Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
The CERES dataset contains three main parts—downwelling solar radiation, upwelling solar radiation, and upwelling longwave radiation. With the exception of leap-year variations, the solar dataset does not change from year to year over a few decades at least. It is fixed by unchanging physical laws.
The upwelling longwave radiation and the reflected solar radiation, on the other hand, are under no such restrictions. This gives us the opportunity to see distinguish between my hypothesis that the system responds in such a way as to counteract changes in forcing, and the consensus view that the system responds to changes in forcing by changing the surface temperature.
In the consensus view, the system works as follows. At equilibrium, what is emitted by the earth has to equal the incoming radiation, 340 watts per metre squared (W/m2). Of this, about 100 W/m2 are reflected solar shortwave radiation (which I’ll call “SW” for “shortwave”), and 240 W/m2 of which are upwelling longwave (thermal infrared) radiation (which I’ll call “LW”).
In the consensus view, the system works as follows. When the GHGs increase, the TOA upwelling longwave (LW) radiation decreases because more LW is absorbed. In response, the entire system warms until the longwave gets back to its previous value, 240 W/m2. That plus the 100 W/m2 of reflected solar shortwave radiation (SR) equals the incoming 340 W/m2, and so the equilibrium is restored.
In my view, on the other hand, the system works as follows. When the GHGs increase, the TOA upwelling longwave radiation decreases because more is absorbed. In response, the albedo increases proportionately, increases the SR. This counteracts the decrease in upwelling LW, and leaves the surface temperature unchanged. This is a great simplification, but sufficient for this discussion. Figure 1 shows the difference between the two views, my view and the consensus view.
Figure 1. What happens as a result of increased absorption of longwave (LW) by greenhouse gases (GHGs), in the consensus view and in my view. “SW” is reflected solar (shortwave) radiation, LW is upwelling longwave radiation, and “surface” is upwelling longwave radiation from the surface.
So what should we expect to find if we look at a map of the correlation (gridcell by gridcell) between SW and LW? Will the correlation be generally negative, as my view suggests, a situation where when the SW goes up the LW goes down?
Or will it be positive, both going either up or down at the same time? Or will the two be somewhat disconnected from each other, with low correlation in either direction, as is suggested by the consensus view? I ask because I was surprised by what I found.
The figure below shows the answer to the question regarding the correlation of the SW and the LW …
Figure 2. Correlation of the month-by-month gridcell values of reflected solar shortwave radiation, and thermal longwave radiation. The dark blue line outlines areas with strong negative correlation (more negative than – 0.5). These are areas where an increase in one kind of upwelling radiation is counteracted by a proportionate decrease in the other kind of upwelling radiation.
How about that? There are only a few tiny areas where the correlation is positive. Everywhere else the correlation is negative, and over much of the tropics and the northern hemisphere the correlation is more negative than – 0.5.
Note that in much of the critical tropical regions, increases in LW are strongly counteracted by decreases in SW, and vice versa.
Let me repeat an earlier comment and graphic in this regard. The amounts of reflected solar (100 W/m2) and upwelling longwave (240 W/m2) are quite different. Despite that, however, the variations in SW and LW are quite similar, both globally and in each hemisphere individually.
Figure 3. Variations in the global monthly area-weighted averages of LW and SW after the removal of the seasonal signal.
This close correspondence in the size of the response supports the idea that the two are reacting to each other.
Anyhow, that’s today’s news from CERES … the longwave and the reflected shortwave is strongly negatively correlated, and averages -0.65 globally. This strongly supports my theory that the earth has a strong active thermoregulation system which functions in part by adjusting the albedo (through the regulation of daily tropical cloud onset time) to maintain the earth within a narrow (± 0.3°C over the 20th century) temperature range.
w.
As with my last post, the code for this post is available as a separate file, which calls on both the associated files (data and functions). The code for this post itself only contains a grand total of seven lines …
Data (in R format, 220 megabytes)
The GHG model predicts the famous hot spot over the tropics and increased humidity, neither of which have ever been found. This alternative mechanism has no need for these effects.
Note that beneath a completely transparent atmosphere the job of adjusting albedo is dealt with by winds causing the uplift of surface dust.
We can see some evidence for that on Mars which lacks water.
Periodically, the Martian winds become strong enough to create planet wide dust storms. That is the convective adjustment process in action on a dry planet.
Willis writes “In the consensus view, the system works as follows. When the GHGs increase, the TOA upwelling longwave (LW) radiation decreases because more LW is absorbed. In response, the entire system warms until the longwave gets back to its previous value, 240 W/m2.”
Although this description isn’t strictly incorrect it is simplified to the point where it is misleading. You only need to change it a bit to actually make it the consensus view, however. Something like this…
In the consensus view, the system works as follows. When the GHGs increase, the TOA upwelling longwave (LW) radiation decreases because the average altitude increases at which it can leave and this greater altitude is colder.
In response, the entire system warms until the temperature of the new higher average altitude is such that the LW leaving gets back to its previous value, 240 W/m2.”
Personally I think the consensus view itself is a crock because its just one part of a complex process that naturally maximises its entropy and hence “the whole system” doesn’t want to warm.
great work again willis . the climate “scientists” will not like it though.far too simple and no funding required for carrer extending “research”.
On Lovelock’s Daisy world the white daisies are favored as radiative forcing rises because they reflect more sunlight thereby maintaining surface temperatures.
Clouds are the white daisies on Earth.
All 3 diagrams are wrong.
Let us consider the system called “GHGs” in the pictures. According to the pictures it absorbs 390 W/m² and emits 240W/m² (averaged values over 24 hours).
Therefore it “keeps” 390 – 240 = 150.
Where can this “kept” power (W/m² is a power unit) go ?
Well the only place is the heating of the whole atmospheric column.
An atmospheric column of 1 m² with a pressure of 1 atm weighs about 10 000 kg.
The specific heat capacity of air at 0°C is Cp ~ 1000 J/kg/K. We neglect here the variation with temperature because we only want an order of magnitude.
So in 1 second (1 W = 1 J/s) the atmospheric column with base of 1m² will increase its temperature by 150/(1000 x 10000) = 0.000015 °C.
Using here dQ = Cp . m . dT.
How long would it take for the column to reach 450 °C where it would basically burn everything and boil the oceans ?
Well 450/0.000015 = 30 000 000 seconds = 1 year.
As the oceans are obviously not boiling, the pictures are wrong and in reality if the ground emits 390 W/m², then whatever the GHG emit (here 240 W/m²) is also what they absorb (here 240 W/m²)
Up until now I knew negative feedbacks would dominate because the climate signal appeared to me to have the features I expect from a system with strong negative feedback. There was no concrete proof I was right, but experience and judgement told me I was.
Now you have shown me that there really is proof for what I would at best describe as a “well founded hunch”.
I’ve recently been working on uclimate.com and through that work I’ve not only discovered just how many sceptics are actively blogging, but as the “links” page shows, sceptics are far more active than warmists. That backs up my perception that the warmists have gone into retreat.
Willis, your code ran a treat, no messing, very nice. I see you’ve change the range of colour scale which is better, but it would be much better with more than six fixed increments. It can’t see where to change that. Is it hard-coded in the map library you use?
Willis, you’ve made the same mistake again, using real data and finding a stable system. You need a proper model where any stability is just the the Global Warming Tiger lulling you into a false sense of security before it pounces….
Willis
In your diagrams you depict in coming solar as being reflected off the top of the cloud.
You depict incoming solar as reflecting off the surface and then it appears that it passes straight through the cloud and out into space..
Why is not some part of the solar that is reflected off the surface onto the underside of the cloud, reflected back off the underside of the cloud downwards back to the surface.
If a cloud, its top, can reflect incoming solar back out to space, why cannot a cloud, its underside, reflect reflected solar from the surface back towards the surface?
After all even on a cloudy day with low level cloud it is not dark which suggests that solar is being rflected from the underside of a cloud back towards the surface. Further when a cloud interrupts solar, it is not pitch black in the shaddow area of the cloud. This suggests that either some part of the incoming solar penetrates its way through the cloud, or some solar that has been reflected from the surface, interacts with the underside of the cloud and is re-reflected back towards the surface thereby illuminating the surface in a diffused manner.
TimTheTolMan said:
“In response, the entire system warms until the temperature of the new higher average altitude is such that the LW leaving gets back to its previous value, 240 W/m2.”
Yes, as I’ve said so many times, the higher radiating altitude becomes warmer and so lets energy out faster whereas the AGW view is that the higher radiating altitude is colder and so lets energy out more slowly.
The higher, warmer, radiating point removes the need for any significant surface warming but does involve circulation adjustments.
You probably say this because someone told you that half of the incoming solar radiation is in the infrared. But this is the near infrared, it is not longwave infrared. The proportion of solar radiation with wavelength greater than 5 microns is negligible in comparison to the radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface itself. It’s safe to say that if we detect radiation shorter than 4 microns then it is from the Sun (or a rocket engine or a furnace) and that infrared radiation above 5 microns is from the Earth or its atmosphere.
All warm bodies emit electromagnetic radiation. The distribution of that radiation accords with Planck’s Law and depends only on the body’s temperature and its emissivity. To find where the peak emission will be simply divide body’s absolute temperature into 3000. For example, a body at a typical Earth temperature of 300K will have a peak emission of 3000/300 = 10microns. On the other hand the Sun, with a surface temperature of 6000K, will emit its peak radiation at 3000/6000 = 0.5 microns. This is Wien’s Law (or more exactly an approximation to it. Use 2897 instead of 3000 for a precise answer).
You can see from the above that a material will emit according to its own temperature. Since the Sun at 6000K does not manage to heat the Earth to 6000K but only to, say, 300K, then the Earth radiation will be LW and the Sun’s radiation is SW.
In Willis’s Fig 1 diagrams just replace the vast majority of what he terms GHG absorption with conductive absorption by the mass of the atmosphere and then there you have it.
If there is too much atmospheric absorption the surface radiates more out than comes in so the system cools and if there is too little atmospheric absorption the surface radiates less out than comes in and the system cools.
Convection changes to negate the thermal changes either way.
You have to consider the system as a whole and not just the surface because the practical effect of atmospheric mass floating above the surface is to ‘smear’ the location of the surface up through the vertical column.
That is why you cannot apply S-B at a surface beneath an atmosphere containing any mass at all.
Whoops, a typo:
if there is too little atmospheric absorption the surface radiates less out than comes in and the system WARMS.
“if there is too little atmospheric absorption the surface radiates less out than comes in and the system WARMS.”
That’ll that new “convection absorption” I presume. So once the surface warms due to lack of “convection absorption”, according to S-B it will emit LWIR which will get conventionally absorbed by the atmosphere and re-radiated.
We are back to the usual physical description.
StephenWilde, as always, I find it very difficult to understand what you are trying to say. What for example is ‘conductive absorption’, a term meaningless to me?
The important thing to understand is that the radiation from the surface of the Earth, or anything else for that matter, depends only on that body’s own temperature and emissivity. Nothing else! It doesn’t care what is happening in the atmosphere somewhere else. It is not effected by convection, evaporation etc., just its own intrinsic properties of temperature and emissivity. It’s quite simple really, why make it more complicated.
By the way, what is meant by “an atmosphere containing any mass at all”. Are there some atmospheres with no mass?
richard verney says:
In your diagrams you depict in coming solar as being reflected off the top of the cloud. ….
Once it interacts with Earth , rather than flying past, SW will either be reflected (after one or many reflections) or be absorbed. In the latter case it ends up as heat. You don’t need a ray diagram for each photon.
‘conductive absorption’ (not convective absorption) is just conduction but I added the term ‘absorption’ to match the term ‘GHG absorption’ used by Willis.
Gases absorb energy by conduction from a surface and such absorbed energy is not available for radiation out whilst it remains absorbed.
The length of time that energy is stored by the atmosphere’s mass before it is returned to the surface determines the scale of the mass induced greenhouse effect.
Convection both takes away upwards the energy conducted to the air at the surface and then returns it again on the descent half of the cycle for a zero net energy exchange with the surface.
The time taken for the convective cycle creates the greenhouse effect and radiative gases speed that cycle up so as to offset the slowing of energy transmission caused by their re-radiation back to the surface.
Exactly as proposed by Willis but he doesn’t seem to acknowledge the role of conduction.
“By the way, what is meant by “an atmosphere containing any mass at all”. Are there some atmospheres with no mass?”
I was pointing out that the amount of mass is not critical but that some mass is needed for the conductive interaction with the surface.
When one considers concepts such as a perfectly transparent atmosphere then that is implicitly an atmosphere with no mass at all because any mass at all prevents perfect transparency.
It was not me who first started using such unrealistic terminology.
At noon I am measuring a clear sky at -30°C, the ground is 7°C and the air temperature is of 9°C. When it is cloudy at Noon the cloud temperature is 5°C and the ground and air temperatures are 8°C.
A big change in sky temperature doesn’t make a lot of difference to the ground and air temperature.
”
phillipbratby says:
January 7, 2014 at 10:42 pm
You have a major error here. You have conserved energy flux, whereas you should conserve energy. The area of the incoming flux is the cross-sectional area of the earth. The area of outgoing flux is the earth’s surface area, which is a factor 4 smaller.
”
You’ve got it backwards. Incoming flux is like sunlight hitting a disk of radius R, area PI*R^2, while outgoing flux is from the whole surface of a sphere, 4*PI*R^2.
That’s a lot of words to say “heat causes clouds”. This is hardly a new hypothesis for us on this side of the fence.
Willis,
One of the things I’ve noticed is that when one goes to the simplified Stefan’s law model concepts, they fail to realize that for a given altitude ‘shell’ of atmosphere, when additional GHGs are added, not only is more radiation absorbed, but also the emissivity increases, requiring less temperature to emit the same amount of power. What’s more, that radiation amount is increased for upward as well as downward, requiring more energy transport to that shell in order to maintain the same temperature. Finally, that shell is not really like a solid surface at a given temperature but has only a very small amount of absorption and emission according to the spectrum of the combined GHGs and its temperature so adding GHGs require the increase in the emissivity factor – which is really just an engineering kludge when what is really happening is highly wavelength dependent.
Note that the increased radiation does not totally compensate for the added GHG absorption. Also, what is absorbed tends to be absorbed quickly and emitted quickly so far as distances go. Strong absorption areas of the spectrum have very short paths anyway. As one travels upwards though the pressure drops and the spectral lines get narrower, affecting a smaller amount of the spectrum.
Your basic model idea is very much along the ideas I’ve concluded (and have not had any time to work on for a few years now – which is along Lindzen’s IRIS theory ). Keep up the good work, I think you’re on a roll.
Cloud feedback is Negative.
The -1.0 W/m2/century SW reflectance trendline on a temperature change calculated of 0.3C/century signals a feedback value of -3.33 W/m2/K. The IPCC AR5 report put the cloud feedback at +0.7 W/m2/K.
Using this -3.33 W/m2/K value for the cloud feedback drops CO2 climate sensitivity to 0.75C per doubling from the theory’s 3.0C per doubling.
Suppose that the bulk of the inter-month cloudiness-anomaly variation is random. A consequent reflected-short-wave-radiation variation and, I assume, opposite surface-temperature anomaly variation would likely result in the negative correlation between upwelling long- and short-wave variations that Mr. Eschenbach illustrates.
And that would occur even in the absence of any dependence of albedo on temperature.
Of course, this causation-direction assumption ignores Mr. Eschenbach’s previous observations concerning earlier tropical-thunderstorm occurrence on hotter days. Still, there must be some random (or at least chaotic, which is the same thing for present purposes) component to the albedo signal.
I assume there’s no really good way of teasing these different-causal-direction effects apart, but perhaps someone can see how the data’s time scales might tend to favor one over the other?