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
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
re your post at April 21, 2013 at 9:23 am.
You have made your assertions and I have replied to them.
For the third time in this thread, I am willing to allow your last post to be the ‘last word’ because people can assess our different views on the basis of our existing posts.
I am convinced you are wrong and – as you know – I am familiar with all your arguments. Indeed, trying to start another debate about your flawed ‘mass balance argument’ is silly.
Posting more and more of your assertions will not change my opinion. Only clear data which provides an unambiguous indication will change my considered view.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
April 21, 2013 at 9:32 am
Richard,
I know your opinions and most of my reactions were written for newbees that aren’t aware of our longstanding discussions. But I doubt that
Only clear data which provides an unambiguous indication will change my considered view.
as even the clear non-linear behaviour of the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere doesn’t change your view on that point…
joeldshore says:
April 21, 2013 at 6:48 am
——————————————————————————
Joel, some responses –
“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).”
– Joel, this is the mistake of thinking temperatures in a deep body of free moving gas in a gravity field are set by surface Tav. They are set by surface Tmax. This is demonstrated quite clearly by Experiments 4 & 5 linked above. Modelling a static atmosphere without diurnal cycle always gives the wrong answer.
“Radiative gases are critical to continued tropospheric circulation. So is the sun. Does the sun then cool the atmosphere?”
– convective circulation in the troposphere is driven by heating at low altitude and energy loss at high altitude. Heating at low altitude occurs by surface conduction, release of latent heat and interception of surface IR. Energy loss at altitude only occurs through IR radiation to space from radiative gases, mainly H2O. The sun heats the surface and thereby the atmosphere. The net effect of radiative gases is to cool the atmosphere.
Joel could you please give me a direct yes or no answer to the following question –
Do you believe that strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation would continue without radiative gases?
davidmhoffer says:
April 21, 2013 at 9:06 am
—————————————————————————————————————–
David,
that like appears to be blocked, however I did find this little gem at the main site –
“Deep convective cloud systems in the tropics provide the primary mechanism whereby solar heating of the ocean is moved upward into the free troposphere where it can be transported poleward and eventually emitted to space. In the process, these great engines of the global climate produce precipitation and drive the global-scale circulation.”
Sound familiar?
Could you please give me a direct yes or no answer to the following question –
Do you believe that strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation would continue without radiative gases?
@LdB
You have an amusing trait, when presented with new thinking by another poster, of writing an introductory paragraph in your reply, congratulating the other poster on understanding that new thinking.
Well, I think congratulations are in order. Are you a Bot?
Give us another laser story. When you are done with that, please explain how a system which has energy continuously entering and leaving it is a closed system. After that, please explain how there is anything meaningful to be learned from the behaviour of gases in an actual greenhouse compared to the same gases in a greenhouse with no roof. Or walls.
You appear to agree that the Earth’s atmosphere cools the surface, predominantly via the water cycle. This clashes with your other apparent belief that Hansen ‘back radiation’ and the GHE is preventing temperatures from going “massively negative” – filling the legendary ’33K’ void. I’m all for ‘delayed cooling’ in appropriate circumstances, but I see it as unlawful that a cooler object, such as the atmosphere, can actively cause net warming in an already warmer object, such as the surface.
I look forward to your congratulatory opening paragraph and a laser story or two.
Konrad says:
Trying to figure out the temperature structure and convective behavior for the bizarre case (singular limit) of an atmosphere with absolutely no radiative gases always makes my head hurt, which is why I have tended to avoid the arguments about what that structure would be. (And, as Ray Pierrehumbert points out, at some point, when you have really dramatic temporal & spatial temperature variations, the average temperature fails to be a very meaningful quantity anymore.)
However, it is much easier to figure out what happens when you add more radiative gases to an atmosphere that already has them: And, the answer is that it increases the IR opacity of the atmosphere, which increases the altitude of the effective radiating level and hence means the emission is occurring from a lower-temperature layer, leading to a reduction of emission that is eventually remedied by the atmosphere heating up so that radiative balance at the top-of-the-atmosphere is restored.
In the absence of convection, the effect would be even larger because the increase in greenhouse gases would also tend to steepen the lapse rate. In the presence of convection, the lapse rate is limited by convection (because lapse rates greater than the adiabatic lapse rate are unstable to convection) and hence this steepening of the lapse rate does not occur. So, the way to picture it is that convection essentially reduces the warming effect due to the addition of greenhouse gases. But, it does not eliminate it…because the increase in the effective radiating level still occurs…and the temperature at the surface is determined by extrapolating down from this level using the lapse rate.
Konrad;
Could you please give me a direct yes or no answer to the following question –
Do you believe that strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation would continue without radiative gases?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Not interested. I’ve provided data that refutes your hypothesis as a whole. You want to ignore that and argue one tiny aspect of the system as a whole that you believe supports the rest of your argument. To what end? The ERBE data still refutes your position.
Andrew;
but I see it as unlawful that a cooler object, such as the atmosphere, can actively cause net warming in an already warmer object, such as the surface.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It can’t. The claim that it does is not made by ghg theory. Only that the atmosphere slows down the cooling of the surface. The temperature of space is -270 degrees C. The atmosphere has an average temperature of -18 C. Take away the atmosphere and what you have left is earth surface exposed to -270 C instead of -18 C.
davidmhoffer says:
April 21, 2013 at 7:22 pm
K- “Do you believe that strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation would continue without radiative gases?”
D- “Not interested.”
————————————————————————-
David,
that was pretty much the non answer I was expecting. The critical role of radiative gases in atmospheric circulation is never something AGW believers wish to discuss. Joel will also avoid giving a clear or direct yes or no answer to the question as well. However you have certainly answered the sleeper / sceptic question 😉
Answering “yes” to the critical role of radiative gases in tropospheric convective circulation would of course destroy the entire foundation to the AGW hypothesis.
Without radiative gases emitting IR to space at altitude, strong vertical convective circulation below the troposphere would cease. Hot gases would still convect to height, but they could not lose energy and buoyancy then descend. As empirical Experiment 4 shows, such an non-radiative will run far hotter than an atmosphere with radiative cooling at altitude.
The radiative exchange between the surface and atmosphere exists. Radiative gases do slow the cooling of the land surface and heat the lower troposphere. However their role in tropospheric convective circulation and energy loss at altitude is far more important. The Tav of the surface may be lower under a non radiative atmosphere, but the atmosphere itself would be dramatically hotter. The net effect of radiative gases is to cool our atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
The role of radiative gases in atmospheric circulation is never something AGW believers wish to discuss.
Konrad;
The net effect of radiative gases is to cool our atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
LOL. The ERBE data says exactly the opposite. You can reason around in circles, but you can’t change the facts.
Konrad;
The role of radiative gases in atmospheric circulation is never something AGW believers wish to discuss.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And I’m not a believer, I’m a skeptic, and I resent the implication otherwise.
davidmhoffer says:
April 21, 2013 at 8:55 pm
——————————————————————
David,
I can assure you I am not reasoning around in circles. My argument is very straight forward. It has not changed. The five basic empirical experiments supporting it have been available for you and others to replicate for quite some time.
As to the ERBE data, it cannot possibly answer the question. The issue I am raising is the foundation claim of AGW that the atmosphere would be 33C cooler in the absence of radiative gases. This claim is incorrect. ERBE data will not help as there are no empirical observational data for a non radiative atmosphere. The closest empirical data for a non radiative atmosphere would be the reversed lapse rate and super heating in the stratosphere.
Climate scientists made a fundamental mistake in calculating the temperature of a non radiative atmosphere. They did not properly model the critical role of radiative gases in tropospheric convective circulation. They ran basic linear flux equations on what is essentially a two shell mathematical model of surface and atmosphere. The only way to make a correct calculation would have been to run these flux equations iteratively on discrete moving air masses.
Climate scientists got one thing right, land surface Tmin would be lower under a non radiative atmosphere. However they got the more important issue, atmospheric temperatures for a non radiative atmosphere, totally and utterly wrong. For a non radiative atmosphere, average tropospheric temperatures would be close to surface Tmax.
Lets review the do nots of atmospheric modelling –
A. Do not model the “earth” as a combined land/ocean/gas “thingy”
(experiments 1 to 5)
B. Do not model the atmosphere as a single body or layer
(See experiment 4 & 5)
C. Do not model the sun as a ¼ power constant source without diurnal cycle
(See experiment 5)
D. Do not model conductive flux to and from the surface and atmosphere based on surface Tav
(See experiment 5)
E. Do not model a static atmosphere without moving gases
(See experiment 4 & 5)
F. Do not model a moving atmosphere without Gravity
(See experiment 4 & 5)
G. Do not model the surface as a combined land/ocean “thingy”
(See experiment 1)
Have a look at the climate science you are supporting –
– does it assume that the tropospheric lapse rate would remain without radiative gases?
– does it assume that tropospheric convective circulation would continue without radiative gases?
– does it assume that non radiative atmospheric temperatures would be set by surface Tav?
Empirical experiment shows all these assumptions to be incorrect.
Empirical experiment shows that a lower surface Tmin does not lead to lower average tropospheric temperatures for a non radiative atmosphere. Because of a lack of radiative cooling at height and a lack of strong vertical convective circulation, a non radiative atmosphere would be dramatically hotter than our current atmosphere. A non radiative troposphere would be isothermal and exhibit temperatures close to surface Tmax (just like box 2 in experiment 4). This mean that the net effect of radiative gases is to cool the atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
joeldshore says:
April 21, 2013 at 7:03 pm
—————————————————————————————–
Joel,
not exactly a yes or no answer, but…
“Trying to figure out the temperature structure and convective behaviour for the bizarre case (singular limit) of an atmosphere with absolutely no radiative gases always makes my head hurt […] However, it is much easier to figure out what happens when you add more radiative gases to an atmosphere that already has them”
– The basis for understanding what adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will do to atmospheric temperatures should be a solid understanding of a non radiative atmosphere. In a non radiative atmosphere there would be no tropospheric convective circulation. A non radiative atmosphere should not be considered a “bizarre case” but rather the base line for all modelling of levels of radiative gases in the atmosphere.
“which increases the altitude of the effective radiating level and hence means the emission is occurring from a lower-temperature layer”
– The ERL argument does not hold for a moving atmosphere. The most strongly radiating air masses are the hottest air masses. These are rising and are radiating at a temperature far higher than other gases at their altitude. “Thou shalt not model the atmosphere as a static body or mathematical layer”
An atmosphere without radiative gases will not exhibit strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation. Hot gases will rise to height, but they will not lose IR energy to space and descend. These hot gases will have temperature set by surface Tmax not surface Tav (Experiments 4 & 5). A non radiative troposphere would go isothermal and heat to close to surface Tmax (Experiment 4). Climate science however claims that a non radiative atmosphere would be 33C cooler. The only way this claim could be made is through the incorrect modelling of the fluid dynamics of a moving atmosphere and the critical role of radiative gases in convective circulation.
Konrad;
I can assure you I am not reasoning around in circles.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
But you are. As seen from space, the temperature of earth really is -18C. As measured at earth surface, it really is +15C. You can argue all day long that the 18 gears in a clock mechanism can’t possibly combine to make the hands go in a circle, but wind the clock up and the hands go in a circle. You can argue all day long about how the pieces fit together and how they can or cannot work in a certain way, and all I have to do is wind the clock up and see if the hands go in a circle.
If you can prove that the earth as seen from space actually isn’t -18C or that earth’s surface actually isn’t +15 or that the ERBE data is wrong and the earth doesn’t actually absorb more energy than ist radiates in areas of high ghg concentrations and that it does actually absorb more than it radiates in areas of low ghg concentration, then there might be some value in figuring out why via your experiments.
Good luck with that.
Perhaps you’ll consider at some point that all the data is exactly the opposite of what you propose, and do what a good scientist does in that case. Return to his experiments and his logic and find the mistake.
davidmhoffer says:
April 22, 2013 at 4:45 am
I want to comment on High.Low GHG areas, AIRS found CO2 to be ever equally distributed around the global, with only about a 7ppm diff between the min and max areas.
Water on the other hand varies significantly. I think we have to keep these separate in such discussions.
Looking at ERBE data, I’m not sure what to make of it, but in about Feb, on a clear sky 35F day (asphalt driveway was ~50F), I measured the zenith temp with a IR thermometer, so the DLR at a little lower than -40F, which is ~158 W/sq M DLR. At 35F, there about 4 g water/kg of air, and at -40F, there’s 0.1g/kg.
So, is ERBE showing the atm, or the atm and surface summed together. I also saw the clouds were much warmer, some of the papers I’ve read say that I am measuring the surface temp of the cloud when measuring it in IR.
Which BTW means at at least under some conditions, this well know drawing is wrong.
davidmhoffer says:
April 22, 2013 at 4:45 am
———————————————————————————————-
David,
you are still not getting it. My experiments are only dealing with known physics. It just happens to be the physics missing from the “basic physics” of the “settled science”. Radiative gases have a critical role in the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere and this has a significant effect on atmospheric temperature. To understand what adding radiative gases will do to atmospheric temperatures, first you need to understand the temperature state of a non radiative atmosphere.
Joel has basically admitted he hasn’t worked this out.
I have.
You have told me you are “not interested” in answering the basic question –
Would strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation occur without radiative gases?
Perhaps you could have a go at the more basic question –
Would average tropospheric temperatures be higher or lower than current in the absence of radiative gases?
Konrad says:
April 21, 2013 at 11:02 pm
Why would they not lose IR to space? Everything warmer than 0K radiates IR. Elements without absorption/emission bands in the IR spectrum radiate as a blackbody.
MiCro says:
April 22, 2013 at 6:45 am
—————————————————————–
MiCro,
Correct. N2 and O2 are generally called non radiative gases in climate science, but they do absorb and emit IR. However their ability to do this is poor and has little effect on convective circulation. In the troposphere N2 and O2 can conductively transfer energy to strongly radiative gases such as H2O which then emits the energy as IR to space, allowing tropospheric convective circulation. In the stratosphere and above there are few strongly radiative gases. Here N2 and O2 absorb IR and UV and this results in super heating as their radiative ability is poor. While temperatures measured with a standard thermometer may read low in the mid stratosphere, molecular temperatures are hundreds of degrees. It should be noted that strong vertical convective circulation is not occurring in the stratosphere.
Konrad says:
It is bizarre for a number of reasons, including the fact that it is unrealizable in any practical way (since even N_2 and O_2 will radiate a little bit at non-zero densities). It also might be that the behavior of such an atmosphere does not correspond to the behavior in the limit that you remove radiating gases from the current atmosphere. [In the same sense that the function defined by f(x) = sin(x)/x for x not equal to zero and f(x) = 0 for x=0 does not have the same value exactly at x=0 as its limit as x -> 0.] Or it might not be the case. I have no strong opinion on this.
Understanding what happens in this case is something worthy of consideration but the answer will not change our understanding of the role of greenhouse gases in our current atmosphere at all.
You seem to be fixated on this notion of “average tropospheric temperatures” and yet I have not seen any claims made by climate scientists regarding “average tropospheric temperatures”. The claim is that the surface temperature would be 33 C cooler in the absence of the greenhouse effect.
Konrad;
Let me dumb it down for you.
1.. Water vapour is the dominant ghg on earth.
2. In the tropics, water vapour reaches as much as 40,000 ppm.
3. Over deserts and over the coldest areas of earth, water vapour approaches zero.
4. Over the tropics where water vapour is high, the earth absorbs more energy than it radiates. This is the very definition of “warming”.
5.; Over deserts and cold areas where water vapour is low, the earth absorbs less energy than it radiates. The is the very definition of cooling.
Your claim is that ghg’s result in cooling. The ERBE data, the satellite data, the weather balloon data, the thermometer record, every data set we have says the opposite. Direct measurements of downward LW and upward LW at points where there is a large difference in water vapour concentration show the opposite. Temperature fluctuations in high water vapour areas versus low water vapour areas show the opposite. Every direct measurement we have of high ghg concentrations versus low ghg concentrations shows physics directly opposite to your claim.
You don’t have to like what the data says, but you do have to listen to it. Nit picking to death the processes within the system won’t change how the system as a whole behaves, which is to be warmer where there are large concentrations of ghg, and colder where the ghg concentrations are low, and that’s at identical latitudes as well as disparate latitudes.
The Greenhouse Effect is only 21C.
Greenhouse gas clouds lower the Albedo of the Earth resulting in a lower effective emission temperature – you shouldn’t count the greenhouse effect of clouds and then not count the solar reflecting impact of the same clouds.
————————–
The atmosphere is far too complex to calculate what happens from CO2 doubling.
We are still talking about calculations from very simple models here, not real measurements of actual photons in the actual atmosphere over actual time (always missing from the greenhouse effect calculations – time is a fundamental component of it).
One can put all their faith in simple models (including the radiative transfer examples) if one wants to. But why have so much faith in simple models that are failing in just about every prediction made?
One shouldn’t be or do “too” much of anything. Don’t be too angry, or too stubborn or to supplicating or too boring or eat too many vegetables. And don’t have “too much” faith in something.
Bill Illis says:
You should if the question is what the magnitude of the greenhouse effect is. Your claim it is only 21 C is simply wrong as an answer to that question. If you want to answer the question, “What is the net effect of all the elements in the atmosphere [greenhouse gases and clouds] that contribute to the greenhouse effect?” then the answer would be 21 C, smaller because clouds contribute both to the greenhouse effect and to the albedo.
Two different questions; two different answers.
Pretty much everything left to study in science is complex. That doesn’t seem to stop people from generally believing that science is still the best way to get answers to such questions except when the answers that scientists get happen to disagree with what said people want to believe. It is fascinating to see how anti-science people become when they scientists don’t give them their preferred answer!
davidmhoffer says:
April 22, 2013 at 8:41 am
——————————————————————————————
“Let me dumb it down for you.”
– I shall defer to your skills in this area 😉
“Your claim is that ghg’s result in cooling. The ERBE data, the satellite data, the weather balloon data, the thermometer record, every data set we have says the opposite.”
– you have no data for the most basic condition, an atmosphere without radiative gases. Empirical experiment shows that such an atmosphere will be dramatically hotter than present.
“You don’t have to like what the data says, but you do have to listen to it.”
– you may not like what Experiments 1 to 5 show, but every reader is free to replicate them for themselves. I note you have not challenged the results of any of the experiments shown.
“Nit picking to death the processes within the system won’t change how the system as a whole behaves”
– You have indicated that you are “Not interested” in discussing the critical role radiative gases play in atmospheric circulation. I would suggest that tropospheric convective circulation has a dramatic effect on tropospheric temperatures. Raising the issue that tropospheric convective circulation cannot continue without radiative gases could hardly be considered “nit picking” by any stretch of the imagination.
Does the surface emit IR? Yes.
Does the atmosphere absorb some IR? Yes.
Does the atmosphere radiate some IR back to the surface (land only) slowing it’s cooling rate? Yes.
Does the interception of IR heat gases in the lower troposphere? Yes.
Is the NET effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere warming? NO!
joeldshore says:
April 22, 2013 at 7:01 am
—————————————————————————–
N2 and O2 absorb a small amount of UV and IR and radiate a small amount of IR? Shure. This leads to super heating in the stratosphere and mesosphere. No escape there.
“You seem to be fixated on this notion of “average tropospheric temperatures” and yet I have not seen any claims made by climate scientists regarding “average tropospheric temperatures”.”
– the claimed deleterious effects of AGW are all related to raised atmospheric temperatures.
“The claim is that the surface temperature would be 33 C cooler in the absence of the greenhouse effect”
– as can be clearly seen in many of my comments on this thread, I do not dispute that land surface Tmin would be lower under a non radiative atmosphere. This will not have any significant effect on tropospheric temperatures. Experiments 4 & 5 clearly demonstrate why surface Tmax is the dominant factor in surface to atmosphere conductive heating.
The reality is that “basic physics” of the “settled science” is in error. The critical role of radiative gases in tropospheric convective circulation has not been properly considered. Without radiative gases the upper troposphere has no way to cool and convective circulation cannot continue. Gas conduction to the surface is too slow compared to the diurnal solar heating cycle. Without convective circulation there is no way for gases to return from altitude to conductively cool against a night surface with lower Tmin. An atmosphere without radiative gases would be dramatically hotter than present. The Net effect of radiative gases is therefore cool at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
Joel, have a look at AGW believer Tim’s comment above. Why was he trying to invoke “planetary rotation” as a method for getting buoyant air masses down from altitude in the absence of radiative gases? What did he realise? If Tim can see the problem, so can others.
I can suggest some other AGW defenders who are aware of the critical role of radiative gases in atmospheric fluid dynamics and would prefer no discussion of it. The Makarieva 2010 discussion paper. Every touch leaves its trace.
Konrad,
Is there someplace where you have a complete write-up of your experiments all in one place? I see some incomplete descriptions of the equipment, some incomplete data, and some incomplete conclusions scattered throughout a few different threads.
It would be much easier for all involved if there was someplace we could go to see more precisely what you did and what you observed. That would allow proper defense and proper critique of your experiment. For example, you talk about an “aluminum water block”, which would presumably be a water-cooled block of AL that you used to radiate into the water in various experiments. But such things are typically used to cool by conduction. Al is a very poor IR radiator (emissivity less than 0.1 typically), so whether the Al surface is hot or cold, most of the IR from it could well be REFLECTED IR from the water below, not EMITTED IR from the water block itself. Furthermore, your 100×100 mm water block covers less than 1/2 of the area above your 150×150 mm water surface, so a lot of IR will come from the room, which is the same for all experiments.
As it is, i see hints of some good experiments that might shed light on the actual behavior of oceans and atmosphere, but not enough detail or control for me to come to any definitive conclusions.
Konrad;
– you may not like what Experiments 1 to 5 show, but every reader is free to replicate them for themselves. I note you have not challenged the results of any of the experiments shown.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
But I have. I’ve shown you that areas with high ghg concentrations are warmer than areas with low ghg concentrations despite being at the exact same latitude. That is the end result of the system as a whole, period. More ghg =warmer. Go find your mistake. I’m not going to do it for you.