From the “settled science” department comes this new revision of Earth’s entire radiation budget. Many WUWT readers can recall seeing this radiation budget graphic from Kenneth Trenberth in 2009:
![erb[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/erb1.jpg?quality=83)
That figure in a slightly different form also appeared in the 2007 IPCC AR4 WG1 report with different numbers:
![faq-1-1-figure-1-l[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/faq-1-1-figure-1-l1.png?quality=75)
Source: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/fig/faq-1-1-figure-1-l.png
Note that in Trenberth’s 2009 paper, the energy from “back radiation” (from GHG action) value went up from 324 w/square meter cited by the IPCC in 2007 to 333 w/square meter. The net effect of that is increased energy back to Earth’s surface, making it warmer.
It seems odd that would increase so much, so quickly in two years. Even more surprising, is that now, the value has been revised even higher, to 340.3 w/square meter, while at the same time, the “Net Absorbed” value, that extra bit of energy that we get to keep from the sun on Earth, thanks to increased GHG action, has gone DOWN.
I know, it doesn’t make much sense, read on.
Alan Siddons writes in an email:
Reviewing NASA’s Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) program this week, I noticed a graphic depiction I hadn’t seen before, at
http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/energy_budget/pdf/Energy_Budget_Litho_10year.pdf .
It was drafted with the assistance of Kevin Trenberth and contains some notable differences from the last effort of his that I’d seen, so I’ve inserted NASA’s new values over it.
Cooler sun than before but a warmer surface. Less albedo and air absorption. Non-radiative cooling is higher than before but surface emission is higher too. “Net absorbed” refers to radiant energy going in but not yet being radiated – a ticking time bomb.
==============================================================
Note that somehow, between 2009 and the present, it was decided (presumably based on CERES measurements) that the Net Absorbed value (which is the extra energy absorbed that would result from increased GHG’s) would go DOWN from 0.9 w/square meter to 0.6w/square meter – an decrease of one third of the 2009 value.
This isn’t a typo, since many of the other numbers have changed as well.
With all the talk of the “settled science” that is certain about increases in Greenhouse gases, it seems that with such a revision, there’s still some very unsettled revisionist work afoot to get a handle on what the “real” energy budget of the Earth is. Perhaps the recent published works on climate sensitivity, coupled with observations of “the pause” have had some affect on these numbers as well. Meanwhile, according to the Mauna Loa data, CO2 concentration has risen from 388.16ppm in November 2009 when we had the big Copenhagen COP15 meeting that was supposed to change everything, to 397.31ppm in November 2013.
So with GHG’s on the increase, their effect has been reduced by a third in the NASA planetary energy budget. That’s quite remarkable.
So was Trenberth’s 2009 energy budget wrong, running too hot? It sure seems so. This is what NASA writes about that diagram:
The energy budget diagram on the front shows our best understanding of energy flows into and away from the Earth. It is based on the work of many scientists over more than 100 years, with the most recent measurements from the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES; http://ceres.larc.nasa.gov) satellite instrument providing high accuracy data of the radiation components (reflected solar and emitted infrared radiation fluxes).
This energy balance determines the climate of the Earth. Our understanding of these energy flows will continue to evolve as scientists obtain a longer and longer record using new and better instruments (http://clarreo.larc.nasa.gov).
Source: http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/energy_budget/
It seems to be a clear case of observations trumping Trenberth.
So with the retained energy (the net absorbed figure) resulting from GHG’s like CO2 dropping by one third since 2009, can we now call off some of the most alarming aspects of global warming theory?
Related posts:
CERES Satellite Data and Climate Sensitivity
==============================================================
UPDATE:
Alan Siddons writes in with some further research. Commenter John West also noted this in comments. Siddons writes:
Well, let me tell you what I found while tracking down that IPCC illustration. I did find it on an IPCC document, Regional Changes of Climate and some basic concepts , but it looked shabby there too, so I surmised that it was a careless copy-paste of somebody else’s work, not a product of the IPCC itself. On that basis I searched for “radiation budget” or “energy budget” and added the illustration’s particular figures to my search demand.
Bingo. The illustration actually came from a May 2013 American Institute of Physics paper, A new diagram of the global energy balance , by Martin Wild, et al.
Here’s a small version for your records.
Other notes by Wild, Decadal changes in surface radiative fluxes – overview and update , yield some insight into his perspective — for instance, this panel,
which seems to indicate that less sunlight creates more compensatory back-radiation but a weaker terrestrial emission, while more sunlight “unmasks” the greenhouse effect. Wild’s conclusions are also notable.
- Still considerable uncertainties in global mean radiation budget at the surface.
- Models still tend to overestimate downward solar and underestimate downward thermal radiation
- Strong decadal changes observed in both surface solar and thermal fluxes.
This last point seems to imply that changes to the Radiation Budget are not merely a result of improved measurements but reflect rather sudden changes in our thermal environment.
================================================================
This leads me to wonder, why did NASA choose the values from Wild et al as opposed to Trenberth from the National Center For Atmosphereic Research?
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
That’s notg the first time Trenberth’s chart was fiddled with:
Trenbeth’s “Global Energy Budget” was updated March 2009 to show an imbalance of 0.9w/M² I wonder how that came about, might have gone something like this:
Once upon a time on a bright sunny morning a few years back, Dr. James Hansen was looking at Kevin Trenberth’s iconic “World Energy Budget”
World Energy Budge
when he choked on his morning coffee because he realized that the darn thing balanced. That’s right, energy in equaled energy out. You see, he’s been saying for some time now that heat energy is slowly building up in Earth’s climate system and that’s not going to happen if the energy budget is balanced.
So he did some fast calculations, snatched up his cell phone and punched in Trenberth’s number.
“Hi Kev, Hansen here, how’s it goin’ with you? Got a minute?”
“Sure Doc, what’s up?”
“Glad you asked. I’ve been looking at your energy budget and it balances, can you fix that?”
“What do you mean fix it, it’s supposed to balance?”
“Kev, listen carefully now, if it balances, heat will never build up in the system do you see where I’m going?”
“Uh I’m not sure, can you tell me a little more?”
“Come on Kev don’t you get it? I need heat to build up in the system. My papers say that heat is in the pipeline, there’s a slow feedback, there’s an imbalance between radiation in and radiation out. Your Energy Budget diagram says it balances. Do you understand now?”
“Gotcha Doc, I’ll get right on it” [starts to hang up the phone]
“WAIT! I need an imbalance of point nine Watts per square meter [0.9 Wm²] for everything to work out right.”
“Uh Doc, what if it doesn’t come out to that?”
“Jeez Kev! Just stick it in there. Run up some of the numbers for back-radiation so it looks like an update, glitz up the graphics a little and come up with some gobbledygook of why you re-did the chart you know how to do that sort of thing don’t you?”
“Sure do Doc, consider it done” [click]
And here’s the new chart
I’ve run the numbers, and 0.9 Wm² will warm the ocean 600 meters deep about 1/2°C in a little over 40 years. Truly amazing stuff. The noon-day sun puts out nearly 1370 wm² and these guys are claiming they’ve added up all the chaotic movements of heat over the entire planet and have determined an imbalance of 0.9 Wm². That’s an accuracy to five places. No plus or minus error bars or anything.
What it means is, all of the components
Reflected by clouds
Reflected by aerosols
Reflected by atmospheric gases
Reflected by surface
Absorbed by the surface
Absorbed by the atmosphere
Thermals
Evaporation
Transpiration
Latent heat
Emitted by clouds
Emitted by atmosphere
Atmospheric Window
AND
Back radiation
need to have an accuracy to those five places or better for the 0.9 Wm² to be true.
Perhaps Hansen didn’t ring up Trenberth and bully him into changing his chart but, Trenberth did change it to show an imbalance and I bet he did so because he realized that if it balanced like his 1997 version, heat wouldn’t build up.
And we all are supposed to sit still for this sort of thing.
The basic difference between the two versions is the addition of an imbalance of 0.9w/M² between energy in and energy out.
The noon-day sun puts out nearly 1370 wm² and Trenberth is claiming satellites can measure not only that but the energy emitted from the Earth as well to an accuracy of 0.1 w/M² in order to determine an imbalance of 0.9 Wm². That’s claiming an accuracy to five places. No plus or minus error bars or anything. I spent my working career in quality control and inspection as it applies to metal working and I can tell you that 5 place accuracy is very hard to come by.
In my opinion, the new diagram was reverse engineered to include the needed 0.9w/M² so that Dr. James Hansen and others could make the claim that the energy is in the pipeline
There is no way that using global averages is a meaningful way to look at the energy balance issue.
The axial tilt, the resulting seasonal shifts in sun light angle of incidence are huge. The diurnal cycle, the surface differences of water/ocean vs. land, and then what the land is covered with, all make huge differences in how energy is received and moves around within the Earth system.
I’m very suspicious of a problem that starts with a 3D rotating spherical object with an eccentric orbit and small wobble that is then reduced to a 2D rectangle.
I am still curious as to why the energy balance diagram does not show photosynthesis? Is the net absorbed heat go to global warming or to support plant growth? If 186W/m2 of sunlight reaches the surface, say for example if 20% of the surface is involved in photosynthesis (including stuff that grows in the water/ocean) with a conversion of 3-6%, that would work out to 1-2W/m2. Does the global warming model assume no plant growth?
lurker, passing through laughing; That’s why the average is considered only in long-term trends, like 30 years and longer, to make sure we’re not being deceived by the noise you’ve mentioned.
Gail Coombs, I too am a chemical engineer – albeit a biochemical engineer. So I too had to take and then apply all those extremely difficult thermodynamics courses (you know, the ones that included concepts like “fugacity” and partial pressures of different compounds in a mixture in a distillation column). My biggest objection to these “simplified” diagrams is that they HAVE to be averaging energy transfers over a time period from a “signal” that has more noise than a pressure guage right on the output of a pump with no snubber! (It’s bouncing around so much you can’t even see the needle!) The problem I have is they never state what that time period is! A day? A month? A year? A decade? Averages don’t mean a thing if the daily processes that are at work are active processes that involve phase change heat transfer processes and temperature swings much much greater than what you are trying to measure (ie. no snubber). Especially if those active processes have become optimized over eons to actively net out to zero over the time period of days to weeks. Very few “climate scientologists” EVER get full credit on the “significant digits” quiz/lab report. (In this case if the daily “noise” can be ~ +/-300 W/m^2 over the whole planet, measured with instruments that only report best case +/2 W/m^2 (watt meters staring at the sun) and more typically +/-30 W/m^2 (LWR meters at night?), then reporting a value with 6 significant digits, as Wild does, gets you an F on that test/report!)
see for reference (ftp://ftp1.esrl.noaa.gov/users/tuttal/Instruments/BSRN/i1520-0477-79-10-2115%5B1%5D.pdf)
(Wise advice I once received from a senior engineer when I was just starting in industry, “If the weather outside today doesn’t happen to match the optimal temperature for your cooling tower, wait a couple of days and it will. Some days it will be optimally efficient, some days it will be a little low and some a little high. Trust your data, you oversized it correctly so it will ALWAYS have sufficient capacity to handle the peak heat load even on 110 degree days.”) With the amount of water covering the surface, this planet has a GROSSLY oversized heat regulating capacity.
The “missing” energy is what drives LIFE on this planet. It isn’t missing at all. Look at all the blue green algae in the oceans. HUGE vast areas of our planet absorbing right at the peak center wavelength of the incident radiation.
What would be a lot more believable is if these energy “budgets” were instead presented as energy transfer “snapshots” at various times and various locations, AND if the numbers presented were ACTUAL measured values, vs estimated values based on models, faulty long term averages, or just order of magnitude guesses. The least believable values on these charts are the low numbers for the non-radiative energy transfers – evaporation, condensation, etc.
Look very carefully at the numbers and you will see that the radiation coming off the surface of the planet is greater than the radiation entering from the sun in every single one of these models! I’m sorry, but that is pure BS! When I go outside I NEVER feel radiant heat coming off my lawn, greater than the radiant heat from the sun, (the top of my head is always hotter than the bottom of my chin, even when my lawn is covered in a foot of white reflective snow). Even in the middle of the night! On a REALLY hot day I might feel the radiant heat coming of a black parking lot, but even then the sun feels a lot hotter radiatively (now conductively or convectively, that’s a different matter!) Thats why I am sure these numbers have to be based on averages, and faulty assumptions about conductive and convective transfers which have to be higher and are always more efficient. Except for engineering for heat transfer in space or in a vacuum chamber, I would NEVER think to design for radiative heat transfer first – conduction first, then convection with a good working fluid like WATER.
Joe Chang said at 8:35 am I am still curious as to why the energy balance diagram does not show photosynthesis?
Excellent point
Joe Chang says: @ur momisugly January 17, 2014 at 8:35 am
I am still curious as to why the energy balance diagram does not show photosynthesis? Is the net absorbed heat go to global warming or to support plant growth? If 186W/m2 of sunlight reaches the surface, say for example if 20% of the surface is involved in photosynthesis (including stuff that grows in the water/ocean) with a conversion of 3-6%, that would work out to 1-2W/m2. Does the global warming model assume no plant growth?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No, the assumption is made that all that greenry either get eaten or rots and the energy is released as heat. They assume there is zero increase in the amount of plant or animal matter so no energy is sequestered.
Gail Combs says:
January 17, 2014 at 6:00 am
Trick says: @ur momisugly January 17, 2014 at 5:35 am
…Remember thermometers are likewise calibrated but everyday use shows we’ve mastered that art so well few doubt even inexpensive individual thermometer accuracy any more.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Not in my old labs. You would be surprised at how badly out of wack “scientific’ thermometers can be straight from the manufacturer!
___________________________________________________________________
25% or more off >0.5C, some we kept as Mercury filled stirring rods, 1°C ones got marked and given to the local schools. >1°C went to the mercury collection jar.
I’m more than just a little skeptical with these temperatures to 2-3 decimal places.
Steve Case says….
ROTFLMAO. Nice to see another QC type.
“Back Radiation!”
This is a figment of the imagination. The atmosphere does not heat the Earth’s surface, as the atmosphere is cooler than the Earth’s surface virtually everywhere and always. And, more importantly, the atmosphere does not heat itself.
A Pyrgeometer is a very dangerous instrument in the hands of a “Climate Scientist.” Point it at the sky, read some Watts/M2, and conclude that the atmosphere heats the Earth’s surface because you are measuring a flux. Apparently Trenberth and his ilk are ignorant of the Second Law. How they got themselves these jobs, not knowing that, is a failure of our society.
CO2 does absorb and thermalize IR in the 15-micron band. This is not strictly speaking Heat Transfer, but an electrical effect, same way a microwave oven works. The entire atmosphere absorbs and radiates heat, as does all matter above absolute Zero.
I hope everyone on here understands all this, not just one or two of you which is what seems to be a fair assumption after reading these comments…
Gail Combs said at 8:46 am
No, the assumption is made that all that greenry either get eaten or rots and the energy is released as heat. They assume there is zero increase in the amount of plant or animal matter so no energy is sequestered.
So how did coal, oil, natural gas and peat form?
Michael Moon: I’m with you all the way. There are quite a few conmenters here who agree with you.
richardscourtney says:
January 17, 2014 at 3:07 am
“Today we have a revision of Trenberth’s energy budget cartoon. That, too, has been repeatedly disputed including on WUWT. For example, earlier this week I wrote
Quantifying all these changes requires assumptions because adequate measured data do not exist. Different people use different assumptions (hypotheses) so obtain estimates.”
You give them too much credit. Not one of them knows the difference between assumption and hypothesis.
.DonV says: @ur momisugly January 17, 2014 at 8:45 am
Gail Coombs, I too am a chemical engineer…
Very few “climate scientologists” EVER get full credit on the “significant digits” quiz/lab report. (In this case if the daily “noise” can be ~ +/-300 W/m^2 over the whole planet, measured with instruments that only report best case +/2 W/m^2 (watt meters staring at the sun) and more typically +/-30 W/m^2 (LWR meters at night?), then reporting a value with 6 significant digits, as Wild does, gets you an F on that test/report!)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is a really good description.
I am just a lowly chemist who worked with Chem engineers and took a bit of thermo. The CAGW scientologists get away with their malarkey because there are too few engineers and geologists to call them on the crap and when they do they don’t have “Weight” because they are not “climate scientologists”
This is a classic rebuttal:
Great example of appeal to authority while denying the ability to apply engineering/physics principles to other fields.
Who came up with this: “No, the assumption is made that all that greenry either get eaten or rots and the energy is released as heat. They assume there is zero increase in the amount of plant or animal matter so no energy is sequestered.”
Someone who has never been on a farm and seen how much gets plowed back into the soil? Have they every seen trees cut down and used to build houses? (that do not eventually burn down). Also, rotting/decomposing does not release all of the energy, per steve: oil, coal, gas and peat.
So when you are out on a sunny day and get burned, never mind the Sun. It is the “backradiation” that hits you. Twice as hard as the radiation from the Sun.
Steve Case says:
January 17, 2014 at 8:13 am
“In my opinion, the new diagram was reverse engineered to include the needed 0.9w/M² so that Dr. James Hansen and others could make the claim that the energy is in the pipeline.”
The best evidence that it was reverse engineered is that the information presented in it is the very minimum needed to make the claim that the energy is in the pipeline. In fact, the diagram is nothing more than a graphical presentation of the claim “The energy is in the pipeline.” The graph opens all possible questions and directly addresses no particulars. As such, it is more similar to a Socratic dialogue than a scientific result. We should encourage the people who produce such graphs to give up on the philosophy and start doing science.
I like how this guy makes an argument (doesn’t matter how wrong the argument is) using figures from reputable sources, and most of the commenters simply doubt the credibility of those figures. Do you realize that doubting the credibility of those figures also invalidates the argument laid out here? You can’t pick a side and then cast suspicion on the numbers your own side is using just because you’re afraid of science.
I do not think the back radiation is a good way to convey the main point. When a photon is absorbed and re-radiated, it can go in any direction. The more important point is that the longwave energy radiated into space is emitted from the top of the atmosphere because the mean scattering distance of lw IR is short relative to the height of the atmosphere. Of energy from the sun deposited on the surface has to be transported to the top of the atmosphere, there must be a thermal gradient. In the diagram, this is represented by the difference between the upwell and back radiation. The only point is what is necessary to support heat transport.
Another excellent post, Anthony. Great work, commenters. Special kudos to Gail Combs.
How can CERES improve our understanding of energy balance, when the fluxes from CERES are 5 W/m^2 out of balance? CERES obviously doesn’t measure the absolute value of the energy flow accurately enough (although it has high precision) to determine the energy imbalance.
Any pot grower should be able to tell you that only the leaf is burned, the fiber is used for rope and stuff, i.e. energy is sequestered. This means the pot grower is a better source of whole picture information than the pot smoker.
Michael Moon says: @ur momisugly January 17, 2014 at 8:48 am
“Back Radiation!”
This is a figment of the imagination….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That depends on whether you are talking on the molecular level or macro level. Net there is no “Back Radiation” because it violates the 2nd Law. However thanks to the 400 ppm of CO2 you can get a retarding in the time it takes for the radiation to exit TOA…. nanoseconds?
As I said I am a chemist so do not have the maths to figure it out but that photon of the correct wavelength to interact with the very scarce amount of CO2 is not going to be hanging around very long while on its way out even if it does manage to find a CO2 molecule to interrupt it in its journey.
I have never seen the amount of outgoing energy for the CO2 bands which is why I like this graph Outgoing seems to be down around tenths. Digging around just now I found this graph Which if I am reading it correctly says the energy is down in the 0.08 Wm2 or less range. So yes in the tenths or less.
This is why I said that TIME is what is being hidden.
Broken down to its basics the heat budget is simple:
Sun ==> Surface ==> Atmosphere ==> Back out to space
There isn’t any Surface => Atmosphere => Surface loop.