Guest essay by Jan Kjetil Andersen
As Willis describes in his article on December 21, the atmosphere can be seen as a gigantic heat engine, i.e. a machine which convert thermal energy, namely temperature, into mechanical energy, namely wind.
It may seem a bit strange to view the weather system as a kind of machine and compare it with engineered constructs like an automobile engine, but it is sound physics because all such systems are bound by the same fundamental physical laws and they utilizes the same basic phenomena to create movement from heat.
A heat engine cannot convert heat directly to mechanical energy since that would break the second law of thermodynamics. What are needed are temperature differences. The greater temperature difference the greater effect of the machine. The amount of the energy in the temperature difference that is converted to mechanical energy is called the machines efficiency.
And here we have a very interesting, but less known fact of heat engines; the maximum theoretical efficiency decreases with increasing temperatures. This is interesting because it negates the conventional wisdom and often cited myth that a warmer climate leads to
more storminess, like the claim in the Guardian “a warmer planet has more energy to power stronger storms”, see http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jun/27/climate-change-extreme-weather-2010.
Let us therefore take a look at the theoretical foundation of this effect. This is described by Carnot’s theorem.
Carnot’s Theorem says that the maximum efficiency drawn from a heat engine is the temperature difference between the warmest element and the coldest element divided by the temperature of the highest element.
Expressed as a formula it says: Emax = (Th-Tc)/Th.
Emax is the maximum efficiency
Th is the high temperature element measured in Kelvin
Tc is the cold temperature element measured in Kelvin.
The Carnot cycle is an ideal reversible cyclic process involving the expansion and compression of an ideal gas, which enables us to evaluate the efficiency of an engine utilizing this cycle.
For an interactive demonstration of the Carnot heat engine cycle, courtesy of the University of Virginia, click on the image:
Three important effects can be seen from Carnot’s theorem. The first is that a temperature difference is a necessary condition for converting heat energy to mechanical energy such as wind.
The second effect is that even if we had a perfect heat engine with zero internal friction; it would not achieve anything close to 100% efficiency. The maximum theoretical efficiency for a heat engine operating between 300 K and 600K is for example 50%. The efficiency of a real machine would of cause be considerably lower.
This is why our car engines only operate at about 25% efficiency. The warm element for a car engine is the exploding fuel inside the cylinders and the cold element is the air intake.
The best coal fired power plants have about 40% efficiency and the best gas powered about 55%. The cold elements for those plants are the coolant water, and those with highest efficiency utilize cold seawater as coolant.
Warming gives less efficiency
The third effect is as mentioned above, that, for a given temperature difference between the warm element and the cold element, the efficiency will decrease if both elements heat equally much. On cold days one can see a discernible effect of this in car engines; because the air intake is colder, the engine gives somewhat more power and higher efficiency.
This is also why some turbo charged engines have intercoolers. The turbo gives higher effect, but a non-intentional side effect is that it also increases the temperature in the air intake which will reduce the efficiency. The intercooler reduces the temperature increase introduced by the turbo.
The same effect applies to the wind formations in the atmosphere. Consider the summer temperature in the northern hemisphere; the cold element is the Arctic with a temperature of approximately 0 Celsius and the warm element is in the tropics with approximately 35 Celsius.
The Carnot theorem gives a maximum efficiency in this temperature range of 11.36%. If the temperature increased with 1 Celsius all over the globe, i.e. the difference changed to 1 Celsius in the Arctic and 36 Celsius in the tropic, the maximum efficiency would sink to 11.32%.
This is a minuscule difference, but the point is that it is a decrease, not an increase as the conventional wisdom will have it.
Less temperature differences on the surface
In addition to the effect of higher overall temperatures, the temperature differences will also be smaller. It is quite uncontroversial that the largest effect of global warming is on the cold polar winters and the smallest on the hot tropical summers.
![GFDL_CM2p1_SfcTemp_JJA_DJF_A1B_wht3200x2000[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/gfdl_cm2p1_sfctemp_jja_djf_a1b_wht3200x20001.png?quality=75)
However, to be fair, this is not all there is to this. Some climate models tell that the temperature differences in the upper troposphere will increase and this may have larger effect than both the reduced differences on the surface and the higher temperatures.
No settled science there.
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TB says: “What is you don’t/can’t understand about Coriolis/convergence aloft INEVITABLY causing divergence below. That all the world’s Met organisations incorporate into NWP models?”
Changing the subject from me catching you claiming the geometries, velocities, volumes of air handling in the lower troposphere aren’t associated with the energy handling and release of water isn’t going to make time go back and you be right.
Looks like Bill from Nev’ slipped one more in before he was done. It was getting tiring sifting through his creative sarcasm and negative slams.
Claiming putting insulation between the heat of an illumination source and a rock, makes more heat come out of the rock, is what you’ve been seen trying to do, and it’s absurdity on it’s face.
The fact is you’re here to declare to the world you know of an insulation that reduces energy in, yet makes the object it sits blocking energy to, act as if more energy arrived on it.
That’s just impossible no matter how many climatologists said they did it, and it’s why the pseudo science called warm atmosphere doesn’t stand up to even the most cursory inspection.
“Incorrect appreciation of the GHE. GHG’s absorb IR from the Earth’s surface then re-emit it, some of it making it back to the surface again – thus SLOWING the rate of cooling and NOT heating it.”
TB,
I see you are still arguing that radiative gases do not play a critical role in driving tropospheric convective circulation by allowing energy loss, buoyancy loss and subsidence of air masses.
I urge you to look again at an energy budget diagram for the atmosphere. Discounting the energy reflected from the land, ocean and atmosphere, around 90% of all energy absorbed is emitted to space from radiative gases the atmosphere.
90%!
And this energy is being emitted at a higher altitude than energy entering the atmosphere. Yet you are claiming that this plays no role in driving Rayleigh Bernard circulation below the tropopause?
To defend the AGW hypothesis you are claiming that for a non-radiative atmosphere, differential conductive heating and cooling of the atmosphere by the surface would produce vertical circulation across 10 to 15 Km of the troposphere strong enough to produce the observed lapse rate.
You claim 30 years of meteorology experience. Did none of this cover the mechanisms of night inversion layers? The physics of this hold true for any surface/gas interface in a gravity field. The surface is far better at conductively heating the atmosphere than it is at conductively cooling it.
The evidence from the actual atmosphere stand s against your claims, in particular the tropopause. Below this level strong vertical Rayleigh Bernard circulation is exhibited. Above the tropopause atmospheric circulation is so weak that the lapse rate reverses and stagnant gases are subject to radiative super heating. So what’s so special about the tropopause? That’s where the atmosphere runs out of the most important radiative gas on our planet, H2O.
If your claim that radiative cooling played no part in tropospheric convective circulation were true, we should observe powerful convective circulation extending well above this height. However, there is nothing climate “scientists” can do to get rid of the “punitive” tropopause.
And of course there is nothing climate “scientists” can do to remove the most damning evidence, the history of their claims recorded on the Internet. This history records that the first claims that adding radiative gases would reduce it’s radiative cooling ability were made on the basis of two shell radiation only static atmosphere models. After 1990 came the band-aid radiative-convective models. Just this sequence of events alone is enough to damn all of the AGW fellow travellers.
You may be encouraged that many embarrassed sceptics also want what most AGW propagandists are praying for, a “warming, but far less than we thought” soft landing for the global warming inanity. But this is not how it is going to go down. You will be up against the general public. They have no interest in defending those who claim that radiative gases reduce the atmospheres radiative cooling ability. The corpse of global warming cannot be re-animated nor can it be hidden.
Konrad said:
“So what’s so special about the tropopause? That’s where the atmosphere runs out of the most important radiative gas on our planet, H2O.”
It runs out of H2O because at that height the vapour has all condensed out but that isn’t why there is a reversal of the lapse rate.
The warming from tropopause upwards is due to the presence of ozone interacting directly with incoming solar radiation.
One could argue that the ozone layer is the most important radiative gas on our planet.
The observed lapse rate is a distortion of the ideal lapse rate set by mass and gravity but if an atmosphere is to be retained then all the varied observed lapse rates have to net out to the ideal lapse rate between surface and space.
I find it strange to be arguing with fellow sceptics that radiative gases are not needed for a fully convective atmosphere.
The advantage of such a position is that if one can involve the entire atmospheric mass in the warming of the surface above the S-B prediction then radiative considerations become too small to matter.
Radiative characteristics do not create the lapse rate. They simply distort the lapse rate away from the ideal lapse rate set by mass and gravity. Then that effect has to be negated elsewhere in the system and that is achieved by circulation changes.
Radiative gases simply raise the effective radiating height off the ground. In their absence the ground is the effective radiating height.
The more radiative the atmosphere the higher the effective radiating height goes and if the atmosphere were 100% radiative then the effective radiating level would simply be at the top of the atmosphere but if that could happen the atmosphere would just collapse back to the ground again because no energy would be left over for conduction.
Conduction raises the S-B height.
Radiative characteristics raise the effective radiating height.
When the two are at different levels then stability is maintained by convection shifting energy from the S-B level to the effective radiating level.to maintain overall radiative balance.
Konrad says:
December 30, 2013 at 7:22 pm
TB,
I see you are still arguing that radiative gases do not play a critical role in driving tropospheric convective circulation by allowing energy loss, buoyancy loss and subsidence of air masses.
I urge you to look again at an energy budget diagram for the atmosphere. Discounting the energy reflected from the land, ocean and atmosphere, around 90% of all energy absorbed is emitted to space from radiative gases the atmosphere.
90%!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/ceres_brochure.php?page=2
Konrad, ~168 W/m^2 of SW are absorbed at the surface out of ~235 net. And ~67 SW absorbed by the atmosphere. Now of that ~102 goes back as conv/LH and must be added to the ~67, making ~169.
~66 is back-radiated as IR from the surf making a total absorbed there 169+66=235.
So, well and good, all absorbed via SW ends up in the atm. But once all there a further 89 is re-emitted back to the surface. This then gets emitted via TOA totalling ~235.
Yes it is Konrad, but you overlook the fact that it’s been down to the surface before finally going to space. The 89W/m^2 figure above is as a result of repeated “bouncings” of IR photons between the atm and surface “walls” and that leaves the surface/atm more interactions to warm.
“And this energy is being emitted at a higher altitude than energy entering the atmosphere. Yet you are claiming that this plays no role in driving Rayleigh Bernard circulation below the tropopause?”
As stated above, all solar radiation (and consequently terrestrial LWIR) that is absorbed warms the atm and surface (almost –not counting obvious albedo/latitudinal differences) equally. And has no sig effect on the LR.
“To defend the AGW hypothesis you are claiming that for a non-radiative atmosphere, differential conductive heating and cooling of the atmosphere by the surface would produce vertical circulation across 10 to 15 Km of the troposphere strong enough to produce the observed lapse rate.”
No, I am saying that for a non-radiative atm around a spinning planet, the HEATING of the surface (differentially) will initiate atm motion, including all processes we see on Earth. There will be a LR generated via conduction initially (ignoring mass generated compressive heating – which is a one time only process) then mixed through the whole depth of the atm via those processes. Note, in a non-radiative atm, there will be no Tropopause due lack of O3.
The adiabatic LR will eventually naturally be assumed via compression/rarefaction of lifted/descended air and as there is no water on this planet (radiative gas) then will observe a DALR throughout.
The atmosphere will act as a “heat-pump” and transport heat down the LR.
When you add water, WV will cause LH transport, cooling the surface but heating the atm and so cause the LR to assume a profile midway between the DALR and the SALR eg the ELR.
Radiative process will have basically neutral effect on the LR, though the tropopause will be created, and so a lid to “weather”.
“You claim 30 years of meteorology experience. Did none of this cover the mechanisms of night inversion layers? The physics of this hold true for any surface/gas interface in a gravity field. The surface is far better at conductively heating the atmosphere than it is at conductively cooling it.”
I do, well 32 actually, 20 spent as an on-the-bench forecaster with the UKMO with both the RAF at airfields and in the commercial field. Sorry, I can’t prove it other than scanning in my old Met college pics – but that could be faked eh?
Konrad, my training covered all the knowledge available at the time. I specifically trained with the UKMO as a forecaster 1985-87 and received further updates after.
Of course I was taught about radiative cooling and night inversions. Try forecasting for night-flying exercises at RAF bases without that knowledge.
Surface cooling has little convective/LH response and none that transports aloft. There are some interactions, specifically at fog tops and via turbulence lifting the mixing layer. Of course condensation will slow cooling (transfers it to the fog top) … due radiative slowing of heat flux up from the subsurface.
I’m confused about what you think I’m saying Konrad.
I’m not claiming there is any EXTRA radiative cooling of the surface at all. I’ve said, and repeat above that radiation has a neutral effect on the LR. What it does do however is elevate it by warming equally throughout the depth of the atm, such that the surface BB (ok grey) temp of 255K is moved to ~7km and the tropopause elevated equally.
My “discussion” here has simply been about radiative cooling NOT being required and NOT causing the descent arm driving of the HC. Full stop.
“The evidence from the actual atmosphere stand s against your claims, in particular the tropopause. Below this level strong vertical Rayleigh Bernard circulation is exhibited. Above the tropopause atmospheric circulation is so weak that the lapse rate reverses and stagnant gases are subject to radiative super heating. So what’s so special about the tropopause? That’s where the atmosphere runs out of the most important radiative gas on our planet, H2O.”
The tropopause (if get I your drift correctly) I mentioned re sinking of converged air at the sub-tropical jet. It is simply that it is an inversion, a density/pressure barrier and as such, air below needs a strong “uplift” to get by it (a punch in fact). Supercell convection pushes through and this can be gauged by reference to a Tephigram or SkewT via the CAPE (convectively available potential energy). It is a nature barrier to mass air transport. Thus when faced with this barrier converged air is forced to sink.
From: http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de/~bms/lecture_atmphys/AtmosphericPhysics_04_05_dyn.pdf
Hadley cell:
“• thermal wind
• convection / convergence leads to rising air
over the tropics (ITCZ)
• movement to higher latitudes
• deflection by Coriolis force
• formation of subtropical jet stream (STJ)
• ACCUMULATION THROUGH TRANSPORT LEADS TO
SINKING AIR AT 30°
• formation of subtropical high
• most air moves back to equator close to the
surface to close the cell
• again: deflection by Coriolis force => trade
winds”
“If your claim that radiative cooling played no part in tropospheric convective circulation were true, we should observe powerful convective circulation extending well above this height. However, there is nothing climate “scientists” can do to get rid of the “punitive” tropopause.”
The radiative affect you refer to is a compositional one – O3 production/destruction via UV within the Strat. That is what makes the trop, essentially (without getting into Isentropic PV surfaces). The Tropopause height responds to the average temp of the air below it. Ie it’s thickness.
“And of course there is nothing climate “scientists” can do to remove the most damning evidence, the history of their claims recorded on the Internet. This history records that the first claims that adding radiative gases would reduce it’s radiative cooling ability were made on the basis of two shell radiation only static atmosphere models. After 1990 came the band-aid radiative-convective models. Just this sequence of events alone is enough to damn all of the AGW fellow travellers.”
Konrad: the lab experiments, empirical mathematics and direct radiative/spectroscopic observation of the atmosphere via both ground based and orbital instruments over the course of the last ~150 yrs, trumps “the Internet” I’m afraid.
“You may be encouraged that many embarrassed sceptics also want what most AGW propagandists are praying for, a “warming, but far less than we thought” soft landing for the global warming inanity. But this is not how it is going to go down. You will be up against the general public. They have no interest in defending those who claim that radiative gases reduce the atmospheres radiative cooling ability. The corpse of global warming cannot be re-animated nor can it be hidden.”
Yes, you are right Konrad, unfortunately most people are (naturally) ignorant of climate science and are equally naturally influenced by media reports. It is easy to say things like “it’s the Sun” or “it’s the clouds” or “CO2 is plant food” or “it’s happened before” etc. And many will buy it because they are easy sound bites and we perceive it will cost us “tax dollars” or Pounds in my case. Fully understanding the science is NOT easy without taking scientist’s at their word, and well, we see the result.
TB says:
“It is easy to say things like ‘it’s the Sun’ or ‘it’s the clouds’ or ‘CO2 is plant food’ or ‘it’s happened before’ etc. And many will buy it because…”
Many will “buy it because” to a greater or lesser degree, all those things are true.
What is completely unproven, though, is the conjecture claiming that there is a ‘human fingerprint’ in the current climate. If there is, please identify the fingerprint here.
What, you can’t find it? Well, no one else can find it, either. There could be two reasons for that:
1) Any such ‘fingerprint’ is much too small to measure, or
2) The CO2=AGW conjecture is simply wrong
(I personally think that there was some minuscule warming from CO2, but that most of the effect was seen in the first 20 ppmv, and at current CO2 concentrations the warming effect is so small that it cannot be measured.)
In either case, not one more $ / £ / € should be wasted on the frivolous CO2=AGW conjecture; AKA: the “carbon” scare.
Because if something cannot be measured, then it isn’t science. More correctly, it begins and ends at the Conjecture stage of the Scientific Method (Conjecture, Hypothesis, Theory, Law). A conjecture might be right, or it might be wrong. But only a measurable, testable hypothesis can verify it. (Any hypothesis must be measurable and testable. And any theory must be capable of making repeated, accurate predictions. AGW can do neither.)
All the rest of the discussion amounts to endless nit-picking. The central issue of the debate has been answered: for all practical purposes, the “carbon” argument is so negligible that it can and should be completely disregarded. At this point, those promoting the scare are engaging in a self-serving scam for money and fame.
If anything I posted here is wrong, please indicate where.
Otherwise, silence is concurrence.
-TB,
I see you are still arguing that radiative gases do not play a critical role in driving tropospheric convective circulation by allowing energy loss, buoyancy loss and subsidence of air masses.-
So main radiative gases are H20 gas and C02 gas and these are a very small percntage of the atmosphere. In terms amount of energy these gases have, H2O gas if condenses into liquid has a lot latent heat energy. The other gas CO2, does not condense into a liquid or solid so energy from the possible latent heat of CO2 in terms of in Earth atmosphere can be ignored.
And if disgard the latent heat of H2O, then we can say in terms of amount energy of the gases
of CO2 and H2O in Earth’s atmosphere, this small portion of the atmospheric gases do not have
much energy in comparison to other gases.
And convective of heat of gases is transfer of energy of the molecules of gas or it’s the energy of gas molecules which is being transferred, whereas one would not call re-radiating of energy thru
a gas as convection of heat.
Radiant heat passing thru or being transmitted thru atmosphere would not be convection of heat.
And unless this radiant heat is heating something, it can be affecting the convection of heat
of an atmosphere.
One have nitrogen gas molecule which transparent to radiant heat- acting like any transparent
material, it can reflect, disfuse/scatter the light, but it does not absob the energy of this light and re-radiant the energy. And then in comparion there are “greenhouse gases” which absorb and re-radiate this same wavelength, but like all gases [Ie, iron as a gas] are also transparent. Gases are transparent in the sense bcause they are not close together. Or even thin enough iron solid is transparent. So if our atmosphere was hot enough, and it had iron gas as impurity similar to greenhouse gas, the iron gas would also be transparent.
[Btw, it should noted that in Earth long history [billions of years ago] it has had atmosphere hot enough where iron has been a gas and which may have exceeded 400 ppm- trillions of tonnes of it. So if the Moon actually did form via an Earth impactor, that would example of such a period. But even without such an event there would been other times in Earth formative period. Even
the impact event which cause extination of dinosaur may have a significant amout iron or compounds iron gas in earth’s atmosphere. And as would super volcanic events.]
-I urge you to look again at an energy budget diagram for the atmosphere. Discounting the energy reflected from the land, ocean and atmosphere, around 90% of all energy absorbed is emitted to space from radiative gases the atmosphere.
90%!-
The troposphere has 80% of Earth amosphere and 99% of H20 greenhouse gas. And if halved the height of troposphere, more half of this 80% is below this elevation.
This alone should indicate a problem with this idea.
Stephen Wilde says:
December 31, 2013 at 8:12 am
———————————————
The most important thing I should say here is –
Never apply SB equations in isolation to a moving gas atmosphere over a liquid ocean. Never.
For fluid columns in a gravity field the height of energy entry and exit is critical to determining the average temperature of the fluid. This is the science of conduction and fluid dynamics. This is what is missing from the “basic physics” of the “settled science”. This is what SB equations can’t deliver.
Both the atmosphere and oceans are fluid columns in a gravity field. If any of your modelling is based on trying to simplify the land/ocean/atmosphere system to a single SB radiating level, then it will fail because you have not modelled non-radiative transports correctly.
The planet can be in radiative equilibrium, yet can have very different atmospheric temperatures depending on both the radiative and non-radiative transports within the land/ocean/atmosphere system.
And now onto the to lapse rate below the tropopause.
The observed lapse rate below the tropopause is not the product of mass and gravity alone. Atmospheric mass and gravity simply generate the atmospheric pressure gradient. It requires continued vertical circulation across this pressure gradient to generate the observed tropospheric lapse rate. And this vertical circulation must be strong enough to overcome the speed of gas conduction.
Without this vertical circulation, gas conduction would send the bulk of the atmosphere isothermal. That alone would mean that the bulk of the atmosphere would be far hotter than present.
For an atmosphere maintaining a reasonably stable temperature, yet exhibiting strong vertical convective circulation, energy must be exiting the atmosphere at a higher altitude than it is entering the atmosphere. Energy enters our atmosphere at low altitude via surface conduction, release of latent heat and intercepted radiation. There is only one way it exits at high altitude, radiative gases emitting IR to space.
Claiming that surface conduction could match the cooling power of radiative gases simply won’t work. Empirical experiment shows that the surface is virtually powerless at conductively cooling the atmosphere. The whole pole-wise energy flow being the sole driver of circulation thing won’t work. It is resisted by surface friction and gas conduction. The currently observed pole-wise energy flow is only made possible by the Hadley, Ferrel and Polar cells being maintained by radiative cooling at altitude.
You state –
“I find it strange to be arguing with fellow sceptics that radiative gases are not needed for a fully convective atmosphere.”
And I find it most strange that you would be insisting that radiative energy loss and buoyancy loss at altitude does not have a critical role in Rayleigh Bernard circulation below the tropopause.
You can ignore the evidence that strong vertical circulation is only exhibited in the strongly radiative region of our atmosphere.
You cannot ignore the evidence that after 1990, climate pseudo scientists suddenly swapped from radiative only two shell models to radiative-convective models and attempted to write radiative cooling and subsidence out of atmospheric circulation.
They had to do this. Any critical role for radiative gases in governing the speed of tropospheric vertical circulation utterly invalidates not just AGW, but its very foundation, the radiative greenhouse effect hypothesis itself.
The good news is that the Internet remembers all. The climate “scientists” can never erase their crimes against science, reason, freedom and democracy. They have left a trail of “climate science” behind them that would fertilise the Simpson Desert.
Stephen, examine that trail. (Don’t attempt anything without the gloves). Sceptics now know that any attempt to generate a “hockey stick” from proxy data will be BS. Karoly and Gergis lasted only a few hours on the Net before implosion, withdrawal of the paper and a lifetime of burning shame (three years and $300,000 of taxpayer dollars vaporised in an instant). After McIntyre vs. Mann you know where to look. The same is true of radiative-convective modelling. If you know they are lying, you know where to look. You will find as I have done, it wasn’t a “mistake”, they knew they were lying.
TB says:
December 31, 2013 at 9:26 am
——————————————–
“Konrad: the lab experiments, empirical mathematics and direct radiative/spectroscopic observation of the atmosphere via both ground based and orbital instruments over the course of the last ~150 yrs, trumps “the Internet” I’m afraid”
No, nothing you try will trump the Internet. I have used the Internet to demonstrate through repeatable experiment that incident LWIR cannot heat nor slow the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool.
CAGW depends on DWLWIR slowing the cooling of the oceans. I have proved that to be physically impossible.
But that’s not how the internet works.
I challenged you to produce just one simple lab experiment, that other readers could replicate, that shows incident LWIR heating or slowing the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool.
Just one experiment.
You can’t do it.
Current and future readers can see you can’t do it.
You fail. Now and forever.
That’s how the Internet works.
Konrad says:
January 1, 2014 at 2:07 am
TB says:
December 31, 2013 at 9:26 am
——————————————–
“Konrad: the lab experiments, empirical mathematics and direct radiative/spectroscopic observation of the atmosphere via both ground based and orbital instruments over the course of the last ~150 yrs, trumps “the Internet” I’m afraid”
No, nothing you try will trump the Internet. I have used the Internet to demonstrate through repeatable experiment that incident LWIR cannot heat nor slow the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Look I realise of course that you are not for moving – no matter.
So, we have a history of study/experiment/mathematical modelling – restudy – remodelling. Then into the satellite era we have more observation from space. We have spectroscopic analysis from ground based instruments etc etc. That show CO2’s effect as a GHG.
BUT the internet trumps it. I suggest it depends on which bit of the internet you are reading. Do you use Google Scholar?
“CAGW depends on DWLWIR slowing the cooling of the oceans. I have proved that to be physically impossible.”
Did you not understand the concept of the ocean being a body of water? That is merely covered with a cooler skin that is evaporating. So then, at what point is it not possible to heat water via IR radiation – given that it is heat energy? Would you not think that this evaporation cooling effect would reach an optimum? That no more skin cooling could occur? Surely you are not suggesting that any amount of IR impinging on the surface will only result in cooling of the entire body. Are you saying that only SW heats water?
Sorry that is scientifically not so.
Also, are you not aware that the transport of heat from ocean and air passes through that skin via conduction/convection too? Do you not know that this is optimum when the hot surface is hottest? And that this skin cooling will go against that? Thereby REDUCING thermal contrast and keeping the turbulent waters below the skin WARMER than otherwise.
No it is entirely possible. In fact it happens, has to.
“I challenged you to produce just one simple lab experiment, that other readers could replicate, that shows incident LWIR heating or slowing the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool.”
Your lab experiment does model the Earth and nor does it trump thousands of other experiments done over the last 150 yrs.
“Just one experiment.”
This is the same misconceived concept some have of the GHE. Ie some think you can’t warm an object with a colder one. Of course that’s NOT how the GHE works. It’s like a storage tank whereby there is an outflow and an inflow. The inflow (back-IR) is small and the outflow is large (given radiative cooling dominating). Now the outflow will still occur, but the pressure built in the tank will build and the outflow pressure increase. Ie there is a flux of heat stored in the tank (ground) that always wants to get out – sometimes it’s mostly in (inflow exceeds outflow) sometimes it’s out (outflow more than inflow). But the outflow can be slowed, by a small inflow. On land this in/out point manifests this reduced outflow by a temp rise.
Same with evaporative cooling – only in reverse. At some point the evaporation is at a maximum, yes? Must be, otherwise it would keep cooling forever (given the vast source of water available). So, obviously not. Then what happens to the energy in excess of that needed to evaporate that water?
We cannot have a steady state, something must happen. Logically the surface skin would cool so far and then, if it cannot maintain that cooling via LH uptake – it will warm, and eventually boil. Before it boils it will warm the water beneath by conduction.
Now of course this DOES NOT happen (in the oceans). But do you see the logic? It’s the same illogic that is applied by some who say there can be no GHE because you can’t warm an object by a colder one. That is not what happens. At what point does this drip, drip of back-radiated IR photons go over that optimum point and the cooling tips to warming. IR energy must heat water. It cannot always cool it. It’s a matter of the evaporative process balancing against the radiative sensible heating effect via conduction from below. The IR back radiating occurs during the day as well, when evaporation will be at a max.
The primary way that evaporation WARMS a body of water (when the air is colder than the water) is by the reduction of the thermal gradient at the ocean/air interface. Cooler skin means less conducted, and hence the body of water below the skin has a “warming blanket” over it, analogous to the GHE “blanket”. It’s about relative flows of energy.
“Current and future readers can see you can’t do it.”
I know you’re right in that in the main, I realise I’m in the minority on this forum – however it is fundamentally about debate. And some may take what I say on-board and go off and investigate “whatever” more deeply. That’s all I try to do. I have professional knowledge gained via man’s sum total of Meteorological investigation (not good on the curly d’s and Dels though) and further, I’ve spent many a long, lonely shift (day & night) observing weather and passing on information/forecasts to, eg, aircrew and operations for road ice management. I know as well as anyone can how it works. Sorry it’s just the way things work. Now, Anthony may have had a different career path than me, I don’t know, but I’m sure the physical processes at play in the atmosphere are well known to him. He disagrees on the degree of warming attributable to the GHE, which is fine. But he does not disagree with the fundamental processes and laws of thermodynamics.
“You fail. Now and forever.”
If you want to think that – it is of no matter.
“That’s how the Internet works.”
The Internet is a fantastic resource of knowledge – the greatest in the history of mankind. But one has to use it correctly. There is always 2 sides to the argument. Look for the other-side occasionally – that’s what I’m doing here in fact (It may surprise you to know that I’ve learned some stuff by doing so). This by arguments raising questions in my mind and me (being who I am) going off and investigating/learning from that question. You see it all depends how you use it.
Regards anyway Konrad and a Happy new year.
-gbaikie says:
December 31, 2013 at 4:21 pm
-TB,
I see you are still arguing that radiative gases do not play a critical role in driving tropospheric convective circulation by allowing energy loss, buoyancy loss and subsidence of air masses.-
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Correct.
“-I urge you to look again at an energy budget diagram for the atmosphere. Discounting the energy reflected from the land, ocean and atmosphere, around 90% of all energy absorbed is emitted to space from radiative gases the atmosphere.
90%!-“
I have, please see my post to Konrad. In short, it is but only because the atm is between the Surface and space. It reaches the surface either directly (bar reflected) as SW or by back-radiation of LWIR – then goes to atm – then goes to space.
“So main radiative gases are H20 gas and C02 gas and these are a very small percentage of the atmosphere. In terms amount of energy these gases have, H2O gas if condenses into liquid has a lot latent heat energy. The other gas CO2, does not condense into a liquid or solid so energy from the possible latent heat of CO2 in terms of in Earth atmosphere can be ignored.”
No, it cant be ignored as it’s a tri-atomic molecule and taking away N2 ~78% and O2 ~21% (= ~99 non-radiative) makes it very much a player in the atmosphere radiatively.
LH uptake/release is an adiabatic process and not a radiative one, and H20 is the dominant tri-atomic gas in the atm – however the hydrological cycle ensures it’s transport from liquid on ground > gas in air > liquid in air > liquid on ground again, cycles at around ~10 days.
So, with turbulent mixing/convection, the relative humidity stays steady over long time scales (globally averaged) – however warmer air means a higher absolute humidity (more molecules) – and hence greater GHE.
H2O is vital to the atmosphere, as you say, as it cools the surface via LH uptake and heats the atmosphere via release. It modifies what would otherwise be a dry LR into one between a dry and a wet one. With of course large variations – mainly less steep, due inversions because of either cooling from below (moving over cold surface or radiative cooling from ground) – or warming from above (subsidence or warm advection – eg approaching warm front) such that we can have unstable air in places and stable air in others.
“The troposphere has 80% of Earth atmosphere and 99% of H20 greenhouse gas. And if halved the height of troposphere, more half of this 80% is below this elevation.
This alone should indicate a problem with this idea.”
? Sorry I don’t understand this.
BTW; There is an exception in where radiative effects help drive the depth of convection – which is why thunderstorms often have their peak overnight.
A lifting air parcel – a Cumulonimbus cloud in this respect – is rising because of the contrast between it and it’s environment (bar divergence aloft of it anyway – which is another complication).
Now, we know that day-time heating causes the ground to let-go thermals which rise via buoyancy to the condensation level. The release of LH then warms the up-draught (or rather it slows it’s cooling by rarefaction) and it rises still more. In an unstable atm this will often allow it to reach the tropopause, and there, like smoke rising against a ceiling it stops and spreads out horizontally. (usually – as with enough energy it will punch through and may well reach up to 60,000ft ~12ml).
I digress a bit – anyway, overnight you would think that the ground would cool and the convection stop. It does, normally, but there are circumstances where it keeps going, even intensifies. This is when the storm, having enough water content, can become more unstable because the top of the cloud cools to space radiatively. This makes it less buoyant relative to the surrounding environment BUT crucially it creates a more unstable cloud (colder top rel to warm bottom > rises/overturns more).
Radiative imbalance in the atm affects it’s LR, cloud top cooling via increased albedo say, but otherwise it has little effect. The LH and sensible heat processes dominate in (surface) convection.
TB says:
“So then, at what point is it not possible to heat water via IR radiation – given that it is heat energy?”
++++++++
I think part of the confusion here is ambiguity. The quoted statement needs to be specific. I posit that IR radiation is a very specific type of heat energy. It is not conductive and it is not convective.
TB says:
January 1, 2014 at 3:34 am
———————————————————————–
“Did you not understand the concept of the ocean being a body of water? That is merely covered with a cooler skin that is evaporating. So then, at what point is it not possible to heat water via IR radiation – given that it is heat energy? Would you not think that this evaporation cooling effect would reach an optimum? That no more skin cooling could occur? Surely you are not suggesting that any amount of IR impinging on the surface will only result in cooling of the entire body. Are you saying that only SW heats water?
Sorry that is scientifically not so.
Also, are you not aware that the transport of heat from ocean and air passes through that skin via conduction/convection too? Do you not know that this is optimum when the hot surface is hottest? And that this skin cooling will go against that? Thereby REDUCING thermal contrast and keeping the turbulent waters below the skin WARMER than otherwise.
No it is entirely possible. In fact it happens, has to.”
Some have gone as far as to claim that increased DWLWIR would increase evaporative cooling of the oceans. I do not make this claim as far more complicated experiments would be required to test this. What I do claim is that incident LWIR cannot heat nor slow the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool. It is only UV and SW that heats our oceans.
Anyone can check my claim by building this simple experiment –
http://i42.tinypic.com/2h6rsoz.jpg
– the results are, as they say in climate science, “robust”. Start with 40C water in each test chamber and monitor the cooling rate under both the strong and weak LWIR source. Both water samples cool at the same rate. Now repeat the experiment with a square of LDPE cling wrap floated onto the surface of each sample. This allows conductive and radiative cooling but restricts evaporation. Now both samples cool slower, but at different rates.
The reason incident LWIR cannot heat water that is free to evaporatively cool is that the IR photons are absorbed in the first few microns of the skin evaporation layer. This simply trips some water molecules into evaporating slightly sooner than they otherwise would. The cooling effect of these molecules undergoing phase change offsets any heating effect of the LWIR. There is no effect on the cooling rate of the liquid below the skin evaporation layer.
All AGW two shell radiative models show LWIR having the same effect over the oceans as it does over land. Some climate scientists even try to claim that the oceans would freeze without DWLWIR. This is provably false.
You are claiming “In fact it happens, has to.”, yet have no empirical evidence that LWIR can slow the cooling rate of the oceans.
You claim “your lab experiment does model the Earth and nor does it trump thousands of other experiments done over the last 150 yrs.”. Yet you do not provide a single one of these “thousands” of experiments.
You state –
“We have spectroscopic analysis from ground based instruments etc etc. That show CO2’s effect as a GHG.”
But this is also incorrect. We have satellite and ground based measurements that show that CO2 both adsorbs and emits LWIR. CO2 is a radiative gas. The term “GHE” ignores that in the case of the radiative GHE hypothesis, the null hypothesis still stands.
“This is the same misconceived concept some have of the GHE. Ie some think you can’t warm an object with a colder one.”
I am clearly not disputing basic radiative physics. I have previously provided build diagrams for a simple two shell radiative model that others can build –
http://i44.tinypic.com/2n0q72w.jpg
http://i43.tinypic.com/33dwg2g.jpg
http://i43.tinypic.com/2wrlris.jpg
– the extra foil layer in chamber 1 back radiating the target plate will be cooler than the target plate, yet it still slows the cooling of the target plate.
But that experiment only shows that the maths behind radiative two shell models works. However I have also provided experiments showing how critical non radiative energy transports are to atmospheric temperatures. The permanent Internet history of global warming shows that these transports, and most importantly the role of radiative gases in driving them, were not correctly modelled when the foundation claims of radiative gases causing atmospheric warming were made.
I am claiming that the NET effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere is atmospheric cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm. The basis of these claims is known fluid dynamics, empirical experiment and observation, none of which violates any “fundamental processes and laws of thermodynamics.”
I would suggest that it is those claiming LWIR can slow the cooling of the oceans or that circulation would continue in the Hadley, Ferrel and Polar cells in the absence of radiative cooling at altitude, are the ones violating “fundamental processes and laws of thermodynamics.”
-The other gas CO2, does not condense into a liquid or solid so energy from the possible latent heat of CO2 in terms of in Earth atmosphere can be ignored.”
No, it cant be ignored as it’s a tri-atomic molecule and taking away N2 ~78% and O2 ~21% (= ~99 non-radiative) makes it very much a player in the atmosphere radiatively.-
I was saying what is obvious, CO2 doesn’t have phase change/ transition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_transition
Or CO2 doesn’t change from gas to liquid or solid in Earth atmosphere, as does H20.
H20 can transport it’s latent heat, CO2 doesn’t do this in Earth atmosphere [though CO2 does
do this on the much colder planet Mars].
And btw, this transportation of latent heat of H2O is a significant conveyor of heat to upper atmosphere on Earth. But I saying this is separate issue or it’s not radiant transfer of energy or Heat.
So what was saying, that since taliking about radiant transfer, the latent heat of of H2O
is excluded and CO2 does transfer heat via latent heat in Earth’s atmosphere.
So yes I can be excluding or ignoring the latent heat of H2O and the non-existent latent heat of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere- because the topic is radiant transfer.
-LH uptake/release is an adiabatic process and not a radiative one, and H20 is the dominant tri-atomic gas in the atm – however the hydrological cycle ensures it’s transport from liquid on ground > gas in air > liquid in air > liquid on ground again, cycles at around ~10 days.
So, with turbulent mixing/convection, the relative humidity stays steady over long time scales (globally averaged) – however warmer air means a higher absolute humidity (more molecules) – and hence greater GHE.-
I am not disputing that water droplets which are associated clouds radiate heat into space.
Or clouds are a grouping of water droplets in enough quantity that they are clearly visible as clouds- on the other hand, they are in addition droplets of water not so densely pack or large in average size which are not easily and clearly visible as clouds.
-“The troposphere has 80% of Earth atmosphere and 99% of H20 greenhouse gas. And if halved the height of troposphere, more half of this 80% is below this elevation.
This alone should indicate a problem with this idea.”
? Sorry I don’t understand this.-
I mean in terms greenhouse gases- CO2 and H20, most of it is below 1/2 the height of troposphere. So including water droplets, and all which one can consider that radiates in the atmosphere, most must occur below 1/2 of the height of troposphere.
And above the troposphere you exclude water in all it’s forms as being quantitatively significant in terms total it could radiate. And CO2 above the troposphere is limited to 20% or whatever total amount it can radiate. Or 80% of possible amount CO2 can radiates must be below the top of the troposphere. Plus most of total amount energy energy “available” by any means possible, must also radiate below the top of the troposphere.
It doesn’t matter what what theory you wish to believe. These facts must be allowed for in any idea involving the concept that the atmosphere radiate any significant amount of energy.