Heh. In response to a ridiculous claim making the rounds (I get comment bombed at WUWT daily with that nonsense) which I debunked here: A misinterpreted claim about a NASA press release, CO2, solar flares, and the thermosphere is making the rounds
Dr. Roy Spencer employs some power visual satire, that has truth in it. He writes:
How Can Home Insulation Keep Your House Warmer, When It Cools Your House?!
<sarc> There is an obvious conspiracy from the HVAC and home repair industry, who for years have been telling us to add more insulation to our homes to keep them warmer in winter.
But we all know, from basic thermodynamics, that since insulation conducts heat from the warm interior to the cold outside, it actually COOLS the house.
Go read his entire essay here. <Sarc> on, Roy!
UPDATE: Even Monckton thinks these ideas promoted by slayers/principia/O’Sullivan are ridiculous:
Reply to John O’Sullivan:
One John O’Sullivan has written me a confused and scientifically illiterate “open letter” in which he describes me as a “greenhouse gas promoter”. I do not promote greenhouse gases.
He says I have “carefully styled [my]self ‘science adviser’ to Margaret Thatcher. Others, not I, have used that term. For four years I advised the Prime Minister on various policy matters, including science.
He says I was wrong to say in 1986 that added CO2 in the air would cause some warming. Since 1986 there has been some warming. Some of it may have been caused by CO2.
He says a paper by me admits the “tell-tale greenhouse-effect ‘hot spot’ in the atmosphere isn’t there”. The “hot spot”, which I named, ought to be there whatever the cause of the warming. The IPCC was wrong to assert that it would only arise from greenhouse warming. Its absence indicates either that there has been no warming (confirming the past two decades’ temperature records) or that tropical surface temperatures are inadequately measured.
He misrepresents Professor Richard Lindzen and Dr. Roy Spencer by a series of crude over-simplifications. If he has concerns about their results, he should address his concerns to them, not to me.
He invites me to “throw out” my “shredded blanket effect” of greenhouse gases that “traps” heat. It is Al Gore, not I, who talks of a “blanket” that “traps” heat. Interaction of greenhouse gases with photons at certain absorption wavelengths induces a quantum resonance in the gas molecules, emitting heat directly. It is more like turning on a tiny radiator than trapping heat with a blanket. Therefore, he is wrong to describe CO2 as a “coolant” with respect to global temperature.
He invites me to explain why Al Gore faked a televised experiment. That is a question for Mr. Gore.
He says I am wrong to assert that blackbodies have albedo. Here, he confuses two distinct methods of radiative transfer at a surface: absorption/emission (in which the Earth is a near-blackbody, displacing incoming radiance to the near-infrared in accordance with Wien’s law), and reflection (by which clouds and ice reflect the Sun’s radiance without displacing its incoming wavelengths).
He implicitly attributes Margaret Thatcher’s 1988 speech to the Royal Society about global warming to me. I had ceased to work with her in 1986.
He says that if I checked my history I should discover that it was not until 1981 that scientists were seriously considering CO2’s impact on climate. However, Joseph Fourier had posited the greenhouse effect some 200 years previously; Tyndale had measured the greenhouse effect of various gases at the Royal Institution in London in 1859; Arrhenius had predicted in 1896 that a doubling of CO2 concentration would cause 4-8 K warming, and had revised this estimate to 1.6 K in 1906; Callender had sounded a strong note of alarm in 1938; and numerous scientists, including Manabe&Wetherald (1976) had attempted to determine climate sensitivity before Hansen’s 1981 paper.
He says, with characteristic snide offensiveness, that I “crassly” attribute the “heat-trapping properties of latent heat to a trace gas that is a perfect energy emitter”. On the contrary: in its absorption bands, CO2 absorbs the energy of a photon and emits heat by quantum resonance.
He says the American Meteorological Society found in 1951 that all the long-wave radiation that might otherwise have been absorbed by CO2 was “already absorbed by water vapor”. It is now known that, though that is largely true for the lower troposphere, it is often false for the upper.
The series of elementary errors he here perpetrates, delivered with an unbecoming, cranky arrogance, indicates the need for considerable elementary education on his part. I refer him to Dr. Spencer’s excellent plain-English account of how we know there is a greenhouse effect.
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (April 18, 2013)
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REPLY: No, it doesn’t. This argumentum ad infinitum that the slayers push about “cold can’t heat warm” is the absurd part, and nothing but a strawman argument. The greenhouse effect (a misnomer) isn’t so much about reheating the atmosphere with reradiated LWIR from top to below, it is about slowing the progress of LWIR to the top of the atmosphere. Without CO2 or other GHG’s the LWIR would proceed quickly to space, and the Earth would cool faster, and have a lower average temperature at night.
GHG’s act as a LWIR transfer regulator from the surface to the top of the atmosphere where it is radiated into space. They slow the transfer. […] – Anthony
==============================================================
Anthony, about “the slayers”, I do not refer to any slayers, I did not even read their book, however I read some of their articles. I do not care who exactly said what and what else right or wrong they said etc., I only like good argumentation. Only the quality of the argumentation counts.
Your second point is about what “greenhouse effect” means. This issue is a little bit confusing, and not because it is a misnomer, but because there are a few different versions around. When I say “the greenhouse effect as presented by the IPCC”, I do it specifically to avoid confusion, like in my previous comment. The point is, that the “greenhouse effect” as presented by the IPCC is exactly about warming by back radiation: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faq-1-3.html. Then I say that the warming by back radiation is physically impossible, therefore the “greenhouse effect” as presented by the IPCC does not exist.
If some people have other version of “greenhouse effect”, then we could discuss it, but my point is that the “greenhouse effect” as presented by the IPCC does not exist. I hope you can agree with me on that.
” It’s called an incandescent flashlight.” ~OldWeirdHarold
Tungsten filaments reach around 3,600 K, not quite 5,000 K.
I don’t know of a material that will survive at 5,000 K and remain solid, the surface of the sun is around 5,700~6,000 K for comparison.
Kelvin Vaughan says:
April 24, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Just build 2 greenhouses of identical size. Enhance the CO2 in one to 1000ppm. Keep them at the same temperature over a year. Check if the enhanced CO2 greenhouse used less KWh over the year.
Wrong.
The “greenhouse’ effect has nothing whatsoever to do with these types of experiments.
Energy leaves earth Via one route and one route only: radiation to space.
Earth radiates to space from the ERL.
When you add GHGs you raise the ERL.
When you raise the ERL the earth radiates to space more slowly.
That results in a surface that is warmer than it would be otherwise.
This effect cannot be tests with woods like experiments EVER because the effect depends upon changing the ERL and no experimental set up or lab can duplicate the conditions required: the full atmospheric column.
in 20 or so simple slides
http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~aos121br/radn/radn/sld001.htm
Noelene:
Your post at April 24, 2013 at 3:08 pm goes to the crux of this thread’s subject. It asks
The answer is YES but the consensus is not what the media tends to present.
Anyone who understands radiative physics knows
the radiative properties of greenhouse gases (GHGs; mostly water vapour but also carbon dioxide, methane, etc.) in the air provide a greenhouse effect (GE) without which the Earth would be much colder.
That is the overwhelming consensus and is irrefutable physics.
However, that fact does not – of itself – mean additional GHGs in the air will discernibly raise global temperature. Any such rise in global temperature will depend on the feedbacks in the climate system. Those who believe in anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW) think feedbacks are strongly positive so will greatly increase any such temperature rise. But AGW-skeptics (or climate realists) either think the feedbacks are weakly positive so will have little effect, or they are negative so will reduce any such temperature rise.
If the feedbacks are weakly positive or negative then AGW would be so small as to be indiscernible because natural climate variability is much larger.
In other words, the argument about AGW is really an argument about the feedbacks.
However, there are a few people (often known as ‘Dragon Slayers’ or ‘Slayers’) who claim that radiative physics is wrong so the GE does not exist. Of course, all science is open to amendment – that is the nature of science – but the assertions made by the Slayers are preposterous.
Unfortunately, the Slayers are vociferous, and the ludicrous nature of their assertions brings discredit (i.e. guilt by assumed association) on all AGW-skeptics.
Spencer is an AGW-skeptic, and his sarcasm is aimed at the silly notions of the Slayers. Hence, the title of this thread is “Spencer slays with sarcasm”.
I hope this clarifies the matter.
Richard
“When you add GHGs you raise the ERL.
When you raise the ERL the earth radiates to space more slowly.”
Missing hot spot. Earth is radiating more these days, not less. For something warming to be emitting less radiation is a violation of the Stefan-Boltzmann Law. Only if you reduce the emissivity can the temperature be raised. CO2 does not reduce emissivity. O2 and N2 have zero emissivity and therefore trap and hold heat much better than any other gas and hold temperature much better than otherwise. CO2 collisionally absorbs energy from O2 and N2 and then causes it to be lost.
Greg House says:
April 24, 2013 at 2:39 pm
“Spencer slays with sarcasm”…………………………
I totally agreewith Greg. “Back-welling” or “back-radiation” from CO2 is not possible.
It may help slow thing down. Also, no one [Dr Spencer?] has told me why the atmosphere will
not expand with extra heat from the earth’s suface. This would satisfy the “Conservation of Energy” with no increase in Temperature
Question 3. If in the thermograph, above, the triple glazed windows were filled with CO2,
what color would we observe? If CO2 is “backwelling” into the house the color
should be other than red. No???
Alberta Slim says (April 24, 2013 at 3:52 pm): “I totally agreewith Greg. “Back-welling” or “back-radiation” from CO2 is not possible.”
===========================================================
I did not say that “back-radiation” from CO2 was not possible. My point was that back radiation would not affect the temperature of the source.
Max™ says (April 24, 2013 at 3:18 pm): “I see no reason why a body at given temperature should raise the temperature of another body at the same temperature, so accordingly I see no reason why a cooler body should raise the temperature of a warmer body.”
Thanks for taking a look at the “Yes, Virginia” thought experiment, Max. Your initial numbers are close to what “Nullius In Verba” calculated for the one-plate case at a certain Site-Which-Must-Not-Be-Linked, although he went on to calculate the equilibrium temperature of the two-plate system, in which the temp of the heated bar is higher.
Radiative physics as illustrated by the “Yes, Virginia” thought experiment is fundamental to modern science, see numerous textbook examples in the comment thread under Willis’s R W Wood Experiment article:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/06/the-r-w-wood-experiment/
In fact, if the “Yes, Virginia” version of radiative physics is overturned, it would be worth a Nobel Prize at least, and would earn wealth, fame, and adulation for whoever brought about this scientific revolution. All from performing a relatively simple thought experiment “for real” and getting a different result from what Dr. Spencer predicts.
My question is, since this is a relatively simple experiment to do (no particle accelerators required), why have none of the so-called “slayers” performed it (or one like it) and taken their place alongside Newton, Planck, Einstein, and Hawking?
Any thoughts, Max?
Max wrote (re “Yes Virginia…..”);
“If the power supply is constant then consider the case where the unpowered bar begins at the same temperature as the powered bar.”
NOTE the word “power supply”, this is distinct from an “energy supply”, hence the distinct
nomenclature.
Yes a power supply will cause (under the very best of thought experiment conditions) the first bar to reach a higher temperature since it’s view factor to the colder vacuum chambers wall is reduced. HOWEVER it will consume more energy from the power supply while doing so. The power supply will have to provide enough energy to “charge” both metals bars with heat. It will draw more current from the energy supply (your friendly local electric company). Yes, I know electric utilities are often called XYZ electric POWER Company, but they are in fact selling you energy. If you do Dr. Spencer’s thought experiment you should expect a higher energy bill.
If you replace the power supply with a battery (a store of energy, or energy supply) the first bar will reach a higher temperature (again under the very best of thought experiment conditions), but more energy will be drawn from the energy supply (since it has to “charge” both bars with heat). Thus the battery discharges more quickly. So the bars get warmer for a while, then start cooling down when the energy supply is exhausted. Which results in no increase in the average temperature.
1 bar results in a lower temperature for a longer time, 2 bars results in a higher temperature for a shorter time, same amount of energy used in both cases. No trapped heat, no extra energy, no net energy gains.
The sunlight arriving during one day is represented by the initial charge in the battery, once it’s gone, it’s gone….
UNITS do matter when doing energy budgets (w/m^2 are units of power density, NOT energy).
Engineers that routinely calculate “net energy gains” either get fired or bumped up into management.
Cheers, Kevin.
Well, insulation does in a sense cool the house. It does transmit heat from the hot (inside) side of the insulation to the cool (outside) of the house. Some transmits more, some less. That is what the R factor measures. BUT it transmits less heat than the uninsulated version. This keeps the house warmer than the alternative, but still cooler than if it did not conduct heat at all (the posited but non-existent perfect insulator). Even vacuum bottles transfer heat from the hot side to the cool interior, just slower than the alternative.
Steven Mosher says (April 24, 2013 at 3:42 pm): “Earth radiates to space from the ERL. When you add GHGs you raise the ERL. When you raise the ERL the earth radiates to space more slowly. …”
=============================================================
This is not what the IPCC considers to be the “greenhouse effect” and what they base their policy recommendations upon. They mean that “greenhouse gases” warm the surface by back radiation. Apparently they do not support your “effect”.
There certainly seems to be a lot of animosity in the comment train. I enjoyed Postma’s paper “The Model Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect” because I learned a lot about black body radiation, etc., and I fully subscribe to his idea that the Sun’s energy hitting the Earth’s surface isn’t something divided by four, but the whole thing (at some point on the surface).
My guess – based on my experience in geological arguments – is that both sides of this argument are blowing hot air at least in part. It further seems to me that a great deal of what passes for knowledge is simply stating one’s case, louder with each iteration. CAGW is utter BS in my mind, and the condemnation of CO2 by many is dangerous. If one believes the assessments of the amount of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere over time, and understands its role in the life as we now know it of this planet, then we are in a precarious position. Much of the CO2 endowment of Earth seemingly is now in a state that cannot benefit plants, and that ain’t good.
Greg House;
They mean that “greenhouse gases” warm the surface by back radiation. Apparently they do not support your “effect”.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Back radiation increases the ERL. Same thing explained from a different perspective.
KevinK says (April 24, 2013 at 4:15 pm): “If you replace the power supply with a battery (a store of energy, or energy supply) the first bar will reach a higher temperature (again under the very best of thought experiment conditions), but more energy will be drawn from the energy supply (since it has to “charge” both bars with heat). Thus the battery discharges more quickly.”
So if instead of using an electric outlet or a battery to heat the first plate, we use an embedded radioactive heat source
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator
the plutonium (for example) will decay more rapidly when the second plate is introduced?
JimF says:
April 24, 2013 at 4:18 pm
There certainly seems to be a lot of animosity in the comment train.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is indeed unfortunate that the “information age” has given way to the “misinformation age”. In today’s world, it is mind boggling to me that the CAGW nonsense can live side by side with the “back radiation doesn’t warm things” nonsense. The actual physics seems to take a back seat to both arguments, and yes that generates some animosity.
crosspatch says:
April 24, 2013 at 2:16 pm
And it is true that per unit of mass, the sun produces very little heat. It’s about that produced by the average compost heap. It’s just a very big compost heap and so it produces a lot of total heat that takes a long time to get to the surface
///////////////////////////
Is that so? Per unit of mass USED? The issue is not how much mass the sun has, but rather how much of that mass it uses to produce the energy in which we all bask.
Is it not the position that sun only uses a little of its mass to produce its energy and thats why its still burning after 4.5 billion years and will burn for another 4.5 biliion years or so?
davidmhoffer says (April 24, 2013 at 4:33 pm): “Back radiation increases the ERL.”
========================================================
Again, this is not what the IPCC supports. You can invent whatever effect you want, but only the IPCC’s one is politically relevant, because governments and agencies refer to the IPCC reports and recommendations, not to davidmhoffer or Steven Mosher.
And again, the IPCC “greenhouse effect” is physically impossible, as I demonstrated earlier on this thread, so their proposed policy of cutting CO2 emissions is not justified by their reports. I do not think we should ignore that.
“UNITS do matter when doing energy budgets (w/m^2 are units of power density, NOT energy).” ~KevinK
In discussions of radiation W/m^2 is intensity, if we’re going to nitpick. Watts are power, or the rate at which energy is supplied per second, Joules are energy or work done.
Again though I will go back to the case of a heated or powered bar at 338 K (~150 Fahrenheit) and an unpowered bar at 338 K.
Will the presence of another body at the same temperature cause the temperature of the first body to increase?
“and the ludicrous nature of their assertions”
It is not ludicrous to state that the distribution of solar energy is a cosine function about the solar zenith, and that this distribution has an integrated average of +49C, as the input. What is ludicrous is that people deny that the Earth is round and think that +49C vs. -18C doesn’t matter. I do detect some ludicrousness when it is said that the mere statement of these facts is supposed to be ludicrous.
The cosine function is real. An integrated average is real. Sunshine is really hot. You can’t average energy input into a geometry where it doesn’t exist. These are all rational facts. It is ludicrous to ridicule those of us who state them and want to explore what effect and changes it has on the usual assumptions. As we have shown, the changes are not insignificant. Both the wet and dry lapse rate can be calculated precisely without any reference to GHG radiation, for example. Latent heat itself holds the temperature higher than it would otherwise be, for example. This is science. It is ludicrous to ignore it.
Which brings to mind the age old question, “How does a Thermos bottle know whether you put cold or hot things in it, and that it is supposed to keep cold things cold and hot things hot?” Maybe the Slayers can work on that one next.
Greg House says (April 24, 2013 at 4:45 pm): “Again, this is not what the IPCC supports.”
Hi, Greg! I figured you’d show up sooner or later. Welcome.
Now it’s a party! 🙂
“And again, the IPCC “greenhouse effect” is physically impossible, as I demonstrated earlier on this thread…”
Anthony refuted your argument verbally, scienceofdoom refutes it mathematically here
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/05/08/radiation-basics-and-the-imaginary-second-law-of-thermodynamics/
@ur momisugly Greg April 24, 2013 at 2:39 pm
“So, you have initially a body kept at a certain temperature by it’s internal source of energy.”
Just to be more definite, make it a blackbody sphere far from any star, so the surrounding are already ~ 0 K. Furthermore, let’s make that heater 240 W for each square meter, so the temperature is 255 K (like the numbers for earth).
“Now you put another colder body at the absolute zero temperature, let us say, in vacuum close to the warm body.”.
Let’s make that cold object a thin shell completely surrounding the sphere.
“The warmer body will start warming the colder body immediately.”
Yes, but all this time, the cool outer shell will be radiating less than 240 W/m^2 out to space (because it is colder than 255 K). This means energy will be building up inside the shell, warming the shell. Eventually the shell will warm to 255 K. At this point the shell will be radiating 240 W/m^2 and a steady-state will be achieved. (Actually, the shell must be slightly less than 255 K since it will have slightly larger surface area, but this is a minor correction).
“Actually, already on this stage we should start screaming and crying “how come [the inner object warms, and not just the shell around it]?”
I would be screaming “how could you doubt the inner object will warm?”.
Suppose the inner sphere did NOT warm above 255 K. The shell and the sphere around it would both be 255 K. But heat (240 W/m^2) would be flowing with no temperature gradient. Why in the world would 240 W/m^2 of heat be flowing from one object at 255 K to another object at 255 K?
Max was right with
P = εσA(Th⁴ – Tc⁴)
There must be a difference between Th (the inner sphere) and Tc (the shell) for this 240 W/m^2 of power to flow. Th will be 302 K in this particular case.
There is no “run-away” effect.
* The inner sphere warms from 255 K to 302 K.
* The outer shell warms from 0 K to 255 K.
* 240 W/m^2 of heat moves from the inner sphere to the outer shell
* 240 W/m^2 of heat moves from the outer shell to space.
* No laws of thermodynamics are broken.
“No laws of thermodynamics are broken.”
Except that the source is now twice as hot as its own heat input. Of course, we have seen the textbook examples which show that this does not occur. A shell surrounding a heated sphere simply gets heated by the sphere. This does not cause the sphere to heat up some more. This was shown in worked problems in physics textbooks which I am sure you saw. The supposition of trapped radiation causing self-heating was refuted.
REPLY: Best advice: stop digging – Anthony
Greg House;
And again, the IPCC “greenhouse effect” is physically impossible,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The only thing physically impossible is educating you, as a rather long list of PhD physicists, engineers, and chemists recognized around the world for their knowledge have repeatedly demonstrated on this blog.
Mark, Gary, thanks for the responses.
I don’t get the clairvoyance argument. That model suggest photons are being fired off like tennis balls and that they ‘travel’ in space until they find a destination. That’s at odds with my mental image of relativity and the speed of light. Surely they know where they’re going (in a sense ‘going nowhere’ as they have no distance to travel or time to take), and therefore can’t leave until they have a destination.
“The temperature of the unheated plate (“plate 2″) never reaches that of the electrically heated plate (“plate 1″).”
Is that true? I’m thinking only of atoms on the surface nearest to plate 1. Won’t some of them temporarily reach the same temperature as plate1, thus slowing down the emission from plate 1 until they cool down again?
Max, your assumptions were wrong.
You started with a block of ice and a pot of boiling water. So you know the temps at the outset, 0C and 100C.
You then try and add energy radiated from the ice to the boiling water, and assume this means the pot is even hotter.
Why? That energy is already included in the energy being radiated by the boiling pot. The energy output from the pot is exactly as you calculated. If you know that this must include the energy from the block of ice (again, as you calculated, with the somewhat unphysical assumption that all that energy goes the the pot, and all other directions are at absolute 0) then you could work out the reduced heating requirement to keep the pot at 100C when the ice is present, compared to open space.
I.e. as per Dr Spencer, the block of ice has reduced the heating requirements of the pot.