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/
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Curt 7:22pm: Thanks for that. I note the word “heat” does not appear in the top post. Heat is still in search of a definition.
The contortions of language gone thru to put corporeal (tangible) existence to nonexistant in nature “heat” has hit a new high; dictionary.com being the previous record holder in my experience. We now are told:
heat is…
1) not an entity (not n., something that has real existence)
2) not a form (not a n., configuration) of energy (yet heat is usually & mysteriously always configured with units of joules)
3) a transfer of energy (something not a form energy not an entity was over there and now the not a form of energy not an entity is over here – ghost like travel)
4) a name (I should have picked that moniker)
5) not an imponderable fluid anymore (RIP)
6) although not an entity or form of energy “heat” can be conducted anyway: ‘a temperature difference such that energy flows through a diathermic (adj., capable of conducting heat) wall in a desired direction’.
This on top of dictionary.com where heat is in thermodynamic context (thereby excludes: the Police & pistol)…
7) a state
8) a condition
9) a quality
10) a degree (n., step)
11) a sensation
12) a nonmechanical (adj., non-machine) not a form of energy but energy transfer nevertheless
13) added energy causing a temperature rise. (…except at the surface of earth per Konrad, AlecM & Kristian et. al.)
To that add the independent defn.s Kristian has posted. Now when someone writes the term “heat” which defn. do YOU pick? This is sort of like dividing by 0, once an eqn. does that, further answers can be anything a writer wants.
Folks. Listen & learn. Make progress. Stop using the term “heat” if you want to be clear; otherwise if you don’t care about being obtuse (adj., not sharp), fine – use the term “heat”. Confusion WILL always commence around the “heat” term; if misused hoffer might have some sort of conniption fit & Trick will be even more irreverant….
For those of you might think heat is really nonmechanical, put thimbleful of water in a test tube with thermometer immersed, cork it, put on insulated gloves, shake for all you are worth – until you sweat gobs, that thermometer will increase in reading.
Trick: I agree that we should banish the word “heat” from these discussions for the sake of clarity.
Kristian,
~~~~~~~
“Heat is defined as the energy transferred spontaneously from hot to cold as a result of the temperature difference. When it comes to radiative heat transfer, the heat is the ‘net energy’ always moving only from the hotter to the colder object. It is a unidirectional flow of energy. Just like a waterfall, like wind or an electric current. Always from high to low potential. Spontaneously.”
~~~~~~~
That’s essentially what my reference text says, but without your pedantic spontaneity or “net energy” disclaimer:
============
heat (q) “A means by which energy is transferred from a hot body to a colder body when the two are place in thermal contact with one another.”
– Principle of Modern Chemistry, 4th Edition, glossary
“The amount of energy transferred between two objects inititally at different temperatures is called heat or thermal energy. When a hot body is brought into contact with a colder body, the two temperatures change until they become equal. This process is sometimes described as the “flow” of heat from the hotter to the colder body. Although this picture is useful, it is somewhat misleading because it implies that heat is a substance that is contained in matter. Instead, heat (like work) is a way in which energy is exchanged between a system and its surroundings.”
– Principle of Modern Chemistry, 4th Edition, p.209
=========
Kudos for your tenacity.
When a hot body is brought into contact with a colder body
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That would be conduction, not radiated energy.
“”””….agfosterjr says:
August 11, 2014 at 6:10 pm
george e. smith says:
August 11, 2014 at 2:54 pm
“A DEFINITION tells you what SOMETHING IS ; it does not tell you what something is not.”
==================================================================
Well let’s look at the word “define.” ‘fin’ means ‘end’ or ‘limit’ so that the word means to delimit or draw boundaries, that is indeed, to determine what it is not, or how far it goes, much like determining a flight envelope. So yes, a large part of defining a word is in telling what it does not mean, as you have done above. When asserting that the sun does not heat anything you are in fact defining the word heat ……”””””
Well now you done it. Nowhere in my post did I ever say the sun does not heat anything.
I said we get no heat from the sun; we make it all here on earth; largely from solar radiant energy.
So I’m going to start a very long analysis of the OED; unexpurgated version. And I will keep count of what fraction of all the words in the OED, actually tell what that word does not mean. Then you can go argue with them.
Squirm all you like; you are toast. Virtually all other energies, than heat energy, can eventually be turned 100 % into HEAT.
HEAT on the other hand, can NOT ever be turned 100% into any other form of energy. That is the distinction. And as I also said, HEAT is the only form of energy that can change a temperature; either up or down. And that is inherent in the thermodynamic temperature scale.
Electricity does not have a temperature; gravity does not have a temperature, the potential energy of humpty dumpty sitting on a wall, is unrelated to temperature.
Only heat, has any relationship with temperature.
And stop putting words in my mouth; I specifically said the sun might heat (verb) the earth, but it does so without sending us any heat.
An asteroid crashing into earth does not bring us any heat. certainly it brings kinetic energy, but that isn’t heat, because all of the molecules of the asteroid, are acting in concert; all moving in the same direction like the hammer that mashed your thumb.
But when it gets here, the KE of the asteroid will be turned into heat, and other things; but that all happens right here.
And in the field of science, many words, that have every day common language meanings, may also have specific scientific meanings, and we should always use the correct words, in science, if we expect to be understood.
I suppose you also teach your first grade kids, that Ohm’s Law says E = RI. It does not, in case you were wondering; it says R = constant.
There is a very simple way to prove radiative energy transport from surface to equal temperature (T) atmosphere is one way, at a rate equal to the difference between the two opposing emittances at the plane. Assume emissivities are εs and εa.
Scenario 1 (the IPCC story): atmosphere emittance to the surface 333 W/m^2 = σ.εa.T^4 AND this is the radiative energy transfer rate; surface emittance to the atmosphere 396 W/m^2 = σ.εs.T^4. AND this is the radiative energy transfer rate. Standard physics** shows radiation entropy production rate = 4u/rT where u is the radiation flux. Therefore the total radiation production rate for this scenario s1 = 4(σ.εa.T^4 + σ.εs.T^4)/3T. Simplifying; s1= 4.σ.T^3(εa + εs)/3.
Scenario 2 (standard physics): surface emits to the atmosphere at a rate = Δ[emittance at the plane] = (σ.εs.T^4 – σ.εa.T^4) = σ.T^4(εs – εa). Radiation production rate s2 = 4 σ.T^3(εs – εa)/3.
Thermodynamics predicts that at equilibrium, a thermodynamic system always acts to minimise rate of production of entropy. s2 is much less than s1; Scenario 2 must be correct. QED
**see Eq. 6 in: http://www.bnl.gov/envsci/pubs/pdf/2010/BNL-81482-2008-JA.pdf
Curt says:
August 11, 2014 at 9:48 pm:
“Trick: I agree that we should banish the word “heat” from these discussions for the sake of clarity.”
Of course you do. To perpetuate the confusion in people’s minds on this topic. So that you can continue in peace to conflate heat and radiation, duping people into thinking (without having to come out and say it) that it is in fact possible for ‘back radiation’ by itself to actually create a detectable increase in surface internal energy (meaning, raise its temperature and/or provoke evaporation), even though it’s not ‘heat’ at all (as opposed to the solar flux) but merely one part of a continuous, integrated radiative thermal exchange where the net energy spontaneously moves up and away from the surface because of the temperature difference – heat.
Knowing and utilizing the concept of heat and heat transfer brings clarity, Curt. It makes one see through the confusion engendered by the notion that energy flying around in all directions will heat everywhere it arrives, no matter what. ‘It’s energy, so it heats (or does work).’ Like Hoffer believes.
You apparently didn’t read that last paragraph you quoted. I’ll highlight it for you:
“What we should say, but it is usually too tedious actually to say it repeatedly, is that energy is transferred as heat (that is, as the result of a temperature difference). To heat, the verb, should for precision be replaced by circumlocutions such as ‘we contrive a temperature difference such that energy flows through a diathermic wall in a desired direction’. Life, though, is too short, and it is expedient, except when we want to be really precise, to adopt the casual easiness of everyday language, and we shall cross our fingers and do so, but do bear in mind how that shorthand should be interpreted.”
“… energy is transferred as heat (that is, as the result of a temperature difference).”
Exactly. So when the surface is warmer than the atmosphere above, energy is transferred as heat from the higher temperature surface to the lower temperature atmosphere. This happens spontaneously in nature. It doesn’t matter if we have radiation in both directions. The actual ‘radiative transfer of energy’ goes from the surface to the atmosphere only. And so the surface ‘heats’ the atmosphere. It cools to the atmosphere. Not the other way around.
Yes, I use the noun ‘flow’ and the verb ‘to heat’ so as not to “stultify” my language and my explanation of what this transfer of energy is and does. It doesn’t make the distinct and quite palpable physical phenomenon that is ‘heat’ any less real.
davidmhoffer says, August 11, 2014 at 10:10 pm:
“When a hot body is brought into contact with a colder body
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That would be conduction, not radiated energy.”
Sigh. You don’t give up, do you?
Two bodies being in ‘thermal contact’ simply means they are able to exchange energy through the process of heat. This will also occur across a vacuum.
Heat is heat whether the energy is transferred by radiation or conduction, David.
PS What we are discussing here is whether the modern equivalent of the Phlogiston Theory, the IPCC claim that radiative emittance at a plane is a real energy flux, is true. If so, by some miracle, the Earth’s surface adds the atmosphere to surface emittance to the real net radiative flux = SW energy thermalised – (conducted + evapo=transpired heat) = 160 W/m^2 – 97 W/m^2 = 63 W/m^2.
Therefore the IPCC claims real surface to atmosphere flux = 333 W/m^2 + 63 W/m^2 = 396 W/m^2., its emttance. However, I show above this is thermodynamically precluded because radiation entropy production rate = ~(1 + .84)/(1 – 0.84) = 11.5 x higher than reality! (assumes surface emissivity is unity; 0.84 atmospheric emissivity is an experimental average.)
The only way this would be possible would be if the atmosphere does emit to the surface according to Scenario 1 above AND the surface had the magic property of absorptivity = 0, emissivity = 1, hence the imaginary atmosphere to surface radiative flux ‘bounces off’.
Such a material is the province of Science Fiction: let’s call it Saganite in honour of H G Wells’ invention in his 1901 ‘The First Men on the Moon’, of Cavorite, a substance which turns gravity flux back on itself! Sorry IPCCers, what you are attempting to purport is pure science fiction, worthy of the Greats. It has nothing to do with Real Science, net surface IR flux = 63 W/m^2 and contains no CO2 15 micron band IR or that of the main H2O bands. This is an absolute fact.
george e. smith says, August 11, 2014 at 11:22 pm:
“I said we get no heat from the sun; we make it all here on earth; largely from solar radiant energy.
(…) I specifically said the sun might heat (verb) the earth, but it does so without sending us any heat.”
Exactly the opposite. It does so precisely by ‘sending us heat’. Because the Sun is (much) hotter than the Earth, it transfers energy to us by radiation AS HEAT.
Heat is a thermodynamic ‘process function’, not a ‘state function’, meaning heat is not ‘something’ that is contained within objects (systems). It only moves between them.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/heat.html
Trick said “There is no energy generated in the atm. either as the atm. uses up no fuel.”
Yes it does – in my _unqualified_ humble opinion, it oxidizes methane.
Methane is produced by bateria over the entire damp surface of the land, and all the pooh thereon, and exposures of coal and shale. (I don’t know if the oceans produce methane.)
I estimate (and someone more knowlegeable should check) that if every sq metre of the surface produced 0.004 moles per day (4ml or 4cc or 64mg per day) and that was oxidized, it would be equivalent to 1 W/m2.
Kristian:
I have been observing this debate with astonishment. It seems you have invented your own physics and are insisting that everybody should adopt your invention.
Energy exists in many forms. These forms include heat, EM radiation and mass.
And energy can be moved from one place to another. For example, the energy which is the mass of an apple moves towards the center of the Earth when the apple falls from its tree, and the energy which is a photon of EM radiation may move towards the center of the Earth when the photon leaves the Sun.
And energy can be transformed from one form to another. For example, mass can be transformed to heat and that is why A-bombs work. Similarly, an EM photon absorbed by the Earth is transformed to heat and that is how the Sun heats the Earth.
But mass and EM radiation are not heat. Mass, EM radiation and heat are each forms of energy.
Think of energy as being like modelling clay. A piece of modelling clay can have the form of a car, a mouse, or a tree but it is the same piece of clay whether it has the form of a mouse or a house. A unit of energy can have the form of matter, or of EM radiation, or of heat, or etc. but it is the same unit of energy.
A unit of energy can travel from Sun to Earth as EM radiation, be absorbed by the Earth’s surface and thus be transformed into heat. But it was not heat when it was EM radiation. Similarly, a unit of energy is not heat when it is mass.
However, at August 12, 2014 at 12:02 am you insist
No, Kristian, the Sun loses energy e.g. as EM radiation which may impinge on the Earth where it may be reflected (e.g. by ice or clouds) or be absorbed to become heat.
Richard
richardscourtney says, August 12, 2014 at 12:44 am:
“Kristian:
I have been observing this debate with astonishment. It seems you have invented your own physics and are insisting that everybody should adopt your invention.”
This is just getting silly. I post links, other people quote from textbooks, showing how HEAT in physics is specifically defined as “a transfer of energy by virtue of a temperature difference”. This is NOT a controversial issue in physics. Then people like you come along with your ancient caloric view of the world, where heat is something that is created and resides ONLY inside bodies. As if you hadn’t opened a book on thermodynamics in a century or two. Heat is not a ‘state function’. It’s a ‘process function’. Go read a book on the subject.
Sorry, I appreciate most of what you write on this blog, Richard. But this is just too silly.
Apologies: in the radiation entropy post above, I made a typo.
Radiation entropy production rate = 4.u/3.T where u is the radiative flux.
Kristian:
OK I tried to help but at August 12, 2014 at 1:23 am you say you refuse to listen because I am talking about an “ancient caloric view of the world”.
Please note that I was discussing photons which – by definition – are quantum events.
It seems to me that the difficulty is your assertion saying
and you think from that definition says all energy can ONLY be transferred by temperature difference.
So, in hope of progress, perhaps you would explain your view of how according to you a photon IS “heat”, and how mass IS “heat” because – as I said – each can move from one position to another but their altered position is not a transfer of heat to their new position.
If what you mean were explained then perhaps it would be possible to understand what you are trying to say because – at present – it makes no sense of any kind.
Richard
@Kristian: there is clearly a big problem in physics’ teaching if here are people out there who claim that EM energy transfer is a form of heat transfer. The difference between the two is profound.
It’s because the entropy change when the total internal energy of a body increased by dQ is dQ/T. This comes from Clausius. However, radiation has the property of exerting pressure. Hence its contribution to entropy for a given energy transfer dQ is 4dQ/3T. Therefore, you cannot consider transfer of energy by EM radiation as a form of heat exchange. Anyone who does so is teaching junk physics.
As a discussion point, the radiation entropy production rate via OLR is about twice that for the thermalisation of the same SW energy. If the radiation entropy were not a function of transfer temperature, because the same amount of energy is transferred, there would be the same entropy production rate and the heat engine that comprises the Earth’s atmosphere would be 100% thermodynamically efficient, an impossibility because of the 2nd and 3rd Laws of thermodynamics……
This is exactly what I’m talking about.
When people live by the notion that ‘heat’ is something that is created inside a body whenever it absorbs ‘energy’ of some kind, any kind, then there is no longer any reason to doubt that ‘back radiation’ (being energy in the form of … radiation) will also create ‘heat’ inside the surface system.
This fundamental misunderstanding of basic thermodynamic principles lies at the core of the whole ‘heating by back radiation’ travesty.
Kristian, just a layman trying to follow this discussion and learn, but you said one thing I think I understand enough to comment on. You said that the flaw in back radiation thinking is their saying that “back radiation’ (being energy in the form of … radiation) will also create ‘heat’ inside the surface system”. That is not how I understand AGW theory. No one is saying heat is being created inside the system but that heat is being prevented from leaving the system.
Kristian:
At August 12, 2014 at 1:54 am I asked you
And at August 12, 2014 at 2:42 am you have replied saying in full
OK. I understand your reply to say that your understanding of “heat” has nothing to do with concepts from physics but is an excuse you have constructed to deny “heating by back radiation”.
I am content to accept the understandings of physics derived from empirical observation and to ignore your political constructs.
Richard
@Kristian: ‘back radiation’ is a measure of the apparent temperature of the atmosphere. The pyrgeometer instrument internally converts the temperature measurement to the flux the atmosphere would emit to a sink at absolute zero.
Physicists call this the emittance or exitance. It is not real. Think of it as a potential energy flux adding as a vector to all the other potential energy fluxes at the point or plane where you want to establish the real energy flux.
At the Earth’s surface, net surface IR flux = [surface emittance – atmospheric emittance].
You get this from Maxwell’s Equations via Poynting Vectors. An emittance is simply the assembly over all wavelengths of the individual Poynting Vectors comprising the radiation field of the Planck dissipative oscillators that can perform the quantised exchange of heat energy to EM energy and vice versa. This is the Law of Conservation of energy: qdot = – ∇.Fv where qdot is the monochromatic rate of heat generation per unit volume of matter and Fv is the monochromatic radiation flux density.
In short ‘back radiation’ is not energy or heat flux, simply a measure of the maximum energy flux the Planck oscillators could supply to a sink at absolute zero for their temperature.
AlecM says, August 12, 2014 at 3:20 am:
“@Kristian: ‘back radiation’ is a measure of the apparent temperature of the atmosphere. The pyrgeometer instrument internally converts the temperature measurement to the flux the atmosphere would emit to a sink at absolute zero.
Physicists call this the emittance or exitance. It is not real. Think of it as a potential energy flux adding as a vector to all the other potential energy fluxes at the point or plane where you want to establish the real energy flux.
At the Earth’s surface, net surface IR flux = [surface emittance – atmospheric emittance].”
Indeed.
Compare the pure Stefan-Boltzmann equation (1) with the general radiative heat transfer equation (2):
(1) P/A = εσT4
(2) P/A = εσ(Th^4 – Tc^4)
The pure version portrays an ideal situation where the radiating object ejects its energy into a perfect (0 K) heat sink. There is a maximum/ideal/largest possible temperature difference between object and surroundings. Hence, there is only the temperature of the object radiating to consider.
The composite version (the general radiative heat transfer equation) reflects a situation where there is no longer just an empty void surrounding the radiating object*, but rather surroundings/other objects with an ability to absorb and store energy, and therefore possessing a temperature. In other words, it’s no longer enough to simply consider the temperature of the radiating object itself. One also needs to take into account the temperature of its surroundings. The temperature difference is no longer the largest possible and so the radiative heat escaping the radiating object (P/A, equal to the more familiar Q) is less than the maximum/ideal value.
*Or, more relevant on Earth, surroundings/objects much, much colder than the radiating object.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/cootime.html
Note, in both (1) and (2) above, the left-hand side of the equation is the solution, the value we’re looking for, of the actual physical phenomenon being studied. The right-hand side merely shows us how this value is mathematically derived, based on the temperature (and emissivity/absorptivity) of the objects involved in the thermal exchange (heat transfer). The only radiation ever detected within a thermal exchange is always the ‘heat’ (P/A). It’s the only actual ‘transfer of energy’ (from hot to cold).
In (1), the single mathematical term on the right-hand side simply happens to equal the heat on the left-hand side. In (2) there are two opposing terms on the right-hand side and the heat is therefore only the net (the sum) of the two. In this case, each single term on the right-hand side only signifies a potential transfer of energy. They would only be real (detectable, that is, thermodynamically working) transfers of energy if they were facing a perfect (0 K) heat sink like in (1), that is, if they were completely thermally isolated from one another.
This is an extremely important point, because the entire ‘Climate Establishment’ base their rGHE/AGW argumentation on the idea that these two opposing terms (in (2)) in fact do represent physically real fluxes of energy, each operating separately and distinctly from the other, as if alone, inside one single, integrated radiation field.
It’s an appallingly naive, simplistic and, quite frankly, absurd view on how things work in the real world. But it has still effectively managed to infect the minds of practically every person alive today. The hypothetical construct claiming the reality of an ‘atmospheric radiative greenhouse effect’ (the rGHE) warming the surface of the Earth is simply taken at face value. It is taken for granted as ‘fact’. By all. It is never questioned in the least, there is no critical thinking whatsoever directed at its fundamental premises and tenets.
And in the end, it bases itself wholly on a profound misrepresentation of reality.
The idea is that the atmosphere needs the so-called ‘GHGs’ to radiate a (real, working) flux back down to the surface for it to become warmer. Without these radiatively active gases in the atmosphere, there would allegedly be no such flux and the surface could not become as warm as it is. It’s ridiculous. Like you say, it’s the TEMPERATURE of the atmosphere that determines the rate of energy loss from the surface, not the radiative properties of the so-called ‘GHGs’. The fact that the massive atmosphere is able to warm while the ‘non-massive’ vacuum of space isn’t, makes all the difference. You don’t need gases to absorb IR for this. You don’t need them for the atmosphere to warm All you need is a solar-heated surface and a convective/evaporative response. You do however need them for the atmosphere to cool to space.
The warming (insulating) effect of an atmosphere is very real indeed. The global surface of the Moon absorbs on average 295 W/m^2 from the Sun, nearly 80% more than the global surface of the Earth (165 W/m^2 on average). Still the latter one has a mean temp 90K higher than the former!
It simply doesn’t have anything to do with ‘trapping’ outgoing radiation. It has all to do with the mass (the ‘heat capacity’ and the weight) of the atmosphere.
Nick Stokes says:
August 11, 2014 at 12:02 pm
“Samuel C Cogar says: August 11, 2014 at 9:36 am
“Explaining the arithmetic …. is easy.”
But no-one can do it? ”
……………………………………….
“CO2 at 400pmmv is already committed and immutable. So CO2 has already reached about ~87+% of its potential warming effect in the atmosphere.”
——————
Nick, I can explain the arithmetic of ……. 2 + 3 = 5 ….. and it is easy to do.
But explaining the reasoning via which said logarithmically derived ~87+% was obtained …. is not easy to do because it is simply illogical.
Now there is a lot of mathematical calculations being touted by various posters … with the/their math being correct, ….. but many of the numerical figures being cited are simply “imaginary”. Thus, said math results of “87+%” is meaningless.
Nick, just as soon as everyone starts using their calculated percentages, associations, correlations, proxy data, etc. …. as reference information only, …. instead of factual entities, ….. then climate science will take a great leap forward.
Matthew R Marler says:
August 11, 2014 at 1:24 pm
“CO2 “traps” heat in its orbital electrons: physically, the orbital sizes are such that the specific wavelengths of LWIR cause the electromagnetic oscillations to interact with the electrons and transfer energy from radiant to orbital energy. The reverse process occurs when electrons “decay” from higher energy orbits to lower energy orbits and release the energy as electromagnetic oscillations.”
—————–
But, but, but, ….. iffen that heat is “trapped” in the orbiting electron ….. then how is it possible for the electron to “decay” to a lower energy orbit?
Curious minds would like to know.
@Kristian: the real explanation of the heating AND cooling effect of the poorly mixed GHG in the atmosphere, water vapour, has ben completely missed by Climate Alchemy.
richardscourtney says, August 12, 2014 at 2:58 am:
“OK. I understand your reply to say that your understanding of “heat” has nothing to do with concepts from physics but is an excuse you have constructed to deny “heating by back radiation”.
I am content to accept the understandings of physics derived from empirical observation and to ignore your political constructs.”
OK. Whatever you say, Richard. “Political constructs.” Good one. Yeah, that’s what I’m doing here. I’m promoting an evil ideological agenda by pushing ordinary thermodynamics on the masses.
AlecM 3:20am: “…‘back radiation’ is not energy or heat flux, simply a measure of the maximum energy….”
Huh? No. Commonly back radiation is energy radiated by the mass of the atm. with a vector direction incident on Earth surface which is then reflected, absorbed, or transmitted by the L&O surface, not “thermalised”. Now you are so confused as to have written back radiation is both “not energy” and “energy”.
“This is the Law of Conservation of energy: qdot = – (div).Fv”
In part only, you leave out many terms in the generalized law in non-atm. text books & applying the generalized law to the atm. need set qdot = 0 as no energy is generated within the atm. since the atm. uses up no fuel (i.e. “qdot is the monochromatic rate of heat generation per unit volume of matter” = 0 in 1st law applied to any atmosphere.)