But the emission varies by cosine(θ) as well because the effective emitting area goes to zero at 90 degrees from the zenith. So 82% of the total energy of emission at an emissivity of 1 is collected in a solid angle of 65 degrees from the zenith (that was another mistake). I still don’t see how you get an emissivity of 0.8 for the ocean surface.
That’s a bizarre contention. It’s an obvious violation of the Second Law. The temperature of the upper atmosphere under the conditions described by Willis cannot exceed the temperature of the surface. You get ionization in the upper atmosphere of the Earth because of absorption of ultraviolet radiation from the sun under conditions where the mean free path of an ion or molecule is measured in kilometers, not from heat transfer from the surface.
Again, not impossible at all. The Laplacian of a constant is zero regardless of the coordinate system and in the heat equation one takes the Laplacian of the temperature, not the total energy. The temperature isn’t increasing with altitude, it’s constant.
“The atmosphere will conduct heat to the top, where it will accumulate until it activates a release mechanism.”
And, this leads us back to Joe Postma’s observation about how astrophysicists see so-called GHGs as cooling agents>/i>. So, now I can provide my elevator:
A) Radiation enters the system
B) it is absorbed by the surface, which fluoresces in the IR
C) heat builds up at the interface between the surface and the atmosphere until its apparent temperature suggests an exceedance of the incoming radiance based on the SB relationship
D) in fact, though, the distribution of surface energy states is non-Planckian and/or not omnidirectional so the entire integrated spatially integrated energy flux is actually not as great as expected
E) the heat from the interface conducts through the atmosphere, establishing a temperature gradient as must exist in a spherically distributed atmosphere
F) the transferred heat accumulates in the atmosphere until highly energetic emissions are stimulated, which balances the energy fluxes all around in the same way GHGs would in the standard “greenhouse” theory
G) if greenhouse gasses which can radiate in the IR are added to the atmosphere, it will result in a net cooler atmosphere than otherwise would be the case, because there is now a lower energy outlet for heat to escape.
That’s all there is to it. It makes sense. The astrophysicists agree with me…. Done.
I didn’t see it explained like this, so I’ll try.
Since insolation is uniform, surface temperature is uniform, there will be no convection.
Since atmosphere is thermal longwave transparent, it neither absorbs or emits in the IR. The atoms do emit and absorb photons, just not at IR.
A constant-temperature everywhere atmosphere is suddenly introduced, and the temperature is lower than surface temperature. The atmosphere will be heated by conduction. The surface temperature will cool, until the atmosphere at the surface reaches surface temperature equilibrium. The increased-thermal energy atmosphere atoms will diffuse, raising the surface pressure. The surface area of the outer-edge of the atmosphere will increase. The total emission of non-IR photons by the atmosphere will be increased over the initial state.
A simpler initial condition is the atmosphere everywhere at surface temperature. The atmosphere will then begin radiating photons at the air/space boundary at its preferred frequencies. By diffusion, the surface temperature will have to cool to keep energy balance.
A non-GHG atmosphere then cools a planet’s surface temperature, by transforming outgoing IR radiation to other frequencies. In/out energy remains in balance.
This result does not extrapolate to non-uniformly heated, partially GHG atmosphere.
DeWitt Payne says:
January 17, 2012 at 2:15 pm
“So 82% of the total energy of emission at an emissivity of 1 is collected in a solid angle of 65 degrees from the zenith (that was another mistake).
82% is the total integral. I made it 80% because the four plots were variable in how they rolled off, and I figure that 2% is within experimental error.
“It’s an obvious violation of the Second Law. The temperature of the upper atmosphere under the conditions described by Willis cannot exceed the temperature of the surface.”
In fact, I have already told you the temperature gradient has to be downward with altitude. But, what is the temperature of the surface? That is what is to be determined in the first place, so you are in a vicious circle.
“You get ionization in the upper atmosphere of the Earth because of absorption of ultraviolet radiation from the sun under conditions where the mean free path of an ion or molecule is measured in kilometers, not from heat transfer from the surface.”
On Earth, because it does not get hot enough, because we have GHGs to cool us off.
“The temperature isn’t increasing with altitude, it’s constant.”
Impossible. I have already explained. Go back and review.
Bart says:
January 17, 2012 at 1:59 pm
shawnhet says:
““I could be wrong here…”
You are. The experiment was on the ground. Read up on it at the links provided in previous posts.”
Ok, 😉 I was wrong about it being a satellite in space, (it was from a fixed oilrig), but my overall point is still valid IMO. You can’t compare how the emissivity changes in this particular setup to how the emissivity changes for the Earth rotating around the Earth.
Cheers, 🙂
I have already told you the temperature gradient has to be downward with upward altitude, in case there is confusion in what I mean.
Willis says: Let me give you an example to show what I mean. Here’s an elevator speech about the greenhouse effect:
The poorly-named “greenhouse effect” works as follows:
• The surface of the earth emits energy in the form of thermal longwave radiation.
• Some of that energy is absorbed by greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere.
• In turn, some of that absorbed energy is radiated by the atmosphere back to the surface.
• As a result of absorbing that energy from the atmosphere, the surface is warmer than it would be in the absence of the GHGs.
OK, that’s my elevator speech about why the Earth is not a block of ice. Note that it is not just saying what is happening. It is saying how it is happening as well.
===
Dear Willis,
An elevator speech for you
First build elevator
Press button to call elevator
Enter
Choose level on which to exit by pressing corresponding button
Take a ride
When elevator stops and doors open on chosen floor, exit
And take your stupid greenhouse effect design with you.
The problem with your elevator speech is that the design you’re describing is a house built on a hole in shifting sand because you’re using concepts based on figures which have been deliberately manipulated to lead the unwary through a labyrinth of ever more nonsensical physical properties and processes to believe the design you’ve described as if it is fact, but which relates not in any part to the real physical world around us, it is a description of a fictional effect in a fictional world. You’ve been had. That you believe it doesn’t mean we should follow you in your delusion, but we should call you on it even at the risk of being at the receiving end of your sharp though sometimes witty tongue, because you produce no proof to back up that design. You produce no proof because there is none, because the greenhouse effect you give was designed purely to confuse, to con, not to enlighten us about the real physical world around us. Prove it. Show us your working out.
Here’s why you won’t be able to, and why no one else claiming this greenhouse effect represents the real physics of the world around us has EVER given any proof of the basic premise of your design or any of its parts, it begins with the figures you use of Earth’s temperatures as Latour summarised here:
Note that well, there is no physics ever given to explain the 33°C difference between these two temperatures. You will not find it because it doesn’t exist and so you and your ilk can never produce it when asked, no matter how many times you and your ilk pushing this junk science fiction have been requested to produce it. Show us the hypothesis!
The whatchamacallits are sleights of hand. Watch carefully to see how Hansen fools you.
The figures Latour OK’s are bog standard industry figures, but there’s one missing. It’s importance in this con will be seen once the descriptions of what each relates to is known and the missing re-instated, as follows:
Earth with atmosphere as we have it now: 15°C
Earth without any atmosphere at all: -18°C
Earth with atmosphere but with no water: 67°C
As I’m sure you spotted immediately on reading this, Hansen has taken out the Water Cycle from these standard figures. The main greenhouse gas water vapour through the water cycle reduces the temperature of the Earth with our atmosphere by 52°C from the temperature the Earth would be without it, so bringing it down to the 15°C.
There is no Water Cycle in the AGW Science Fiction Incs KT97 and ilk’s energy budget.
And thus, no way can Hansen find any real world physics to account for the 33°C increase from -18°C to 15°C, except by making absurd claims about the properties of carbon dioxide and mangling real physics processes.
From this, from this sleight of hand and from this alone, we have it pushed down our throats that there is some woolly blanket affect of ‘greenhouse gas warming’ by a huge 33°C created by a trace gas, essential for all life and now called a poison, back-radiating to warm the surface, or, trapping heat in the atmosphere stopping heat escaping, and, the threat of worse to come, because the con says the heat will build up further as this trace gas carbon dioxide accumulates – properties and processes impossible for the real gas carbon dioxide which is anyway not 99.96% of the atmosphere. Gosh, such a supermolecule to raise the Earth’s temperature 33°C and make an insulating blanket out of nothing.
Instead of an explanation and proof we get obfuscation and ad homs for daring to question the fictional fisics because there never is any actual hypothesis produced capable of explaining how this extraordinary greenhouse effect is possible, instead the sleight of hand avoids producing it by misdirection, by insisting it is all based on ‘already proven well-known science’, but never fetches it.
Whatever mangling of physical properties and processes can be brought into the mix to support this unsubstantiated claimed ‘greenhouse effect’ suffices for AGWCon’s common purpose – to confuse the real world physics so that people like you can give it credibility by claiming it real, because you’ve never properly investigated it yourself, have you? Or maybe you have, and all you are is like minded with the con artists promoting it and only pretending to sceptic leanings, we’ve recently had such a pretend skeptic exposed. So which are you Willis? Too full of yourself to properly investigate or in the pay of big oil and the bwankers…?
Without the Water Cycle the Earth would be 67°C, water vapour is the main greenhouse gas, it cools the Earth, think deserts. Carbon Dioxide is fully coupled to the Water Cycle. THEREFORE, GREENHOUSE GASES COOL THE EARTH.
You’re pushing the opposite moronic claim and because you have no physics to show for your preferred version you use the idiotic claims about properties and processes which have been deliberately created to back up this sleight of hand, such as back-radiation heating the surface, regardless how many times it’s been explained by applied scientists that such a thing can’t happen because it leads to perpetual motion. That you can no longer appreciate the difference between Heat and Light, if you ever did, because the physics of radiation has been so thoroughly mangled, is just one effect of the contrived fisics this con comes up with to back it up which believers are encouraged to mindlessly repeat. That carbon dioxide can accumulate in the atmosphere defying gravity another example, and that achieved by eliminating gravity as the AGWCon had eliminated the Water Cycle, here simply by calling the non-condensable gases of our atmosphere the imaginary ideal..
Real Carbon dioxide is fully part of the Water Cycle, all pure clean rain is carbonic acid, therefore, carbon dioxide is fully part of the COOLING role of the main greenhouse gas water vapour, a real world physics process driven by the Sun.
Let me put that all together, my elevator speech:
Earth’s Real Greenhouse Effect
Earth with atmosphere as we have it now: 15°C
Earth without any atmosphere at all: -18°C
Earth with atmosphere but with no water: 67°C
The Water Cycle cools the Earth by 52°C from the temperature it would be of 67°C without water.
Water vapour is the main greenhouse gas, it COOLS the Earth, think deserts.
Carbon Dioxide is fully coupled to the Water Cycle.
Real Carbon dioxide is fully part of the Water Cycle, all pure clean rain is carbonic acid, therefore, carbon dioxide is fully part of the COOLING role of the main greenhouse gas water vapour, a real world physics process driven by the Sun.
THEREFORE, GREENHOUSE GASES COOL THE EARTH.
So come on Willis – give us what Hansen has not given us – the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis –
show us the physics of carbon dioxide accounting for the massive 33°C rise in the difference between -18°C and 15°C.
Latour: “This is not ok because there is no physics to connect these two dissimilar numbers. The 33C are whatchamacallits. This greenhouse gas effect does not exist.”
whatchamacallits = non sequiturs.
Concise Oxford Dictionary (COD) non sequitur n. Conclusion that does not logically follow from the premises. [L, = it does not follow]
The resulting claim of the greenhouse effect is conveniently described in the entry preceding:
nonsense Absurd or meaningless words or ideas,
Best effort now Willis, show it’s a working hypothesis and not a whatchamacallit.
Myrrh
“”””” Leonard Weinstein says:
January 17, 2012 at 8:27 am
Anna & others that think a non-greenhouse gas emits thermal radiation:
Yes there is some radiation even from non-greenhouse gases, but it is so small compared to the ground radiation and greenhouse gas radiation that it can be considered zero for the analysis.
“”””” Anna & others “””””
AKA; Anna and George E. Smith
Well the competing postulates are:-
#1 Stated repeatedly in all sorts of well known Textbooks on Physics. “EVERY object at a Temperature above zero Kelvins, emits “Thermal Radiation”, that being electromagnetic radiation that is emitted solely as a consequence of the Temperature of that object”.
#2 Stated almost solely by “Climate Scientists” in relation to earth’s atmosphere:- “EVERY object EXCEPT GASES at a Temperature above zero Kelvins, emits “Thermal Radiation”, that being electromagnetic radiation that is emitted solely as a consequence of the Temperature of that object”.
Unrelated to the above, but also often cited, with relatively little dispute:- “Some gases having more than two atoms per molecule CAN and DO emit and absorb Electromagnetic Radiation often in the Long Wavelength Infra-red region. These emissions/absorptions are ALWAYS at specific frequencies or bands of frequencies, that correspond to various electron energylevels that are peculiar to each such so-called greenhouse gas species, and are NOT continuum spectra characterized ONLY by the Temperature of the material.”
Now when I went to school, EVERY meant EVERY; sans NOTHING if you will.
Gases either emit and absorb thermal EM radiation or they do not. The spectral envelope of such EM radiation is given by the spectrum for a black body at the Same Temperature.
And as Anna said (in effect) nothing is nothing,, not something small.
The radiations from GHGs are a consequence of quantum mechanics, and the electronic structure of the molecule.
Black body Thermal radiation is NOT a consequence of quantum mechanics, it is a resultof ordinary classical physics, and requires no knowledge of any structure of the “particles” that emit and absorb such radiation.
Phil’s very low probability of ionising Argon at 15.8 eV from atmospheric thermal energies, is not challenged; but then you don’t need to ionise argon to get it to emit or absorb radiation, unless it is the specific atomic lines that you want to excite, not thermal.
And yes any individual atom or molecule emits or absorbs very little radiation, and solids contain many more atoms/molecules per unit volume, and undergo many more collisions than in gases; but the emission energy per collision is not greatly different.
Well I prefer to have nothing be nothing; not something small.
Nobody I know of has said that thermal emission from the atmosphere is the major driver of earth’s climate; but either it is there or it is not. Can’t have it both ways. I’m in the same boat as Anna.
If there is no release of the heat building up in the upper atmosphere, then the heat is going to accumulate until the atmospheric particles reach escape velocity and leave the planet behind.
It is putting the cart before the horse in deciding that this hypothetical planet is going to retain its atmosphere in the steady state, you know.
Let’s also not forget stimulated emission as another route through which highly excited particles may emit.
Bart says:
January 16, 2012 at 4:54 pm
Thanks, Bart. I’m not clear what the “configuration of the surface energy state” means to you. The surface is evenly heated and radiates evenly. Once equilibrium is reached the atmosphere neither gains nor loses energy.
If the surface is isothermal, what “surface energy state configuration” will give a higher temperature with the same S-B radiation? Because remember, the radiation is fixed. And in that situation, any variation in surface energy distribution perforce must reduce the temperature, because the isothermal situation yields the highest possible average temperature for a given radiation level.
All the best,
w.
Willis, this is such an easy solution.
The surfaces of those one million suns heating your planet are all emitting more energy than they are receiving from the other 999,999. They all have a transparent atmosphere. GRAVITY keeps them together and maintains the proper pressure for the fusion reactions.
Your “planet” in this scenario must be made of helium and hydrogen and is undergoing fusion due to its GRAVITY.
Or, your planet is magic.
DeWitt Payne says:
January 17, 2012 at 2:15 pm
“But the emission varies by cosine(θ) as well because the effective emitting area goes to zero at 90 degrees from the zenith.”
I see your point, but in fact, it doesn’t quite work that way. What we’re looking at is the FOV of a measuring sensor. Assume the spot it is looking at is a circle when you are directly above. As it looks to the side, the footprint becomes an ellipse with an increasingly elongated major axis. Think of the area illuminated by a flashlight shining on the ground as you swing it back and forth.
So, the cosine loss due to the projection decreases, but the actual area increases. I’d have to work out the ray tracing to actually determine the ultimate balance, but I’d guess the two effects should more or less cancel.