Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
It has been known for some time that the “Pacific Warm Pool”, the area just northeast of Australia, has a maximum temperature. It never gets much warmer than around 30 – 31°C. This has been borne out by the Argo floats. I discussed this in passing in “Jason and the Argo Notes“, and “Argo Notes Part 2“. I’d like to expand on this a bit. Let me be clear that I am by no means the originator of the claim that there is a thermostat regulating the maximum ocean temperature. See among many others the Central Equatorial Pacific Experiment. I am merely looking at the Argo data with this thermostat in mind.
First, Figure 1 shows the distribution of all of the ~ 700,000 surface temperature measurements taken by Argo floats to date.
Figure 1. A “histogram” shows how many data points fall in each of the 1°C intervals shown along the bottom axis. The maximum is in the interval 28°-29°C.
The number of temperature records peaks around 29°C, and drops quickly for temperatures above 30°C. This clearly establishes the existence of the mechanism limiting the oceanic temperatures.
What else can the Argo data tell us about this phenomenon? Quite a bit, as it turns out.
First, a look at the year by year evolution of the limit, and how it affects the temperatures at different latitudes.
Figure 2. Annual temperature variations measured by all northern hemisphere argo floats that exceeded 30°C. Temperature observations are colored by latitude. Click on image for full-sized graphic.
A couple points of interest. First, the cap clearly affects only the warm parts of the year. Close to the equator, that is most of the year. The further from the equator, the less of the annual cycle is affected.
Second, the majority of the breakthroughs through the ~30° ceiling that do occur are from areas further from the equator, and are short-lived. By and large, nobody exceeds the speed limit, especially those along the equator.
Figure 3 is a closeup of the years since 2005. I chose this starting point because prior to that the numbers are still changing due to limited coverage. To show how the mechanism is cropping the tops of the warmer parts of the year, I have added a Gaussian average (129 point width) in dark gray for each two-degree latitudinal band from 0°-2°N up to 10°-12°N.
Figure 3. Annual temperature variations measured by all northern hemisphere argo floats that exceeded 30°C. Dark lines have been added to highlight the average annual swings of the data by latitude band. Click on image for full-sized graphic.
As you can see, the warm parts of the yearly cycle have their high points cropped off flat, with the amount cropped increasing with increasing average temperatures.
Finally, here is the corresponding plot for the southern hemisphere:
Figure 4. Annual temperature variations measured by all southern hemisphere argo floats that exceeded 30°C. Click on image for full-sized graphic.
Note that there is less of the southern ocean that reaches 30°C, and it is restricted to areas closer to the equator.
Next, where are these areas that are affected by the temperature cap? I had always thought from the descriptions I’d read that the limitation on ocean temperature was only visible in the “Pacific Warm Pool” to the northeast of Australia. Figure 5 shows the areas which have at some point been over 30°C.
Figure 5. Locations in the ocean which are recorded at some time as having reached or exceeded 30°C.
Figure 5a. A commenter requested a Pacific-centered view of the data. We are nothing if not a full-service website.
Clearly this mechanism operates in a wider variety of oceans and seas than I had realized, not just in the Pacific Warm Pool.
Finally, here is another way to consider the effect of the temperature maximum. Here are the average annual temperature changes by latitude band. I have chosen to look at the northern hemisphere area from 160 to 180 East and from the Equator to 45°N (upper right of Figure 5, outlined in cyan), as it has areas that do and do not reach the ~ 30° maximum.
Figure 6. Average annual temperature swings by latitude band. Two years (the average year , shown twice) are shown for clarity.
Note that at say 40°N, we see the kind of peaked summer high temperatures that we would expect from a T^4 radiation loss plus a T^2 or more evaporative loss. It’s hard to get something warm, and when the heat is turned down it cools off fast. This is why the summer high temperature comes to a point, while the winter low is rounded.
But as the temperature starts to rise towards the ocean maximum, you can see how that sharp peak visible at 40°N starts first to round over, then to flatten out at the top. Curiously, the effect is visible even when the temperatures are well below the maximum ocean temperature.
Speculations on the mechanism
I want to highlight something very important that is often overlooked in discussions of this thermostatic mechanism. It is regulated by temperature, and not by forcing. It is insensitive to excess incoming radiation, whether from CO2 or from the sun. During the part of the year when the incoming radiation would be enough to increase the temperature over ~ 30°, the temperature simply stops rising at 30°. It is no longer a function of the forcing.
This is very important because of the oft-repeated AGW claim that surface temperature is a linear function of forcing, and that when forcing increases (say from CO2) the temperature also has to increase. The ocean proves that this is not true. There is a hard limit on ocean temperature that just doesn’t get exceeded no matter how much the sun shines.
As to the mechanism, to me that is a simple question of the crossing lines. As temperature rises, clouds and thunderstorms increase. This cuts down the incoming energy, as well as cooling the surface in a variety of ways. Next, this same process moves an increasing amount of excess energy polewards. In addition, as temperature rises, parasitic losses (latent and sensible energy transfers from the surface to the atmosphere) also go up.
So … as the amount of total radiation (solar + greenhouse) that is warming any location rises, more and more of the incoming solar radiation is reflected, there are more and more parasitic losses, more cold water and air move from aloft to the surface as cold wind and rain, and a greater and greater percentage of the incoming energy is simply exported out of the area. At some point, those curves have to cross. At some point, losses have to match gains.
When they do cross, all extra incoming energy above that point is simply transferred to the upper atmosphere and thence to the poles. About 30°C is where the curves cross, it is as hot as this particular natural system can get, given the physics of wind, water, and wave.
I make no overarching claims for this mechanism. It is just one more part of the many interlocking threshold-based thermostatic mechanisms that operate at all temporal and spatial scales, from minutes to millennia and kilometres to planet-wide. The mechanisms include things like the decadal oscillations (PDO, AMO, etc), the several-year Nino/Nina swings, the seasonally opposing effects of clouds (warming the winters and cooling the summers), and the hourly changes in clouds and thunderstorms.
All of these work together to maintain the earth within a fairly narrow temperature band, with a temperature drift on the order of ± 0.2% per century. It is the stability of the earth’s climate system which is impressive, not the slight rise over the last century. Until we understand the reasons for the amazing planetary temperature stability, we have no hope of understanding the slight variations in that stability.
My regards to you all,
w.
UPDATE (by Anthony):
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. has some praise for this essay here:
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It’s very difficult to follow this discusssion, when you say DLWIR or infrared, do you mean the same thing and are you excluding heat direct from the Sun? Are you talking only about the ‘backradiation’ of thermal infrared first emitted by the heated Earth or are you including the direct, beam, thermal radiation from the Sun when you say it can’t heat the ocean more than whatever miniscule amount you’re arguing about? Because if you mean thermal infrared, heat, the Sun’s thermal energy on the move, and you’re saying it can’t heat the oceans – then what does?
[Heat from the Sun, (direct,beam) is invisible; this is thermal infrared, the thermal energy of the Sun on the move from the Sun to us. If you’re standing in the Sun and feeling its heat, that is what you are feeling. Heat from the Sun.]
It’s not clear from your posts generally, which thermal infrared you’re talking about.
Also, water has a tremendous heat capacity, it takes longer to heat up and consequently longer to cool down. That’s how we get inshore and offshore breezes, because the land heats up quicker and consequently cools quicker; in the day its heat rises and the relatively cooler air above the sea comes in to replace it and at night it cools faster than the ocean so its cooler air gets drawn beneath the rising air of the warmer sea, bringing warm air to the land. It has a much higher heat capacity relative to atmospheric gases.
From: http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/1425chap4.htm
“An important aspect of global air circulation is the movement of water through the atmosphere. Water has a much higher heat capacity than the atmospheric gases. Its heat capacity is approximately four times that of air (heat capacity of water = 1 cal/gm/deg). In addition, because water changes from the liquid to the gas state (evaporation of water) and back (condensation into clouds) as it gets cycled through the atmosphere, we also have to consider the latent heat of vaporization (540 cal/gm). This is the amount of heat necessary to get the water molecules into the gas state. For example, if we evaporate a liter (1 kg) of water, 540,000 calories of latent heat are stored in the vapor. Once the water condenses, this latent heat is released, and heats up the surrounding air. If we assume for example that this water vapor is contained in 1000 kg of air (roughly 1000 cubic meters, or a cube of 10 meters size), it would heat up this air mass by about two degrees as it condenses. Air at 30 degrees C (86 degrees F) can hold up to 30 grams of water vapor per cubic meter (or kilogram) of air. If this water vapor condenses it releases 16,200 calories of latent heat. This in turn can cause the air to heat up as much as 64 degrees C. It is just like heating the air up in a hot air balloon. The air will expand and rise (think of rising and billowing clouds before a thunderstorm). For these reasons, condensing or vaporizing water has a profound effect on atmospheric circulation, and moist air masses are prone to very powerful climatic disturbances (e.g. thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes).”
Also, temperature isn’t heat. It takes longer to heat up water before it shows any temperature rise when it is continually taking in heat. There is double the thermal energy in two pints of boiling water than there is in one pint, but they’re both at the same temperature. The ocean is huge.., it will be taking in massive amounts of heat, thermal energy, direct from the Sun before showing any temperature change.
From: http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~pgore/PhysicalScience/heat.html
“If you have a very tiny container of very hot water, and a large container of cool water, which has the most thermal energy? A large container of cool water has more thermal energy than a thimbleful of very hot water because there are so many more water molecules in the large container.”
From: http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/vss/docs/thermal/1-how-does-heat-move.html
“RADIATION:
Both conduction and convection require matter to transfer heat. Radiation is a method of heat transfer that does not rely upon any contact between the heat source and the heated object. For example, we feel heat from the sun even though we are not touching it. Heat can be transmitted though empty space by thermal radiation. Thermal radiation (often called infrared radiation) is a type electromagnetic radiation (or light). Radiation is a form of energy transport consisting of electromagnetic waves traveling at the speed of light. No mass is exchanged and no medium is required.”
Direct from the Sun this heat, the Sun’s massive thermal energy, travels in straight lines at the speed of light. How different is this from the thermal infrared, heat, emitted from the Earth’s surface to the fluid gaseous atmosphere above it and ‘backradiated’ down to Earth?
Straight lines – stand in front of a fire, the heat from the fire will be directly warming whichever side you present to it, the opposite side will not be getting any of this heat directly from the fire. So likewise from the Sun, the direct, beam, heat from the Sun is not ‘travelling in all directions’.
I’ve thought more about dew and want to share some thoughts on it. It turns out that dew is a pretty interesting phenomena that can tell you a lot about what is happening at surfaces with heat. Here goes…..
If you have a dimensionless surface that separates a solid from a fluid then there is a boundary layer above the surface where viscosity can be significant.
If the air at the surface calms to a point where the viscosity of the boundary layer dominates then you can think of the surface as the interface between the solid and an insulating boundary layer that separates the surface from the atmosphere above it. Before dawn a race is set up at the surface with three participants.
One participant is the solid shedding energy at the surface via radiation. The second is the solid trying to replace radiation loss via conduction (at a rate determined by its attributes). The third and final participant is the boundary layer trying to maintain thermal equilibrium on the top side of the surface by energy transfer with the atmosphere above. It’s a race between two athletes and a drunk. The boundary layer runs both ways on the course.
If the surface is warmer than the atmosphere, energy transfers (very slowly) by a poor conduction process through the boundary layer to the atmosphere. If the surface is colder than the atmosphere the opposite energy flow is set up. When radiation is winning the race, the solid is losing more energy by radiation than can be replaced by the sum of the two conductive transfers. the surface begins to cool, and If this condition goes on long enough it will cool below the dew point. Dew happens!
If the air is not calm, the boundary layer is wiped out. Viscosity is relegated to a relative dust bin and the race gets thrown. One of the racers is gone so it becomes a race between the rate of conduction in the solid and the rate of conduction at the (turbulent) surface. No dew!
The turbulent fluid flow can feed more energy to a surface than the combined efforts of radiation and conduction in the solid can replace it. The surface can’t cool below the atmospheric temperature, so no dew.
No surprises here I guess, but a pretty neat process when you think about it. It’s all about rates and even this trivial detail is enormously complex at a micro level. Throw in an awning and you could have the makings of a neat model. Groannnnn.
“If photons leave the ocean having a frequency that falls in the absorption band for water vapor, get absorbed by cold water vapor molecules in the stratosphere, leave the molecules (isotropically), sending a portion of photons back to the surface at the exact same frequency that they left at, won’t they be absorbed by the very surface they left?”
I would suggest that it isn’t a simple matter of radiation up and radiation down.
The atmosphere is loaded with molecules and due to gravity most are at the bottom and all the time every molecule is either conducting or radiating in every direction so I am inclined to describe it all as ‘scatter’.
The total amount of such scatter at any given height provides the temperature at that height and as we know temperature declines with height.
So if one is on the surface I think that it isn’t radiation coming down from above that one senses but simply radiation from the scatter (and thus the temperature) just above the surface.
So the air just above the surface has a temperature and the surface receives energy from that temperature and not from a point higher up.
That is why I think the idea of downward IR is misleading and likely false.
The entire atmosphere causes a slowdown of energy flow from surface to space and not just GHGs because all the molecules are at the same ambient temperature at each level of the atmospheric column.
If you then provide a cover it will block the upward radiation to some extent leaving the area beneath the cover slightly warmer than the adjoining uncovered areas and therefore less likely to generate condensation.
“It’s not clear from your posts generally, which thermal infrared you’re talking about”
The Earth radiates to space at a relatively narrow range of the spectrum which is commonly referred to as longwave infrared but it does not include the entire infrared range of the spectrum. DWLWIR refers only to that narrow band emitted by the Earth to space and apparently it is not energetic enough to get back into the Earth system past the evaporative barrier on water surfaces.
The rest of the inrared portion of the spectrum plus everything else that the sun throws at us is generically referred to as solar shortwave even though it does include a chunk of the infrared portion of the spectrum. All that energy can get past the evaporative barrier top warm the oceans.
“Does the above mean that the upward radiation must be (completely or largely) reflected back to the emitting surface? The surface does not ‘know’ its emitted energy was blocked and should have cooled the instant that energy was emitted…”
It doesn’t need to be ‘reflected’ in terms of a direct straight line back to the ground. Instead all the energy between surface and blocking obstacle is just bouncing around in all directions between all the molecules present via both conduction and radiation in the form of ‘scatter’.
So the scattered energy between surface and obstacle is retained beneath the obstacle for longer which keeps the region beneath the obstacle and the surface itself slightly warmer than the areas open to the sky.
The concept of some sort of radiator in the sky sending energy to the surface is giving a false picture of the reality. In fact the surface and the air directly above it simply have a temperature imparted by the amount of ‘scatter’ of kinetic energy held by the molecules in those locations.
This was all settled science some 50 years ago but does not seem to have been taught for several decades.
.
Stephen Wilde: February 18, 2012 at 7:04 am
said
“….So the air just above the surface has a temperature and the surface receives energy from that temperature and not from a point higher up.
That is why I think the idea of downward IR is misleading and likely false.
The entire atmosphere causes a slowdown of energy flow from surface to space and not just GHGs because all the molecules are at the same ambient temperature at each level of the atmospheric column….”
This seems well stated and to me seems to make a lot of sense.
So Stephen you started this little exercise claiming there was no such thing as back radiation. You even went so far as to say that even if it existed it couldn’t do anything. Now you have the non existent back radiation hopping to and fro on the way down so that it never really gets anywhere.
I believe your exact statement was something like “it gives the air a temperature.”
Since there is never any net flow of energy out of the air ‘with a temperature’, according to your theory, I would have you go one step further for me and tell me where all that energy winds up. Do photons just accumulate forever? When does the billiard table overflow?
Oh and no fair claiming billiards with the nitrogen and oxygen, OK? They won’t interfere with the photons (waves). Only absorbent gasses count.
Stephen Wilde says:
February 18, 2012 at 7:09 am
“It’s not clear from your posts generally, which thermal infrared you’re talking about”
The Earth radiates to space at a relatively narrow range of the spectrum which is commonly referred to as longwave infrared but it does not include the entire infrared range of the spectrum. DWLWIR refers only to that narrow band emitted by the Earth to space and apparently it is not energetic enough to get back into the Earth system past the evaporative barrier on water surfaces.
So what is the longwave infrared being “radiated” back? The Earth radiates at around 10 microns – is the upwelling the same as the downwelling here?
The rest of the inrared portion of the spectrum plus everything else that the sun throws at us is generically referred to as solar shortwave even though it does include a chunk of the infrared portion of the spectrum. All that energy can get past the evaporative barrier top warm the oceans.
No, it’s not “generically referred to as solar shorwave” – it might ‘generically’ be referred to as Solar, but it very specifically refers to just the short waves of Visible and the two short waves either side, it’s very specifically near infrared. Which, as also visible, is not the thermal energy from the Sun which is the invisible longwave infrared heat direct from the Sun, so I ask, where is the real heat energy from the Sun direct to us, beam, being taken into account in heating the oceans and land?
If what you’re arguing about is only the ‘diffuse’ thermal infrared heat in the atmosphere then I can’t see that as being able to be separated out from the general fluid gaseous atmosphere’s temperature, and I would think convection the major player here and any ‘backradiated’ thermal infrared subject to it. But that still doesn’t account for the missing direct heat from the Sun warming the oceans and land. If it, the Sun’s actual heat, isn’t warming the land and oceans, then there’s nothing heating them up.
And if the land and oceans aren’t being heated by the Sun’s actual heat, then there’s no heated Earth’s upwelling thermal infrared from this..
..so what “backradiation”?
“Now you have the non existent back radiation hopping to and fro on the way down so that it never really gets anywhere.”
The term ‘back radiation’ is generally used as meaning that the sky warms the surface because of the presnce of GHGs. There is no back radiation in that sense. Simply adding energy to the air from the presence of ALL atmospheric molecules is a different concept entirely.
If you want to change the term backradiation to include any additional energy in the air from the entire atmospheric mass then that is a shift on your part.
Even then it is debatable whether there is in fact any additional energy in the air because GHGs radiate upward as well as downward and thereby increase the rate of energy loss to space over and above what non GHGs can achieve. I suspect the net effect is near zero anyway.
“I would have you go one step further for me and tell me where all that energy winds up. Do photons just accumulate forever? When does the billiard table overflow?”
The air circulation shifts to adjust the energy flow to space so that the surface temperature dictated by pressure and insolation is maintained.
“Oh and no fair claiming billiards with the nitrogen and oxygen, OK? They won’t interfere with the photons (waves). Only absorbent gasses count.”
Oxygen and Nitrogen acquire the ambient temperature at any given height. How do you propose they manage that?
Conduction and convection is how.Plus a small fraction from their slight radiative capabilities.
Stephen:
Except we were not discussing conduction and convection. We were discussing radiation. Why do you keep moving the goal posts?
Does the energy wave we were talking about bounce off the nitrogen and oxygen? Does it heat the nitrogen and oxygen?
Let’s get back on track and eliminate all the other factors. I would like to know your answer to a very simple question…..
If I supply a black body with X watts per meter squared forever it will have an internal energy of Y Joules. If I then direct photons from a colder black body (also forever), say C watts per meter squared, what happens to Y?
The bodies are separated by a perfect vacuum, X > C and they have overlapping Planck distributions.
You can’t leave out conduction and convection.I never have done. They are part of the real world.
The truth is that the purely radiative solution doesn’t work and never did.
The Greenhouse Effect involves all gases and all processes as per the Gas Laws.That is why the radiative Greenhouse Effect fails. It simply isn’t an adequate description of the Earth’s energy balance.
And the answer to my question in a conduction free, convection free model
>>>>>>>>
If I supply a black body with X watts per meter squared forever it will have an internal energy of Y Joules. If I then direct photons from a colder black body (also forever), say C watts per meter squared, what happens to Y?
The bodies are separated by a perfect vacuum, X > C and they have overlapping Planck distributions.
<<<<<<<<<<
is?
Crickets……..
I know what you are getting at but you are presenting an unreal scenario. It is such a common yet misinformed approach that I’ll try to deal with it from first principles but if you had been taught the Gas Laws and the behaviour of the Standard Atmosphere that would not be necessary.
In the conditions that you describe the black body with X will cool slower as a result of the proximity of the black body with C because it is the net flow of radiation that matters and Y will attain a higher value at equilibrium for a given energy input.
However, neither the Earth nor the Earth’s atmosphere are black bodies.To give black body status to Earth you have to take a point beyond the atmosphere as the ‘surface’ and only then apply SB.
Furthermore, treating Earth and its atmosphere as two black bodies separated by a vacuum is wholly inappropriate because the Earth and its atmosphere are a single unit interacting primarily via non radiative processes which is where the Gas Laws come in.
The atmosphere still slows down radiation loss from Earth to space but due to the governing factors of surface pressure and solar input the only relevant transfer of energy to and from atmosphere and surface primarily involves the non radiative process of conduction plus a tiny amount of radiation from the GHGs just at or above the surface.
Conduction from the solar irradiated surface supplies the energy for convection and evaporation which together facilitate the transfer of energy from surface to space, in the process being well able to negate any radiative effects from changes in atmospheric composition.
That proposition is at the heart of the apparent cap on maximum global sea surface temperatures which is the subject of this thread and it puzzles me that Willis doesn’t see that he needs it to account for the Thermostat Hypothesis.
The radiative characteristics of GHGs are neutralised within the system by:
i) The ability of GHGs to radiate directly out to space and
ii) The ability of the atmosphere to reconfigure itself by altering the surface pressure distribution thereby adjusting the rate of energy flow from surface to space.
If the radiative characteristics of GHGs were not neutralised then the Gas Laws would not apply and the concept of the Standard Atmosphere would not work. I suggest that you Google the Standard Atmosphere and acquaint yourself with its characteristics. Aviation, in particular, relies on it being valid.
So, for bodies separated by a vacuum, apply SB but only at a point outside any atmospheres where radiative processes do indeed dominate exclusively.
For bodies not separated by a vacuum, such as a planet and its atmosphere, apply the Gas Laws because non radiative processes dominate.
AGW has applied radiative physics to a non radiative scenario and the outcome is garbage.
Stephen:
I’m glad you finally admit that radiation flow in and out of a mass nets out. That only took about two days. You may claim that the black body is an irrelevance. In my book it is the fundamental basis upon which everything else builds. If you can’t figure out what will happen to a black body in a vacuum it is hopeless to think you will then be able to advance to grey bodies in an atmosphere.
And, BTW once you introduce gas and grey, does the fundamental cease to exist? I think not.
If you’ll just point me to the peer reviewed paper that says convection completely cancels radiation I guess we’re done.
Stephen Wilde says (emphasis mine):
February 19, 2012 at 6:57 am
Rough figures for the Earth’s surface:
Average global downwelling radiation, all types (solar + LW) ≈ half a kilowatt / m2.
Average global upwelling radiation, LW ≈ 390 W/m2
Average global evapo-transpiration ≈ 80 W/m2
Average global sensible heat loss (conduction/convection) ≈ 30 W/m2
Number of people in this discussion who look at those numbers and are dumb enough to claim that “non radiative processes dominate” ≈ 1.
Stephen, you are the perfect storm of idiocy. You are not only dumber than a box of sixteen penny nails, you are so stupid that you think you are smart. Truly. You wander around here babbling inanities, repeating things that you have been shown are not true, and unpleasantly trying to school people who actually understand this stuff.
Go away. Don’t go away mad. Just go away. For a while it was funny to watch everyone point at you and laugh while you seemed oblivious to the spectacle you were creating. After weeks and weeks of inane repetition, however, your constant torrent of absolutely nonsensical claims is beginning to be utterly repulsive. A wise man knows what he doesn’t know. Then there’s you.
w.
Ignore the Gas Laws all you like. They won’t go away.
“If you’ll just point me to the peer reviewed paper that says convection completely cancels radiation I guess we’re done.”
That is exactly what is implied by the observation of a cap on ocean temperatures and Wiliis’s own version of the Thermostat Hypothesis.
And the long term proven stability of the atmospheric structure pursuant to the Gas Laws.
I agree that we are done here.
One last comment because I see your error. You said:
Average global evapo-transpiration ≈ 80 W/m2
Average global sensible heat loss (conduction/convection) ≈ 30 W/m2
Those components dominate within the atmosphere because they hold the balance of the energy budget stable. They are freely interchangeable and can ramp up or down to maintain the Lapse Rate set by the Gas Laws in the face of changes in composition of the atmosphere.
Still waiting for that paper Stephen. No fair tossing out a hypothesis as a proof. Nice try though.
We are in agreement about the atmosphere having a long stable history although I wasn’t aware of radiation being mentioned in the gas laws. What term is that and in what equation please.
Oh and one more thing; I think Willis’s supposition of a convection driven thermostat takes place in the tropics under a blazing sun under the influence of intense incoming radiation. I don’t recall him discussing a convection breakout at night under the influence of down-welling radiation. Maybe I missed that part.
Crickets……..
Stephen Wilde says:
February 19, 2012 at 6:43 am
I know what you are getting at but you are presenting an unreal scenario. It is such a common yet misinformed approach that I’ll try to deal with it from first principles but if you had been taught the Gas Laws and the behaviour of the Standard Atmosphere that would not be necessary.
..
Furthermore, treating Earth and its atmosphere as two black bodies separated by a vacuum is wholly inappropriate because the Earth and its atmosphere are a single unit interacting primarily via non radiative processes which is where the Gas Laws come in.
Stephen Wilde says:
February 19, 2012 at 6:57 am
So, for bodies separated by a vacuum, apply SB but only at a point outside any atmospheres where radiative processes do indeed dominate exclusively.
For bodies not separated by a vacuum, such as a planet and its atmosphere, apply the Gas Laws because non radiative processes dominate.
AGW has applied radiative physics to a non radiative scenario and the outcome is garbage
=======
Stephen, thanks for the description. Last piece of the jigsaw for me here..
How they get this is interesting, they take literally the description of the basic ideal gas, and say that the molecules of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide fit this. Therefore, they end up without an atmosphere, just empty space with little hard molecules without volume or weight whizzing through it at tremendous speed bouncing off each other in elastic collisions where they all become thoroughly well-mixed – they’ve never progressed further than that.
So, all their calculations are absent conduction and convection because they don’t have the fluid real gas atmosphere of volume and weight, just empty space and radiation.
That’s why they can’t hear you… 🙂
I’ve told the story before…. and I can’t recall offhand where I posted it, but I discovered this by questioning a PhD in physics who teaches this, said I would fail his classes when I said that carbon dioxide could separate out. He was the first person I questioned about AGW, I didn’t know anything about the arguments then, but I found all kinds of problems with their claims. One thing that I couldn’t find discussions about was the weight of carbon dioxide relative to air, I was astonished they claimed it was well mixed in the atmosphere and could accumulate for hundreds and even thousands of years.
At first this teacher refused to acknowledge that carbon dioxide could separate out by weight, he had to admit it when I showed him real life, (mining, volcanoes, breweries), and finally he admitted that it could sink to the ground, being a moderator, he excised his claim that it couldn’t. He then ‘explained’ it by saying that the carbon dioxide came down in a mixed package of air, .. ? Anyway, I had a really hard time believing that he was actually teaching this, that this was what passed for physics in his university and others, that I proposed a thought experiment to make sure I had understood him.
There’s a room where carbon dioxide has pooled on the ground, and nothing is changed to the conditions which allowed it to pool, no work done, no windows opened, no fan put on. I said the carbon dioxide because it is heavier than air (one and half times heavier), will remain where it has pooled. He said it would spontaneously diffuse ‘as per ideal gas law’ without any work being done and thoroughly mix in the air of the room where it couldn’t be unmixed without a great deal of work done.
There you have it. That’s why they have this:
“Earth and its atmosphere as two black bodies separated by a vacuum is wholly inappropriate because the Earth and its atmosphere are a single unit interacting primarily via non radiative processes which is where the Gas Laws come in.”
They’ve taken the ‘vacuum’ from the description of the ideal gas, and seriously, I’ve had lots of discussions about this point with them, they think it empty space. They give experiments to show this is empty space and gases diffuse at great speed through it, opening a bottle of scent in a classroom is one such ‘proof’. That none of the properties of the gases involved (alchohol and water has a particular effect and rapidly convect) are explained, is typical, just presented as proof that this is how carbon dioxide diffuses rapidly into the atmosphere. The other is dropping coloured ink into a glass of water, again, no convection explanation – just presented as proof that this is how carbon dioxide becomes thoroughly mixed and can’t be unmixed.
You’re talking with people who are describing a different world, it’s garbage in the real world, but their world is science fiction, it’s a through the looking glass with Alice world where they can think up any number of impossible things before breakfast. They honestly don’t have any concept of what a fluid gas is, they don’t have volume or weight. So they can’t understand conduction and lapse rates and so on. It’s really off the wall, but they’re convinced it’s the real world they’re describing.
They don’t have an atmosphere, just empty space with the imaginary ideal gas with no intermolecular forces and no molecular volume.
Their gas molecules don’t have any properties or processes, interactions and such, from those properties.
That’s why they don’t understand you. The AGWSF department’s meme production has introduced this into the education system, they think it is real world physics, and so they can only understand the arguments from that paradigm, the real world doesn’t make sense to them.
That’s why they can’t understand properties in the electomagnetic spectrum either, that too has been reduced to ‘all the same creating heat’.
Just wow…