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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Joe says: “Here are some textbooks examples of how a continuous source of heat as a sphere trapped inside a shell doesn’t cause an increase of temperature of there sphere … There is nothing in the two examples about the input being reduced – the input is constant. “
SIGH.
No, those examples have a constant TEMPERATURE with a DECREASING heat source –exactly the opposite of what you are claiming. The whole POINT is to calculate the decrease in power required. The heat flow required to hold a constant temperature drops (from 240 W/m^2 to 120 W/m^2 for a thin shell close around the inner sphere held at 255 K using my specific numbers). If the power was turned back up to 240 W/m^2, the inner sphere would warm up (to 302 K from 255 K using my numbers).
” The 610 W/m^2 average input is the integrated average intensity over the hemisphere.”
No. That is still the integrated average at the equator. You are over-estimating the heating power of the sun. (Interestingly, this will STILL only get the equator up to a 24 hr average temperature ~ -2 C. That is warmer than -18C, but not nearly warm enough to account for the surface temperature.)
“The only way to get higher temperatures than this from sunlight at the Earth is to re-condense it using a magnifying glass.”
An, but we don’t have to rely on just sunlight to warm things. The very hot sun @ur momisugly 5800K only covers about 0.001% of the sky. If the rest of the celestial sphere were @ur momisugly 2.7 K, then the we get those temperatures we both know well (~ 361 K @ur momisugly noon @ur momisugly the equator (with vanishingly small heat capacity) or ~ 255 K averaged over the whole earth over 24 hr).
But we could put something ELSE over the other 99.999% of the celestial sphere surrounding us. Even something quite cool that covers ~ 100,000 times as large of a solid angle as the sun will integrate out to be a significant amount of added power to the ground.
And of course, that “something else” is clouds and GHGs that can radiate some energy IN ADDITION TO the sunlight.
Thanks so much for posting the link to this Anthony. For those of you who wonder why Roy would write such a post, go look at the comments on most of his articles for the last several months–they’re basically dominated by people saying the GHE doesn’t exist…even when the topic has little to do with the GHE. It’s very unfortunate because Roy has some VERY good material at his site. His blog entry immediately before the one linked here is, in my opinion, the number one argument skeptics have on their side…yet the comments were overrun by GHE naysayers, really ruining the discussion. 🙁
-Scott
Tim, I’m not sure if you’re getting the same thing from those examples, are you talking about problem 1023 and 1026 from the links I gave?
Oh, and LdB: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Commercial_laser_lines.svg
Xenon, Neon, Helium, Argon, Flourine, CO2 and various other elements can be used in a laser, would we have a greenhouse effect if we replaced CO2 with Ruby or Sapphire? (joking of course, but if you wanted to compare it more fairly, work out what a thin shell of ruby or sapphire around the planet would do)
It is “back radiation doesn’t affect the temperature of the source“, davidmhoffer, the source.
Sources don’t have a temperature. They have an energy flow. (That’s what being a source means. Otherwise they would just be a hot thing.)
Their temperature is determined by the ability of the heat to get away. If I put a electric element into a block of copper and a similar mass block of concrete, the concrete will reach a higher temperature at equilibrium. Because it’s an insulator and copper is a conductor. The energy flow in will be the same, but the concrete will need to reach a higher temperature before its energy flow out matches the energy put in.
If you cannot tell the difference between temperature and energy you should leave any thoughts about discussing physics behind.
If I understand the sky-dragon position, a cold mirror should not reflect radiation back at the source. After all, by their “logic” it is only the temperature difference that matters. So how is it that mirroring is an effective means of insulation?
“those examples have a constant TEMPERATURE with a DECREASING heat source ”
They say nothing about a decreasing heat source. You are making things up. They can be thought of as infinite heat sources (usually called a sink). You are changing the meaning of the questions. Radiation trapped inside a cavity doesn’t cause the cavity to heat up above the temperature of the source in any case, it just creates a blackbody spectrum at the temperature of the source.
“No. That is still the integrated average at the equator.”
It is the integrated average over the entire hemisphere. Which is the same as over the equator because an equatorial line is symmetric rotated about the solar zenith. You can literally feel hot sunlight and you can feel very hot rocks, surface, etc., which is created by the sunlight. This then heats the air, and the air circulates the heat about. Then you have the natural lapse rate making sure that the bottom of the atmosphere is the hottest part of the atmosphere, and the bottom of the atmosphere is not representative of the whole ensemble temperature in any case. The majority of the gas (N2 and O2) has very low emissivity and so can hold a much higher temperature than otherwise. Plus the heating only occurs mainly at the bottom of the atmosphere.
“that “something else” is clouds and GHGs that can radiate some energy”
GHG’s do not radiate at 5800K nor even at 286K. They never radiate at a warmer temperature than the surface and so can not heat the surface. GHG’s do not increase the sky-area of solar radiation and so they do not contribute to the solar spectrum at 5800K or the heating from such.
@max
Yes if we had ruby and sapphire in the atmosphere yes they too would greenhouse gases.
Here is a crash coarse in QM and the stupidity that is classic physics.
The classic physics view of temperature is it is the sort of the speed of the molecules in the substance. QM scientists 100 years ago realized that is a really bad approximation it is a number of complex quantum properties that make up an effect namely it appears to make a column of liquid expand in a thin tube. See the funny thing in QM there is not even a property called temperature because it is a mixture of different quantum properties.
Now under classic physics absolute zero is the temperature at which all motion of molecules stops and you can’t go any colder that’s not quite so under QM and here is the write up in nature magazine
http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-gas-goes-below-absolute-zero-1.12146
So before you start lecturing me about you massive understanding of temperature and how it works perhaps you can explain how we get a temperature colder than absolute zero to show us all you really really understand temperature and your classic physics works in all world cases.
See the problem classic physics has it is wrong has been for 100 years.
There isn’t an easy way to understand greenhouse effect under classic physics because its a quantum effect and nor can you explain a laser or temperatures below absolute zero using classic physics.
Scott;
His blog entry immediately before the one linked here is, in my opinion, the number one argument skeptics have on their side…yet the comments were overrun by GHE naysayers, really ruining the discussion. 🙁
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You just triggered a thought. Dr Spencer helped design, implement and operate a network of satellites that accurately (verified by weather baloons, weather stations, etc) measures temperatures all over the globe and at many altitudes. Yet he is besieged by nay sayers insisting he doesn’t understand atmospheric physics. How do they suppose he got the satellites working correctly? A gigantic cosmic coincidence?
To all you dragonslayers who want to keep arguing this stupidity here is a straight forward effect to explain away using your great physics.
We call it laser cooling that is cooling using something you would consider hot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_cooling
It is routinely done now as the normal way to bring things down to absolute zero and on very large scales
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/super-cool.html
So use your classic physics and explain what is happening .. small open challenge.
Negative temperatures aren’t news, LdB, and I’m not operating from a classical position.
I’m not sure why you think I’m somehow ignorant of quantum mechanics, but I could also ask you which quantum paradigm you’re working within.
Spoiler alert: just because someone disagrees with you, it doesn’t mean they are ignorant of modern physics.
Max asks: “Tim, I’m not sure if you’re getting the same thing from those examples, are you talking about problem 1023 and 1026 from the links I gave?”
Yes, I’m talking about the same examples. Specifically, 1026 says …
* The object is “at absolute temperature T” and is held at that temperature throughout the problem.
* The goal is to “find the factor by which this radiation shield reduces the rate of cooling”. Now “reduces the rate of cooling” is a bit ambiguous, but then the solution starts out with “the rate of energy loss”, so what they are finding is reduction in heat loss by radiation– which would be equal to the input of heat to maintain the constant temperature T.
* The only thing that is changing is that the temperature of the surroundings goes from T(0) to T(1). We have been assuming that T(0) was ~ 0 K, but that is not necessary.
Per problem 1023 from the link above –
for the radiation the limit approaches 0.5 for R approximately equal to r and it approaches 1 if R >>> r and the.
At least this “slays” Willis’ steel greenhouse completely !
The shell is always at a lower temperature than the enclosed object with the maximum being 84 %
In fact I am still not sure there isn’t something wrong with the whole concept of using a “nearby” heat shield.
This model has extra heat shields eventually resulting in almost no radiation escaping –
1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 and we are already up to 93.75 %.
But at least it is progressing away from infinite energy by adding more shells unlike Willis’ proposal.
REPLY: …The greenhouse effect … 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. The “backradiation” has a limited scope of effect, but it is there as part of the trasnfer process. … 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. Without GHG’s nightitme temperature would drop quickly as LWIR is lost directly to space. […] – Anthony
===============================================================
OK, Anthony, as I said, this is not exactly the IPCC concept, but I would like to address it anyway. For the sake of clarity, when I say “Earth” I mean the solid Earth. So, there is the Earth and the atmosphere around it.
Now, the first problem in your approach is the idea that the radiative cooling of the Earth surface (let us say at night to simplify it) is somehow connected to what happens to the radiation after it leaves the Earth surface, like meeting some “greenhouse gases”. Well, if we ignore conduction/convection, then it is simple: what is gone is gone. The radiation is gone and the surface cools accordingly. If the radiation meets something else and warms it, fine, but this fact alone does not affect the temperature of the surface. To affect the temperature of the surface there must be additional energy coming to it.
Now, at the first glance, the “greenhouse gases” are doing exactly that: providing additional energy by back radiating towards the Earth. The problem is, however, that back radiation can not warm the source, this is physically impossible. So we have this situation: back radiation is there, but no effect on the temperature of the source is possible.
That’s it, actually. How long and hard the way of the radiation from the surface to space is, with all this bouncing or delays or whatever, does not matter. All this happens outside the surface and gives the surface no additional energy.
Sometimes at this point people start asking “but where does the back radiation go?” or “how it is possible that it does not warm?”. My answer usually is like “why should I care and explain everything?” I only care about effect on the temperature of the source, and this is exactly something that leads to an absurd, as I demonstrated earlier, so this is sufficient. We can, of course, start speculating about it and make up theories, but why should we? Anyway, it is clear, that the well known IPCC radiation arithmetic has nothing to do with reality. The radiation simply does not obey the laws of arithmetic. It is a different, special thing. All this talk about photons “not knowing” anything is misleading. If you like, the fact is that something we call “photons”, despite being a countable noun, does not obey the laws of arithmetic and can not affect the temperature of the source. This is the reality. No “greenhouse effect”.
@max
The explain laser cooling which is the essence of your stupid argument that hot can’t cool by definition laser cooling does exactly that.
And if you understand that you can have temperatures colder than absolute zero then your realize that classic physics can be wrong because it is a bad simplification and therefore you should not be surprised that classic physics can’t be used to understand the greenhouse effect because its a quantum problem … that is if you really aren’t ignorant.
“* The object is “at absolute temperature T” and is held at that temperature throughout the problem.”
Uh? Problem 1026 says no such thing.
Verbatim:
“A spherical black body of radius r at absolute temperature T is surrounded by a thin spherical and concentric shell of radius R, black on both sides. Show that the factor by which this radiation shield reduces the rate of cooling of the body (consider space between spheres evacuated, with no thermal conduction losses) is given by the following expression: aR^2/(R^2 + br^2), and find the numerical coefficients a and b.” Problem 1026
LdB, I’m not engaging in childishness with you, sorry bucko.
“So how is it that mirroring is an effective means of insulation?”
So what you are saying is that if you took a whole bunch of mirrors and had them focus on a point you could cook something right?
At night too?
Noelene says:
April 24, 2013 at 3:08 pm
So there is a consensus on the greenhouse effect?
===========================================
I see what you did there.
Not that I agree with you, but well done.
TR
@max
It isn’t a childish argument its the fact the dragonslayers make at the centre of the argument that heat can’t cool.
Problem is laser cooling does exactly that it is hot put your hand infront of the beam if you want to see how hot and it cools to almost absolute zero.
In there world it isn’t possible but it happens a fact they like you have to ignore because they can’t explain it and there whole argument goes up in smoke.
The hard sciences are that explicit about this topic on in AGW does this sort of garbage get air time.
Roy Spencer says:
April 24, 2013 at 12:12 pm re: carbon dioxide and insulation
===================================================
The effect is the same but the mechanism is completely different. Insulation does not absorb and radiate photons. The IR photons inside a house don’t even make it past the paint on the sheetrock, much less reach the insulation. Funny how the ocean comes to mind.
House insulation is just a down sleeping bag. A tiny bit of thermal mass and a huge barrier to convection.
KevinK says (April 24, 2013 at 7:58 pm): “But if it is radioactively heated (an effective “unlimited” heat source, anybody else remember back in the 50s and 60s when electricity was going to be “too cheap to meter” ?) I would expect that the “cycle time” concerns would go away. And then plate 1 and plate 2 (and all the unicorns in the neighborhood) would all be warmer and cozier.”
Thanks, Kevin, for that, er, picturesque response.
Back to the battery-operated plate 1: Why do you say the battery output would increase when plate 2 is introduced?
Dr Spencer and other lukewarmers are wrong. Radiative gases cool our atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm. The problem is not with physics of radiative gases, but with fluid dynamics and gas conduction
For the record I am not a “Slayer”, my following comments are based on my own empirical experiments. These experiments disprove the radiative green house effect. I have described simple versions that other readers can build and run for themselves 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
I would urge other readers to try these experiments for themselves. There is far to much cut&paste and linking on climate blogs and not enough empirical work. These experiments relate to the “Do nots” of climate modelling –
A. Do not model the “earth” as a combined land/ocean/gas “thingy”
B. Do not model the atmosphere as a single body or layer
C. Do not model the sun as a ¼ power constant source without diurnal cycle
D. Do not model conductive flux to and from the surface and atmosphere based on surface Tav
E. Do not model a static atmosphere without moving gases
F. Do not model a moving atmosphere without Gravity
G. Do not model the surface as a combined land/ocean “thingy”
H. Do not apply SB equations to a moving gaseous atmosphere (the davidmhoffer rule 😉
Does the surface emit IR? Yes.
Does the atmosphere absorb IR and heat? Yes.
Does the atmosphere radiate some IR back to the surface slowing it’s cooling rate? Yes.
Is there a radiative GHE? Yes.
Is the NET effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere warming? no.
To understand the role of radiative gases in the atmosphere, the conditions in a non radiative atmosphere should first be considered. Radiative gases are critical to strong vertical convective circulation in the troposphere. It should be noted that above this level there are few radiative gases and little vertical convective circulation. The role of energy loss at altitude in convective circulation is demonstrated in Experiment 3. It should also be noted that pneumatic heating and cooling of rising and descending air masses does not represent energy gain or loss. IR emission to space is the primary way gases at altitude lose energy.
If there were no radiative gases in our atmosphere, gases would still be heated by surface conduction. These gases would convect to altitude, but they could not lose energy and buoyancy and descend. Full convective circulation would stall. Experiment 4 demonstrates that a gas column heated at the base and cooled at the top has a lower average temperature than a gas column heated and cooled at separate locations at the base. In Experiment 4 box 1 has a higher “surface” temperature and a lower gas temperature. In box 2 the average “surface” temperature is lower yet the average gas temperature is higher. Box 2 models a non radiative atmosphere. Experiment 4 also demonstrates why an atmosphere heated by surface conduction will have its temperature set by surface Tmax not surface Tav.
Experiment 5 demonstrates that for a moving gaseous atmosphere in a gravity field, the surface is better at conductively heating the atmosphere than it is at conductively cooling it.
Dr Spencer has not correctly modelled the critical role radiative gases play in convective circulation or the importance of this to atmospheric temperatures. The land surface under a non radiative atmosphere may have a lower Tav, however the moving gases in the atmosphere above will have a higher average temperature than present. Build experiment 4 big enough (limiting equalisation through gas conduction) and you can find out just how dramatic the difference would be. If atmospheric temperatures are higher for a non radiative atmosphere, then radiative gases must act to cool the atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
Reed Coray says (April 24, 2013 at 8:02 pm): “Although you didn’t explicitly say so, if what you say is true, shouldn’t increasing the amount of GHG placed in this space result in improved thermos bottle efficiency?”
No. By introducing a gas to the space between layers, you’ve added conductive cooling to radiative cooling of the inner shell, which would overwhelm any reduction in radiative cooling by such a thin layer of gas.
Think of the top of our atmosphere as the inner layer of the vacuum thermos bottle. With nothing but a vacuum “outside”, the only significant cooling mechanism is radiation. Convection and conduction are major energy transport mechanisms within the atmosphere, but don’t function in a vacuum.
I do find all this denial of basic radiative physics fairly boring. The water vapour cloud feedback loop cannot be discussed without presuming the basics of radiation physics, and when assertions based on these laws get challenged, the discussion becomes a bit pointless.
Max™ says (April 24, 2013 at 9:23 pm): “Uh? Problem 1026 says no such thing.”
Out of curiosity, if the problem says there is a constant non-zero power input to the inner sphere, and the shell reduces the rate of cooling by (for example) roughly 20%, what do you think would happen to the sphere’s equilibrium temperature after the shell is added? Would it be higher, lower, or the same?
I would be interested in anyone’s comment on this:
I think the classical 33° analysis falls apart because it assumes albedo is the input and solves for the greenhouse effect. This is not how heat is managed on this planet. Albedo is the output. Try it this way instead:
Start with the albedo of areas including everything but clouds first. Include areas with mist / haze, but not clouds (no small task). This will be considerably darker and the SB temperature much higher. Solve for the SB equilibrium temperature. What did you get? A:__________
Note: This is what the situation would be if the earth were at a radius from the sun farther than it is, not including the effect of increasing icecaps. We are too close to the sun to not employ evaporative cooling which is the main mechanism of heat regulation. This really needs to be done as an integral over one rotation.
The clouds are naturally produced to balance the rest of the energy input such that the surface temperature lands where it is. The first answer (A) is the natural temperature of the earth without the main cloud effects.
Now take the measured surface temperature (B). A-B is the cooling effect of water vapor + the warming effect of all other GHG’s. We don’t know the exact magnitude of either, just the net from this exercise.
But we can measure the effect of water vapor’s GHG effect in many areas (like buoys) where we measure LW, T and humidity at the same location all the time. So we know what it is with varying temperatures and humidity which we can uses to estimate humidity’s role on the received LW radiation from the atmosphere, and deduce what “all other” effects total to. I don’t think anyone has so far integrated the moisture data well enough to describe what local effects (storms) are occurring based on the shapes of the curves over time.
Once people give up on the absurd idea that albedo is an input to the equation, the rest of the results should be fairly easy to estimate. Water is going to be the major net driver in the tropics (due to reflection and carrying water droplets aloft where they can radiate out with far less optical thickness), but water vapor will also be a warmer in other conditions. CO2 will be shown to be almost meaningless in the face of H20′s effect.
Albedo is the earth’s output, it is a reaction to the input (solar energy), and internal variation.
So let’s try it. Using the 20% that NASA estimates is reflected from clouds, the results should look like this:
As you can see, treating albedo as an output (since clouds are generated to reflect and transport heat to space), now you only need to account for 16.6°K after the effect of cloud reflection alone is accounted for. It’s a start and I suspect this is one of the major links that supports why sensitivity data is without question coming in at half or less of the flawed classical analysis. Note also, this is not a feedback effect. It is entirely the result of the initial albedo assumption being wrong.