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/
AGF 8:03pm. “But how can you say heat does not exist if you don’t know what it is? Tell us what it is (or is not, if G Smith will forgive me), so that we can decide for ourselves.”
The best clear definition for heat is still: Heat does not exist. Why waste time and effort defining something that does not exist?
If two macro bodies are placed in thermal contact, one body with a higher temperature than the other at the interface, the temperature of the hotter body always decreases whereas that of the colder body always increases.
When you abandon all attempts to identify heat as an entity, you can think more clearly & eliminate much befuddlement about thermodynamic problems. “Heat” term is so much misused – and completely unnecessary term.
Others try to entice us into thinking heat exists by increasingly fantastic measures to try & make noncorporeal heat tangible, a summary of the above if you haven’t been up on the counting:
Curt posted Atkins says 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’.
These using dictionary.com where heat is in thermodynamic context (thereby excludes: the Police & a 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.)
Khwarizmi 10:04pm: Adds heat is:
14) a means
15) an amount
16) a flow
17) (implies) a substance
18) a way
AlecM writes heat is kinetic energy as measured by thermometers. But thermometers are well known not to measure heat.
I mean to increase clarity, decrease befuddlement: Heat does not exist.
Try it, you’ll like it.
@Trick: stop this silly posturing.
Thermometers measure temperature. The average translational kinetic energy of a freely moving particle in a system with temperature T is 3.kB.T/2, where kB is the Boltzmann constant. The Specific Heat Capacity (J/Mol) of an ideal monatomic gas at temperature T is 3.R/2 where R is the Ideal Gas Constant.
As temperature rises, the heat in an assembly of such molecules increases. This heat increase due to increased molecular motion causes pressure to rise at constant volume. This does work = ΔP.V, units Force x Distance = work.
Heat is work. Work is heat. Read this Wikipedia article about the mechanical equivalent of heat.
Curt says, August 12, 2014 at 1:34 pm:
“Whether you regard radiative heat transfer as resulting from the differential of two opposing radiative power fluxes, or as a single unidirectional thermal flux, you end up with the same result in energy balance calculations. It simply does not matter.
(…)
To put numbers on it (the precise values are not important), whether you regard the radiative transfer between the earth’s surface and atmosphere as the difference between 396 W/m2 radiative power flux upward from the surface and 333 W/m2 radiative power flux down from the atmosphere, or simply as a 63 W/m2 upward thermal flux, your energy balance works out the same.
If the atmosphere were completely transparent, you would get the same result whether you considered it 396 up and ~0 down radiative power fluxes or just a 396 up thermal flux. In either case, there would be a resulting heat transfer flux of 396 W/m2 upward, which is far more than the earth/atmosphere system receives from the sun, so present temperature levels could not be maintained.”
I’m amazed you don’t see it yourself, Curt. That – from what you propose here – the two approaches specifically do NOT give the same result. This is EXACTLY the confusion you promote! This is exacly where it leads to. The idea that the purely S-B calculated 396 W/m^2 UWLWIR is in fact a real flux of energy that the surface sends out, only to be countered by an equally real DWLWIR flux of energy coming down (derived only from subtracting the actually detected ‘radiative heat’ from the S-B calculated UWLWIR). And that this downward flux is ONLY there because there are radiatively active gases in the atmosphere. Without them, no DWLWIR and the UWLWIR would be alone inside the radiation field and thus cool the surface way too much.
This is such an absurd, upside-down approach to a real-world problem that I can’t but laugh! But this is where ‘Climate ScienceTM’ and its great green confusion brigade has taken us all.
The mean upward transfer of energy by radiation from the global surface would be 63 W/m^2 in both cases, Curt. And only that. As long as the average incoming from the Sun is still 161 W/m^2 and the mean conductive/evaporative energy loss rate is 97 (98) W/m^2, the surface can’t put out more energy than that by radiation. Otherwise you would have a situation where the atmosphere radiated back down a flux to the surface directly ‘heating’ it, more INPUT (derived from the original output), increasing its internal energy, making it warmer in absolute terms, forcing its OUTPUT to increase also.
There’s an atmosphere on top of the surface, Curt. Not a vacuum. This is not a purely radiative situation.
What happens in the real world is rather, as the atmosphere starts warming (and it would warm with or without the absorption of IR, Curt), less energy is going OUT, the OUTPUT from the surface is reduced, the INPUT isn’t increased. That would be energy transferred as HEAT from cool to warm.
Let’s look at it in the simplest possible way:
# First the Sun warms the surface – 200 W/m^2 of mean radiative INPUT.
# Then the surface emits that same energy to the atmosphere (its heat sink/cold reservoir) by virtue of its attained temperature, warming the atmosphere – 200 W/m^2 of mean radiative OUTPUT.
# The atmosphere then, after absorption, takes half of this same energy and emits it BACK DOWN to where it came from, the surface, its hot reservoir/heat source, making this energy warm the (still warmer) surface a second time, to an even higher temperature than during the first round – 100 W/m^2 of mean radiative INPUT.
In effect, the surface heats itself. This is like a heat engine discarding its residual heat – after doing work – to its cold reservoir, but having half of it come back in the process .. to heat it some more or to make it do more work. Directly reducing the entropy.
It’s completely mental. Totally warped. This cannot and does not happen. Nature can’t work like that. Our Universe would lose all its natural order if energy could just fly around and arbitrarily heat (make stuff warmer) in all directions, even from cold to hot.
Look, the effect is real. It violates no thermodynamic laws. Your description of the process, your explanation of how the effect comes to be, however, clearly does.
In your scenario, the solar input does NOT increase. And the initial surface output does NOT decrease. There is ONLY the increased input from the cold reservoir, the atmosphere, adding directly to the internal energy of the surface (its hot reservoir), making it warm in absolute terms, forcing its output to become larger, not smaller, in the process! The other two ‘fluxes’ don’t help. The extra heating of the surface arises solely from the extra (recycled) atmospheric input.
This is where you’ve taken physics. You say:
“To put numbers on it (the precise values are not important), whether you regard the radiative transfer between the earth’s surface and atmosphere as the difference between 396 W/m2 radiative power flux upward from the surface and 333 W/m2 radiative power flux down from the atmosphere, or simply as a 63 W/m2 upward thermal flux, your energy balance works out the same.”
Yup. Indeed. So why not just show the 63 W/m^2 upward flux!? The actual radiative transfer of energy detected between the surface and the atmosphere. If it’s all the same? Why do people make such a point out of putting up two fat potential transfer (radiant emittance) arrows between surface and atmosphere, with the one much bigger than the solar flux, pointing directly down to the surface, just next to a bunch of actual transfer (heat) arrows? If the end result will be the 63 W/m^2 upward transfer anyway?
If it weren’t specifically to visually confuse people into thinking that the fat ‘back radiation’ (DWLWIR) arrow – not a result of the atmospheric temperature apparently, but only of the atmospheric presence of your so-called ‘GHGs’ – works exactly like the neighboring and much slimmer solar flux arrow on the surface? Heating it.
I realise that I’ve got a pretty hard row to hoe on this one, just to disentangle your mess. I also realise that what I write here will arouse a cognitively dissonant response of fear and loathing in most people. So this is as far as I’ll go …
The cooler atmosphere warms the warmer surface by itself being warm, reducing the surface energy OUTPUT per unit of time (its cooling rate) as a consequence, Curt, not by increasing its energy INPUT (its heating).
http://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/why-atmospheric-radiative-gh-warming-is-a-chimaera/
(Feel free to read, although I’m sure you won’t.)
Sorry, Specific Heat Capacity units are J/Mol.K
Kristian,
When you calculate your flux from the surface to the atmosphere:
(2) P/A = εσ(Th^4 – Tc^4)
what is Tc? How is it measured?
Trick:
You say you reject the concept of “heat”.
I am wondering if your difficulty in understanding why that rejection is wrong results from one of the misunderstandings you assert at August 12, 2014 at 8:41 pm, You write:
Absolutely not!
The temperature of the hotter body may reduce as it loses heat but the temperature of the colder body may not increase in temperature because the addition of that heat to the colder body may alter its state and not its temperature. One such example of a colder body would be a mixture of ice and water where the change of state is melting of ice with resulting alteration to the proportions of ice and water.
Richard
Kristian:
I note that you are still posting to this thread but have overlooked the request for clarification in my post addressed to you at August 12, 2014 at 10:13 am. This link jumps to my post that stated my understanding of your reply to me and provided this request:
Thanking you in anticipation of your correcting the omission
Richard
richardscourtney: “The temperature of the hotter body may reduce as it loses heat but the temperature of the colder body may not increase in temperature because the addition of that heat to the colder body may alter its state and not its temperature.”
This is beyond my pay grade, but I’m told that stars and black holes have negative heat capacities: as they gain energy they lose temperature. I can’t explain it, but that’s what the smart guys tell me.
richardscourtney 1:30am: “…mixture of ice and water…”
Absolutely so! In your example the well stirred bodies are at the same temperature which does not change while the ice is melting.
You are misled thinking the melting ice is being heated, hence we are supposed to believe the state of motion changes. But the temperature does not change, and hence we are supposed to believe its state of motion does NOT change.
Confused? You should be. Heat does not exist; reduce your befuddlement eliminating that nonexistent heat concept from your vocabulary, dictionary.com notwithstanding, rise above it. Science was right to remove heat from corporeal existence.
Kristian 1:05am: “There’s an atmosphere on top of the surface, Curt. Not a vacuum.”
According to Max Planck right in his original paper, vacuum or atm. over surface makes no difference to his distribution per his extensive testing.
@Trick: as i wrote above. heat can do work and work can be converted to heat. Its unit, the Joule, is approximately the amount of energy to raise the temperature of 1g of water in an open container by 0.24 K.
The mistake you are making is to confuse heat with energy which can exist in many other forms than kinetic motion.
For a closed system, one version of the first law of thermodynamics states that the change in internal energy ΔU of the system is equal to the amount of heat Q supplied to the system minus the amount of work W done by system on its surroundings.
Trick:
At August 12, 2014 at 8:41 pm, you wrote:
Note that you wrote “the temperature of the hotter body ALWAYS decreases whereas that of the colder body ALWAYS increases”.
Your assertions are plain wrong! They are untrue. They are false!
So, at August 13, 2014 at 1:30 am I wrote refuting your assertion saying
Have you thanked me for pointing out your error? No, you replied saying this
Absolutely so! In your example the well stirred bodies are at the same temperature which does not change while the ice is melting.
You are misled thinking the melting ice is being heated, hence we are supposed to believe the state of motion changes. But the temperature does not change, and hence we are supposed to believe its state of motion does NOT change.
NO! YOU claimed “the temperature of the hotter body always decreases whereas that of the colder body always increases”. I denied that nonsense.
Clearly, you are an idiot who does not understand what he writes and claims others have made his errors.
Richard
Trick:
The formatting went wrong at the end of my post August 13, 2014 at 5:15 am.
The corrected ending is as follows:
==================
{snip}
Have you thanked me for pointing out your error? No, you replied saying thisbold
NO! YOU claimed “the temperature of the hotter body always decreases whereas that of the colder body always increases”. I denied that nonsense.
Clearly, you are an idiot who does not understand what he writes and claims others have made his errors.
Richard
richardscourtney says: August 13, 2014 at 1:30 am
“One such example of a colder body would be a mixture of ice and water where the change of state is melting of ice with resulting alteration to the proportions of ice and water.”
I do not endorse Trick’s athermality. But this example doesn’t work. The only way ice can be melted is if heat is supplied to replace latent heat. The only way that heat can be supplied is by conduction or equivalent transfer along a temperature gradient. So the temperature does have to rise while the ice is melting. You can’t have melting in a body uniformly at 0°C. Heat has to be transferred.
Nick and richard – The well mixed ice and water are at the same temperature until all the lh in ice is used up and the ice is water.
Trick says: August 13, 2014 at 7:20 am
“Nick and richard – The well mixed ice and water are at the same temperature until all the lh in ice is used up and the ice is water.”
No. Melting ice consumes h**t. If isothermal, h@ur momisugly@t cannot move.
@ur momisugly Trick August 13, 2014 at 7:20 am
Really?
What if the overall ambient temp is 0° C?
If the water and ice are pure, would the entire mixture stabilize as water that is almost ice or ice that is almost water?
Either way, both the ice and water will ultimately stabilize to 0° C.
It would seem that if that is precisely the freezing point, then all will become ice, but if it is just slightly below the freezing point then wouldn’t all become liquid?
Just trying to think logically.
Nick Stokes:
At August 13, 2014 at 1:30 am I wrote
At August 13, 2014 at 7:06 am you say of that
Say what?!
There is a temperature gradient from the hotter to the colder body (that is what hotter and colder mean). And there is a transfer of heat down that gradient (that is why the ice melts).
But there is no overall temperature rise of the cooler body BECAUSE – as you say – “The only way ice can be melted is if heat is supplied to replace latent heat”.
The hotter body loses heat and the colder body gains heat but – as I said – there is no rise in temperature except very locally and that very local heating induces convective mixing of the water.
Richard
RMB:
No, it is not surface tension so you have been told yet again and, therefore, you have no need to again repeat your assertion.
Richard
I’m not pushing a theory. I find that when I try to heat water through the surface the water completely rejects the heat. If I float a metal pan on the surface and apply the heat to the floating object the water accepts the heat as one would expect. Uncovered water will not accept heat covered water will. Try it for yourself. The floating object kills the surface tension.
AlecM says:
August 12, 2014 at 9:02 am
“Sorry, you have got it very wrong. ‘Back radiation’ is the emittance of the atmosphere, the energy flux detected by a cooled sensor (bolometer, IR spectrometer) or the pyrgeometer which uses a kludged ambient sensor. It cannot transfer any energy to a body at the same or higher temperature.”
——————–
HA, iffen there is “Back radiation” then there has gotta be “Front radiation” and “Sideways radiation” ……. so why is no one ‘accounting’ for them in their calculations?
And me was thinking that energy transfer between 2 different entities was irrespective of the temperature of either one. Thus, if one entity is absorbing more energy than it is emitting its temperature will increase. If is emitting more energy than it is absorbing its temperature will decrease
Matthew R Marler says:
August 12, 2014 at 9:57 am
“The word “trapped” need not mean “permanently trapped”: when I trap squirrels, for example, a few are able to escape from the traps.”
————–
That’s probably true for bleeding-heart liberals that use cages and box-traps, but when I trap squirrels I use a steel-trap and no of them get away.
So, from now on, only use the word “trap” when you are trying to catch squirrels, or mice, etc.
When talking climate science, words such as …. trap, greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases, forcing, backfeeding, feedbacks, sensitivity, consensus of opinions, etc., only serve to “brain-wash” and/or confuse the ell out of the science uneducated and/or miseducated populace and thus give credence to the “junk science” rhetoric being propagated by the proponents of CAGW.
===============
Matthew R Marler says:
August 12, 2014 at 10:36 am
“The author repeats the standard that CO2 has to date raised the mean temperature of the Earth (or the “equilibrium temperature”) by 33 C.
This is no mystery, but the author ought to clarify exactly how the obtained the 87% figure.”
—————
“DUH”, the author CAN NOT clarify exactly how the (he/she) obtained the 87% figure ….. simply because he/she can not provide any actual evidence or proof that the “to date” increase in atmospheric CO2 has caused one iota of measurable increase in near surface temperatures.
matayaya says:
August 12, 2014 at 12:48 pm
“AlecM, I think it is well understood that CO2 does not “absorb” IR. In my layman understanding, it’s more like CO2s are the bumpers in a pin ball machine, IR being the ball.”
——————
Well fer sure, it is not well understood by you, …. cause youse got it wrong.
It is not like the CO2s are baseball player’s bats (bumpers) that reflect the baseball (IR) away when contact is made.
In actuality, the CO2s are like the baseball player’s gloves that temporarily ABSORB the baseball (IR) ….. which the baseball player then flings (emits) back into the “game”.
Nick 7:32am: “No. Melting ice consumes h**t. If isothermal, h@ur momisugly@t cannot move.”
To understand why the top post is correct, this discussion helps set a solid & natural science foundation in place for CO2 surface temperature physics discussion without need for heat to exist.
Added defn.s by Nick. Heat is:
20) consumed
21) moving
Nick adds to the contortions to get heat to have corporeal existence. Heat doesn’t exist in nature, therefore heat cannot be consumed or be moving. You are being deluded b/c of your dependence on LH and SH being explanations when they do not exist in nature b/c heat does not exist. They are both logically enthalpies in nature. Other authors do a better job writing it out, see their work in detail, more than here. Nick & yes, JohnWho, thinking logically with natural terms will increase understanding of top post.
What the ice block has in nature is a set amount of conserved enthalpy = PE+KE+p*V. Draw a control volume around the ice. Account for enthalpy being conserved.
Temperature in the mixture at interfaces remains constant as melting occurs, by high school science level test. PE reduces as the macro ice molecules reduce in volume from solid to liquid state, this means KE+p*V terms have to increase by 1LOT in the control volume to keep same amount of enthalpy conserved. Think thru the melting process with naturally existing & explainable terms. And seek out, find other authors detail work.
I know the PE + p*V term is important b/c it leads to ice expanding in the reverse freezing process – the harsh winter froze & cracked open my expensive cast iron well pump. This was logically due to the PE + p*V terms not KE enthalpy term and certainly not due to nonexistent LH or SH.
………………………………………………. On abolishing (unspecific) ‘heat’
1) What about traditional equivalents in other languages–what does the rest of the world care what we do? English has not exactly replaced Latin.
2) What about “heat transfer,” “heat flow,” and “specific heat”?
3) What about ‘calories’ –“warmicules”?
4) The distinction between science and general experience is artificial. Any vocabulary which attempts to make such a distinction will also be artificial.
5) The phlogiston and caloricum were well defined before they were abandoned. To abandon an undefined concept hardly constitutes progress. A large number of meaningless 4-letter words–26^4 in languages using the Roman script–could be outlawed and we would be no better off than before.
5) To deny any traditional meaning of the word ‘heat’ is absurd. Whether noun, transitive or intransitive verb, adjective (‘hot’), babes and beasts understand the fundamental concept. Hot, warm, luke warm, cool, cold, freezing–these words constituted T measurement before F and C existed.
6) The problems seem to arrive when people try to tell us what heat is not–not what it is. A dromedary is a camel. Because you can’t count humps should we abolish the word? Heat may not be phlogiston or caloricum; there may be no such thing as either, but heat will endure for at least another 15 billion years, no matter what we call it.
To the stake with Trick…and a few others. –AGF
@Samuel C Cogar: there is an appalling lack of knowledge about radiative physics.
All bodies have a radiation field, detected by having a metal box with a hole in the front. Inside the box is a sensor, usually cooled. Because the metal box doesn’t have a hole in the back, the sensor detects the apparent temperature of the emitter in its field of view. Use this in the Stefan-Boltzmann equation and you get the emittance. Divided this by the black body emittance to get the emissivity
The emittance, expressed in W/m^2 is not the ElectroMagnetic energy emitted in the absence of the detector; It is the EM energy it emits to the cooled sensor where it is converted to heat. Because the sensor is cooled, it does not emit much EM energy to the emitter in the view angle; what you estimate is the potential energy flux from the emitter to a sink near absolute zero.
Turn the sensor around by 180 degrees and you get the emittance of the emitter that was to the rear of the original measurement. Subtract this signal from the first and you get the net EM energy transferred from the first emitter to the second.
If you do this at any angle in the atmosphere with no temperature gradient, the results will always be the same; up-down; sideways. For the case of the atmosphere near the Earth’s surface, the signal is between two equal temperature emitters but they have different emissivities. This is because some weakly absorbing H2O band IR and atmospheric window IR goes to Space unimpeded by the atmosphere..
Net mean IR flux from the Earth’s surface to the atmosphere is 63 W/m^2, about 1/6th of a black body. None of the atmospheric emittance, 333 W/m^2, carries energy to the surface; it simply offsets same band surface emission; no net surface IR in ‘self-absorbed’ IR bands.
I hope this explains the real physics; the ‘back radiation’ bouncing backwards is puerile nonsense paid for by Obama and his predecessors to pretend CO2.is dangerous; it ain’t because the atmosphere makes CO2-AGW exactly zero on average, the same for any well-mixed GHG.