By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
I have just had the honor of listening to Professor Murry Salby giving a lecture on climate. He had addressed the Numptorium in Holyrood earlier in the day, to the bafflement of the fourteenth-raters who populate Edinburgh’s daft wee parliament. In the evening, among friends, he gave one of the most outstanding talks I have heard.
Professor Salby has also addressed the Parliament of Eunuchs in Westminster. Unfortunately he did not get the opportunity to talk to our real masters, the unelected Kommissars of the European tyranny-by-clerk.
The Faceless Ones whose trembling, liver-spotted hands guide the European hulk of state unerringly towards the bottom were among the first and most naively enthusiastic true-believers in the New Superstition that is global warming. They could have benefited from a scientific education from the Professor.
His lecture, a simplified version of his earlier talk in Hamburg that was the real reason why spiteful profiteers of doom at Macquarie “University” maliciously canceled his non-refundable ticket home so that he could not attend the kangaroo court that dismissed him, was a first-class exercise in logical deduction.
He had written every word of it, elegantly. He delivered it at a measured pace so that everyone could follow. He unfolded his central case step by step, verifying each step by showing how his theoretical conclusions matched the real-world evidence.
In a normal world with mainstream news media devoted to looking at all subjects from every direction (as Confucius used to put it), Murry Salby’s explosive conclusion that temperature change drives CO2 concentration change and not the other way about would have made headlines. As it is, scarce a word has been published anywhere.
You may well ask what I might have asked: given that the RSS satellite data now show a zero global warming trend for 17 full years, and yet CO2 concentration has been rising almost in a straight line throughout, is it any more justifiable to say that temperature change causes CO2 change than it is to say that CO2 change causes temperature change?
The Professor headed that one off at the pass. During his talk he said it was not global temperature simpliciter but the time-integral of global temperature that determined CO2 concentration change, and did so to a correlation coefficient of around 0.9.
I had first heard of Murry Salby’s work from Dick Lindzen over a drink at a regional government conference we were addressing in Colombia three years ago. I readily agreed with Dick’s conclusion that if we were causing neither temperature change nor even CO2 concentration change the global warming scare was finished.
I began then to wonder whether the world could now throw off the absurdities of climate extremism and develop a sensible theory of climate.
In pursuit of this possibility, I told Professor Salby I was going to ask two questions. He said I could ask just one. So I asked one question in two parts.
First, I asked whether the rapid, exponential decay in carbon-14 over the six decades following the atmospheric nuclear bomb tests had any bearing on his research. He said that the decay curve for carbon-14 indicated a mean CO2 atmospheric residence time far below the several hundred years assumed in certain quarters. It supports Dick Lindzen’s estimate of a 40-year residence time, not the IPCC’s imagined 50-200 years.
Secondly, I asked whether Professor Salby had studied what drove global temperature change. He said he had not gotten to that part of the story yet.
In the past year, I said, four separate groups haf contacted me to say they were able to reproduce global temperature change to a high correlation coefficient by considering it as a function of – and, accordingly, dependent upon – the time-integral of total solar irradiance.
If these four groups are correct, and if Professor Salby is also correct, one can begin to sketch out a respectable theory of climate.
The time-integral of total solar irradiance determines changes in global mean surface temperature. Henrik Svensmark’s cosmic-ray amplification, which now has considerable support in the literature, may help to explain the mechanism.
In turn, the time integral of absolute global mean temperature determines the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Here, the mechanism will owe much to Henry’s Law, which mandates that a warmer ocean can carry less CO2 than a colder ocean. I have never seen an attempt at a quantitative analysis of that relationship in this debate, and should be grateful if any of Anthony’s readers can point me to one.
The increased CO2 concentration as the world warms may well act as a feedback amplifying the warming, and perhaps our own CO2 emissions make a small contribution. But we are not the main cause of warmer weather, and certainly not the sole cause.
For the climate, all the world’s a stage. But, if the theory of climate that is emerging in samizdat lectures such as that of Professor Salby is correct, we are mere bit-part players, who strut and fret our hour upon the stage and then are heard no more.
The shrieking hype with which the mainstream news media bigged up Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, ruthlessly exploiting lost lives in their increasingly desperate search for evidence – any evidence – as ex-post-facto justification for their decades of fawning, head-banging acquiescence in the greatest fraud in history shows that they have begun to realize that their attempt at politicizing science itself is failing.
Whether they like it or not, typhoons are acts of God, not of Man.
I asked Professor Salby whether there was enough information in the temperature record to allow him to predict the future evolution of atmospheric CO2 concentration. He said he could not do that.
However, one of the groups working on the dependence of global temperature change on the time-integral of total solar irradiance makes a startling prediction: that we are in for a drop of half a Celsius degree in the next five years.
When I made a glancing reference to that research in an earlier posting, the propagandist John Abraham sneeringly offered me a $1000 bet that the fall in global temperature would not happen.
I did not respond to this characteristically jejune offer. A theory of climate is a hypothesis yet to be verified by observation, experiment and measurement. It is not yet a theorem definitively demonstrated. Explaining the difference to climate communists is likely to prove impossible. To them the Party Line, whatever it is, must be right even if it be wrong.
The group that dares to say it expects an imminent fall in global mean surface temperature does so with great courage, and in the Einsteinian spirit of describing at the outset a test by which its hypothesis may be verified.
Whether that group proves right or wrong, its approach is as consistent with the scientific method as the offering of childish bets is inconsistent with it. In science, all bets are off. As al-Haytham used to say, check and check and check again. He was not talking about checks in settlement of silly wagers.
In due course Professor Salby will publish in the reviewed literature his research on the time-integral of temperature as the driver of CO2 concentration change. So, too, I hope, will the groups working on the time-integral of total solar irradiance as the driver of temperature change.
In the meantime, I hope that those who predict a sharp, near-term fall in global temperature are wrong. Cold is a far bigger killer than warmth. Not that the climate communists of the mainstream media will ever tell you that.
Bart says:
November 10, 2013 at 5:20 pm
Bart, I have worked out an example of the increase in CO2 caused by a combination of a linear temperature increase and a linear concentration release for two cases: a base increase and a 1.5 times faster increase. That gives following result:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sim_co2_upw.jpg
where temperature and upwelling are linearly increasing in both cases, giving a small non-linear increase in slope, but more in the higher upwelling.
The derivatives of both CO2 curves were compared with the slope and variability of T anomaly with the appropriate factor and offset for an exact match of the trends:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sim_dco2_upw.jpg
For the basic upwelling: factor 0.4, offset 1
For the 1.5x upwelling: factor 3, offset 0.08
The problem in the real world is that the variability is mainly from the mid-latitude oceans and from tropical forests, while the upwelling is by far in the tropical oceans, where a change in temperature has its lowest influence. The increase in the atmosphere and especially its non-linearity (and thus the slope in the derivative) is a function of T and CO2 mass flow, while the variability is mostly a function of T and only for a small part from the increase in CO2 mass flow, according to current knowledge. If there was a sevenfold increase in upwelling, that should also give an increase in amplitude in the variability over time…
This shows that the match between T and dCO2/dt can be performed (as good as for any set of linear slopes…), but that if there is a match of the variabilities, that is pure coincidence, as for the slope in dCO2/dt two factors are involved and for the variability of dCO2/dt mainly one of these two…
See further Wood for Trees for the result of an exact slope match of dCO2/dt with the RSU lowertroposphere temperatures: the amplitude is about half of what is observed.
That is not caused by begin- or endpoint bias or performance of measurements, but caused by a fundamental problem in matching a slope and a variability caused by different processes (no matter if that is deep ocean upwelling or human emissions).
This put into question the integration of T anomaly to match the CO2 growth in the atmosphere…
phil. says
When they absorb radiative energy they just rotate/vibrate at a higher rate.
henry says
When they absorb radiative energy they just rotate/vibrate at a higher rate, AND RE-RADIATE, causing said back radiation, i.e.
warming 5-15 um
cooling 0-5 um.
see here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/10/towards-a-theory-of-climate/#comment-1475824
hence the reason why GHG’s also cool the atmosphere by re-radiating sunshine 0-5 um
(which Tyndall and Svante Arhenius did not know so they only looked only in their closed box)
and I am still waiting for someone to show me the balance sheet, for each GHG\
in the right dimensions,
(hint: time must be in it)
Pochas.
What you say is correct and, I think, implied in my narrative.
Eric Barnes.
Thanks for your support. AGW radiative theorists have great problems arising from the concept that a descending air column warms the surface beneath it since it then renders DWIR as a double counting exercise.
Phil
You don’t understand that ALL matter rises to a height related to its kinetic energy content. The reason is that if a parcel of molecules has too much kinetic energy for its height the surplus kinetic energy reduces density and the molecules are forced along the slope of the lapse rate until they attain the correct kinetic energy content for their height. Usually that occurs at or near a temperature inversion such as at the tropopause.
Joel.
The concept of descending air that was previously cold dense air higher up warming up as it falls and warming the surface beneath it is well established basic science but obviously not taken into account in the radiative theory of gases.
Conservation of energy is complied with because it is exactly offset by the opposite effect from rising air elsewhere (subject to temporary variations around the mean).
All:
Try this idea:
There is no net radiative flux in any direction within an atmosphere.
There is only a static haze of IR and the intensity of that haze is graduated along the lapse rate slope from surface to space subject to distortions along the route caused by composition variations in the vertical column of the atmosphere.
IR sensors do not detect a radiative flux. All they do is measure temperatures at differing points along the lapse rate slope. Their data output has been misinterpreted.
If a sensor is pointed at open sky it will focus on a high cold location and give the temperature there.
If a cloud passes over the field of view the sensor will focus there and measure the temperature of the air at that lower warmer location.
If the sensor is enveloped in surface fog it will record the surface temperature right in front of it.
The adiabatic cycle (as modified by the water cycle in the troposphere and other composition variations higher up) deals with the entire energy exchange within an atmosphere and nets out to zero.
The radiative energy exchange between atmosphere and space also nets out to zero.
The basic structure of the whole atmosphere including its height and surface temperature is determined solely by mass, gravity and the intensity of insolation from space.
Other variables including GHGs only affect circulation and the consequent circulation changes alter albedo to keep the system stable.
rgbatduke says:
November 15, 2013 at 7:28 am
Both Richard Courtney and Bart have done numerical work that indicates that one can fairly easily construct carbon cycle models that are at least reasonably plausible and that can reproduce the pitifully short segment of monotonic Mauna Loa data as well as the Bern model does. I’ve played a bit with it myself, and do not think that the Bern model is “proven”, although I don’t think any of the alternative models are particularly proven either.
Richard (and company), Bart and now Salby all have produced different models which are numerically possible. But that is only curve fitting of an indeed quite boring curve.
The problem with all these numerical models is that they indeed are possible, but that they all violate one or several other observations besides the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, while the simple model that all increase is due to human emissions fits all observations.
Richard is not convinced by the observations, Bart refuses all observations which don’t agree with his theory and Salby says that the observations are wrong and even calculates a CO2 diffusion in ice cores which doesn’t exist…
Which doesn’t mean that the Bern model is right. The Bern model is based on saturation of the different sinks over time, if we should burn 3000 and 5000 GtC. Currently we are near 400 GtC since the industrial age. Where the Bern model goes wrong is giving percentages to the different sinks which take the saturation of 3000-5000 GtC for the current 400 GtC.
Thus while the fast (1-3 years) responses indeed are saturated (ocean surface, fast responses of vegetation), others are far from saturated (deep oceans, more permanent storage in vegetation) and give a combined half life time of ~40 years and don’t show any sign of saturation.
Stephen Wilde says:
November 17, 2013 at 4:04 am
Phil
You don’t understand that ALL matter rises to a height related to its kinetic energy content. The reason is that if a parcel of molecules has too much kinetic energy for its height the surplus kinetic energy reduces density and the molecules are forced along the slope of the lapse rate until they attain the correct kinetic energy content for their height. Usually that occurs at or near a temperature inversion such as at the tropopause.
I understand what happens to a gas when it heats up (gains translational kinetic energy). However, when a GHG absorbs photon it doesn’t change its translational KE it rotates/vibrates faster so there is no reason for it to rise. The rot/vib energy doesn’t remain in the GHG molecule however, near the surface its most likely fate is to be shared with neighboring molecules via collisions, so ultimately that absorbed energy is shared among many molecules. An individual GHG molecule will participate in about 10,000,000,000 collisions/sec and only travel about 70nm between collisions. Your idea that a GHG molecule absorbs energy by absorption and then rises to some height dependent on that energy is wrong!
Greg Goodman says:
November 14, 2013 at 1:48 pm
Greg, have a deeper look at the BATS (Bermuda) series, as that gives a quite good idea of what happens in the mid-latitudes:
http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/2509/2012/bg-9-2509-2012.pdf
See the seasonal change in temperature and nDIC (dissolved inorganic carbon normalized for temperature and salinity) in fig 4.
The seasonal temperature amplitude is about 8 K, the seasonal amplitude in nDIC is about 30 μmol/kg, that is the change in concentration of all inorganic carbon available for direct exchange with the atmosphere.
The temperature trend at BATS is near zero over the period 1983-2012, but let us assume that there was a trend of 0.6 K over that period (average HadSST3 NH ocean temperature), one would expect a decrease of ~2.25 μmol/kg of DIC over that period.
In reality, there was an increase of 35 μmol/kg over that period. In the same period CO2 increased in the atmosphere with 50 ppmv, thus pushing more CO2 into the ocean surface (at a rate of ~10% of the change in the atmosphere, thus ~5% of human emissions).
All the extra-tropical oceans are either neutral to sinks for CO2: the ocean surface about 5% of human emissions, the whole biosphere some 10% and the deep oceans (via the polar sink places) some 25%.
One can argue that all human emissions are absorbed at one place and the increase thus is from natural sources, but as human emissions all are directly into the atmosphere and the atmospheric CO2 is readily mixed and nature doesn’t make a differentiation between CO2 from different origin (except a small one in the isotope ratio’s), one can conclude that the full increase is caused by human emissions.
Except if there was a huge increase in natural turnover, for which there is not the slightest evidence.
As an aside: all variability in seasonal and year by year change in increase of CO2 is from the influence of temperature (and precipitation) on mid-latitude oceans and all forests, little is from the influence of temperature on the main upwelling or downwelling places…
Stephen Wilde says:
November 17, 2013 at 4:04 am
“The adiabatic cycle (as modified by the water cycle in the troposphere and other composition variations higher up) deals with the entire energy exchange within an atmosphere and nets out to zero.”
But remember that the adiabatic cycle has two phases. First, it picks up energy at the surface and air parcels start upward. Then, it releases energy in the radiating zone and the parcel starts downward. So, there is a net flux arising from convection.
Stephen Wilde says:
You keep talking about this as if you think it even addresses the problem with your ideas. It does not. Your basic misconception is that you think you are trying to explain the surface energy balance, i.e., you think that if you can just explain how the surface can get warmed by other parts of the atmosphere, then you have satisfied conservation of energy.
The problem with the surface being above 255 K in the absence of a radiative-active atmosphere has nothing to do with SURFACE energy balance. It has to do with the TOP OF THE ATMOSPHERE energy balance. In other words, a temperature above 255 K would lead to the Earth + atmosphere system emitting energy at a rate higher than it receives energy from the sun and it would rapidly cool (until it was down at or below 255 K). There are only two ways that this can be cured:
(1) Having the atmosphere absorb some of this radiation emitted by the surface, which is what the satellites demonstrate is what is in fact happening.
(2) Having some gigantic energy source such as a gravitationally-collapsing atmosphere or significant heat flow from the center of the Earth. But, we know of no such thing that could be happening AND this is incompatible with the satellite data showing that the Earth+ atmosphere is only emitting energy out into space at the rate it receives it from the sun, not at the much higher rate that the surface is emitting.
It’s not so much (or just) that your answers are wrong…It’s that they don’t even answer the right question.
Henry@Greg & Ferdinand
the graph that started this post shows no warming from 1996.
Roughly, this means that natural outgassing of CO2 equaled natural sinc of CO2
hence the 34 ppm extra in the atmosphere is from human origin.
It is 2 ppm’s per annum.
What humans added extra in the atmosphere above that 34 ppm’s clearly went into more lawns, trees, lawns, crops, natural vegetation, more of that green yukkie stuff in the oceans, etc.
What we are talking here is a change in the atmosphere of 0.0034% over 17 years.
And we know that more carbon dixoxide is good.
I hope we are all agreed here that the extra carbon dioxide did not cause any extra measurable warming?
joel says
The problem with the surface being above 255 K in the absence of a radiative-active atmosphere has nothing to do with SURFACE energy balance. It has to do with the TOP OF THE ATMOSPHERE energy balance.
henry says
actually I agree with you there.
this is also where Trenberth’s missing energy can be found/
he looked only at the ozone up there and forgot about the peroxides and n-oxides which I am sure are also increasing now that ozone is going up….
pochas said:
“But remember that the adiabatic cycle has two phases. First, it picks up energy at the surface and air parcels start upward. Then, it releases energy in the radiating zone and the parcel starts downward. So, there is a net flux arising from convection.”
That is true when radiative gases are present but if not then ALL energy has to be transferred back to the surface on the descent phase before radiation out to space.
Hence my point that if radiative gases are present the circulation doesn’t have to work so hard to get all the energy back to the surface. GHGs provide for leakage to space from the adiabatic cycle.
In the absence of radiative gases there is no net flux arising from convection. The reduction of temperature with height is sufficient to perpetuate the adiabatic convective cycle even if no radiation to space occurs. Hence the impossibility of an isothermal atmosphere arising as per Roy Spencer’s suggestion or the sort of halfway house that rgb proposed.
Note that density is relative. Although uplifted air becomes less dense with height the fact that it cools with height makes it denser than it otherwise would have been. At a specific height the increase in density from cooling more than offsets the reduction in density with height and it starts to descend.
phil said:
“The rot/vib energy doesn’t remain in the GHG molecule however, near the surface its most likely fate is to be shared with neighboring molecules via collisions, so ultimately that absorbed energy is shared among many molecules.”
Yes, but I referred to a parcel of gases which includes all those to which the GHG molecule has transferred energy. Taking that parcel of radiative and non radiative molecules as a whole they will rise higher along the lapse rate slope until they are at the correct height for their averaged kinetic energy content and that involves shifting excess KE to PE as height increases.
GHGs cause a higher atmosphere but no rise in surface temperature and the global air circulation then changes to negate the effect often changing albedo via cloudiness or ice and snow cover variations in the process.
In the end the energy balance set by mass, gravity and insolation is restored.
Joel said:
“The problem with the surface being above 255 K in the absence of a radiative-active atmosphere has nothing to do with SURFACE energy balance. It has to do with the TOP OF THE ATMOSPHERE energy balance.”
Of course it does.
But note that TOP OF THE ATMOSPHERE energy balance has to be net zero over time despite variations about the mean otherwise the atmosphere cannot be retained.
The logical implication is that the surplus energy at the surface is recycled within the atmosphere in a discrete (adiabatic) energy loop which does not affect ToA radiative balance except maybe temporarily when system adjustments are in progress. In practice that means ToA radiative imbalances occur all the time as the system varies either side of the mean as a negative system circulatory response to various forcing elements other than changes in mass, gravity or insolation. Such other forcing elements would include the thermal effects of changing GHG amounts.
By far the largest disruptive influences are solar and oceanic variations (followed by volcanic outbreaks) which relegate the significance of our emissions to near zero.
Joel said:
“Having some gigantic energy source such as a gravitationally-collapsing atmosphere.”
Not necessary. All one needs is variations in the amount of work needing to be done to shift mass against or with the force of gravity.
That is why I zeroed in on the gas constant Rspecific.which sets a number for the work required to raise 1KG of a specific mixture of gases to a height where it is one degree colder along the lapse rate slope set by gravity.
For that purpose adjustments in atmospheric height are all that one needs as per the Gas Laws.
I must admit that my thoughts are becoming clearer in the process of dealing with objections and so far I do not see a fatal flaw.
Joel said:
“Having the atmosphere absorb some of this radiation emitted by the surface, which is what the satellites demonstrate is what is in fact happening.”
Quite so, but by way of an expanded atmosphere which converts that ‘excess’ portion of radiation emitted by the surface to PE (not heat) instead of KE (heat).
Then the circulation shifts to negate even that effect and return atmospheric height to the original level as set by mass, gravity and insolation.
I really cannot see a way out for the radiative theory in light of the available negative system responses.
I am humble enough to try and look for ways that the radiative theory could work but my meteorological experience tells me otherwise.
We have all heard of down slope Foehn winds and various regional versions. The fact is that descending dry air warms at the dry adiabatic lapse rate which is actually faster than the upward moist rate hence all those hot, dry, down slope winds around the world.
Quite simply, the surface is kept warm by the fact that at any given time 50% of the atmosphere is descending and warming at the dry adiabatic rate and it is that which keeps the surface temperature higher than predicted by the S-B constant and not DWIR from radiative gases.
The concept of DWIR constitutes double counting once one realises what adiabatically warmed descending air can achieve at a planetary surface.
Greg Goodman says:
November 15, 2013 at 3:43 pm
“Bart, re. sinc fn and ‘averaging’ filters , see this article:”
Good point about the phase jumps for the straight average. I have it so ingrained in me that a symmetric FIR filter has linear phase that I sometimes forget there can be jumps.
Ferdinand Engelbeen says:
November 16, 2013 at 12:06 pm
I do not see anything new here which would require modification to what I have presented previously.
Phil. says:
November 17, 2013 at 5:47 am
“However, when a GHG absorbs photon it doesn’t change its translational KE it rotates/vibrates faster so there is no reason for it to rise.”
Linear momentum must be conserved. Absorption of a photon changes the momentum of a particle by h/lambda, the Planck constant divided by the wavelength. When the photon orginates from the ground, the momentum it imparts is always upward.
phil said:
“when a GHG absorbs a photon it doesn’t change its translational KE it rotates/vibrates faster so there is no reason for it to rise.”
You seem to be implying that an effect on translational KE is needed to make the molecule warmer so that it has to rise.
but see here:
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy05/phy05161.htm
“Temperature is due to “internal” kinetic energy, the vibrational and rotational parts. Actually, translational kinetic energy per molecule is not significant in most cases. The random motions due to the bouncing around, due to the forces within and between individual molecules, are what we measure as temperature. Although heat energy needed to raise the temperature of a material also contributes to potential energy, temperature is an expression of only the kinetic energy. ”
Apparently if a photon increases rotational and vibrational energy then that does increase temperature, density must decrease and the molecules must rise.
That is the opposite of your contention.
The point about only kinetic energy being expressed as temperature confirms my earlier point about potential energy not being expressed as temperature.
Stephen Wilde 10:55am: “The concept of DWIR constitutes double counting once one realises what adiabatically warmed descending air can achieve at a planetary surface.”
Adiabatically warmed? I’ll leave that easy target for others.
Let’s turn to a harder example of a body directly exposed to a still clear night sky being cooled below ambient temperature by radiation to space. Stephen should know one can freeze water in shallow trays well insulated from the ground in certain of these conditions when the ambient is above freezing.
Assume Stephen is right (he’s not) that warm descending still air only from free convection is all the energy received by the water from the night sky in this example. As Stephen tells the narrative, DWIR is double counting so it is to be neglected.
What is the maximum permitted air temperature for which freezing is possible in a shallow tray w/o DWIR?
This is calculated in Transport Phenomena by R. Byron Bird. For those readers w/o a copy on your library shelf, google: “estimate the maximum air temperature” freezing is possible
Find the maximum ambient air temperature allowed for freezing that water neglecting DWIR is 170F.
I ask Stephen if that makes any sense at all in his real world meteorological experience? I would say 170F is ludicrous high. But Stephen has all the perfect answers, let’s see how he thinks 170F makes any physical sense at all given the Wilde Ltd. Theory of Atmospheric Thermodynamics. Which can be equivalent treating a problem in aerodynamics by neglecting the air.
NB: The authors tell us assume the more realistic proper DWIR measured by NOAA and find a greatly lower max. ambient temperature allowed to freeze that water.
Stephen Wilde says:
November 17, 2013 at 12:33 pm
phil said:
“when a GHG absorbs a photon it doesn’t change its translational KE it rotates/vibrates faster so there is no reason for it to rise.”
You seem to be implying that an effect on translational KE is needed to make the molecule warmer so that it has to rise.
No I’m explicitly stating it as a fact!
See here for example:
“The more familiar form expresses the average molecular kinetic energy:
KE= (mv^2)/2 = 3kT/2
It is important to note that the average kinetic energy used here is limited to the translational kinetic energy of the molecules. That is, they are treated as point masses and no account is made of internal degrees of freedom such as molecular rotation and vibration. This distinction becomes quite important when you deal with subjects like the specific heats of gases. When you try to assess specific heat, you must account for all the energy possessed by the molecules, and the temperature as ordinarily measured does not account for molecular rotation and vibration. The kinetic temperature is the variable needed for subjects like heat transfer, because it is the translational kinetic energy which leads to energy transfer from a hot area (larger kinetic temperature, higher molecular speeds) to a cold area (lower molecular speeds) in direct collisional transfer.”
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/kinetic/kintem.html#c1
Congratulations on finding a source that gets it wrong, although they are correct when they say:
“temperature is an expression of only the kinetic energy. ”
You said:
Apparently if a photon increases rotational and vibrational energy then that does increase temperature, density must decrease and the molecules must rise.
That is the opposite of your contention.
That is indeed the opposite of what i said and it is categorically wrong!
To assist Trick and others like him:
http://uk.msn.com/?ocid=OIE9HP
and
“As air descends through the troposphere it experiences increasing atmospheric pressure. This causes the parcel volume to decrease in size, squeezing the air molecules closer together. In this case, work is being done on the parcel. As the volume shrinks, air molecules bounce off one another more often ricocheting with greater speed. The increase in molecular movement causes an increase in the temperature of the parcel. This process is referred to as adiabatic warming. ”
from here
http://www4.uwsp.edu/geo/faculty/ritter/geog101/textbook/atmospheric_moisture/lapse_rates_1.html
Adding DWIR is double counting.
The phenomena of surface or near surface cooling that Trick refers to are local to areas and times when surface radiative cooling exceeds redelivery back to the surface from the descending column. Usually an inversion develops.
Phil. says:
November 17, 2013 at 12:58 pm
You still have not accounted for conservation of linear momentum.
phil:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/ke.html
“the total kinetic energy of a mass can be expressed as the sum of the translational kinetic energy of its center of mass plus the kinetic energy of rotation about its center of mass. ”
That means both rotation / vibration and translational energy must be summed to obtain total kinetic energy and it is total kinetic energy that determines temperature.
Are your contributions sincere or are you trying to save face ?
The same source says this:
“The total mechanical energy of an object is the sum of its kinetic energy and potential energy”
Which I’ve been telling you, rgb, et al all along.
And it is MECHANICAL energy that matters, just as I said.
Completely omitted from the radiative theory.
One of my links is incorrect. Try this:
http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter6/adiab_warm.html
Bart says: November 17, 2013 at 1:17 pm
“You still have not accounted for conservation of linear momentum.”
In fact, conservation of momentum establishes Phil.’s point. The energy of photon and molecule (ke) are roughly comparable. To get the momentum you divide by a velocity. For the molecule, this is a measure of the translational velocity. For the photon, it’s the speed of light, orders of magnitude higher. The photon momentum is negligible in comparison.
So if the linear (and angular) momentum of the molecule is essentially unchanged, energy can only increase by vibration.
For gas properties, the effect is even smaller, because upmoving molecules will get a tiny gain in translational KE, downmoving a tiny loss, so it averages out.
Stephen is madly googling but not understanding parcel enthalpy yet or moving any closer to a theory of climate.
Adiabatic warming means same adiabatic cooling of the surface happened at earlier time, my point was adiabatic means no net surface warming. The DWIR is the important physical process for balancing energy in and out for surface Tmean in the bath of radiation near a planet global surface, the water will freeze.
Yes, the temperature (the avg. 1/2 m*v^2 of the translational masses of polyatomic molecules) increases in that descending parcel but p*V term indicates enthalpy is very closely conserved meaning what? The energy that left the surface in the parcel is pretty much returned; not much net surface temperature change. Except for the pesky entropy that has escaped the parcel into the wild and increased (or at best kept the same) universe entropy in the process of ascending and descending.
Why do I have to hedge a bit? Because although most processes in the atm. are very close to isobaric meaning little change in P (so dP*V term = 0 during the process changes and conserving of enthalpy) this is not exactly the case, dp ~0.0 for atm. processes we want to understand better but not exactly. For example, it is close enough we can determine the max. temperature allowed for freezing that water for observations to prove the calculations.
Stephen – Again, understand Joel when he writes: “The real physics of how this all works is, frankly, quite fascinating. You ought to be focusing your efforts on trying to understand it rather than trying to defeat it with incorrect physics.”
Stephen 1:28pm: “The total mechanical energy of an object is the sum of its kinetic energy and potential energy”
This is true for each molecule in a parcel. For the parcel as a whole though, it is untrue, as the p*V term enters into total energy of the parcel which Stephen continues to miss. Total energy parcel = U + W = KE+PE+p*V= gas enthalpy. Enthalpy is the same for solids actually, but the p*V change is sooooo…. small it is possible to neglect and still get solid rockets to deliver payloads close enough to say Pluto, still a planet IMO.
Stephen Wilde says:
This is just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo that cannot cure the problem: The surface is radiatively emitting more energy than it is possible for the Earth-atmosphere system to emit. The only way that this radiative energy won’t escape the atmosphere is if it is absorbed by the atmosphere.
Frankly, that last statement is something you should be extremely embarrassed about. That you cannot see the fatal flaws in your arguments after all of this time despite having them explained to you over and over again is testimony to how completely deluded you are and lacking in any self-awareness of just how bad your understanding of the basic physics is.
We have spent considerable time explaining it to you and you respond with nonsense that does not address our objections in any way.
That is because you don’t understand the radiative theory and you don’t understand enough physics to ever see the errors in your own arguments. Furthermore, you have made the commitment to remain ignorant. Such a commitment to ignorance cannot be overcome by any amount of explanation.
Stephen Wilde says:
The problem with the surface being above 255 K in the absence of a radiative-active atmosphere has nothing to do with SURFACE energy balance. It has to do with the TOP OF THE ATMOSPHERE energy balance. In other words, a temperature above 255 K would lead to the Earth + atmosphere system emitting energy at a rate higher than it receives energy from the sun and it would rapidly cool (until it was down at or below 255 K).
That last paragrph is an exact repeat of what I wrote before. I am repeating it because apparently it did not sink in. Is this concept really that hard to understand? You cannot explain the high temperature of the surface by appealing things going on in the atmosphere. I don’t care the atmosphere is providing a trillion watts per meter by your magical processes. That still doesn’t change the fact that the Earth+atmosphere system is only receiving 240 W/m^2 from the sun and hence can only radiate 240 W/m^2 back into space…And, there is no way that a surface at 288 K with emissivities close to 100% in the emitted wavelength range is going to emit only 240 W/m^2, which means the atmosphere has to absorb some of these emissions…and, indeed, the DATA shows us that this is exactly what it does.
I said:
…Other than, obviously, the absorption of some of the radiation emitted by the surface. The point is that the issue is NOT the fact that the temperature of the surface is so high in and of itself. The issue is that the resulting emission from a surface at that temperature is too large. That much energy cannot possibly be emitted out to space and thus some of it has to be absorbed.
This isn’t complicated stuff, like feedbacks and the like. This is really basic, simple physics that anybody should be able to understand.