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Anthony Watts
A challenge to proponents of significant intervention in order to mitigate significant anthropogenic global warming (I suggest we challenge everyone we can with this.)
The question: “Hypothetically speaking, would you support the intervention you propose despite a scenario where it became apparent that feedbacks had been erroneously calculated and as a result global warming was of a minor and non threatening magnitude?”
If the answer is yes then that person needs to stop hiding behind the science is settled argument and come clean (maybe wake up to the fact) that they are ideologically driven.
There are couple of good reasons someone might be ideologically driven. 1. I think there is strong confusion regarding co2 as a pollutant. Co2 is only a pollutant if global warming theories are correct- otherwise it is a fertilizer. Co2 is not smog or soot. Breath out- that is 40% co2. Co2 is non toxic- I can do cpr with co2 or I can breathe it out if a paper bag if hyperventilating. Watch the exhaust from a plane- that is smog (and some co2 you can’t see)
2. The world would be better off anyway with clean energy. Everyone would agree this is true – at the right price for the right trade offs. An example of a current trade off is “do we spend a billion dollars a day to mitigate climate change that might not (probably not?) happen or do we spend a billion dollars a day to feed the poorest billion people on earth to whom it would make a huge difference?” Proponents of costly interventions need to at least acknowledge this trade off.
3. Personal gain – we won’t be able to engage those people.
Please, take a deep breath and find out about CO2.
The idea that you breath out 40% CO2 is absurd.
The end tidal CO2 (concentration of CO2 in the air at the very end of you breathing out) is 5 to 6%.
Your idea that CO2 is non toxic is equally absurd. Try breathing 15% CO2 and see what will happen to you.
We all know that CO2 is a fertilizer from our school days (a while ago for me) with the following equation on the blackboard in our classroom:
CO2 + H2O + Energy from the sun + a few other things in the soil = FOOD also = FORESTATION.
I know, my youngest daughter is a high school science teacher, no blackboard in her modern classroom! Sorry for the students, they will have to find the equation on the Internet.
“Try breathing 15% CO2 and see what will happen to you.”
=============================================
Now try breathing 0.015% CO2, and see what happens to YOU.
And FYI, the current level of atmospheric CO2 (0.04%) is a lot closer to 0.015% than it is to 15%.
@rd Ahh oops quite right 40 mmhg= 5% co2. Thanks for the correction of my error.
Anyway the point is there is plenty of it in our breath. Sure I imagine it is “toxic” in high concentrations. Oxygen or water are toxic if you have enough. Cyanide however is toxic if you have very little. These are different concepts.
Ps nice use of non threatening language eg “absurd”-
Why can’t people be civil? Is it so hard? You will win many more arguments with polite language.
For some reason” Anything is possible “is replying to me below, but the usual “Reply” at the bottom of the post is missing. So I will just reply here.
The claim is made by Sam Martin that he exhales 40% CO2. This is absurd. He also claims that CO2 is not toxic. Since he claims that he exhales 40% CO2, how would inhaling 15% be toxic to him?
The “Anything is possible” person ignores the fact that exhaling 40% CO2 is absurd.
I know how much CO2 there is in the air, no need to remind me, not anywhere close to 15%. But since Sam Martin claims that he exhales 40% CO2 and that CO2 is non toxic, I simply asked him to try inhaling 15% CO2. Obviously, according to Sam Martin, nothing should happen to him. Just try it and then let me know. 15% is much lower than the 40% he claimed to exhaled. So, nothing should happen to him at 15%.
So, “Anything is possible”, just read again, a)Sam Martin is exhaling 40% CO2 with each breath and b)claims that CO2 is non toxic. Do you believe this? Let me know, Yes or No for a) and b).
@rd50
I was responding to your post, not Sam Martin’s.
Sam has posted an eloquent response to the points you raised. You want to try and do the same with the point I raised?
@ur momisugly Sam Martin…Not sure since I am new here but I think this is the way to reply to you.
I certainly did not want to be rude to you by using “absurd” and certainly had no intention of winning any argument.
Simply, as you wrote in your reply, 40% was just an honest mistake. The problem on the Internet is that if nobody “shoots your honest mistake down” you will then quoted, so now 40% CO2 exhaled is it, since you said it. So, glad the correction was now made by you. Much better than being made by me and everybody (I hope) will understand.
So now, indeed oxygen is toxic. Try hyperbaric chamber, not so good if pressure is too high. Even just 100% O2 at normal atmospheric pressure resulted in blindness (toxicity to the cornea) in newborn infants in incubators, we were trying to help them. We learned not to do this anymore.
The same with H2O. Mentally imbalanced individuals have gone on a H2O “drinking binge” resulting in severe convulsions and even death.
As for cyanide, strangely enough, it is not “that toxic” (it takes quite a bit of it to kill). What the big deal is with cyanide is that once you reach the amount needed to kill, it kills extremely fast.
In any event, I understand your post. You want the right thing to be done and it is not easy to do.
“Your idea that CO2 is non toxic is equally absurd. Try breathing 15% CO2 and see what will happen to you.”
Try breathing water, and see what happens to you. Is water toxic? Try eating a pound of salt, see what will happen to you. Is salt toxic? I am afraid it is you who are being absurd.
Almost anything is harmful in a high enough concentration or if used not for the purpose it was intended, but that does not mean it is toxic. Poisons are toxic because they are not edible in any dosage that will not cause harm. Topical treatments are helpful for use outside the body but may be poisonous if taken internally.
Sorry but saying CO2 is a toxin is ridiculous Joseph Goebbels type propaganda of the worst sort.
Something to consider isn’t so much what the percentage of CO2 is before it becomes harmful but rather what the remaining percentage is composed of.
Any gas that displacing the O2 in a confined space can kill. Not the gas itself, the lack of O2.
The atmosphere is hardly a confined space. (Technically, yes. Practically, no.)
The warmist and the EPA don’t call CO2 a pollutant because it is toxic but because of the unobserved and unproven effect they say the CO2 produced by Man is having on the temperature of the planet.
Calling CO2 a toxic gas when discussing global warming caused by the green house effect makes those who use that line of argument look a bit ridiculous.
All the best Anthony!
If we can help, we will!
There is no such thing as “clean” energy, it all makes some kind of mess somewhere.
I agree.
Indeed, try to minimize the “poison” from each, so to speak, or “some kind of mess” as you wrote.
I am just wondering if we are not better using the variety: wind, solar, nuclear, coal, oil, methane so that we get a little bit of “poison” from each but not enough of each “poison”, from each source to create a disaster or even from the combination of the “poisons” from all sources to create a disaster.
One thing I never see proposed in the mix of alternatives to fossil fuels in the USA for “clean energy” is hydroelectric. I was at Hoover Dam a few months ago. Impressive, built in 4 years and under budget!
I was gang attacked by rabid watermelons yesterday. Seems they are fearful that I use WUWT too much and that this wonderful site pays me. They were claiming that without humans the Earth would be in “Balance” and all would be stable and well.
So I posed this question for them, which sadly did not get them to think but sent them into a raging fury.
“If, without Humans, the Earth is in balance, how come 99% of all species that have ever lived on Earth are extinct?”
It would seem not to be in Balance!
Did you ask them who would be around to notice or care?
Here’s my favorite math question for those who strive to reduce their carbon footprints to save Gaia:
The current population of China is 1.3 billion and it is growing at roughly .5% net in population each year. The current population of India is 1.2 billion and it is growing at roughly 1.2% per year. An average person’s respiration generates approximately 450 liters (roughly 900 grams) of carbon dioxide per day (CO2#Human_physiology)
How many Americans must drive zero-emissions vehicles to offset the carbon footprint of the new Chinese and Indians born each year?
I never get a mathematical answer, for some reason. I am always told that “there are other reasons to drive zero emissions vehicles” and the subject somehow drifts away from carbon footprints.
NOTE (All my numbers here are quickly and lazily grabbed from the Internet but they are accurate enough for our purposes here)-
The problem with arguments of this ilk is the carbon they are exhaling came from the food they ate which absorbed CO2 out of the atmosphere to grow. Hence it is carbon neutral (in theory, ignoring the use of carbon fuels to grow the food). The CO2 from vehicle emissions was sequestered CO2 in the form of fossil fuel.
And the carbon contained in fossil fuels comes from animals that died millions of years ago. Animals that ate plants or other animals. And those plants fixed CO2 out of the atmosphere to grow. So, in the long term, fossil fuels are also carbon neutral.
… and by definition every single vehicle that runs on oil is primarily “solar powered” as most of the organic material was created with solar energy and also the “nuclear powered” part where geothermal heat rearranges all those molecules and don’t forget that renewable “gravity powered” part as the mass of the Earth provides the pressures needed for the underground “refinery.” Oil and coal are 100% naturally produced biofuels without the subsidies and engines destroyed by ethanol. Try running that one by your average tree hugger or Climateer… they make all kinds of funny noises and stamp their feet and then usually insult your intelligence and parentage. It’s really fun to watch them squirm when presented with facts.
I’ve just been looking at Hockey Schtick site and they have an article on excuse number 59 for the Pause, from “Its a travesty” Trenberth. Something about ocean oscillations again. what ever.
I did notice this though in the conclusion.
“Some of these aspects appear to be unique to the past decade and raise questions about whether natural internal variability itself is being altered by climate change.”
Who would have believed it. Climate Change is altering Climate Change. Never saw that one coming.
I wondered if what he was talking about was just a negative feedback loop.
Don’t be surprised if you hear an esxuse in the near future in the lines like;
“Some country like China or India has been using some kind of weather machine that has been imposing a cooling for about a decade now and suppressing the AGW.
The warmistas are desperate to the max by now.
The scientific AGW approach to the climate issue was simple, a 0.8C warming of the last century in the top of the previous 0.2C to 0.3C was a lot more than it could be explained [@ur momisugly about X2 factor] under the normal regular natural climatic variations known, either the short term or the long term.
The only “smoking gun” that could be seen or identified was the CO2 emissions, which were a lot more than the naturally expected.
Now they face a paradox, while it could be explained under the AGW the anomaly of a possitive feed in the system at about 0.6C excess, the negative feed shown by the discrepancy between the model projections and the real climate is already engaged at about -0.9C [at least] with an unexplainable excess of about -0.5 to -0.6C.
Is impossible to claim that CO2 emissions have something to do with it, unless the AGW is first trashed…
There is no any other “smoking gun” to pin this at.
This negative feed is even more disturbing than the possitive feed of the last century because the force behind it seems to be as twice of that behind the warming of the last century.
The force causing a +0.8C feed on top of an already 0.3C warming is at least half of the force needed to cause a -0.8C feed in a warming trend of about 1.0C.
cheers
This would be the Green Helicopter conspiracy ?
To be run in parallel with the Black Helicopter one?
I like it, almost as logical as claiming CO2 emissions from the Eastern countries causes cooling.
In opposition to Western CO2.
The Magic Gas has no limits… cause its magic?
I could demonstrate such a correlation from the rising CO2 atmospheric concentrations and the flatline to falling “Average Global Temperature”.
By the IPCC’s own metric and methods it follows that we must turn China into a preindustrial state, or face an ice age.
Long past time we tarred and feathered all involved in promoting CAGW.
One benefit of the relentless propaganda in our schools, child abuse really, is that the coming downturn in temperatures will drive the true lesson home to todays young adults.
The university of Hard Knocks teaches never trust a bureaucrat.Your interests are not shared.
The relationship of host and parasite is rarely symbiotic.
Never in a “progressive” society.
The child of erroneous modelling, The Pause is 18, todays adolescents have been sold an imaginary hobgoblin and they are becoming aware.
There is no “pause” in my opinion we are simply passing by the positive crest of a cycle, with each passing year we will see an accelerating rate of change as the cycle heads for the negative peak.
So seems the lesson of our short history of recording weather.
in re john robertson…
Let’s be “green” about this now. Tarring requires the use of evil fossil fuel leftovers and should not be considered as a valid approach to “natural” punishment. I would recommend the use of honey instead of tar. The honey may be boiled first in order to maintain the 2nd and 3rd degree burns consistent with the old fashioned tarring but there is a nice twist here. After the honey and feathering drop the “contestant” into the Arctic… surrounded by Polar Bears. A true CAGW believer would have no fear ’cause all the bears should have been extinct due to global warming. Punishment with the bonus of a honey treat for the bears… what could be “greener.”
What a good time I had watching college football being played today in the midwest. Notre Dame game was cold and rainy, so was Nebraska and Mich St and all the other games played in that region today. It was a pretty impressive example of global warming in action. Didn’t I see Chicago got snow? Do I need a sarc tag? Or has it just become Obvious that Climate Inc has failed?
Yes, the rest of the country got cold wet weather but here in southern California is was near 100 degrees. Proof that the earth is warming I was told by an “expert.”
What about the cold weather everywhere else I asked? I pointed out that Southern Cal is not global.
It caused that too. was her learned reply
I then asked if she supported the consensus.
Of course, she sneered
Precisely what is the consensus I asked. Quantify the amount of warming the consensus says is caused by man
Look it up for yourself. she bellowed, losing patience.
I already did. I said. You don’t know do you? I inquired. How can you support something you don’t even understand?
with a smug look of condescension she muttered F— O–as she quickly left the premises.
A notice appeared on her facebook page about two hours later stating that she had schooled a denier and put him in his place.
my friend had videoed the entire exchange on her iphone. I politely asked if the expert wanted me to post it on her facebook so that her friends could see how she put me in my place.
She immediately unfriended me and blocked my posts.
I found out later that several friends posted the video and now, 6 hours later, the expert has a much smaller following. she sent me a nasty text and said rude things
last time I try to do a favor for an expert
The eco-loons were much more fun when all they did was smoke hash, try to convince us that planetary alignments ruled us, preached that crystals healed themselves and would also fix our lives if we let them. Now that they’ve got a taste of government power and money they get nasty and cranky at the least little thing that threatens their paradigm. Who thought I’d ever miss the 60’s…
They become quite nasty when you try to suggest there is no GW. I was talking to my usually mild mannered physic tutor the other day, and for some reason she mentioned GW. I simply replied that I didn’t think the climate had heated up much, and that there was a good chance we were going to see cooler weather in the future. . She went red in the face, started stamping her foot and began to swear, and muttering ‘we’ve got to stop them’. After about five minutes, she calmed down and apologised to me.
As a ‘denier’ I am now expecting her to give me very low grades in my tests! These people are worse than the Inquisition.
Genghis October 4, 2014 at 5:30 pm
davidmhoffer “Changes in CO2 concentration do cause some energy to be “trapped” but it is an amount that is so small that it can be effectively rounded off to zero, and it would only exist in between equilibrium states. At equilibrium, the amount of energy escaping into space is exactly the same after CO2 doubles as it is before.”
Three problems with your ‘explanation’, 3.6 watts is not zero and the system never reaches equilibrium. Most importantly though the ‘greenhouse’ effect primarily takes place in the ocean which absorbs SW radiation and emits LW radiation. Most of the atmospheric LW radiation is reflected, like the internals of a LASERs gain medium.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
1. 3.6 watts which you quote should be 3.7 watts/m2, get your numbers correct. Secondly, that’s the change in radiative forcing at a given point in the atmosphere defined in one of the AR reports (3 I think). Radiative forcing and heat trapping are two completely different things. The only heat “trapped”by CO2 is related to the heat capacity of the “extra” CO2, which at 280 ppm is a rounding error approaching zero. If I am wrong, then so is Stefan-Boltzmann Law and all the physics that followed it.
2. The system absolutely reaches equilibrium provided that you consider it over a sufficient time period. But the original question was in regard to the theory, and from a strictly theoretical perspective, it is absolutely correct to compare equilibrium states.
3. Land absorbs SW and emits LW just as the oceans do.
CO2 does not trap “heat”. We should be so lucky, as to have a material that can trap heat. You could make your fortune selling it.
CO2 (temporarily) captures some quite narrow bands made up of even narrower spectral lines, in the total thermal radiation emitted from mostly the earth surface, and it very quickly disgorges itself of that radiant energy (photon) usually as a result of colliding with another molecule (of any sort). So that restores the CO2 molecule to pretty much its original state, with a widely varying kinetic energy, that it constantly interchanges with other molecules in collision.
But an important change occurs in that transaction. The original absorbed radiant energy, had been proceeding away from the surface, towards the freedom of outer space, but once captured by the CO2, it is re-emitted travelling in any random direction, (isotropic distribution), so now only half of it is headed towards space, and escape. So this slows down the escape process. During that delay, the sun keeps adding more energy, which mostly ends up on earth (in the oceans and rocks), so that increases the surface Temperature, which will in turn increase, the rate of radiant energy emission in a thermal emission spectrum; some of which, CO2, will be able to capture (temporarily).
The atmosphere itself does not actually have to be heated at all in this process. But of course it is heated by direct conduction from the hotter surface. The capture and release process, is why the absorption process does NOT obey Bouguer’s Law, (sometimes inaccurately called “Lambert’s Law”).
“Equal layers, will absorb equal fractions of each kind of energy entering them.” Remember in 1729, not a lot was known about “each kind of energy.”
Beer’s law is a similar law fin chemistry, for liquid dilute solutions of absorbing molecules. Either of them only apply to the simple case of a one dimensional beam passing through the medium, which does NOT reradiate.
Absorbing media, which re-radiate isotropically, DONOT obey any of the one dimensional energy absorption laws. And that includes earth’s atmosphere.
Some time back, Phil posted a paper which computes an absorption profile, that is linear for low concentration of absorbing molecules, then transitions by some mathematical magic to logarithmic, at higher concentrations, and finally becomes square root for the highest concentrations.
Unfortunately, that analysis is only valid for one dimensional propagation, of the original radiation through the medium, which must be non radiating, so it simply does not apply to atmospheric absorption by GHGs.
I try (but often fail) at expressing this concept so clearly george e. smith.
Thank you, George as well as davidmhoffer for your interesting posts here today.
I’m ok ish with your 2nd and 3rd paragraph. You confuse me with your switch from kinetic energy to conduction after that (should be the same thing in a gas). You lost me after that.
Thanks for your replies it makes sense, but I’m unsure about this bit
“The original absorbed radiant energy, had been proceeding away from the surface, towards the freedom of outer space, but once captured by the CO2, it is re-emitted travelling in any random direction, (isotropic distribution), so now only half of it is headed towards space, and escape. So this slows down the escape process. During that delay, the sun keeps adding more energy, which mostly ends up on earth (in the oceans and rocks), so that increases the surface Temperature, which will in turn increase, the rate of radiant energy emission in a thermal emission spectrum; some of which, CO2, will be able to capture (temporarily).”
So the sun doest heat the earth, it emits light radiation which gets absorbed into it making heat in the process. Heat doesn’t escape directly, it has to turn back in to radiation to be able to pass through the vacuum of space to escape (i think!)
Are these wavelengths of energy then different? entering and escaping the earth? so what I mean is, if the C02 temporally stops the exiting radiant energy why doesn’t the same additional C02 deflect some of the incoming energy? the same way its stops it temporarily leaving?
It also seems quite evident that there is no simple answer to any of these questions, this theory only works under these conditions…etc, but in reality how can all of these different factors be but in to a computer model and the outcome be relevant?
“Heat doesn’t escape directly, it has to turn back in to radiation to be able to pass through the vacuum of space to escape (i think!)”
Yes; and it still does so. George mentioned the thermalization process of IR photons but at the same time there is also dethermalization ongoing, the exact opposite.
Which one of these processes dominates depends on the mean free path length of the photon, i.e. on the atmospheric density and the partial pressure of the greenhouse gases.
So above a certain height, CO2 and other triatomic gases serve as coolants, as even NASA admits, whose business it normally is to earn 1.2 billion USD in tax payer money to prove Global Warming, for instance in Gavin Schmids GISS institute.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/
…1.2 billion USD per year of course.
Well I’m not sure exactly how Alex ran off the rails, there. I was questioning the common assumption, that GHG absorptions “heat”(verb) the atmosphere. Frankly, I don’t know if they do or not, but I lean towards not. >>BUT << !! it's quite clear that they do impede the escape of thermal (BB like) radiation from the solid/liquid surface, because of the resonant absorptions in the well known bands (of fine spectral lines). That physics is rather irrefutable. You do not want to die on a hill claiming that GHGs don't do anything. I don't think they do anything bad. But they certainly do something.
Analog circuit designers; IR1 , understand that if you apply a step voltage to a resistor ( R) in series with a capacitor (C) (condenser !), the output voltage on the capacitor, starts to rise (from its initial zero) at an initial rate equal to V/RC volt per second, because you have an initial current V/R amp going into the capacitor. As the voltage rises, the current drops, so the charge rate slows down. If it didn't slow down, but stayed at V/R amp, the capacitor would fully charge up to V in a time RC seconds. So we call RC the time constant of that circuit. In reality, the voltage will only get to 63% (1-1/e) in that time. It will get to 95% in three time constants, and to 99% in five time constants.
Less well known is what happens if you apply a linear ramp of voltage (dV/dt) to that same circuit. Well the input voltage starts off at zero, so now the starting charge current is also zero, but now it is the current that is increasing, at an initial linear rate, and the current will eventually build up to a limiting value of CdV/dt amp per second, and it will take five time constants (5RC) to get to 99% of that final rate.
After that the output voltage on the capacitor, will be ramping up at exactly the same rate as the input, and the charge current will be constant at the value CdV/dt. This constant current flows in the resistor R, so the voltage drop across that resistor is now constant, at the value RC dv/dt. The output voltage across the capacitor is now rising at the same rate as the input ramp, but it is delayed in time by that time constant RC. Whatever voltage the input ramp is at, the output will get to that same voltage RC seconds later.
This is exactly the same process (in analogy) that happens on the earth where the sun is inputting radiant energy at a constant rate (more or less) similar to the constant current that was flowing into our capacitor. Well it could be water running into the bathtub, couldn't it.
The delay in the escape of radiant energy to space (by GHG temporary capture), causes the Temperature, to offset at a higher static value, than it would have if the escape wasn't delayed by the GHGs. Eventually the Temperature stops rising, but at a small increment over the value it would have sans delay.
You don't have to assume, that the Atmosphere is warming at all, in this process. The excess energy is being lost at the necessary rate, to match the average solar input rate, but it takes a higher thermal radiating surface Temperature to maintain that loss rate.
I think it is a great disservice that we do to our Physics, and indeed all science students, that we teach them that Electro-magnetic radiant energy is "HEAT" (noun). It is NOT. Coal is NOT heat, nor is oil and natural gas. But we can get heating (verb) from any of those things. Temperature is a unique macro property of thermal systems, where millions of molecules are actively in mechanical collisions with each other, which could be a destruction derby process, as in gases, or it could be a shoulder shoving, while trying to rush into the ball park, with wall to wall people.
You need many molecules to have a Temperature, but a photon can be captured by just a single molecule unaided by human hand or anything else. EM radiation can be turned into "heat" with 100% efficiency, but we can't turn the heat back into radiant energy anywhere near 100%.
Some will still insist that radiation is heat; well maybe it is light, or radio, or TV or X-rays
Well it is not heat, and it is not light either. Light is all in your head. Your brain makes it up when your eye is stimulated by just a single octave of EM radiant energy from about 0.4 to 0.8 micron wavelength. That also corresponds to a range of photon energy from about 1.5 down to 0.75 electron-volt of energy.
So is a 1.5 eV photon heat, or is it light. What happens when it changes from one to the other. If 750 nm is heat, is 749 nm light or is it still heat.
Now I know that red "light" radiant energy, is about 2.0 electron-volt, that's close to the He-Ne red laser at 632.8 nm wavelength.
I also happen to know to eight significant digits, what is the wavelength of the red Cadmium line, that Michelson used to measure the meter bar. It is 6438.4696 Angstrom units. (look it up). I don't need to because in my day, everybody knew that, even some stranger down at the pub.
So if some folks, still think EM radiation is heat; is it ALL heat; or is some of it television or x-rays.
So maybe you could give me to eight significant digits, what is the starting and ending points in the EM spectrum, that defines what is heat, and what is not heat.
In my book, NONE of it is "heat" (noun), but ALL of it, can be used to "heat" (verb) something else.
Even the microwave 2.77 K background radiation can be used to "heat" (verb) a block of frozen Helium.
So can X-rays.
Not only is "light" not EM radiation, it isn't even energy.
The following formal definition of "light", is given by the commission on colorimetry, of the Optical Society of America; one of the founding organizations of the American Institute of Physics.
"Light is the (psychophysical) aspect of radiant energy of which a human observer is aware through the visual sensations which arise from the stimulation of the retina of the (human) eye. "
That's a direct quote (sans the () words) from the "Science of Color", a classic text book published by that entity.
But we Physikers get lazy, and use heat and light colloquially , although we understand what we really mean, but we confuse the lay reader by doing that.
The problem with your explanation, as good as it is, is that it still relies on the fallacy that CO2, or any other gas at normal atmospheric pressures, actually has the time to drop all the way to ground state and radiate a photon. The molecules are far too close together for this to happen until you get up into the far upper atmosphere where the collision (convection) rate drops low enough that the molecule has the time to emit. There is radiation from solid matter at the surface that’s been warmed and there is absorption of some of that radiation by the atmosphere but most of the heat transfer going on is via convection, mechanical heat transfer. That keeps going until that energy, careening from molecule to molecule gets high enough in the thinning atmosphere that LWIR can be emitted out to the 3°K of space.
Your description makes it sound like CO2 is the only thing absorbing radiant energy from the heated planet. Due to it’s lower gas constant, it’s actually poorer than air as a whole at transferring heat. Every single gas and vapor in the atmosphere absorbs that energy as well. That’s what atmospheres do.
If the incorrectly named “greenhouse” gases actually emitted radiation in the atmosphere things like FLIR, thermal cameras and thermal sights would not work. All of CO2’s emission lines and most of water vapor’s lines are inside the wavelengths used by these devices. If that radiation (or the fictional “back radiation”) was actually happening all you could see would be fog from atmospheric heat radiated hither, thither and yon (all directions.) It would be like the inside of an integrating sphere. That doesn’t happen. Those devices can see thousands of meters, day or night, clear as a bell.
“””””…..
nielszoo
October 5, 2014 at 2:25 pm
The problem with your explanation, as good as it is, is that it still relies on the fallacy that CO2, or any other gas at normal atmospheric pressures, actually has the time to drop all the way to ground state and radiate a photon. …..”””””
Well you are doing a lot of relying, on this or that. I am not.
I mentioned only CO2 in my first post, because somebody else specifically said that CO2 “Trapped” radiation. It was that point I was addressing. My failure to include a lengthy comment, naming each and every GHG by name, and describing its important actions, would take up all of Anthony’s bandwidth.
Your assumption that that was all I considered is just that; your assumption.
And the reason that CO2 or any other GHG does not get time to spontaneously revert to the ground state or another lower state, after its typical lifetime, is because that excited state is brutally terminated, when the molecule gets clobbered by another molecule due to the gas temperature.
If the Black Swan is in the middle of doing her 32 fouettes, en tournant , and the prince knocks her on her keister, she is not going to continue with what she was doing.
Neither do excited molecules engaging in some resonant oscillation mode. The collision prematurely terminates the performance, and the result is that the line-width of the subsequent emission (of a photon) undergoes a collision broadening, as explained by Heisenberg’s principle. dEdt > h (or hbar, depending on your units).
Phil has related on numerous occasions, that you only get spontaneous emission from CO2 or other GHGs in the rarified atmosphere of the stratosphere, where the mean time between molecular collisions is greater than the lifetime of the excited state. Those emissions have lower line widths, also because of the lower Temperature, and Doppler broadening.
Somebody else metioned CO2 “trapping” ; not me.
I happened upon an interesting reference to Gibbon and self-illusion and fraud. Google finds the full quote in several Google Books about “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Edward Gibbon. Gibbon wrote:
The Cult of Neil deGrasse Tyson
To be clear, it isn’t Tyson’s science that is the point of contention here. Who doesn’t want to listen to him talk about supernovas and the large magellanic cloud?
The problem is the belief of his fans—encouraged by him—that science has all the answers; that anyone who believes in physics must adhere to a progressive secularism; that anyone not on board is—to borrow from the accusations of Tyson’s defenders—guilty of anti-intellectualism, climate “denial” and racism.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/the-cult-of-neil-degrasse-tyson-111540_Page2.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/10/climate-change-hysteria-and-the-madness-of-crowds/#comment-1683185
He lost me when he decided to be a warmist. Every conclusion he draws now , I regard with suspicion.
@alex,
Sometimes ignorance is bliss :: )
I ‘m an old f@rt who stopped watching TV about 10 years ago. Haven’t missed it at all.
It’s universally unspeakable trash. I think Aldous Huxley’s plan to entertain us to death with trivia and misinformation has been successful. : (
So I was never infected by the Tyson cult. Nor for that matter with other fad followings such as Dawkins and Lovelock et al
cheers
brent
Scientists to ‘fast-track’ evidence linking extreme weather to climate change in sign of panic that they’re losing propaganda battle to the sceptics
Environmental scientists want to introduce a new system to prove that adverse weather events are directly linked to climate change to counter global warming sceptics.
Under the new plan, a heatwave or major storm will be linked scientifically to man made climate change immediately after the event to prevent critics from blaming it on natural variations in the weather.
Scientists want to be able to provide proof of whether an event was caused by climate change within three day rather than the current system which can take up to a year.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2780587/Scientists-fast-track-evidence-linking-extreme-weather-climate-change-sign-panic-losing-propaganda-battle-sceptics.html
Perhaps their title ought to read ‘losing propaganda battle due to skeptics FACTS’
Another data point showing trolls have overtaken the climate science insitutions.
This is an interesting item. I don´t see why they can´t fast track everything into a two minute process. The way I see it they can have everything pre and post processed, and the news releases ready to be issued before the weather event takes place. This gives me an idea for a new business line I could try.
I had not considered doing a post for a site other than my own before reading this call for submissions. With this post I read all the rules for submission and also re-read the site policy.
I have posted a few essays on climate at my site over the years, but those were digressions from my normal topics. So no one will miss me not doing a post for WUWT.
The problem I have is that it looks like I would not be able to cross post to my own tiny, back-water site as WUWT would own my essay. It also looks like I would not be able to mention anything on a whole list of banned items. Modern physics and other branches of science are moving on past the late 20th century textbook science and it seems one could not mention these things. (I would never do an essay on one of them as I am not qualified to do so but I might mention one of them) Besides, only in the summer do I have time to do any long essays that required research and citations.
I am always interested in those data points that don’t fit the current consensus in any branch of human knowledge. It is though those inconvenient facts that we test our present understanding. It was the small inconsistencies that told us that the planets did not revolve around the earth. It was inconvenient facts that informed a German patent clerk that physics needed a re-working.
I like these “open threads” which allow “off-topic” bs like the above comments. WUWT should do more of them — and should allow a bit more freedom to mention things without fear of being snipped or even banned. For example, it was though a rant by our host at someone that I first heard of those people we are never to mention here. (they do “way out there” stuff)
If any poor soul has read all the way down to this line (and may God pity you!), I hope you know that all of the above is just one man’s opinion. I was trained in science back when open debate was the golden rule and no science was ever said to be “settled”. (one has so much trouble overcoming his early training)
I have been considering posting something for some time now. I didn’t realise there were conditions to posting. Maybe I should post something really bland that no-one will disagree with (particularly the management). You have kinda put me off it now. On second thoughts, I might try to put some basic stuff through.
“[Stories] that are published […] become to property of WUWT.” Typo ‘to’ instead of ‘the’. IANAL, shouldn’t ‘property’ really be expressed as copyright? Which is standard practice. It does not expressly say you cannot also use it on your own blog and I doubt that would offend WUWT.
The banned topics are banned for a reason. Those discussions are usually a waste of time. Did you have something new to say about them?
“Did you have something new to say about them?”
There is nothing new under the sun they say. But I would not write if I were not allowed to mention anything I wanted to mention. After all, not everyone thinks the current “consensus” on how our atmosphere works to distribute heat is correct. I saw an exchange just today (the exchange was not today, I saw it today) between the commenter here, Dr. Brown, and one of his ex-colleagues concerning how CO2 worked in the atmosphere. Apparently, the rules state I could not tell you what they said to each other. That, my friend, is a sad thing. (keep in mind they seem to highly respect each other and the exchange was very cordial)
I guess I am just not much of a fan of banned topics. (but I do understand a man doing as he pleases with his own blog)
It’s been my experience that when posting comments on blogs operated and paid for by their hosts (especially the popular ones) that common courtesy, civil discourse and an honest presentation of the facts that support your position go a long way. If you are really worried about the legalese… do yourself a favor and do NOT read the license that came with your computer or the software that is running it. You certainly don’t want to read the 80,000 pages of federal laws, rules and regulations you are supposed to follow either… We are a society that uses rules to keep our interactions civil, if the rules someplace are not to your liking… don’t go there. I no longer read sites that have either been rude to me, censored me, or edited my comments. I have no problems with a comment I post on a site to be moderated before being displayed… I would do the same at my own site until I trusted the individual that was posting there (had I the time to manage a site.)
This is Anthony’s blog. It is his house or back yard or whatever else you wish to call it. He is open enough to allow people to comment on his thoughts and research and to invite others to put their thoughts and research here as well. I find that if you respect your host, you get the same in return.
I pointed out that anyone who runs a blog may have any rules they choose to have. I also pointed out that I will not be submitting content since I feel the rules too restrictive for essays here. Nothing in your post contradicts my original posting or follow-up. And no, I don’t have a “problem” — I just will not tender an essay as long as it means I can’t mention the latest results and debates in science. (physics especially) As I stated so plainly — this should be no great loss to anyone.
“Environmental scientists want to introduce a new system to prove that adverse weather events are directly linked to climate change to counter global warming skeptics.”
That would be hard to do seeing as how the opposite is what the data shows. Here in Florida we have experienced 9 years without a hurricane as CO2 has risen to the “evil” 400 ppm level. Tornadoes are less than in past times. Steve Goddard has done a whole series of posts using government data (warmist tainted though it may be) showing that “warming” (if there be such) looks to be a good thing as it mitigates adverse weather.
But, don’t you see the flaw in your logic?
The absence of an ‘adverse’ weather event is, in itself, an ‘adverse’ weather event. Thus, environmental scientists can’t lose. /sarc
I’ve still never seen an operational definition of what exactly constitutes an ‘adverse’ or ‘extreme’ weather event that would allow actually testing for it. Actually I’ve never seen an operational definition of what ‘normal’ weather events are either. All very convenient for the proponents of the hypothesis because it gives them the ability to simply name whatever ‘event’ occurs (say you get 1.5″ of rain in a month when the average is 1″) as ‘extreme’ and the hypothesis cannot be falsified.
Questions for ghe guys discussing atmospheric heat transfer and CO2 radiation:
How did the atmosphere cooled down so much in 1999 after the 1998 super niño?
Did CO2 radiated more energy than usual towards outer space?
Why didn’t the heat stay in the atmosphere?
I can undertand how the atmopshere heated up so much in 1998 but don’t get why it cooled down so much and so fast in 1999.
Solids , liquids, gas and magic
Urederra: The postulated excess energy is about 0.5 watts per meter squared. When this amount of energy is used to warm the top 100 meters of the ocean for a whole year the temperature increases 0.04 degrees Centigrade. The temperature swing was several tenths of a degree C. Therefore the difference from year to year has to be caused by heat exchange between the surface and the ocean (and this extends beyond the top 100 meters). In practical terms, slightly cooler water came to the surface and cooled the atmosphere and the ocean surface a tiny amount. This may have been aided by some changes in cloud albedo and things like that, but from what i gather the biggest factor seems to be the ocean´s ability to absorb energy. This excludes volcano eruption effects.
Sorry I was so flippant and I don’t mean to be condescending. You need to have some basic science and understanding of specific heat and latent heat. Radiative transfer won’t make any sense unless your ‘science’ level is higher. Most of the people on this blog have some basics. Unfortunately no-one really has enough information to give you a correct answer. The sceptics are happy that there has been a hiatus. The warmists are making excuses. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. You might learn something along the way, like I have.
So Alex you have no idea either?
I suggest you read Bob Tisdale’s blog or his many posts on this blog regarding ENSO.
Why didn’t the heat stay in the atmosphere?
Why would it? There was a temporary burst of energy into the atmosphere from ENSO so the temp went up, and when the burst of energy into the atmosphere dissipated, it cooled off. When you turn the burner on the stove off, you don’t expect the pot of water to stay hot, do you?
The control of the atmosphere by the ocean currents and surface temperature pattern was never, ever so obvious in 1998 to 1999. The most powerful El Nino in modern history peaked in 1998 and ended abruptly at the start of 1999. The ocean currents caused the wind that in turn caused the El Nino, The El Nino controlled the pattern of the Jet Stream. The pattern of the Jet Stream caused the atmospheric warming. Wahla. 1998 was a year to remember. Any arguments?
But wait a minute what caused the shift in the wind and ocean currents that set up the El Nino. That is the highly variable aspect of climate on Earth that results from
1. A constantly changing amount of energy arriving from the Sun
2. The less than spherical nature of Earth that changes the way that heat is absorbed
3. The wabble in the axis of the tilt of Earth
4. Constantly changing nature of the energy and particle arriving in the Solar system from elsewhere in the Galaxy
All of this a more leads to a more less random (remember random is not linear) constant change in the climate pattern of Earth. Of interest to me is the more measured than random major changes that lead to Ice Ages and Interglacials. Astrophysics will perhaps eventually produce an agreed to answer. In the meantime, strong events like the 1998 El Nino will occasionally produce huge temperature and precipitation spikes. And people like the chemtrails crowd and the global warming crowd will scream “the sky is falling” and tell us they know why. How silly of them.
urederra, part of the answer lies in how much more massive is the ocean than the atmosphere.
Heat capacity of ocean water: 3993 J/kg/deg K
Heat capacity of air: 1005 J/kg/deg K
[from WUWT 4/6/2011 “Energy content, the heat is on: atmosphere -vs- ocean” – Jeff Id.]
the same energy to raise 1 kg of air 1.0 deg C will raise 1 kg of ocean about 0.25 deg C.
Add to that, the enormous differences in the masses of the atmosphere and the ocean.
atmosphere: 5×10^18 kg
ocean: 1.4×10^21 kg = 1,400 ×10^18 kg
so the ocean is 280 times more massive than the air.
Multiply that by its 4 times higher heat capacity
Then the energy to raise the atmosphere by 1 deg C will only raise the ocean temperature by 1/1120 deg or about 0.0009 deg C. We cannot measure a temperature change 10 times that big.
If somehow, you raise the temperature of the total atmosphere by 1 degree, and 1998 raised only a piece of the atmosphere by 0.6 deg above the 18 year mean (1.0 deg if you count peak to peak) Then the heat will eventually even out with the ocean, raising its temperature by 0.0009 deg C, an amount too small to measure.
That’s just part of the answer. A change of 0.1% of albedo during the daytime, a few more clouds, would reduce the energy received enough to cool off the atmosphere, too.
Tying up some concepts….
A great deal has been made that the heat is hiding deep in the oceans. As evidence they point to a chart of Ocean Heat Content in Levitus-2012 and -2009. [Ref is to Eschenbach, WUWT 4/23/12, “An Ocean of Overconfidence”]
The Levitus chart does not measure changes in temperature of the ocean, but change in the Ocean Heat Content measured in huge numbers like 9*10^22 Joules. That sounds like a lot! But you can demystify it by turning it into equivalent temperatures. The first step is to adopt a unit easier to work with.
1 ZJ = 1 zetaJoule = 1*10^21.
Using the heat capacity of the total oceans above, we can learn that it takes 56 ZJ to change the ocean temperature by 0.01 deg C.
The fault with Levitus is that take a poorly sampled, spatially bias, temporally undersampled dataset of pre-2003 temperature measurements and splice onto that a much better sampled ARGO. In Levitus, the pre-ARGO change in heat is 240 ZJ (1950-2003), which given the problems with sampling a number fraught with error and real un-sampled uncertainty. But just accepting it a meaningful, if you use the heat capacity of the upper 0-2000 m of ocean (27.5 ZJ per deg C) it amounts to a 0.09 deg C increase
Since Argo, Levitus says the OHC increase of the 0-2000 m layer, 2003-2010, is about 30 ZJ, or about 0.01 deg C, near the threshold of measurement accuracy.
Let us raise the temperature of the atmosphere by 1 deg C.
How many ZJ does it take? FIVE !
5 ZJ to raise the atmosphere 1 deg C.
5600 ZJ to raise the ocean 1 deg C.
The Global Warming Heat isn’t “hiding in the oceans”. It is dead and buried there.
Ebola Survivor Dr. Rick Sacra Admitted to Worcester Hospital
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/10/04/umass-memorial…
Massachusetts physician Dr. Rick Sacra, who had been successfully treated for Ebola, has been admitted to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester Saturday night for signs of pneumonia, according to multiple reports.
Sacra, who lives in Holden, contracted the disease in August while working at an obstetrics clinic in Liberia. He was successfully treated at Nebraska Medical Center and released.
Sacra was taken to a Boston-area emergency room Saturday with a low-grade cough and a fever and was then transferred to UMass Memorial, NECN reported.
News of Sacra’s condition was released hours after the hospital confirmed that another patient is undergoing medical evaluation after showing possible signs of Ebola.
Urederra – As I observe in my thoughts linked below about the matter, the ocean/evaporation/clouds etc. moves/emits/absorbs heat in amounts hundreds of times greater than the CO2/air cycle. Heating & cooling of the ocean has much greater impact on the climate than CO2/radiative forcing/air.
http://www.writerbeat.com/articles/3713-CO2-Feedback-Loop
Found the exact moment in time when crackpot climate modelers felt their power for the first time. 1984.
They wouldn’t ever let go of it.
Wrong link. Correction:
First ice on the boat cover, south of Milwaukee last night. Time to think about winterizing the boat.
Northeast China has been a pain the last few days also. I really hate the cold.
Go to Florida as a climate refugee ;o)
Letelemarker:
I have my pet theory’s about many things climate related. I could probably show many graphs and stuff that would prove nothing. Just like the IPCC. My 40 year life experience with scientific instrumentation tells me that people don’t know how to interpret results. People and instrumentation don’t mix. I’ve sold equipment worth thousands of dollars and the purchasers didn’t pay a blind bit of notice to what I said. [Snip] them, I thought, and just took their money, after all it was my job.
I have retired from that BS but people are still the same. I have spent the last 10 years teaching in a university. I have been involved with undergraduates, post graduates and even people going for their PhD’s. Lazy [snip], the lot of them. Don’t believe me? Just ask one if they could have done better, then stand back and listen to the excuses.
After my rant of denigrating others:
I don’t have a clue. Not enough accurate and unpolluted information.
‘The Premise of the Faithful’
Subtitled ‘Applied Mythology in the Climate Change Cause’
Coming soon to a blog near you.
John
I need an “illustrator” – or some one better than I at computer graphics – to turn my hand-sketches of the sun, solar elevations angles, air mass diagrams, ice and water albedo, and the the sun’s rays at different times of the year and different latitudes into meaningful, presentable images.
I need a series of images somewhat like Trenberth’s vertical radiation paths – but with actual very solar elevations and albedo values for the Arctic and Antarctic.
Thus, if the sun is shown at 4 degrees above the horizon (instead of 84 degrees), the air mass of 13 (instead of 1.0) is shown filtering the inbound radiation, the water albedo at 0.35 (instead of 0.06) the ice albedo at mid-summer’s 0.46 (instead of an idealized 0.85) the whole impression of the mythical “Arctic amplification is taken out of as a propaganda tool from the hands of our catastro-physicist-elite governments’ hands.
Any one with such a skill? Speak up. I will be able contact to contact you. (And the Koch brothers will, of course, provide all funding via their vast right-wing conspiracy of evil corporate bankers.)
Look over at The Peoples Cube as Oleg Atbashian who runs it is a commercial illustrator. I don’t know what his rates are, but the work I’ve seen is really good with the added bonus of his being a former propaganda artist in the old USSR. He goes by “Red Square” and there’s a contact link on the site. If that doesn’t work, just enjoy his site. There are some seriously creative people over there…
Vector graphics, shading & text: sounds relatively simple. I’ll give it a go.
Send a sample to my gmail address, with “Bernadotte01” in front, symbol for “at” in the middle, and a dot com at the end.
OK —
Here’s another reason that we should be concerned about greenhouse gasses.
Anyone here feel like commenting about this? I’m thinking of recommending it to friends who need to hear the skeptic case on climate change.
It would be less open to ridicule if the mispronunciation of “buoy” , at the first occurrence of the word, was removed .
Do Canadians really say “booey”?
Many Americans do, too.
Buoy and Buoyancy have different sounding “bouy”s. I think because buoyancy becomes bou-yan-cy.
Do Brits really say “China rand India rah big countries”?
mebbe – Sadly, many of my fellow countrymen do exactly that. It gets worse too – one of the most common solecisms is to erroneously mispronounce “th” as “f”.
Standard American pronunciation is close to “boo-ee”. We don’t say “boy” as in UK. However in American English the first syllable of the word “bouyancy” is indeed pronounced “boy”.
I grew up in Wisconsin and we said “booey.” First few times I heard “boy” I didn’t know what they were talking about.
I like the presentation. Nothing activated my BS meter but then again I’m biased. 13 minutes of data is too long to hold the interest of someone who’s biased to be a heat seeking missile programmed by the media and unable to interpret data on their own though.
It’s not 1.1 degree C for each doubling, just for that from ~280 to 560 ppm.
A question.
Has much or any effort been put into cataloging in a computer record of past weather conditions? It seems that meteorologist’s that have earned respect are those that recognize present conditions as being similar to a past condition and tailor their forecast accordingly.
It seems to me that a program that took present conditions and looked for a close match to past conditions would be of far greater value than the GAGW climate models.
That Iceland volcano is doing some pretty strange things. Earthquakes are now occurring off shore and may be related to the main event. Plus the main event is shaking its belly in the caldera quite a bit. The caldera continues to sink at a fairly steady rate seemingly in concert with the flow of lava through various subsurface fissures, eventually spilling onto the surface at some distance from the caldera. The worst case scenario would be what follows if pressure from the flow of lava builds up along the fissures or in the caldera. I don’t think we want this volcano to develop a clogged drain.
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/articles/nr/2947
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve been looking at the vatnajokull map for a month but hadn’t looked at the whole of Iceland. The Mag 3.4 on the tjornes-large map is part of a cluster between 09:00-12:00 on 10/5. So it fell within a cluster of high frequency M3+ quakes at Bardarbunga from 01:00-12:00.
Take the two most recent 48 hr periods at Bardarbunga:
_________ 10/1-3 10/3-5
M 4.5-5.0_ _ 6 _ _ _ 7
M 4.0-5.0_ _10_ _ _10
M 3.0-3.9_ _ 5 _ _ _23 (19 from 21:00 Sat to 16:00 Sun)
M 2.0-2.9_ _ 28 _ _ 19
The biggest at the fissure is a M1.4 at 13 km. most under 5 km.
Askja NE has 11 in the past 48 hrs, biggest M1.4, 4-9 km.
Nothing south of Bar.
West of Bar, M1.3 at 7 km.
The webcams are black tonight.
this link has a great map of all quakes, size my magnitude and colored by date for the past 50 days.
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/articles/nr/2949
There are two recent pictures on Facebook from the Holuhraun fissure eruption and lava flows:
One is a September 2014 areal shot of the lava flow meeting the river with the fissure in the background.
Credit Greg Duncan, posted on What’s On, Iceland, Oct. 3.
The other is a masterpiece of framing, lighting, timing, and good fortune.
Posted on Erez Marom Photography, October 1
‘VOLCANIC SUNSET’
An aerial shot of a new lava flow in Holuhraun. We were incredibly lucky to be there in time for spectacular sunset colors. What an evening!
I don’t care how much color and light balancing may have (or not) been done on the shot The final product is spectacular.