Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the bureaucratic agency which appropriated the role of arbiter of things climatic, has advanced a theory for the lack of warming since the turn of the century, viz:
The observed reduction in warming trend over the period 1998–2012 as compared to the period 1951–2012, is due in roughly equal measure to a cooling contribution from internal variability and a reduced trend in radiative forcing (medium confidence). The reduced trend in radiative forcing is primarily due to volcanic eruptions and the downward phase of the current solar cycle. However, there is low confidence in quantifying the role of changes in radiative forcing in causing this reduced warming trend.
So I thought I’d look at the CERES dataset, and see what it has to say. I started with the surface temperature question. CERES contains a calculated surface dataset that covers twelve years. But in the process, I got surprised by the results of a calculation that for some reason I’d never done before. You know how the IPCC says that if the CO2 doubles, the earth will warm up by 3°C? Here was the question that somehow I’d never asked myself … how many watts/m2 will the surface downwelling radiation (longwave + shortwave) have to increase by, if the surface temperature rises by 3°C?
Now, you’d think that you could just use the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to figure out how many more upwelling watts would be represented by a global surface temperature rise of 3°C. Even that number was a surprise to me … 16.8 watts per square metre.
Figure 1. Blue line shows the anomaly in total downwelling surface radiation, longwave plus shortwave, in the CERES dataset, March 2000 to September 2012. Red line shows the trend in the downwelling radiation, which is 0.01 W/m2 per decade. Gray area shows the 95% confidence interval of the trend. Black line shows the expected effect of the increase in CO2 over the period, calculated at 21 W/m2 per doubling. CO2 data are from NOAA. Trend of the expected CO2 change in total downwelling surface radiation is 1.6 W/m2 per decade. CO2 data from NOAA.
But as they say on TV, wait, there’s more. The problem is, the surface loses energy in three ways—as radiation, as sensible heat, and as the latent heat of evapotranspiration. The energy loss from the surface by radiation (per CERES) is ~ 400 watts per square metre (W/m2), and the loss by sensible and latent heat is ~ 100 W/m2, or a quarter of the radiation loss.
Now, the sensible and latent heat loss is a parasitic loss, which means a loss in a heat engine that costs efficiency. And as any engineer can testify, parasitic losses are proportional to temperature, and as the operating temperatures rise, parasitic losses rise faster and faster. In addition, the 100 W/m2 is the global average, but these losses are disproportionately centered at the hot end of the system. At that end, they are rising as some power factor of the increasing temperature.
But let’s be real generous, and ignore all that. For the purpose of this analysis, we’ll swallow the whopper that a 3° temperature rise wouldn’t drive evaporation through the roof, and we’ll assume that the parasitic sensible and latent heat losses from the surface stay at a quarter of the radiation losses.
This means, of course, that instead of the increase of 16.8 W/m2 in downwelling radiation that we calculated above, we need 25% more downwelling radiation to account for the parasitic losses from the surface. (As I said, the true percentage of parasitic losses would be more than that, likely much more, but we’ll use a quarter for purposes of conservative estimation.)
And what that means is that if the IPCC claim of three degrees of global warming per doubling of CO2 is true, when the top-of-atmosphere radiation goes up by a doubling of CO2, an additional TOA 3.7 watts per metre squared, the surface downwelling radiation needs to go up by no less than 21 W/m2 per doubling. And although I was surprised by the size of the number, to me was very good news, because it meant that if it were there, it should be large enough to be quite visible in the CERES data. So I took a look … and Figure 1 above shows what I found.
The red line shows the trend over the ~ 13 years of the record … which is 0.01 W/m2 per decade, statistically no different from zero.
The black line, on the other hand, is the change in downwelling radiation expected from the change in CO2 from 2000 to 2012, calculated at 21 W/m2 per doubling of CO2. As you might imagine because of its steady increase, there is little difference between the CO2 data and the CO2 trendline, so I’ve left it off. For the same reason, there is virtually no error in the trend in downwelling radiation expected from CO2. The result is an expected increase in downwelling surface radiation of no less than 1.6 ± 0.007 W/m2 per decade. Over the period of the CERES data, it totals almost 2 W/m2, which in terms of the precision of the individual CERES datasets should certainly be visible.
So … does Figure 1 falsify the CO2 hypothesis? Not yet, we’ve got a ways to go, but it is an interesting finding. First, we need to look at the two explanations postulated by the good folks at the IPCC that I quoted at the head of the post—volcanoes and solar variations. And the amount that we are looking to explain is a missing increase of 1.6 W/m2 per decade.
Their first explanation was solar. Since the downwelling surface radiation has not increased as expected, perhaps there’s been a decrease in the incoming TOA solar radiation. This would offset a warming from CO2. Here’s that data:
Figure 2. Trend in TOA Solar Radiation, 2000-2012. Red line shows trend, a decrease of – 0.15 W/m2 per decade.
So the IPCC is right about the solar. And from having to explain 1.6 W/m2, we’ve explained 0.15 W/m2 of it which leaves 1.45 W/m2 of missing warming.
Next, volcanoes. The IPCC says that the effect of volcanoes over the period was to cut down the amount of sunshine hitting the surface, reducing the total downwelling radiation.
The reduced trend in radiative forcing is primarily due to volcanic eruptions …
Here are the anomalies in that regard:
Figure 3. Action of volcanoes in reducing surface solar radiation. This measures the anomaly in downwelling solar at the surface minus the anomaly in downwelling solar at the TOA. The trend in the transmission is a warming of +0.34 W/m2 per decade.
Bad news for the IPCC hypothesis. Rather than volcanoes counteracting the expected warming and decreasing the atmospheric transmission of sunshine over the period of record, we had a trend of increasing amounts of sunlight making it to the surface. The trend of this increase was 0.34 W/m2 per decade. Kinda blows holes in their theory about volcanoes, but all we can do is follow the data …
And as a result, instead of having to explain a missing warming of 1.6 – 0.15 = 1.45 W/m2 per decade, we now have to add the 0.34 W/m2 to the missing warming, and that gets us up to 1.8 W/m2 in missing warming. So rather than explaining things, overall the IPCC explanation just makes things worse …
Anyhow, that’s how it goes to date. If the IPCC theory about 3°C surface warming from a doubling of CO2 is true, we need to either a) come up with something else in the CERES data to explain the missing CO2 warming of 1.6 W/m2 per decade, b) back off on the IPCC climate sensitivity by a factor of about ten … or my perennial favorite, toss out the idea of “climate sensitivity” entirely and recognize that at equilibrium, temperature isn’t a simple function of TOA forcings because the climate system has emergent phenomena which respond and react to counteract the TOA changes.
The big problem that I see for the hypothesis that GHGs rule the temperature is that over the period of the CERES data, we should have seen a shift of almost two watts in the downwelling total radiation … but I find no such thing in the dataset. So I throw this question out to the climate science community at large.
Where in the CERES data is the missing warming? There is no trend (0.01 W/m2 per decade) in the surface downwelling radiation. The IPCC says that over the period, CO2 should have increased the downwelling surface radiation by ~ 2 W/m2. SO … if the IPCC hypothesis is correct, what is countering the expected increase of ~ 2 W/m2 in the downwelling surface radiation due to the increase in CO2 over the 2000-2012 time period?
Solar explains perhaps 10% of it, but the volcanoes push it the other way … so why can’t I find the two watts per square metre of expected CO2 warming in the CERES dataset?
w.
NOTES
USUAL REQUEST: If you disagree with something that I or someone else said, please QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH. Then, and only then, let us know what you disagree with. I can defend my own words. I cannot defend your interpretation of my words.
DATA AND CODE: I’ve put the data and code used to produce the graphs and calculations online. There are three code files: CERES Setup.R, CERES Functions.R, and the code for this post, CO2 and CERES.R. In addition, there are two datafiles, one for the CERES TOA files, and the other for the CERES surface files, entitled CERES 13 year (230 Mbytes), and CERES 13 year surface (112 Mbytes). I think that the data is turnkey, just pull up the CO
All of them need to be in the same folder, because the CO2 and CERES.R file calls the setup file, which loads the data files and the function file. If you’ve downloaded the CERES 13 year file, it is unchanged, no need to reload. Open the CERES Setup.R file to see the names of all of the datafiles loaded, and open the CERES Functions.R file for functions and constants.
And as Steven Mosher recommended to me, use RStudio as your portal into R, much the best I’ve found.
CERES Data: The top-of atmosphere CERES data is measured by the satellites. On the other hand, the CERES surface data is calculated from the TOA CERES data, plus data from the MODIS and GOES satellites. The calculated surface data is energy balanced, meaning that the surface flows sum up to the TOA flows.
I’ve run my own version of ground truthing on the CERES surface data by comparing it to the surface temperature data I was using previously. Differences were small overall, and both sets shows the same small details and fluctuations.
Is this how I’d like to do the analysis? Not at all. I’d rather that everything were measured … but this is the best we have, and the various climate scientists involved have used all of the available observational data from a variety of satellites to determine the various values, and have ground truthed the surface data in a variety of ways. So until we have better data, the CERES datasets are the closest we have to actual measurements … and as near as I can tell they show no sign of the claimed 2 W/m2 increase in downwelling radiation that we are assured is going on over the period of record.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Since they used 1365 for the solar constant to calculate the CERES data you might ask leif what he thinks of that.
you might also want to check the validation documents. some interesting tidbits in there about the large biases. ( double digit watts)
also beware of the surface temperature product.
Before you use satillite data you want to check the real surface measures.
what DLW was actually measured.
start here
http://www.arm.gov/measurements
This just in: Global cooling is now a reduced warming trend. Don’t say cooling, say a reduction in the warming trend!
Thank you, that is all.
Willis asked:
“why is there no corresponding change in the total downwelling radiation at the surface?”
Maybe because the temperature of the warmest molecules at or just above the surface doesn’t change (globally averaged) due to a compensating change in the speed or size of the convective circulation ?
So it depends on your VIP ranking as to the use of solar cycles in your climate predictions. How convenient.
Jim, too. says: January 14, 2014 at 4:40 am:
The caption to Figure 1 has a decimal error. It says “Red line shows the trend in the downwelling radiation, which is 0.01 W/m2 per decade.” The red line in fact shows 0.10 W/m2 per decade. The typo is repeated in the 6th paragraph after the figure. The typo has no effect on the conclusions of the post.
A C Osborn says:
January 14, 2014 at 9:33 am
…
“With or Without the heat generated by Atmospheric Pressure?”
Without. Atmospheric pressure cannot generate heat. Force (pressure times area) cannot generate any kind of power, including heat, without acting over a distance.
Force x velocity is power. Force x distance is work (energy). Hydroelectric power is generated by the force of the mass of water in the earth’s gravitational field falling in that field. But the atmosphere has already fallen to the earth’s surface, and can no more generate power than water just sitting behind a dam could. (Globally, for all the downdrafts in the atmosphere, there must be corresponding updrafts.)
Keep this up Willis and these satellites are going to meet with some major adjustments (over and above what is already done to them). There seems to be few if any new launchings of climate satellites contemplated these days. Hand waving/weird weather seems to be the safest fall back position.
I suppose the most obvious question is: “Why isn’t this type of analysis being done by climate scientists? or: What type of analysis are they doing to arrive at their reckoning of sensitivity and the effects solar, volcanic aerosols, etc? One has to believe that this data has been examined and rejected, perhaps found so shocking and non supportive of the theory that they’ve moved back to more speculative stuff.
Any explanations as to why volcanic emissions would warm rather than cool? That would certainly be a target of thoughtful critics.
Konrad says, January 14, 2014 at 1:26 am:
“The oceans without a radiatively cooled atmosphere above (if they didn’t boil off into space) would reach around 80C.
Therefore the atmosphere cools the oceans and radiative gases cool the atmosphere.”
Well, true per se. But your claim that the presence of a radiatively active atmosphere on top of an ocean acts to make that ocean cooler tells only half the truth in leaving out the very fundamental and opposite effect of atmospheric weight. The atmosphere’s weight on the ocean surface effectively keeps it in place, acting to keep it relatively warm by suppressing free evaporation. Specifically, the heavier the atmosphere, the warmer the ocean, given equal solar input.
Curt said:
“Globally, for all the downdrafts in the atmosphere, there must be corresponding updrafts”
Exactly.
So speed up or slow down the updrafts and downdrafts (convection) to provide a negative system response for any forcing element.
There, is the ‘thermostat’.
It operates by converting energy to and fro between kinetic energy (heat) and gravitational potential energy (not heat) at varying rates to ensure that on average the right amount of kinetic energy is delivered to the radiating height so as to match energy in with energy out.
Of course, there are variations either side of the mean all the time which is why we see changes in atmospheric circulation such as changes in the zonality / meridionality of the jet streams and the drifting northward or southward of the ITCZ.
It is a mechanical process not a radiative process but that mechanical process can feed energy into or deny energy to the radiative budget as necessary to maintain long term equilibrium.
That non radiative negative system response is missing from AGW theory.
Kristian said:
“The atmosphere’s weight on the ocean surface effectively keeps it in place, acting to keep it relatively warm by suppressing free evaporation. Specifically, the heavier the atmosphere, the warmer the ocean, given equal solar input.”
Exactly.
The heavier the atmosphere the more energy is needed to initiate the phase change from water to vapour so the oceans must get warmer given equal solar input.
At 1 bar pressure the latent heat of vaporisation is about 5 to 1. At higher pressure it will be more than that, at lower pressure it will be less than that and the ocean temperature would change accordingly.
At zero pressure the water turns to vapour instantly for zero addition of energy and would immediately boil off to space.
The thermal effects of the need to supply energy to keep the weight of atmospheric mass off the surface are missing from AGW theory.
Energy used to hold the atmosphere off the surface is not available for radiation to space.
There is of course a radiative flux up and down within the atmosphere but its thermal effect nets out to zero as a result of conduction between surface and atmosphere.
If it did not net out to zero the atmosphere would either be lost to space or congeal on the surface.
The balance between radiation (balancing the energy budget with space) and conduction (balancing the surface / atmosphere energy budget) is met by varying the speed of convection.
Willis’s thermostat hypothesis cannot work otherwise.
When pressure increases in a local area it means work is being done on that area. When pressure decreases in an area it means that area is doing work on a nearby, connected area. Work is energy, a change in energy over time is…
Good post and commentary. Thank you.
What did you think of Steven Mosher’s caveats, such as this? you might also want to check the validation documents. some interesting tidbits in there about the large biases. ( double digit watts)
lgl says:
January 14, 2014 at 9:06 am
Thanks, lgl. I think you are mixing units. The 3°C rise would require a corresponding rise of 21 W/m2 in downwelling radiation. In a decade we’ve seen about a tenth of that.
w.
Merrick said:
“When pressure increases in a local area it means work is being done on that area. When pressure decreases in an area it means that area is doing work on a nearby, connected area. Work is energy, a change in energy over time is…”
Almost right.
Work is actually being done in both locations.
Increasing pressure involves descending air which works with gravity to convert gravitational potential energy (not heat) to kinetic energy (heat).
Decreasing pressure involves ascending air which works against gravity to convert kinetic energy (heat) to gravitational potential energy (not heat).
Both balance out to zero over time as Curt pointed out and I think Willis accepted that at one point (apologies for not being able to quote him at present).
The net effect is to store a fixed amount of energy in an atmosphere of given mass but switching that energy between heat (kinetic energy) and not heat (gravitational potential energy) when the convective cycle changes speed or size provides the negative system response to forcing elements that Willis’s Thermostat Hypothesis and observations require.
The critical issue for a thermostatic mechanism is being able to deliver the right amount of kinetic energy to the radiating height to balance radiation in with radiation out.
Convection achieves just that.
Steven Mosher says:
January 14, 2014 at 11:37 am
Thanks, Mosh. I’m not clear what you mean by that. The monthly solar data from CERES has a mean of 1360.918, and looks like this:
Where is the mystery “1365” you are referring to?
Been there, read at least some of that. Links to documents illustrating your concerns would go a long way. I do understand the underlying problem, which is that the raw data says the planet is out of balance by about 6 W/m2, and that’s not possible.
However, that doesn’t begin to invalidate the use of the dataset. The good news is, the error appears to be uniform over the length of the data. That is to say, the imbalance doesn’t change much over the period.It just means that you can’t depend on the absolute values when you subtract one dataset from another. And if you notice up above … I’m not doing that. The measurements are not all that accurate, but they are amazingly precise. So trends in the dataset do contain valuable information.
As I said, I checked it against the prior dataset that I was using and found little difference. If you could give a reference for your concern that would make your comment useful. I acknowledged in the head post that it is a calculated dataset, with all that that means …
OK, I started there. It lists hundreds of things. Am I supposed to intuit which of those you find relevant? I don’t go on a snipe hunt for any man.
If you think there is a better dataset, bring it on. If you think there are problems I haven’t considered, don’t wave your hands and say “beware the surface temperature product”. That is useless to me. What should I beware of, who said so, and where did they say it?
Your content-free Cassandra-like dirges are getting old. Handwaving and warning of unknown dangers doesn’t cut it. You’re a smart man. If you think there is a real issue with my analysis, then either point me to the real paragraphs in the real documents that discuss the real problems, or go away.
I hate to be so blunt, but truly, you are a smart guy, and you know better than to parade this farrago of vague, judgement-laden, uncited claims of doom, disaster, and hidden error. Look, I freely admit that you may be onto something. You may actually see some hidden error … but if so, then point it out exactly and precisely and cite and explain your claims. Your saying “Beware the Ides of March” tells me nothing.
w.
Willis Eschenbach says, January 14, 2014 at 8:54 am:
“And in fact, Konrad holds that the entire CERES dataset is worthless because according to the great Konrad, you can’t use Stefan-Boltzmann equation on air or water … and that’s exactly what the CERES calculations do.”
Willis, please consider this: You have an atmospheric layer made up 100% of nitrogen, oxygen and argon. It holds a physical temperature of 255K. Apply the S-B equation to derive the radiative flux emitted by this layer. Then add some water vapour and carbon dioxide so that the air layer now contains ~99.5% N, O and Ar and ~0.5% H2O and CO2. The layer is still at 255K. Now apply the S-B equation to derive the radiative flux. Is the layer in the former condition able to emit a perfect BB flux based solely on its physical temperature? Is the layer in the latter condition able to emit a perfect BB flux based solely on its physical temperature?
Does the emissivity of an air layer going from 100% N, O and Ar to 99.5% N, O and Ar + 0.5% H2O and CO2 go from 0 to 1?
– – –
“He [Konrad] actually believes that the ocean is kept from freezing solely by the ~ 160 W/m2 of downwelling solar, while it is losing ~ 400 W/m2 through radiation and sensible/latent heat loss … and that’s industrial strength foolishness.”
I don’t know what Konrad is actually proposing, Willis, because you haven’t quoted him here. You’re rather making a claim about what he’s saying, you’re giving us your interpretation of his words. Sounds familiar? I at least know of someone that doesn’t like it at all when people do that to his words.
From above, the ocean only ever receives energy from the Sun, Willis. The energy from the Sun is all that the ocean has at its disposal. At any time. You seem completely oblivious to the simple everyday process of heating an object with a thermal mass.
How does an object heat? It heats by storing up internal energy. It warms as long as its internal energy increases. It does so as long as more heat is coming in per unit of time than is going out. The surface of the Earth on average receives ~165 W/m^2 worth of radiative heat from the Sun. That’s all the heat it gets in from above. The warmer the surface gets, the more heat it naturally gives off. At a certain point, so much of the energy absorbed from the Sun has been stored up that a certain temperature level has been reached. At this temperature level, the surface finally manages to shed as much heat as it receives. It stops warming. It has reached balance with the incoming heat flux (energy IN per unit of time). 165 W/m^2 IN, 165 W/m^2 OUT. That’s it. Balance. The final steady-state surface temperature has got nothing to do with the original 165 flux value. This flux is simply what feeds the thermal mass with energy at a certain rate. The final steady-state temperature is determined by the amount of energy stored up thusly at/beneath the surface at the time of balance IN/OUT.
The S-B equation doesn’t decide at what temperature the surface of the Earth is ‘warm enough’. Because the S-B equation deals with instantaneous radiative fluxes only. Not with thermal mass. But thermal mass is what actually allows real objects to heat.
Many thanks for your brilliant series of posts on the Ceres data !
“The problem is, the surface loses energy in three ways—as radiation, as sensible heat, and as the latent heat of evapotranspiration. The energy loss from the surface by radiation (per CERES) is ~ 400 watts per square metre (W/m2), and the loss by sensible and latent heat is ~ 100 W/m2, or a quarter of the radiation loss.”
For two bodies A and B exchanging radiation, the transfer of heat from A to B is the net balance of the radiation of A absorbed by B minus the radiation of B absorbed by A. Between your two hand closely held parallel at a skin temperature of say 33°C the net balance is 500 W/m²- 500 W/m² =0. Between surface and air Miskolczi has, from clear sky observed data (TIGRE, Tiros Initial Guess Retrieval), shown that the upward surface flux absorbed by the air is within some W/m² of the down-welling flux radiated by the air to the surface; S Costa et al. say about 20 W/m² for the “all sky” average global transmission from the surface to the cosmos in the water vapor window (about 800 cm-1 to 1150 cm-1 where 1 cm-1 = 29.9792 GHz); as in this water vapor window the bulk of the down welling radiation originate from higher levels (one or some kilometers instead of some tens or hundreds of meters at optical frequencies where the water vapor is opaque) there is indeed a slight imbalance: the radiation from the surface absorbed by the air is a few W/m² greater than the down welling radiation from the air absorbed by the surface.
During the night the temperature of the surface falls below that of the first few tens and hundreds meters of the air (the so-called temperature inversion at the end of the night is between 1°C or 2°C in the water vapor saturated Singapore and up to 40°C in dry desert areas like parts of Sahara): the down welling radiation may, at the end of the night, be higher that the absorbed radiation from the surface.
Hence the “energy loss from the surface by radiation” (“heat” could be more appropriate than “energy”) is about 20 W/m² (all sky, including cloudy ones) to the cosmos and a few W/m² for the net balance of radiation between surface and air. The rest of the say 150 W/m² (24 hour global average) of solar light received by the surface is lost by evaporation and convection.
The evaporated water vapor, when and where it condenses 10 km or 5000 km away, compensates for about half (1 K/day) of the heat lost by the “upper layer” (of optical thickness one) of the water vapor which loses energy by radiating to the cosmos (about 2K/day). The other half is from the infrared solar absorbed- during day-light- by the water vapor and by the liquid water in the clouds.
As discussed in great detail by the professors Gerlich and Tscheuschner and by Kramm and Dlugi many textbooks and papers and reports assume wrongly that “the air heats the surface”. This is not the case: the average temperatures T in the air of the troposphere is T/Tpellicle = ( P/Ppellicle)0,19 which is exactly equivalent to the -6.5°C/km lapse rate standardized by the civil aviation. This relation between pressure and temperature with Tpellicle about 255 K and Ppellicle 0.4 atmosphere in the equatorial chimney and near the ground in cold polar areas, and average 0,53 atmosphere (see books of O.G. Sorokhtin for more details) is due to the diabatic heating of the air by the sun and by the condensation, from above because both the sun and the clouds are in the sky.
“Now, the sensible and latent heat loss is a parasitic loss, which means a loss in a heat engine that costs efficiency”
The latent heat loss by the surface is the main engine not a “parasitic loss”. Indeed the evaporation is like the product of the wind velocity by the difference between the saturated water vapor pressure and the effective vapor pressure near the surface: both of those are increasing by some 6% /°C that is 6 W/m² if the latent heat surface cooling is 100 W/m² and two or three times that in the tropical zone. Any increase of the absorption of the surface radiation by the air (say more water vapor or more CO2) is roughly compensated by an equal down welling radiation which near 15 µm (666 cm-1) is absorbed by some microns of liquid water which is evaporated; the say 6 to 18 W/m²/°C evaporated near the tropics are feeding an equal amount of heat radiated to the cosmos 10 km or 5000 km away. Hence the global outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) is not changed by an increased optical thickness of the air (see also the additional note below).
This is what you have brilliantly shown in your magnificent heat engine post.
“we’ll swallow the whopper that a 3° temperature rise wouldn’t drive evaporation through the roof ”
Indeed 3°C x( +6%/°C )= +18% for the water vapor not so far from the “mid latitude summer” profile line by line computation of Collins (2006) of a 11 W/m² increase of the down welling radiation for +20% on the water vapor, with an equivalent cooling by evaporation and an equivalent radiation to the cosmos 10 km or 5000 km away.
The effect of CO2 doubling itself is only about 0.8 W/m² additional absorption (between 740 and 800 cm-1) and a similar additional down welling radiation.
“instead of the increase of 16.8 W/m2 in downwelling radiation that we calculated above, we need 25% more downwelling radiation”.. “… a quarter for purposes of conservative estimation”
Indeed (5/4) 16.8 = 21. From the above it could be as well 16.8 + 11 + 0.8 = 28.6: your estimation is indeed “conservative”. And (21./ ln2 ) ln(390/369.5)= 1.6 W/m².
Additional note: Another supposed effect of the CO2 doubling is the “higher and cooler” over some cm-1 near 600 cm-1 and near 720 cm-1 where the CO2 radiates to the cosmos from the troposphere and “above” the water vapour. For instance it means that after 2xCO2 the 500 mbar layer is cooling less over those small optical frequency bands and that the 250 mbar layer is cooling more; hence this is equivalent to heating below (at 500 mbar) and cooling more above (at 250 mbar). Surely hot air rises and cooler air subsides. This occurs in the upper troposphere every night (the 2K/day cooling of the “pellicle” is only half compensated by the condensation) and every day (the solar heating of the water vapor or liquid in the clouds overcompensates the radiative cooling of the “pellicle”).
But the CO2 doubling is not as said “instantaneous” it would take about 200 years at +1.9 ppm/yr or about 73 000 times 24 hours.
The computation of a “radiative forcing” at the tropopause is according to IPCC-2001 to be made with unchanged temperatures of the troposphere; hence hot air does not rise and cooler air does not subside.
Without this trick (instantaneous doubling and fixed temperatures) there would be no “radiative forcing”: 73 000 nights and 73 000 days suppress day after day the supposed “forcing” of 27 µW/m²/24 hours.
An additional compensation mechanism is the reduction of the water vapor content (12%/°C near the tropopause) in the upper (“250 mbar”) layer that is cooling more: hence water vapor radiates to the cosmos from a slightly “lower and warmer” level, but on a much wider optical frequency range than the some cm-1 of the CO2 near 600 cm-1 and 720 cm-1.
Many thanks and best regards.
Camille
Can anyone tell us why the fact that more energy is needed to move from say 16degC to 19degC, than from 0degC to 3degC, does not wipe out the GHG atmospheric warming hypothesis like a bad stain? Brett from NZ
A C Osborn says:
January 14, 2014 at 9:07 am
When a man accuses me of intentionally misunderstanding him, that’s the end of my part of the conversation. I don’t play those games. If you truly think that of me, I have no interest in discussing anything with you.
Goodbye, A C Osborne.
w.
Kristian says:
January 14, 2014 at 2:44 pm
If Konrad thinks I’ve misrepresented his ideas, he is free to tell us so. In fact, because I have quoted Konrad’s nonsense far more times than I’d wish to, I say that is a correct assessment of his beliefs. I’m sick of quoting Konrad, I’ve repeated his idiocies in print enough times now.
In any case, why are you out here making his complaints for him? Seems rather servile to me. Were you appointed to be his spokesman, and I didn’t get the memo?
w.
Brett Keane says:
January 14, 2014 at 2:56 pm
I don’t understand your objection. While it is true that radiation goes up as the fourth power of temperature, why should that wipe out the fact that the atmosphere absorbs energy and radiates part of it back to the surface?
w.
Kristian said:
“thermal mass is what actually allows real objects to heat.”
Or just mass.
Which applies to atmospheres too.
Radiation is secondary to mass.
Willis,
You have a point about hijacking of your thread. People, including yourself, have raised a number of issues with my claims and the experiments they are based on. I would like to respond briefly to some of the comments however this will attract a herd of “snowstormers” and “SIF”. You should be aware by now that this will always happen on climate blogs when discussion threatens the foundation of AGW, the radiative GHE. Some of those ”snowstormers” and “SIF” are not sceptics.
“Keep calm and carry on” does the trick.
As many other readers will be aware I am not a “single issue fanatic”. My empirical experiments clearly cover a range of issues –
– Does your steel greenhouse work? (yes)
– Does CO2 both absorb and radiate LWIR?
– Does LWIR slow the cooling rate of water that is free to evaporatively cool?
– Does the relative height of energy entry and exit in a fluid column effect the average temperature?
– Does gravity create a bias in conductive flux between surface and atmosphere?
– How hot would our oceans get without atmospheric cooling?
In showing these experiments in the past you will note that I am showing build instructions. Science is about repeatable experiments and observations. An ancient proverb –
“Tell me, I’ll forget. Show me I’ll understand. Let me do it and I will know.”
The problem with the Internet is that type is cheap. Not enough sceptics are prepared to conduct empirical experiments. But as you will recall from the defeat of the “S—-rs” they can be very powerful.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 14, 2014 at 8:48 am
“Citation? I see no one but you claiming that for some reason, S-B equations become invalid when applied to a moving fluid in a gravity field. What are you basing your claim on?”
——————————————————
My claim was based on a very simple empirical experiment –
http://i48.tinypic.com/124fry8.jpg
The use of nine thermocouples per column will allow you to see something like this –
http://tinypic.com/r/zmghtu/6
It is possible to achieve an equilibrium state with equal amounts of energy entering and exiting each gas column, but with very different average gas temperatures.
A relevant citation is Sir George Simpson’s 1938 criticism of Callendar’s global warming claims –
“..but he would like to mention a few points which Mr. Callendar might wish to reconsider. In the first place he thought it was not sufficiently realised by non-meteorologists who came for the first time to help the Society in its study, that it was impossible to solve the problem of the temperature distribution in the atmosphere by working out the radiation. The atmosphere was not in a state of radiative equilibrium, and it also received heat by transfer from one part to another. In the second place, one had to remember that the temperature distribution in the atmosphere was determined almost entirely by the movement of the air up and down. This forced the atmosphere into a temperature distribution which was quite out of balance with the radiation. One could not, therefore, calculate the effect of changing any one factor in the atmosphere..”
Sir George Simpson was pointing out the complexity of non-radiative energy transport within the atmosphere. I am pointing out that SB equations, with non-radiative transports simply parametrised doesn’t get the right result. An important point here is that just like gas column 1, radiative cooling at altitude will play a role in convective circulation and reduce average atmospheric temperature. This is in line with Dr. Spencers claims about the role of radiative gases in tropospheric convective circulation.
Kristian: You say that the sun provides the oceans with ~165 W/m2 power flux density on average. So far so good. But the same type of measurements that allow us to say that also show that the oceans are radiating away almost 400 W/m2 on average. They also are losing about another 100 W/m2 to sensible and latent heat transfers to the atmosphere. Even if you regard those measurements as only good to +/-10%, there is still a huge gap to close, on the order of 300 W/m2.
The arguments about what the ocean power imbalance really is are all between 0 and 1 W/m2. How do you make up the 300 W/m2 difference?