(Note: this originally published on Dr. Spencer’s blog on April 25th, and I asked if I could reproduce it here. While I know some readers might argue the finer points of some items in the list, I think it is important to keep sight of these. – Anthony)
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
There are some very good arguments for being skeptical of global warming predictions. But the proliferation of bad arguments is becoming almost dizzying.
I understand and appreciate that many of the things we think we know in science end up being wrong. I get that. But some of the alternative explanations I’m seeing border on the ludicrous.
So, here’s my Top 10 list of stupid skeptic arguments. I’m sure there are more, and maybe I missed a couple important ones. Oh well.
My obvious goal here is not to change minds that are already made up, which is impossible (by definition), but to reach 1,000+ (mostly nasty) comments in response to this post. So, help me out here!
1. THERE IS NO GREENHOUSE EFFECT. Despite the fact that downwelling IR from the sky can be measured, and amounts to a level (~300 W/m2) that can be scarcely be ignored; the neglect of which would totally screw up weather forecast model runs if it was not included; and would lead to VERY cold nights if it didn’t exist; and can be easily measured directly with a handheld IR thermometer pointed at the sky (because an IR thermometer measures the IR-induced temperature change of the surface of a thermopile, QED)… Please stop the “no greenhouse effect” stuff. It’s making us skeptics look bad. I’ve blogged on this numerous times…maybe start here.
2. THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT VIOLATES THE 2ND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. The second law can be stated in several ways, but one way is that the net flow of energy must be from higher temperature to lower temperature. This is not violated by the greenhouse effect. The apparent violation of the 2nd Law seems to be traced to the fact that all bodies emit IR radiation…including cooler bodies toward warmer bodies. But the NET flow of thermal radiation is still from the warmer body to the cooler body. Even if you don’t believe there is 2-way flow, and only 1-way flow…the rate of flow depends upon the temperature of both bodies, and changing the cooler body’s temperature will change the cooling rate (and thus the temperature) of the warmer body. So, yes, a cooler body can make a warm body even warmer still…as evidenced by putting your clothes on.
3. CO2 CANT CAUSE WARMING BECAUSE CO2 EMITS IR AS FAST AS IT ABSORBS. No. When a CO2 molecule absorbs an IR photon, the mean free path within the atmosphere is so short that the molecule gives up its energy to surrounding molecules before it can (on average) emit an IR photon in its temporarily excited state. See more here. Also important is the fact that the rate at which a CO2 molecule absorbs IR is mostly independent of temperature, but the rate at which it emits IR increases strongly with temperature. There is no requirement that a layer of air emits as much IR as it absorbs…in fact, in general, the the rates of IR emission and absorption are pretty far from equal.
4. CO2 COOLS, NOT WARMS, THE ATMOSPHERE. This one is a little more subtle because the net effect of greenhouse gases is to cool the upper atmosphere, and warm the lower atmosphere, compared to if no greenhouse gases were present. Since any IR absorber is also an IR emitter, a CO2 molecule can both cool and warm, because it both absorbs and emits IR photons.
5. ADDING CO2 TO THE ATMOSPHERE HAS NO EFFECT BECAUSE THE CO2 ABSORPTION BANDS ARE ALREADY 100% OPAQUE. First, no they are not, and that’s because of pressure broadening. Second, even if the atmosphere was 100% opaque, it doesn’t matter. Here’s why.
6. LOWER ATMOSPHERIC WARMTH IS DUE TO THE LAPSE RATE/ADIABATIC COMPRESSION. No, the lapse rate describes how the temperature of a parcel of air changes from adiabatic compression/expansion of air as it sinks/rises. So, it can explain how the temperature changes during convective overturning, but not what the absolute temperature is. Explaining absolute air temperature is an energy budget question. You cannot write a physics-based equation to obtain the average temperature at any altitude without using the energy budget. If adiabatic compression explains temperature, why is the atmospheric temperature at 100 mb is nearly the same as the temperature at 1 mb, despite 100x as much atmospheric pressure? More about all this here.
7. WARMING CAUSES CO2 TO RISE, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND The rate of rise in atmospheric CO2 is currently 2 ppm/yr, a rate which is 100 times as fast as any time in the 300,000 year Vostok ice core record. And we know our consumption of fossil fuels is emitting CO2 200 times as fast! So, where is the 100x as fast rise in today’s temperature causing this CO2 rise? C’mon people, think. But not to worry…CO2 is the elixir of life…let’s embrace more of it!
8. THE IPCC MODELS ARE FOR A FLAT EARTH I have no explanation where this little tidbit of misinformation comes from. Climate models address a spherical, rotating, Earth with a day-night (diurnal) cycle in solar illumination and atmospheric Coriolis force (due to both Earth curvature and rotation). Yes, you can do a global average of energy flows and show them in a flat-earth cartoon, like the Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget diagram which is a useful learning tool, but I hope most thinking people can distinguish between a handful of global-average average numbers in a conceptual diagram, and a full-blown 3D global climate model.
9. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE Really?! Is there an average temperature of your bathtub full of water? Or of a room in your house? Now, we might argue over how to do the averaging (Spatial? Mass-weighted?), but you can compute an average, and you can monitor it over time, and see if it changes. The exercise is only futile if your sampling isn’t good enough to realistically monitor changes over time. Just because we don’t know the average surface temperature of the Earth to better than, say 1 deg. C, doesn’t mean we can’t monitor changes in the average over time. We have never known exactly how many people are in the U.S., but we have useful estimates of how the number has increased in the last 50-100 years. Why is “temperature” so important? Because the thermal IR emission in response to temperature is what stabilizes the climate system….the hotter things get, the more energy is lost to outer space.
10. THE EARTH ISN’T A BLACK BODY. Well, duh. No one said it was. In the broadband IR, though, it’s close to a blackbody, with an average emissivity of around 0.95. But whether a climate model uses 0.95 or 1.0 for surface emissivity isn’t going to change the conclusions we make about the sensitivity of the climate system to increasing carbon dioxide.
I’m sure I could come up with a longer list than this, but these were the main issues that came to mind.
So why am I trying to stir up a hornets nest (again)? Because when skeptics embrace “science” that is worse that the IPCC’s science, we hurt our credibility.
NOTE: Because of the large number of negative comments this post will generate, please excuse me if I don’t respond to every one. Or even very many of them. But if I see a new point being made I haven’t addressed before, I’ll be more likely to respond.
As I have repeatedly explained – and you have repeatedly ignored – the dynamics of the seasonal variation indicate that the sinks can easily sequester ALL the CO2 emitted to the atmosphere, and the issue to be resolved is why they don’t when they clearly can.
Richard
=============
and that is what everyone should be looking at…….
Which makes it obvious where it’s coming from…and it’s not man
A word on behalf of the clouds!
Why is it that the role of clouds in the carbon cycle rarely rates a mention! Given that cloud formation can’t be calculated because of the non-equilibrium problems of water vapour and the insufficient resolution of GCMs to resolve them, I can hazard a guess why not!! Everyone talks about, temperature, the biosphere and endlessly about the ocean.
Well what about the great aerial ocean? How about giving it a closer look. NASAs guesstimation of annual turnover is 1014 grams, putting it conveniently below the 1015 grams of human emissions (Presuming they mean C and not CO2!). Clouds and fog soak up Carbon and it is precipitated back to the earth and ocean in the form of weak carbonic acid. As I understand it, the the concentration in cloud and fog can be several times its proportion in fine weather. Because this sink relies almost completely on the unpredictability of cloud formation, I do wonder if it is deliberately underestimated!
Superscript above didn’t work, numbers should read 10 to the 14 and 10 to the 15.
tjfolkerts says:
May 4, 2014 at 6:51 am
———————————-
“When you chose to SHOW a simple demonstration of a constrained solar pond, you can hardly blame me for addressing the topic as you presented it.”
That image was shown because you had claimed lower surface temps for solar ponds. I was demonstrating the difference between convecting and non-convecting types. In the image shown the water temp is almost 80C for all the water.
“Yes, the new design for a “solar pond” experiment you show now is quite a bit better. I do have a set of related questions/comments.”
As indicated I have not built this one yet as it is very expensive. I have however run two verification experiments that show SW absorption at depth gives very different equilibrium temperatures that SW absorption at surface for materials with the same specific heat capacity and conduction. I later found out that the effect was old news. Researchers at Texas A&M had found it in 1965 and manufactures of evaporation covers for swimming pools know that clear covers work better than opaque for pool heating.
“But they also include evaporation and convection in those calculations.”
No, they did not. The claim “-18C for the “surface” without atmosphere” is locked in. It cannot be changed now. Besides, just how was evaporative cooling supposed to be a factor in cooling the oceans from 273K to the final 255K claimed?
“Just out of curiosity, what temperature water did you use for your experiment(s)? Did you try it with hot water? ice water? Which container evaporated faster?”
I have run a number of these type of experiments from 2011 onward. The typical test is to start with 40C water under both strong and weak LWIR sources and observe cooling rate. Then the experiment is repeated with thin IR transparent film floated onto each sample as an evaporation cover. While both samples now cool slower, a distinct divergence is observed with the sample under the strong LWIR source cooling slower. Note that the average wind speed over the oceans is Beaufort scale 4. DLWIR slowing the cooling rate of the oceans just doesn’t work.
“The questions is not “does the atmosphere cool the oceans?” Everyone one acknowledges that heat flows up from the oceans to the atmosphere, so the atmosphere does certainly “cool” the oceans. The question (as related to the greenhouse effect) is “Would the oceans cool FASTER if we could remove could magically turn off the IR properties of the atmosphere (or remove the atmosphere but keep the current albedo)”.”
Nice try, but no cigar. If the net effect of the atmosphere over the oceans is cooling, then something must be cooling the atmosphere. That would be radiative gases.
“Without an atmosphere absorbing incoming solar energy, the oceans would absorb more energy: ~ 240 W/m^2.”
I believe that figure should be 340 w/m2. The 240 figure is albedo adjusted.
“Even with no evaporation or convection, there would be a net loss simply from IR. The surface of the oceans would cool”
There are two problems here Tim, first empirical experiment shows that DWLWIR cannot be slowing the cooling rate of the oceans. Secondly we know how hot evaporation constrained solar ponds can get. So hot that if we removed the 33C of warming incorrectly attributed to DWLWIR, the temperature is still far hotter than the observed 15C of our evaporatively cooled oceans.
Our oceans are nowhere close to a blackbody. Without atmospheric cooling, regardless of DWLWIR they would superheat. The whole of the AGW hoax depends on the oceans freezing without atmospheric cooling and DWLWIR.
You claim that –
“Everyone one acknowledges that heat flows up from the oceans to the atmosphere, so the atmosphere does certainly “cool” the oceans.”
– but that is just the opposite of what climastrologists claimed. They claimed that the oceans would be at -18C in absence of atmospheric cooling and DWLWIR. If you want to try the new claim that the atmosphere cools the oceans but just less because of radiative gases, you would need to explain the physical impossibility of a non-radiative atmosphere cooling the oceans when it can no longer cool itself.
Mankind is so impressed with itself.
Mankind is way over rated in it views of mankinds results and effect of mankind on the universe and the earth.
So much ego, so little real knowledge of how chaos operates and all the time chaos gets a real good laugh from its view point looking back at the unknowing of mankind.
First know thyself.
F. Engelbeen: and so that this is actually apples to apples, then, the instrumental records are taken from the exact location of the ice cores? is that how the ice core values have been validated?
tjfolkerts says:
May 4, 2014 at 7:46 am
———————————-
“The BASIC science of the “Greenhouse effect” is sound, which of course was Dr Spencer’s initial point — the IR properties of gases in the atmosphere have a warming effect on the surface.”
No Tim, it is only the basic physics of the two shell radiative model that is sound. You can build it and test for real if you like –
http://i44.tinypic.com/2n0q72w.jpg
http://i43.tinypic.com/33dwg2g.jpg
http://i43.tinypic.com/2wrlris.jpg
– but trying to apply that to our actual atmosphere is not sound. The primary energy transports within our atmosphere are non-radiative, and some like tropospheric convective circulation depend on radiative subsidence of air masses. You simply cannot superimpose convective and evaporative transports as constants over a two shell radiative model. Nor can you model the oceans as a near blackbody when they are clearly a SW selective coating 4-5 km deep over 71% of the lithosphere.
In our atmosphere radiative gases have a net cooling effect because non-radiative transports are delivering most of the energy to the upper atmosphere radiated to space as LWIR.
Our atmosphere is acting as a giant vapour/condensate heat pump, moving energy from the surface to space. Without a radiatively cooled atmosphere to cool them, our oceans would superheat.
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
At May 4, 2014 at 3:13 pm you wrongly assert
The liquid layer on the surface of ice has been studied for centuries and the reasons for it are a subject of serious study.
Please do not deny reality in attempt to sell your beliefs.
Richard
gnomish says:
May 4, 2014 at 8:09 pm
F. Engelbeen: and so that this is actually apples to apples, then, the instrumental records are taken from the exact location of the ice cores? is that how the ice core values have been validated?
CO2 measurements all over the world, except near huge sources and sinks, show the same CO2 levels within 2% of full scale. Thus you can measure CO2 anywhere in the middle of the oceans and compare that to the ice cores. In this case, they compared them to the levels measured at the South Pole, far away of any volcano, vegetation or other sources and sinks.
They also measured CO2 in the firn top down from the surface to bubble closing depth (0-72 m and beyond), which confirmed the modeled mixing of air of different years with depth and ice density / pore diameter. That kind of calculations thus is validated. They also used other molecules like the 14C bomb spike, CH4, Ar, 15N/14N ratios for the same calculations of gas age distribution and increase of the heavier atoms/molecules with depth in stagnant air. A lot of this can be found at:
http://courses.washington.edu/proxies/GHG.pdf
and (behind a paywall)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/96GL03156/abstract
and
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/95JD03410/abstract
The latter is already from 1996: Etheridge e.a. drilled three ice cores at Law Dome with different techniques (wet and dry), sampled CO2 in firn in different types of flasks, etc. to see if there were differences due to the used techniques. That was in direct response to the complaints of the late Dr. Jaworowski in 1992. All his objections were refuted.
Still a lot of skeptics don’t accept the ice core CO2 data. Many prefer the stomata (index) data, because these are far more variable and show much higher CO2 levels in certain periods. But stomata data are by definition taken over land, where CO2 levels are far more variable and positively biased against background levels. It is near impossible to correct for changes of the bias over the centuries as result of land/wind/vegetation changes…
The preference for stomata data from some seems a kind of confirmation bias to me..
richardscourtney says:
May 5, 2014 at 1:31 am
Richard, the liquid layer on the ice-air boundary starts to occur at about -35°C with a very thin layer of a few unordered liquid-like water molecules thick. The Vostok ice core is at -40°C. But even in “warm” ice cores like the Siple Dome core at -23°C, the theoretical migration (calculated from remelt layers) is not more than 10% at medium depth, broadening the resolution from 20 to 22 years. See:
http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/~hsalmun/ice_phy2day.pdf
richardscourtney says:
May 5, 2014 at 1:31 am
Ferdinand Engelbeen:
At May 4, 2014 at 3:13 pm you wrongly assert
At -40°C there is no liquid water at the ice-air surface and there is no liquid water inbetween ice crystals, except where salts/dusts are present.
The liquid layer on the surface of ice has been studied for centuries and the reasons for it are a subject of serious study.
Please do not deny reality in attempt to sell your beliefs.
Good advice, perhaps you should take it. The phase diagram of water indicates that liquid water does not exist at -40ºC and 1 atm pressure.
A wonderful chance to throw another sophistry dedicated CAGW alarmists throw at audiences.
The weather claim as sneered at by CAGWers is a false dodge! Skeptics use their statement as meaning when people are able to predict weather accurately then they’ll believe climate can be modeled.
Weather forecasting is getting better; it is a shame climate-astrologists are building climate models based on their confirmation biases and assumptions instead of testing, measuring and validating every component first.
Yes there are so called professionals that insist their climate models work and there are others (UK’s Met Office) that claim they use their weather models for climate modeling.
That is their problem. Let them fix it.
Current status shows that climate models have jumped from one prediction fail to another. Each is a new and greatly improved model; but not a single model can consistently match real earth conditions or temperatures.
Forget worrying about weather forecasting.
Climate model fails have proven that today’s climate scientists can not forecast the climate in 100 years.
Pop culture?! That is a tad insulting; especially for people who deal with or utilize real greenhouses.
Why do you think atmospherics’ people use the term as a ‘descriptive’?
Because there is a genuine effect in real green houses experienced daily in thousands to tens of thousands of greenhouses? An effect that has been happily utilized by gardeners for centuries even before full greenhouses were built, e.g. cold frames.
Then the physicists go and borrow a relative description for their use and have the gall to describe the real world as a ‘pop’ culture term. Just because the term ‘greenhouse effect’ has become a hot colloquial term the last few decades does not relegate the origin and source of the term to ‘pop’ as if it’s a fad term. Long after the public ceases interest in global warming the gardeners of the world will still discuss the greenhouse effect.
The real issue is that because global warming requires discussion of Earth’s greenhouse effect some people assume absolute ownership of a term and fail to remember their usurpation of a term is because of the passing global warming fancy, ‘pop’ culture accurately describes global warming and terms they’ve borrowed.
Today’s fashion and fancy is tomorrow’s faint memories. When the global warming fancy passes greenhouse keepers will once again own the term and meaning while atmospheric students will once again use the term parochially.
A final stake in the atmospherics’ claim to using the term ‘greenhouse effect’ is that no one, including yourself, absolutely knows what the term means. Sure they understand the term generally, but explicit details and minutiae still await resolution to common understanding. A fact evident when anyone discusses climate models.
Phil.:
At May 5, 2014 at 3:43 am you yet again demonstrate your desire to pontificate on matters of which you are ignorant.
You assert
Yes, and that is not relevant.
The surface of ice is coated with a disordered (i.e. liquid) molecular layer at all temperatures down to -40°C.
This surface property of ice was first discovered by Michael Faraday in the nineteenth century. It has been the subject of much study since then and up to the present. Indeed, ice is slippery because of its wet surface layer.
It is this liquid surface layer which selectively dissolves gases as the firn solidifies to form ice.
Richard
“In our atmosphere radiative gases have a net cooling effect because non-radiative transports are delivering most of the energy to the upper atmosphere radiated to space as LWIR.”
But radiative transports would be delivering energy to space even more efficiently! Currently — using these non-radiative methods — ~ 200 W/m^2 is delivered to the TOA to be radiated to space; add in ~ 40 W/m^2 that gets radiated directly and you get the net 240 W/m^2 IR to space.
But remove the IR properties of the atmosphere, and the surface will be delivering close to 400 W/m^2 straight to space! By ‘cutting out the middleman’, we will be able to shed energy better, thereby cooling the surface.
**************************************************************
There are certainly circumstances where your process would lead to heating in the depth of the oceans, but not the surface. Your theory of net cooling by the atmosphere is not compatible with experimental IR spectra from space, like this: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/training/tutorials/goes_39um/images/irbnds1a.gif
How would this spectrum change if you removed the CO2 from the atmosphere? How would that affect net energy loss to space?
Tim Folkerts says:
May 5, 2014 at 5:58 pm
——————————-
“But remove the IR properties of the atmosphere, and the surface will be delivering close to 400 W/m^2 straight to space! By ‘cutting out the middleman’, we will be able to shed energy better, thereby cooling the surface.”
That only works for deserts (as the lunar Diviner results show, not even then). 71% of the “surface” is liquid water. Water is not a near blackbody or anywhere close. Without atmospheric cooling our oceans superheat regardless of DWLWIR. And there is only one effective cooling mechanism for the atmosphere – radiative gases.
“There are certainly circumstances where your process would lead to heating in the depth of the oceans, but not the surface.”
Wrong. Evaporation constrained solar ponds have high surface temperatures as I showed via empirical experiment. Go back to the 60’s and look at the experiments into evaporation constrained solar ponds. If they are shallow they don’t work well as radiative cooling at night allows high loss to volume. The simple solution is to make them deeper. (However this is not cost effective and convection constrained ponds were favoured). How deep are our oceans? Sunlight penetrates even to 200m.
“Your theory of net cooling by the atmosphere is not compatible with experimental IR spectra from space, like this: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/training/tutorials/goes_39um/images/irbnds1a.gif”
This doesn’t show anything useful as the height of emission is not indicated. Climatologists only assume. I have empirically measured emission from the atmosphere, it is constantly changing attitude and pattern. The strongest radiators are condensed water followed by water vapour. Further the IR window from surface to space is in constant flux.
“How would this spectrum change if you removed the CO2 from the atmosphere? How would that affect net energy loss to space?”
Very little. IR emission from the surface is too limited at 15 microns. Further the primary energy transport away from the surface is evaporation. Most IR emission to space from the atmosphere will be from H2O. What surface IR CO2 does intercept is at very low level, it is conductively transferred to air containing H2O which then radiates it to space from altitude.
Tim, the “-18C for the “surface” without atmosphere” claim is totally and utterly wrong. The oceans are not a blackbody they are a selective coating. Further, their surface is cooling by phase change. Standard S-B equations don’t work.
You have admitted that the net effect of the atmosphere over the oceans is cooling of the oceans. That is AGW falsified right there. The “basic physics” of the “settled science” claimed that the net effect of the atmosphere was warming of the “surface”. If 71% of the “surface” is being cooled by the atmosphere then there is no net radiative GHE on our ocean planet.
richardscourtney says:
May 5, 2014 at 1:07 pm
Richard, it is difficult to have a discussion with you if you don’t accept the research done in the past decades. The link I gave states that based on different techniques the liquid-like layer starts at -35°C with a few molecules thick chaotic ordered molecules. That is not really liquid and not a nice crystal form. That may dissolve a few atoms of CO2, but even that is not relevant, as the ice core measurements are done under vacuum over a cold trap to remove water vapor. Any liquid layer on the ice simply will be removed.
As there is no to a very thin liquid-like layer at the ice-air boundary, even less does exist between the ice crystals, as can be seen in different experiments where touching two ice blocks glue them together with more strength than if that was a liquid. Which means that any CO2 will squeezed out of the boundary and remains in the bubbles.
Ferdinand,
Richard won, you lost, get over it.
Sceptics accept that ice cores tell us something about previous CO2 levels. That “something” is that CO2 concentration changes lags temperature changes at all time-scales.
The “Faraday” effect Richard refers to is observed even in metals, with their surface responding as liquid even below the accepted melting temperature of the metal. You say salt or dust would be needed for surface liquefaction? Just what did those snow flakes seed from, Hmm?
Further to this, the SW selective surface effect (that Tim totally lost the debate on) effects ice just as it does water. Near surface temps in ice can be higher than air cooled actual surface temps in ice during Antarctic summer. (lichen under quartz rocks in the Antarctic remember?)
Ferdinand, you wasted your time. CO2 was a dead end. Adding radiative gases to the atmosphere could never reduce the atmosphere’s radiative cooling ability. 2D Radiative cooling below 100C is pathetic. The surface of our planet primarily cools by conduction and evaporation. Radiative gases in the atmosphere then dramatically increase the radiative cooling by radiating in 3D.
If you wanted to make a difference you should have been studying 3He isotopes embedded in ice. The Antarctic is one of the few areas where solar wind particles and solar irradiated dust accumulate.
We could strip mine the wasteland. There is any amount of fresh penguin squeezings to keep the giant machinery lubricated….. Sure we could just extract gas from under extending glaciers, but where’s the fun in that?!
Just hand over you helium isotope data or the penguins get juiced… 😉
Konrad says:
May 5, 2014 at 11:49 pm
Konrad, I didn’t react on the radiation physics, as that is not what I have studied in depth. But I have studied ice cores, because I did see too much garbage used by skeptics, while a lot of research is done on that topic. Thus if you can provide me with a link to any measurements on the thickness of the water-like layer on the ice/air boundary at -40°C and if possible (but not necessary) how much CO2 dissolves in that layer, I am very interested.
The link I provided to Richard includes the stories that metals form a liquid-like layer even before melting point, But that too starts not so far from the melting point.
Konrad 7:02pm (et. al. of his posts) remains steadfastly confused by the most basic of radiative/convective experiments; his posts demonstrate the classic example of the top post: do not hold water i.e. “…the proliferation of bad arguments is becoming almost dizzying.” Here’s just one of Konrad’s many non-cited & easily refuted points not holding water which he would do better to just get over and move on:
“Water is not a near blackbody or anywhere close.”
Vast expanses of sea surface (and other water) are thoroughly empirically measured in situ 0.96-0.98 emissivity depending on view angle with windy conditions varying ~0.005. Adjust an IR thermometer to that emissivity range and read the water temperature as ~shown by mercury bulb thermometer same as in a back yard pool experiment. This is simple brightness temperature physics known from rigorous observation and experiment illuminated by reason.
http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/sci_team/meetings/200503/posters/ocean/minnett1.pdf
richardscourtney says:
May 5, 2014 at 1:07 pm
Phil.:
At May 5, 2014 at 3:43 am you yet again demonstrate your desire to pontificate on matters of which you are ignorant.
No that’s your role richard!
You assert
The phase diagram of water indicates that liquid water does not exist at -40ºC and 1 atm pressure.
Yes, and that is not relevant.
Of course it is, you claimed a layer of liquid water under conditions where it can’t exist!
The surface of ice is coated with a disordered (i.e. liquid) molecular layer at all temperatures down to -40°C.
A quasi liquid layer (QLL) comprised of molecules which though still bound to the solid are freer to vibrate than their neighbors deeper in the solid. This layer gets thinner as temperature decreases and is about a single molecule thick at -40ºC.
This surface property of ice was first discovered by Michael Faraday in the nineteenth century. It has been the subject of much study since then and up to the present. Indeed, ice is slippery because of its wet surface layer.
Indeed it is but this ‘slipperiness’ drops off with temperature, for example the Scott antarctic expedition noted how much harder it got to pull their sleds as the temperature dropped.
It is this liquid surface layer which selectively dissolves gases as the firn solidifies to form ice.
As pointed out above at -40ºC it is not a liquid surface layer but an integral part of the solid and at those temperatures very thin. Even so if some CO2 is dissolved in that thin layer it will be released into the sample during the extraction process so the result will be unaffected.
Konrad says: “Evaporation constrained solar ponds have high surface temperatures as I showed via empirical experiment.”
Your experiments have an ambient temperature of ~ 20 C; your experiment have ‘backradiation’; your experiments have bright sunlight. The earth (as a whole) has an ambient temperature of ~ 2.7 K; the earth has no ‘backradiation’ from space; the earth has to share the sunlight over the surface of a sphere. The differences make your experiment only vaguely like the earth (and only vaguely like real solar ponds).
Also, real solar ponds typically have temperatures similar to the temperatures of the surrounding surfaces — the 80-90 C temperatures only exist well below the surface.
“Water is not a near blackbody or anywhere close. “
You can’t just make up your own facts. The IR emissivity of water is quite close to 1.
“What surface IR CO2 does intercept is at very low level, it is conductively transferred to air containing H2O which then radiates it to space from altitude.”
IR emissions in the 15 um band from the surface (and intercepted by the CO2) are on the order of 50 W/m^2 — hardly what anyone would call “small” in this context. The way it is transferred upward is of little consequence. At the top of the atmosphere, the ‘bite’ due to CO2 is on the order of 25 W/m^2. Thus CO2 is REDUCING the IR to space by something on the order of 25 W/m^2.
This back-of-the-envelop calculation is in line with more sophisticated estimates that further increases have a diminishing impact – doubling CO2 will enhance this reduced cooling (ie enhance the warming) by another 3.7 W/m^2. The REAL question is what impact other feedbacks will have on this warming.
“You have admitted that the net effect of the atmosphere over the oceans is cooling of the oceans.”
No, I never said that. The IR gases certainly cool the TOP of the atmosphere. But that is inefficient, so the surface has to warm to make up for this poor cooling from the atmosphere.
Bring on the arguments! I find them useful and informative. Very often I will pursue one claim, and the counterclaim, in the process obtaining an education that I would have to pay serious money to obtain and still not have the benefit of challenges to assumptions.
Yesterday I studied evaporation constrained solar ponds at a website for potash concentration.
I have also studied the “thin film of water” on ice down to about -35 C. I had no idea such a thing existed but it explains why really cold snow squeaks and/or crunches when walking on it.
Ancient people make ice and/or cold water in a wind trap. An enclosed wind trap ignores radiation cooling and is entirely convective/evaporative, but open air wind traps cool water, sometimes to ice, at night in the desert using both radiation and evaporative cooling. The secret is to recycle the cold air in a vortex and minimize replacement by warm air. This can be done in stages; warm dry desert air will cool the inner wall of a double-walled vessel, inside of which circulates air in a wind trap that becomes considerably colder than ambient temperature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhchal
Trick says:
May 6, 2014 at 6:06 am
————————————
First before we deal with IR emissivity, let’s review your previous attempts on this question so other readers know what they are dealing with..
Trick, you already tried every trick in the book on this nearly 900 comment long thread –
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/effective-emission-height/comment-page-2/#comments
– to escape the simple question –
“given 1 bar pressure is the net effect of the atmosphere over the oceans cooling or warming?”
– You tried claiming S-B equations could determine the surface temp of transparent oceans giving a figure of -18C. Empirical experiment proves this false.
– You tried claiming that DWLWIR can slow the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool. Empirical experiment proves this false.
– You tried claiming that the oceans would boil off in the absence of an atmosphere. But the Church of Radiative Climatology claimed -18C and the bulk of oceans solid ice, so this is irrelevant.
– You tried claiming that the climastrology calcs were for the rock under the oceans. But all solar SW is absorbed in the first ~200m of our deep oceans. (an utterly unbelievable claim, but you were so desperate you tried it)
– You tried claiming that a non-radiative atmosphere could cool the oceans, then cool itself in part by adiabatic cooling. Yes, you did! No weaseling!
– You tried claiming that a non-radiative atmosphere could cool the oceans and then cool itself by conduction back to some other part of the earth. Were the oceans meant to transfer energy back to the 29% land and then the energy was radiated to space? Or was the ocean meant to conductively cool the atmosphere it had just heated? Ridiculous.
– You tried running back to claiming that IR radiation alone is enough to cool the oceans to 255K. But empirical experiment proves that false.
– You gave in on 255K then tried to claim 197K, the Diviner lunar temperature reading, and tried to compare this to the earth in absence of atmospheric cooling or DWLWIR, despite the fact the moon doesn’t have deep SW absorbing oceans.
– You tried to claim those climastrologist who calculated the surface temp in absence of atmosphere were wrong and their claims should be “laughed off”. You tried instead to claim that a non-radiative atmosphere could evaporatively cool our oceans to 255K, despite evaporative cooling not being available below 273K.
– You tried to “cite” the entire planet as a controlled empirical experiment, despite there clearly being no “control”.
Trick, in your desperation you tried everything and eventually ended up in the position of claiming that our atmosphere was indeed cooling our oceans. In defending the global warming hoax you ended up claiming something no climastrologist had ever claimed before. Climastrologists all claim that given 1 bar pressure, the net effect of the atmosphere over the oceans is warming.
All you ended up proving was that faced with the question –
“given 1 bar pressure, is the net effect of our atmosphere over the oceans warming or cooling?”
– that an AGW believer will eventually have to concede the answer is “cooling”.
And that of course means that AGW is a physical impossibility, as an atmosphere with no radiative cooling ability cannot cool the oceans.
Michael Gordon says:
May 6, 2014 at 10:18 am
———————————–
Michael, thank you for that fascinating link.
I was previously aware of the shadow wall method of ice making in the desert, but not that vortex cooling was used for storage.
I have used vortex cooling for compressed air, but had no idea the technique was so ancient.