Guest essay by Ed Hoskins
Using data published by the IPCC on the diminishing effect of increasing CO2 concentrations and the latest proportional information on global Man-made CO2 emissions, these notes examine the potential for further warming by CO2 emissions up to 1000ppmv and the probable consequences of decarbonisation policies being pursued by Western governments.
The temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2 is real enough, but its influence is known and widely accepted to diminish as its concentration increases. It has a logarithmic in its relationship to concentration. Global Warming advocates and Climate Change sceptics both agree on this.
IPCC Published reports, (TAR3), acknowledge that the effective temperature increase caused by growing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere radically diminishes with increasing concentrations. This information has been presented in the IPCC reports. It is well disguised for any lay reader, (Chapter 6. Radiative Forcing of Climate Change: section 6.3.4 Total Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gas Forcing Estimate) [1]. It is a crucial fact, but not acknowledged in the IPCC summary for Policy Makers[2].
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The rapid logarithmic diminution effect is an inconvenient fact for Global Warming advocates and alarmists, nonetheless it is well understood within the climate science community. It is certainly not much discussed. This diminution effect is probably the reason there was no runaway greenhouse warming caused by CO2 in earlier eons when CO2 levels were known to be at levels of several thousands ppmv. The following simplifying diagram shows the logarithmic diminution effect using tranches of 100ppmv up to 1000ppmv and the significance of differing CO2 concentrations on the biosphere:
§ Up to ~200 ppmv, the equivalent to about ~77% of the temperature increasing effectiveness of CO2. This is essential to sustain photosynthesis in plants and thus the viability of all life on earth.
§ A further ~100 ppmv was the level prior to any industrialisation, this atmospheric CO2 made the survival of the biosphere possible, giving a further 5.9% of the CO2 Greenhouse effect.
§ Following that a further 100ppmv, (certainly man-made in part), adding ~4.1% of the CO2 effectiveness brings the current level ~400 ppmv.
§ CO2 at 400pmmv is already committed and immutable. So CO2 has already reached about ~87+% of its potential warming effect in the atmosphere.
Both sceptics and the IPCC publish alternate views of the reducing effect on temperature of the importance of CO2 concentration. These alternates are equivalent proportionally but vary in the degree of warming attributable to CO2.
The IPCC have published views of the total effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas up to ~1200ppmv, they range in temperature from +6.3°C to +14.5°C, shown below:
There are other views presented both by sceptical scientists and CDIAC, the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Centre. What these different analysis show the is the amount of future warming that might be attributed to additional atmospheric CO2 in excess of the current level of ~400ppmv. Looking to the future in excess of 400ppmv, wide variation exists between the different warming estimates up to 1000ppmv, see below.
A comparison between these estimates are set out below in the context of the ~33°C total Greenhouse Effect.
This graphic shows in orange the remaining temperature effect of CO2 up to 1000ppmv that could be affected by worldwide global decarbonisation policies according to each of these alternative analyses.
Some of the IPCC data sets shows very large proportions of the temperature effect attributable solely to extra CO2. The concomitant effect of those higher levels of warming from atmospheric CO2 is that the proportion of the total ~33°C then attributable the water vapour and clouds in the atmosphere is displaced so as to be unrealistically low at 72% or 54%.
It has to be questioned whether it is plausible that CO2, a minor trace gas in the atmosphere, currently at the level of ~400ppmv, 0.04% up to 0.10% achieves such radical control of Global temperature, when compared to the substantial and powerful Greenhouse Effect of water vapour and clouds in the atmosphere?
There are the clearly divergent views of the amount of warming that can result from additional CO2 in future, but even in a worst case scenario whatever change that may happen can only ever have a marginal future effect on global temperature.
Whatever political efforts are made to de-carbonize economies or to reduce man-made CO2 emissions, (and to be effective at temperature control those efforts would have to be universal and worldwide), those efforts can only now affect at most ~13% of the future warming potential of CO2 up to the currently unthinkably high level of 1000ppmv.
So increasing CO2 in the atmosphere can not now inevitably lead directly to much more warming and certainly not to a catastrophic and dangerous temperature increase.
Importantly as the future temperature effect of increasing CO2 emissions can only be so minor, there is no possibility of ever attaining the much vaunted political target of less than +2.0°C by the control of CO2 emissions[3].
Global Warming advocates always assert that all increases in the concentration of CO2 are solely man-made. This is not necessarily so, as the biosphere and slightly warming oceans will also outgas CO2. In any event at ~3% of the total[4] Man-made CO2 at its maximum is only a minor part of the CO2 transport within the atmosphere. The recent IPCC report now admits that currently increasing CO2 levels are probably only ~50% man-made.
On the other hand it is likely that any current global warming, if continuing and increased CO2 is:
§ largely a natural process
§ within normal limits
§ probably beneficial up to about a further 2.0°C+ [5].
It could be not be influenced by any remedial decarbonisation action, however drastic, taken by a minority of nations.
In a rational, non-political world, that prospect should be greeted with unmitigated joy.
If it is so:
· concern over CO2 as a man-made pollutant can be mostly discounted.
· it is not essential to disrupt the economy of the Western world to no purpose.
· the cost to the European economy alone is considered to be ~ £165 billion per annum till the end of the century, not including the diversion of employment and industries to elsewhere: this is deliberate economic self-harm that can be avoided: these vast resources could be spent for much more worthwhile endeavours.
· were warming happening, unless excessive, it provides a more benign climate for the biosphere and mankind.
· any extra CO2 has already increased the fertility of all plant life on the planet.
· if warming is occurring at all, a warmer climate within natural variation would provide a future of greater opportunity and prosperity for human development, especially so for the third world.
De-carbonisation outcomes
To quantify what might be achieved by any political action for de-carbonization by Western economies, the comparative table below shows the remaining effectiveness of each 100ppmv tranche up to 1000ppmv, with the total global warming in each of the five diminution assessments.
The table below shows the likely range of warming arising from these divergent (sceptical and IPCC) views, (without feedbacks, which are questionably either negative or positive: but probably not massively positive as assumed by CAGW alarmists), that would be averted with an increase of CO2 for the full increase from 400 ppmv to 1000 ppmv.
The results above for countries and country groups show a range for whichever scenario of only a matter of a few thousandths to a few hundredths of a degree Centigrade.
However it is extremely unlikely that the developing world is going to succumb to non-development of their economies on the grounds of reducing CO2 emissions. So it is very likely that the developing world’s CO2 emissions are going to escalate whatever is done by developed nations.
These figures show that whatever the developed world does in terms of decreasing CO2 emissions the outcome is likely to be either immaterial or more likely even beneficial. The table below assumes that the amount of CO2 released by each of the world’s nations or nation is reduced universally by some 20%: this is a radical reduction level but just about conceivable.
These extreme, economically destructive and immensely costly efforts by participating western nations to reduce temperature by de-carbonization should be seen in context:
§ the changing global temperature patterns, the current standstill and likely impending cooling.
§ the rapidly growing CO2 emissions from the bulk of the world’s most populous nations as they continue their development.
§ the diminishing impact of any extra CO2 emissions on any temperature increase.
§ normal daily temperature variations at any a single location range from 10°C to 20°C.
§ normal annual variations value can be as much as 40°C to 50°C.
§ that participating Europe as a whole only accounts for ~11% of world CO2 emissions.
§ that the UK itself is now only about ~1.5% of world CO2 emissions.
As the margin of error for temperature measurements is about 1.0°C, the miniscule temperature effects shown above arise from the extreme economic efforts of those participating nations attempting to control their CO2 emissions. Thus the outcomes in terms of controlling temperature can only ever be marginal, immeasurable and thus irrelevant.
The committed Nations by their actions alone, whatever the costs they incurred to themselves, might only ever effect virtually undetectable reductions of World temperature. So it is clear that all the minor but extremely expensive attempts by the few convinced Western nations at the limitation of their own CO2 emissions will be inconsequential and futile[6].
Professor Judith Curry’s Congressional testimony 14/1/2014[7]:
“Motivated by the precautionary principle to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change, attempts to modify the climate through reducing CO2 emissions may turn out to be futile. The stagnation in greenhouse warming observed over the past 15+ years demonstrates that CO2 is not a control knob on climate variability on decadal time scales.”
Professor Richard Lindzen UK parliament committee testimony 28/1/2014 on IPCC AR5[8]:
“Whatever the UK decides to do will have no impact on your climate, but will have a profound impact on your economy. (You are) Trying to solve a problem that may not be a problem by taking actions that you know will hurt your economy.”
and paraphrased “doing nothing for fifty years is a much better option than any active political measures to control climate.”
As global temperatures have already been showing stagnation or cooling[9] over the last seventeen years or more, the world should fear the real and detrimental effects of global cooling[10] rather than being hysterical about limited, beneficial or now non-existent warming[11].
References:
[1] http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/222.htm
[2] http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/05/why-global-warming-alarmism-isnt-science-2.php
[3] http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/ccctolpaper.pdf
[4] http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
[5] http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9057151/carry-on-warming/
[6] http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.fr/2013/11/lomborg-spain-wastes-hundreds-of.html
[7] http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=07472bb4-3eeb-42da-a49d-964165860275
[8] http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/28/uk-parliamentary-hearing-on-the-ipcc/
[9] http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3436241/the-inescapable-apocalypse-has-been-seriously-underestimated.thtml
[10] http://www.iceagenow.com/Triple_Crown_of_global_cooling.htm
[11] http://notrickszone.com/2010/12/28/global-cooling-consensus-is-heating-up-cooling-over-the-next-1-to-3-decades/
Nice presentation Ed, thank you.
CO2 alone has never been the claimed problem – it was always supposed to be the knock-on affects of CO2 such as increased water vapor and and wretched Republican lifestyles that amplify the feeble CO2 effect.
notice how the author makes his case from WITHIN the accepted science.
Notice how effective the case is when you start INSIDE the accepted science..
notice that he doesnt have to resort to saying wacky stuff about the sun.
notice how he doesnt have to engage in numerology about the planets
he takes the science as given ( much like Nic Lewis does) and works from the inside
Is this anything more than a “face saving” exit plan for all the CAGW evangelists?
“Yo wagons ho!, thar be the real … (insert what you will here).
considering we really do not know what historical CO2 levels were…
…and we really have no clue what CO2 levels do to temps
and CO2 reconstructions are about as fudged as it gets
…and trying to compare any of that to fudged temp reconstructions ( is that tree right side up?)
That’s a pretty good explanation of the science if it is that way……..but then, we don’t know
Facts, we don’t need no stickin facts. We have FEAR to sell.
Rational response to CO2 is not part of the Obama administration. CO2 is a newly found political tool used by Obama’s EPA to apply control.
I’ve got to keep saying this until somebody listens. Co2 is innocent. If you fire heated gas at the surface of water the water will not accept the heat indeed even the surface itself is not affected by the heat, so the story that heat can be stored on this planet or that evaporation can be increased by the heat leaving the atmosphere doesn’t stand up to testing. Heat will not pass through the surface of water by means of convection because it is blocked by surface tension.
Surface tension is not a powerful force but is enough to get the job done so you cannot put additional heat into the ocean and the good news is you can’t boil the ocean away. AGW is utter rubbish.
I have found that your average AGWer will not admit to the Pause for the last 17 years. Nor will they accept the concept that CO2 follows temperature shown in the historical record via the ice core data. Therefore, your average AGWer will never, ever accept the fact of CO2 having an algorithmic impact on global temperatures. Any information coming from a “denier” website is instantly dismissed.
There is no enhanced GHE; that hypothesis relies on juvenile physics; any professional scientist or engineer sees almost immediately that it is a Perpetual Motion Machine of the 2nd Kind.
The way the scam works is to assume mean atmospheric emittance measured at the Earth’s surface, 333 W/m^2, is a real energy flux [2009 data]. This is not true; it is the potential energy flux the atmosphere would emit to a sink at absolute zero. Net IR flux from surface to atmosphere is [surface emittance – atmospheric emittance]; 396 – 333 = 63 W/m^2, about 1/6th of a black body.
If at constant surface temperature ‘back radiation’ increases, this net surface IR flux decreases. To give constant sum of convective, evaporative and radiative energy, the surface temperature rises. That temperature rise is 1.2 K/doubled [CO2].
The reason why the net IR is 1/6th of a black body is because the opposing emittances interact as vectors. For equal temperatures, there is zero net IR in all main GHG bands (self-absorbed). The entire IPCC logarithmic argument presented above is irrelevant.
Sorry folks; this is radiative physics 101; atmospheric sciences teach it wrongly and have done so since Carl Sagan made his science booboos in 1965. To complete that History, his assumption that the surface of Venus emitted IR as a black body was because he messed up the cloud physics and assumed about 7 times as much SW energy entering the lower atmosphere as reality.
I’m just biding my time for the first enterprising lawyer to advertise “Have you been MISS SOLD CO2” call 0800- …… so I can claim back all the bullshit £715 Vehicle CO2 emission taxes I am getting fined each year.
All these so called intelligent people running around like chimpanzees for a non problem
CO2 is so last http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2719727/Were-f-ked-Climate-change-catastrophe-mankind-study-shows-methane-leaking-Arctic-Ocean-scientist-warns.html
In the mean time the Gravy Train rolls on
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2720903/Prescott-flies-40-000-miles-s-nearly-twice-world-five-months-lecture-climate-change.html
But in fact the so called “climate sensitivity” is
a theoretical construct relying on the tenuous assumption that lab data can be applied to the atmosphere with valid results. This assumption is looking ever more dubious. I do not think that the present flat temp trend will end before the whole of AGW theory is discredited in the eyes of all, excepting a few diehards.
Excellent essay. I really think this information needs to be repeated over and over. The facts (and IPCC’s blatant attempt to bury them) are very revealing.
If CO2 was ever a problem, it is now at worst a logarithmically decreasing problem.
Excellent description of the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns as it applies to CO2 affecting GAST (Global Average Surface Temperature).
This sentence, however, strikes me as needing to be reworded:
”Importantly as the future temperature effect of increasing CO2 emissions can only be so minor, there is no possibility of ever attaining the much vaunted political target of less than +2.0°C by the control of CO2 emissions”
It gives the impression that it is predetermined that the arbitrarily chosen limit of +2.0°C will be crossed.
Perhaps something along the lines of:
Importantly, as the future temperature effect of increasing CO2 emissions can only be so minor; the control of CO2 emissions has no possibility of ever determining whether attainment of the much vaunted political target of less than +2.0°C is achieved.
This is, of course, ignoring that the CO2 in the tropical upper troposphere is at -17 deg C and the surface at 15 deg C, in which case, nothing radiated downward by this CO2 can warm anything. Simple thermodynamics. Any IR radiation absorbed by CO2 in the lower atmosphere is a wash in sunlight as it will be saturated and absorbing and emitting constantly. The computer models do not do night-time, at which time, CO2 and water vapor in the lower atmosphere will indeed be emitting and not absorbing, radiating IR out to space. This is why it cools down so quickly after sunset with a clear sky.
Why do the ratios for any temperature rise from Lindzen, Kondrajew & Moskalento, and Charnock & Sine always come up around 1.42 for Kondrajew & Moskalento to Lindzem, and close to 2.33 for Charnock & Shine to Lindzen? For both the figures including feedback, and the figures for excluding feedback? It’s as if all three of these agree on the magnitude of the feedback, but disagree on the magnitude of the direct effect of CO2.
Meanwhile, I have noticed that the direct effect of CO2 is widely mentioned as considered by both advocates of existence of CAGW and by skeptics as 1.1 degrees C per factor-of-2 change of CO2 (which is indeed logarythmic). This would mean before feedbacks, increase from 400 to 800 PPMV would increase global temperature by 1.1 degrees C. It’s the feedbacks where all the debate is.
In fact, according to the way I see the first 2 charts as presented, it looks as if the 2 skeptic sets of figures and the 3 IPCC sets of figures agree that the feedback is positive, and by a factor of around 4.8, causing the total effect of CO2 change to be multiplied by around 5.8. I thought skeptics considered the feedbacks to be either negative or probably negative.
Thanks, Ed Hoskins. Your article brings forth, once again, the inconvenient truth of CO2 increase having a diminishing return.
higley7 says:
“…….. The computer models do not do night-time, …….”
This statement can not be true, if it is could someone explain why these models have any validity at all?
One of my first “I smell a rat” moments in this debate was noticing that the IPCC insisted on referencing CO2’s effects based on doubling “from pre-industrial levels”. If we were currentlat at pre-industrial levels, it would make sense to quantify the effects of any given additional amount of CO2 from that perspective.
But we’re not at pre-industrial levels. Pre-industrial levels were 280 ppm. Current levels are close to 400 ppm. So in discussing the the impact of current CO2 emissions, they should be calculated against current levels of CO2.
If we accept for the moment that the direct effects of CO2 (excluding feedbacks) are indeed 1 doubling = 3.7 w/m2 = 1 degree, we can do some simple math, but instead of comparing to some distant point in time that no longer matters, lets compare to current conditions with is the only thing that matters.
At a current concentration of 400 ppm, and current CO2 increases of about 2 ppm per year…..it will take 200 years to achieve a single doubling resulting in one degree.
The second part of the IPCC shell game however is that they neglect to mention was what temperature they calculated the 1 degree of warming. Since temperature doesn’t vary linearly with w/m2, adding in 3.7 w/m2 has different effects at different temperature. We can calculate exactly what effect at what temperature using Stefan-Boltzmann Law:
P(w/m2) = 5.67 * 10^-8 * T^4 with T in degrees K.
Run the numbers and you’ll discover that 3.7 w/m2 causes a 1 degree temperature change at about -18C, which is point in the atmosphere at (IIRC) about 14,000 feet. If it is the surface temperature we are interested in, they should have done the calculation at average surface temperatures which would yield a change in temperature for CO2 doubling of about 0.68 degrees.
So, put in proper context, a doubling of CO2 from where we are now will take 200 years and will raise surface temps by only 0.68 degrees.
Even with MONSTER positive feedbacks from water vapour, that value is of little or no concern. We can be quite certain that monster positive feedbacks do not exist because if they did, the rise in temp from pre-industrial to now would be massive, and it isn’t.
The entire debate should have ended with “CO2 is logarithmic”. It has remained alive by an elaborate shell game by the IPCC. They present facts which are utterly true, and completely irrelevant. When we apply THEIR math and THEIR sensitivity and THEIR calculations to the here and NOW, their argument goes “poof” and disappears in a puff of logic.
Never before have so many been duped by such simple trickery by so few.
I misread the first of 2 non-line-graph charts, mentioning 5 different scientists/groups, by looking at it too quickly. In the first chart, the figures in the orange bands are the amount of temperature rise by increasing CO2 from 400 to 1000 PPMV, rounded to 2 decimal places. In the second chart, the bottom figures are the same, except carried out to 3 decimal places.
Meanwhile, the 5 different scientists/groups are shown as predicting effects of CO2 change ranging from .124 to 1.45 degree C per factor-of-2 change of CO2. If there is substantial evidence that this figure is much less than 1.1 degree C per 2xCO2, then I would expect Dr. Roy Spencer (drroyspencer.com) to say so, and I never seen him say so. I have yet to see him mention a figure calculated by using the MODTRAN model, which seems to me as about .8 degree C per 2xCO2. Meanwhile, MODTRAN is known to not have full resolution of the highly detailed CO2 absorption spectrum in the wavelength ranges where CO2 is partially transparent.
“The temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2 is real enough,…..”
What happened during the last 17 years ?
I am actually a skeptical denier and a denying skeptic. Until somebody does dome experiments to show how the back radiation horse shit mechanism actually works I say it does not work. I have looked at CO2 lasing and CO2 lasers. That actually works. But 4 CO2 molecules out of 10,000 air molecules buzzing around at considerable speed dont impress me much. So lets have some climate warmist do the experiments.
Raymond;
This statement can not be true
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And it isn’t.
davidmhoffer says in part, August 10, 2014 at 9:31 am:
“P(w/m2) = 5.67 * 10^-8 * T^4 with T in degrees K.
Run the numbers and you’ll discover that 3.7 w/m2 causes a 1 degree temperature change at about -18C, which is point in the atmosphere at (IIRC) about 14,000 feet. If it is the surface temperature we are interested in, they should have done the calculation at average surface temperatures which would yield a change in temperature for CO2 doubling of about 0.68 degrees.”
Since some of the increase of surface radiation is absorbed by greenhouse gases in the lower troposphere and reradiated back towards the surface, increasing the surface temperature increases its radiation by more than 3.7 W/cm^2 in response to a forcing of 3.7W/cm^2.
There is NO evidence that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere causes the temperature to rise. NONE. NADA. ZILCH.
That is the bottom line.
Donald L. Klipstein
Since some of the increase of surface radiation is absorbed by greenhouse gases in the lower troposphere and reradiated back towards the surface, increasing the surface temperature increases its radiation by more than 3.7 W/cm^2 in response to a forcing of 3.7W/cm^2.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The IPCC documentation assumes that this effect is subsumed into the 3.7 w/m2 in the first place. If you can point me to where they say otherwise, I’ll read it. AR4 on the other hand states specifically that radiative forcing cannot be directly equated with surface forcing, and then becomes rather vague as to what value surface forcing should be (but obviously less).
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2014 at 9:31 am
====
thanks
Nice presentation. Should be submitted to the EPA as evidence against the upcoming Power plant tailoring rules.
Yes this is an excellent piece of work.
However, I can’t help but feel frustrated by the inadequacy of this flow.
“As the margin of error for temperature measurements is about 1.0°C
….at ~3% of the total[4] Man-made CO2 at its maximum is only a minor part of the CO2 transport within the atmosphere.
concern over CO2 as a man-made pollutant can be mostly discounted.”
All things considered (which underscores the impossibility that the relative infinitesimal fossil fuel CO2 emissions have impacted our climate)
the use of “mostly discounted” just fails miserably. IMO
Up against the deliberate, calculating and institutionalized campaign of misinformation “mostly discounted” is like referring to Ted Bundy as not such a swell blind date. Or something like that?
“Mostly” invites the alarmists to embellish out whatever ginned up remaining legitimacy they need to stay the course.
Interesting to compare that with this paper from Schneider during his Global cooling period.
Schneider S. & Rasool S., “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols – Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate”, Science, vol.173, 9 July 1971, p.138-141
We report here on the first results of a calculation in which separate estimates were made of the effects on global temperature of large increases in the amount of CO2 and dust in the atmosphere. It is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2, which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K.
The EPA should be pointing this out to Obama and admitting that it needs to be downsized.
However, that is in a rational world, here in the real world where the ecoloons rule – at least they do in most of the western world. Elsewhere no one gives a rat’s unless they can see some way of using green crap to sucker some extra dough out of smug, but goofy, western countries.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10949976/Smart-metersto-be-put-in-every-British-home-despite-fears-they-may-not-work.html
RMB you are largely correct (co2 doesn’t warm the ocean), but your explanation is crap.
Infrared (atmospheric radiation) is absorbed by the top few microns of the surface, which does in fact heat the ocean.
But, and this is an extremely huge BUT, the ocean primarily cools through evaporation not radiation. All atmospheric radiation does is decrease the net amount of radiation loss from the ocean surface. When that happens, evaporation simply picks up the pace a tiny little bit, and the ocean surface temperature stays exactly the same.
I have measured this non effect hundreds of times.
Here’s what I know. If I fire my heat gun at uncovered water in a bucket the water does not accept the heat. If I float something like a metal baking dish on the surface and apply the heat to the floating object the water readily accepts the heat. Try doing it for yourself and if you get the same result tell me its not surface tension. The climate guys have never tested their own hypothesis
An excellent and convincing essay. As an editor by profession, I have frequently had to restrain myself at this site on a certain point. But now I find I can’t contain myself any longer. Sorry. There are two u’s in “minuscule”.
But CO2 is very last season!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2719727/Were-f-ked-Climate-change-catastrophe-mankind-study-shows-methane-leaking-Arctic-Ocean-scientist-warns.html
The Earth climate system appears to be a closed loop system and the influence of carbon dioxide is limited to the extent that it changes the control input.
I have often wondered what percentage of the public who accept the AGW theory because Scientists said it is true, are aware that CO2 is a necessity.
I’m sure you’ve heard about the the petitions people like Penn and Teller passed around to get signatures to ban water, using the scientific name for it, and listing all the harm it causes as the reason the ban was needed.
I wonder what percentage of people would answer Zero in a poll asking what percentage of CO2 is acceptable in the air our children breath?
Kelvin Vaughan says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:04 am
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10949976/Smart-metersto-be-put-in-every-British-home-despite-fears-they-may-not-work.html
===
Crap. Last time I looked the UK national debt was about 180 bn GBP , more than half of which was due to the cost of bailing out the banks.
And they want to spend 11bn they don’t have on this kind of stupidity which will have NO possible effect on climate, even if you are dumb enought to believe the IPCC.
The second graph in this article shows it is not the logarithm that matters but the arbitrary multiplier that IPCC modellers apply to the actual calculated effect of CO2.
The so-called positive feedbacks that reduce the known and over-riding negative feedbacks that have kept climate relatively stable for billions of years, through thick and thin.
The +ve feedbacks are guesswork. Guesses that they got wrong as can be seen by their total failure to predict the post 2000 plateau in global temps.
Peter: “I wonder what percentage of people would answer Zero in a poll asking what percentage of CO2 is acceptable in the air our children breath? ”
Out or in ? I’d like to see the poll results.
Kind of highlights the fundamental dishonesty of Government funded Climatology.
Anthony, can we loose the “like” buttons , or do I have to add WUWT to my spam filters.
Steven Mosher says:
August 10, 2014 at 8:08 am
Your Team works outside science, with totally bogus, GIGO models designed to show what their programmers want shown, ie they commit the logical fallacy of begging the question. Skeptics from the outset have objected to the unwarranted, indeed shown false, assumptions of modelers about feedback effects and clouds. This post is within that tradition. Without positive water vapor feedbacks, there can be no catastrophic man-made global warming. Since there is no evidence of such feedbacks, indeed quite the opposite in a homeostatic world, your whole scam unravels like a cheap suit.
If you think the sun or modulations of its activity doesn’t influence climate, please back up this assertion using the scientific method.
Raymond says:
August 10, 2014 at 9:29 am
////////////////////
I do not know whether his comment is correct, but if it is correct, may be it is because the K&T energy budget cartoon does not do night. See for example: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/trenberth-color-best.jpg
If that was the budget for planet Earth, there would be little in the way of weather since weather is generated by the fact that everything is not some hommogenous average, but rather because there are differences in energy/heat flux/pressure etc.both vertically and horizontally.
Re: “The rapid logarithmic diminution effect…”
The logarithmic response means that we need to add twice as much CO2 again to create the same amount of warming we created with the initial increase. The diminution effect may not be so rapid as the author suggests, depending on climate sensitivity and on whether intergenerational time-scales are considered.
If CO2 climate sensitivity is as low as 1.5 deg C, then increasing CO2 from pre-industrial (280ppm) to present (~397ppm), should result in an equilibrium change of 0.75 deg C. In that case, to stay under the generally accepted danger threshold of 2.0 deg C above pre-industrial temperatures, CO2 concentrations would need to peak below 700ppm. At current rates of increase, this would occur around the middle of the next century, in about 140 or so years. If we call a social generation 30 years, then this is just over 4 generations away (probably more than that before the equilibrium temperature is reached).
However, if climate sensitivity is 3.0 deg C, then the equilibrium change caused by 397ppm would be about 1.5 deg C (which we’d currently be in transit towards). In order to stay below the 2.0 deg C threshold, concentrations would need to stay below about 440ppm; a level we’d reach within the next 20 years at current rates.
Remember, these calculations take the logarithmic diminution of CO2 concentrations versus warming effect fully into account.
The absorption spectrum for CO2 makes this clear. As temperatures move up into the “atmospheric window” increased absortion of radiation decreases dramatically.
Meh. DP’s right. The argument isn’t over IR physics, it’s over feedback.
Genghis says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:11 am
RMB you are largely correct (co2 doesn’t warm the ocean), but your explanation is crap.
Infrared (atmospheric radiation) is absorbed by the top few microns of the surface, which does in fact heat the ocean.
///////////////////////
Because of the omnidirectional basis of DWLWIR, about 80% of all DWLWIR is absorbed within just 3 microns!
Does the energy absorbed in those 3 microns heat the ocean? For it to do so, it needs to be dissipated (and hence diluted) to depth at a rate faster than the energy absorbed in the top 3 microns would power/drive evaporation from the surface layer of the ocean.
The question then is how is the enormous amount of energy that is absorbed within the top 3 microns disipated to depth at a fast enough rate. Ocean overtunring is a slow mechanical process, and is largely dirurnal. So that does not look promising.
It cannot be by conduction since the energy flux is upwards (not downwards); at the very top of the ocean. the top millimetre is cooler than the ocean layers below. So unless we are mistaken as to energy fluxes and the ability of energy to ‘swim’ against the direction of flux, it cannot be by conduction.
There may be some mixing by wind and swell. Swell is a slow mechanical process, and so too is the wind when blowing at say BF3 or less. And if it is very windy (say BF8 and above), the top of the ocean becomes a divorced layer, and is not in contact with the bulk ocean below and any energy absorbed in the top 3 microns would most probably just be swept upwards into the atmosphere thereby help powering the storm raging above.
There are fundamental problems as to how DWLWIR heats the oceans given the absorption characteristics of LWIR in water, and the fact that the ocean is free to evaporate (unlike say rocks etc.).
I have never seen a convincing explanation detailing how DWLWIR heats the oceans. One needs to see an energy budget for the top 3 microns, the top 5, 10, 50, 100 microns perhaps going down to the first few metres and an explanation as to what processes are said to be going on in each of these bands, and the rate of energy transfer.
Solar does not present the same problems. According to K&T, solar is approximately 1/2 the power of DWLWIR, but wheras 80% of DWLWIR is absorbed within just 3 microns, fortunately for us, only about 1 % of solar is so absorbed.
Solar is for the main part absorbed within 1 metre (some solar finds its way past 10 metres), and this means that the energy from solar is disipated and diluted over a very substantial volume, about a million times larger than for DWLWIR. This means that solar warms the oceans without boiling it off, from the top down. But DWLWIR provides a major problem if it is truly sensible energy capable of performing sensible work since there is so much energy being fully absorbed within just 3 microns of ocean depth.
If my explanation is crap as you put it I need an explanation as to why I cannot get heat into uncovered water but if I float a metal object on the surface killing the surface tension underneath and apply the heat source to the floatin object the water heats as one would expect, explain that without surface tension. This reply is for Richard Verney.
Donald L. Klipstein says:
August 10, 2014 at 9:42 am
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Here is the money slide from AR4, figure 2.23
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-9-5.html
Note that the bottom half of the slide shows RF (radiative forcing) from LLGHG’s at just over 2 w/m2, but that the same model when run to show SF (surface forcing) in the upper panel generates just over 0.2 w/m2. A tacit admission by the IPCC that their calculations are for the upper troposphere, and what happens on the surface (where we live) is not just a smaller number, but a number so small as to be unremarkable.
If you have 3 gases within a system 2 absorping IR at the same energy and 1 gas, inert, makes up 94.06%, a second gas 5% and the third 0.04% what will be the effect of changing the relative volumes say from 5% & 0.04% to 4% & 1.04%. Remember both absorp IR at the same energy and the IR is finite.
An excellent perspective. The entire problem is scientists who are convinced they can represent the atmosphere with mathematical equations, then project it with accuracy out 100 years.
Even if you know all the physical laws and can dial in the known numbers the solutions will only confirm your theory.
The blind spot of global climate models is clouds. Increasing low clouds and decreasing high clouds in real world observations are evidence of a negative feedback.
Increasing low level moisture is greatly underestimated by models from evapotranspiration and trillions of gallons pulled out of aquifers for irrigation and other uses. One might think that since H2O is a greenhouse gas, this would increase warming.
Observations of the US Cornbelt over the last 30 years indicate the complete opposite……….a cooling effect. During the growing season, corn plant populations have doubled during that period. This has created a micro climate, adding tremendous low level moisture from evapotranspiration as well as increasing the vegetative density of the surface.
Higher dew points and a lower lifting condensation level has increased low clouds that form earlier in the day. Less SW radiation means less daytime heating. In addition, there is a positive feedback at work. The resulting increase in rainfall goes back into the soils and are taken in by the plants which continue to contribute to the increase in evapotranspiration.
Meteorologists forecasting for this area of world are very familiar with this significant effect during the growing season.
With CO2 boosting vegetative health across the globe, this same effect is happening on a huge scale but of course with less magnitude than what we see in the Cornbelt.
The magnitude/powerful effect seen here, makes this a massive real world/outdoor laboratory that shows an underestimated negative feedback to temperatures that is occurring on a global scale.
I am often loathe to wholly discount the opinion of experts but evidently CO2 is not able in itself to be the main driver of temperature increase in the future.
I can only assume that feedback loops (eg: water vapour) included in climate models anticipating larger increases somehow multiply the impact of increased CO2. As it is evident the scientific community have only a partial understanding of how these feedbacks work then I can only conclude that there should be limited reliance placed on their projections.
Only when previous changes in climate (recent and historical) have been adequately explained and models adjusted accordingly should we give them greater credence. Even then there is a justifiable debate to be had as to whether it would be worth the economic cost to reduce, or simply adapt.
The measurement uncertainty surrounding the global average radiative forcing, the energy that heats &/or cools the earth, is +/- 5 W/sq m. That’s a total uncertainty bandwidth of 10 W and that’s about +/- 1.5% of a total 340 W/sq m.
Hold that thought.
The radiative forcing attributed to mankind’s CO2 output is 1.6 W/sq m, less than 20% of the uncertainty band. And actually less than that and diminishing.
How can anybody model or predict future warming and climate change based on a number that is completely lost in a data Oort cloud of noise, that is trivial in the normal ebb and flow of the global radiative forcing?
It’s pretty obvious by now – they can’t.
Richard Verney,
Yes all the IR is absorbed in the top three microns of the oceans surface. and the radiation difference between clear sky and a completely overcast sky is ~ 130 watts. Almost as much as the 165 watts of SW radiation claimed by NASA and Trenberth from the sun that passes through the surface.
3 microns over a square meter equals 3 cubic centimeters being heated by 130 watts. A watt is a joule per second and the specific heat is around 4 joules/cubic centimeter so the surface of the ocean should warm at a rate of .7 degrees per second or 42 degrees a minute. Just about like turning on a microwave oven.
That much heat should surely measurably warm the surface when clouds pass overhead shouldn’t it?
Well it doesn’t, I have measured it hundreds of times and there is zero difference in the surface temperature between clear and overcast skies.
The only explanation that I can think of is that evaporation increases in direct response to the increased radiation.
RMB says:
August 10, 2014 at 8:23 am
————————————
It is true that DWLWIR does not slow the cooling rate of the oceans, but your “surface tension” explanation is incorrect. LWIR is absorbed by water, but any heating of the first few microns is offset by evaporation as Gengis and Richard Verney point out.
If your explanation was valid my kitchen should be full of steam evaporating. Its not.
@ Terry says:August 10, 2014 at 11:33 am
Because the margin of error for temperature measurements is about 1.0°C
and Man-made CO2 is only 3% of the total
and because water vapor has not cooperated with the concept of fossil fuel CO2 emissions=AGW there should be zero acceptance of any climate model projections which have ultimately failed to project global temperature trend.
davidmhoffer says, August 10, 2014 at 9:51 am:
“The IPCC documentation assumes that this effect is subsumed into the 3.7 w/m2 in the first place. If you can point me to where they say otherwise, I’ll read it. AR4 on the other hand states specifically that radiative forcing cannot be directly equated with surface forcing, and then becomes rather vague as to what value surface forcing should be (but obviously less).”
The ‘lifting the effective emission height (EEH)’ version of the AGW hypothesis doesn’t seem to be dependent on the original increased forcing itself being ‘teleported’ to the surface. It is the temperature rise that’s being linearly extrapolated (along an unchanged lapse rate) to the surface from the level where the increased forcing originated.
So, very conceptually, if we move up about 17000 ft, somewhat less than halfway up the troposphere, we will find the air layer emitting Earth’s atmospheric radiation flux freely to space (it couldn’t be of course, this would have to be at/above the tropopause, but that’s different story), at a mean steady-state temperature of 255K. If we suddenly double the atmospheric CO2 content, we would increase the atmospheric optical depth for outgoing IR and hence lift this ‘effective emission height’ about 500 ft higher. To a layer at 254K, that is, one degree cooler than the ‘old’ EEH.
It is at this point that the 3.7 W/m^2 increase in forcing appears. Stated another way, this 254K layer of air presumably absorbs as much IR coming up from the layers below as before, but emits upwards 3.7 W/m^2 less than before. Somehow because of its lower temperature. Meaning, this layer will have to warm about 1 degree to restore the balance. And it does so from the imbalance itself (more in than out). Once the layer at 17500 ft has warmed by its one degree, this warming can simply be drawn down to the surface via the lapse rate.
Ta-da!
I hate to tell you guys but increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has no effect whatsoever on global temperature. You are simply ignoring the real world when you go through contortions to find out what that logarithmic increase of yours might be. Fact is, there is no warming now and there has been none for 17 years while carbon dioxide steadily increased. This is an experimental observation in conflict with any and all greenhouse theories, linear or logarithmic, that predict warming. Arrhenius greenhouse theory, for example, has been predicting warming for all these years and getting nothing. If you are a scientist and your theory predicts warming but for 17 years you get nothing you are justified in tossing that theory into the waste basket of history. There is a spot reserved for it right next to phlogiston, another failed theory. This may look like not leaving us any greenhouse theory to guide us but that is not true. There is the Miskolczi greenhouse theory (MGT) that IPCC has forbidden anyone to refer to ever since it came out in 2007. Its prediction is exactly what we have now: addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere does not warm it. It follows that any warming observed in global temperature records is natural and not greenhouse warming. MGT differs from Arrhenius in that it is able to handle several GHGs simultaneously absorbing in the IR when Arrhenius can handle only CO2 and is incomplete. Carbon dioxide and water vapor are the most importand GHGs in the earth atmosphere. According to MGT they establish a joint optimal absorption window in the IR that they control. The optical thickness of this absorption window in the IR is 1.87, determined by Miskolczi from first principles. If you now add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, it will start to absorb just like Arrhenius says. But this will increase the optical thickness. As soon as it starts, however, water vapor will begin to diminish, rain out, and the original optical thickness is restored. The newly added carbon dioxide will of course keep absorbing but thanks to this simultaneous reduction of water vapor it cannot cause any greenhouse warming that is imputed to it by Hansen and company. This fact should be verified by independent observations and Miskolczi did that in 2011. Using NOAA database of radiosonde observations that goes back to 1948 he studied absorption of IR by the atmosphere over time and found that absorption had been constant for 61 years. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere simultaneously increased by 21.6 percent. Constant absorption means no warming. Hence, these data constitute an exact parallel to the warming pause/hiatus we are experiencing now. This fact has wide-ranging consequences. First, it makes a runaway greenhouse warming quite impossible. This is why the very high carbon dioxide amount in geologic history has been unable to cause any runaway warming. Hansen has been warning us that if we do not give up burning fossil fuels a runaway greenhouse effect like that on Venus will destroy us. Unfortunately he is ignorant of Venusian geology too despite having worked as an astronomer on the Pioneer Venus project. Venus has no plate tectonics. Excess radioactive heat on earth is constantly vented by plate boundary volcanism. On Venus it just accumulates beneath the crust and so weakens it that it break apart into giant slabs. These sink into the interior and an entirely new crust is formed every 300 to 600 million years. If Venus is the same age as earth there may have been as many as ten such moltings in its past. Its atmosphere is entirely a product of these giant eructations and has nothing to do with boiling oceans of Hansen’s. Secondly, the Miskolczi effect makes the enhanced greenhouse effect also impossible. This enhanced greenhouse effect is said to be the cause of anthropogenic global warming or AGW by IPCC, Hansen, and other experts. Since it is ruled out by MGT it follows that it is nothing but a pseudo-scientific fantasy, conceived by over-eager climate “scientists”to prove that the greenhouse effect is real.
Arno Arrak says:
August 10, 2014 at 12:15 pm
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCkQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnige.files.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F02%2Fthe-saturated-greenhouse-effect-theory-of-ferenc-miskolczi.pdf&ei=bsXnU470BsnXiwKy6IG4Dw&usg=AFQjCNHGM-LHU1GLNqCdX3gd6mZ1w9adew&sig2=03MycldsSWC7Sh3sxecWow&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGE
@Steven Mosher at 8.08pm. This argument is uncomfortably similar to you painting all models with in the same palette. Known knowns within physics pure does not transfer to newer forms of sub-physics, ie. climate physics.
@ Ed Hoskins
“The temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2 is real enough”
—————————————-
CO2 can absorb energy from LWIR as shown by Tyndall in 1859
CO2 can also emit LWIR if conductively heated as shown by Tyndall in 1860
In our atmosphere radiative gases are emitting to space more than DOUBLE the net flux of radiative energy being absorbed at lower altitude.
The question is not the ability of radiative gases to absorb and thermalise energy, but rather their net effect in our moving atmosphere. Which is cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.
A very informative piece. Equally enjoyable were all the thoughtful comments.
Of course the sun has an effect.
Excellent article. However, one point was missing:
On time scales from decades to hundreds of thousands of years, all available evidence shows that changes in CO2 are caused by changes in temperature. There is no evidence showing that ∆T is caused by ∆CO2.
The alarmist premise is that a rise in CO2 will cause global warming. But where is the empirical evidence to support that belief? So far, no such evidence has been found, despite more than 30 years of searching.
Ed Hoskins & commentators: Thank you for such a lucid explanation of the role of C02 in the AGW debate.
The oceans control Earth’s atmospheric temperature.
The amount of energy that the oceans can retain at a given level of insolation is determined by the weight of the mass of the atmosphere bearing down on the ocean surface because that is what determines the energy ‘cost’ of the evaporative change of phase from water to vapour.
At very low pressure there is little difference between the energy required to initiate evaporation and the amount of energy required for the phase change but the higher the surface pressure becomes the more energy is required by the phase change from lquid to vapour.
See here:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/the-setting-and-maintaining-of-earths-equilibrium-temperature/
Steven Mosher,
“notice how the author makes his case from WITHIN the accepted science.
Notice how effective the case is when you start INSIDE the accepted science..
notice that he doesnt have to resort to saying wacky stuff about the sun.
notice how he doesnt have to engage in numerology about the planets
he takes the science as given ( much like Nic Lewis does) and works from the inside. ”
And although he has made his case from within the (suspect) “accepted science”, he shows that “whatever the developed world does in terms of decreasing CO2 emissions the outcome is likely to be either immaterial or more likely even beneficial”. In other words Mr. Mosher the panic that the IPCC and its adherents attempt to generate is baseless even using their own dubious assumptions. Do you agree with his conclusions and if not, why not?
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2014 at 9:31 am
“The entire debate should have ended with “CO2 is logarithmic””.
————————-
I agree, the entire debate should have ended 30 years ago …. but not just because of the claim that “CO2 is logarithmic”.
Now unless my logical reasoning abilities have gone completely FUBAR …. then the claim that “CO2 is logarithmic” makes no logical sense to me if it is based in/on this explanation/description of said, to wit:
—————–
Decades ago it was determined that CO2 ‘s ability to trap heat rising from Earth’s surface declines logarithmically or very rapidly (see first figure below). This means that early on, at low concentrations, CO2 does exert a significant warming of the lower atmosphere. But as the absorption bands in which CO2 captures this rising heat begin to get saturated, CO2 can capture less and less heat with each additional unit of CO2”.
Source ref: http://plantsneedco2.org/default.aspx?act=documentdetails.aspx&documentid=365
==============
Now given the above, it is therefore my learned opinion that the claim that “CO2 is logarithmic” is little more than “junk science” and anyone that believes otherwise is living proof of this quoted statement, to wit:
—————–
davidmhoffer said:
“Never before have so many been duped by such simple trickery by so few”.
===============
First of all, concerning the above explanation/description, ….. CO2 has no ability to “trap” heat or …. to “trap” thermal “heat” energy. It has the ability to absorb either “conducted” or IR “radiated” heat energy …. and/or …. the ability to emit either “conducted” or IR “radiated” heat energy.
Secondly, just what the hell does the CO2 absorption bands for absorbing IR energy have to do with the total amount of IR radiation from the earth’s surface?
Thirdly, is not the “saturation of the absorption bands” in which CO2 absorbs IR energy a direct result of the surface temperature which the surface is the source of said IR radiation?
HA, me thinks the absorption bands in which CO2 absorbs IR energy are probably pretty much saturated for 1 or 2 hours in the locales of clear skies relative to the Sun’s zenith position of “High Noon” .
And fourthly, given the fact that the CO2 is constantly emitting its absorbed IR energy …. how is it possible for it to “absorb less and less heat energy ….. just because it is “emitting more and more heat energy”?
My question is, iffen one fills and caps a 10 gallon glass container with 20% CO2 … and then directly point a 200 watt IR light source at it, from 12 inches distance, that is emitting in the “CO2 absorption bands”, …… just how “HOT” will that CO2 get ….. or will it begin to get colder after it got hotter?
davidmhoffer says in part, August 10, 2014 at 11:12 am:
“Here is the money slide from AR4, figure 2.23
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-9-5.html”
Radiative forcing is change in net radiation flow, assuming surface and troposphere temperature do not change in reponse to the forcing. Surface forcing is the change in net radiation flow, after the surface and troposphere temperatures have responded.
Radiative and surface forcings are equal when the forcing is not affected by surface and tropospheric temperature response, such as a change in solar output.
Since an increase of surface temperature in response to an increase of GHGs causes an increase of outgoing surface radiation, it is expectable that the surface forcing from an increase of GHGs is less than the radiative forcing from GHGs.
A couple comments on presentation:
The figure I think can be improved by rescaling the left bar so that the blue line is flat at 400 ppm (or even 350). Therefore each additional 100 ppm increase in CO2 is connected downward to the middle bar for a miniscule change in forcing and steady state temperature change.
RE: The fourth chart. Purely for psychological, social, and historical reasons, I would reverse the x axis and put IPCC on the left with rebuttals following to the right.
But my biggest problem with the fourth chart, and maybe spill over into the other charts, is this business of ~33°C total Greenhouse Effect.
I have and continue to believe that the ~33°C figure is really about 3 times too big and comes from a mathematical model blunder by treating a ~30% albedo as a one-way mirror, reflecting incoming solar energy away, but playing no part in trapping earth radiated energy. Yes, there are spectral conversion concerns, but that ~33°C figure comes from what I think is sloppy accounting of what is and is not in a GHG energy budget.
richard verney says, August 10, 2014 at 11:09 am:
(Largely, that downwelling longwave radiation hitting water is absorbed within the top 3 microns, and an increase of such radiation hitting water is heavily disiipated by an increase of evaporative cooling)
If the top 3 microns warms up without the 10 micron level warming up, then heat conduction through the extremely thin temperature gradient between 3 and 10 microns down will cool the top 3 microns faster than increased evaporative cooling. Evaporative cooling won’t outpace heat conduction until the temperature gradient expands over a much greater range of depth, at which point mixing becomes significant at transferring heat to deeper levels.
Genghis, you say with respect to the DWLWIR hitting the ocean:
“The only explanation that I can think of is that evaporation increases in direct response to the increased radiation.”
So you agree that the overall earth/ocean/atmosphere energy level is higher with this radiation than without it?
“The temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2 is real enough”
Um, Please don’t speak for me. The “skeptics believe” is not true for all of us.
Below the tropopause, CO2 does exactly nothing to temperature. That is why we have a troposphere and tropopause. In that regime (where we live) water completely dominates and CO2 doesn’t get a chance to play in the radiation game. It’s an opaque atmosphere in the CO2 range.
Above the tropopause, CO2 is a net radiator to space and cools.
In no case does CO2 cause net warming.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/tropopause-rules/
Image of CO2 effect with altitude:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/tropopause-rules/stratosphere-radiation-by-species-1460/
And yes, as Mosier says, it IS effective to work inside the other guy’s paradigm, but do remember that the paradigm is wrong…
And do note that lunar tidal effects are not ‘numerology’ and account for as much cold / warm layer mixing in the oceans as the wind. That planetary orbits correlate with solar cycle changes and with lunar orbits may just be incidental. Or maybe not. Dismissing it out of hand without evidence is not a path to further understanding. While it is my opinion that the lunar tidal effect is the operative mechanism in that correlation, it is by no means proven that some solar effect is not operative as well (such as UV depth of energy deposition heating / not heating the ocean and stratosphere).
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/why-weather-has-a-60-year-lunar-beat/
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/3814.full
So yes, as a ploy, it is useful to argue from the other side’s premisses. But just be careful you do not embrace them as true, nor imply they are accepted truth.
This s the latest in a series of very good essays on co2 by Ed.
Most of us believe in radiative physics and Also that there is some point at which adding more co2 has little additional effect on temperatures.
I wrote this piece last year in which I examined the extended Central Engand Temperature to 1538 and plotted co2 levels against it.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/08/the-curious-case-of-rising-co2-and-falling-temperatures/
Since then I have been researching the CET record back a further 500 years. There is little doubt that there are periods in that extended record at least as warm as today and that is without entering the core years of the MWP, which may well be notably warmer than today. Not having done the detailed research on that yet I remain open to whatever the research may show.
The point is that we have considerable ups and downs over that extended period to temperatures as warm as today and much colder than today at co2 levels from 280ppm pre industrial to around 400 ppm today.
It is impossible to draw any interim conclusion at present other than superficially it appears- subject to much more research – that co2 concentrations appear to lose their ability to cause substantial warming at around the 280 ppm level
Natural variability appears to be the main driving force. Phil jones admitted a few years ago that natural variability was far greater than he had hitherto believed
Tonyb
Concerning the absorption of IR by the surface of water (top2-3 microns), there is another way to examine the matter: by rate of evaporation. A typical rate in hot climates is one cm per day; that works out to about 8 microns per minute. This figure is averaged over 24 hrs and actual daytime evaporation rates would be higher because of the much greater amount of heat involved. The point is this approach allows a calculation of the residence time of the heat in the upper two or three microns and behold, the microns are gone in a few seconds. No time for conduction to lower levels, period. A simple experiment will show that is impossible to heat water by IR.
Raymond says: August 10, 2014 at 9:29 am
higley7 says:
“…….. The computer models do not do night-time, …….”
This statement can not be true, if it is could someone explain why these models have any validity at all?
Raymond higley7’s post comes in the category of “not even wrong”(sorry I don’t know who coined the expression), Posts such as his allow warmists to categorise us realists as idiots. I’m opposed to censorship but in some things it is best e.g. the owner of this site properly forbids discussion of “*hem*rails” for obvious reasons.
Could be that I’ m wrong, but I simply cannot take decarbonization as a serious notion. For me it is not in the realm of possibilities, not even in this loony world of enviro-wackos.
mpainter says:
August 10, 2014 at 1:23 pm
“A simple experiment will show that is impossible to heat water by IR. ”
http://www.tellusa.net/index.php/tellusa/article/view/15675
Curt says:
August 10, 2014 at 12:54 pm
Genghis, you say with respect to the DWLWIR hitting the ocean:
“The only explanation that I can think of is that evaporation increases in direct response to the increased radiation.”
So you agree that the overall earth/ocean/atmosphere energy level is higher with this radiation than without it?
****************
No, the energy in the Ocean is not increased at all, because the DWLWIR never gets past the first couple of microns, before it gets evaporated away just like boiling water doesn’t get any hotter no matter how much extra heat gets applied to it. Also the ocean surface temperature acts as an upper limit on the atmospheric temperature.
Donald L. Klipstein says:
If the top 3 microns warms up without the 10 micron level warming up, then heat conduction through the extremely thin temperature gradient between 3 and 10 microns down will cool the top 3 microns faster than increased evaporative cooling. Evaporative cooling won’t outpace heat conduction until the temperature gradient expands over a much greater range of depth, at which point mixing becomes significant at transferring heat to deeper levels.
************
You have it wrong. The top couple of microns don’t heat up. There is no temperature gradient change.
Again the best analogy is measuring the temperature of boiling water while increasing the amount of heat being applied, the liquid water will stay at exactly the same temperature, increased evaporation instantly compensates for the extra heat.
TonyB: Your CET work is interesting, however: “Please note that the graphing package somewhat inflates the warmth in the decade around 1540”
Don’t blame the “graphing package” you are not centering then running average ( which is a crap filter to start with.). The reason 1540’s looks too high is because it’s too late ! It is obvious to the natked eye. Shift the “smoothed” version back 5y and both the 1540 and y2k (in fact the whole graph) will line up a lot better.
Unusually, there don’t seem to be the typical peak inversions that RM often creates, just luck of the draw in the periodiciteis present in the data.
One thing that does look wrong in the cira 2000 peak if far too pointy in realation to the unfiltered data.
Try triple running mean of half the length and it will be just as “smooth” and probably follow better.
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=989&action=edit
Mosher says
Why are you so obsessed with arguing with warmest using their play book? They are a bunch of liers trying to control you and me. When you argue inside the constraints they set they can simply say you accept their argument but misunderstand its complexities and misinterpret their results.
You let them be the authority and they can dismiss you as a cub who has strayed from the fold.
One should argue what they believe and can back up, not what is accepted by the established.
They have an agenda and could careless where the truth lies.
Genghis says:
August 10, 2014 at 1:54 pm
Donald L. Klipstein says:
If the top 3 microns warms up without the 10 micron level warming up, then heat conduction through the extremely thin temperature gradient between 3 and 10 microns down will cool the top 3 microns faster than increased evaporative cooling. Evaporative cooling won’t outpace heat conduction until the temperature gradient expands over a much greater range of depth, at which point mixing becomes significant at transferring heat to deeper levels.
************
You have it wrong. The top couple of microns don’t heat up. There is no temperature gradient change.
Again the best analogy is measuring the temperature of boiling water while increasing the amount of heat being applied, the liquid water will stay at exactly the same temperature, increased evaporation instantly compensates for the extra heat.
======
Everyone seems to love making assertions and contra assertions about this subject. Anyone got anything more concreate that back of envolop arguments and assertion?
Greg
Thanks for your comments. I always read your material.
There was a sharp peak in Cet around 2000 as can be seen in the met office Hadley CET 1772 figures.
I met up with David Parker at the Met office last year, who created the record. They haveRecently changed the stations being used as they felt they were running too warm. My estimate would be that the upwards incline to 2000 was too sharp and the decline since too exaggerated. The temperatures have started rising again but are still nowhere near their peak.
Incidentally, whilst it was an artefact of the graphing package to some extent! further research has shown that the pre 1540 period showed a sharp temperature increase. There was a sharp decline from around 1450 to 1500
Tonyb
Genghis:
I asked the question:
“So you agree that the overall earth/ocean/atmosphere energy level is higher with this radiation than without it?”
and you responded:
“No, the energy in the Ocean is not increased at all, because the DWLWIR never gets past the first couple of microns, before it gets evaporated away…”
which is not an answer to my question at all. I carefully asked about “the overall earth/ocean/atmosphere energy level”.Let’s grant, at least for the sake of argument, the the DWLWIR does not affect the temperature, and therefore the energy level, of the ocean itself. But by evaporating water from the surface, it does add the latent heat of evaporation to the overall system.
The reason I make a point of this is that there are many (and I don’t necessarily include you in this) who believe that because the liquid water body temperature does not apparently increase in the presence of increased DWLWIR, that the energy in this radiation is somehow lost. And that would be a blatant 1st Law violation.
There is substantial research showing that significantly increased or decreased temperatures reduces crop yields. That same research showed that increasing atmospheric CO2 could more than off-set the yield reductions resulting from those temperature changes.
Unless it can be shown 1) that temperatures have risen at least in part due to Man’s CO2 contributions; 2) that that rise in temperature produced an unacceptable change in climate; and 3) reducing CO2 absolutely will reduce temperatures, then the precautionary principle dictates that we must NOT reduce atmospheric CO2.
In other words: if any temperature change up or down is caused primarily by natural variation, then we will only be reducing our global food supplies by reducing CO2.
AGAIN with this absurd idea that DWLWIR can do thermodynamic work on the surface?! It’s not a heat flux, folks! If it warms the top 3 microns of the surface skin, it means it’s heat. If it provokes more evaporation, it means it’s heat. Because only ‘heat’ (and ‘work’) are real, thermodynamically working flows of energy. Actual, detectable transfers of energy. DWLWIR is not heat! Energy is transferred radiatively from the warm surface to the cool atmosphere only. As radiative heat. Period. Stop pretending DWLWIR is a separately working flux of energy, operating as if it were heat, distinct from the UWLWIR within the same, integrated radiation field. It’s not.
richard verney says, August 10, 2014 at 11:09 am:
“Genghis says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:11 am
Infrared (atmospheric radiation) is absorbed by the top few microns of the surface, which does in fact heat the ocean.
///////////////////////
Does the energy absorbed in those 3 microns heat the ocean? For it to do so, it needs to be dissipated (and hence diluted) to depth at a rate faster than the energy absorbed in the top 3 microns would power/drive evaporation from the surface layer of the ocean.”
No, Richard. It needs to be HEAT. And it’s not heat. DWLWIR is not heat and hence it cannot heat the top 3 microns of the skin layer and it cannot provoke more evaporation.
Climatology is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. (apologies to Groucho Marx)
Curts says
If DWLWIR is not being absorb by the oceans (which it is not) for it to raise the overall earth/ocean/atmospher energy level you would have to see a rise is atmospheric temperatures. Which is not happening. This can only mean there is an increase of energy transfer in to space.
There is no effect model of how AGW can transfer heat to the oceans and not have a corisponding rise in atmospheric temperatures at the same time.
cnxtim says:
Is this anything more than a “face saving” exit plan for all the CAGW evangelists?
“Yo wagons ho!, thar be the real … (insert what you will here).
I think the word you want may be ‘elephant’.
http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/site/comments/elephant_to_see_the/
: >)
Curt,
The atmosphere resting on top of the solar-heated surface does of course make less energy go out from the surface per unit of time at equal temperature than if there were no atmosphere, only the vacuum of space. This is because the atmosphere has a mass. It thus has a ‘heat capacity’. It is able to warm. Space isn’t. It also, for the same reason, weighs down on the surface (space doesn’t), setting a limit to buoyant acceleration and evaporation rates at a certain temperature. This is what forces Earth’s surface to be much warmer than the Moon’s. It’s got nothing to do (it couldn’t have) with energy INPUT to the surface from a cooler place. It has to do with a smaller energy OUTPUT from the surface to this same cooler place. Because this cooler place is still warmer than space. The atmosphere still gains energy from the surface, by the simple fact of being the cooler of the two systems. It’s all a matter of how much it gains per unit of time. And this is set by the temp gradient and the weight of the atmosphere on the surface.
Come back when you can show us how the presence of radiatively active gases in our atmosphere – specifically through their radiative properties – actually reduce (or work towards reducing) the tropospheric temperature profile. If they don’t, then they don’t contribute to the warming of the surface. Simple as that.
“The rapid logarithmic diminution effect is an inconvenient fact for Global Warming advocates and alarmists, nonetheless it is well understood within the climate science community. It is certainly not much discussed.”
It is much discussed. Whenever people refer to sensitivity as 2&dseg;C/doubling, or whatever, they are invoking the logarithmic behaviour.
“CO2 at 400pmmv is already committed and immutable. So CO2 has already reached about ~87+% of its potential warming effect in the atmosphere”
The basis for this percent arithmetic (here and earlier) is not stated, and it makes no sense. A logarithmic curve has diminishing slope, but no maximum or minimum. If sensitiivity is 2K/doubling, and if 400 ppmv corresponds to equilibrium 288 K, then 400 * 2^-144 ppmv corresponds to 0K. Or 400 * 2^144 ppmv to 576 K. Of course, what that shows is simply that logarithmic behaviour is just an approximation that works in a limited range.
“The recent IPCC report now admits that currently increasing CO2 levels are probably only ~50% man-made.”
Where?
We are now at 50% of the logarithmic calculated theoritical doubling of GHGs.
50% of doubling —> +0.6C temperature increase (once you factor in the Mosher-sanctioned fake temperature adjustments).
Half-way, +0.6C.
Half-way and plants are growing much better as in yields are way-up, even your grass is growing faster.
Now we can also say the warming in the pipeline held by the oceans is only 0.2 W/m2/year after the newest results or nothing to worry about.
Full-way to doubling –> +1.2C? plus a little more once the oceans catch up that little bit and plants are more productive.
The numbers make increased CO2 a positive development for the planet. Simple as that.
Greg Goodman says:
August 10, 2014 at 2:09 pm
Everyone seems to love making assertions and contra assertions about this subject. Anyone got anything more concreate that back of envolop arguments and assertion?
+++++++++++
I am sitting in Manjack, in the Abacos this very moment with an IR gun reading the surface temperature, it is 31.4˚ C. with a clear sky, almost dead calm conditions. If conditions stay the same, when I take a reading sometime tonight, when I check the anchor, the temperature will be the same whether it is a clear sky or cloudy. In the morning it will most likely be cloudy and the same temperature.
If the wind picks up a little the surface temperature will go down. If the wind picks up a lot the temperature will stabilize at a new point, probably warmer.
I have been doing this for a couple of years now in various anchorages and I have seen the surface temp stay the same for days and even the occasional week or two. When I say the same temp I mean within a few tenths.
As a farm boy from the high deserts in Idaho, I have to admit that I was blown away by the temperature stability of the ocean surface.
So Nick Stokes has gotten permission from Hansen to reappear?
H. Grouse, John Carter and John Finn will be around any minute now.
I discussed this issue of how much infrared energy is being absorbed by CO2 with Hu McCulloch a couple months ago. He had an interesting insight. Whatever function we use to compute the radiative forcing for CO2 has got to be a bounded function. Once all the infrared in some frequency band is absorbed, adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will not result in any additional radiative forcing. Therefore, instead of ln(X), the formula for radiative forcing should something more like 1 – e^(-x).
Nick Stokes says:
August 10, 2014 at 3:06 pm
The basis for this percent arithmetic (here and earlier) is not stated, and it makes no sense. A logarithmic curve has diminishing slope, but no maximum or minimum.
Help me out with that, Nick.
Wouldn’t the minimum be either at 0% atmospheric CO2 or, at least, 1 part CO2 to the entire atmosphere; while the maximum would be at either 100% CO2 or, at most, a CO2 atmosphere with only 1 part non-CO2?
At 50% CO2 there is only one doubling left. Wouldn’t the maximum then be reached?
The bigger question would be: at what point do further doublings add only a barely measureable amount of warming?
If all of this isn’t in the “settled science” realm after all the discussions over the years, will it ever be?
Just wondering.
This is all well and good as a purely radiative argument. However, the derivation of the thermal gradient within a gravitationally bound atmosphere pays no heed to inter atmospheric radiative exchange. The tropospheric lapse rate is dT/dh=-g/Cp gives a monumentally solid depiction of the bulk if the lower atmosphere up to the point where direct atmospheric heating (solar) drives the system out of the reversible adiabatic profile. This can be derived through equating kinetic and potential energy to a dQ=0 (adiabatic) condition or thermodynamically from the gas laws.
So, theoretically, back radiation ‘heats’ the lower atmosphere with ‘special molecules’ whilst these same molecules reduce the intensity of solar energy reaching the surface and increase the upper atmospheric emissivity. Even though we haven’t used these to calculate the thermal relationship between the upper and lower troposphere, well, no further than how by mass density the molecules affect Cp. Increasing upper atmospheric emissivity cools the upper, but the upper and lower are tied by the mechanical lapse which for a given heat capacity ‘fixes’ the gradient set by gravitational containment for long term stability.
Radiative exchange never produces a thermal gradient. The exchange, reduces the thermal gradient. Gravity is responsible for the enhancement of the surface temperature and the mass aloft, as all interacting matter radiates, accounts for the necessary decrease in surface emissivity. The transmission of the atmosphere to short wave and long wave radiation is not that dissimilar, the Sun producing most of its radiative emissions in the infra red (51% IR, 37% visible) which then covers ever spectral line of every GHG. More GHG’s, less heat reaching the surface, more upper atmospheric cooling, some ‘calculated back radiation’. Net effect, zero measurable.
sturgishooper says: miskolczi.pdf
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCkQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnige.files.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F02%2Fthe-saturated-greenhouse-effect-theory-of-ferenc-miskolczi.pdf&ei=bsXnU470BsnXiwKy6IG4Dw&usg=AFQjCNHGM-LHU1GLNqCdX3gd6mZ1w9adew&sig2=03MycldsSWC7Sh3sxecWow&bvm=bv.72676100,d.cGE
That looks pretty good on a first reading.
Why in years on this site have I never seen that mentioned before ?
Thanks.
Kristian says:
. Because only ‘heat’ (and ‘work’) are real, thermodynamically working flows of energy.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I hook a battery up to an electric heater. The heater gets hot. Check the wires, no temp change. Check the battery, no temp change. But the heater gets hot Apparently there IS a working flow of energy that DOES do work.
Now that you’ve made a complete fool of yourself (yet again) and your pathetic grasp of the physics is on full display, please STFU and go away.
*Standard Request* While I appreciate that people sometimes like my comments, please do not hit the like button as it fills my inbox with spam from WordPress.
..can we hit Kristian’s like button?
E.M.Smith says:
August 10, 2014 at 1:03 pm
So yes, as a ploy, it is useful to argue from the other side’s premisses. But just be careful you do not embrace them as true, nor imply they are accepted truth.
=====
…..+100
Greg
Myself and no doubt many others have referenced this work before. According to the warmists there is a glaring mathematical mistake which renders it invalid. If Nick stokes turns up he can no doubt clarify what it is. Failing that I am sure our friends at Real climate or Skeptical science have written about it.
Tonyb
Peter Miller says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:04 am
The EPA should be pointing this out to Obama and admitting that it needs to be downsized.
Given the blatant porkies he’s been uttering and amplifying, “pointing out” is taking a butter knife to a gun fight. And the EPA is itself on a power binge; why would it disarm itself?
Curt says:
August 10, 2014 at 2:19 pm
Genghis:
I asked the question:
“So you agree that the overall earth/ocean/atmosphere energy level is higher with this radiation than without it?”
and you responded:
“No, the energy in the Ocean is not increased at all, because the DWLWIR never gets past the first couple of microns, before it gets evaporated away…”
which is not an answer to my question at all. I carefully asked about “the overall earth/ocean/atmosphere energy level”.Let’s grant, at least for the sake of argument, the the DWLWIR does not affect the temperature, and therefore the energy level, of the ocean itself. But by evaporating water from the surface, it does add the latent heat of evaporation to the overall system.
==================
Yes the latent heat is increased in the atmosphere.
==================
The reason I make a point of this is that there are many (and I don’t necessarily include you in this) who believe that because the liquid water body temperature does not apparently increase in the presence of increased DWLWIR, that the energy in this radiation is somehow lost. And that would be a blatant 1st Law violation.
==================
The total energy flux in the system is exactly the same. What changes is the direction and rate.
==================
Kristian;
No, Richard. It needs to be HEAT. And it’s not heat. DWLWIR is not heat and hence it cannot heat the top 3 microns of the skin layer and it cannot provoke more evaporation.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No, it is an energy flux and just like the energy flux from a battery in my previous comment, it can and does do work. Energy can take many forms and both electric current and radiated energy are examples of an energy flux that can create heat when absorbed by a matter. In the same manner, a moving object stores energy as kinetic energy which it can turn into heat through friction. There are a plethora of examples all around you falsifying your ignorance, you only need think about it for a moment to see that you are dead wrong.
*Standard Request* While I appreciate that people sometimes like my comments, please do not hit the like button as it fills my inbox with spam from WordPress.
imS says:
August 10, 2014 at 8:28 am
I have found that your average AGWer will not admit to the Pause for the last 17 years. Nor will they accept the concept that CO2 follows temperature shown in the historical record via the ice core data. Therefore, your average AGWer will never, ever accept the fact of CO2 having an algorithmic impact on global temperatures. Any information coming from a “denier” website is instantly dismissed.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The default position of all “leftists” is that humans are evil, that “the selfish gene” is not a necessary requirement for life, and that we must be controlled to “sacrifice for your fellow man”. This Altruistic moral code is at the root of all hatred of industrialization and Capitalism (the restriction on government and freedom of the individual). (not to be confused with the Crony Socialism of Big Business using government to steal from the rest of us)
Allow individuals to lead productive, happy, selfish lives? NO WAY! Since you are so selfish, you must be forced into the sacrificial furnaces at the point of a gun!
Accordingly, under their moral code, any means to achieve the dreary life of sacrifice of all to all is moral. They can lie, cheat, steal and kill to achieve this goal. AND THEY DO. They can invent fictional stories about global threats, while ignoring the real threats. They have indoctrinated our children, propagandized everything from Hollywood to the media and have now gotten control of the levers of power through lies, voter fraud and more. Hopefully, the American people are waking up to the lies and machinations, of which AGW is but one facet. It seems they are.
Greg
Here is the Real Climate riposte to the 2007 and 2010 paper
http://www.realclimate.org/docs/Rebuttal_Miskolczi_20100927.pdf
Tonyb
Latitude says:
August 10, 2014 at 3:41 pm
..can we hit Kristian’s like button?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If your goal is to encourage science so bad that it isn’t even wrong, by all means 😉
JohnWho says: August 10, 2014 at 3:34 pm
“Help me out with that, Nick.
Wouldn’t the minimum be either at 0% atmospheric CO2 or, at least, 1 part CO2”
Zeno could have worked that out. If you cool 2°C per halving, how many times do you have to halve to get to 0%?
And what is 1 part CO2? What is special about it?
And you could say that 100% CO2 is an effective max. At 2°C/doubling, that’s more than 30°C rise.
TonyB:” My estimate would be that the upwards incline to 2000 was too sharp and the decline since too exaggerated. The temperatures have started rising again but are still nowhere near their peak.”
The almost linear ramp either side of Y2K is a result of the filter. It cam be seen by eye that the annual data are not that pointed.
Try what I suggested or post a link to exactly what data you are using there and I’ll plot it up.
Donald L Klipstein;
Since an increase of surface temperature in response to an increase of GHGs causes an increase of outgoing surface radiation, it is expectable that the surface forcing from an increase of GHGs is less than the radiative forcing from GHGs.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And hence, the temperature change at surface must be less than would be calculated by strictly using SB Law and RF versus effective BB temp of earth. Which was my original point.
If your goal is to encourage science so bad that it isn’t even wrong, by all means 😉
===
you know me better than that….. 😉
Hmm, and here I was, thinking that David M. Hoffer had sworn to himself and to the world to ignore me in the future. So much for that, it seems …
And he still doesn’t see that everything he says only displays his utter ignorance on thermodynamic concepts and principles. He simply doesn’t know what heat is. To him there is no difference between opposing radiant emittances and radiative heat inside a thermal exchange. They both heat in his world. We’re talking about radiative thermal exchanges, David. Where one body heats another one. Not batteries. You simply don’t get it.
You should’ve taken the hint when even Nick Stokes – not exactly a skeptic to AGW – on the Bombshell thread pointed out to you ‘the impossibility of getting work from DWLWIR’.
But no, you’re simply incapable of admitting you’re wrong, aren’t you David?
Bob Boder says: August 10, 2014 at 3:29 pm
“So Nick Stokes has gotten permission from Hansen to reappear?
H. Grouse, John Carter and John Finn will be around any minute now.”
It’s true that it’s taken a while for real scepticism to be expressed.
Care to explain the arithmetic behind
“CO2 at 400pmmv is already committed and immutable. So CO2 has already reached about ~87+% of its potential warming effect in the atmosphere.”
Or any of the % statements?
Anyone?
Kristian says:
August 10, 2014 at 2:38 pm
No, Richard. It needs to be HEAT. And it’s not heat. DWLWIR is not heat and hence it cannot heat the top 3 microns of the skin layer and it cannot provoke more evaporation.
==========
Kristian, you are correct IR radiation is not “heat’ but it can and does warm objects. It also cools objects when it is radiated and everything above 0K radiates.
When I point my IR gun at something it reads the IR radiation and converts that to an approximate temperature. It doesn’t really matter what the object is, clouds, mufflers, clear sky, coolant hoses, a fire, water, you get the idea. It isn’t always accurate but it tries : )
Nich: “And what is 1 part CO2? What is special about it?
And you could say that 100% CO2 is an effective max. At 2°C/doubling, that’s more than 30°C rise. ”
This whole argument is pointless. As you commented, the current log relationship does not apply indefinitely ( in either direction ).
The basic CO2 band is already saturated. The log relationship comes from spectral broadening. At very much lower concentrations the molecules do not mask each other ( too few ) and relationship is linear and so does not go down to negative infintiy.
The log relationship is a reasonable approximation to the regime we are in. It is not intended or expected to be pushed to mathematical extremes and still apply. But I think you realise that already.
Ok so Mosher and Stokes are back.
I’ll plead with them once again to humor this simple man.
Can one of you please give me a current articulation of how the scientific concept of
human CO2 emissions=AGW is supported by any scientific measurement or observation?
It’s been troubling to listen to the alarmists’ fallacy that nature cannot explain the supposed unusual global warming during the last 70 or so years.
That alone, on it’s face, is offensively asinine.
Forget that.
Just tell me how the human role in the greenhouse effect has been measured and determined by science.
Because the human relative contribution is infinitesimal the effect cannot be measured.
Perhaps you can dispute that the “human greenhouse gas contributions add up to about 0.28% of the greenhouse effect” ?
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
You’re obviously a couple of believers. So why not share what it is you believe in?
You appear to be deliberately avoiding the central issue while clinging to the weeds of the matter.
Only ~3.75% of atmospheric CO2 is man-made from burning of fossil fuels
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/07/new-paper-finds-only-375-of-atmospheric.html
Water Vapor is not cooperating and the margin of error to global temperature is 1 degree C.
There is no Fossil Fuel CO2 warming and never was.
Kristian;
We’re talking about radiative thermal exchanges, David. Where one body heats another one. Not batteries. You simply don’t get it.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The heat you feel from the Sun is actually identical in all respects save frequency and wavelength from DWLWIR. It is an energy flux which is converted to heat when absorbed by matter, If your brain dead version of physics is correct then the Sun cannot heat the earth. But it does.
I used to believe that CO2 causes a limited warming too, but I am not so sure now, Ithink Venus shows that there is no effect whether 0.004% or 95% http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html
Genghis:
==================
The total energy flux in the system is exactly the same. What changes is the direction and rate.
==================
I don’t know if that what you meant to say but it is contradictory. If the magnitude and direction of something changes, it is not “exactly the same”, it is totally different.
Greg Goodman says: August 10, 2014 at 4:06 pm
“The log relationship is a reasonable approximation to the regime we are in. It is not intended or expected to be pushed to mathematical extremes and still apply. But I think you realise that already.”
Indeed, and I said so. But I don’t think the author of this post does.
Tonyb says:
Here is the Real Climate riposte to the 2007 and 2010 paper
http://www.realclimate.org/docs/Rebuttal_Miskolczi_20100927.pdf
Thanks, I’m wary of claims that climate is totally self regulating because it’s not:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=902
I think we should start referring to Kristian as “Murphy”, because if there is a way misunderstand a subject, he will find it and embrace it.
He manages to get stuck in the older 18th/19th century caloric-theory concept of heat as a physical entity rather than understanding heat transfer as a process resulting from various underlying physical processes.
In the case of radiative exhange, he makes a couple of critical mistakes. First, he does not realize that the radiative heat transfer between two objects is simply the result of the difference between two opposing radiative “flows” sharing a common geometry between them. He prefers the analytic abstraction of first computing a difference in radiative “potentials” computed from absolute temperatures and emissivities, then computing the net heat transfer using the geometric “view factor” between the two objects. But he mistakes this convenient abstraction for the underlying physical reality.
The second mistake he makes is thinking that his preferred method of analysis leads to a different result in computing the heat transfer. In essence, he likes to compute the heat transfer as k*(T1^4-T2^4), with k encompassing emissivities, geometry, and the SB constant. Others like to compute the transfer as (k*T1^4) – (k*T2^4). Those of us who actually remember the distributive property we learned when we were 8 years old realize that the two forms are equivalent.
davidmhoffer says: August 10, 2014 at 4:09 pm
“If your brain dead version of physics is correct then the Sun cannot heat the earth. But it does.”
No. You’re not distinguishing between heating and doing work.
The Earth’s surface radiates an amount that is roughly the sum of solar and DWLWIR, and so can stay in balance at a much warmer temperature than without DWLWIR. So to that point they are alike.
But solar can do work and DWLWIR can’t. To make heat do work, you have to collect heat at one temperature and have it pass to a cooler sink. With solar you can do this because
1. solar is time varying. At the max, you can find cooler sinks to pass the heat to. But more importantly
2. solar comes from a small fraction of the sky, and can be focussed. A collector for DWLWIR has to be exposed to the whole sky (or if not, will collect proportionately less). Since it is warmer than the sky, it must lose more than it gains. By focussing, you can collect almost all the solar, and emit very little in return.
Greg
I like the theory, but as far as I am aware miskolezi has never satisfactorily rebutted the claimed faults in his paper. it would be interesting to hear your take on it in due course
tonyb
I have been playing around in a thought experiment related to the measurement of CO2 and the data’s unique regular pumping-like behavior. Nature is a rather noisy place with ups and downs. When it turns regular, as in our slowly increasing CO2, I ponder the cause. What on Earth could be pumping like that? Surely not the vagaries of human endeavor, here today, gone tomorrow. Something bigger. The ever slightly increasing, and seasonal CO2 data set appears to me that it is reflecting CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere from a reservoir, but from where? Again, I turned away from the vagaries of human production because we have such a noisy data set globally when it comes to human endeavors because the slightly increasing pumping nature of the CO2 set makes no sense when considering our noisy lives. I am thinking bigger, and cyclical, with a good supply of CO2. I am thinking the oceans are seasonally AND at multi-century time scales outgassing it, which explains the regular pumping like nature of the measurement trend you see in both the yearly sensors and the ice age ice core measurements (there is an up and down nature to the data which is then averaged to show the ice ages).
So my thoughts have turned to the overturning global circulation. It takes approximately 600 years for that cycle to complete itself. Could it be that CO2 laden material rode the slide down to the ocean bottom, to be brought back up again and belched out? In other words, are we looking at too fine a CO2 scale when we look at Mauna Loa data, and too large a scale when we look at ice age scale ice core CO2 data? Could there be a CO2 pumping up and pumping down that coincides with the quasi-periodic overturning circulation which in term coincides with warming episodes that drive greening and then cooling episodes that kill it off, sending it to the ocean bottom?
Just my meandering thoughts on CO2 and its very cyclic seasonal nature and very regular slight increase each year. We may have errored on both sides of zooming in and out. We look too closely, and too far away.
Nick Stokes;
But solar can do work and DWLWIR can’t.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Congratulations Nick, you’ve disproved Stefan-Boltzmann Law and Planck with a single sentence. You’ve proven that microwave ovens don’t work and neither do nuclear reactors. You’ve falsified the GHE which, based on your past performance on this blog, you’ve always insisted exists. The Nobel committee will no doubt be calling you shortly.
Genghis says, August 10, 2014 at 4:06 pm:
“Kristian, you are correct IR radiation is not “heat’ but it can and does warm objects. It also cools objects when it is radiated and everything above 0K radiates.
When I point my IR gun at something it reads the IR radiation and converts that to an approximate temperature. It doesn’t really matter what the object is, clouds, mufflers, clear sky, coolant hoses, a fire, water, you get the idea. It isn’t always accurate but it tries : )”
Yes, this is the very misconception that made the AGW hype possible to begin with and why we are still discussing its merits, and why we will never be able to fully discredit it, even after it’s shown to be wrong. People simply can’t tell radiation from heat in a thermal exchange. This blind spot is more ingrained and more prevalent than I could’ve ever imagined.
Frankly I’m appalled.
Genghis. If IR radiation is not “heat”, then it cannot warm objects. Get it? Heat heats. That’s why we call it heat. Get it? Radiation (radiant emittance) in an by itself doesn’t heat. Radiation in the form of radiative heat does. DWLWIR is emittance, not heat, and therefore it cannot heat (or ‘warm’) anything. It cannot provoke evaporation either, because that would be thermodynamic work.
People, you need to learn about the laws of thermodynamics. About heat and work and internal energy. If everyone only understood those simple and fundamental concepts, we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all.
Kristian;
Genghis. If IR radiation is not “heat”, then it cannot warm objects. Get it? Heat heats. That’s why we call it heat. Get it?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Electricity heats, friction heats, neither of them are heat. You’re an idiot. Get it?
davidmhoffer says, August 10, 2014 at 4:59 pm:
“Nick Stokes;
But solar can do work and DWLWIR can’t.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Congratulations Nick, you’ve disproved Stefan-Boltzmann Law and Planck with a single sentence. You’ve proven that microwave ovens don’t work and neither do nuclear reactors. You’ve falsified the GHE which, based on your past performance on this blog, you’ve always insisted exists. The Nobel committee will no doubt be calling you shortly.”
No, he hasn’t, David. Because he understands thermodynamics. Unlike you. He understands that it’s only the NET energy that matters. The heat. The heat is the only actual transfer of energy in a thermal exchange capable of doing thermodynamic work. What the presence of the atmosphere does is make the heat out from the surface smaller compared to a non-atmo situation. This is not hard, David.
TonyB: “I met up with David Parker at the Met office last year, who created the record. They haveRecently changed the stations being used as they felt they were running too warm.”
Wow, that’s unprecedented ! An adjustment that does not boost AGW.
However, the mindset is not reassuring, whichever way they tweek the data. Up a bit, down a bit until they “feel” it’s about right. Then they still call it data and not an expression of their preconceptions.
This is the same problem as the SST adjustments. They deliberately ignore the written metadata for a large number of SST logs inverting ERI to buckets and vice versa, in order to get what they consider the correct statistical mix of readings for each month in each gridbox.
ie their _speculative_ estimations of how and when change overs happened, based largely on guesswork and anecdotal evidence from the admiralty, are allowed to trump the written record.
Sadly I have little faith in anything they do any more.
Kristian;
This is not hard, David.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well apparently it is because you are having a devil of a time understanding it.
Disqus puts a “settings” link at the top of its e-mails. When clicked, that ought to take you to a site where you can turn off the e-mails.
Kristian;
Do you believe that Stefan-Boltzmann Law of physics is correct?
Disqus puts a “settings” link at the top of its e-mails. When clicked, that ought to take you to a site where you can turn off the e-mails.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thanks Roger. But I’m not logged in with Disqus, I’m logged in with WordPress. When I log out of WordPress, the site won’t let me comment unless I log back in again. Then when I do, it ignorantly tells me that “you’ve already said that”.
Given that the emission of CO2 is not as ‘effective’ in accumulating as simply emitting it, because at least 1/2 is absorbed quickly by various natural processes (half of man’s emissions) and more later. Before being able to support any of the claims for taking it to, for example, 1000 ppm, some evidence should be given that there is enough accessible ‘fossil fuels’ on the planet to create that much CO2, at a sufficient rate to overcome the absorption. This is no trifling matter.
The work above is valuable but the argument takes place within a context that, as far as I can see, assumes there is an infinite supply of fossil fuels, something fundamentally opposed, conceptually, by the very ‘environmental’ groups opposing its combustion. So after peak oil, peak gas, peak coal, peak peat, peak biomass, all of which may occur this century, where is the rest going to come from?
Tonyb says:August 10, 2014 at 3:50 pm
“Here is the Real Climate riposte “
RC also posted my earlier response
here
So the article claims that warming will be
“probably beneficial up to about a further 2.0°C+ [5].”
and that
“In a rational, non-political world, that prospect should be greeted with unmitigated joy.”
Leaving aside the politics, in what way is it rational to “greet with unmitigated joy” the sea level rise that would result from a further 2C temperature rise ?
What would the economic cost be of trying to defend major coastal cities from such a sea level rise, or the costs of failing to do so ?
At current sea level serious flooding has occurred in recent years due to storm surges in New Orleans and New York. Massive damage was caused in Japan when its coastal defences were over-topped by a tsunami. Add in higher sea level and all these risks get worse.
climatereason says:
August 10, 2014 at 4:55 pm
He hasn’t addressed it that I have seen, although he was interviewed in 2012. However, recent findings on atmospheric water vapor appear to bear out his hypothesis, despite his own couched language:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/02/new-paper-supports-miskolczis-theory-of.html
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/02/observations-confirm-miskolczi-theory.html
The same study was featured in blog posts here.
Hi David,
Re The logarithmic response means that we need to add twice as much CO2 again to create the same amount of warming we created with the initial increase…..
I think you mean 10 times the amount based on a Log base 10 effect to get twice the temp.
Curt says, August 10, 2014 at 4:52 pm:
I think we should start referring to Kristian as “Murphy”, because if there is a way misunderstand a subject, he will find it and embrace it.
He manages to get stuck in the older 18th/19th century caloric-theory concept of heat as a physical entity rather than understanding heat transfer as a process resulting from various underlying physical processes.”
Hehe, you not getting what I’m saying, Curt, or perhaps rather willfully trying to misrepresent me, doesn’t make me wrong. I am not stuck in the 18th/19th century caloric theory. The caloric theory looked at heat an an entity residing inside an object and which could be transferred to reside in another object. This is not the ‘heat’ I’m talking about. Heat is not contained inside a body. Heat is simply the spontaneous transfer of energy from hot to cold as a result of the temperature difference. Heat is one of the fundamental concepts of thermodynamics. It is still very much in use today, extremely useful. All modern textbooks on thermodynamics uses the heat concept that I’m trying (with little success, it seems) to explain and describe to the people here. The concept of heat, the effect of a heat transfer, just like the laws of thermodynamics, don’t change even if we find out more about the microscopic processes behind it, Curt. The principle of heat applies just as much to a radiative exchange as to a conductive or convective transfer.
Nick Stokes;
But solar can do work and DWLWIR can’t. To make heat do work, you have to collect heat at one temperature and have it pass to a cooler sink.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Give me a parabolic dish large enough that reflects in the IR spectrum, and I can boil a pot of water in seconds with it at night with DWLWIR. I don’t have to pass anything to a cooler sink because the surface below the parabolic reflector would cool commensurate with the reduced DWLWIR that would otherwise have been absorbed, and would be cooler than the surrounding area as a consequence. Would this be a practical way to gather energy and put it to use? Not a chance. There are far easier ways to boil a pot of water.
”
Like
Nick Stokes says:
August 10, 2014 at 4:52 pm
davidmhoffer says: August 10, 2014 at 4:09 pm
“If your brain dead version of physics is correct then the Sun cannot heat the earth. But it does.”
No. You’re not distinguishing between heating and doing work.
The Earth’s surface radiates an amount that is roughly the sum of solar and DWLWIR, and so can stay in balance at a much warmer temperature than without DWLWIR. So to that point they are alike.
But solar can do work and DWLWIR can’t. To make heat do work, you have to collect heat at one temperature and have it pass to a cooler sink. With solar you can do this because
1. solar is time varying. At the max, you can find cooler sinks to pass the heat to. But more importantly
2. solar comes from a small fraction of the sky, and can be focussed. A collector for DWLWIR has to be exposed to the whole sky (or if not, will collect proportionately less). Since it is warmer than the sky, it must lose more than it gains. By focussing, you can collect almost all the solar, and emit very little in return.
”
To do work , one uses a heat engine with a hot reservoir and a cold reservoir. Earth radiates to the universe at 2.7k. That means essentially any Earth temperature can be use in a heat engine.
DWLWIR is going into an atmospheric heat engine, increasing the water cycle. That results in more daytime low level clouds that block SW and reduce surface heating capable of penetrating ocean surfaces. Water vapor rises carrying heat upwards to the point where clouds form and radiates power outward, as cloud continuum, dymers, and individual molecules high above most of the pressure broadening and ghgs.
davidmhoffer says: August 10, 2014 at 5:25 pm
“Give me a parabolic dish large enough that reflects in the IR spectrum, and I can boil a pot of water in seconds with it at night with DWLWIR.”
No, you can’t focus DWLWIR at all. That’s just geometry.
”
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2014 at 5:25 pm
”
I want to see someone boil a pot of water by heating from the top.
Nick Stokes;
No, you can’t focus DWLWIR at all. That’s just geometry.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For gawd’s sake Nick, I can go to any decent hardware store and buy a propane heater with a parabolic reflector on it for the express purpose of focusing IR. The damn things work as anyone who has ever used one can tell you. Your detachment from the real world is alarming.
Greg Goodman says:
August 10, 2014 at 4:15 pm
Genghis:
==================
The total energy flux in the system is exactly the same. What changes is the direction and rate.
==================
I don’t know if that what you meant to say but it is contradictory. If the magnitude and direction of something changes, it is not “exactly the same”, it is totally different.
******************
You are right that didn’t come out well at all. Let me try again.
The decrease in net radiation between the clouds and the ocean surface is exactly matched by the increase in latent heat of evaporation.
I went outside and measured the ocean surface again, it is now dark at 8:40 pm, continued calm, clouds are now forming and the surface is still 31.4˚ C, exactly the same as it was a few hours ago when the sun was shining and not a cloud in the sky.
The temperature on my inlet gauge, a meter down, has declined since the sun has set as it usually does.
@ TonyB , re http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/08/the-curious-case-of-rising-co2-and-falling-temperatures/
Look at the M.O. page, their graph doesn’t ramp straight up and down around y2k.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/
“The graph above shows annual anomalies relative to the 1961-1990 average. The red line is a 21-point binomial filter, which is roughly equivalent to a 10-year running mean.”
Ignore the up tick at the end, they are up to their old tricks of padding the data with the last value again. They usually decide this is bad practice when it goes the other way !
Through the early 2000s they were doing this on SST. When recent temps were lower than the peak and the padded filter was showing a downturn, they discovered that this was misleading. Now it’s going up for CET, it looks to be fine again. You’ll note they don’t even us a different line for padded sections.
Donald L. Klipstein says:
August 10, 2014 at 12:53 pm
/////////////////////////
It is not easy to see how the 4 to 10 micron layer is heated by conduction from the ‘heat’ absorbed in the first 3 microns of the ocean. See:http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/oceans/additional/science-focus/modis/MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp_fig2.i.jpg
This is just a temperature profile, but you can see how the temperature at 10µm is warmer than say at 8µm which in turn is warmer than say at 5µm.
The 3 micron layer is cooler (presumably because of latent heat of evaporation) so how does the energy absorbed in that 3 micron layer find its way to 4 microns, then to 5 microns, then to 6 microns since to do so, if it does so by conduction, as you suggest, would require heat to be conducted against the direction of energy flux?
Unless the ‘energy’ from DWLWIR absorbed within the first 3 microns can be disipated to depth at a speed quicker than that energy powers/drives evaporation, it would appear that DWLWIR predominantly powers evaporation, and does not heat the ocean.
The manner in which DWLWIR acts over the land and the ocean may be different since the ocean is free to evaporate.
Kristian5:22pm:
1). “Heat is not contained inside a body.”
2). “the effect of a heat transfer”
If 1). is true (it is) then 2). is nonsense (it is). If heat isn’t contained inside a body (true as heat doesn’t exist), it is nonsense to write heat can transfer from that body.
Energy is contained inside a body so energy can transfer from the body. DWLWIR (aka terrestrial radiation) is contained inside the atm. so surface incident DWLWIR can be absorbed, reflected, or transmitted at the surface. If the incident object is small enough, DWLWIR can also be diffracted which is negligible on the earth and is not negligible in the moon’s powder.
Some text books do use the term “heat transfer” synonymous with “energy transfer” – you are free to chuckle at their nonsense as I do.
******
Ghengis 5:49pm: You are not picking up differing IR thermometer readings with different DWLWIR amounts because in situ ocean measurements with more precise equipment (M-AERI google term) have shown about +.004K slowing in skin water cooling for each +2 W/m^2 DWLWIR increment. As you indicate, your equipment is not that sensitive in K.
davidmhoffer says: August 10, 2014 at 5:45 pm
“For gawd’s sake Nick, I can go to any decent hardware store and buy a propane heater with a parabolic reflector on it for the express purpose of focusing IR.”
A parabolic reflector focusses a parallel beam.
The feedbacks are likely to be negative. No one has even given thought to this. If I recall during the ice ages Co2 was 1000’s ppm?
Hadn’t been to the Met Office site for a while but I’ve just noticed that they no longer show the global SST time series plots. Now they prefer to show a map with lots of red bits.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadsst3/
Don’t want anyone to see that SST has been flat for the last 10 or 15 years now do we?
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2014 at 5:45 pm
////////////////////////
Why not do an experiment?.
Get your parabolic heater and use the reflector to reflect DWLWIR from the night sky to heat say 10 ccs of water. You do not have to boil the water, just increase its temperature..
Nick Stokes;
A parabolic reflector focusses a parallel beam.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For the purposes of this discussion, at the scale we are talking about, DWLWIR is a parallel beam. A reflector just 50 meters in radius, would not be impacted by the curvature of the earth (above it or below it) to enough extent to amount to anything more than a rounding error. Even if all it reflected was 1 w/m2 and spilled the rest because it wasn’t exactly downward and parallel, that would still be nearly 8,000 watts, plenty to boil a pot of water.
You argued that DWLWIR could not do work because of the lack of a sink source. When I pointed out that you don’t need a sink, you switched gears and tried to argue that you couldn’t focus it. Pick which ever wrong argument you wish to stick to. Or are you going to come up with yet another way to be wrong?
davidmhoffer says: August 10, 2014 at 6:27 pm
“You argued that DWLWIR could not do work because of the lack of a sink source. When I pointed out that you don’t need a sink, you switched gears and tried to argue that you couldn’t focus it.”
The issues are closely related. Here’s a proof that you can’t focus.
A parabolic reflector for sunlight can be emulated with a whole lot of plane mirror pieces, each aligned to provide a mirror image of the sun, and occluding an equivalent amount of sky (or land). It gets very hot because you see lots of suns, each sun replacing a cool; patch of sky.
What if you do that with DWLWIR. Think of a single mirror. It reflects a patch of sky, and you get the warmth from that. But you occlude a similar patch of sky, or of ground, which is warmer. You aren’t making progress. And you won’t improve with lots of mirrors.
Nick Stokes;
What if you do that with DWLWIR. Think of a single mirror. It reflects a patch of sky, and you get the warmth from that. But you occlude a similar patch of sky, or of ground, which is warmer. You aren’t making progress. And you won’t improve with lots of mirrors.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
But you are. If the pot is say 30 cm in diamter, the mount of upward LW from the ground that you are occluding is a circle of earth 30 cm in diameter. But you are pointing all the DWLWIR from a 50 meter radius and focusing it on a single point.
Three times wrong Nick. Care to try for four?
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2014 at 6:27 pm
“For the purposes of this discussion, at the scale we are talking about, DWLWIR is a parallel beam.”
That is the problem with the discussion. It isn’t. For any point on the surface of the earth, the DWLWIR is not coming from a point source, it is coming from the entire sky.
Edward Richardson;
It isn’t. For any point on the surface of the earth, the DWLWIR is not coming from a point source, it is coming from the entire sky.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sure. But the bulk of it will be coming straight down from the perspective of a 50 meter dish.
In any event, the argument that DWLWIR cannot do work flies in the face of known physics. Arguing the minutia of how to use it to do work is just silly. Radiated energy does work, else the earth would be close to absolute zero by now. To have Nick Stokes, an advocate of the GHE, argue that it cannot do work is just jaw dropping. He wants to argue that the GHE is real, but that DWLWIR cannot do work? Talk about trying to both suck and blow….
Question: Why does CH4 track CO2 (and T) in the ice cores? –AGF
Steven Mosher says:
August 10, 2014 at 8:08 am
Steven, I don’t give special value to so called accepted science unless it is valid science. Much of the so called accepted science used by those crying wolf on global warming are using what they call consensus views to replace valid science. It is not science! Skeptics were repeatedly told that if they disagreed with what the hypothesis of AGW or CAGW claimed, they had to come up with possible alternate explanation for the heating trend of the last 150 or so years. Several did, including solar influences (which has not been falsified), long period ocean currents synchronization (PDO and AMDO), and even large long period natural chaotic variations. They did not mainly disagree with CO2 potential for warming, or even human increases, but did disagree with magnitudes, sensitivity, and feedback issues.
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2014 at 5:45 pm
I have kept out of this discussion so far due to the large number of not very accurate statements made by numerous comments, and responding to many would take too much effort. However, your statement clearly shows your lack of understanding on optics and radiation. A concentrated area optical source at any wavelength (visible solar or the heat from a torch) can be focused with a suitable curved geometry reflector (parabolic for distant sources, but elliptical for short object to focus distances). However, an extended source such as back-thermal-radiation (or even scattered sunlight from overcast) cannot be focused. This is a simple geometric optics issue.
Trick says:
August 10, 2014 at 6:04 pm
Ghengis 5:49pm: You are not picking up differing IR thermometer readings with different DWLWIR amounts because in situ ocean measurements with more precise equipment (M-AERI google term) have shown about +.004K slowing in skin water cooling for each +2 W/m^2 DWLWIR increment. As you indicate, your equipment is not that sensitive in K.
*****************
If I have 130 watts of additional DWLWIR (measured) then that would translate to 65 x .004K = .26K well within my .1 K equipments sensitivity. Remember that is per second of warming.
Just for you I stepped up on deck and measured the surface temp with my IR gun. It is a little after 10 pm, dead calm conditions and the sky is mixed clouds and clear, there are some big heavy clouds forming down around Marsh Harbour and the almost full moon is obscured behind some haze. The ocean surface temperature reading is still 31.4˚C. The clear sky reading is around 2˚C, and the dark clouds are close to 30˚ C and there are a lot of in-between readings.
Like I said earlier I expect it to go to full overcast by morning but who knows. At this point though my best guess is that the atmospheric radiation has increased by almost 80 watts since sunset which translates to .16K according to your reference. Obviously your reference is wrong.
Leonard Weinstein;
However, an extended source such as back-thermal-radiation (or even scattered sunlight from overcast) cannot be focused. This is a simple geometric optics issue.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If that is your opinion Leonard, then I accept it.
But DWLWIR still does work.
If IR can’t do work, then how am I able to get a temperature reading from my IR gun? I am not saying it does much work but it does enough to dislodge a couple of electrons from what ever chip my IR gun is using.
At room T my T gun can measure and compare fridge and freezer T. How can it do that if radiation can’t be transmitted from a cold to a hot place? –AGF
agfosterjr says: August 10, 2014 at 7:38 pm
“At room T my T gun can measure and compare fridge and freezer T. How can it do that if radiation can’t be transmitted from a cold to a hot place? –AGF”
It measures the energy transmitted from your gun to the freezer.
Nick, I measure energy from my guns by the amount of powder I put in the reloads. LOL!!!
Steven Mosher: notice how the author makes his case from WITHIN the accepted science.
Notice how effective the case is when you start INSIDE the accepted science..
I have sometimes wondered what you have meant by “science”.
davidmhoffer: At a current concentration of 400 ppm, and current CO2 increases of about 2 ppm per year…..it will take 200 years to achieve a single doubling resulting in one degree.
The second part of the IPCC shell game however is that they neglect to mention was what temperature they calculated the 1 degree of warming. Since temperature doesn’t vary linearly with w/m2, adding in 3.7 w/m2 has different effects at different temperature. We can calculate exactly what effect at what temperature using Stefan-Boltzmann Law:
P(w/m2) = 5.67 * 10^-8 * T^4 with T in degrees K.
Run the numbers and you’ll discover that 3.7 w/m2 causes a 1 degree temperature change at about -18C, which is point in the atmosphere at (IIRC) about 14,000 feet. If it is the surface temperature we are interested in, they should have done the calculation at average surface temperatures which would yield a change in temperature for CO2 doubling of about 0.68 degrees.
So, put in proper context, a doubling of CO2 from where we are now will take 200 years and will raise surface temps by only 0.68 degrees.
I think you are in the right “ballpark” as they say of coarse estimates. (1) starting now, (2) in 100-200 years, (3) cumulative effects of CO2 will be slight and (4) slightly beneficial.
Thanks to Ed Hoskins for a good essay.
Kristian, you say: “The concept of heat, the effect of a heat transfer, just like the laws of thermodynamics, don’t change even if we find out more about the microscopic processes behind it.”
You are still missing the point. You insist that people who use the underlying physical mechanisms are wrong, when they end up with the same result that you get using an analytic abstraction. This tells me that you are missing important conceptual principles.
Every thermodynamics and heat transfer textbook I’ve seen has described the process of radiative exchange (and the word “exchange” should be a clue) as two counter flows of energy with the resultant heat transfer as merely being the difference in the two flows. And yet you describe this viewpoint as completely erroneous.
@curt: Prévost’s Theory of Exchanges has misled 1000s of scientists for 228 years (from memory!). It misled me too until I went back to Planck and worked out the missing concepts.
It’s all very easy once you realise instrumental analysis does not measure what is claimed by the Climate Alchemists. Thus a radiometer, of which a pyrgeometer is a poor version, is a metal box with a hole to allow the sensor to equilibrate radiatively with the emitter(s) in the Feld of View.
Few understand the metal box is the most important part, not the sensor. It blocks the sensor equilibrating over 360 degrees so it equilibrates with the emittance from at most 180 degrees, not an energy flux but a potential energy flux. Real net flux is obtained by pointing the radiometer one way then the other and calculating the difference of the two emittances.
Hence a warm body does not emit radiant energy at the Stefan-Boltzmann rate unless it is in radiative equilibrium with the zero point energy of empty space. That is never achievable. The Earth is in radiative equilibrium with the cosmic microwave background, about 2.7 deg. K; the ‘forcing’ argument works for OLR because the opposing radiation field is so low it is negligible. The same is true for the SW energy thermalised at the earth’s surface; the Earth emits very weakly in the SW.
However, ‘back radiation’ is not real; only [surface emittance – ‘back radiation’] = (mean) 63 W/m^2 is real. The rationale is that for each wavelength, the energy flux is set by a travelling wave of the difference of the warm and cooler amplitudes. This is superimposed on a standing wave of twice the cooler body amplitude. It is all expressed by the Law of Conservation of Energy:
(monochromatic heating rate of matter/unit volume) = – ∇.(monochromatic radiative flux density)
From this you derive all the above. Climate Alchemy must change its textbooks ASAP otherwise it is condemned to remain Alchemy, not Science.
Genghis says:
August 10, 2014 at 7:33 pm
//////////////////////////////////
Your gun needs a power source.
The gun is not actually receiving energy, if it was, it would be possible to design and manufacture a gun that did not require a power source (ie., one that does not need a battery).
“””””…..The entire debate should have ended with “CO2 is logarithmic”. It has remained alive by an elaborate shell game by the IPCC. They present facts which are utterly true, and completely irrelevant. When we apply THEIR math and THEIR sensitivity and THEIR calculations to the here and NOW, their argument goes “poof” and disappears in a puff of logic……”””””
If the CO2 effect (on surface / lower tropo temperature) is logarithmic, the going from 280 ppm to 560 ppm should give the same temperature rise, as going from 1 ppm CO2 to 2 ppm; or for that matter, from one molecule of CO2 per cubic meter, to 2 molecules of CO2 per cubic meter.
CO2 temperature response IS NOT logarithmic.
Maybe it id “non-linear” ; but it ain’t logarithmic.
The logarithm function is very specific.
There isn’t any CO2 / Temperature data, that differs in any statistical sense, from linear. They often even go in the opposite direction. What kind of logarithmic function is that.
Any data there is can just as well be fitted to the function: y = exp(-1/x^2). And moreover you can use either y or x for the temperature; or for the CO2 if you like.
That function goes from 0,0 to 1,1/e, and all points beyond (both ends) but at x = y = 0, dy/dx =0
And so does all the higher derivatives. So how the hell, does it ever get to 1/e if it can never get started ??
So don’t hang you hat on any supposed logarithmic dependency on CO2; there isn’t any.
[+emphasis]
Curt, to no avail in this and other WUWT posts, others (and I) have tried to show the emphasized concept to Kristian.
I do wish you all the best in trying to get him to understand.
🙂
Matthew R Marler says: August 10, 2014 at 9:30 pm
“Thanks to Ed Hoskins for a good essay.”
I asked above if anyone could explain the arithmetic expressed at many points in % – eg
“CO2 at 400pmmv is already committed and immutable. So CO2 has already reached about ~87+% of its potential warming effect in the atmosphere.”
That seems to me to be central to the essay, and also nonsense. Can you help?
richard verney says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:05 pm
My eyeball needs a power source too, but that doesn’t mean a photon doesn’t do work on the retina. It just has to be darker than the source.
“””””…..agfosterjr says:
August 10, 2014 at 7:38 pm
At room T my T gun can measure and compare fridge and freezer T. How can it do that if radiation can’t be transmitted from a cold to a hot place? –AGF …..”””””
Radiation can go anywhere.it darn well pleases; because radiation is NOT “heat”.
So splain me how the 2.7k BB microwave background radiation, can even be detected on earth if it can’t come here, because we are much hotter that 2.7 K.
Heat is (chaotic) mechanical kinetic energy. It IS NOT electro-magnetic radiation, which is a propagating field .
george e. smith says: August 10, 2014 at 10:08 pm
“CO2 temperature response IS NOT logarithmic.”
This goes back at least to Arrhenius. Or as he puts it
“Thus if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression. “
@F. Ross: you have missed the key issue which is that heat transfer is not the difference in the ‘two flows’. There is only one ‘flow’ set by the integral over all wavelengths of Poynting Vectors of waves whose amplitude is the difference of the warmer and cooler amplitudes.
In simple terms, it takes two to tango. I’m glad that there is a critical mass of professionals writing on this thread who insist on this crucial bit of thinking. Climate Alchemists fixated on ‘back radiation’ have nowhere to hide because the Climate Models are classic groupthink fail.
In simple terms the heat generation rate in the atmosphere is 238.5 SW thermalisation + 333 ‘back radiation’ – 238.5 supposedly from applying Kirchhoff’s Law to the -18 deg C emitter at ToA.
The sum is 333 W/m^2, 140% of the real heating rate. That 40% is imaginary. The reason is that there is no single -18 deg C emitter. -18 deg C is the flux weighted mean emission temperature of IR sources at altitudes ranging from 0 to ~20 km. It is a virtual emitter with no physical existence.
It’s time we shut down departments which teach the false ‘back radiation’ concept, our era’s equivalent of ‘Phlogiston Theory’.
Excellent example! Wish I’d thought of it.
I didn’t see any mention of the “optical depth” of the atmosphere in the blog or comments. One can’t understand why increasing CO2 will increase warming without considering optical depth.
You still get an increase in greenhouse warming even if the atmosphere were saturated, because it’s the absorption in the thin upper atmosphere (which is unsaturated) that counts. It’s not even true that the atmosphere is actually saturated with respect to absorption by CO2.
Water vapor doesn’t overwhelm the effects of CO2 because there’s little water vapor in the high, cold regions from which infrared escapes, and at the low pressures there water vapor absorption is like a leaky sieve, which would let a lot more radiation through were it not for CO2.
@F. Ross: you detect the cosmic microwave background with a radio telescope. 2.72548 deg. K is equivalent to a peak 160.2 GHz radio wave.
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2014 at 7:20 pm
////////////////////
The oceans have thermal inertia, the atmosphere has thermal inertia, that is why the night time temps do not drop to say -155degC as seen on the moon (even the moon with its lengthy nights, its surface does not get down to 3K).
The difference between day and night temps, is essentially governed by the thermal inertia of the atmosphere, and where I am, even though it was clear skies tonight (thus completely open to the 3K of space) the night temp did not drop below about 24degC. If it had been a cloudy night, it would not have been any warmer (significantly warmer).
GHGs may alter the thermal inertia of the atmosphere. GHGs such as CO2 may delay surface radiated LWIR from going directly to space, bouncing it around a bit, or even a lot, thereby delaying the cooling process, but I am sceptical that they add anything of substance to the night time low.
On the other hand, when it is very humid and the atmosphere itself is carrying a lot more energy, night time temps can be kept up. In these conditions there is both more thermal lag and more energy in the atmosphere such that night time temps are kept up. In those conditions, where I am, it is possible for the nightime temps to drop not below about 28 or even possible about 30degC.
PS. I am only about 1000 metres from the sea, and the difference between high humidity and low humidity is stark. .
PPS. If the pause continues for an extended time (and even some warmists are suggesting that there may be no resumption of warming before 2030), I expect to see, not simply a re-assessment of the positive/negative feeback forcings that may amplify or attentuate the ghe of CO2, but also a re-evaluation of the basic physics underpinning the AGW theory, and one area that will get attention is the proper assessment of the GHE and wheher it truly is about 33degC, or whther it is less than that>
DWLWIR varies but is something in the order of 340 W/m-2, roughly. This value occurs at night as well. So if I walk out of my house at night into this downwelling infrared, it would seem like I should be able to feel it on my skin, since it is about the same intensity as regular sunlight at about 9 to 10 in the morning. Hmmm. I don’t feel a thing.
Paul 767:
At August 10, 2014 at 3:49 pm you write
Oh! So, Irenaeus,the 2nd century by Bishop of Lyon, was a “leftist”. And so was St. Augustine. And so was …
And you go on from that false premise about “leftists” to ascribe to them attributes which are not general to people of the left and are not unique to people of the left.
In addition to being way off-topic, your troll comments are plain daft, but they are typical of ultra-right untruths as adopted, perfected and used by propagandists for the German ultra- right in the 1930s.
Richard
Nick Stokes: I asked above if anyone could explain the arithmetic expressed at many points in % – eg
“CO2 at 400pmmv is already committed and immutable. So CO2 has already reached about ~87+% of its potential warming effect in the atmosphere.”
That seems to me to be central to the essay, and also nonsense. Can you help?
That is an interesting question and I am glad that you have come back to it. I think that it is sloppy writing, like referring to the “equilibrium” temperature of a high dimensional dissipative system that never has an equilibrium. I think there is an implicit upper bound of about 3,200 ppm (never stated, hence implicit), and the claim is that we are about 87% of the way to the effect of that implicit likely upper bound on CO2. Starting at 400ppm (an idea I work with frequently), the next doubling is to 800 (adding 1 C, give or take); the next doubling is to 1600 (adding another 1 C, give or take), and the next doubling is to the extremely high and unreachable 3200 (adding another 1C, or whatever you prefer.) Thus, 3200, or whatever, is not an asymptotic value but a reasonably realistic upper bound, probably not a least upper bound. Whatever the unit increase per doubling is, we are about 90% as far as we are going to get if the atmospheric CO2 continues to double for the next 450 years at its present rate, since only 3C (or 3 times your favorite value) will be added in 450 years.
Analogously, if I say that the scientific publications and in-house techreports are “uncountable”, I do not mean the mathematical uncountable, only that there is not likely to be sufficient manpower invested in counting them ever to come up with more than upper and lower bounds.
The asserted doubling of CO2 concentration is hypothesized to result in an increase of 3.8W/m^2 downwelling radiation, and the hypothesized increase in temperature comes from considering only the equilibrium radiative effects on a planet with a uniform surface and uniform temperature. If you consider the effects of that increased radiative energy impinging on the non-dry regions of the Earth surface, and that it takes about 660 more energy to vaporize a kilogram of water than to raise its temperature 1C, then I think it becomes clear that ignoring the evaporation effects in the non-equilibrium system leads to a serious overestimation of how much warming can be produced by a doubling of CO2. The cloud responses, not agreed upon in the peer-reviewed literature, make the idea of a constant sensitivity to doubling of CO2 a dubious concept anyway.
@richard verney: 33 K GHE is bad physics from 1981_Hansen_etal.pdf. That paper, which should never have passed peer review, claimed with no evidence that OLR comes from a single 5 to 6 km upper atmosphere IR emitter at -18 deg C in radiative equilibrium with Space.
-18 deg. C is the flux-weighted virtual temperature of a virtual emitter. Real GHE is obtained by calculating no cloud or ice albedo, 341 W/m^2, mean surface temperature and subtracting that 4 to 5 deg C from present ~15 deg C, ~ 11 K. Lindzen has come up with about 16 K GHE.
Hansen et al claimed GHE = lapse rate warming from 4 or 5 km to the surface. However, this temperature change arises purely from gravity. The 40% extra energy which comes from assuming atmospheric emittance is a real energy flux is supposedly used to increase latent and sensible heat as surface temperature rises, thereby moving upwards the -18 deg C virtual emitter. However, this assumes there are no atmospheric mechanisms bypassing the ‘CO2 – bite’ in OLR.
The real climate system keeps SW thermalised = OLR whilst minimising diurnal variation of surface temperature. The atmospheric processes mean near zero surface temperature change from well-mixed GHGs concentration change. GHE variation is solely from cloud and ice albedo change.
Scott says:
(August 10, 2014 at 5:20 pm)
“”Re The logarithmic response means that we need to add twice as much CO2 again to create the same amount of warming we created with the initial increase…..”
I think you mean 10 times the amount based on a Log base 10 effect to get twice the temp.”
_____________________
Hi Scott.
I mean in terms of doubling concentrations of CO2. If CO2 doubles from 280 to 560ppm and this causes, say, 2 deg C warming, then in order to get a further 2 deg C warming you’d need to double from 560 to 1120ppm.
The point is that just because the impact on temperature of increasing CO2 concentrations is logarithmic, this doesn’t mean that further increases in CO2 won’t cause further. They will.
James Abbott:
At August 10, 2014 at 5:19 pm you ask
Nobody suggested that the sea level rise should be greeted with anything; you introduced that red-herring.
And the economic cost of defending “major coastal cities from such a sea level rise” would be zero because any needed alterations to sea defences would be obtained as part of the normal maintenance of sea defences.
Richard
Nick Stokes: A parabolic reflector focusses a parallel beam.
Yes, and if you put an IR source at the focal point the mirror will create a parallel beam of IR.
george e. smith: Heat is (chaotic) mechanical kinetic energy. It IS NOT electro-magnetic radiation, which is a propagating field .
The concept here is that the energy in the electro-magnetic radiation can be converted to kinetic energy (and vice versa) through interaction. Two examples: radiation from the sun is absorbed by the electrons in orbits around the nuclei of diverse atoms, raising the energy levels of the orbits of the electrons, and through inter-atomic collisions the energy is transferred into the kinetic energy of the surrounding atoms; electrons in energetic “orbits” can decay into lower energy orbits, and thereby give off energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation.
Attempts by people to deny these basic concepts are astonishing. Kristian has argued that when the electrons transition from higher energy level orbits to lower energy level orbits and generate IR that way, the energy of the electrons disappears (or at least goes somewhere other than the radiation that he has not told us about.) Other people have argued that the radiant energy from CO2 molecules in the lower troposphere can’t go toward the surface because the CO2 molecules somehow know that the surface has a higher mean kinetic energy than the surrounding air; without explaining to us how the radiant energy emerging from the CO2 molecules knows that.
IF CO2 concentration is a cause of temperature, not an effect. There is nothing to support this.
“The recent IPCC report now admits that currently increasing CO2 levels are probably only ~50% man-made.”
Link with direct quotation (or chapter and page from AR5 WG1) would be very much appreciated if someone could provide this. Thanks.
F. Ross says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:27 pm
///////////////////////
I have never seen anyone argue that DWLWIR does not exist at all, ie., it is not even a signal capable of measurement. I do not consider that an issue raised by sceptics, but rather, one or more of the following:
The issue is what does DWLWIR actually do? Does the 2.7K DWLWIR from space help maintain the surface of planet Earth at its about 288K temperature? Does the 255K DWLWIR from about 17,000ft help maintain the surface of planet Earth at 288K? Etc.
Does increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere actually increase DWLWIR? See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/05/bombshell-study-shows-greenhouse-gas-induced-warming-dropped-for-the-past-14-years/ That was just one study, from which it would be wrong to seek to extrapolate a global wide effect, but the study does raise an interesting point upon which further research would be useful.
Is the radiative effect of CO2, at around today’s level of circa 280 to 400ppm, completely dwarfed by the water cycle? See the comment of E.M.Smith at August 10, 2014 at 1:03 pm.
What is the correct assessment of the GHE on planet Earth? See: AlecM at August 10, 2014 at 8:36 am. What is the evidence of a GHE on any planet/body in the Solar System?
What are the feedbacks, their correct assessment and are these positive or negative?
The fact that it appears that CO2 lags temperature change, on every time scale, and the 18 year pause seem to suggest that CO2, at a level above about 200ppm, may do little.
Whilst I understand that most people have a desire to argue from within the ‘consensus’ science, no doubt because they consider that they will be taken more seriously, or at any rate, not simply ridiculed, but it is worth rembering that history shows that consensus science is usually wrong.
Any objective observer would recognise that the AGW hypothesis has many problems with it. To what extent these are fundamental is yet to be revealed, but it may well be the case that in the next 20 or so years, scientists will have a very different take on it going beyond the climate sensitivity issue.
Cost to Europe 165bn a year for rest of this century. Wouldn’t be surprised, but where does this figure come from?
Matthew R Marler says: August 11, 2014 at 12:06 am
“I think there is an implicit upper bound of about 3,200 ppm (never stated, hence implicit), and the claim is that we are about 87% of the way to the effect of that implicit likely upper bound on CO2.”
Well, thanks, that sounds dodgy, but still doesn’t elucidate the arithmetic. What is the numerator, and what the denominator, in the 87%?
Richard
I made the observation way above that I thought 280ppm was the probable limit for an effect
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/10/the-diminishing-influence-of-increasing-carbon-dioxide-on-temperature/#comment-1706343
Can I get you to raise your estimate to that from 200ppm then we will have a 100% consensus on those that expressed an opinion? We might get it tweeted by Obama….
tonyb
Hilary
In the Stern report it is estimated there is an estimated cost of 30£ billion a year for the UK alone so that 165billion figure seems reasonable (as an estimate obviously, not as a sensible amount to spend on a non problem)
tonyb
Matthew R Marler says, August 11, 2014 at 12:30 am:
“Attempts by people to deny these basic concepts are astonishing. Kristian has argued that when the electrons transition from higher energy level orbits to lower energy level orbits and generate IR that way, the energy of the electrons disappears (or at least goes somewhere other than the radiation that he has not told us about.) Other people have argued that the radiant energy from CO2 molecules in the lower troposphere can’t go toward the surface because the CO2 molecules somehow know that the surface has a higher mean kinetic energy than the surrounding air; without explaining to us how the radiant energy emerging from the CO2 molecules knows that.”
What is astonishing is rather that people still don’t get the exceedingly simple and basic point I’m trying to make.
You are only misrepresenting what I’m saying here, Matthew. Building a straw man. No wonder people are convinced ‘I’m wrong and ignorant’.
Let me try and explain one more time.
I agree with Richard Verney. It is not at all about DWLWIR or not DWLWIR. It is about what DWLWIR is capable of doing. What is DWLWIR? And what isn’t it? Well, we all agree by now (?) that it’s definitely not heat, that is, it is not a net transfer of radiative energy to the warmer surface from the cooler atmosphere. That would be absurd.
This is a good starting point.
I will ask once more what I asked on the Bombshell thread:
“For a photovoltaic cell at ambient temperature, how do you suggest we harvest the DWLWIR energy from the atmospere above when there is always more UWLWIR moving out? How do you suggest the DWLWIR in this way will manage to increase the internal energy (U) of the photovoltaic cell? If we don’t first (artificially) cool the cell to become colder than the air above?”
Consider this. The surface (or the photovoltaic cell) is warmer than the atmosphere above. There is one radiation field between them, meaning there is one continuous thermal radiative energy exchange going on between them through this radiation field, because of their temperature difference: Q or P/A = es*(Tsfc^4 – Tatm^4). P/A (Q) is the radiative heat, the net energy, moving from the warmer surface to the cooler atmosphere. The two terms on the right-hand side are the thermal radiant emittances of the two systems involved in the exchange, the UWLWIR and the DWLWIR. Their sum is the P/A, the radiative heat.
Let’s do this as straightforward as possible. Let’s say the surface does in fact at any one time absorb the DWLWIR as a flux of radiative energy. We want to see if we can detect an actual effect from this absorption. Does the internal energy of the surface increase? Does the temperature rise as a result? It would. If it weren’t for one thing. The DWLWIR is not alone in the exchange. The surface is warmer than the atmosphere. So concurrent with the absorption of the energy within the DWLWIR, it releases more energy the opposite way, up to the atmosphere, as UWLWIR. There is no lag here. It all happens continuously, simultaneously and instantaneously.
Do we ever see the DWLWIR in fact increase the internal energy of the surface in this situation? Do we ever see it raise its temperature?
Do we ever see DWLWIR ‘heat’ the surface? Do we ever see the DWLWIR do ‘work’ on the surface?
No. Because the larger UWLWIR flux is always there countering it in real time (as it comes in).
This is why the only actual transfer of energy within a thermal exchange (a heat transfer), conductive or radiative, that we could ever detect and ever see the effect from is the HEAT, the net energy, in a radiative exchange the vector sum of the UWLWIR and DWLWIR.
I don’t understand why people get so angry when this very basic fact is pointed out to them. I’m not talking about you, Matthew. I’m talking about people like David M. Hoffer who seems to have nothing but infuriated ad homs and regurgitated talking point statements to offer, no real arguments. It’s like waving the proverbial red flag. He says I’m wrong and ignorant, but can’t and won’t point out exactly what it is I’m saying that’s so wrong, so ignorant. I’m only presenting thermodynamic concepts and principles the way they are explained and described in modern textbooks within the field. There is nothing mysterious or novel in what I’m saying.
DWLWIR has no singular effect on the surface. That is the simple truth. Yes, if the atmosphere gets warmer and the surface doesn’t, then the temperature difference between the two is reduced and the P/A (equation above) – the heat – gets smaller. That is the ONLY effect the DWLWIR term could ever have. But that is not ‘heating’ or ‘doing work on’ the surface, folks.
Can we please move on from there?
Ironically, the likely gas phase stability of carbonic acid appears to have completely slipped under the radar of climate modelling.
Arrhenius’ slip [it seems reasonable to assume he actually meant CO2, not carbonic acid] has been propagated by those who think it is too unstable to consider in the atmosphere, despite being continuously formed and decomposed during the interactions of carbon dioxide with clouds.
I once calculated the amount of CO2 dissolved in the water droplets in a typical cloud, and it’s quite small, about 7%. This neglects extra surface solubility, so it could be greater.
Nick Stokes says: August 10, 2014 at 3:06 pm
…. Whenever people refer to sensitivity as 2&dseg;C/doubling, or whatever, they are invoking the logarithmic behaviour.
Hold the ALT key down
Type 0176 on the num keys
Release the ALT key
ALT 248 works, too.
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Give me a parabolic dish large enough that reflects in the IR spectrum, and I can boil a pot of water in seconds with it at night with DWLWIR.
Your ignorance is astounding, if you tried your experiment, like hundreds before you, you will find that an object that is the focus of the parabolic dish COOLS.
Just Google night fridges, to save you time see
http://solarcooking.org/radiant-fridge.htm
http://littleshop.physics.colostate.edu/tenthings/SpaceFridge.pdf
Even Roy Spencer tried it with the same result, but of course being a “believer” he rationalised that without all that Radiant energy the objects in the cool box would have been as cold as space itself.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/07/first-results-from-the-box-investigating-the-effects-of-infrared-sky-radiation-on-air-temperature/
Donald L. Klipstein says:
August 10, 2014 at 12:41 pm
“Since an increase of surface temperature in response to an increase of GHGs causes an increase of outgoing surface radiation,”
————–
That sounds like “perpetual energy creation”, …….best you patent it, … quickly.
Genghis says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:11 am
“Infrared (atmospheric radiation) is absorbed by the top few microns of the surface, which does in fact heat the ocean.
When that happens, evaporation simply picks up the pace a tiny little bit, and the ocean surface temperature stays exactly the same”.
([August 10, at 11:45 am] – 3 microns over a square meter equals 3 cubic centimeters being heated by 130 watts)
———————-
Genghis, concerning your above, I have a question which I am seriously interested in knowing the answer to, …. thus I would be quite pleased if you would be so kind to offer your knowledge and/or opinion to aid me in my quest.
My question is: When the above stated (H2O) evaporation occurs, is there any CO2 outgassed as a direct result of said evaporation?
Ghengis 7:24pm: “…my best guess is that the atmospheric radiation has increased by almost 80 watts since sunset which translates to .16K.”
A quick check of the noaa esrl surfrad data near New Orleans shows more like a measured drop of 415 to 380 W/m^2 DWLWIR yesterday all night. For .07K slowing of cooling of the skin T all night by DWLWIR with about 10 W/m^2 or .02K difference when cloud cover drifted by for about an hour.
In any event, your IR thermometer is picking up photons emitted from multiple bulk water depths for which bulk mass won’t change fast enough in T where the M-AERI measured skin T by interferometer vs. thermometer set a few cm.s depth. If precise measuring was as easy as your quick test, the researchers would not have gone to all the trouble for building the instrument & a month long ocean cruise taking data day and night.
george e. smith says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:08 pm
“””””…..The entire debate should have ended with “CO2 is logarithmic”. It has remained alive by an elaborate shell game by the IPCC. They present facts which are utterly true, and completely irrelevant. When we apply THEIR math and THEIR sensitivity and THEIR calculations to the here and NOW, their argument goes “poof” and disappears in a puff of logic……”””””
If the CO2 effect (on surface / lower tropo temperature) is logarithmic, the going from 280 ppm to 560 ppm should give the same temperature rise, as going from 1 ppm CO2 to 2 ppm; or for that matter, from one molecule of CO2 per cubic meter, to 2 molecules of CO2 per cubic meter.
CO2 temperature response IS NOT logarithmic.
Just got back to this thread.
@george e smith – Essenitially that is what I was suggesting when I responded way upstream to
Nick Stokes says:
August 10, 2014 at 3:06 pm
The basis for this percent arithmetic (here and earlier) is not stated, and it makes no sense. A logarithmic curve has diminishing slope, but no maximum or minimum.
Since we are talking about the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, there must be both a minimum (0%) and a maximum (100%) atmospheric CO2 levels. The supposed logarithmic curve would not go infinitely in either direction since it would stop at both ends.
Further, there is the question of at what level of CO2 in the atmosphere do we get an effective “saturation point” where adding additional CO2 doesn’t make a difference?
The “1 degree temp increase per doubling of atmospheric CO2” just doesn’t meet the “sniff test”. As you, and I, point out, 1 part CO2/total (1 molecule) in the atmosphere wouldn’t change the temp, except, perhaps, theoretically. Doubling to 2 molecules (2 parts CO2/total) wouldn’t add 1 degree of temp. There must be a minimum amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that actually changes the atmospheric temperature by this 1 degree mark that seems important. Further, just as less than this minimum CO2 that effects a 1 degree change doesn’t meet the “1 degree for each doubling” test, wouldn’t there also be an amount at the other end of the scale where a doubling also no longer meets the “1 degree” difference? Especially since there is only a finite amount of heat to be absorbed?
Again, just wondering.
Kristian says:
DWLWIR has no singular effect on the surface. That is the simple truth. Yes, if the atmosphere gets warmer and the surface doesn’t, then the temperature difference between the two is reduced and the P/A (equation above) – the heat – gets smaller. That is the ONLY effect the DWLWIR term could ever have. But that is not ‘heating’ or ‘doing work on’ the surface, folks.
=============
Kristian, take a deep breath and relax, we are on the same side. Your functional view of DWLWIR is correct almost all of the time. The biggest part of the problem is that the warmers framed the debate the way they wanted to to amplify the affects of radiation and instead of focusing on net radiation they chose to separate it to make it appear larger and more important than it is. They love saying that the DWLWIR is 450 watts while the up welling radiation from the surface is 458 watts. 450 watts is probably more than your microwave puts out. The implication is that we are all going to roast, like a pig on a spit.
The truth though is that there is a measly net of 8 watts difference between the two objects, hardly even measurable, and certainly not something anyone could do any work with. But the 8 watts is real, can do work and can warm objects at least theoretically and there is the rub. The warmistas are only claiming a net of .6 watts. We can’t even measure the difference when there is 130 watts of real atmospheric radiation and we are supposed to run screaming to the hills because theoretically there might be .6 watts of warming?
SkepticGoneWild says:
August 10, 2014 at 11:41 pm
DWLWIR varies but is something in the order of 340 W/m-2, roughly. This value occurs at night as well. So if I walk out of my house at night into this downwelling infrared, it would seem like I should be able to feel it on my skin, since it is about the same intensity as regular sunlight at about 9 to 10 in the morning. Hmmm. I don’t feel a thing.
Obviously DWLWIR Watts are not the same as any other kind of Watts, try standing in front of a 340W electric fire, I am sure you would feel it.
Not only that but according to the Climate Balance diagram there are only about 161 Watts of sunshine at the surface, so you should feel twice as hot.
Yeah right.
Genghis says, August 11, 2014 at 6:30 am:
I appreciate it, but I think the right address for this comment of yours is David M. Hoffer and his kind who all go bananas as soon as someone as much as hints at the possibility that DWLWIR from the cooler atmosphere cannot (by the laws of thermodynamics) ‘heat’ or ‘do work on’ the warmer surface. How dare we!? As Hoffer stated: We can both measure the heat it creates and the work it does. Er. No. Only if the atmosphere is warmer than the surface (or the sensor).
Trick says:
August 11, 2014 at 6:11 am
Ghengis 7:24pm: “…my best guess is that the atmospheric radiation has increased by almost 80 watts since sunset which translates to .16K.”
A quick check of the noaa esrl surfrad data near New Orleans shows more like a measured drop of 415 to 380 W/m^2 DWLWIR yesterday all night. For .07K slowing of cooling of the skin T all night by DWLWIR with about 10 W/m^2 or .02K difference when cloud cover drifted by for about an hour.
In any event, your IR thermometer is picking up photons emitted from multiple bulk water depths for which bulk mass won’t change fast enough in T where the M-AERI measured skin T by interferometer vs. thermometer set a few cm.s depth. If precise measuring was as easy as your quick test, the researchers would not have gone to all the trouble for building the instrument & a month long ocean cruise taking data day and night.
==============
If the the top few microns of the surface is capable of absorbing 90% of the atmospheric IR then the top few microns of the surface is capable of absorbing 90% of the IR from the water below. My IR gun is picking up the same radiation as their interferometer.
They are trying to measure the gradient of the water just below the surface, which I agree is very difficult. The problem that I have with their method is that they are claiming that gradient below the surface is slowing the flux without the surface warming first.
What is wrong with my calculation regarding the joules to the surface from increased cloud radiation? My calcs are straight forward.
A C Osborn says, August 11, 2014 at 6:35 am:
“DWLWIR varies but is something in the order of 340 W/m-2, roughly. This value occurs at night as well. So if I walk out of my house at night into this downwelling infrared, it would seem like I should be able to feel it on my skin, since it is about the same intensity as regular sunlight at about 9 to 10 in the morning. Hmmm. I don’t feel a thing.
Obviously DWLWIR Watts are not the same as any other kind of Watts, try standing in front of a 340W electric fire, I am sure you would feel it.
Not only that but according to the Climate Balance diagram there are only about 161 Watts of sunshine at the surface, so you should feel twice as hot.
Yeah right.”
DWLWIR could be 1,000,000 W/m^2 and if you emitted 1,000,050 W/m^2 worth of UWLWIR, you wouldn’t feel it any more than if the DWLWIR were a mere 300 W/m^2 and your UWLWIR 350 W/m^2. Because the radiative HEAT in both situations would be 50 W/m^2 moving from you to the air. You would cool to the air in both scenarios.
Only the net energy matters in a heat transfer.
george e. smith says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:16 pm
“Heat is (chaotic) mechanical kinetic energy. It IS NOT electro-magnetic radiation, which is a propagating field .”
This is argument by definition. The word ‘heat’ as noun and verb and the Roman equivalents ‘caloricum’ and ‘calentare’ were around long before physicists defined “electromagnetic energy” and “specific heat.” To insist that the sun does not radiate ‘heat’ is a tyrannical abrogation of lexical authority, like claiming a dromedary is not a true camel. Since molecules and electrons never really touch you have in essence defined the verbal use of ‘heat’ out of existence.
How about it: does the sun ‘warm’ a camel’s back? Does it heat it? Let’s not make up our own words and definitions. –AGF
AlecM 12:11am: “Real GHE is obtained by calculating no cloud or ice albedo, 341 W/m^2, mean surface temperature and subtracting that 4 to 5 deg C from present ~15 deg C, ~ 11 K”
That 11K is just using your different definition of GHE. Satellites measure Tmean = 255K in thin atm. at their orbit and surface thermometers in Earth thick surface atm. measure Tmean = 288K. This is not disputed unless you can find a basic physics error in one of them. Which would make the evening news.
10:26pm: “…the heat generation rate in the atmosphere is 238.5 SW..”
Heat doesn’t exist in nature. There is no energy generated in the atm. either as the atm. uses up no fuel. This comes from your confusion over applying the generalized 1st law in non-atm. text books from your 10:02pm:
“(monochromatic heating rate of matter/unit volume) = – ∇.(monochromatic radiative flux density)”
Your 1st term for the atm. is = 0 as no energy is generated within the atm. and the term on the other side for the atm. is (net energy in from sun – net energy out from surface) for the volume of interest. For the surface volume balance, the mass of the atm. radiates a real flux incident on the surface all the time at all frequencies at all of its temperatures and has to be included as in nature.
And again, can anyone tell me why CO2 tracks methane in the ice cores? –AGF
@agfosterjr: the warming of the camel’s back from solar SW energy is by the physical process called ‘thermalisation’. This is the absorption of SW energy quanta by raising electron orbitals to higher energy states followed by emission of lower energy quanta, a process called fluorescence.
The lower energy quanta cause the energy to be transferred to greater molecular motion; heat.
CO2 lags warming, Stupid! Not the other way round. Why is this shite even here?
A C Osborn says: Not only that but according to the Climate Balance diagram there are only about 161 Watts of sunshine at the surface, so you should feel twice as hot.
Yeah right.
Please tell me you are not serious. The “Climate Balance” diagram displays 24 hour averages. Per Wikipedia, “The Sun’s rays are attenuated as they pass through the atmosphere, thus reducing the irradiance at the Earth’s surface to approximately 1000 W /m2 for a surface perpendicular to the Sun’s rays at sea level on a clear day”
DWLWIR is electromagnetic radiation just as the sun’s radiative spectrum is electromagnetic radiation. The frequencies are just different. Watts are watts in the electromagnetic spectrum. 430 watts of DWLWIR at the earth’s surface should produce something my skin would feel. But I walk out into the night and feel no warmth on my skin. What’s up with that?.
Kristian: Well, we all agree by now (?) that it’s definitely not heat, that is, it is not a net transfer of radiative energy to the warmer surface from the cooler atmosphere. That would be absurd.
The radiant energy of radiation is transferred (or converted) to kinetic energy through interactions.
In a parcel of air, the temperature is proportional to the mean kinetic energy of the molecules: some have way above average energy, some have way below average kinetic energy; in a parcel of the surface, the temp is proportional to the mean kinetic energy of the molecules, and some are above average, some below. When the temp of the air increases, the fraction above a certain kinetic energy level increases. Net heat flow is always from warmer to cooler parcels, but the highest energy molecules in the air radiate in all directions, including downward, and when the temp of the air increases, the fraction of the molecules radiating downward (as well as other directions) increases, slowing the net transfer of energy from the warmer surface to the cooler air. That isn’t illogical or contrary to known physical laws; you just have to remember that not every molecule capable of emitting or absorbing radiant energy is at the mean kinetic energy of its environment. Warming of the surface is caused by the radiant energy of the sun; the net warming effect of CO2 is caused by the reduction in the surface cooling rate.
Nick Stokes: Well, thanks, that sounds dodgy, but still doesn’t elucidate the arithmetic. What is the numerator, and what the denominator, in the 87%?
the dodginess results from the lack of explicitness in specifying the range of the CO2 concentrations over which the logarythmic relations holds. 87% is a little more than 5/6, representing a little over 5 doublings out of 6 in the range. Like the hypothetical equilibrium climate sensitivity (and whatever it represents in the real climate), it can’t be estimated to 2 significant figures. 12ppm to 800 ppm is 6 doublings, of which 5 have occurred already. We can’t really tell what the correct upper and lower bounds are for this estimation.
David G says:
August 11, 2014 at 8:20 am
CO2 lags warming, Stupid! Not the other way round. Why is this shite even here?
==================================================================
On the chance that David G was responding to my question, I would refer him and any others to this graph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#mediaviewer/File:Vostok_420ky_4curves_insolation.jpg
which is a colorized version of figure 3 here: http://geoweb.princeton.edu/people/bender/lab/downloads/Petit_et_al_1999_copy.pdf
And while David G is not likely to grasp the problems entailed by Vostok’s close tracking of CO2 and CH4, others may be. If so I’d like to hear from them. –AGF
Kristian,
“DWLWIR could be 1,000,000 W/m^2 and if you emitted 1,000,050 W/m^2 worth of UWLWIR, you wouldn’t feel it any more than if the DWLWIR were a mere 300 W/m^2 and your UWLWIR 350 W/m^2. Only the net energy matters in a heat transfer.”
One little experiment you can try is to place your hand near a source of radiant heat such as a grill (or broiler). Choose a distance where the initial feeling is hot but not uncomfortable. Each second that passes your hand feels hotter and hotter, then burning hot.
What is happening? Why doesn’t your skin register the pain in the first tenth of a second, the time for the nerve impulse to reach the brain?
In the first second more energy is being received by your skin than is radiating outwards – equilibrium has not been reached – and at this outgoing radiation flux, your skin has warmed to a comfortable temperature. After another second, in order to reach equilibrium, more energy is being radiated back from your skin and this can only happen at a higher temperature. The process continues until the outgoing radiation from your skin equals the incoming radiation – or the temperature becomes unbearable and you remove your hand.
If you replace your hand with a slice of bread you can relax and watch it toast. It does so because when the bread radiates at the same flux density as the incoming radiation from the grill, the temperature to make this happen is very high – which is why you couldn’t leave your hand there.
Now, what about a situation where you was radiating and receiving 1,000,050 W/m^2. The net energy transfer is zero but I wouldn’t like it, would you? The temperature would be hot enough to chargrill you.
Matthew R Marler says, August 11, 2014 at 8:39 am:
“Net heat flow is always from warmer to cooler parcels (…)”
There is no such thing as ‘net heat’ in a thermal exchange between two objects at different temperatures. There is ‘net energy’ and this net energy is defined as the HEAT. This might seem like pure semantics, but it’s not. It is a very important distinction.
“Warming of the surface is caused by the radiant energy of the sun; the net warming effect of CO2 is caused by the reduction in the surface cooling rate.”
There exists no such net warming effect from CO2, Matthew. Only on a theoretical level and in closed glass boxes in lab experiments. Not in the real dynamic surface/atmosphere system. For the simple reason that more CO2 in the atmosphere can never reduce the atmospheric temperature gradient up from the solar-heated surface and hence reduce the rate of energy loss from it.
Kristian, maybe you can address my question no one responded to. What about CO2 and “optical depth”. That is that as CO2 density increases, it is delivered higher into the atmosphere. Higher up is colder with less or no water vapor to slow outward IR. The newly added CO2 now does that slowing. How do you understand this?
Vince Causey says, August 11, 2014 at 9:08 am:
OK, I see that you don’t understand at all what I’m saying.
AlecM 12:11am: “Real GHE is obtained by calculating no cloud or ice albedo, 341 W/m^2, mean surface temperature and subtracting that 4 to 5 deg C from present ~15 deg C, ~ 11 K”
That 11K is just using your different definition of GHE. Satellites measure Tmean = 255K in thin atm. at their orbit and surface thermometers in Earth thick surface atm. measure Tmean = 288K. This is not disputed unless you can find a basic physics error in one of them. Which would make the evening news.
10:26pm: “…the heat generation rate in the atmosphere is 238.5 SW..”
Heat doesn’t exist in nature. There is no energy generated in the atm. either as the atm. uses up no fuel. This comes from your confusion over applying the generalized 1st law in non-atm. text books from your 10:02pm:
“(monochromatic heating rate of matter/unit volume) = – ∇.(monochromatic radiative flux density)”
Your 1st term for the atm. is = 0 as no energy is generated within the atm. and the term on the other side for the atm. is (net energy in from sun – net energy out from surface) for the volume of interest. For the surface volume balance, the mass of the atm. radiates a real flux incident on the surface all the time at all frequencies at all of its temperatures and has to be included as in nature.
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Ghengis 6:53am: There is a difference; not my research interest to figure out how exactly.
Nick Stokes says:
August 10, 2014 at 4:05 pm
“Care to explain the arithmetic behind
[quoting] “CO2 at 400pmmv is already committed and immutable. So CO2 has already reached about ~87+% of its potential warming effect in the atmosphere.”
Anyone?”
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Explaining the arithmetic …. is easy.
Trying to explain one’s belief that CO2 ‘s ability to “trap” heat declines logarithmically …. is not easy.
Especially given the FACT that there is no known entity in the universe that is capable of “trapping” thermal (heat) energy other than the proverbial Black Holes that exist at the center of galaxies.
Thermal (heat) energy can be converted to mass [e=mc2], but it can’t be trapped. (Unless one invents a container whose inside surface is a 100% perfect reflector of IR/thermal (heat) energy)
And without said “trapping” ability being possible, ……. then said “logarithmically decline” is an impossibility.
If one uses an instrument to release a “2 second burst of IR from the surface” …. it does not simply disappear after traveling 2 or 3 feet through the air as a result of being “trapped” by the CO2 molecules therein.
A “point” measurement of the IR intensity decreases the farther it travel from its source, but that is due to its “scattering” …. and not because it is being “trapped”.
What’s good for the “IR” goose …. is good for the “IR” gander, …. regardless of whether it is a H2O vapor “goose” …. or a CO2 “gander.”
Now iffen you are talking “buckets under a leaking roof”, then “yes”, the ability of the buckets to “trap” rainwater decreases logarithmically as the buckets fill up.
Samuel C Cogar, I haven’t heard anyone say, or mean to say, CO2 “traps” heat. My layman understanding is that upward IR heat is like ball in a pinball machine. CO2 is the bumpers.
climatereason says:
August 11, 2014 at 3:26 am
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Tony
When I typed my comment, I initially had 280ppm, but before sending it, I reduced the figure, perhaps i should have reduced to about 255/260ppm rather than 200ppm. That said, I would not forcefully argue against using 280ppm as the base figure.
RMB says:
August 11, 2014 at 8:52 am
If my explanation is crap as you put it I need an explanation as to why I cannot get heat into uncovered water but if I float a metal object on the surface killing the surface tension underneath and apply the heat source to the floatin object the water heats as one would expect, explain that without surface tension. This reply is for Richard Verney.
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Well I am not Richard, but I am the one that said your explanation was crap : )
Surface tension allows evaporation which cools the surface. Increased airflow increases evaporation. Evaporation always takes energy from the surface of the water and transfers it to the air.
IR is only capable of penetrating a few microns into the water which increases the rate of evaporation. Are you starting to get the picture here? Surface tension isn’t really a factor in this.
Surface tension does inhibit convection and diffusion through the water though which makes it harder to heat the water under the surface.
Basically the only way the oceans are warmed is by SW radiation from the sun which penetrates many meters down into the ocean.
Genghis, aren’t you leaving out the sloshing, tradewind furrowing, la nina piling, and ocean conveyer effect for mixing warm water down and forcing cold water up from the thermocline? You put cold water in a tub, then warm water on top of it, then put a kid in, the warm and the cold will get mixed.
AlecM says:
August 11, 2014 at 8:10 am
@agfosterjr: the warming of the camel’s back from solar SW energy is by the physical process called ‘thermalisation’. This is the absorption of SW energy quanta by raising electron orbitals to higher energy states followed by emission of lower energy quanta, a process called fluorescence.
The lower energy quanta cause the energy to be transferred to greater molecular motion; heat.
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Again, the word ‘heat’ was around before ‘molecules’ were identified. Your neologism ‘thermalization’ is the same as ‘heating,’ and I don’t think we need it (your new word). Why do you feel the need to eliminate the gerund–and verb? –AGF
Vince Causey says:
August 11, 2014