Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
There is a more global restatement of Murphy’s Law which says “Nature always sides with the hidden flaw”. Parasitic losses are an example of that law at work.
In any heat engine, either natural or manmade, there are what are called “parasitic losses”. These are losses that tend to reduce the temperature differentials in the heat engine, and thus reduce the overall efficiency of the engine. In general, as a percentage parasitic losses increase rapidly with ∆T, the temperature differences in the engine. In the climate system, two main parasitic losses are the losses from the surface to the atmosphere by way of conduction and convection (sensible heat), and the losses from surface to atmosphere by way of evaporation and transpiration (latent heat). Both of these parasitic losses act to reduce the surface temperature with respect to the overlying atmosphere, by simultaneously cooling the surface and warming the atmosphere … nature siding with the hidden flaw to reduce the overall system efficiency. So I decided to see what the CERES data says about parasitic losses. Figure 1 shows the parasitic losses (the sum of sensible and latent heat losses), as a percentage of the total surface input (downwelling longwave plus shortwave).
Figure 1. Parasitic losses (latent and sensible heat loss) from the surface to the atmosphere. Percentage of parasitic loss is calculated as the sum of sensible and latent loss, divided by the total surface input (downwelling shortwave plus downwelling longwave).
I was most interested in how much the parasitic loss changes when the total surface input increases. Figures 2 to 4 shows that situation:
Figures 2-4. Scatterplots, parasitic loss in watts per square metre (W/m2) versus total surface input (W/m2). Parasitic loss is loss as sensible and latent heat. Gold line shows the loess smooth of the data. Red dots show land gridcells, which are one degree square (1°x1°) in size. Blue dots show ocean gridcells.
I was very encouraged by finding this result. I’ve written before about how at the warm end of the spectrum, parasitic losses would increase to the point where most of each new additional watt striking the surface would be lost as sensible and latent heat, and that little of it would remain to warm the surface. These graphs bear that out entirely. Here’s why.
The slope of the gold line above is the rate of increase in parasitic loss for each additional degree of warming. As you can see, the slope of the line increases from left to right, although the rate of increase goes up and down.
In order to understand the changes, I took the slope (change in parasitic loss divided by the corresponding change in surface input) at each point along the length of the gold line for both the land and the ocean separately. Figure 5 shows that result.
Figure 5. Change in parasitic loss (in W/m2) for each additional W/m2 of surface input. “Wobbles”, the looped parts in the two graphed lines reflect subtle changes in the loess smooth, and can be ignored.
Now, what are we looking at here? Well, this is how the parasitic loss changes as more and more energy is input to the surface. Where there is little surface input, the loss is low. In fact, at the South Pole the situation is reversed, and the net flow of energy is from the atmosphere to the surface. This is the result of huge amounts of energy being imported from the tropics.
The key point, however, is that as we add more and more energy to a given gridcell the amount of parasitic losses rises, in perfect accordance with nature siding with the hidden flaw. And at the right hand end of the scale, the warmest end, for every additional watt that is added, you lose a watt …
Is this relationship shown in Figure 5 entirely accurate? Of course not, the vagaries of the smoothing process guarantee that it isn’t a precise measure.
But it clearly establishes what I’ve been saying for a while, which is that parasitic loss is a function of temperature, and that at the top end of the scale, the marginal losses are quite large, close to 100%.
Now, as you can see, nowhere is the parasitic loss more than about 30% … but the important finding is that the marginal loss, the loss due to each additional watt of energy gain, is around 100% at the warm end of the planet. Here is the parasitic loss for the planet as a whole versus total surface input as shown in Figure 2:
Figure 6. Change in parasitic loss (in W/m2) for each additional W/m2 of surface input, as in Figure 5, but for the planet as a whole.Change in parasitic loss (in W/m2) for each additional W/m2 of surface input. “Wobbles”, the looped parts in the two graphed lines reflect subtle changes in the loess smooth, and can be ignored.
Note also that across the main part of the range, which is to say in most of the planet except the tropics and poles, about half of each additional watt of energy increase doesn’t warm the surface … it simply goes into parasitic loss that cools the surface and warms the atmosphere.
Best to all,
w.
PS—If you disagree with what I’ve said please quote my words. That lets all of us know just exactly what you disagree with …
And further, readers, check this:
when I was typing my last post revealing to you how transparently and just brainslessly –
they forget to even include the atmosphere at all,
when calculating the temperature of the earth,
I didn’t know Curt was up there wagging away trying desperately to bury his
“Its freezing in outer space which is why they to insulate space suits” debacle of revealed ignorance
(there are several places listed above including NASA revealing space suits aren’t insulated because it’s cold – heat can’t leave an object in vacuum, except through radiant loss – so the inside of a space suit gets hot as blazes – because there’s nothing to remove the heat)
by running his way through yet another set of error riddled “calculations”
where – once again –
he forgot to include the atmosphere.
At all. There’s nothing there about the atmosphere, at all.
No convective heat transfer coefficient: no calculation for air being present. At all.
You’re speaking with people who believe in calculating the temperature of the earth,
using the calculations for “no atmosphere present.”
You’ve been watching, you saw, and you see it, yourself.
Look at my last post.
Look at where I showed you the calculations for “radiant loss” without any atmosphere at all –
and look at the places I showed you
– Willis using it –
– then Curt using it.
– and then Curt doing it again
– while I was actually typing to you, that it’s the kind of stuff
we, the trained certified thermodynamic professionals, are always having to check.
Everyone here – everyone reading this thread – has seen what the caliber of the “math” Curt thought he was “calculating” the surface temperature of the earth with, same for Willis who showed him how to do it.
They don’t even know the atmosphere must be counted in their calculation of the surface temperature of an object with an atmosphere.
They both admit and brag about it – their idea of calculating the surface temperature of the earth, involves doing the calculations for an object with no atmosphere.
Curt @ur momisugly 9-56am29/3 said
Q = e * sigma * T^4 = 0.95 * 5.67×10^-8 * 288^4 = 370 W/m^2
At 20C, it is 424 W/m^2.
These numbers are right in the range of what Willis was talking about.
————————————————————————————————-
…………….but as they have to compete at ringing the water vapor bells with `first boy on the block`down-coming Solar N/IR etc.@ur momisugly hundreds of times more vigorous the actuality
is that those WV molecules are already down-loading at a higher frequency and so resist the colder radiation much as the gas in your double glazing so does and which would be near as good as a vacuum were it not for the inevitable mini air circulation system within.
But, like many, he has got his head stuck too far into his subject, so to speak, that he cannon now, like the proverbial woodcutter, see the woods anymore.
Curt says, March 29, 2014 at 3:27 pm:
“Kristian: You say,
“It’s not like the surface first heats a bit from the alleged incoming atmospheric flux and then cools a bit (only a bit more) by its resulting outgoing.”
That’s exactly what is happening (although simultaneously, not sequentially). Every photon absorbed adds to the surface’s internal energy, every photon emitted reduces its internal energy. This has been well understood for a hundred years now.”
No, Curt. Heat does not go both ways. Simple as that. There is no exception made for radiation even though I know that’s what you people would like to think.
If everything happens ‘simultaneously’ as you seem to agree, then there is no instance of heating of hot. We never see the surface temperature rise in absolute terms. There is only cooling.
And then there is no sense in separating the two postulated ‘opposite streams of energy’ as if they were independent from one another, both being individual heat fluxes, only of different sizes.
What you end up doing then is creating direct heating of hot by ‘energy from cold’. Because it’s not the sun doing the extra warming. The solar IN doesn’t increase. And the resulting terrestrial OUT isn’t reduced/obstructed in its escape. The energy raising the surface temperature in your explanation is the ADDED flux from the cooler atmosphere.
This isn’t how nature works. This is a violation of both the 1st and the 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics.
Everyone sees this if they just think it through a tiny little bit …
Curt @ur momisugly 9-56am29/3 said……………….
…………and relative to the view that the human body is frail to the natural elements of hot and cold conditions it does of course have those metabolic rate elevating processes we call perspiration to increase its riddance of excess heat upon extreme exercise and/or being in exceptionally warm ambient one one hand along with the ability to reduce skin temperature decisively to help combat both low temperature and “Wind Chill” on the other and which, in particular, does not exist in the Boffin Capsule as it would massacre as it can turn the torrid into bearable, the chilly to #n` cold and the freezing into fatal!
Willis,
I’m burning my tabs up following your most recent posts on the CERES data. Now looking for the post prior to “Water vapor feedback” http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/24/water-vapor-feedback/
All this is very interesting analysis. I think you have opened a door that no one else has.
It would be nice to have a post with a summary/list of your previous posts broken apart into “subjects” with regards to the most recent analysis of the CERES data and another category for your thermostat hypothesis.
Your research is too important to be read only once (in my case multiple times).
Maybe Anthony could possibly organize a summary in the reference pages.
continuatio……..
as said by a healthy enough (he looked) and robust Greenlander boy to Ban Ki Moon + large entourage and Media presence when he visited Uummannaq just the other day on an AGW jauntand questioned as to what he thought of Climate Change –
“I dunno about Climate Change (sir) – but I`m Freezin!”
Kristian, “there is no instance of heating of hot. We never see the surface temperature rise in absolute terms.” Would your understanding be satisfied if the incident radiation from the cooler body, merely slowed the heat loss and caused a temperature differential in the warmer body, assuming other surounding incident radiation is even cooler? That law of thermodynamics is ultimately statistical. You task is to explain what happens to the photons emitted by the cooler body, when they incident upon the warmer body. If you propose there is no effect, then either the warmer body is transparent to incident radiation from cooler bodies (perhaps also refracting it), or it is 100% reflective of it. In the reflective case, someone monitoring radiation from the surface of the warmer body would see that side nearest the cooler body as warmer, in the transparent case, someone would see the side of the body opposite the cooler body as warm, due to the extra photons.
Stephen Wilde says:
March 28, 2014 at 1:39 pm
No, Stephen. Emissivity has absolutely nothing to do with what you call “how long the radiation stays absorbed”. In fact, how long the radiation stays absorbed is generally not even capable of being measured … once radiation is absorbed, it is totally indistinguishable from any other energy, so there is no way to tell when it is released.
But in any case, even if we could measure it, it still has nothing to do with emissivity. Emissivity is equal to absorptivity, which is the percentage of the impinging radiation that is being absorbed … and that is totally independent of how long (even in theory) that radiation might hang around.
w.
Curt said:
“It’s not a question of delay at all.”
Willis said:
“Emissivity has absolutely nothing to do with what you call “how long the radiation stays absorbed”. In fact, how long the radiation stays absorbed is generally not even capable of being measured … once radiation is absorbed, it is totally indistinguishable from any other energy, so there is no way to tell when it is released.”
Thanks to Willis for clarification of the definition of emissivity and thanks to Curt for confirming that the S-B equation does not consider delay in transmission of energy through an atmosphere.
I humbly submit that convection and convection do cause a delay, that such delay is not taken into account in the S-B equation nor in radiative theory generally, that it is the delay that causes the increased surface temperature (255k to 288k), that the delay is caused by mass and not radiative capability and that therefore radiative capability only affects the rate of convection and not surface temperature for a planetary surface beneath an atmosphere.
An inconvenient fact for some but there it is. No need to shoot the messenger.
Martin Lewitt says, March 30, 2014 at 8:53 am:
“Kristian, “there is no instance of heating of hot. We never see the surface temperature rise in absolute terms.” Would your understanding be satisfied if the incident radiation from the cooler body, merely slowed the heat loss and caused a temperature differential in the warmer body, assuming other surounding incident radiation is even cooler? That law of thermodynamics is ultimately statistical. You task is to explain what happens to the photons emitted by the cooler body, when they incident upon the warmer body. If you propose there is no effect, then either the warmer body is transparent to incident radiation from cooler bodies (perhaps also refracting it), or it is 100% reflective of it. In the reflective case, someone monitoring radiation from the surface of the warmer body would see that side nearest the cooler body as warmer, in the transparent case, someone would see the side of the body opposite the cooler body as warm, due to the extra photons.”
Martin, I can’t but laugh. You also DO NOT GET what I’m saying.
Yes, of course, this is what I’ve been pointing out all along. The cooling of the warmer object is reduced when the temperature of the opposing cooler object closes up on the temperature of the warmer object. This is what the radiative heat transfer equation is telling us.
But you do not reduce the COOLING of something by adding MORE energy to it. Then you increase its HEATING. And that is a very different thing.
Still, this is exactly what Willis, Robert B. and Curt claim is going on. They state it loudly and clearly. The ‘back radiation’ does not subtract from the surface’s OUTput. No, in their world it adds to the surface’s INput. AS IF IT WERE AN EXTRA HEAT FLUX. The solar flux raises T_sfc to 255K, then the extra atmospheric flux raises it further to 288K. Same result, same definition: HEAT fluxes. (If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and so forth …)
But in nature, heat does not pass from cold to hot.
You can’t have the cake and eat it at the same time. But that’s what they expect. They want us to believe them when they say that the ‘back radiation’ is NOT heat, but at the same time they want the ‘back radiation’ to directly give a result as if it were. It can’t not be heat but still heat the receiving system (unless they want to argue that it’s in fact ‘work’).
It is the whole ‘heating by back radiation’ concept that is so absurdly un-physical. That is what I’m objecting to. Not the effect of a warm atmosphere on the surface temperature.
The flawed physics appear as soon as you split the actual radiative heat going from sfc to atm into two assumed hemifluxes, separate them, discard the bigger hemiflux going up and in this way allow yourself to pretend the smaller hemiflux going down creates a direct surface heating (as if it were HEAT from cold to hot).
You can’t do this! You can’t make an energy flux from cold to hot directly raise the temperature of hot. It’s not a ‘thing’ that happens as a distinct occurrence in nature. It’s all just hypothetical ramblings. Do I have to say it again? I guess I do: In nature, HEAT DOES NOT PASS FROM COLD TO HOT.
A transfer of heat is ONE integrated, spontaneous physical process that moves ONE way – down the potential ladder!
There is only ONE real energy flow between the warmer sfc and the cooler atm, and that is the HEAT going up. Heat does not go both ways. There can’t be simultaneous heating in both ends.
No, the atmosphere has to become warmer relative to the surface if it is to make the surface warmer. And it does so by making the energy flowing OUT OF the surface less, not by increasing the INCOMING. That is the difference between cooling and heating – OUT vs. IN. Just look at the radiative heat transfer equation and you should understand. P/A is the only real flow of energy, the only answer to the equation, the actual spontaneous transfer of energy from hot to cold. You make this flow smaller simply by increasing T_2 (or reducing T_1, or both).
The only thing we need to decide upon, then, is: Does adding ‘GHGs’ to the atmosphere make the atmosphere warmer relative to the surface? Will the temp gradient away from the surface become smaller?
James Rollins Jnr said:
“They don’t even know the atmosphere must be counted in their calculation of the surface temperature of an object with an atmosphere.
They both admit and brag about it – their idea of calculating the surface temperature of the earth, involves doing the calculations for an object with no atmosphere.”
That is how it looks to me too.
The mass of an atmosphere absorbs energy by conduction and convects it up and down.
That results in a delay in solar energy passing through the system and the surface warms up from the S-B expectation of 255K to 288K. That is the mass induced greenhouse effect.
Willis and Curt and many others remain oblivious.
The tragedy is that Willis sees that there is a thermostatic mechanism and that it involves convection but he fails to join the dots.
Conduction and convection through the mass of an atmosphere causes the delay in energy transmission that leads to the higher surface temperature than the S-B equation predicts.
Altering conduction and convection to negate changing radiative characteristics provides the thermostatic mechanism that Willis accepts to be in place.
Why can he not see it ?
Kristian said:
“It is the whole ‘heating by back radiation’ concept that is so absurdly un-physical. That is what I’m objecting to. Not the effect of a warm atmosphere on the surface temperature”
I agree.
DWIR does not warm the surface to a level any higher than it otherwise would be.
The atmosphere above the surface is kept warm by adiabatic heating on descent which offsets adiabatic cooling on ascent so that convection is thermally neutral for the surface and not a net cooling effect as proposed by radiative theory.
Since convection does not have a net cooling effect at the surface the concept of surface heating from DWIR becomes unnecessary. In fact it constitutes double counting.
In the end it all boils down to a very simple proposition.
The same parcel of energy cannot perform two separate functions simultaneously.
Willis admits:
“once radiation is absorbed, it is totally indistinguishable from any other energy, so there is no way to tell when it is released.”
Energy that is radiated to space cannot be simultaneously be used to hold the weight of the atmosphere off the surface via conduction and convection.
255K at the surface enables radiation to space to match radiation from the sun.
The extra 33K at the surface is constantly recycled through adiabatic uplift and descent to maintain atmospheric height.
It is all about atmospheric mass absorbing energy by conduction and nothing to do with the radiative characteristics of that mass.
It is the mass of the entire atmosphere working via conduction and convection that produces the greenhouse effect of 33K.
Stephen 11:57am: “That is the mass induced greenhouse effect.”
Translating Stephen “mass” word in contextual equivalent “radiation”: That is the radiation induced greenhouse effect because:
“All matter – gaseous, liquid, or solid – at all temperatures emits radiation of all frequencies at all times…there is no hedging here: all means all. No exceptions. Never. Even at absolute zero?…absolute zero is unattainable…” – Bohren 2006 p. 4.
“Altering conduction and convection to negate changing radiative characteristics..Why can he not see it ?”
Because conduction and convection are ~adiabatic process as you so often write; as sun increases Tmean from 255K to 288K due increasing atm. optical opacity above transparent atm., these adiabatic processes increase in lockstep; adiabatic processes can not negate diabatic sun radiation.
david(swuk) says:
March 28, 2014 at 4:51 pm
First, “Magician”? “Denial”?? “he knows very well”???
Dang, dude, you are most impolite, and you don’t have a clue what I “know very well”, so assuming you do just makes you look less than professional … does your momma know you talk ugly like that?
Second, you’ve made a very large claim without providing even a scrap of evidence. This is a science site, David, and so your unsupported flights of fancy won’t get any traction here at all.
You also say:
Sounds like you have either a busted IR thermometer, or a busted radiator.
More to the point, the downwelling IR (global average) is about 340 W/m2, which is about 5°C, not anywhere near -40°C, you’re just making that up. And as to whether it can “warm my bare face”, you’ve asked the wrong question.
The right question is “can it warm my bare face compared to what”?
When compared to what the warming would would be without the GHGs, which is IR radiation at about -270°C, yes, radiation from about 5°C will definitely warm your face compared to that.
Come back with some evidence for whatever it is you claim is happening, and we can discuss it. Let me suggest that when you do so that you lose the attitude and become a bit more congenial.
Until then? You’re just providing useless anecdotes, and doing so in an insulting and unpleasant manner … sorry, no takers.
w.
PS—Here’s a protip to improve your communication. If you write to someone and you want them to think that you are actually paying attention, you should learn to spell the person’s name you are writing to correctly. Actually, you don’t even need to learn to spell it, a simple cut and paste suffices … just sayin’ …
James Rollins Jr says:
March 28, 2014 at 10:00 pm
And I told you in front of all of your readers: your endless voluble ranting without making the slightest attempt to provide citations, observations, facts, or mathematics to support your manifold claims is pathetic, unpleasant, distractive, and totally meaningless. NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK, JAMES. This is a science site. Look up the meaning of “Nullius In Verba”.
We care about science here, not your ceaseless raving about your incorrect thought processes.
w.
Trick said:
“adiabatic processes can not negate diabatic sun radiation.”
They don’t need to negate it and I never said they did.
They CAN keep the surface thermal effect of diabatic solar radiation fixed at the figure determined by atmospheric mass.
Conduction and convection work via mass and not radioactive capability. Conduction and convection with the decline in temperature with height would still be present even without radiative gases.
I know that that is a sticking point with some who say that without radiative gases the atmosphere would become isothermal i.e. the same temperature at every height.
I say that cannot be right because the highest molecules would then carry the same load of kinetic energy as molecules at the surface PLUS another load of gravitational potential energy.
In that situation the total energy content of individual molecules would INCREASE with height and that is physically impossible.
It is well established that the total energy content of molecules is constant right up the vertical column (on average).
radioactive capability.
Typo alert, should read radiative capability.
James Rollins Jr.
I think you are on the verge of making the same mistake as Willis and Curt.
The AGW theory does recognise convection as cooling the surface.
That is why their numbers don’t work and they have to introduce DWIR to make the numbers balance in the purely radiative world.
What they and you have missed is that descending air warms adiabatically so as to return the energy originally adiabatically removed upward, back to the air above the surface.
Adiabatic convection is thermally neutral for the surface of the globe as a whole.
So you don’t need DWIR to balance the figures. Indeed, the concept of net DWIR is double counting.
Curt said:
“With greenhouse gases, the constant is derived from the fact that this balance occurs at an elevation range higher up in the atmosphere. Given the lapse rate, this yields a higher surface temperature.”
I’m not sure that that is right.
GHGs change the slope of the lapse rate and so you don’t necessarily need a higher surface temperature to accompany the higher elevation.
In so far as the change in slope causes a divergence from the pure adiabatic lapse rate then convective changes will occur to rebalance the system.
Stephen 1:18pm: “They (adiabatic processes conduction and convection) don’t need to negate it and I never said they did.”
Yes. You did. Which is exactly what I responded to:
Stephen 11:57am: “Altering conduction and convection to negate changing radiative characteristics provides the thermostatic mechanism….Why can he not see it ?”
Trick.
I said that adiabatic processes negate the thermal effect of radiative characteristics within the atmosphere.
They do not negate the solar diabatic effect which is what you said I was saying.
You said:
“adiabatic processes can not negate diabatic sun radiation.”
The solar diabatic effect heats the surface to 255K as per S-B.
The delay in energy transmission caused by atmospheric mass via conduction and convection raises the surface temperature to 288K
If radiative or conductive variability within the atmosphere as a result of composition changes (other than mass) tries to change that 288K then convective changes occur to keep it at 288K.
Stephen 1:47pm: “It is well established that the total energy content of molecules is constant right up the vertical column (on average).”
Up until 1866. This was the solid/liquid/gas kinetic theory up until JC Maxwell’s 1866 paper when he reported the non-negligible pV term in a gas parcel total energy (enthalpy) found from experiments in applying Kinetic Theory to gases in balloons et. al. and noticing pV term was needed to reasonably agree with nature.
I’ve constantly reminded Stephen of this without effect. While U = KE+PE being constant is good for a single molecule, U = KE+PE sum over all molecules is not the total energy in a parcel of gas molecules where constant total energy (enthalpy) ever since Maxwell 1866 is H = U + pV. Changes in enthalpy then need dp*V and P*dV terms which give rise to consideration of constant pressure and constant volume processes (meaning dp=0 and dV=0 outside Stephen’s no-math world).
Stephen 2:01pm: ”The delay in energy transmission caused by atmospheric mass via conduction and convection raises the surface temperature to 288K.”
This is gibberish. Only the sun using up its fuel can raise surface temperature mean from 255K to 288K enabled by increased atm. optical depth (opacity). Any sort “delay” in energy transmission uses up no other fuel adding 33K energy to earth system which can only come from radiative energy transfer of a nearby star – at least in the basic analogue used by many modern authors as introduction to understand some basic radiative, conductive, convective energy transfer physics useful in meteorology.
James Rollins Jr says:
March 28, 2014 at 10:11 pm
Climate science, duh … and your lack of citations is still showing.
But heck, James, how do satellites cool? 100% by radiant losses last I looked. How do motorcycle heads cool? About 5% by radiant losses, at a guess, maybe less.
So why do you not believe that there are not a host of situations in between those two?
As to things that lose heat primarily by radiant cooling, we could start with Wikipedia’s article on radiant cooling:
So, in response to your question,
Um … the field of radiant cooling?
Are you truly unaware of this stuff? I thought you said you worked in this field.
Here’s another one for you, from long ago. In the Southwest, back in the day people made ice even though air temperatures were above freezing. How? By radiant cooling. They painted a shallow flat tray black, filling it with water, and putting up on the roof. On a clear night in dry air, the radiant loss is quite large, and the warming (not cooling but warming!) by conduction/convection from the air is not very large. As a result, the temperature of the water ends up BELOW THE AIR TEMPERATURE, and if you think that is happening by conduction/convection you’ve lost the plot entirely … which actually seems possible, given the rest of your claims.
What else. There is a test of a passive cooling system with some data here.
Let’s see. From the US Naval Academy Engineering Department we have the following:
See the last one in that list? While I’m sure that (as you stated) you never have and never would consider radiation when you are designing fins … there are assuredly engineers who do so.
It strikes me that a worked example would be useful, let me look into that
w.
Kristian, “In nature, HEAT DOES NOT PASS FROM COLD TO HOT.”
But photons can pass from cold to hot, if we were to shine a flashlight towards the Sun, the photons with their momentum and energy would reach it.
Consider a warm object in the vacuum of intergalactic space. It will gradually cool as by radiating its heat way in photons. Put that same object at the same starting temperature say 273K drifting in a dyson sphere vacuum bottle of a black body material, with that bottles walls held actively, or just having lots of thermal mass at a temperature of 200K. Even though the only coupling to the cooler bottle is radiative, that object will cool slower. Nothing is preventing it from emitting photons at the same rate determined by its temperature. It will cool slower because of the energy of the photons delivered to it. It’s temperature will never cool to lower than that of the surrounding walls.
The same principles apply in greenhouse warming. The surface cools more slowly even if the GHGs above are cooler than the surface. The surface however can get cooler that the GHGs because they are not a complete black body and photons escape to the vaccum of space, the surface “sees” the vacuum of space because all the frequencies it radiates at are not saturated. The surface is not warmed by the cooler GHGs, but if it started out warmer, perhaps because of the Sun it will be warmer than it otherwise would have been, due to the greenhouse gases, due to the slower cooling rate from the GHG photons it absorbs.
Here’s a recap :
Checking your “80% Radiant loss BS with Google search for it: Nothing.
http://goo.gl/xS8OGZ
That’s one
checking your “80% Radient loss Bs on Bing.
http://goo.gl/BBjZaT‘
Nothing from the world’s two largest search engines about your fantasy.
That’s two
More proof nobody teaches what you claim – no mention of “80% energy loss surface by radiation here.
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/light_lessons/thermal/transfer.html
“You have probably heard the expression “Hot air rises and cool air falls to take its place” – this is a description of convection in our atmosphere. Heat energy is transfered by the circulation of the air.”
That’s three
UCAR.EDU contradicting your baloney 80% radiant loss from earth surface
http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_1_2_7t.htm
““Convective motions in the atmosphere are responsible for the redistribution of heat from the warm equatorial regions to higher latitudes and from the surface upward.”
That’s four
More reality based scientific site contradicting your bombastic –
“80% earth surface losses are radiant claim:
https://www.bluffton.edu/~bergerd/NSC_111/thermo1.html
“Heat transfer is most efficient by convection, then by conduction; radiation is the least efficient and slowest means of heat transfer. Low efficiency of heat transfer means that vacuums make excellent insulation.”
That’ five
This was up there:
http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~lgrace/chem123/troposphere.htm
“The uneven heating of the regions of the troposphere by the sun (the sun warms the air at the equator more than the air at the poles)
causes convection currents, large-scale patterns of winds that move heat and moisture around the globe.
That’s six,
http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~lgrace/chem123/troposphere.htm
“Convection is the mechanism responsible for the vertical transport of heat in the troposphere while horizontal heat transfer is accomplished through advection.
Wikipedia:”Convective Heat Transfer:
“Convection is usually the dominant form of heat transfer in liquids and gases.”
Shortened – http://goo.gl/B8fqg
That’s seven
Me showing people you trying to calculate radiant loss to the atmosphere with a calculation that doesn’t include the atmosphere:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/convective-heat-transfer-d_430.ht
That’s eight
Me showing people the calculation for temperature with an atmosphere,
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/convective-heat-transfer-d_430.ht
That’s nine.
Plus, there’s what everbody else reading knows, that you’ll never see posted here.
And the other ones I didn’t count.
You’re just owned so easily because your claims are so bombastic and preposterous Willis.
You can’t tell people the kind of stuff you say and not have the actual professionals show everyone you’re noobing the whole thing so bad it’s a train wreck.
Willis Eschenbach says:
March 30, 2014 at 12:55 pm
And I told you in front of all of your readers: your endless voluble ranting without making the slightest attempt to provide citations, observations, facts, or mathematics to support your manifold claims is pathetic, unpleasant, distractive, and totally meaningless.