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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AGF 10:09am –
1) Even in other languages heat cannot be made to exist; replaced with enthalpy which is widely used in science of all languages.
2) See above, if heat is not anywhere it cannot transfer, cannot flow, specific heat is really specific enthalpy in science.
3) Calories are a unit not heat.
4) any general experience encounters heat, it really encountered enthalpy.
5) Phlogiston and caloricum were not well defined; they would still exist if so. Contortions of science were made also to keep them around longer than necessary.
5 again) to define something that doesn’t exist is fantasy, which has a role other than science.
6) Heat ceased to exist in nature last millennium, heat didn’t even make it to this one & well defined enthalpy will still be around in the next one.
To the stake with heat. Leave it buried in the past science where it served out its purpose; no need for reincarnation, leave it lie. RIP.
In English ‘heat’ is an abstract conceptual term.
It refers to the transfer of energy which can raise temperatures or enact a phase change. It refers to the energy being transferred with the aforementioned properties, no matter in which state it resides.
Friction generates heat. The sun generates heat. It need not be important that the heat comes in various forms of energy until the time when it is the focus of the discussion.
The following phrases are equally correct, one is just more pedantic than the other:
Heat from the sun travels through the atmosphere, warming it, and hits the surface, which holds some of the heat until nightfall. At night this heat is slowly released, with some bouncing off the atmosphere and hitting the surface again, keeping temperatures warm until the sun comes back up again.
—
Solar radiation, in various wavelengths, interacts with atmosphere where Raleigh Scattering occurs to differing degrees based on atmospheric composition, pressure, temperature, albedo, mass, electron orbital spin moment, and various spectral qualities. A portion of this solar radiation manages to reach the surface where it will either by absorbed (and then randomly remitted) or reflected by the surface at varying depths and angles in accordance to the albedo and spectral qualities of the surface and incoming solar radiation. The solar radiation will impart molecular and atomic excitement where absorbed which can be macro-measured in terms of T, otherwise known as temperature. The solar radiation interacting with the surface shall now have two terms: “reflected radiation” – for the solar radiation which was reflected by the surface, and “surface radiation” – for solar energy which interacted with the surface and has been emitted towards the atmosphere OR towards other surfaces.
During the time of greatest insolation, the surface will typically convert a significant portion of incoming solar radiation into molecular and atomic momentum, excitement, and/or motion. The portion not held in said manner will become surface radiation of a longer, lower energy, wavelength when emitted from the surface – also exhibiting the primary characteristics of Raleigh Scattering. During times of lower insolation this process will provide energy which continues to excite the lower atmosphere, keeping its macro-measured excitement property (temperature) from declining as rapidly as it would without a surface present. Likewise, the atmosphere will scatter, via Raleigh Scattering, some of this surface radiation back to the surface, where the energy is, potentially, once again in a position to re-excite the surface. This process serves to prevent both the surface and the lower atmosphere from moving to a lower average excitement level (temperature).
—
Seriously, which is better? And, please, let’s not be pedantic about little mistakes 😉
Come off it Trick, enthalpy is not heat. It is a defined thermodynamic potential, designated by the letter “H”, that consists of the internal energy of the system (U) plus the product of pressure (p) and volume (V) of the system.
Internal energy can be explained in microscopic terms by two virtual components; the microscopic kinetic energy due to the microscopic motion of the system’s particles (translations, rotations, vibrations). This is heat. The other is the potential energy associated with the microscopic forces, including chemical bonds and static rest mass energy.
So, enthalpy is a much more complex beast; stop trying to confuse it with heat energy please, which is what does external work.
AlecM 10:54am – Good progress. Major progress actually in understanding top post.
“This is heat.”
No. What “this”is is kinetic energy measured by thermometers reading calibrated temperature not “heat”, now I’ve pointed that out 3 times; a component of nature’s enthalpy. Heat ceased to exist in nature last millennium. PE is also a component of natural enthalpy as you write can be chemical like my hydrogen and oxygen combustion example.
Enthalpy is not at all complex: PE + KE + p*V and is the actual conserved quantity in 1LOT.
Heat energy? That is like writing joules joules. Only need energy once measured in joules.
Energy can do external work using up a fuel (f*d joules); heat cannot do work though kinetic energy can. Heat has no such tidy definition, as heat doesn’t exist in nature past the last millennium.
looncraz 11:27am: “Friction generates heat. The sun generates heat.”
Not a little mistake to understand top post. Explained above by using up a fuel friction generates KE which is not “heat”. Sun generates plenty energy using up a fuel but zero “heat” which expired last century.
“Heat from the sun travels.. holds some of the heat..slowly released..”
Heat does not travel as it doesn’t exist anywhere to travel from and something that doesn’t exist “heat” can’t be held or released. Last two paragraphs – better science. I would add the surface can transmit also with the surface can either reflect or absorb. Earth surface can do all three for incident radiation and surface diffraction is negligible.
But if ‘heat’ is in any way interchangeable with ‘enthalpy,’ and we blacklist this dirty little 4-letter (Germanic) word in favor of the euphemistic (Latin) ‘enthalpy,’ we merely kick the can a few yards down the road. The euphemism will quickly gather the former connotations of the banned word and will have to be replaced with something else. ‘Scat’ by any other name would smell as bad.
And of course if enthalpy is really heat, and there is no such thing as heat, then there is no such thing as enthalpy either. –AGF
Trick:
If it pleases you to believe that heat does not exist then do. But please keep your beliefs to yourself and stop befouling WUWT threads with them. They are a distraction.
Richard
oops, that’s a Greek word for heat we be resurrecting. Who knows, maybe 2ky from now the dead word ‘heat’ will be resurrected to enhance clarity. –AGF
AGF 12:07pm: Thanks for the discussion. Energy replaces the “heat” word in this century for general reading to improve clarity & discover faults, both are joules, energy exists.
If you are interested in what is conserved to understand more detail like the melting of ice or especially in a gas (like the atm.) for understanding details of “temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2” in top post, use more precise enthalpy. Energy can mean the KE, the PE or the p*V term, enthalpy covers the waterfront.
richard 12:13pm: “..keep your beliefs to yourself…”
That heat does not exist in nature is not a belief or view, it is solid, basic science discussed even since the 50’s. The top post generates a lot of dispute; that dispute will thin out when the solid, basic, tested science becomes well understood generally thru blog give & take.
You are of course welcome to post using the caloric theory “heat” and try to understand nature from that basis. Science has long since moved on, I am just pointing out the obvious, “heat” is past its expiry date on the warning label.
There’s a lot more than aerosols flying around on this thread.
This leads me to restate, one of my guiding beliefs. You MAY quote me.
” Ignorance, is NOT a disease; we are ALL born with it !
But stupidity, has to be taught, and sadly there are a great many people willing and able to teach it ! ”
It is a great disservice, to those who do not have an extensive science background, and come here to Anthony’s great learning site, (like me) to have to wade through screeds of; well crap. AGF called it that, and he’s a pedant for lexicological exactitude.
And that crap, is coming from some truly stupid people; who would teach it to others.
Now I have fessed up, to NOT being a quantum mechanic. I’m largely a classicist, due to a lack of education.
But a very famous PhD Physicist, who is an even more famous Medico; Surgeon and Anesthesiologist; who was recently taking QM classes at Stanford (he is North of 90 years old), told me to forget about QM, if classical Physics would suffice. QM “only confuses things”, he said. You only know there’s a certain probability that you are correct.
I’m not going to name him; but probably most of the people, on this planet, all saw him on their T&V in the late 1960s to early 1970s.
I’ve lost my connection with him, now, and I sure regret that lost learning asset. I also got to drink a beer, in a shady home garden, with a Physicist Canuck, who got a Physics Nobel Prize for proving that the putative guts of an atomic nucleus, actually exists; at least to the extent that we know anything really exists. Much as “heat” (noun), really does exist.
So what about the Second Law of Thermo-dynamics, that litters these threads.
I am partial to the statement of that principle, that was allegedly given (presumably in German), by the great German Physicist, Rudolph Clausius, who lived for about 2/3rds of the center portion of the 19th century.
To whit : “No cyclic machine, can have no other effect, than to transport HEAT from a source, at one Temperature, to a sink at a higher Temperature.”
Now even AGF must agree, that is one piece of lexicological legerdemain. Hopefully, the original German, is equally obtuse.
Maybe one of our German friends, can find us the German original.
So what the hey, is Clausius telling us ??
Well first notice that little word “cyclic”. Words have meaning !
The second law presumes that HEAT ENERGY can travel in BOTH DIRECTIONS, but there is a net transport, only in the hot to cold direction. That is it in a nutshell.
So now what about electromagnetic field propagation, and radiant energy. That Poynting Vector business ??
Only two of the four forces of nature, are infinite in range, and can go anywhere (and everywhere) they darn well please. Gravity, and electro-magnetism.
The other two, the weak force , and the strong force, are doomed to remain imprisoned, in the atomic nucleus. The strong force stops that gang of protons, from blowing the whole thing to smithereens.. The weak force is involved in beta decay. I’ll face the wrath of Prof .rgb, if I’m wrong about that second case of confinement.
So back to the EM force and fields, and flocks of photons.
Well Rudolph Clausius, also had something to say about that. Specifically, Clausius at a quite early historic date, derived the so-called “Optical Sine Theorem”.
The OST says that in any EM field propagation, the quantity N.H.Sin(U) is conserved (invariant).
N is the refractive index of the medium, that the field is in, H is the height of a ray or image (or object), and U is the angle that the ray makes with the propagation axis.
A rigorous proof of the conservation everywhere in the field, can be found in “Born and Wolf”.
I have not been able to confirm that Wolf was German; Max Born certainly was.
The OST for small values , so called paraxial optics, becomes n.h.u where it is commonly referred to as the “Lagrange Invariant.”
For thermodynamassistants, nhu is a description of the radiance (brightness (bad swear word)) of a source of EM radiant energy. What Black Bodies emit; that Stefan-Boltzmann business.
So what Clausius, basically said, was that ” no optical system, can form an “image”, that is brighter than the source. There I used that swear word. Use “Radiance” or “luminance”, depending on radiant versus visual units. (Light is a figment of the humane eye/brain, in response to radiant energy in the circa 400-800 nm range). Ergo, we get no light from the sun, either; it’s all in our head !
So Clausius postulated an optical system, that could create, an “image” having a higher radiance than the “.source”.
So he chose a source that is a black body radiator , that is at a Temperature Ts, and produces a Lambertian radiance of (sigma).Ts^4 / pi , W / sr / m^2.
At the image of his optical system, he now has a radiance of s.(sigma).Ts^4, where s is a factor >1.0 per Clausius asserted condition.
So we now put a second black body at the image, to capture all of the radiant energy emerging from the optical system.
At equilibrium, the receiving black body, will be at a Temperature Ti, and will be emitting at a Lambertian radiance of (sigma).Ti^4, which must at equilibrium just equal the received energy, so we must have (sigma).Ti^4 = s.(sigma).Ts^4, and since s we defined as being greater than 1.0, so we must have Ti > Ts by s^0.25
This violates the second law, so our postulate of a radiance gain, is impossible; no optical system, can make an image brighter (oops) than the source.
Now since optics (at least geometrical optics) is bidirectional, so if I switch source and image, then the Clausius forbidden optical system would make an image that is dimmer than the source.
Nah ! can’t do that either. Ergo, the Lagrange invariant, or OST, is conserved.
A corollary to that rule, there is an add on Optics theorem, which says; “No optical system, can make an image that is brighter (ouch) than that made by an “Aplanatic” optical system.
Aplanatic, is a three dollar word, that means, corrected for both “spherical aberration”, and also corrected for “coma.” Coma, makes star images look like little comet shaped ice cream cones. So you can’t tell exactly where in the image, the star actually is.
Astronomers prefer Ebola, to coma.
But back at the EMR is not heat thing; if a cooler entity is radiating towards a higher Temperature object, and that radiation is all absorbed by the presumably isolated receiving object, and eventually ripples down to the heat basement, the source will find that it is in the line of fire of the hotter object, which is radiating harder than the cooler object, and if everything persists, the hotter higher Temperature source will win.
Mickey Mouse cannot keep up with all the broomicles in trying to empty the flooded sorcerer’s Alchemy shack.
But how the heck can a rotating earth ever reach equilibrium (Temperature equality), with the sun.
That blow torch beam, that is beating down on me now, in California, will be over Mauna Loa, in a few hours, and I will get a chance to cool down, before getting enshined again tomorrow. And this damn M$ editor tried to correct my speeling, and enshrine me. Too late for that.
So radiant energy emitters and receivers, do not escape the wrath of Rudolph Clausius, if they keep on looking at each other; but they aren’t trading “heat” (noun) back and forth. They simply conform to the optical sine theorem; and can’t outshine each other.
You
Heat (as a noun) is defined as being any of the following:
1. the quality of being hot; high temperature
2. heat seen as a form of energy arising from the random motion of the molecules of bodies, which may be transferred by conduction, convection, or radiation.
3. the amount of heat that is needed to cause a specific process or is evolved in such a process.
#2 is of most interest here. Heat travels… in the form of radiation.
No no no. Go back to a thermo book and look at phase diagrams. Contemplate ice-water mixtures, which remain at the temperature of ice (when heated or cooled quasi-statically by a WARMER or COOLER sink). In fact, that’s how they originally defined the reference temperatures — water boiling at 1 atm remains at 100 C as long as there is water to boil, ice/water mixtures were used to define 0 C for the same reason.
Well, a qualification for the no — yes, the ice water has to be heated or cooled by a reservoir at a higher or lower temperature than the ice water mixture, but provided that the ice-water mixture is heated slowly enough to remain in (local) thermodynamic equilibrium, the well-mixed ice and water are at the same temperature. Heat entering the system goes preferentially into latent heat, shifting ice across the phase boundary either way.
You can remind yourself of this stuff here:
http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~wdwu/351/Lecture15.ppt
Note well slide 5, which shows S(P). See the places where S jumps discontinuously at constant P? That’s basically heat transfer at constant temperature — the entropy change is \Delta Q_latent/(T = 273.16) — the absorption/rejection of the latent heat at constant temperature at the first order phase boundary.
rgb
In other words, you are saying that when we teach physics (or chemistry) courses on thermodynamics, we no longer teach the first law of thermodynamics:
is the heat — defined a variety of ways, but essentially as internal energy spontaneously transferred and hence no longer available to do work) because “heat” doesn’t exist?
(sign convention U is internal energy OF system, W is positive work done ON system,
All of those section discussing heat in contemporary physics textbooks are meaningless? The classical thermodynamic definition of entropy change at constant temperature (useful in the consideration of phase change/latent heat and in analyzing heat engines) as:
is meaningless?
I think you misunderstand, big time. Heat is a perfectly well understood concept, even as it is fully recognized in macroscopic thermodynamics textbooks that there is no such thing as a well-defined “amount of heat in a body”, only an amount of internal energy in that body. Since heat transfer depends on path, thermodynamics books often represent its differential with a bar through it to remind is that one cannot integrate it to find an absolute amount, even though in motion it is a perfectly reasonable idea.
I think you are referring to statistical mechanics. In stat mech, heat per se does not exist and entropy is the log of the missing information. When one does the averages, though, stat mech solutions for large systems always obey the laws of thermodynamics.
With that said (and it needed to be said) I agree that heat is often misused in the discussion of climate, but, I suspect, not in a way that causes any violations of the laws of thermodynamics as long as Slayers are not involved. I’m guilty of it myself — it is very easy to conflate heat and internal energy in casual discussion, and talk about the heat flowing into a system as if it all goes into increasing temperature (internal energy) rather than some into increasing temperature and some into doing work. Especially in macroscopic scale climate systems, where the net work over any long time average is manifestly (almost) zero.
rgb
Arrgh. Should have previewed first, sorry. Let’s try:
is the heat flow into the systems in the statements above.
and that
rgb
“I have not been able to confirm that Wolf was German; Max Born” Emil Wolf: Czech then Brit. My (sixth-edition) version says he was teaching at the University of Rochester. I think Born & Wolf was an English-language expansion of Born’s “Optik.”
No, you did fine. Note well that the source of light-borne energy is the sun, surface temperature 5500 K, so basically there isn’t even the faintest possibility of paradox associated with heat flow in the greenhouse effect at temperatures over an order of magnitude lower here, though.
Note also that the most common abuse of the Clausius principle is to assert that the existence of an intermediate LW (IR) absorptive layer between the Earth’s SW (Visible) sun-warmed surface and the very cold indeed 3 K of mostly empty space cannot cause the surface to warm relative to the temperature it would attain in dynamical equilibrium without it because it is colder than the surface. This is simple nonsense, mere piffle, moonshine, ignorance in motion, and violates the common principles of radiative physics and the laws of thermodynamics, which without any doubt show that the sun-warmed surface will indeed warm further if an interpolating LWIR absorber later exists between the surface and cold infinity.
So be sure you don’t encourage the growth of absurdity. A simple mirror at 3 K is perfectly capable of reflecting energy back at a heated source so that its temperature rises compared to what it would be if there were no mirror. This is the basic idea of the so-called “space blanket”, used to preserve the warmth generated by electronics in cold, cold perfectly absorptive space.
rgb
Um, you do know about phase transitions, right? The melting ice is indeed being heated, but its temperature does not change because heat is not the same thing as internal energy! In particular, you are ignoring the change in entropy. The organization of the solid is completely different from the organization of the liquid. The information required to specify the state of the solid is much less than that required to specify the state of the liquid. If you look at coexistence curves with entropy as an axis this is all perfectly clear.
Maybe you should take a thermo course at some point? I’m just sayin’…
rgb
richardscourtney says: August 13, 2014 at 7:51 am
“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).”
Yes. And part of that gradient is within the cooler body. It can’t be isothermal.
In fact, phase change takes place at an interface. Heat has to be brought to that interface (or taken away). In melting, that generally requires a temperature gradient through the liquid phase. As melting proceeds, heat has to travel further, so overall the temperature rises.
“””””…..Joe Born says:
August 13, 2014 at 3:22 pm
“I have not been able to confirm that Wolf was German; Max Born” Emil Wolf: Czech then Brit. My (sixth-edition) version says he was teaching at the University of Rochester. I think Born & Wolf was an English-language expansion of Born’s “Optik.”…..”””””
Thanx Joe. I did find a reference that cited some award of a Czech medal, but nowhere did anyone say he was Czech. I did consider it a possibility.
My B&W is buried around here somewhere, and I wish I had thought of checking there. I need to disinter it anyway, to keep it closer at hand.
Your Great Uncle, sure wrote one hell of a fine textbook.
george e. smith says:
August 13, 2014 at 4:03 pm
Max Born, as in Olivia Newton-John’s granddad? So, Joe’s cousin?
“””””…..looncraz says:
August 13, 2014 at 2:39 pm
Heat (as a noun) is defined as being any of the following:
1. the quality of being hot; high temperature
2. heat seen as a form of energy arising from the random motion of the molecules of bodies, which may be transferred by conduction, convection, or radiation.
3. the amount of heat that is needed to cause a specific process or is evolved in such a process.
#2 is of most interest here. Heat travels… in the form of radiation……”””””
Well I would wager that that is not a definitive definition, from some well recognized thermo-dynamics text book. If it is, then give me the name of it, so I don’t make the huge mistake of buying it.
“””…#2 is of most interest here. Heat travels… in the form of radiation……”””””
Well of equal interest, is that heat is transferred by means of grocery shopping cart, as well as the conduction, convection and radiation that you cite. You simply fill the cart with Presto logs, or Kingsford BBQ briquettes; maybe you can even buy coal at the local hardware store or feedlot store.
Simply put a match to it to open it up and let all that heat leak out of the cart.
It is ENERGY that is conveyed by radiation. And here on earth, you can turn it into algae, or grass or trees, and even now, photo-electricity. You don’t really have to waste it by throwing it into the trashcan of heat.
“Max Born, as in Olivia Newton-John’s granddad? So, Joe’s cousin?”
All my ancestors are German, but my uncle, who is indeed a physicist, tells me there’s no known connection with Max Born.
Max Born, tends to get a bit too underrated. I think he was a giant.
But what competition. The German physicists of the late 19th, and early 2oth century; were an incredible bunch, as George Gamow, writes in his fascinating book; ” Thirty Years, that shook Physics. ”
Incidentally, the physicist / MD, I mentioned above, was once a student of George Gamow;
Thanx Joe.
Joe Born says:
August 13, 2014 at 4:32 pm
Your uncle is lucky to be blessed with such a great name for a scientist. The American Paul Ehrlich, not so much.
Kristian (August 13, 2014 at 1:05 am):
Every time I think you cannot get more confused, you manage to amaze me. You say:
“The mean upward transfer of energy by radiation from the global surface would be 63 W/m^2 in both cases [transparent and radiatively active atmospheres], 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.”
You are completely missing the very elementary fact that if the atmosphere cannot transfer any energy to space (which it could only do by radiation), it cannot on any ongoing basis get transferred to it energy from the earth’s surface. So to say that it would accept an average 97 W/m^2 on an ongoing basis from the surface when it radiates 0 W/m^2 to space is simply ridiculous. That you would assert something so trivially wrong indicates that you cannot perform the most simple thermodynamic analysis. You would be flailing by the second week of an introductory thermodynamics class.
If the atmosphere absorbed nothing in the visible spectrum as well as LWIR, the surface would absorb an average 240 W/m^2. Over the long term, the atmosphere would neither transfer energy to or from the earth’s surface, the only entity it could exchange energy with. The earth’s surface would need to be able to reject an average of 240 W/m^2, and the only avenue for it to do so is by radiating to space (which has an effective radiative temperature of ~0K, so it does not matter whether we look at it as uni-directional or bi-directional). So it would have to have a temperature of 255K (or less if varying) to do this.
If the atmosphere absorbed 79 W/m^2 of solar radiation (with 161 W/m^2 absorbed by the surface) but had no way of radiating LWIR to space, the earth’s surface would still need to radiate 240 W/m^2 to space, with the atmosphere transferring 79 W/m^2 to the surface (so there would be a temperature inversion in the atmosphere).
If you cannot perform these most basic energy balance calculations, you have nothing — NOTHING — to contribute to these discussions.