Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Well, another productive ramble through the CERES dataset, which never ceases to surprise me. This time my eye was caught by a press release about a new (paywalled) study by Gordon et al. regarding the effect of water vapor on the climate:
From 2002 to 2009, an infrared sounder aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite measured the atmospheric concentration of water vapor. Combined with a radiative transfer model, Gordon et al. used these observations to determine the strength of the water vapor feedback. According to their calculations, atmospheric water vapor amplifies warming by 2.2 plus or minus 0.4 watts per square meter per degree Celsius. (See Notes for sources)
Hmmm, sez I, plus or minus 0.4 W/m2? I didn’t know if that was big or small, so I figured I’d take a look at what the CERES data said about water vapor. As the inimitable Ramanathan pointed out, the distribution of water vapor in the atmosphere is shown by the variations in the clear-sky atmospheric absorption of upwelling longwave.
Figure 1. Distribution of Atmospheric Water Vapor, as shown by absorption of upwelling surface longwave (LW) radiation, in watts per square metre (W/m2). In areas of increased water vapor, a larger amount of the upwelling radiation is absorbed in clear-sky conditions. Absorption is calculated as the upwelling surface longwave radiation minus the upwelling top-of-atmosphere (TOA) longwave radiation. The difference between the two is what is absorbed. Contours are at 10 W/m2 intervals.
As Ramanathan saw, there’s only one greenhouse gas (GHG) that shows that kind of spatial variability of absorption, and that’s water vapor. The rest of the GHGs are too well mixed and change too slowly to be responsible for the variation we see in atmospheric absorption of upwelling surface radiation.. OK, sez I, I can use that information to figure out the change in clear-sky absorption per degree of change in temperature. However, I wanted an answer in watts per square metre … and that brings up a curious problem. Figure 2 shows my first (unsuccessful) cut at an answer. I simply calculated the change in absorption (in W/m2) that results from a one-degree change in temperature.
Figure 2. Pattern of changes in clear-sky atmospheric absorption, per 1°C increase in temperature. This is the pattern after the removal of the monthly seasonal variations.
The problem with Figure 2 is that if there is a 1°C increase in temperature, we expect there to be an increase in watts absorbed even if there is absolutely no change in the absorption due to water vapor. In other words, at 1°C higher temperature we should get more absorption (in W/m2) even if water vapor is fixed, simply because at a higher temperature, more longwave is radiated upward by the surface. As a result, more upwelling longwave will be radiated will be absorbed. So I realized that Figure 2 was simply misleading me, because it includes both water vapor AND direct temperature effects.
But how much more radiation should we get from a surface temperature change of 1°C? I first considered using theoretical blackbody calculations. After some reflection, I realized that I didn’t have to use a theoretical answer, I could use the data. To do that, instead of average W/m2 of absorption, I calculated the average percentage of absorption for each gridcell, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. As in Figure 1, showing the distribution of water vapor, but this time shown as the percentage of upwelling surface longwave radiation which is absorbed in clear-sky conditions. Contours are at intervals of 2%, highest contour is 40%. Contours omitted over the land for clarity.
This is an interesting plot in and of itself, because it shows the variations in the efficiency of the clear-sky atmospheric greenhouse effect in percent. It is similar to Figure 1, but not identical. Note that the clear-sky greenhouse effect in the tropics is 30-40%, while at the poles it is much smaller. Note also how Antarctica is very dry. You can also see the Gobi desert in China and the Atacama desert in Peru. Finally, remember this does not include the manifold effects of clouds, as it is measuring only the clear-sky greenhouse effect.
Back to the question of water vapor feedback, using percentages removes the direct radiative effect of the increase in temperature. So with that out of the way, I looked at the relationship between the percentage of absorption of upwelling LW, and the temperature. Figure 4 shows the average temperature and the average absorption of upwelling LW (%):
Figure 4. Scatterplot of 1°x1° gridcell average atmospheric absorption and average temperature. The green data points are land gridcells, and the blue points show ocean gridcells. N (number of observations) = 64,800.
As you can see, the relationship between surface temperature and percentage of absorption is surprisingly linear. It is also the same over the land and the ocean, which is not true of all variables. The slope of the trend line (gold dashed line in Figure 4) is the change in percentage of absorption per degree of change in temperature. The graph shows a ~ 0.4% increase in absorption per °C of warming.
Finally, to convert this percentage change in absorption to a global average water vapor feedback in watts per square metre per °C, we simply need to multiply the average upwelling longwave (~ 399 W/m2) times 0.443%, which is the change in percentage per degree C. This gives us a value for the change in absorption of 1.8 ± .001 W/m2 per degree C.
Finally, recall what the authors said above, that “atmospheric water vapor amplifies warming by 2.2 plus or minus 0.4 watts per square meter per degree Celsius.” That means that the CERES data does not disagree with the conclusions of the authors above. However, it is quite a bit smaller—the Gordon et al. value is about 20% larger than the CERES value.
Which one seems more solid? I’d say the CERES data, for a couple of reasons. First, because the trend is so linear and is stable over such a wide range. Second, because the uncertainty in the trend is so small. That indicates to me that it is a real phenomenon with the indicated strength, a 1.8 W/m2 increase in absorbed TOA radiation.
Finally, according to Gordon et al. there is both a short-term and a long-term effect. They say
By forcing a radiative transfer model with the observed distribution of water vapor, we can understand the effect that the water vapor has on the TOA irradiance. Combining information on how global mean surface temperature affects the total atmospheric moisture content, we provide an estimate of the feedback that water vapor exerts in our climate system. Using our technique, we calculate a short-term water vapor feedback of 2.2 W m–2 K–1. The errors associated with this calculation, associated primarily with the shortness of our observational time series, suggest that the long-term water vapor feedback lies between 1.9 and 2.8 W m-2 K–1.
So … which one is being measured in this type of analysis? I would argue that the gridcells in each case represent the steady-state, after all readjustments and including all long-term effects. As a result, I think that we are measuring the long-term water-vapor feedback.
That’s the latest news from CERES, the gift that keeps on giving.
Best to all,
w.
NOTES:
Ut Solet
If you disagree with something I (or anyone) says, please quote my words exactly. I can defend my own words, or admit their errors, and I’m happy to do so as needed. I can’t defend your (mis)understanding of my words. If you quote what I said, we can all be clear just what it is that you think is incorrect.
Data and Paper
Press Release here.
Paywalled paper: An observationally based constraint on the water-vapor feedback, Gordon et al., JGR Atmospheres
R Code: CERES Water Vapor (zipped folder 750 mb)
CERES Data: CERES TOA (220 Mb) and CERES Surface (115 Mb)
[UPDATE]
An alert reader noted that I had simplified the actual solution, saying:
Since one of the feedbacks is T^4 it would probably come out as T^3 in a percentage plot and this curve has strong upwards curvature.
To which I replied:
Not really, although you are correct that expressing it as a percentage removes most of the dependence on temperature, but not quite all of the dependence on temperature. As a result, as you point out the derivative would not be a straight line. Here’s the math. The absorption as a percentage, as noted above, is
(S- TOA)/S
with S being upwelling surface LW and TOA upwelling LW.
This simplifies to
1 – TOA/S
But as you point out, S, the surface upwelling LW, is related to temperature by the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, viz
S = sigma T4
where S is surface upwelling LW, sigma is the Stefan Boltzmann constant, and T is temperature. (As is usual in such calculations I’ve assumed the surface LW emissivity is 1. It makes no significant difference to the results.)
In addition, the TOA upwelling longwave varies linearly with T. This was a surprise to me. One of the interesting parts of the CERES dataset investigation is seeing who varies linearly with temperature, and who varies linearly with W/m2. In this case TOA can be well expressed (to a first order) as a linear function of T of the form mT+b.
This means that (again to a first order) I am taking the derivative of
1 – (m T + b) / (sigma T4)
which solves to
(4 b + 3 m T)/(sigma T5)
Over the range of interest, this graphs out as
Recall that my straight-line estimate was 0.44% per degree, the average of the values shown above. In fact, the more nuanced analysis the commenter suggested shows that it varies between about 0.38% and 0.5% per degree.
The humid air is heated by the surface and convects because of its reduced density imposed by the increased temperature. this air cools as it rises and forms clouds which increase albedo so reduce solar heating. Rainforest temperatures rarely go above 40C during the day or below 25C at night. Dry deserts have no such negative feedback and have to rely on the fixed albedo of the surface. this heats the air which will convect but without the water vapour will not form clouds. The sand surface in the Namibian desert has been measured at over 70C The air temperature at the standard height for temperature measurements is considerably cooler, 50+C. Night time temperatures can fall to below 10C.
The only three ways more humid air above a surface will tend towards warming that surface in relative terms is 1) lowering the temp gradient going up from it (as soon as the water vapour condenses, it releases latent heat into the air – will happen mostly after the sun’s gone down), 2) allowing the air above the surface to take much longer to cool in the night because of its greater heat capacity, and 3) suppressing evaporation rates from the surface by moving the air mass above it closer to the saturation point.
The radiative properties of H2O in themselves will in fact act towards cooling the surface, because they will let less solar energy per unit of time be absorbed by the surface. The air will also absorb more efficiently the IR coming off the ground, but since the air has so much higher heat capacity, then much more energy is also required before its temperature goes up as much. And as soon as it warms, it moves up anyway, away from the surface, through its heightened buoyancy.
During the night it is in fact these radiative properties that allow the humid air to cool to space (or at least to higher levels of the atmosphere). The delay then stems rather from the air’s great heat capacity and the release of latent heat.
Something to show you how the troposphere works:
The easiest ‘experiment’ you could do to verify how radiation is only along for the ride in the troposphere is to hold your hand close to a candle flame out in the calm open air, let’s say 10-15 cm (4-6 inches) away from it to the side. Remember that the fire is incredibly hot compared to the surface of the earth (well, apart from fresh lava, that is*) and especially compared to the air surrounding it, so radiative heat transfer should be highly significant in this situation. And it is. But there’s another mechanism around that quite effortlessly negates its effect on the air around the candle. Just about 5 inches away from the flame, to the side, you can practically no longer feel its heat. Why not? Where did it go?
It went UP. The radiation streaming out from the candle flame is quickly absorbed by the air around it, warming it. But as soon as this happens, the air expands, grows less dense and floats up. Convection. It happens instantaneously, automatically.
Place your hand 5 inches above the flame instead and you will most certainly feel the heat. Most likely to the extent that you’ll soon have to pull it back.
The energy warming the air comes from the radiation. But the mechanism transporting it up and away is convection.
This is how the troposphere works.
*Those of you that have flown above a field of fresh lava (or a bush fire) can testify to the power of the convective currents rising up from it.
Willis, RGB: Your map that quantifies water vapor in terms of “W/m2 absorbed” can’t be easily translated into more familiar units like humidity or total precipitable water. The water vapor over the Sahara desert certainly does not absorb more OLR than the water vapor over the US, because OLR emitted by the surface and passing through the atmosphere is more complicated than light passing through a sample in an infrared spectrophotometer. Remember that an average of only 10% (or less) of the photons emitted by the surface of the planet escape directly to space (40 W/m2). If all of the directly-escaping photons come through clear skies and about half of the skies are clear, then only 20% of the photons emitted from the surface escape directly to space (80 W/m2). We need an average 240 W/m2 of OLR to balance incoming SWR (and probably more to compensate for cloudy areas). Therefore at least 160 W/m2 of OLR is emitted from GHG’s IN those clear skies, not from the surface far below. Those areas showing the most “absorption of surface emission” are actually the areas where GHGs emit relatively few photons directly to space (than expected for the surface temperature far below) because they are very high, cold and dry. Your map is a better measure of the greenhouse effect itself (absorption combined with omni-directional temperature-dependent re-emission) than absorption alone.
Lapse rate also plays a role, since it controls the temperature difference between the surface and GHGs high in the atmosphere emitting photons directly to space. When you analyze the data, you obtain the sum of water vapor and lapse rate feedbacks.
The biggest limitation of this approach is that it produces water vapor feedback only from clear skies. In most places, the skies are clear when the air is descending and dry; and cloudy when the air is rising and humid. The is no reason to assume that water vapor feedback in clear skies is representative of “global” water vapor feedback. The red areas showing high water vapor feedback in some tropical areas should be producing the “hot spot in the upper tropical troposphere”, but it may be missing because of what is happening in cloudy skies.
Ramanathan analyzed his data by subtracting the Planck feedback (5.5 W/m2/degK) from the total Planck-water vapor-lapse rate feedback that is observed directly from space.
I’m not sure where you obtained your surface emission/temperature data. Is it surface temperature only under clear skies or all skies? Ramanathan plotted monthly average clear-skies OLR vs mean monthly global surface temperature under all skies.
On the question of upwelling longwave radiation, to wit:
“Figure 3. As in Figure 1, showing the distribution of water vapor, but this time shown as the percentage of upwelling surface longwave radiation which is absorbed in clear-sky conditions.”
—————————-
After I first looked at the Figure 3 graphic my first thought was … “WHOA”, … those desert areas should be showing up in “dark purple” if that is a per se “picture” of the upwelling longwave radiation from the surface.
But then as I was pondering over what I might say about it in a post …… it dawned upon me as to what the problem was, ….. me thinks. I’m not going to state or claim anything too be a fact because I’m not a Degreed Climatologist or Physicist with published credentials so I will just offer my opinion and you experts can be the judges.
First of all, Figure 3 is not a “snapshot” picture of the upwelling longwave radiation from the entire surface of the earth …… simply because that would be impossible to do.
Secondly, it is obvious that Figure 3 is a “time-lapse” picture of the earth’s surface over a period of a minimum of 365 days … with the LW radiation being graphically expresses as an “average” and not as “actual”.
Thus said, if the LW radiation is being expresses as a 24 hour/365 day “average” then the “color” of desert areas in question are correctly being shown in Figure 3.
Or something close to that ….. or maybe farther away.
————
Another question I have often pondered on the measurement of upwelling surface longwave radiation verses cloudy skies …… just how do the experts account for the effects of fogs relative to both the incoming solar irradiance and the upwelling longwave radiation from the surface?
Like both daytime and night time mountain fogs, lowland fogs, valley fogs, coastal fogs, ocean fogs, lake fogs, river fogs, etc.
If clouds have an effect …… then fogs surely do also.
Lots of fog, ….. like here in The Great Smokey Mountains.
Picture: http://www.abovebeyondcabin.com/87ef4640.jpg
Source: http://www.abovebeyondcabin.com/greatsmokymountainsnationalpark.htm
CERES proves the Infrared Cooling Model is the correct model for the earth’s climate.
Infrared Warming is not and has not ever been the predominating mechanism for earth.
In fact, the atmosphere’s infrared gases are responsible for reflecting almost a quarter of the sun’s energy out to space.
When James Hansen started his computer climate modeling activities his own fellow employees spoke out about how his models were worse than inaccurate the were grossly mis-defining action of the earth’s atmosphere.
They said his models didn’t have the atmosphere obeying Ideal Gas Law.
Two award winning entrepreneurs and atmospheric chemists who founded the Ireland National Aquarium were doing research on atmospheres and chemistry related to oceanic life.
They noticed the “concensus” claimants’ description of activity of CO2 didn’t match what they knew.
One of them is a computer programmer. His name is Ronan Connolly.
He took apart some climate models by educating himself on the history of climate models and found they are relatively simplistic.
Idly the Connollys, father Michael who founded the Ireland National Aquarium and ran it’s research facilities, and atmospheric chemist-computer programmer Ronan
checked to see if the modern GCI or Global Computer Model,
models the atmosphere obeying Ideal Gas Law.
They found they don’t.
Not one of the modern Global Climate Models.
Go check it out, Michael and Ronan Connolly, start at the very beginning of their combined introductions and overviews of their papers and read through it.
I am old enough that I can remember hearing some people saying that those climate models were basically designed wrong, Hansen and “his friends in computer modeling” knew it.
We see now that all along,,
this falsehood in science has been driven by James Hansen and fellow computer modelers who everyone now realizes are crooks.
Willis
Sorry you got it wrong. Your 1.8 W/m^2/C is not comparable to Gordon et al 2.2 W/m^2/C. First, you have to understand what water vapor feedback is. It is the change in TOA radiative balance per unit change in surface temperature. What you calculated is change in absorbed atmospheric longwave per unit change in geographic temperature.
The key word is geographic. The change in temperature is due to different temperatures on different parts of the globe. Surface temperature is change in temperature of the same geographic area (or global) at different times. Another key word is absorbed longwave. The TOA radiative balance is not determined by absorbed longwave. It is determined by incoming TOA radiation minus outgoing TOA radiation. That you got a number close to 2.2 W/m^2/C is coincidental because the physics is different.
rgbatduke says:
March 24, 2014 at 9:23 am
=============
Over the past couple of years mainly during hurricane season I have viewed satellite observations over Africa from a standpoint of curiosity. If I recall correctly there seems to be a prevalent air/cloud movement from the Indian ocean across to the Atlantic. Hurricanes often begin to develop off the coast of Africa in the Atlantic.
A point to consider may be that very moist air from the Indian ocean crossing a desert region with a high heat or LWIR may not be likely to precipitate out as it crosses the continent but that moisture would still be in the air mass at high altitude. As you noted it is not likely that additional moisture would be added from the ground over a desert environment so actual convection from the ground would be limited as to what would occur over a warm ocean environment. Could it be that the hurricane formations off the Atlantic coast of Africa is actually influenced by Indian ocean moisture being carried at high altitude combined with hot low level air crossing into the Atlantic setting up the convection that would then be expected? This combination of “new” moisture/convection mixing with an air mass already containing a relatively high moisture content may be a determining factor for the formation of tropical storms in that region.
That may also validate Willis’ observations over the Sahara region. Absent convection driven by evaporating ground moisture would the rapidly cooling desert at night cause the lower and mid atmospheric levels to rise and fall as if it were breathing? The lowering of the moisture bearing layers through the lapse rate could be just at the “sweet spot” that would warm enough to eliminate cloud formation at night. The LWIR absorbed in the day would keep it warm and reduce cloud formation.
So using the reasoning as noted above I would not discount what Willis has done. He is doing groundbreaking work here and is doing so outside the box. That is the only way we will ever understand what is really happening with regards to the climate.
Good work Willis.
The supposition of the positive water vapour feedback mechanism adopted by the IPCC is absolute rubbish, and here is why.
The atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has been increasing “alarmingly” because of human activity emissions of carbon dioxide, so they say! This increase in carbon dioxide absorbs infra red heat from the ground, then “back-radiates” infra red heat to the ground, adding to the heat from the sun, making the air hotter and causing more water to evaporate into the air, which then allows even more heat to be absorbed in the atmosphere.
This supposition means that the total heat relating to the greenhouse heat effect can only increase one way… upwards. That’s what a positive feed back mechanism does… the effect only increases.
Funny then, how the real world observational data on climate does not reflect that Mother Nature is actually obeying the IPCC’s positive water vapour feedback mechanism. The reason is simple… the mechanism is pure and simple crap, and most experts in thermodynamics give the IPCC a big “F” for FAIL.
The way I seen the CAGW flim-flm scam unfolding was, to wit:
James Hansen et el needed a “better story” every time Budget Funding came up in Congress. And every time it came up he gave them a “better story” to believe ….. and Congress believed it and kept giving him more n’ more money. And Al Gore was a member of Congress and was listening to those “better stories”.
Then Al Gore ran for POTUS and lost, ….. and was out of a job and no prospects of getting one. Then he remembered all those “better stories” that James Hansen et el had been telling Congress and decided to produce his Documentary titled “An Inconvenient Truth” and based it entirely on all those “better stories” claiming they were all scientifically factual and TRUTHFUL
And thus James Hansen et el was caught between “a rock and a hard place” and had to agree with and attest to everything Gore was claiming as scientific fact ….. otherwise Hansen et el would have been up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
And it worked out great for Hansen et el because the public was duped into believing everything contained in said “An Inconvenient Truth” and Hansen et el began creating “better n’ better stories” for public consumption and thus even greater Congressional Funding.
And thus “the race was on” ….. with everyone trying to get their fair share of “The CAGW Pie” that Congress was dumping BILLIONS of dollars into.
And none of those “pie eaters” want you messin with the good deal they got going ….. and will fight you tooth n’ nail iffen you do.
Some Items to Consider
Water vapor is a log function when it comes to absorption. It tends to have a 2 – 3 times greater effect for a change than does co2 and is 2-3 times stronger in typical total amount.
Relative Humidity, RH, is a linear scale showing the % of h2o vapor relative to the maximum amount the atmosphere will take at that temperature. Absorption by h2o vapor depends upon the total number of h2o molecules in your column of atmosphere, and has everything to do with Absolute Humidity, but not Relative Humidity. In other words, during the day, you might go from having 35% relative humidity in the afternoon and late at night having the RH hit 80% and have the same absolute humidity both times. Also, the humidity at the surface is not related to the humidity present at higher altitudes. There could be layers of moist air or dry air or both present.
Absorption by molecules – like h2o and co2 are not very temperature dependent. However, emission is very temperature dependent as T gives one the conditions for filling more (higher) molecular energy states and that determines which wavelengths can be radiated. Absorption and emission are the flip sides of the same coin. Except for the emission temperature dependence making the sides different, they would be identical. If a parcel of gas were at the same temperature as an illuminating source behind it, there would be no molecular spectrum of absorption or emission visible. With a colder source, one would be seeing emission spectra from the parcel and with a warmer source behind the parcel, one would be seeing and absorption spectra.
Also, molecules are colliding frequently with others of their kind and other kinds. There will exist a local temperature of the gas. A molecule capable of radiating in the IR can either radiate energy away or give it away in a collision with another molecule. A molecule can absorb a photon and be raised to a higher energy state or it can be raised to that higher energy state by a collision with another molecule. A higher energy state has a time for that state that is the average duration which that sort of molecule will stay in that state before radiation is emitted and the state changes to a lower one. If the time between collisions is much less than this time, it is likely that the molecule will give up its energy by a collision rather than be radiation. The term forbidden line comes from this – which is some astronomical emission lines occur in space due to the long times between collisions out there while the short times on the lab bench mean one never sees it happen in the laboratory.
I don’t know about Willis’ paper on this thread as I haven’t had time to answer the questions that popped up when I skimmed through it. I have my doubts that it is meaningful, unlike much of his work and some of that may be due to those creating the dataset and other portions of the problem may simply be that it’s out of context with other factors that have greater influence.
Fig 1 makes no mention of temperature. Based on absorption figures which are quite low I would estimate a figure much less than 20 C maybe 10 to 15 C. I will check my calcs and come back with an estimate.
Surface T 5 C upwelling LWIR upto 340W/m^2. Absorbed LWIR by 23000ppm wv upto 200W/m^2.
Mervyn wrote, “[The] increase in carbon dioxide absorbs infra red heat from the ground, then ‘back-radiates’ infra red heat to the ground, adding to the heat from the sun, making the air hotter and causing more water to evaporate into the air, which then allows even more heat to be absorbed in the atmosphere.
This supposition means that the total heat relating to the greenhouse heat effect can only increase one way… upwards. That’s what a positive feed back mechanism does… the effect only increases.”
That’s incorrect. Positive feedbacks amplify (and, if large enough, destabilize) systems. Positive temperature feedbacks amplify temperature changes. That is, they work in both directions: they amplify decreases in temperature just as much as they amplify increases in temperature.
In the case of water vapor, warmer temperatures cause increased evaporation and higher H2O vapor partial pressure in the atmosphere, leading to increased “greenhouse effect.” But it works the other way, too: cooler temperatures cause decreased evaporation and lower H2O vapor partial pressure, leading to decreased “greenhouse effect.”
Fortunately, there are also very fundamental negative feedback mechanisms also operating, which prevent extreme system instability. The most basic of these mechanisms is simply that heat losses go up with temperature. That’s why when you turn your electric stove burner on “high,” it doesn’t continue to get hotter and hotter for as long you continue to pour energy (electric power) into it. Rather, its temperature plateaus when the rate of heat loss balances the electric power that the stove burner is consuming.
The IPCC modelers err by underestimating or ignoring negative feedbacks, and overestimating the magnitude of positive feedbacks. E.g., MODTRAN calculates that the amplification effect by water vapor is much smaller than the alarmists guess it to be.
of course water vapor depends positively on temperature in the present state. It does not follow, however, that one can use that relation, to predict the effect of a change in temperature as translates into a change in water vapor.
Very well put. And now all the people who bowed down to the great concensus
are having it shoved down their throats one bite at a time as the reality that every word they said is an inversion of the real situation – the earth operates on an infrared cooling model,
Hansen’s models don’t have the atmosphere obedient to Ideal Gas Law
Mann was just a dumb geologist when he tried computer crime he immediately got caught, and has had to bear that since the beginning.
It was and is crime and those models do not have the Atmosphere operating according to Ideal Gas Law, is something I recall after becoming interested in it after many years away from this.
The idea to all these people who were gobbling up James Hansen’s stories as reality based that they have been caught before their own careers ended is emotionally devastating to them from the first to the last but just like the people knew at N.A.S.A. when they laid down their reputations to defy the crime spree that was James Hansen
the truth catches up a lot of times, a lot faster than people wish. Particularly in science. Because every single false witness to a whole suite of sophisticated lies, thinks because scientists are slow talkers and technology evolves slowly that’s the same thing as “this falsehood is going to last forever, and I’ll always be the darling of the crowd.”
No, they won’t which is why civilization can roll over so many evils and keep on ticking. There’s always a new batch of criminal exploiters but civilization depends on there always being a new generation of innocent truth tellers
who want their jobs. And will not stop until the right thing is the ruling thing again.
And all that money winds up being wasted as men an women spread lies just for the power to spread something.
Beats honest work!
There was never any hope any of the magical gas coalition’s claims would have been true or there would have been a noted correlation between CO2 and water vapor which is most certainly missing.
NOAA itself did a 10 + years study to see if back radiation predicted by green house effect thermostat claimants was occurring. They found out after eight hundred thousand measurements that not only was night time infrared radiation not growing,
between 1996 and 2010
they found out there is less infrared radiation than when they started the test.
Why?
Lowered water vapor.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2011JCLI4210.1?journalCode=clim
This was at the epicenter of NOAAs own claims of green house gas back radiation warming.
Nothing anybody who believes in it
is ever found to be true to the letter
because it’s all built on the concept that the surface of the earth is warmed by the very gases that are responsible for cooling the surface: particularly
*water.
“Oh no it’s James Hansen’s darling of his computer modeling exploits CO2.”
No,
CO2 is the one cooling the upper atmosphere.
NASA themselves released a study where once again truth arights the boat turned sideways by fraud, saying CO2 is the main coolant of the upper atmosphere.
http://goo.gl/iBOJkL
I shortened that url it’s just the search return for “NASA study proves CO2 cools upper atmosphere” which NASA released just a couple of years ago as honest scientists
not feeding at the alarm gravy train trough
simply
stepped up to the plate and told the truth.
Theres not enough CO2 in the lower atmosphere to overthrow the massive phase change cooling of water as it evaporates lifting heat from the surface to the 20,000 foot level to be spread out and radiate upward.
The entire thing is a scam which is why everyone associated with it is estimated to have the intellectual capability of Bigfoot.
The list of people whose scientific credibility approaches zero is directly related to the degree by which they stand with James Hansen’s inverted “Infrared heating model” his, and his modeler friends claim the earth operates by,
and the actual earth model for climatic control which is ”infrared cooling model” response.
In real science of the 20th century it was James Hansen’s ”infrared heating model” which was utterly ripped to shreds by hundreds of revelations like a burlap bag leaking water.
They grew old an tired and were thinned out by passage of time and now what they were doing is revealed to all,
shouted from the housetops. By too many truth lovers to intimidate and frighten and insult.
And the lovers of truth will indeed bury these scammers in piles of literature for upcoming decades as their loyalty to the alarm gravy train and lying overrode every moral compunction they had.
Samuel C Cogar says:
March 26, 2014 at 8:58 am
The way I seen the CAGW flim-flm scam unfolding was, to wit:
James Hansen et el needed a “better story” every time Budget Funding came up in Congress. And every time it came up he gave them a “better story” to believe ….. and Congress believed it and kept giving him more n’ more money. And Al Gore was a member of Congress and was listening to those “better stories”.
Then Al Gore ran for POTUS and lost, ….. and was out of a job and no prospects of getting one. Then he remembered all those “better stories” that James Hansen et el had been telling Congress and decided to produce his Documentary titled “An Inconvenient Truth” and based it entirely on all those “better stories” claiming they were all scientifically factual and TRUTHFUL
And thus James Hansen et el was caught between “a rock and a hard place” and had to agree with and attest to everything Gore was claiming as scientific fact ….. otherwise Hansen et el would have been up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
And it worked out great for Hansen et el because the public was duped into believing everything contained in said “An Inconvenient Truth” and Hansen et el began creating “better n’ better stories” for public consumption and thus even greater Congressional Funding.
And thus “the race was on” ….. with everyone trying to get their fair share of “The CAGW Pie” that Congress was dumping BILLIONS of dollars into.
And none of those “pie eaters” want you messin with the good deal they got going ….. and will fight you tooth n’ nail iffen you do.
chemengrls says:
March 26, 2014 at 12:10 pm
Surface T 5 C upwelling LWIR upto 340W/m^2. Absorbed LWIR by 23000ppm wv upto 200W/m^2.
Correction @ur momisugly Ts 5 C ppm wv is 8600ppm. Absorbed LWIR by 8600ppm wv upto 200W/m^2.
Surface T (Ts) 20 C upwelling LWIR upto 400W/m^2.Absorbed LWIR by 23000 ppm wv upto 230W/m^2 .
The principal emission bands of water vapour are 2.55 to 2.84, 5.6 to 7.6 and 12 to 25 microns when compared with those of CO2 which are 2.64 to 2.84, 4.13 to 4.5 and 13 to 17 microns the potential for absorbing LWIR, judging by its wider third band (the other bands being negligible) is much greater for wv than for CO2 molecules. Bearing in mind that saturated or near saturated air at 25 C contains upto 31000 ppm ( compared with 380ppm CO2) of wv the potential for absorption is very much greater. Water vapour concentrations at this level of course are at fairly low altitudes but even so the contribution ( judging by Fig1) in keeping the biosphere habitable is largely due to wv swamping any cotribution from CO2. It would appear on this evidence that CO2 is largely a red herring along with emission controls and low carbon economies. Clearly CO2 at its present concentration pales into insignificance and the need to bankrupt our economies in an effort to reduce it is completely unnecessary