The answer may surprise you
Note: This essay is a result of an email discussion this morning, I asked Dr. Happer to condense and complete that discussion for the benefit of WUWT readers. This is one of the most enlightening calculations I’ve seen in awhile, and it is worth your time to understand it because it speaks clearly to debunk many of the claims of temperature rise in the next 100 years made by activists, such as the 6c by 2050 Joe Romm claims, when parroting Fatih Birol in Reuters:
“When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius (by 2050), which would have devastating consequences for the planet,” Fatih Birol, IEA’s chief economist told Reuters.
![dec11-eleven-degrees2[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/dec11-eleven-degrees21.jpg?quality=83)
Graph source: IEA.org scenarios and projections
– Anthony
Guest post by Dr. William Happer
For any rational discussion of the effects of CO2 on climate, numbers are important. An average temperature increase of 1 C will be a benefit to the planet, as every past warming has been in human history. And the added CO2 will certainly increase agricultural yields substantially and make crops more resistant to drought. But in articles like “Scant Gains Made on CO2 Emissions, Energy Agency Says” by Sarah Kent in the Wall Street Journal on April 18, 2013, we see a graph with a 6 C temperature rise by 2050 – if we don’t reduce “carbon intensity.” Indeed, a 6 C temperature rise may well be cause for concern. But anyone with a little background in mathematics and physics should be able to understand how ridiculous a number like 6 C is.
The temperature change, ∆T , from the mean temperature of the present (the year 2013), if the concentration N of CO2 is not equal to the present value, N = 400 ppm, is given by the simple equation
(1)
Here ∆T2 is the temperature rise that would be produced by doubling the CO2 concentration from its present value, and ln x denotes the natural logarithm of the number x.
The proportionality of the temperature increment ∆T to ln N is widely accepted. But few know that this is a bit of a “miracle.” The logarithmic law, Eq. (1) comes from the odd fact that the average absorption cross section of infrared light by CO2 molecules decreasesvery nearly exponentially with the detuning of the infrared frequency from the 667 cm−1 center frequency of the absorption band. More details can be found in a nice recent paper by Wilson and Gea-Banacloche, Am. J. Phys. 80 306 (2012). Eq. (1) exaggerates the warming from more CO2 because it does not account of the overlapping absorption bands of water vapor and ozone, but we will use it for a “worst case” analysis.
Recalling the identity for natural logarithms, 
, we write Eq. (1) as
(2)
The only solution of the equation ln x = ln y is x = y, so (2) implies that
(3)
Recent IPCC reports claim that the most probable value of the temperature rise for doubling is ∆T2 = 3 C. Substituting this value and a warming of ∆T = 6 C into Eq. (3) we find
(4)
But the rate of increase of CO2 has been pretty close to 2 ppm/year, which implies that by the year 2050 the CO2 concentration will be larger by about (50−13) years×2 ppm/ year = 74 ppm to give a total concentration of N = 474 ppm, much less than the 1600 ppm needed.
The most obvious explanation for the striking failure of most climate models to account for the pause in warming over the past decade is that the value of ∆T2 is much smaller than the IPCC value. In fact, the basic physics of the CO2 molecule makes it hard to justify a number much larger than ∆T2 = 1 C – with no feedbacks. The number 3 C comes from various positive feedback mechanisms from water vapor and clouds that were invented to make the effects of more CO2 look more frightening. But observations suggest that the feedbacks are small and may even be negative. With a more plausible value, ∆T2 = 1 C , in Eq. (3) we find that the CO2 concentration needed to raise the temperature by ∆T = 6 C is
(5)
This amount of CO2 would be more than a warming hazard. It would be a health hazard. The US upper limit for long term exposure for people in submarines or space craft is about 5000 ppm CO2 (at atmospheric pressure). To order of magnitude, it would take a time
t = 25, 600 ppm/(2 ppm/year) = 12,800 years.
(6)
to get 6 C warming, even if we had enough fossil fuel to release this much CO2.
A 6 C warming from CO2 emissions by 2050 is absurd. It is a religious slogan, a sort of “Deus vult” of the crusade to demonize CO2, but it is not science.
=============================================================
Dr. William Happer is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University, and a long-term member of the JASON advisory group,where he pioneered the development of adaptive optics. From 1991-93, Happer served as director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
UPDATE: Dr. Happer has contacted the author of the paper cited, and he has graciously setup a free link to it: http://comp.uark.edu/~jgeabana/gw.html
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Richard says: “Throughout I have been saying that Happer was right to use a linear extrapolation because that is the ONLY extrapolation which is not a reflection of prejudice.”
I disagree. The ONLY “unprejudiced” projection of anything into the future is “I don’t know”. I might even accept that “it will stay the same” is an unprejudiced projection.
Any other projection requires judgement about what happened in the past and judgement about what you expect to happen in the future. And in this case, it requires some rather sophisticated judgement to decide on an appropriate fit into the future.
* how long of time frame should we look at?
* what caused the past changes?
* what might be different in the future?
None of these are trivial questions.
I would even argue that Happer’s linear fit requires MORE judgment, since he is are arbitrarily saying that some data (ie the last ~ 10 years) is more important that other data,. The “impartial” analysis would treat all 40+ years of data the same — which clearly indicates an accelerating trend.
Now his judgement may well be correct, but it is still a judgement. BOTH the linear AND the exponential projections are pretty reasonable judgements, and both are worth considering.
richardscourtney says:
April 20, 2013 at 1:39 pm
I do not need to provide a linear fit. Throughout I have been saying that Happer was right to use a linear extrapolation…
You can’t provide a linear fit, because it doesn’t fit the data. Thus the use of a linear extrapolation is in no way justified by the data.
You claim it is “not linear”. OK. Demonstrate that with a fitted curve which is supported by theoretical understanding
Even without any theoretical understanding of the cause, it simply follows from the linear increase in year by year increase rate that the trend is slightly exponential, with disturbances, but certainly not linear.
But if someone needs some theoretical understanding: any physico-chemical system in dynamic equilibrium responds to a disturbance by counteracting the disturbance. In this case, any increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (whatever the cause), is counteracted by decreasing some sources and increasing some sinks within the many natural cycles, as far as possible.
In this case, human emissions are a disturbance of the equilibrium. The emissions initially give a small increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (= more pressure), which is counteracted by less natural emissions (from the warmer oceans) and/or more natural sinks (in colder oceans and vegetation). The balance of these changes is an increase of net CO2 capturing in direct ratio to the increase of the atmosphere above the (temperature controlled) equilibrium.
Human emissions were increasing slightly exponential over time. That resulted in a slightly exponential increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and thus in a slightly exponential increase in sink rate. The net result is an almost perfect fit in the ratio between human emissions and increase of CO2 in the atmosphere over the past 50+ years (and before, but that is based less perfect data). See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/acc_co2_1960_2006.jpg
or as direct comparison over the past 160 years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
it is clear that both emissions and increase in the atmosphere are going up slightly exponential.
If you know of any natural process that can or does mimic the human emissions in such a perfect way, I am very interested to hear about it.
There appears to be some confusion with the infrared percentages here. In the AGW Greenhouse Effect energy budget the main wavelengths from the Sun are visible, a bit of shortwave uv and 1% near infrared. In other words, shortwave in longwave out.
There is no longwave infrared direct from the Sun in the AGW Greenhouse Effect energy budget and two reasons are given. The first is the original “invisible something barrier” at the top of the atmosphere, TOA, like the glass of a greenhouse, preventing the longwave infrared from the Sun from entering, but allowing the mainly visible light to reach the surface and directly heat it and the second is that the Sun produces insignificant amounts of longwave infrared and none of this gets through TOA.
This is in all the models and is taught at university level, now. It used to be taught that the heat we feel from the Sun was longwave infrared, and that we couldn’t feel shortwave from the Sun. This has been changed for AGW’s Greenhouse Effect and is not now in the general education system.*
Because of AGW is been changed to “shortwave only in” in order to claim that any real world measurements of downwelling longwave infrared are from “backradiation from greenhouse gases in the atmosphere”, because there is no other source in the AGW Greenhouse Effect energy budget.
Example:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-intermediate.htm
“On the contrary, the enhanced greenhouse effect from CO2 has been confirmed by multiple lines of empirical evidence (eg – satellite measurements of infrared spectra, surface measurements finding more downward infrared radiation warming the planet’s surface).”
Usually referred to as “shortwave”, “solar”, “sunlight” or “visible”; the visible and two shortwaves either side. Most often uv and near infrared are not bothered with, mentioning only visible which makes up the bulk in the AGWGE energy budget. So, descriptions like “some reflected from clouds” refer to the visible, and of course in heating the ocean AGWGE says that blue visible reaching deeper heats the water deeper down.
The wiki quote some have given of greater infrared than visible and uv from the sun is from traditional science and most of that is the Sun’s direct heat, longwave infrared, which the AGW Greenhouse Effect energy budget has excised. This change is now “official”. Wiki likes to confuse this point, as do some here..
Examples:
(A) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
The Greenhouse Effect
“Solar radiation at the frequencies of visible light largely passes through the atmosphere to warm the planetary surface, which then emits this energy at the lower frequencies of infrared thermal radiation. Infrared radiation is absorbed by greenhouse gases, which in turn re-radiate much of the energy to the surface and lower atmosphere. The mechanism is named after the effect of solar radiation passing through glass and warming a greenhouse, but the way it retains heat is fundamentally different as a greenhouse works by reducing airflow, isolating the warm air inside the structure so that heat is not lost by convection.”
(B) – http://www.eoearth.org/article/Greenhouse_effect?topic=54099
“Figure 2: The diagram above illustrates the greenhouse effect. This process begins with the absorption of shortwave radiation from the sun. Absorption causes the solar energy to be converted into sensible heat at the Earth’s surface. Some of this heat is transferred to the lower atmosphere by conduction and convection. After the heating of the ground and the lower atmosphere, these surfaces become radiators of infrared or longwave radiation and they begin to cool. This emission of energy is directed to space. However, only a portion of this energy actually makes it through the atmosphere. About 70% of the longwave radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface is absorbed by the atmosphere’s greenhouse gases. (Source: PhysicalGeography.net)”
(C) – http://www.answers.com/topic/greenhouse-effect
American Heritage Dictionary: greenhouse effect
“1.The phenomenon whereby the earth’s atmosphere traps solar radiation, caused by the presence in the atmosphere of gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane that allow incoming sunlight to pass through but absorb heat radiated back from the earth’s surface.”
(D) – http://www.merriam-webster.com/concise/greenhouse%20effect
greenhouse effect
“Some incoming sunlight is reflected by the Earth’s atmosphere and surface, but most is absorbed by …—© Merriam-Webster Inc.
Warming of the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere caused by water vapour, carbon dioxide, and other trace gases in the atmosphere. Visible light from the Sun heats the Earth’s surface. Part of this energy is radiated back into the atmosphere in the form of infrared radiation, much of which is absorbed by molecules of carbon dioxide and water vapour in the atmosphere and reradiated toward the surface as more heat. (Despite the name, the greenhouse effect is different from the warming in a greenhouse, where panes of glass allow the passage of visible light but hold heat inside the building by trapping warmed air.) The absorption of infrared radiation causes the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere to warm more than they otherwise would, making the Earth’s surface habitable. An increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide caused by widespread combustion of fossil fuels may intensify the greenhouse effect and cause long-term climatic changes. Likewise, an increase in atmospheric concentrations of other trace greenhouse gases such as chlorofluorocarbons, nitrous oxide, and methane resulting from human activities may also intensify the greenhouse effect. From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution through the end of the 20th century, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased 30% and the amount of methane more than doubled. It is also estimated that the U.S. is responsible for about one-fifth of all human-produced greenhouse-gas emissions. See also global warming.”
(E) – http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/245233/greenhouse-effect
“greenhouse effect, a warming of the Earth’s surface and troposphere (the lowest layer of the atmosphere), caused by the presence of water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, and certain other gases in the air. Of these gases, known as greenhouse gases, water vapour has the largest effect.
The atmosphere allows most of the visible light from the Sun to pass through and reach the Earth’s surface. As the Earth’s surface is heated by sunlight, it radiates part of this energy back toward space as infrared radiation. This radiation, unlike visible light, tends to be absorbed by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, raising its temperature. The heated atmosphere in turn radiates infrared radiation back toward the Earth’s surface. (Despite its name, the greenhouse effect is different from the warming in a greenhouse, where panes of glass transmit visible sunlight but hold heat inside the building by trapping warmed air.)
“Without the heating caused by the greenhouse effect, the Earth’s average surface temperature would be only about −18 °C (0 °F).”
(F) – http://www.answers.com/topic/greenhouse-effect
McGraw-Hill Science & Technology Encyclopedia: Greenhouse effectTop Home > Library > Science > Sci-Tech Encyclopedia
“The ability of a planetary atmosphere to inhibit heat loss from the planet’s surface, thereby enhancing the surface warming that is produced by the absorption of solar radiation. For the greenhouse effect to work efficiently, the planet’s atmosphere must be relatively transparent to sunlight at visible wavelengths so that significant amounts of solar radiation can penetrate to the ground. Also, the atmosphere must be opaque at thermal wavelengths to prevent thermal radiation emitted by the ground from escaping directly to space. The principle is similar to a thermal blanket, which also limits heat loss by conduction and convection. In recent decades the term has also become associated with the issues of global warming and climate change induced by human activity. See also Atmosphere; Solar radiation.”
Official – as taught throughout the general education system.
*It used to be taught generally that the heat we feel direct from the Sun is longwave infrared, also known as thermal infrared, aka radiant heat, or just simply heat. Thermal infrared to differentiate it from the non-thermal shortwave infrared which is classed in with Light and not Heat, and in Reflective and not Thermal.
NASA used to teach: “Far infrared waves are thermal. In other words, we experience this type of infrared radiation every day in the form of heat! The heat that we feel from sunlight, a fire, a radiator or a warm sidewalk is infrared.
Shorter, near infrared waves are not hot at all – in fact you cannot even feel them. These shorter wavelengths are the ones used by your TV’s remote control.”
This has been an ess see a em from the beginning.
Very cleverly done and now a generation in the education system. Forty years in the global warming runaway global warming desert.
Bring back the Water Cycle.
tjfolkerts says:
April 20, 2013 at 6:35 am
“You rather confused me with your post.”
—————————————————–
Tim, my apologies, my comment was flippant and carelessly written. 99.99% was intended as a figure of speech and “You got..” was not directed at you personally and should have read “AGW believers”
I am very pleased to see that you acknowledge that radiative gases are critical to tropospheric convective circulation. Few others on the pro AGW side of the debate are prepared to even acknowledge this fact.
The next step to understanding why AGW is a physical impossibility is to consider tropospheric temperatures with and without convective circulation.
Convective circulation transports energy in a fluid with a pressure gradient such as our atmosphere by the physical movement of the fluid.
On earth convective circulation continuously brings cool air in contact with the surface, conductively cooling it. To see the cooling power of this effect you only have to compare earth surface temperatures (in a desert region with no cloud) with moon surface temperatures in the first 6 hours after sunrise.
For an atmosphere containing radiative gases, convective circulation continuously transports energy above the level of maximum IR opacity. This allows the energy acquired by surface conduction, release of latent heat and interception of surface IR to be radiated to space, cooling the atmosphere.
Five simple experiments WUWT readers can build and run are shown here –
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/05/a-comparison-of-the-earths-climate-sensitivity-to-changes-in-the-nature-of-the-initial-forcing/#comment-1267231
Experiment 3 shows how energy loss at altitude in a fluid column in a gravity field is important for convective circulation. Radiative gases do this in our atmosphere. Remember that cooling by expansion of rising air masses (adiabatic cooling) does not represent energy loss from the air mass.
Experiment 4 shows the effect of convective circulation on the average temperature of gas columns in a gravity field. Box 1 with convective circulation driven by heating at the base and cooling at the top runs cooler than box 2 with cooling and heating at the base.
Experiment 5 shows why greater radiative cooling of the night land surface will not result in significantly greater conductive cooling of an atmosphere in which the gases are free to move.
Because of their critical role in radiating energy to space and driving convective circulation, radiative gases act to cool our atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm. Without radiative gases, tropospheric temperatures would rapidly rise towards surface Tmax.
The flawed AGW calculations that show radiative gases heating the atmosphere are all based on treating the atmosphere as a static body or layer. For a classic example of this mistake see Willis’ article here – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/17/the-steel-greenhouse/
The mistake of treating the atmosphere as a static body or layer is the very foundation of the AGW hypothesis.
For an atmosphere with a pressure gradient in which the gases are free to move, adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will only speed up convective circulation and tropospheric cooling. At 0.04% there is no hope of measuring any such effect from CO2.
In these, the last days of the AGW scare, climate scientists will be franticly looking for a more “sciency” explanation of why they got it wrong. After all, forgetting that hot air rises and cool air descends doesn’t sound too bright does it?
Konrad: It has long been understood that convection cools the surface…and that adding convection to a purely radiative model of the atmosphere reduces the greenhouse effect. (I believe that in the absence of convection, the natural greenhouse effect would be about twice the 33 C value.)
However, convection can only reduce the greenhouse effect so much and the reason is precisely because the atmosphere is only unstable to convection if the environmental lapse rate is greater than the appropriate (moist or dry) adiabatic lapse rate. Hence, convection drives the lapse rate down to the adiabatic lapse rate but no further. If you believe that convection will drive the atmosphere all the way down to an isothermal structure then you will indeed get rid of the greenhouse effect entirely (as Nikolov and Zeller did by doing just that), but alas both empirical evidence and basic physics tell us that this is not what happens in the real world.
This sort of thing is well understood by scientists in the field, e.g., the necessity of having a lapse rate in order to get the greenhouse effect is discussed in Ray Pierrehumbert’s book. Unfortunately, people like you and Nikolov and Zeller who seem to lack the humility to learn from those scientists who have already thought about and hashed out these issues are condemned to stumble over these basic facts.
Konrad, we are getting a bit off on a tangent compared to the original post (which DOES agree that GHGs warm the surface). I don;t want to say TOO much more on this topic, but let me add a few quick things.
* Models with static layers ARE very simplistic, but they show that “back-radiation” can raise the temperature of a planet’s surface. Many people do not even agree with that.
* I agree that convection works to limit greenhouse warming. I once half-seriously called convection the “anti-greenhouse effect”. The shell model (without convection) could have any pretty much any amount of surface warming and any lapse rate. With convection, the lapse rate is pretty well capped by the adiabatic lapse rate (somewhere between 5-10 K/km depending on humidity), so surface warming is also severely limited.
* Without IR gases, I think the rotation of the earth would still drive convection. This should also maintain something like the adiabatic lapse rate, and should still allow the air near the surface to be approximately the same temperature as the the ground below it .. NOT the temperature of the hottest place on earth. But I strongly suspect that this this is not something that can be hashed out with “back of the envelope” calculations on a blog.
* I think that more greenhouse gasses will MOSTLY just speed up convection, but that they will also drive some warming. The top post and most scientists seem to agree, so you have a lot of work to do to convince people that changing the radiative properties will have NO effect on temperature.
* You are not giving scientists their proper due when you say things like “The flawed AGW calculations that show radiative gases heating the atmosphere are all based on treating the atmosphere as a static body or layer.” The climate models have various shortcomings, but they do NOT treat the atmosphere as a static layer.
joeldshore says:
April 20, 2013 at 7:55 pm
“Konrad: It has long been understood that convection cools the surface…”
——————————————————————————————–
Joel,
You are still missing the point. Radiative cooling at altitude is critical for continued vertical circulation in the Hadley, Ferrel and Polar tropospheric convection cells. Full vertical circulation would stall in these cells without radiative cooling at altitude. Without radiative cooling at altitude, tropospheric temperatures above the near surface layer would rise to near surface Tmax.
All strong vertical convection is occurring in the layer of the atmosphere where almost all the radiative gases exist, the troposphere. It does not occur above this level. Radiative gases are critical to continued tropospheric circulation. Convective circulation both cools the surface and transports energy high above the level of maximum atmospheric IR opacity, where it can be radiated to space. Radiative gases cool our atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm, with water vapour doing the bulk of the work.
I should also add that the ERL (effective radiating level) argument also fails for a moving atmosphere. In an atmosphere with moving gases, hot air masses rise and are radiating more strongly than the gases at the altitude they are moving through.
Basically, for an atmosphere in which the gases are free to move, the cooling effect of radiative gases far outweighs their warming effect.
Konrad;
Joel and I have had some knock ’em down fights about physics over the years, we don’t see eye to eye on a host of issues (to put it mildly). But in his discussion with you, I would support his comments. The radiative effects happen at the speed of light. Yes they can produce an opposing feedback due to convection, but they cannot produce an aooposing feedback that exceeds the initial input.
tjfolkerts says:
April 20, 2013 at 8:40 pm
———————————————————————————————————
Tim, a few responses –
“Models with static layers ARE very simplistic, but they show that “back-radiation” can raise the temperature of a planet’s surface. Many people do not even agree with that.”
– Incident LWIR can slow the cooling rate of materials. I have confirmed this by empirical experiment. You could try Experiment 1 linked to above. It shows that this effect is negligible for liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool. That would be 71% of the earth’s surface.
“I agree that convection works to limit greenhouse warming. I once half-seriously called convection the “anti-greenhouse effect”. The shell model (without convection) could have any pretty much any amount of surface warming and any lapse rate. With convection, the lapse rate is pretty well capped by the adiabatic lapse rate (somewhere between 5-10 K/km depending on humidity), so surface warming is also severely limited.”
– The tropospheric lapse rate is a complex atmospheric phenomenon to explain. It should be never treated as a given parameter in atmospheric modelling. If the troposphere contained radiative gases but was held static, it would still exhibit a small lapse rate. The dramatic lapse rate exhibited below the tropopause is due the the pneumatic cooling and heating of vertically moving air masses and horizontal conduction.
“Without IR gases, I think the rotation of the earth would still drive convection.”
– convection is driven by air masses changing buoyancy and energy loss at altitude is critical to this. The rotation of the earth and the diurnal solar wave will create circulation, but not strong vertical circulation over 10 to 15 km of the troposphere.
“I think that more greenhouse gasses will MOSTLY just speed up convection, but that they will also drive some warming. The top post and most scientists seem to agree, so you have a lot of work to do to convince people that changing the radiative properties will have NO effect on temperature.”
– I believe I have been reasonably clear on this. My claim is that radiative gases have a very definite effect on atmospheric temperatures. They cool at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
“You are not giving scientists their proper due when you say things like “The flawed AGW calculations that show radiative gases heating the atmosphere are all based on treating the atmosphere as a static body or layer.” The climate models have various shortcomings, but they do NOT treat the atmosphere as a static layer.”
– Climate models such as GCMs do indeed model moving gases. The basic AGW calculations that lead to the claims that “the atmosphere is 33C warmer than it would otherwise be without radiative gases” are all static atmosphere calculations. They do not involve energy flux calculations applied iteratively to discrete moving air masses. In fact some early calculations tried to combine the surface and atmosphere into a single pseudo surface.
Tim, the situation is actually worse than I have indicated here. It is not just that there is a critical flaw in the foundation claims of AGW, but that some of those defending the hypothesis have known about it for years. In 2010 AGW supporters furiously attacked the Makarevia meteorology discussion paper. This paper proposed that rising moist air masses may be more diabatic than dry warm air masses. One idea was that increased IR radiated from water vapour in these air masses could off-set expansion due to release of latent heat, and ad drive horizontal circulation This had to be attacked as it showed a role for radiative gases in atmospheric circulation.
Prior to this the period 2000 to 2005 saw a few papers emerge claiming stratospheric ice clouds could cause atmospheric warming. The proposed mechanism was that these ice cloud would bounce back IR to the upper troposphere. This would reduce radiative cooling of the upper troposphere, slow convective circulation and cause surface warming. Sound familiar? Ever wondered what happened to that idea? A cynic might speculate that certain scientists were told “shut up, you’re not helping” 😉
Konrad;
If radiative processes interacted with convection the way you claim, then deserts would cool off very slowly at night while tropical jungles at the same latitude would cool off quickly at night. The exact opposite is true.
davidmhoffer says:
April 20, 2013 at 9:47 pm
————————————————————————————
David,
Radiative process may occur at the speed of light, but convection does not. Convection transports energy acquired by release of latent heat, surface conduction and intercepted surface IR high above the level of maximum IR opacity before emitting it as IR.
Convective circulation below the tropopause is dependant on radiative gases. An atmosphere in which heated gases can rise to altitude, but cannot lose energy and descend runs far hotter than an atmosphere in which energy loss at altitude can occur. Experiment 4 linked above gives a clear demonstration of this. Trying to conductively cool a non radiative gas column from the base is ineffective.
Energy loss at altitude is critical for atmospheric cooling and tropospheric convective circulation. Land surface Tmin would be lower under a non radiative atmosphere. No IR heating of the lower troposphere would be occurring in a non radiative atmosphere. However as conductively heated gases would be rising to altitude and not releasing energy, average tropospheric temperatures would rise to surface Tmax.
David, I am not sure which of Joels’ points you are agreeing with. Do you believe radiative gases are critical for tropospheric convective circulation or not?
Konrad;
David, I am not sure which of Joels’ points you are agreeing with. Do you believe radiative gases are critical for tropospheric convective circulation or not?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I suggest you read and consider my comment about deserts and jungles again. Sorry, but the data produces the exact opposite of your claims.
davidmhoffer says:
April 20, 2013 at 10:37 pm
———————————————————-
David,
actually if you read though my posts above you will note that I do indicate that land surface Tmin would be lower under a non radiative atmosphere. DWLWIR slows the cooling of most materials. This effect is not significant over the oceans as demonstrated by Experiment 1 above.
Deserts under a dry atmosphere radiately cool more rapidly than other areas due to less DWLWIR. You should note this has little effect on desert day temperatures. On clear still night in a desert another effect occurs which is significant, night temperature inversion. This effect is why a lower surface Tmin has less effect on atmospheric temperatures that static atmosphere AGW calculations would indicate. The surface is far better at conductively heating a free moving atmosphere in a gravity field than it is at conductively cooling it. This is demonstrated in experiment 5.
If it were possible to switch off the radiative properties of the atmosphere the land surface would suffer far more dramatic diurnal temperature variations but the troposphere would heat dramatically. The role of radiative gases in atmospheric cooling and tropospheric convective circulation far out weighs their role is slowing the cooling of the land surface. Without radiative gases the troposphere would go isothermal and convective circulation would cease.
David, could I please have a yes or no answer to the following –
Do you believe that strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation would continue without radiative gases?
Konrad
The AGW Greenhouse Effect does not have real gases, but ideal, (pre Van der Waals). Their molecules of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide have no mass therefore no gravity, there is nothing for gravity to work on. Their gases are not buoyant in air, have no attraction, no weight, no volume, hence no convection, no weather, no rain in their carbon cycle, no sound. The AGWGE molecules are as per descriptions of basic ideal gas, travelling at great speeds under their own molecular momentum spontaneously diffusing through empty space miles apart bouncing off each other in elastic collisions. The AGWGE atmosphere doesn’t exist, it goes straight from the surface to empty space, from which all the radiation arguments. There is no internal consistency, no joined up logic in their imaginary ideal gas fisics so their claims about properties and processes contradict each other.
So, for example, there is nothing to keep their carbon dioxide “accumulating for hundreds and thousands of years”, nothing to keep their atmosphere “stratified”, because their gases have long gone, diffused to outer space way beyond the solar system.. Their ideal gases create pressure by “bouncing off the container”, but where is the container? It’s as imaginary as their gases, but within this imaginary container their ideal gases are “well-mixed” as per ideal gas, and cannot be unmixed, so they cannot separate out.
Their other imaginary container , maybe it’s the same one, stops the direct thermal energy in transfer from the Sun at TOA. They have no heat in their world just as they have no atmosphere, because their physics is strange. In the real world visible light from the Sun cannot heat matter, but they have given it the effect of thermal infrared and excised thermal infrared from the sun..
Hope this helps.
One needs to bear this in mind in discussions about AGWGE, you’re arguing against a completely different physics, impossible in the real world.
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
You said you had summarised your argument so I summarised mine.
But at April 20, 2013 at 2:54 pm you rebound with another diatribe which expresses your prejudice that calls for an extrapolation other than the linear extrapolation used by Happer.
Try to understand that ONLY a linear extrapolation avoids a prejudice so Happer was – and is – right to use it.
But you display your prejudice when you conclude saying to me
Ferdinand, that is beneath you.
The only way the human emissions of CO2 can be made to match the rise in atmospheric CO2 is by use of completely unjustifiable 5-year smoothing.
You know that Arthur Rorsch, Dick Thoenes and I published a paper that provided six models based on natural processes. Three of the models assumed an anthropogenic cause and the other three assumed a natural cause of the rise to atmospheric CO2. Each of our six models provides a perfect match to the rise in atmospheric CO2 without use of any smoothing.
(ref. Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005) )
Richard
Ferdinand:
And in the context of this debate, I should add that you also know our six models are examples of possibkly many other similar models.
You know that each of our models provides a different projection of future atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Happer’s use of a linear fit avoids the prejudice of cfhoosing the Bern model, your model, one of our models, or any other model.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
April 21, 2013 at 2:54 am
Richard,
You know from previous discussions that 6 theoretical models that do match the trends don’t say anything about which one is matching reality.
Only one model fits all observations: human emissions increasing the amounts in the atmosphere as I described in my previous comment. All other models I heard of fail one or more observations.
Only one failed observation is sufficient to discard even the nicest theorical solution…
About the observations:
– any extra input from the oceans would increase the 13C/12C ratio in the atmosphere, but we observe a an accellerating decrease in perfect ratio with fossil fuel burning.
– any extra input from the biosphere would use extra oxygen, but we observe a net deficit in oxygen use calculated from fossil fuels burning.
– both oceans and the biosphere are proven sinks for CO2 and all other natural CO2 sources are either too small or too slow to be the cause of the increase.
– last but not least the mass balance: I haven’t seen any mathematical solution for the problem that adding both extra CO2 from natural sources and from human emissions would result in a higher increase in the atmosphere than from human emissions alone. But we obeserve a smaller increase in the atmosphere than from the human emissions…
BTW, there is no multiyear smoothing in the perfect match in ratio between the total emissions and increase in the atmosphere in the graph I provided: all comparisons are based on yearly emissions and yearly averaged CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa and the South Pole.
Ferdinand:
Enough already.
You are plain wrong – and you know you are plain wrong – when you write
Many models – and very many possible models – fit all observations.
However, only one model fits your interpretations of the observations.
You are entitled to your prejudices but you have no right to insist that others accept them.
Happer’s use of a linear fit avoids the prejudice of choosing the Bern model, your model, one of our models, or any other model.
Richard
Konrad says:
No, without radiative cooling (but assuming the same albedo for simplicity), the temperature of the Earth’s surface would not be average 288 K but rather only ~255 K (really the average of the square of the temperature over the surface).
So is the sun. Does the sun then cool the atmosphere?
Infrared satellite images show that you are wrong. In bands where greenhouse gases (or clouds) absorb a lot, there is less, not more, infrared radiation escaping into space. If you were anywhere close to correct, pretty much the entire field of remote sensing wouldn’t work because it is based on the actual science of radiative transfer and convection in the atmosphere, not Konrad’s science.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:April 20, 2013 at 9:22 am
Steve Keohane says:April 20, 2013 at 8:42 am
Cart, Horse? Funny how a warming ocean releases CO2 and more ends up in the atmosphere.
Yes, but that doesn’t say anything about the cause of the trend, only that temperature has a direct influence on the sink rate (NOT the source rate!).
Looking at the chart I posted at 8:42, either the ocean instantly responds to increased CO2 and a warmer atmosphere, or the atmosphere instantly responds to a warmer ocean that is out-gassing CO2. I have to pick the latter, as the atmosphere is not warming the ocean, and certainly not without a time lag. If the ocean is warmer, it is indeed less of a CO2 sink, and will also be a source of CO2 from out-gassing of the same, without a time lag. SO I have to disagree with your last. that temperature does have a direct influence on the source rate when a sink becomes a source.
@Andrew
You now sort of accepted that any object in space without an atmosphere at our earth distance from the sun will get very hot on one side and and very cold on the other. You have even now realized that things even iceblocks will radiate energy so you have now worked out that earth has to be emitting energy.
I am puzzled by your statement “I’m still awaiting your explanation of how the atmosphere knows how to flip from fridge mode to blanket mode and back again (reaching for popcorn).”
Why would you think there are modes blanket and fridge????????
You have the basics there is no cooling and heating modes it is a simple equilibrium of the same energy in and energy out components.
So now lets see if we can get you to go the next step remove the silly and wrong classic physics and replace it with the true quantum reality that you have a very similar situation to a sealed laser tube. If the mixture is completely quantum energy transparent then it would basically looks like the atmosphere isn’t there and earth would go hot one side and cold the other. If the atmosphere is quantum active the incoming energy will pump the gas and the temperature will be the difference between the incoming and outgoing energy.
It really really is that simple you can quantum pump a gas by any energy source we have done it with most (Try the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_pumping\)
You will find we even state:
Microwaves or radiofrequency EM radiation can be used to excite gas lasers.
You will also see our little favourite:
A solar-pumped laser uses solar radiation as a pump source, you might want to actually read the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-pumped_laser. Commercially when building them we don’t use air because we have much better gas mixtures to select from.
See the earth looks to all intensive purposes like a laser tube it is a closed environment surrounded by the vacuum of space with energy pouring in on it. How much laser pumping occurs depends on the mixture and properties of the gas and the filtering applied to the incoming and outgoing radiation. In a true laser you refer to them as the partial mirror characteristics.
You have probably not seen it presented in this way because we don’t like to talk about scary Quantum Mechanics and a lot of the stupidity on comments is because they are trying to apply classic physics to a quantum mechanical problem. You can’t understand or describe a laser tube with classic physics either and if you tried you will also try and tell me that a laser tube doesn’t work.
Sorry it works like that and no amount of stupid classic physics is ever going to help your understanding … we already know classic physics is wrong …. has been for 100 years.
As I said the actual hard sciences have no misunderstanding of what is going on the pseudoscience lunatic fringe that missed that memo because they got it mixed up in the whole AGW science argument.
Steve Keohane says:
April 21, 2013 at 6:58 am
Looking at the chart I posted at 8:42, either the ocean instantly responds to increased CO2 and a warmer atmosphere, or the atmosphere instantly responds to a warmer ocean that is out-gassing CO2.
Indeed the ocean’s surface immediately responds to temperature changes by adjusting the CO2 releases (near the equator) and CO2 uptake (near the poles) and inbetween, depending of its own temperature (like El Niño, Pinatubo,…).
The point is that this is fast but limited in capacity: the ocean surfaces are in fast equilibrium with the atmosphere (1-3 years), but the equilibrium only changes with 4-5 ppmv/°C over the seasons to a few decades. Thus what you see as wiggles in the increase per year is the direct result of temperature changes in ocean surface and vegetation (for the latter, precipitation also plays a role).
On (very) long term, both the deep oceans and carbon sequestering in plants/peat/brown/coal plays a temperature dependent role: about 8 ppmv/°C over multi-decades (MWP-LIA) to multi-millennia.
The MWP-LIA cooling is visible in the Law Dome ice core as a drop of 6 ppmv for a cooling of ~0.8 ppmv. The warming since the LIA should have given a similar increase in CO2, but we measure an increase of over 100 ppmv…
Konrad says:
April 21, 2013 at 12:02 am
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now you’re just coming up with new physics to patch over the holes in your original physics. Here’s a quick check on your physics:
http://eos.atmos.washington.edu/cgi-bin/erbe/disp.pl?net.ann.
If you were correct, then the tropics, which have the highest concentrations of ghg on earth, would have the lowest net energy absorption on earth. But the opposite is true. The tropics absorb much more energy than they radiate back out. The only exception to this stands out in this graphic as that great big green patch in the north part of Africa. Big desert in that spot, a dearth of water vapour, the dominant ghg.
The arctic regions on the other hand, which have the lowest ghg concentrations on earth, radiate for more energy than they absorb. Where do they get the extra energy from? Why from the tropics of course. Transported how? Well on wind and ocean currents driven by the very convection processes you’ve been talking about.
But the point is that regions with high ghg’s absorb more energy than they radiate, and regions with low ghg’s radiate more energy than they absorb. We have nearly 30 years of ERBE data now, it all says the same thing.
Andrew;
I’m still awaiting your explanation of how the atmosphere knows how to flip from fridge mode to blanket mode and back again (reaching for popcorn). Try to patronise a little less and punctuate a little more.
>>>>>>>>>>>
How does a thermos know to keep your coffee hot but your ice tea cold? If you can figure that out you can answer your own question.
richardscourtney says:
April 21, 2013 at 5:13 am
Many models – and very many possible models – fit all observations.
As an example, take the three models of E&E that say that an increase of a natural flow (probably from the oceans) is the cause of the increase.
Of course, that is (theoretically) possible, but…
– the mass balance needs to be obeyed, thus an extra input from the oceans need to be balanced by an extra output. That is the first problem: both are natural fluxes, thus all what you have done is increasing the turnover (the throughput) of natural CO2 and still zero increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.
– an extra throughput from the oceans, whatever the cause (temperature, upwelling,…) gives an increase in 13C/12C of the atmosphere. That would be visible in the rate of decrease caused by human emissions, but there is no change in rate: a constant 1/3rd of the decrease remains in the atmosphere.
– an extra througput by whatever cause, would increase the decay rates of e.g. the 14C bomb spike and influence a lot of other indications of the turnover. But there is no such change obeserved. The turnover rate over the most recent decades even shows a slowing turnover…
And insisting that Happer’s choice of a linear extrapolation is less biased than an exponential one, while the data show an exponential increase? See:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/mlo_trends.jpg
here with a quadratic fit…