Note: two events at AGU13 this morning dovetail in with this essay. The first, a slide from Dr. Judith Lean which says: “There are no operational forecasts of global climate change”.
The second was a tweet by Dr. Gavin Schmidt, attending Lenny Smith’s lecture (which I couldn’t due to needing to file a radio news report from the AGU press room) that said:
Smith: usefulness of climate models for mitigation 'as good as it gets', usefulness for adaptation? Not so much #AGU13
— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) December 10, 2013
With those events in mind, this essay from Dr. William Gray (of hurricane forecasting fame) is prescient.
Guest essay by Dr. William M. Gray
My 60-year experience in meteorology has led me to develop a profound disrespect for the philosophy and science behind numerical climate modeling. The simulations that have been directed at determining the influence of a doubling of CO2 on Earth’s temperature have been made with flawed and oversimplified internal physical assumptions. These modeling scenarios have shown a near uniformity in CO2 doubling causing a warming of 2-5oC (4-9oF). There is no physical way, however, that an atmospheric doubling of the very small amount of background CO2 gas would ever be able to bring about such large global temperature increases.
It is no surprise that the global temperature in recent decades has not been rising as the climate models have predicted. Reliable long-range climate modeling is not possible and may never be possible. It is in our nation’s best interest that this mode of prophecy be exposed for its inherent futility. Belief in these climate model predictions has had a profound deleterious influence on our country’s (and foreign) governmental policies on the environment and energy.
The still-strong—but false—belief that skillful long-range climate prediction is possible is thus a dangerous idea. The results of the climate models have helped foster the current political clamor for greatly reducing fossil fuel use even though electricity generation costs from wind and solar are typically three to five times higher than generation from fossil fuels. The excuse for this clamor for renewable energy is to a large extent the strongly expressed views of the five Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, which are based on the large (and unrealistic) catastrophic global warming projections from climate models.
The pervasive influence of these IPCC reports (from 1990 to 2013) derives from the near-universal lack of climate knowledge among the general population. Overly biased and sensational media reports have been able to brainwash a high percentage of the public. A very similar lack of sophisticated climate knowledge exists among our top government officials, environmentalists, and most of the world’s prestigious scientists. Holding a high government position or having excelled in a non-climate scientific specialty does not automatically confer a superior understanding of climate.
Lack of climate understanding, however, has not prevented our government leaders and others from using the public’s fear of detrimental climate change as a political or social tool to further some of their other desired goals. Climate modeling output lends an air of authority that is not warranted by the unrealistic model input physics and the overly simplified and inadequate numerical techniques. (Model grids cannot resolve cumulus convective elements, for example.) It is impossible for climate models to predict the globe’s future climate for at least three basic reasons.
One, decadal and century-scale deep-ocean circulation changes (likely related to long time-scale ocean salinity variations), such as the global Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) and Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation (THC), are very difficult to measure and are not yet well-enough understood to be included realistically in the climate models. The last century-and-a-half global warming of ~0.6oC appears to be a result of the general slowdown of the oceans’ MOC over this period. The number of multidecadal up-and-down global mean temperature changes appears also to have been driven by the multidecadal MOC. Models do not yet incorporate this fundamental physical component.
Two, the very large climate modeling overestimates of global warming are primarily a result of the assumed positive water-vapor feedback processes (about 2oC extra global warming with a CO2 doubling in most models). Models assume any upper tropospheric warming also brings about upper tropospheric water-vapor increase as well, because they assume atmospheric relative humidity (RH) remains quasi-constant. But measurements and theoretical considerations of deep cumulonimbus (Cb) convective clouds indicate any increase of CO2 and its associated increase in global rainfall would lead to a reduction of upper tropospheric RH and a consequent enhancement (not curtailment) of Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) to space.
The water-vapor feedback loop, in reality, is weakly negative, not strongly positive as nearly all the model CO2 doubling simulations indicate. The climate models are not able to resolve or correctly parameterize the fundamentally important climate forcing influences of the deep penetrating cumulonimbus (Cb) convection elements. This is a fundamental deficiency.
Three, the CO2 global warming question has so far been treated from a “radiation only” perspective. Disregarding water-vapor feedback changes, it has been assumed a doubling of CO2 will cause a blockage of Outgoing Long-wave Radiation (OLR) of 3.7 Wm-2. To compensate for this blockage without feedback, it has been assumed an enhanced global warming of about 1oC would be required for counterbalance. But global energy budget considerations indicate only about half (0.5oC, not 1oC) of the 3.7 Wm-2 OLR blockage of CO2 should be expected to be expended for temperature compensation. The other half of the compensation for the 3.7 Wm-2 OLR blockage will come from the extra energy that must be utilized for surface evaporation (~1.85 Wm-2) to sustain the needed increase of the global hydrologic cycle by about 2 percent.
Earth experiences a unique climate because of its 70 percent water surface and its continuously functioning hydrologic cycle. The stronger the globe’s hydrologic cycle, the greater the globe’s cooling potential. All the global energy used for surface evaporation and tropospheric condensation warming is lost to space through OLR flux.
Thus, with zero water-vapor feedback we should expect a doubling of CO2 to cause no more than about 0.5oC (not 1oC) of global warming and the rest of the compensation to come from enhanced surface evaporation, atmospheric condensation warming, and enhanced OLR to space. If there is a small negative water-vapor feedback of only -0.1 to -0.3oC (as I believe to be the case), then a doubling of CO2 should be expected to cause a global warming of no more than about 0.2-0.4oC. Such a small temperature change should be of little societal concern during the remainder of this century.
It is the height of foolishness for the United States or any foreign government to base any energy or environmental policy decisions on the results of long-range numerical climate model predictions, or of the recommendations emanating from the biased, politically driven reports of the IPCC.
###
William M. Gray, Ph.D. (gray@atmos.colostate.edu) is professor emeritus of atmospheric science at Colorado State University and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at CSU’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences.
last Cont
I am pretty sure that Anthony also accepts GHG’s slow cooling….
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/27/new-wuwt-tv-segment-slaying-the-slayers-with-watts/
“As readers may know, Dr. Roy Spencer and I have had a long running disagreement with the group known as “Principia Scientific International” aka the Sky Dragon Slayers after the title of their book. While I think these people mean well, they tend to ignore real world measurements in favor of self-deduced science. They claim on their web page that “the Greenhouse gas effect is bogus” and thus ignore many measurements of IR absorptivity in the atmosphere which show that it is indeed a real effect. Rational climate skeptics acknowledge that the greenhouse effect exists and functions in Earth’s atmosphere, but that an accelerated greenhouse effect due to increased CO2 emissions doesn’t rise to the level of alarm being portrayed. Yes, there’s an effect, but as recent climate sensitivity studies show, it isn’t as problematic as it is made out to be.”
Trick says:
December 14, 2013 at 7:19 pm
Konrad 6:07pm: Once again, you avoid the obvious need to demonstrate theory and empirically exactly where the Fig. 7-12 and Eqn. 7.16 are misleading. The basic science behind them will be thought sound and will keep being used successfully in text books, solar system and exoplanet research until you do so.
“You cannot on one hand claim that changing the pattern of radiative energy transport within the land/ocean/atmosphere system can change the equilibrium temperature of the system while refusing to acknowledge that changes in mechanical energy transport can do the same.”
Yes. I can. Do not count any energy that doesn’t cross the control volume of interest in calculating Tmean, only radiation crosses CV. Thermo. 101. Look it up. The mechanical energy doesn’t exit the control volume to deep space so don’t count it in eqn. 7.16. Wind doesn’t change the system equilibrium temperature Tmean=288K more than about 0.7K SST thru ocean emissivity which can cross the CV. This is the lesson you miss. Wind just moves the energy around in the CV.
Mess with the radiation crossing the CV, energy in and out of your experiments and you can mess with Tmean. CO2 and every other gas in the atm. does so in Tmean=288K with f=0.77 thru Fig. 7-11. Nothing you have tested shows otherwise.
Show a theory or empirical issue with eqn. 7.16 or Fig. 7-12 and I will again be interested.
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Agreed in entirety Trick.
Despite thousands of words, TB still cannot refute what Planet Earth is clearly telling us: CO2 has a negligible effect. It is too small to even measure at current concentrations.
Thus, the entire “carbon” scare is thoroughly debunked by the ultimate Authority: the real world.
By all means, TB, continue pontificating, splitting hairs, and nitpicking. Your comments add to the site traffic of this most excellent blog, while making no difference whatever to the planet.
But don’t fool yourself into believing that catastropic runaway global warming predictions have any credibility. They don’t, as the rest of us can clearly see. Your side lost that debate long ago.
Konrad 5:13am: Doesn’t bring much if anything new to light but it is an interesting rehash. With that, I will try some hash tags. Wish me luck.
“Nowhere do I dispute figures for ocean emissivity or absorption…But LWIR is absorbed in the first few microns of the skin evaporation layer.”
Good, maybe there IS less futility here, Konrad comes around to agree with that part of eqn. 7.16, this is all you need to agree with here. The oceanic evaporative cooling is recycled in the CV as latent heat. No loss or gain to deep space in that cycle so no affect on Tmean. As you note, since LWIR is absorbed by ocean water, then LWIR is emitted by ocean water, epsilon 0.98 or on a windy day 0.984. This all fits with eqn. 7.16 rounded up to 1.0 simply for understanding the basics.
“I have both given you an empirical experiment confirming the radiative physics behind these, and also experiments proving why these alone cannot be used to determine atmospheric temperatures for a moving gas atmosphere in a gravity field.”
This is, again, your own incorrect conclusion since incompatible with current basic theory, from uncontrolled experiments that do not model an atm. because it is well demonstrated 7.16 computes atm. surface Tmean = 288K with measured input data and that is Earth near surface Tmean as measured by GHCN thermometers about 1.5-2m AGL. Again, the moving gas is completely within the CV of interest; as such does not cross the control volume of interest and has no effect on atm. Tmean. Or show your computation that replaces 7.16. And drive entire fields of planetary study forward.
“But my statement nowhere claims conduction from the atmosphere to the vacuum of space.”
I didn’t assume anything – I just read your own statement. What is there about all energy entering and exiting an atmosphere that can cause a reader to know you do not mean to deep space? Nothing. NOW you tell the reader what you really meant.
Konrad continues: “..the surface is far better at conductively heating the atmosphere than it is at conductively cooling it.”
You will want to look into Fourier conduction law to correct this new nonsense. If I show you, it will be dismissed as an appeal to Fourier’s authority.
“Energy can only exit a non-radiative atmosphere through conduction back to the planets surface.”
And eqn. 7.16 handles this equilibrium perfectly well, just set f=0.0 for no theoretical radiative transfer and calculate the new Tmean, Earth’s conduction is already part of the input numbers.
“This is the wrong approach as it ignores gravity, pressure gradient, gas conduction and fluid dynamics.”
Eqn. 7.16 does not ignore gravity, pressure gradient or conduction, 7.16 100% depends on them in the classic derivation (look up hydrostatic equilibrium in an atm. -Bohren 1998). Eqn. 7.16 ignores fluid dynamics because they do not exit or gain energy to/from deep space which is obviously unphysical.
“this is little more than an attempt at “call to authority”, a poor form of debate.”
Argument from authorities is perfectly ok if cited in debate as I have used it since a team is always better than an individual: 1) cited experts in the field, 2) the field of experts in text books are in agreement on use of basic eqn. 7.16, 7-11 and 7-12, and 3) no deductive reasoning context, I’ve shown reliance on the basic physics in 7-11, 7-12, 7.16.
“For a gas column in a gravity field, the relative height of energy entry and exit from the column is critical to determining the average temperature of the gas column.”
Concur. But irrelevant to the futility of long range numerical climate prediction basics.
“…every climate model based on the radiative greenhouse hypothesis has failed,…
Not every one. Callendar 1938 has not failed, resistance to that is futile. So there IS one GHE model that has worked out just fine give or take. Ironic that increasing complexity failed to decrease the futility. But science progresses since can shoot a projectile close to Pluto and its moons now where once they just exploded on the pad.
******
LP Buckingham 6:13pm: “What Konrad is arguing, I think, is that there is a gap in the physics when AGW apply it in a GCM hypothetical model.”
No, Konrad is arguing against the basic atm. thermo. text book use of Eqn. 7.16. It is obvious to all interested that modern climate models have issues at current time.
Lewis P Buckingham says:
December 16, 2013 at 6:30 pm
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Essentially I am confirming what Dr. Grey says in the essay this thread is based on claims –
“the CO2 global warming question has so far been treated from a “radiation only” perspective”
and –
“The simulations that have been directed at determining the influence of a doubling of CO2 on Earth’s temperature have been made with flawed and oversimplified internal physical assumptions.”
Quite simply in the “basic physics of the settled science” gravity, atmospheric pressure gradient, gas conduction and fluid dynamics were not properly considered or in the case of gas conduction and fluid dynamics, not considered at all.
Post 1990 radiative-convective models were just a patch up job to hold the sham together.
Trick is urging you to run back to the textbooks. But every climate model based on the radiative greenhouse effect as described in the texts has failed. What to do? Just as you say, “examine the horse”
I have shown the way to “examine the horse” with empirical experiments you can replicate for yourself.
Does the two shell radiative model work?
http://i44.tinypic.com/2n0q72w.jpg
http://i43.tinypic.com/33dwg2g.jpg
http://i43.tinypic.com/2wrlris.jpg
The answer is yes, the target plate in chamber 1 reaches a higher temperature.
Does it work for a moving gas atmosphere in a gravity field or are gas conduction and fluid dynamics also critical for determining gas temperatures?
http://i48.tinypic.com/124fry8.jpg
Build two EPS foam insulated gas columns 1m or higher with equal flow rates of heating and cooling water running through their aluminium heat exchanger tubes. Start both columns at the same temperature and run until they reach equilibrium. Despite equal temperatures of the exchanger tubes in both gas columns, one column stabilises at a far higher equilibrium temperature. Once equilibrium temperature is reached, equal amounts of energy can be flowing into and out of each column, but one has a higher average temperature. Quite simply the physics behind this experiment is critical to determining atmospheric temperatures and it is not included in the “basic physics” of the “settled science”
Which gas column reaches the higher average temperature and why?
Which column best represents an atmosphere with radiative cooling at altitude, and which best represents an atmosphere only conductively heated and cooled at the surface?
How can you get both columns to run at the same average temperature without altering the flow rates through the heating and cooling tubes?
Climate scientists claim downwelling LWIR can slow the cooling rate of the oceans. Can incident LWIR slow the cooling of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool as it does other materials?
http://i42.tinypic.com/2h6rsoz.jpg
Fill both sample chambers with 40C water and observe the cooling rate under the two different LWIR sources. Is there any difference in cooling rate below the strong and weak LWIR sources?Now repeat the experiment with a thin film of LDPE plastic cling wrap floated on the surface of each water sample. Now the water can still cool by conduction and radiation, but not by evaporation. Is there now a marked difference in the cooling rate between the two samples?
The “horse scientists” are telling you the horse is alive and well, but it doesn’t seem to be moving and there are a lot of flies and a terrible stench. You could take their word for it or examine the horse for yourself 😉
PS. If you are in Sydney you can check out some of my work at the new Central Park development. I can assure you that the aerodynamics and structural design of the big yellow structure in the park was not achieved by just running back to the textbooks. Empirical experiment was required. I worked on the aero, structure CAD, FEA and CNC. The Engineers Australia awards display showing the development should also still be up at the PowerHouse museum. You could report back to poster “BW2013” who wanted to know 😉
TB says:
December 16, 2013 at 5:16 pm
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Wow! What a snow storm! Shakespeare covered this – “methinks the lady doth protest to much” 😉
Amongst the storm, you raised the issue of the PSI group. I have no association with them, and as the blog record shows I have disputed their false claims here, at Dr. Spencer’s and Jo Nova’s sites. Any implication that I have any link with PSI will get you nowhere.
As to Dr. Spencer, you may well be disappointed –
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/12/what-if-there-was-no-greenhouse-effect/
Here you will see that Dr. Spencer agrees that there would be no strong vertical convective circulation under the tropopause without radiative gases. He still claims that a doubling of CO2 could cause 0.5C of warming. I am claiming it would cause an immeasurably small amount of cooling. Did Dr. Spencer get something wrong? Yes –
“Only the surface and a shallow layer of air next to the surface would go through a day-night cycle of heating and cooling. The rest of the atmosphere would be at approximately the same temperature as the average surface temperature. And without a falloff of temperature with height in the atmosphere of at least 10 deg. C per kilometer, all atmospheric convection would stop.”
And the mistake? Right here – “ The rest of the atmosphere would be at approximately the same temperature as the average surface temperature”. The same error Trick makes. As empirical experiment shows, it is surface Tmax that will drive the temperature of such an isothermal atmosphere not surface Tav.
TB, you have disputed my claim that radiative gases play a critical role in tropospheric convective circulation and that this circulation would stall in their absence. Then you invoked Dr. Spencer, who claims the same thing. I think this could be call pulling a “Trick.” Trick has an unfortunate habit of carelessly using cites like the Callender 1938 paper that undermine his argument 😉
Trick says:
December 16, 2013 at 7:20 pm
————————————————
I state –
“Nowhere do I dispute figures for ocean emissivity or absorption…But LWIR is absorbed in the first few microns of the skin evaporation layer.” And the critical part you left out of your reply – “It simply trips a few molecules from liquid to vapour slightly sooner than they otherwise would. It does not effect the cooling rate of liquid below this layer.”
You try –
“Good, maybe there IS less futility here, Konrad comes around to agree with that part of eqn. 7.16, this is all you need to agree with here. The oceanic evaporative cooling is recycled in the CV as latent heat. No loss or gain to deep space in that cycle so no affect on Tmean. As you note, since LWIR is absorbed by ocean water, then LWIR is emitted by ocean water, epsilon 0.98 or on a windy day 0.984. This all fits with eqn. 7.16 rounded up to 1.0 simply for understanding the basics.”
But your reply in no way disproves what I have always been claiming and backing up with empirical experiment (since 2011?). Incident LWIR does not slow the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool. This means at least two main claims of climate scientists are false. First there would be no “snowball earth” with frozen oceans in the absence of radiative gases and second, there is no “missing heat” hiding in the oceans.
You state –
“Again, the moving gas is completely within the CV of interest; as such does not cross the control volume of interest and has no effect on atm. Tmean.”
And –
“Eqn. 7.16 ignores fluid dynamics because they do not exit or gain energy to/from deep space which is obviously unphysical.”
But then in response to to this –
K- “For a gas column in a gravity field, the relative height of energy entry and exit from the column is critical to determining the average temperature of the gas column.”
You state –
“Concur. But irrelevant to the futility of long range numerical climate prediction basics.”
Concur? Finally!
Now let’s see how irrelevant or not it is.
For a non-radiative atmosphere energy would be only entering and exiting the atmosphere from the base of the atmosphere.
For a radiative atmosphere energy would be entering the base and exiting the top of the atmosphere.
Now if you concur that – “For a gas column in a gravity field, the relative height of energy entry and exit from the column is critical to determining the average temperature of the gas column.”
– that would be game, set and match. SB equations alone therefore cannot determine the temperature of a moving gas atmosphere over a liquid ocean. In the case of the radiative greenhouse hypothesis, the null hypothesis, that the 255K figure is in error and no extra 33K need be found to raise it to 288K , still stands.
Earth’s climate in four thought experiments:
1. no atmosphere = climate too cold, radiative equilibrium, no weather, effective temperature
2. non-radiative atmosphere = climate too hot, radiative equilibrium, no weather, effective temperature
3. radiative atmosphere = climate just right, radiative equilibrium, weather oscillating, effective temperature oscillating
4. radiative atmosphere with composition in flux = climate chaotic, radiative non-equiibrium, weather chaotic, no effective temperature
😉
LP Buckingham 1:12am -“.. know nothing of atmospheric physics.”
I understand your issue. Astonishing to me is that many posters do not admit this or bother to study the basics of atm. physics, preferring to just have a view; it is easier to post shocking stuff that way.
IMO Konrad’s view is that the futility of general circulation climate models long range predictions is because corpus of planetary and exoplanet basic science is wrong in that the corpus does not consider planets with atmospheres are windy.
The science shows the futility of climate long range predictions comes from the input and output variables that do their thing – they vary chaotically. The basic corpus is correct with no or little futility and inherently allows for windy planets. Sea surface temperatures are known to vary by 0.7 degree Kelvin between no wind and windy conditions. This is 0.2% of the surface Tmean well within instrumentation error.
Digging deeper, general circulation models (GCMs) are known to predict differently than observations of nature – this futility of predictions is evident at the moment and not because the basic science is unfounded. In my view, the GCMs complexity is not yet sufficient but will be eventually improved because, again, the fundamental science is sound (Chapt. 7, Fig.s 7-11, 7-12 and eqn. 7.16).
Konrad disagrees with eqn. 7.16; his challenge remains to write out an improved eqn. Note in this thread Konrad studiously avoids doing so. In the scientific method, 1st step is write down your new theory a priori then proceed to step 2: show natural experiments back it up. Konrad completely skips step 1. If Konrad actually made basic progress, then it would be adopted in the basic corpus. Konrad offers no evidence of this coming about.
It is always gratifying to see competitors adopt your new invention “baby”; so far Konrad’s stuff is not adopted – it is orphaned for good reason. Konrad’s view offers no theoretical progress in the field as yet.
Konrad 10:00pm: “For a radiative atmosphere energy would be entering the base and exiting the top of the atmosphere.”
Konrad misses quite more than even I can see. Those proficient in the subject know solar energy is absorbed (“entering”) the atm. throughout the entire column. TOA down to BOA, not just “the base”. They also know all of Konrad’s experiments follow 1st law as does eqn. 7.16.
Most Konrad’s other questions/conclusions are not interestingly new from other posts, demonstrate no progress in the field, theory already shown in error by those proficient in the subject matter (cite corpus basic text books & published papers) and OT anyway.
Trick says:
December 17, 2013 at 9:20 am
———————————————–
“IMO Konrad’s view is that the futility of general circulation climate models long range predictions is because corpus of planetary and exoplanet basic science is wrong in that the corpus does not consider planets with atmospheres are windy.”
Wrong. First my claims relate primarily to the failure of the basic two shell radiation only models used in the “basic physics” of the “settled science” as in figure 7.12. This is not some trivial mistake about “wind”. This is about a critical error in modelling the role of radiative gases in driving strong vertical convective circulation in the troposphere. It is this circulation that generates the observed lapse rate and is the primary energy transport away from the surface into the atmosphere.
“Konrad disagrees with eqn. 7.16” his challenge remains to write out an improved eqn. Note in this thread Konrad studiously avoids doing so. In the scientific method, 1st step is write down your new theory a priori then proceed to step 2: show natural experiments back it up. Konrad completely skips step 1. If Konrad actually made basic progress, then it would be adopted in the basic corpus. Konrad offers no evidence of this coming about.”
No, that won’t work. I clearly do not disagree with equation 7.16, just its mis-application to a moving gas atmosphere above a liquid ocean. I even give an empirical experiment showing how the physics behind the equation work!
“his challenge remains to write out an improved eqn. Note in this thread Konrad studiously avoids doing so.”
No, that won’t work either. As past blog records show I have previously given you and others the answer to this. You cannot model atmospheric temperatures for a moving gas atmosphere with equation 7.16 or even an “improved equation”. The very idea is ridiculous. You are trying to use linear flux equations on a static atmosphere model just like figure 7.12. I have pointed out to you many times this cannot work. I have shown you by empirical experiment why it won’t work. You need to run flux equations for discrete moving air masses and you need to run them iteratively. There is a name for this. It is not “improved equation”, it is “computational fluid dynamics”. You know, that thing GCMs can’t do in the vertical dimension?
“It is always gratifying to see competitors adopt your new invention “baby”; so far Konrad’s stuff is not adopted – it is orphaned for good reason.”
Wishful thinking Trick. I am seeing quite a bit of progress. Not just to the end of the whole global warming inanity (that is now assured) but to something more important. That is the total destruction of any hope of a “soft landing” for any of the AGW believers. Many desperately hope that they can get away with the “there is warming but less than we thought” excuse. But that hope will also die. More and more former “lukewarmers” are now daring to ask “was there something wrong with the modelling of non-radiative energy transports” Even Viscount Monckton, die-hard lukewarmer, raised this very question a day ago. The tide is turning and it is unstoppable. When people begin to ask this question they will begin looking at why radiative-convective models were cooked up after 1990. They will find the papers, just as I have done. The corpse of global warming cannot be re-animated, nor can it be hidden.
“Konrad’s view offers no theoretical progress in the field as yet.”
Actually it lends support to the Nikolov and Zeller hypothesis. This hypothesis determines planetary atmospheric temperatures by atmospheric pressure and solar insolation alone for any atmosphere that has radiative cooling ability. The N&Z hypothesis shows that N2 and O2 are the true “greenhouse gases”, and radiative gases such as H2O are the “broken panes” in the green house. In early 2012 I used a simple empirical experiment to verify one of the central claims of N&Z regarding conductive energy transfer from SW heated target plates to gases at different pressures. They were right.
It is notable that Ned Nikolov is also one of those that have realised that the trick to the radiative green house hypothesis was the decoupling of the role of radiative gases in surface/atmosphere radiative exchange from their role in driving mechanical energy transports and not solving for both simultaneously.
Scott Wilmot Bennett says:
December 14, 2013 at 9:48 pm
TB:
December 13, 2013 at 1:58 pm
TB said:
No, I mean quite specifically that the equation is for a body without atmosphere! The grey-body ‘emissivity’ quite clearly, means amount of radiation absorbed after accounting for reflection. The S-B equation can generate an average temperature given total energy absorbed. Earth is a grey-body because it reflects some energy, it has nothing to do with atmospheric absorption. I’m trying very hard and you keep avoiding answering my question! What is found, is that, It is too cold. This is uncontroversial! A separate calculation must be made to account for the higher temperatures recorded on Earth and this is where GHGs come in. This “Greenhouse” effect is not described by the S-B law because the problem enters the realm of more complex kinetic relationships.
Scott
The S-B eq when coupled with albedo can be used for the Earth and it’s atmosphere.
It has everything to do with atmos absorption as that is what drops out when we factor in albedo
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_model
Mind you –you’ve prob seen it.
And this – showing model success at bottom.
http://earth.usc.edu/classes/geol150/stott/glbwarming/Climate%20Models.dwt
The S-B calculation is made using albedo as a correction….
Ie it is in the LH side of the Solar in = LW out
(1-a)S=4e(sigma)T^4 a=albedo, S=solar constant, e=emmisivity of earth , sigma =S-B constant
“This yields an apparent effective average earth temperature of 288 K (15 °C; 59 °F). This is because the above equation represents the effective radiative temperature of the Earth (including the clouds and atmosphere). The use of effective emissivity and albedo account for the greenhouse effect.”
Also from: http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/04/07/the-dull-case-of-emissivity-and-average-temperatures/
PS: A very good website.
“Emissivity in the wavelengths of interest for the earth’s radiation is generally very close to 1. Assuming “blackbody” radiation is a reasonable assumption for most calculations of interest – as other unknowns are typically a higher source of error.
Because the earth’s surface has been mapped out and linked to the emissivities, if a particular calculation does need high level accuracy the emissivities can be used.
In the terms of how emissivity changes the “surprising” result that temperature can increase while energy radiated decreases – the answer is “not much”.”
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“The radiative-convective models have advantages over the simple model: they can determine the effects of varying greenhouse gas concentrations on effective emissivity and therefore the surface temperature. But added parameters are needed to determine local emissivity and albedo and address the factors that move energy about the earth.
But my question is even more specific:
Q: A figure for Albedo (30-35%) is used as the emissivity term in the grey-body equation. Given that clouds and surface albedo are combined to produce this figure how can you derive an equilibrium temperature? Again, the albedo of the surface changes over time and the albedo due to clouds changes rapidly and even the ocean surface albedo changes hourly.”
Yes albedo changes – but it seems not by that much (on short-time scales) and the “rapid” changes would cancel out to zero (again a chaotic process). I have spent some time looking for info but have the best I have come up with is the Scienceofdoom site.
Albedo will be parameterised with seasonal and topology/geographic terms. GCM’s integrate over such long time scales that computational expense is a big constraint.
It is certainly an area that needs to be addressed as computers progress.
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“It is intellectually dishonest to claim to know the equilibrium temperature of the Earth based on the S-B law.”
I do not agree. The S-B law is the basis for calculation radiative equilibrium and science is endeavouring to find answers with the tools it has. In the modern age we are able to answer much more complex questions with the use of supercomputers/models. “All models are wrong – but some of them give useful information”. We model nuclear explosions with them FI.
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“The simple radiative model imagines a black-body having no atmosphere absorbing all incident energy. The general model allows for bodies that reflect some of the energy, thus the figure for absorption is adjusted down for a grey-body. It has nothing to do with the energy balance, this is still dealing with the “energy-in” stage! This is at the very fundamental level of your argument. The radiative model at its simplest, asks first, how much energy is actually received given some is reflected! In the equation, this ‘emissivity’, is calculated by assuming an average albedo! The difficulty with the Earth is that the figure includes clouds! It is not simply albedo at the surface. This is a big fudge factor!”
No it’s energy out. The S-B is adjusted via albedo and that is reflective.
I addressed the clouds bit in an earlier post. Clouds are chaotic and so their albedo will average out. What needs more investigation is the feed-back behaviour of clouds long term.
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“You keep saying the Earth is a heat engine but how much heat is actually going in? We both agree that heat comes out but how long does it take to come out? You often refer to a boiling pan of water. I keep seeing images of water boiling at room temperature in the partial vacuum of a suction flask or salt being added to boil pasta! Obviously pressure and salinity matter and this is a big problem for a linear equation, given that on Earth, they vary spatially and temporally.”
The energy going in is measured at TOA (as the in vs out equation has to be balanced – it’s not quite but we know it to ~1W/m^2.
I think it would take ~days/weeks for the atmos/land to lose all it’s heat but much longer from the oceans (which would still feed out into the atmosphere.
No, the boiling water analogy I use is just to illustrate that climate cycles on Earth are internal chaos that ultimately don’t need to be considered in the fundamental Solar absorbed minus IR emitted equation….. apart of course from any that have feed-backs. Things like PDO/ENSO/AMO do not have feed-backs (of any long-lasting effect). Just view it as showing that heat in will do the same thing (always at given known initial conditions) NO MATTER how things jiggle around within the system before they flow out – that bit is conserved. The molecular flow in the boiling pan of water is re-distribution of heat around the system and NOT controlling its process. It is a symptom and not a cause. We want to put climate cycles in the GCM’s to discover initial sensitivity – we can know the starting conditions very well, but not the cycle lengths – which is why we have an “unforecast” pause. GCM’s cannot put the pauses in the right places. They compute them – but they cannot be correct in the TIMING – so ensemble runs are made, where all the dips/rises in each member will be averaged out.
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“If you still manage to ignore the problem of calculating absorption for the Earth, the figure for solar irradiance is extremely complex and controversial even without the difference between the expected 1,368 from the ‘observed’ 1,366 and ‘adjustment’ to 1,3361 W/m2. Changing albedo by 0.01 or solar irradiance by 6 W/m2 changes the equilibrium temperature by a degree. Solar irradiance doesn’t have to vary much over the longer term to be able to explain all of ‘global warming’ (0.1% or so).”
I’m afraid it does have to change by a good bit more than we have seen in modern human time scales
The 11 year cycle gives ~1% solar variation and that equates to 1.37 W/m^2 (though Wiki says 0.9 W/m^2) that’s certainly not 6 W/m^2 and nowhere near the forcing produced by increasing CO2 from 280 to ~400ppm + other GHG’s in industrial times – has given a forcing of 2.6W/m^2.
Remember the solar cycle(s) are – just that – cyclical and only temporary forcings, GHG’s will last ~century even when not being added to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity
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“There is much more to say about the Solar Constant and the simple radiative model describing Earth as a grey-body is invalidated by the inability to calculate absorption at any time scale.”
Nope – it’s just not the sun, and reading the science – there’s a lot out there – the Earth’s emissivity is well represented (model variation are averaged out for the mean consensus figure). Modelling of past climate describes what we know happened and only GHG forcing added to the models produces the
We started this discussion with you arguing that the Earth’s climate system plays a major role in the equilibrium temp – I hope at least my arguments have availed you of that.
Konrad 7:18pm: By inspection, your post is devoid of any science based basic cites to respond, it is 100% assertion. In it, you are forced resort to the classic fallacious appeal to authority in that: 1) you do not establish the authors are experts in field of atm. thermo., 2) you do not establish the field of atm. thermo. experts have by and large adopted the authors theory (In a range of modern atm. thermo. text books for example), 3) and you use their reasoning as your own.
You demonstrate little proficiency in basic atm. thermo. principles. As an example you don’t see “strong vertical convection in the troposphere” is same as “strong winds” which are spatially and temporally avg.d for Earth surface & atm. and used in eqn. 7.16 which is correctly applied from 1st principle by and large in many text books by experts in the field. Eqn. 7.16 calculates Tmean=288K as measured for near surface control volume over certain time periods.
All is not lost Konrad.
As I recommended to the OP, skip the blogs for a couple weeks; get a couple good modern atm. thermo. basic text books from the library; read and learn the basics if you have the pre-req.s. You will get much further in your quest to enlighten “former “lukewarmers”” if you successfully achieve first in that endeavor.
Oh wait there’s this assertion: “They will find the papers, just as I have done.”
Citations please. No fallacious appeal to authority will get my interest to respond.
Trick,
Now you’re getting personal with Konrad.
Rather than incessant TB-like nitpicking around the edges of the debate, why don’t you try to explain this.
See, the ultimate Authority, our planet, is busy proving you and the rest of the alarmist crowd flat wrong.
Any effect from CO2 is so negligible at current levels that it can be completely disregarded for all practical purposes. The belief in “carbon” has been so thoroughly debunked that I really wonder why people keep arguing about it.
Furthermore, CO2 is good for the biosphere. More is better.
Honest scientists admit it when their conjecture has been proven wrong. The CO2=cAGW conjecture has been repeatedly proven to be wrong. So consider this an ethics test: is “carbon” really a problem? Or not?
dbstealey 11:32AM: Now you’re talking using cites, not assertion. Konrad should take notice once finished with reading assignment. Just go up thread where Konrad first referred to cite from Callendar 1938 paper. I provided a link to it.
From that paper and for your “this” link, observe that it is not entirely futile for long-range numerical climate prediction:
1) please examine Callendar 1938 Fig. 2. Learn from his discussion how CO2 has a logarithmic decreasing effect on the near surface global temperature Tmean “departure” 100ppm to 600+ppm.
2) Re-center today’s observed Tmean anomaly shown from your link (easy to find this done on the ‘net) on 1921-1940 base for decent comparison to a 1938 paper. Use today’s updated emissions in Callendar’s formula and recalibrate.
3) Examine the resulting recent and current Tmean anomaly (from your “this” link). This process updates Callendar table VI predictions. Find his updated predicted anomaly for comparable period reasonably coincides with observation at around 0.55C give or take.
For this field, Callendar 1938 prediction is remarkably close to what has been observed in the preceding 75 years. So it is not entirely futile to have written down predictions from the basic atm. thermo. science which is still found in text books today.
For your “negligible”, it is a view that need be formed. I negligible disagree with you, but haven’t a view; I just think the science is interesting to discuss after being astonished some posters demonstrate haven’t yet and won’t even read the most basic atm. thermo. text books.
For your “more is better” I also agree with Callendar’s discussion of the benefits of recent surface Tmean increase in his conclusions – some modern papers and blogs don’t bother to include both sides (an understatement in this field).
NB: one cannot have a view on the basic science based on 1st principles of the thermo. grandmasters.
Trick says:
December 18, 2013 at 10:38 am
“Citations please. No fallacious appeal to authority will get my interest to respond.”
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Trick, you do have an unfortunate habit of walking right into things, even when given fair warning. I would have thought painting “They will find the papers, just as I have done.” in big black and yellow stripes would have been enough. Apparently I needed to add warning lights 😉
For your requested cite you could try Ray Pierrehumberts glorious bafflegab from 1995 in which he tries to deny the thermostat effect of evaporation and clouds over the tropics –
http://geoweb.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/JASRadiatorFins.pdf
Here’s how “ScienceofDoom” summarises –
“So increasing the emissivity from zero (increasing “greenhouse” gases) cools the climate to begin with. Then as the emissivity increases past a certain point the warm pool surface temperatures start to increase again.”
So apparently radiative gases now initially cool the atmosphere but after a “certain point” they start to warm it? Is that mysterious “certain point” included in any of your linear flux equations?
Konrad 3:10pm asks OT but provides interesting cites: “So apparently radiative gases now initially cool the atmosphere but after a “certain point” they start to warm it?”
No. I read the paper you linked, I read the SOD piece. See it doesn’t take long. Unlike your non-reading of basic atm. thermo. texts. Did you notice in the paper eqn.s 2.5 are eqn. 7.16 in a bit of a disguise?
Did you notice the paper is discussing regions in the tropics (humid, much more sea surface than land & more solar than on global avg.)? It shows some graphs varying tropical emissivity unnaturally from 0 to 1.0 where in the natural tropics the spatial and temporal avg. emissivity looking up is on the order of 0.9 & shows on all the curves a monotonic upswing in SST with increased atm. emissivity (0.7 to 0.95 as is natural).
In your clip of SOD, he unfortunately uses the term “climate” when the contextual graphs clearly are labeled SST (in context tropical SST) which is the term that should have been used but generally climate term can be understood to mean regional not global.
Konrad has been easily misled and misconstrues the discussion to concern global surface atm. Tmean when it is discussing SST in the tropics under certain theoretical non-existent conditions as a learning device.
Konrad continues: “Is that mysterious “certain point” included in any of your linear flux equations?”
Yes. Check out what happens at the non-mysterious certain point around 300ppm in Callendar 1938 Fig.2 as CO2 ppm decreases from 600ppm to 100ppm.
Trick says:
December 18, 2013 at 5:09 pm
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Trick, you asked for cites you got one. The Pierrehumbet paper was a good example of the type of radiative-convective patch up jobs that were being attempted to save global warming post 1990. For engineers, the water cycle represents a giant vapour/condensate heat pump transporting energy away from the surface, high above the level of max IR opacity, where it is then radiated to space. Pierrehumbert was clearly acknowledging the critical importance of radiative gases in this cycle, but then attempting some fantastic hand-waving to claim that after a certain concentration, radiative gases would reduce the efficiency of the process. That paper is truly spectacular in its audacity!
“Konrad continues: “Is that mysterious “certain point” included in any of your linear flux equations?”
Yes. Check out what happens at the non-mysterious certain point around 300ppm in Callendar 1938 Fig.2 as CO2 ppm decreases from 600ppm to 100ppm.”
No Trick. Callendars 1938 work had nothing to do with radiative gases cooling the atmosphere or surface at any concentration. Callendar does not attempt a radiative-convective solution, just as Sir George Simpson points out in your link. Figure 2 does not show anything like Pierrehumberts crazed claims. The figure clearly shows that Callendar believed radiative gases cause warming at all concentrations. The zero line on the vertical axis is not a line between cooling and warming. It is quite clearly labelled “present mean T” Why did you do that? Inspired by Pierrehumbert? 😉
Konrad 7:02pm: Clearly you have not completed your reading assignment.
“..high above the level of max IR opacity.”
Max. IR opacity is ground level in atm. so concur hydrological cycle begins by transporting energy up from ground level (evaporation), dumping it in atm. (not deep space needed for diabatic cooling as Konrad always infers) and radiating the same energy back to surface (condensation) for no net change in near surface Tmean or even Tmean of entire atm. for adiabatic cycle as no winds (strong convection in troposphere – Konrad term) or rain release energy to space, only radiation does.
Konrad – your stuff plainly shows your own futility in long range numerical climate prediction. Please read up on the basics, make it a real challenge to find issues in your posts. Try not to live up to all my expectations.
“Why did you do that?”
The anomaly goes negative below the zero line. A cooling effect on surface Tmean~288K were you able to drain CO2 say to plants – due to emissivity of atm. declining in eqn. 7.16 as I have pointed out, repeatedly. Go – read up on the basics Konrad. Though it is fun while you are in basically uninformed mode.
Trick says:
December 18, 2013 at 7:37 pm
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“Max. IR opacity is ground level in atm. so concur hydrological cycle begins by transporting energy up from ground level (evaporation), dumping it in atm. (not deep space needed for diabatic cooling as Konrad always infers) and radiating the same energy back to surface (condensation) for no net change in near surface Tmean or even Tmean of entire atm. for adiabatic cycle as no winds (strong convection in troposphere – Konrad term) or rain release energy to space, only radiation does.”
Again, as I have previously pointed out on this very thread, nowhere on this blog or any other have I ever implied that convective circulation or any other mechanical energy transport in the atmosphere moves energy to space. I clearly am repeatedly referring to radiative cooling of the upper atmosphere an its role in driving strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation. No matter how many times you try to imply that I am claiming convection moves energy into space this tactic won’t work.
As to “and radiating the same energy back to surface”, this is clearly wrong. Only about50% of the energy dumped by the release of latent heat in the atmosphere is radiated back towards the surface. Even less makes it. IR opacity increases with decreasing altitude. Most energy radiated back toward the surface from the release of latent heat is intercepted and thermalised in the atmosphere. And the problem here is that around half of the energy back radiated by the release of latent heat is intercepted by air masses that are rising.
And referring to convective circulation as “winds”? Other readers can see that this is just trying to get rid of that little difficulty of the word “vertical” in strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation. After all, without this strong vertical circulation across the pressure gradient of the atmosphere, the lapse rate would disappear and the atmosphere would trend isothermal with its temperature driven by surface Tmax. That would make the vast bulk of the atmosphere far hotter than present. And despite the assumptions of climate scientist in the “basic physics” of the “settled science”, this strong vertical circulation cannot continue in the absence of radiative gases.
“Konrad – your stuff plainly shows your own futility in long range numerical climate prediction. Please read up on the basics, make it a real challenge to find issues in your posts. Try not to live up to all my expectations.”
Futility? I’m not so sure. You do occasionally make some progress, although it takes time 😉
Remember how long it took you to finally admit that removing energy from a fluid column could drive convective circulation? And it has taken since December 2012 until you have finally conceded that my claim – “For a gas column in a gravity field, the relative height of energy entry and exit from the column is critical to determining the average temperature of the gas column.” – is indeed correct.
“The anomaly goes negative below the zero line. A cooling effect on surface Tmean~288K..”
No, it wont wash. I cited Pierrehumbert trying to claim cooling then warming after a “certain point” for increasing concentrations of radiative gases. You cited Callendar figure 2 showing warming at all concentrations above 0.0ppm as evidence of this “certain point”. Anomaly from current temperatures was never the issue.
Ultimately Trick, if you have conceded – that “For a gas column in a gravity field, the relative height of energy entry and exit from the column is critical to determining the average temperature of the gas column.” – then you have effectively conceded that the NET effect of radiative gases is atmospheric cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm. Radiative gases provide the only means of energy loss from the atmosphere at altitude. The amount of energy being radiated to space by radiative gases far exceeds the net flux of radiative energy into the atmosphere as it also includes all the energy the atmosphere acquired by conduction and release of latent heat.
Konrad 10:01pm: Offers nothing new. Asserts, provides no cites or eqn.s. Runs no numbers. Just makes stuff up. Lives up to all my expectations. Experts in the field continue ignore his assertions.
******
Details reiterated to help Konrad improve by reading the basics:
“..if you have conceded – that “For a gas column in a gravity field, the relative height of energy entry and exit from the column is critical to determining the average temperature of the gas column.”
Yes. The height of energy absorbed into the column matters due to P(z)=density(z)*R*T(z), whether convection even exists by fluid heated from below (tropopause), poisson eqn., and hydrostatic equilibrium consideration, science Konrad will have opportunity pick up when he completes the reading assignment – I rec. Bohren 1998.
“…you have effectively conceded that the NET effect of radiative gases is atmospheric cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.”
No. After completing his reading assignment, Konrad will learn this fails the 1st law Eqn. 7.16, eqn.s 2.5 in the paper Konrad cited and atm. radiation principles (I rec. Bohren 2006).
“Incident LWIR can neither heat nor slow the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool.”
This fails 1st law if the LWIR energy into the control volume around the mass of water is greater than the energy out of the water mass by evaporative cooling. All of Konrad’s experiments obey the 1st law eqn. 7.16. Konrad has to run accurate numbers in each case; never has. Experts in the field have done so and clearly show Konrad wrong – Konrad simply has not read the basics.
“…nowhere on this blog or any other have I ever implied that convective circulation or any other mechanical energy transport in the atmosphere moves energy to space.”
No. Konrad has written many times the convective circulation cools the entire atm. as I clipped above (only to have Konrad correct what he really meant afterwards). The only way to do so is convect the energy to deep space. What happens as explained by authors Konrad has not yet read, is that convective circulation dumps the same amount of radiation into the atm. as is emitted by the atm. Convective circulation is adiabatic process because stays within the control volume of interest.
Konrad’s failure to understand and use control volume basics appears to be the root cause of his unphysical assertions from not reading basic atm. thermo. text books.
Konrad says:
December 16, 2013 at 8:57 pm
TB says:
December 16, 2013 at 5:16 pm
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“Wow! What a snow storm! Shakespeare covered this – “methinks the lady doth protest to much” 😉
Amongst the storm, you raised the issue of the PSI group. I have no association with them, and as the blog record shows I have disputed their false claims here, at Dr. Spencer’s and Jo Nova’s sites. Any implication that I have any link with PSI will get you nowhere.”
Err – I didn’t raise the issue of the PSI group. That was merely within the quote I lifted from Anthony’s Blog and is irrelevant to the point I was raising. Try reading it again.
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As to Dr. Spencer, you may well be disappointed –
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/12/what-if-there-was-no-greenhouse-effect/
If he has said something to the contrary to what I quoted from him then I suggest you take it up with Anthony. I am fairly new to this Blog and not fully aware of his views – but that quote says a definite thing. This is the pertinent bit…
“They claim on their web page that “the Greenhouse gas effect is bogus” and thus ignore many measurements of IR absorptivity in the atmosphere which show that it is indeed a real effect. Rational climate skeptics acknowledge that the greenhouse effect exists and functions in Earth’s atmosphere.”
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“Here you will see that Dr. Spencer agrees that there would be no strong vertical convective circulation under the tropopause without radiative gases. He still claims that a doubling of CO2 could cause 0.5C of warming. I am claiming it would cause an immeasurably small amount of cooling. Did Dr. Spencer get something wrong? Yes –“
If that is the case then I disagree with him. Simple as that. You cannot has a GHE that casues cooling. So something does not scan it your quotes vs the one I quoted.
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“Only the surface and a shallow layer of air next to the surface would go through a day-night cycle of heating and cooling. The rest of the atmosphere would be at approximately the same temperature as the average surface temperature. And without a falloff of temperature with height in the atmosphere of at least 10 deg. C per kilometer, all atmospheric convection would stop.”
“And the mistake? Right here – “ The rest of the atmosphere would be at approximately the same temperature as the average surface temperature”. The same error Trick makes. As empirical experiment shows, it is surface Tmax that will drive the temperature of such an isothermal atmosphere not surface Tav.2″
That is NOT my quote Konrad –Anthony’s? I cannot and do not try to make sense of it. It is not my
doing
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TB, you have disputed my claim that radiative gases play a critical role in tropospheric convective circulation and that this circulation would stall in their absence. Then you invoked Dr. Spencer, who claims the same thing. I think this could be call pulling a “Trick.” Trick has an unfortunate habit of carelessly using cites like the Callender 1938 paper that undermine his argument 😉
I certainly have. At no time in my meteorological studies/training was radiative cooling mention/discussed in regard it being a vital part of the circulation of a Hadley Cell. That is not to say that it does not happen – just that air aloft will inevitably sink when converged at 30N/S in the Sub-tropical jet – and sink. What is you cannot comprehend about convergence of mass?
I did NOT evoke Spencer – Anthony did – I quoted Anthony in his agreeing (requoted above) the GHE – ie: warming due GHG’s.
Trick says:
December 19, 2013 at 6:16 am
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“Experts in the field……”
Call to authority argument. Again, no it won’t work. Not after the inanity of Pierrehumbert, an “expert in the field” has been put on display.
“….to help Konrad improve by reading the basics”
You previously argued black and blue that removing energy from a fluid column could not possibly drive convective circulation as it wasn’t “adding energy to the control volume”. What was that again about the “basics”?
“Yes. The height of energy absorbed into the column matters due to P(z)=density(z)*R*T(z), whether convection even exists by fluid heated from below…”
Still avoiding those little words “or fluid cooled from above”?
“This fails 1st law if the LWIR energy into the control volume around the mass of water is greater than the energy out of the water mass by evaporative cooling. All of Konrad’s experiments obey the 1st law eqn. 7.16. Konrad has to run accurate numbers in each case; never has. Experts in the field have done so and clearly show Konrad wrong – Konrad simply has not read the basics.”
I have claimed that incident LWIR cannot heat nor slow the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool. I have backed my claim with empirical experiment. Others have checked the basic principles shown and confirmed (most recently at Dr. Spencer’s). I have repeatedly challenged you to produce just one simple empirical experiment that others can replicate demonstrating LWIR heating or slowing the cooling rate of water that is free to evaporatively cool. Hand waving about “experts” and “basics” won’t do. It is becoming painfully obvious that no CO2 thermageddon believer can produce such an experiment.
“No. Konrad has written many times the convective circulation cools the entire atm. as I clipped above (only to have Konrad correct what he really meant afterwards).”
That won’t wash either. How many times have I written that “the Net effect of RADIATIVE GASES in our atmosphere is atmospheric cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm”? Many, many times. My claims concerning convective circulation are very clear –
1. Strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation depends on radiative cooling at altitude.
2. It is this circulation that pneumaticaly generates the current observed lapse rate.
3. Without this circulation the bulk of the atmosphere would trend isothermal with its temperature driven by surface Tmax not surface Tav.
4. An atmosphere without radiative cooling at altitude would run far hotter than our current atmosphere.
“What happens as explained by authors Konrad has not yet read, is that convective circulation dumps the same amount of radiation into the atm. as is emitted by the atm.”
??? No, the atmosphere is radiating not just energy acquired by conduction and release of latent heat transported by convection, but also energy acquired by the interception of surface and solar radiation.
“Convective circulation is adiabatic process because stays within the control volume of interest.”
Not relevant. What is relevant is where convective circulation transports energy TO in our DIABATIC atmosphere. Remember what you conceded? – “For a gas column in a gravity field, the relative height of energy entry and exit from the column is critical to determining the average temperature of the gas column.”
“Konrad’s failure to understand and use control volume basics appears to be the root cause of his unphysical assertions from not reading basic atm. thermo. text books.”
I suspect the failure to understand may be yours. To understand the effects of radiative gases, you will need at minimum three “control volumes”. Land, ocean and atmosphere, and you need to calculate not just energy input and exit from theses “control volumes”, but because they are fluids in a gravity field, you need to model non-radiative transports within the ocean and atmosphere volumes and the height of energy input and exit. Why? Because as you conceded – “For a gas (fluid) column in a gravity field, the relative height of energy entry and exit from the column is critical to determining the average temperature of the gas column.”
TB says:
December 19, 2013 at 2:34 pm
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It seems we have both mis-interpreted quotes. I tend to over-react to any mention of PSI a “false-flag” operation. Most irritatingly they seem to have adopted the results of an old 2011 experiment of mine (without attribution) to make themselves sound more “sciencey”.
This quote –
“Only the surface and a shallow layer of air next to the surface would go through a day-night cycle of heating and cooling. The rest of the atmosphere would be at approximately the same temperature as the average surface temperature. And without a falloff of temperature with height in the atmosphere of at least 10 deg. C per kilometer, all atmospheric convection would stop.”
– was from Dr. Spencer.
Dr. Spencer is claiming, as I do, that radiative gases play a critical role in strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation, and this circulation would cease in their absence and the atmosphere would trend isothermal via gas conduction. Dr. Spencer covered this in 2009, but I only found this out after independent empirical experiments after 2011 gave me the answer and I was backtracking to find out who else knew.
You say –
“At no time in my meteorological studies/training was radiative cooling mention/discussed in regard it being a vital part of the circulation of a Hadley Cell. That is not to say that it does not happen – just that air aloft will inevitably sink when converged at 30N/S in the Sub-tropical jet – and sink. What is you cannot comprehend about convergence of mass?”
But it of course is only radiative energy loss that allows convergence of mass in air masses at altitude allowing subsidence. The following meteorology link –
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~dib2/climate/tropics.html
– has a good explanation of the process, including-
“As this dry upper air drifts polewards, its potential temperature gradually falls due to longwave radiative losses to space (this is a diabatic process, involving exchanges of energy between the air mass and its environment). Decreasing potential temperature leads to an increase in density, upsetting the hydrostatic balance and initiating subsidence”
In small scale experiments in shallow containers it is possible to generate convective circulation by only heating and cooling a fluid at disparate locations at its base. However the process involves the fluid dynamics of entrainment. This process breaks down as the container get taller, and layering starts to occur. While the troposphere at only 10 to 15 Km depth may appear shallow, the significant pressure gradient across this height gives it a far greater virtual depth with regards to Raleigh-Bernard circulation.
The early two shell radiative models that are the foundation of not just AGW but the radiative greenhouse hypothesis, assume a tropospheric lapse rate in a non-radiative atmosphere. Worse, they set the atmospheric temperature using surface Tav, where as empirical experiment shows that if convective circulation has broken down, the bulk of the atmosphere would be isothermal with its temperature driven by surface Tmax. It should be noted that there would be no greater reduction of surface Tmax under a non radiative atmosphere, although Tmin over land in a very thin night inversion layer would be far lower. This means that for a non-radiative atmosphere the bulk of the atmosphere would be static with an isothermal temperature far hotter than present.
This leads to the next problem. N2 and O2 are not truly “non-radiative” gases, they are poorly radiative gases. In a largely static atmosphere, as observed in the thermosphere, they are subject to radiative super heating. How hot could our atmosphere get without radiative gases? I’m not sure we would want to find out.