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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Hilary
In the Stern report it is estimated there is an estimated cost of 30£ billion a year for the UK alone so that 165billion figure seems reasonable (as an estimate obviously, not as a sensible amount to spend on a non problem)
tonyb
Matthew R Marler says, August 11, 2014 at 12:30 am:
“Attempts by people to deny these basic concepts are astonishing. Kristian has argued that when the electrons transition from higher energy level orbits to lower energy level orbits and generate IR that way, the energy of the electrons disappears (or at least goes somewhere other than the radiation that he has not told us about.) Other people have argued that the radiant energy from CO2 molecules in the lower troposphere can’t go toward the surface because the CO2 molecules somehow know that the surface has a higher mean kinetic energy than the surrounding air; without explaining to us how the radiant energy emerging from the CO2 molecules knows that.”
What is astonishing is rather that people still don’t get the exceedingly simple and basic point I’m trying to make.
You are only misrepresenting what I’m saying here, Matthew. Building a straw man. No wonder people are convinced ‘I’m wrong and ignorant’.
Let me try and explain one more time.
I agree with Richard Verney. It is not at all about DWLWIR or not DWLWIR. It is about what DWLWIR is capable of doing. What is DWLWIR? And what isn’t it? Well, we all agree by now (?) that it’s definitely not heat, that is, it is not a net transfer of radiative energy to the warmer surface from the cooler atmosphere. That would be absurd.
This is a good starting point.
I will ask once more what I asked on the Bombshell thread:
“For a photovoltaic cell at ambient temperature, how do you suggest we harvest the DWLWIR energy from the atmospere above when there is always more UWLWIR moving out? How do you suggest the DWLWIR in this way will manage to increase the internal energy (U) of the photovoltaic cell? If we don’t first (artificially) cool the cell to become colder than the air above?”
Consider this. The surface (or the photovoltaic cell) is warmer than the atmosphere above. There is one radiation field between them, meaning there is one continuous thermal radiative energy exchange going on between them through this radiation field, because of their temperature difference: Q or P/A = es*(Tsfc^4 – Tatm^4). P/A (Q) is the radiative heat, the net energy, moving from the warmer surface to the cooler atmosphere. The two terms on the right-hand side are the thermal radiant emittances of the two systems involved in the exchange, the UWLWIR and the DWLWIR. Their sum is the P/A, the radiative heat.
Let’s do this as straightforward as possible. Let’s say the surface does in fact at any one time absorb the DWLWIR as a flux of radiative energy. We want to see if we can detect an actual effect from this absorption. Does the internal energy of the surface increase? Does the temperature rise as a result? It would. If it weren’t for one thing. The DWLWIR is not alone in the exchange. The surface is warmer than the atmosphere. So concurrent with the absorption of the energy within the DWLWIR, it releases more energy the opposite way, up to the atmosphere, as UWLWIR. There is no lag here. It all happens continuously, simultaneously and instantaneously.
Do we ever see the DWLWIR in fact increase the internal energy of the surface in this situation? Do we ever see it raise its temperature?
Do we ever see DWLWIR ‘heat’ the surface? Do we ever see the DWLWIR do ‘work’ on the surface?
No. Because the larger UWLWIR flux is always there countering it in real time (as it comes in).
This is why the only actual transfer of energy within a thermal exchange (a heat transfer), conductive or radiative, that we could ever detect and ever see the effect from is the HEAT, the net energy, in a radiative exchange the vector sum of the UWLWIR and DWLWIR.
I don’t understand why people get so angry when this very basic fact is pointed out to them. I’m not talking about you, Matthew. I’m talking about people like David M. Hoffer who seems to have nothing but infuriated ad homs and regurgitated talking point statements to offer, no real arguments. It’s like waving the proverbial red flag. He says I’m wrong and ignorant, but can’t and won’t point out exactly what it is I’m saying that’s so wrong, so ignorant. I’m only presenting thermodynamic concepts and principles the way they are explained and described in modern textbooks within the field. There is nothing mysterious or novel in what I’m saying.
DWLWIR has no singular effect on the surface. That is the simple truth. Yes, if the atmosphere gets warmer and the surface doesn’t, then the temperature difference between the two is reduced and the P/A (equation above) – the heat – gets smaller. That is the ONLY effect the DWLWIR term could ever have. But that is not ‘heating’ or ‘doing work on’ the surface, folks.
Can we please move on from there?
Ironically, the likely gas phase stability of carbonic acid appears to have completely slipped under the radar of climate modelling.
Arrhenius’ slip [it seems reasonable to assume he actually meant CO2, not carbonic acid] has been propagated by those who think it is too unstable to consider in the atmosphere, despite being continuously formed and decomposed during the interactions of carbon dioxide with clouds.
I once calculated the amount of CO2 dissolved in the water droplets in a typical cloud, and it’s quite small, about 7%. This neglects extra surface solubility, so it could be greater.
Nick Stokes says: August 10, 2014 at 3:06 pm
…. Whenever people refer to sensitivity as 2&dseg;C/doubling, or whatever, they are invoking the logarithmic behaviour.
Hold the ALT key down
Type 0176 on the num keys
Release the ALT key
ALT 248 works, too.
davidmhoffer says:
August 10, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Give me a parabolic dish large enough that reflects in the IR spectrum, and I can boil a pot of water in seconds with it at night with DWLWIR.
Your ignorance is astounding, if you tried your experiment, like hundreds before you, you will find that an object that is the focus of the parabolic dish COOLS.
Just Google night fridges, to save you time see
http://solarcooking.org/radiant-fridge.htm
http://littleshop.physics.colostate.edu/tenthings/SpaceFridge.pdf
Even Roy Spencer tried it with the same result, but of course being a “believer” he rationalised that without all that Radiant energy the objects in the cool box would have been as cold as space itself.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/07/first-results-from-the-box-investigating-the-effects-of-infrared-sky-radiation-on-air-temperature/
Donald L. Klipstein says:
August 10, 2014 at 12:41 pm
“Since an increase of surface temperature in response to an increase of GHGs causes an increase of outgoing surface radiation,”
————–
That sounds like “perpetual energy creation”, …….best you patent it, … quickly.
Genghis says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:11 am
“Infrared (atmospheric radiation) is absorbed by the top few microns of the surface, which does in fact heat the ocean.
When that happens, evaporation simply picks up the pace a tiny little bit, and the ocean surface temperature stays exactly the same”.
([August 10, at 11:45 am] – 3 microns over a square meter equals 3 cubic centimeters being heated by 130 watts)
———————-
Genghis, concerning your above, I have a question which I am seriously interested in knowing the answer to, …. thus I would be quite pleased if you would be so kind to offer your knowledge and/or opinion to aid me in my quest.
My question is: When the above stated (H2O) evaporation occurs, is there any CO2 outgassed as a direct result of said evaporation?
Ghengis 7:24pm: “…my best guess is that the atmospheric radiation has increased by almost 80 watts since sunset which translates to .16K.”
A quick check of the noaa esrl surfrad data near New Orleans shows more like a measured drop of 415 to 380 W/m^2 DWLWIR yesterday all night. For .07K slowing of cooling of the skin T all night by DWLWIR with about 10 W/m^2 or .02K difference when cloud cover drifted by for about an hour.
In any event, your IR thermometer is picking up photons emitted from multiple bulk water depths for which bulk mass won’t change fast enough in T where the M-AERI measured skin T by interferometer vs. thermometer set a few cm.s depth. If precise measuring was as easy as your quick test, the researchers would not have gone to all the trouble for building the instrument & a month long ocean cruise taking data day and night.
george e. smith says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:08 pm
“””””…..The entire debate should have ended with “CO2 is logarithmic”. It has remained alive by an elaborate shell game by the IPCC. They present facts which are utterly true, and completely irrelevant. When we apply THEIR math and THEIR sensitivity and THEIR calculations to the here and NOW, their argument goes “poof” and disappears in a puff of logic……”””””
If the CO2 effect (on surface / lower tropo temperature) is logarithmic, the going from 280 ppm to 560 ppm should give the same temperature rise, as going from 1 ppm CO2 to 2 ppm; or for that matter, from one molecule of CO2 per cubic meter, to 2 molecules of CO2 per cubic meter.
CO2 temperature response IS NOT logarithmic.
Just got back to this thread.
@george e smith – Essenitially that is what I was suggesting when I responded way upstream to
Nick Stokes says:
August 10, 2014 at 3:06 pm
The basis for this percent arithmetic (here and earlier) is not stated, and it makes no sense. A logarithmic curve has diminishing slope, but no maximum or minimum.
Since we are talking about the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, there must be both a minimum (0%) and a maximum (100%) atmospheric CO2 levels. The supposed logarithmic curve would not go infinitely in either direction since it would stop at both ends.
Further, there is the question of at what level of CO2 in the atmosphere do we get an effective “saturation point” where adding additional CO2 doesn’t make a difference?
The “1 degree temp increase per doubling of atmospheric CO2” just doesn’t meet the “sniff test”. As you, and I, point out, 1 part CO2/total (1 molecule) in the atmosphere wouldn’t change the temp, except, perhaps, theoretically. Doubling to 2 molecules (2 parts CO2/total) wouldn’t add 1 degree of temp. There must be a minimum amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that actually changes the atmospheric temperature by this 1 degree mark that seems important. Further, just as less than this minimum CO2 that effects a 1 degree change doesn’t meet the “1 degree for each doubling” test, wouldn’t there also be an amount at the other end of the scale where a doubling also no longer meets the “1 degree” difference? Especially since there is only a finite amount of heat to be absorbed?
Again, just wondering.
Kristian says:
DWLWIR has no singular effect on the surface. That is the simple truth. Yes, if the atmosphere gets warmer and the surface doesn’t, then the temperature difference between the two is reduced and the P/A (equation above) – the heat – gets smaller. That is the ONLY effect the DWLWIR term could ever have. But that is not ‘heating’ or ‘doing work on’ the surface, folks.
=============
Kristian, take a deep breath and relax, we are on the same side. Your functional view of DWLWIR is correct almost all of the time. The biggest part of the problem is that the warmers framed the debate the way they wanted to to amplify the affects of radiation and instead of focusing on net radiation they chose to separate it to make it appear larger and more important than it is. They love saying that the DWLWIR is 450 watts while the up welling radiation from the surface is 458 watts. 450 watts is probably more than your microwave puts out. The implication is that we are all going to roast, like a pig on a spit.
The truth though is that there is a measly net of 8 watts difference between the two objects, hardly even measurable, and certainly not something anyone could do any work with. But the 8 watts is real, can do work and can warm objects at least theoretically and there is the rub. The warmistas are only claiming a net of .6 watts. We can’t even measure the difference when there is 130 watts of real atmospheric radiation and we are supposed to run screaming to the hills because theoretically there might be .6 watts of warming?
SkepticGoneWild says:
August 10, 2014 at 11:41 pm
DWLWIR varies but is something in the order of 340 W/m-2, roughly. This value occurs at night as well. So if I walk out of my house at night into this downwelling infrared, it would seem like I should be able to feel it on my skin, since it is about the same intensity as regular sunlight at about 9 to 10 in the morning. Hmmm. I don’t feel a thing.
Obviously DWLWIR Watts are not the same as any other kind of Watts, try standing in front of a 340W electric fire, I am sure you would feel it.
Not only that but according to the Climate Balance diagram there are only about 161 Watts of sunshine at the surface, so you should feel twice as hot.
Yeah right.
Genghis says, August 11, 2014 at 6:30 am:
I appreciate it, but I think the right address for this comment of yours is David M. Hoffer and his kind who all go bananas as soon as someone as much as hints at the possibility that DWLWIR from the cooler atmosphere cannot (by the laws of thermodynamics) ‘heat’ or ‘do work on’ the warmer surface. How dare we!? As Hoffer stated: We can both measure the heat it creates and the work it does. Er. No. Only if the atmosphere is warmer than the surface (or the sensor).
Trick says:
August 11, 2014 at 6:11 am
Ghengis 7:24pm: “…my best guess is that the atmospheric radiation has increased by almost 80 watts since sunset which translates to .16K.”
A quick check of the noaa esrl surfrad data near New Orleans shows more like a measured drop of 415 to 380 W/m^2 DWLWIR yesterday all night. For .07K slowing of cooling of the skin T all night by DWLWIR with about 10 W/m^2 or .02K difference when cloud cover drifted by for about an hour.
In any event, your IR thermometer is picking up photons emitted from multiple bulk water depths for which bulk mass won’t change fast enough in T where the M-AERI measured skin T by interferometer vs. thermometer set a few cm.s depth. If precise measuring was as easy as your quick test, the researchers would not have gone to all the trouble for building the instrument & a month long ocean cruise taking data day and night.
==============
If the the top few microns of the surface is capable of absorbing 90% of the atmospheric IR then the top few microns of the surface is capable of absorbing 90% of the IR from the water below. My IR gun is picking up the same radiation as their interferometer.
They are trying to measure the gradient of the water just below the surface, which I agree is very difficult. The problem that I have with their method is that they are claiming that gradient below the surface is slowing the flux without the surface warming first.
What is wrong with my calculation regarding the joules to the surface from increased cloud radiation? My calcs are straight forward.
A C Osborn says, August 11, 2014 at 6:35 am:
“DWLWIR varies but is something in the order of 340 W/m-2, roughly. This value occurs at night as well. So if I walk out of my house at night into this downwelling infrared, it would seem like I should be able to feel it on my skin, since it is about the same intensity as regular sunlight at about 9 to 10 in the morning. Hmmm. I don’t feel a thing.
Obviously DWLWIR Watts are not the same as any other kind of Watts, try standing in front of a 340W electric fire, I am sure you would feel it.
Not only that but according to the Climate Balance diagram there are only about 161 Watts of sunshine at the surface, so you should feel twice as hot.
Yeah right.”
DWLWIR could be 1,000,000 W/m^2 and if you emitted 1,000,050 W/m^2 worth of UWLWIR, you wouldn’t feel it any more than if the DWLWIR were a mere 300 W/m^2 and your UWLWIR 350 W/m^2. Because the radiative HEAT in both situations would be 50 W/m^2 moving from you to the air. You would cool to the air in both scenarios.
Only the net energy matters in a heat transfer.
george e. smith says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:16 pm
“Heat is (chaotic) mechanical kinetic energy. It IS NOT electro-magnetic radiation, which is a propagating field .”
This is argument by definition. The word ‘heat’ as noun and verb and the Roman equivalents ‘caloricum’ and ‘calentare’ were around long before physicists defined “electromagnetic energy” and “specific heat.” To insist that the sun does not radiate ‘heat’ is a tyrannical abrogation of lexical authority, like claiming a dromedary is not a true camel. Since molecules and electrons never really touch you have in essence defined the verbal use of ‘heat’ out of existence.
How about it: does the sun ‘warm’ a camel’s back? Does it heat it? Let’s not make up our own words and definitions. –AGF
AlecM 12:11am: “Real GHE is obtained by calculating no cloud or ice albedo, 341 W/m^2, mean surface temperature and subtracting that 4 to 5 deg C from present ~15 deg C, ~ 11 K”
That 11K is just using your different definition of GHE. Satellites measure Tmean = 255K in thin atm. at their orbit and surface thermometers in Earth thick surface atm. measure Tmean = 288K. This is not disputed unless you can find a basic physics error in one of them. Which would make the evening news.
10:26pm: “…the heat generation rate in the atmosphere is 238.5 SW..”
Heat doesn’t exist in nature. There is no energy generated in the atm. either as the atm. uses up no fuel. This comes from your confusion over applying the generalized 1st law in non-atm. text books from your 10:02pm:
“(monochromatic heating rate of matter/unit volume) = – ∇.(monochromatic radiative flux density)”
Your 1st term for the atm. is = 0 as no energy is generated within the atm. and the term on the other side for the atm. is (net energy in from sun – net energy out from surface) for the volume of interest. For the surface volume balance, the mass of the atm. radiates a real flux incident on the surface all the time at all frequencies at all of its temperatures and has to be included as in nature.
And again, can anyone tell me why CO2 tracks methane in the ice cores? –AGF
@agfosterjr: the warming of the camel’s back from solar SW energy is by the physical process called ‘thermalisation’. This is the absorption of SW energy quanta by raising electron orbitals to higher energy states followed by emission of lower energy quanta, a process called fluorescence.
The lower energy quanta cause the energy to be transferred to greater molecular motion; heat.
CO2 lags warming, Stupid! Not the other way round. Why is this shite even here?
A C Osborn says: Not only that but according to the Climate Balance diagram there are only about 161 Watts of sunshine at the surface, so you should feel twice as hot.
Yeah right.
Please tell me you are not serious. The “Climate Balance” diagram displays 24 hour averages. Per Wikipedia, “The Sun’s rays are attenuated as they pass through the atmosphere, thus reducing the irradiance at the Earth’s surface to approximately 1000 W /m2 for a surface perpendicular to the Sun’s rays at sea level on a clear day”
DWLWIR is electromagnetic radiation just as the sun’s radiative spectrum is electromagnetic radiation. The frequencies are just different. Watts are watts in the electromagnetic spectrum. 430 watts of DWLWIR at the earth’s surface should produce something my skin would feel. But I walk out into the night and feel no warmth on my skin. What’s up with that?.
Kristian: Well, we all agree by now (?) that it’s definitely not heat, that is, it is not a net transfer of radiative energy to the warmer surface from the cooler atmosphere. That would be absurd.
The radiant energy of radiation is transferred (or converted) to kinetic energy through interactions.
In a parcel of air, the temperature is proportional to the mean kinetic energy of the molecules: some have way above average energy, some have way below average kinetic energy; in a parcel of the surface, the temp is proportional to the mean kinetic energy of the molecules, and some are above average, some below. When the temp of the air increases, the fraction above a certain kinetic energy level increases. Net heat flow is always from warmer to cooler parcels, but the highest energy molecules in the air radiate in all directions, including downward, and when the temp of the air increases, the fraction of the molecules radiating downward (as well as other directions) increases, slowing the net transfer of energy from the warmer surface to the cooler air. That isn’t illogical or contrary to known physical laws; you just have to remember that not every molecule capable of emitting or absorbing radiant energy is at the mean kinetic energy of its environment. Warming of the surface is caused by the radiant energy of the sun; the net warming effect of CO2 is caused by the reduction in the surface cooling rate.
Nick Stokes: Well, thanks, that sounds dodgy, but still doesn’t elucidate the arithmetic. What is the numerator, and what the denominator, in the 87%?
the dodginess results from the lack of explicitness in specifying the range of the CO2 concentrations over which the logarythmic relations holds. 87% is a little more than 5/6, representing a little over 5 doublings out of 6 in the range. Like the hypothetical equilibrium climate sensitivity (and whatever it represents in the real climate), it can’t be estimated to 2 significant figures. 12ppm to 800 ppm is 6 doublings, of which 5 have occurred already. We can’t really tell what the correct upper and lower bounds are for this estimation.
David G says:
August 11, 2014 at 8:20 am
CO2 lags warming, Stupid! Not the other way round. Why is this shite even here?
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On the chance that David G was responding to my question, I would refer him and any others to this graph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#mediaviewer/File:Vostok_420ky_4curves_insolation.jpg
which is a colorized version of figure 3 here: http://geoweb.princeton.edu/people/bender/lab/downloads/Petit_et_al_1999_copy.pdf
And while David G is not likely to grasp the problems entailed by Vostok’s close tracking of CO2 and CH4, others may be. If so I’d like to hear from them. –AGF
Kristian,
“DWLWIR could be 1,000,000 W/m^2 and if you emitted 1,000,050 W/m^2 worth of UWLWIR, you wouldn’t feel it any more than if the DWLWIR were a mere 300 W/m^2 and your UWLWIR 350 W/m^2. Only the net energy matters in a heat transfer.”
One little experiment you can try is to place your hand near a source of radiant heat such as a grill (or broiler). Choose a distance where the initial feeling is hot but not uncomfortable. Each second that passes your hand feels hotter and hotter, then burning hot.
What is happening? Why doesn’t your skin register the pain in the first tenth of a second, the time for the nerve impulse to reach the brain?
In the first second more energy is being received by your skin than is radiating outwards – equilibrium has not been reached – and at this outgoing radiation flux, your skin has warmed to a comfortable temperature. After another second, in order to reach equilibrium, more energy is being radiated back from your skin and this can only happen at a higher temperature. The process continues until the outgoing radiation from your skin equals the incoming radiation – or the temperature becomes unbearable and you remove your hand.
If you replace your hand with a slice of bread you can relax and watch it toast. It does so because when the bread radiates at the same flux density as the incoming radiation from the grill, the temperature to make this happen is very high – which is why you couldn’t leave your hand there.
Now, what about a situation where you was radiating and receiving 1,000,050 W/m^2. The net energy transfer is zero but I wouldn’t like it, would you? The temperature would be hot enough to chargrill you.