By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
I do apologize for not having replied sooner to my friend the irrepressible, irascible, highly improbable but always fascinating Willis Eschenbach, who on August 15 had commented on a brace of earlier postings by me on the vexed question of climate sensitivity.
The delay is because my lovely wife and I are on a two-week trip to the thrusting new Scotland of the ghastly totalitarians who call themselves the Scottish National Party. We had left our beloved Scotland five years ago when we had sensed the advance of the legalists – as the early Chinese philosophers would have called today’s totalitarians. We are what the Chinese would have called Confucians – in today’s money, libertarians.
How said it is to see the Scotland we left just five years ago in such rampant and almost entirely unreported decline. Even in Perth, our old and once prosperous county town, the thriving shops have largely gone, to be replaced by dismal bingo-halls, desperate charity shops and boarded-up windows.
The cottage where we were unwise enough to lodge during our first week’s visit cost us well north of $1000 for the week, and the wretches who let it to us did not provide free electricity or even logs for the fire. The place was filthy; the oven unusable; the wood-burning stove so clogged with clag that one could not see through the glass to where the fire within would have been if there had been any logs; the gutters not maintained; the water not even basically filtered to remove the lumps of peat that turned my white shirts brown. And the internet? They said that if we stood in the kitchen corner we might occasionally get a flicker of a signal. Well, we didn’t get one.
In Paris last December, while playing the piano for the late and much missed Bob Carter in the swank foyer of the grandest of grand hotels on the Champs-Elysees, I mentioned to him that we were by no means the only ones who had left Scotland. Had I been younger, I said, I’d have stood and fought. As it was, a tide of talent and brains and wealth was pouring southward; businesses were closing down all over the boarded-up shop; the oil price had collapsed; and everyone who was anyone was getting out.
Bob said, “Monckton, you’re exaggerating. And I’m going to prove it.” He got out his cellphone and telephoned a friend in Aberdeen who employed 400 people there. “Is it true,” he asked, “that there is an unreported exodus from Scotland?”
“I can’t speak for the whole of Scotland,” said Bob’s friend, “But I will say this. I and all 400 of my employees are leaving just as soon as we can get out.”
Which explains why there was no internet. The notion of providing a service has now largely vanished from Scotland. Inferentially, the signal from furth of Shangri-La did not reach our corner of the damp cottage kitchen because the Amalgamated Union of Semaphore Flag-Wavers and Mountain-Top Beacon Fettlers was on strike. Again.
So to Willis’ posting.
Willis thought I was wrong (Wrong? Moi?) about the value of the pre-feedback climate-sensitivity parameter, widely known in the climate literature (see e.g. Roe, 2009) as λ0.
Misleadingly, Willis refers to this “Planck parameter” as a “feedback”. Properly understood, it is nothing of the kind: for, as the equation that I had illustrated in my previous postings demonstrated, its role in determining climate sensitivity – and that was the role in which I had cast it – is manifestly distinct from that of any true feedback.
Willis says: “The Planck feedback is how much the outgoing long-wave radiation of the globe increases per degree of increased temperature.” It is much better understood the other way about, for the models use its reciprocal, the Planck parameter, to convert Watts per square meter of long-wave radiation change (i.e., of forcing) to Kelvin of temperature change (i.e., climate sensitivity). See the interesting discussion in Roe (2009) on this point.
The Planck parameter, which I shall accordingly denominate hereafter in Kelvin of temperature change per Watt per square meter of radiative flux-density change, occurs twice in the official climate-sensitivity equation.
First, at the pre-feedback stage, the Planck parameter is the constant of proportionality that converts any change in long-wave radiation as a result of a radiative forcing such as atmospheric CO2 enrichment into a corresponding change in temperature.
Secondly, the Planck parameter acts in exactly the same way on temperature feedbacks. Feedbacks are denominated in Watts per square meter per Kelvin of temperature change arising from the original, direct forcing. The product of the Planck parameter (in purple) and the sum of these feedbacks (in bright blue) is the unitless temperature-feedback factor f (in pink) in my illuminated presentation of the official climate-sensitivity equation.
The value of the Planck parameter is, therefore, of paramount importance. And Willis, who is prone to rush to the data (which, to be fair, are usually not a bad place to start), rushed to the data and determined the value of the Planck parameter not as the 0.313 Kelvin per Watt per square meter that I (supported by IPCC and dozens of scientific papers and models I could name) had asserted, but a mere 0.2 Kelvin per Watt per square meter.
How come this discrepancy?
Simple. Willis, in his posting, made the same mistake that I had myself made in the very first article I had written on climate sensitivity, which had appeared ten years ago all over the front page of the Weekend section of the London Sunday Telegraph and had been so popular with readers that it crashed the Telegraph website for the first and only time in its history, attracting the then-unheard-of hit-rate of 127,000 hits in two hours at midnight on a Sunday morning. By that metric, it was the most popular article the Telegraph group had ever published.
Fig. 1 The official climate-sensitivity equation. Pre-feedback sensitivity ΔT0 = λ0 ΔF. Post-feedback sensitivity ΔT is the product of ΔT0 and the post-feedback gain factor G. By a suitable choice of the feedback sum, the equation can model transient or equilibrium climate sensitivity.
The mistake that Willis (and, at that time, I) had made was to perform the calculation to determine the Planck sensitivity at the Earth’s surface and not, as it should be performed for climate-sensitivity studies, at the Planck emission surface, whose mean pressure altitude is about 300 hPa up in the mid-troposphere.
The Planck emission surface is, by definition, the locus of all points of least altitude at which incoming and outgoing radiation are equal in the atmospheric columns that may be thought of as subsisting above all points on the Earth’s surface.
This strange surface is the surface from which satellites perceive outgoing radiation from the Earth to emanate. It is – again by definition – one optical depth down into the atmosphere as seen from above.
And it is at this emission surface, and not at the Earth’s hard-deck surface, that the Planck parameter falls to be determined.
Here is how it is done. There is really very little argument about the value of the Planck parameter, for its derivation is so very straightforward.
Begin with the data (Willis will like that bit). The SORCE/TIM data show that the mean total solar irradiance is about 1361 Watts per square meter, and all datasets are within a few Watts per square meter of this value, so I shall use the SORCE/TIM value.
The Earth presents a disk-shaped cross-section to the incoming radiation, but its surface is a rotating sphere. So it is necessary to divide the total solar irradiance by 4, which is the ratio of the surface area of a sphere to that of a disk of equal radius.
Next, one must allow for albedo. The Earth (or, in particular, the clouds, which account for some 97% of its albedo) reflect about 30% of all incoming solar radiation harmlessly straight back into space. So the mean flux density at the Earth’s emission altitude is 1361 (1 – 0.3) / 4 = 238.2 Watts per square meter.
Now it is time to determine the mean emission temperature represented by that radiation of 238.2 Watts per square meter. This is done by using one of the very few proven results in the generally slippery subject of climatology – the fundamental equation of radiative transfer.
The equation states that the radiative flux at the emission surface of a celestial body is equal to the product of just three values: the emissivity of that surface, the Stefan-Boltzmann constant and the fourth power of temperature.
Since we know the radiation at the Earth’s emission surface, and we know that after allowance for albedo the emissivity of that surface is unity, and we know the Stefan-Boltzmann constant is reassuringly constant at 0.000000056704 Watts per square meter per Kelvin to the fourth power, it is a simple matter to deduce the one unknown quantity in the equation: the Earth’s emission temperature, which turns out to be 254.6 Kelvin, or around 34 Kelvin cooler than the hard-deck surface where we live and move and have our being.
To find out the relationship between any change in radiative flux density at the emission surface and any consequent change in the temperature at that surface, it is necessary only to take the first derivative of the fundamental equation of radiative transfer.
It is not always appreciated that, provided that one expresses the derivative in terms of both temperature and flux density, the relation between radiation change and temperature change is linear, even though the derivative comes from a fourth-power relation.
Here is the math:
K W–1 m2.
One final adjustment is needed, and, to verify IPCC’s value, some years ago I obtained from John Christy a datafile containing 30 years’ temperature-anomaly data for the mid-troposphere. Using these data (Willis would be pleased again), I was able to determine the Hölder coefficient from the integration of latitudinal values for λ0 using equialtitudinal latitudinal frusta, for are not frusta that are equaialtitudinal also conveniently equiareal? [Hint: yes, they are].
The bottom line: the product of the Hölder coefficient 7/6 (which allows for the fact that a sum of latitudinally-derived fourth powers, for instance, is not the same as the fourth power of a sum) and the first differential obtained by taking the derivative above gives a very good approximation to the current value of the Planck parameter λ0, namely 0.313 K W–1 m2.
Phew!
Can the value of the Planck parameter vary? Yes, if insolation varies, and yes, if albedo varies. But, since the solar “constant” is near-invariant, and since the albedo is unlikely to change much even if major ice losses eventually occur, lambda-zero will continue to be at or close to 0.313 K W–1 m2 for the foreseeable future.
With respect, therefore, Willis was infelicitous in referring to the Planck parameter as a “feedback”, for it is unlike any true feedback; he was incorrect (as I had once been) in attempting to determine it at the hard-deck surface rather than the emission surface of the Earth; he was accordingly incorrect (as I had once been) in determining its value to be of order 0.2 Kelvin per Watt per square meter; he was incorrect in imagining the Planck parameter to be non-linear (I knew enough calculus not to fall for that one); and he was incorrect in imagining that its value had been determined without regard to latitudinal non-linearities (I do more homework than I usually show in these columns for general family entertainment).
Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
But let us end with a richly-deserved compliment to Willis. Like me, he is largely an autodidact. Like me, he makes mistakes. And this time I am in no position to crow: for the mistakes he has made are the mistakes I had once made myself.
Above all, like me he is interested enough to ask questions – usually very good questions – and to do his very best to find the answers. To him, as to me, science is a matter not of belief but of diligent, disciplined inquiry. It is this passionate curiosity that unites us, and marks us out from the totalitarian true-believers who are wrecking Scotland and have done their best to wreck science too. To them, and not to him, I award the accolade “Thick as two short Plancks”.
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I went to Scotland once.
Lord Monckton can take longer than even Willis in getting to the point, and I’m burnt out be the time he has.
Is burn out proof of warming?
squirts ink a monktopus does
[yet that ink doth not become an obscuring cloud, but reveals instead a clarity and a purpose. .mod]
Nice discussion.
Thank you Lord Monckton. Very educational as always. I have two handwritten pages of notes from your post and I will will refer to them often. I very much appreciate your careful explanation of the equation. Well done!
It’s a pleasure to describe these concepts from time to time in some detail so that as many people as possible can understand the actually rather insubstantial basis on which climate sensitivity is determined. Though the value of the Planck parameter as determined or used by the models is correct, there is a lot else that is wrong with the way climate sensitivity is determined, which is the chief reason why the world continues to warm at a rate far slower than the models had predicted.
The luminous sphere that is the surface of the sun radiates 6.320E7 W/m^2 perpendicular to the surface in all directions per S-B, luminosity, surface temperature, geometry.
When that sphere expands to the orbital radius of earth (or other planet) because of the increased spherical surface over which the initial luminosity is spread, the power flux decreases to 1,368 W/m^2 radiating perpendicular to the sun’s luminous surface in all directions.
At the earth’s orbital distance the arc of the luminous sphere that intersects the earth is essentially a flat plane so the radiating 1,368 W/m^2 strikes the earth perpendicular to its cross sectional area.
If that same energy were spread evenly in a perpendicular fashion over the entire spherical top of earth’s atmosphere (100 km per NASA) it would be 1,368/4 or 342 W/m^2. (1,360/4 = 340) (The area of a sphere of radius r is 4 times the area of a disc of radius r.)
At apehelion, farther, the values become 1,323 & 331 W/m^2. At perihelion, closer, the values become 1,415 & 351 W/m^2. In other words, because of the eccentricity of the orbit TSI fluctuates +/- 45 W/m^2, a total 90 W/m^2 swing. Compare that to CO2’s 2 W/m^2 RF or RCP’s 8.5 W/m^2.
These popular graphics (Trenberth et al 2011jcli24) are NOT true heat or energy balances. A watt is a power unit, energy over time, i.e. 3.412 Btu/eng h or 3.6 kJ/SI h. These graphics do NOT consider night or day or seasons or tropospheric thickness, they are simple models (yep.) attempting to illustrate where and how the power enters and leaves/balances which NASA defines as the ToA of 100 km.
This is neither wrong nor right, but people have to understand what and how these graphics work.
So 342 enters ToA, 100 is reflected straight away by the albedo, 242 proceed to be absorbed by BOTH the atmosphere and the surface, 80 by the atmosphere, 160 by the surface. The surface upwells as follows: 17 by convection, 80 by evapotranspiration, 63 by LWIR. The surface and atmospheric power fluxes rejoin at the surface of the troposphere, 9 to 17 km.
A surface at 15 C, 288 K, radiating 390 W/m^2 is incorrect. This assumes that 100% of the ISR is remitted only by radiation and at the surface and essentially double counts the power flux the way a bookkeeper incorrectly enters a number twice. When conduction and convection are possible, S-B BB does not work.
S-B applies only to the power flux NOT moved by conduction and convection and handled by LWIR. The surface of the sun and earth ToA face a vacuum w/ no convection or conduction so S-B works.
BTW if you search “debunking greenhouse theory” there will be several sites that share my views although I think I do better job of clearly explaining it.
Nicholas,
You say: A surface at 15 C, 288 K, radiating 390 W/m^2 is incorrect. This assumes that 100% of the ISR is remitted only by radiation and at the surface and essentially double counts the power flux the way a bookkeeper incorrectly enters a number twice.
…and: BTW if you search “debunking greenhouse theory” there will be several sites that share my views although I think I do better job of clearly explaining it.
I am afraid you are misguided on both counts.
(1) A surface at 15C, 288K does indeed assert an upward radiative energy potential of around 396W/m^2 (Trenberth et. a. 2009) but not a flow. This is because it is offset by the atmosphere which asserts a downward radiative energy potential of around 333W/m^2. The net upward radiative energy flow from the earth’s surface is the difference between the two, namely a mere 63W/m^2.
The remaining upward energy flows are indeed thermals (17W/m^2) and evapo-transpiration (80W/m^2), making a total upward transfer from the earth’s surface of 161W/m^2, almost exactly in balance with Trenberth’s figure for the Sun’s incoming radiative energy flow absorbed by the earth’s surface.
You have fallen into the same misconception as all the “debunking greenhouse theory” sites that you suggest our readers should study.
Cosserat, you say:
And this is exactly why the DEGREE of IR activity in a massive atmosphere doesn’t matter to the surface mean temp. Once the atmosphere is radiatively active, that means atmospheric circulation will become and stay operative, and at that point, making the atmosphere *more* radiatively active won’t matter to the T_s.
Why? Because there’s a general HEAT balance between in and out at the surface, NOT a general radiative balance between in and out. Yes, IR-absorbing atmospheric constituents do indeed reduce the radiative heat loss of the surface at some given mean temp. But this doesn’t mean they reduce the TOTAL heat loss of the surface. The radiative heat loss, as long as the atmosphere is radiatively active, is a matter of the temperature DIFFERENCE between the surface and the relevant air layers above, not of the absolute temperature of the surface alone. It wouldn’t be a problem for the surface radiative heat loss per se to remain at 52-53 W/m^2 on average (Stephens et al., 2012) even at a mean temp of, say, 100K rather than 289K. As long as the atmosphere above were accordingly colder. However, convection/evaporation wouldn’t work very well at 100K. With an average solar input to the surface of ~165 W/m^2 and an average radiative output from the surface of ~53 W/m^2, that leaves 112 W/m^2 to be shed by non-radiative heat transfer mechanisms before we can reach a surface heat balance. In order to get there, the surface would have to become seriously warmer on average. But, as you’ll notice, not because of a reduced radiative heat loss. It is, after all, held at 52-53 W/m^2. It’s rather because of the way too low initial mean sfc temp.
We see this principle in action very well in the real world, only somewhat inverted, when comparing dry tropical regions and wet tropical regions. For instance, if we pick the Sahara-Sahel region (20-14N, 15W-36E, semi-arid) and the Congo region (5N-6S, 10-27E, very humid) in tropical Africa, we see a couple of very interesting things.
First, the two regions in question absorb – at the surface – basically the same amount of solar heat over the course of one year, on average ~175 W/m^2 (CERES EBAF). And since we know that the annual temperature in both areas is pretty much constant over time, we can safely assume that the surface is in a relative steady state both places, that is, as much heat goes OUT as what comes IN during a full year.
However, the tropospheric column lying on top of the solar-heated Sahara-Sahel surface, contains A LOT less water than the similar column over the Congo. Both in the form of water vapour and of clouds. (The CO2 content can be assumed to be the same in both columns.) What does this entail? Well, there should be A LOT more atmospheric “back radiation” to the surface in the Congo than in Sahara-Sahel. Even relative to air temperature.
According to CERES EBAF, this is also the case. In the Sahara-Sahel region, the mean DWLWIR ‘flux’ to the surface is ~375 W/m^2. In the Congo it’s at least 405 W/m^2. That’s 30 W/m^2 extra. So, the same average input from the Sun in both regions, ~175 W/m^2, but 30 W/m^2 more back down from the atmosphere in the Congo. So total radiative input to the surface in the Sahara-Sahel: [175+375=] 550 W/m^2, and in the Congo: [175+405=] 580 W/m^2.
So where’s the hotter surface? Well, like we said, both areas is in a dynamic heat balance, so the average annual heat input AND heat output are both 175 W/m^2 in Sahara-Sahel as well as in the Congo.
Then, what’s the surface radiative heat loss (‘net LW’) in the Sahara-Sahel region? 95-100 W/m^2. In the Congo? 50-55 W/m^2. That’s a 45 W/m^2 difference. What does this tell us? It tells us several things:
1) The much higher degree of tropospheric IR activity over the Congo (from much more H2O) reduces the radiative heat loss from the solar-heated surface by A LOT.
2) However, this doesn’t reduce the TOTAL surface heat loss. It simply means that more of the total heat loss needs to derive from NON-radiative mechanisms in the Congo.
So, to the clincher: Does this fact, that the highly IR active atmosphere on top of the solar-heated surface in the Congo reduces its radiative heat loss so much more than in the (equally solar-heated) Sahara-Sahel, where the atmosphere is much less IR active, thus forcing the surface to rid itself of much more of its total heat via OTHER mechanisms, cause the average T_s in the Congo to become significantly higher at equilibrium than in the Sahara-Sahel?
No. Not at all. Because 3) The numbers above also tell us that the Sahara-Sahel surface is in fact hotter on average than the Congo surface. By several degrees.
Isn’t that funny? Equal solar heating. Much more effective radiative cooling. And still a higher T_avg.
Where’s the progressive “radiative GHE” to be found in all this? The real-world evidence that if we merely have more IR active constituents in an atmospheric column, then the surface underneath will have to be warmer on average, pretty much by physical necessity …
https://ceres-tool.larc.nasa.gov/ord-tool/jsp/EBAFSFCSelection.jsp
The 333 downwelling downwells from an area that is -40 C +/- or so and T^4 means S-B is quite small, nowhere near 333 plus the emissivity of the atmospheric gases is low (Nasif et al) because density is low. The 390 upwelling and 333 downwelling are imaginary handwavium.
Kristian, you are mystified by the fact that as you put it:
“””””….. Isn’t that funny? Equal solar heating. Much more effective radiative cooling. And still a higher T_avg. …..”””””
The reason for the much more effective radiative cooling is NOT a consequence of the higher T avg, it is because of the very much higher T peak during the hottest hours of the mid day sun, which can get up to almost double the average total radiant emittance of the earth.
It is the HOT tropics that cool the earth; NOT the frozen Polar Regions, which can be as low as one sixth of the cooling rate of the average.
G
Smith, you say:
I’m not “mystified” at all. I’m just pointing out how this result directly contradicts an ultimately radiative (“GHE”) explanation of the T_avg.
Nobody ever said it was. Read what I write, Smith.
No, it isn’t. That approach only works on celestial bodies without any atmosphere at all, like the Moon.
The reason why the radiative part of the surface cooling budget in the Sahara-Sahel region (but NOT the total) is so much larger (so much more ‘effective’) than in the Congo, is simply – as I explained – because the air column on top of the solar-heated surface contains A LOT less water (WV, clouds), that is, the overall IR-absorbing abilities of the air layers above the surface is MUCH weaker.
But does this fact, that the radiant heat loss (the radiative cooling) of the surface is so much more intense thereby make the surface T_avg lower in the Sahara-Sahel than in the Congo? (Remember, both regions have about the same average solar input at the surface, so no difference in overall heating.) No, evidently it doesn’t. Quite the contrary.
Already addressed here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/08/20/putting-it-on-the-line/#comment-2282526
Part 2
340 W/m^2 ISR arrive at the ToA (100 km per NASA), 100 W/m^2 are reflected straight away leaving 240 W/m^2 continuing on to be absorbed by the atmosphere (80 W/m^2) and surface (160 W/m^2). In order to maintain the existing thermal equilibrium and atmospheric temperature (not really required) 240 W/m^2 must leave the ToA. Leaving the surface at 1.5 m (IPCC Glossary) are: thermals, 17 W/m^2; evapotranspiration, 80 W/m^2; LWIR, 63 W/m^2 sub-totaling 160 W/m^2 plus the atmosphere’s 80 W/m^2 making a grand total of 240 W/m^2 OLR at ToA.
When more energy leaves ToA than enters it, the atmosphere will cool down. When less energy leaves the ToA than enters it, the atmosphere will heat up. The GHE theory postulates that GHGs impede/trap/store the flow of heat reducing the amount leaving the ToA and as a consequence the atmosphere will heat up. Actually if the energy moving through to the ToA goes down, say from 240 to 238 W/m^2, the atmosphere will cool per Q/A = U * dT. The same condition could also be due to increased albedo decreasing heat to the atmosphere & surface or ocean absorbing energy.
The S-B ideal BB temperature corresponding to ToA 240 W/m^2 OLR is 255 K or -18 C. This ToA “surface” value is compared to a surface “surface” at 1.5 m temperature of 288 K, 15 C, 390 W/m^2. The 33 C higher 1.5 m temperature is allegedly attributed to/explained by the GHE theory.
BTW the S-B ideal BB radiation equation applies only in a vacuum. For an object to radiate 100% of its energy per S-B there can be no conduction or convection, i.e. no molecules or a vacuum. The upwelling calculation of 15 C, 288 K, 390 W/m^2 only applies/works in vacuum.
Comparing ToA values to 1.5 m values is an incorrect comparison.
The S-B BB ToA “surface” temperature of 255 K should be compared to the ToA observed “surface” temperature of 193 K, -80 C, not the 1.5 m above land “surface” temperature of 288 K, 15 C. The – 62 C difference is explained by the earth’s effective emissivity. The ratio of the ToA observed “surface” temperature (^4) at 100 km to the S-B BB temperature (^4) equals an emissivity of .328. Emissivity is not the same as albedo.
Because the +33 C comparison between ToA “surface” 255 K and 1.5 m “surface” 288 K is invalid the perceived need for a GHE theory/explanation results in an invalid non-solution to a non-problem.
References:
ACS Climate Change Toolkit
Trenberth et. al. 2011 “Atmospheric Moisture Transports …….” Figure 10, IPCC AR5 Annex III
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=7373
http://principia-scientific.org/the-stefan-boltzmann-law-at-a-non-vacuum-interface-misuse-by-global-warming-alarmists/
Nicholas,
You are doing the handwavium. And you are monstrously over-complicating your argument with your second submission, which I shall not address. Re. your first submission…
(1) The upward radiative potential from the earth’s surface MUST be 396W/m^2. This value conforms via the S-B law to its empirically determined mean surface temperature of 15C (288K).
(2) The downward radiative potential from the atmosphere is formed from the aggregation of ALL the radiative potentials of ALL the radiative gases at ALL levels and temperatures, each asserting their individual radiative potentials according to the S-B law.
(3) We know that the aggregate value of the downward radiative potential MUST be around 333W/m^2 because this corresponds to an upward radiative energy flow of 396-333=63W/m^2. And this is exactly the amount needed, along with the other two non-radiative upward energy flows (thermals 17W/m^2 and evapo-transpiration 80W/m^2) to balance the Sun’s incoming radiative energy flow of 160W/m^2 that we know is absorbed by the earth’s surface.
No hand waving.
No complexity.
No mystery.
Just the standard rules of radiation physics.
Yes, Cosserat. I have no problem with this. I also refer to the “UWLWIR” and “DWLWIR fluxes” as radiative potentials. Because that’s what they are. Mathematical radiative expressions of temperature/emissivity. Only in themselves realisable when faced directly with surroundings at or close to absolute zero. As already Stefan himself pointed out when working out the ^4 temp-emission relationship back in the 19th century. The actual, detectable bulk (macroscopic) movement of radiative energy is ONLY upwards, from the warmer surface to the cooler atmosphere AND the much colder space outside.
The problem I have with all this is only when people start claiming that the “DWLWIR flux” is not just a radiative temperature potential, but rather a separate, thermodynamically independent flux of energy from a cool atmosphere to a warm surface that helps cause (that is, raise) the surface temperature, right alongside the solar flux. As if the two were thermodynamically equal … AS IF they were both equivalent HEAT FLUXES to the surface. When only the solar flux is.
Kristian,
How are you, my old sparring partner?!
Your comment above is good news indeed. The distinction between a radiative potential and a radiative flow is quite lost on most climate-skeptical blog commentators. (And, of course, climate alarmists are lost in their own world and wouldn’t know one end of a radiative potential from the other…)
In several years of making this point (and its logical consequences) I have never before received such a clear positive response. Thank you.
I think I can throw some light on why the concept of downwelling or back radiation is so prevalent. In the sphere of modern academic physics, statistical thermodynamics reigns supreme (as it should). All bodies with temperatures in excess of 0K emit photons. Thus in the Trenberth diagram, the 333W/m^2 downward radiation figure and the 396W/m^2 upward radiation figure represent photon streams. This is OK providing that it is clearly understood that the opposing streams offset one another. We can accept this ‘photonic’ interpretation with equanimity because, with such a rule in place, the net transfer of energy is always from the hotter to the cooler body. And if the photon streams in both directions are exactly equal, both bodies are equally hot and there is no net transfer of energy – which accords with common sense.
Christopher,
…
“How said it is to see the Scotland we left just five years ago in such rampant….”
…
Should be:
…
“How sad it is to see the Scotland we left just five years ago in such rampant….”
Yes, I noticed that, but…
☺
of crosue said and sad are two diffirnet wrods
phenomenal?
what??? it was 10 letters!
bnigo
@EJ “bnigo”
good one 🙂 Fooled me.
clipe —
Great post and quite interesting.
But some of the ease of understanding comes from the rules of grammar being followed and the “logic of the sense” being conveyed. Spelling is not our only clue to meaning.
And what about this word? — atinsidtabseshiltemnraainsim — which should be an easy one if you are old enough to have watched the Sixty Four Thousand Dollar Question many years ago. The shear length of the word gives it away.
Being inexperienced readers, I have no doubt that children would find your post much harder to read.
Eugene WR Gallun
@Eugene, Yes, EJ’s “bnigo” found me out…agewise.
Rleftt
Take clipes whole paragraph, exclude ‘The Power of the Human Mind’. ( because it is so obvious or should be?)
See if they can read it.
tells you a lot about someone.
I once did this with a paragraph and it was amazing that the person was so confused and couldn’t understand one sentence, let alone just a few words.
spuerclalafrgialeisitcepxealladsohsih
EJ — Sweet Mary, there you go popin’ off. –Eugene WR Gallun
Eugene,
“Sheer” not “shear” please.
You lose cred with bad spelling in wordsmith comments.
Geoff
Then again, Beau, “said” may have been an attempt at Scottish vernacular and is actually a misspelling of “saird” – as in “it’s a verra, verra saird time”.
saird?
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/savourit
Bit of poetic licence, clipe. And you have to vigorously roll your rrrrs.
As Marilyn Monroe did in Some Like It Hot.
aoubt the paomnnehal pweor of the hmuan mnidThis isn’t really a direct reply to what you or Willis have said.
More of a comment on WUWT and its posters and commentators.
WUWT is a forum where people can speak and (most of the) others will listen and consider.
(I think that type of attitude has something to with “science” and “freedom” but sometimes it’s hard to tell these days.)
so the cooling is about to begin.
As to the question of proper use of the “feedback” nomenclature, it helps to recognize that to a great extent it’s more a matter of viewpoint rather than of substance.
That Gerard Roe, whom Lord Monckton is wont to cite, may have had a vague sense of this fact may be inferred from his section entitled “The Importance of the Reference System” between his Equations 16 and 17.
While I think that Mr. Eschenbach’s position on feedback nomenclature is superior because it stands up better to fine time resolutions, either view is serviceable at coarser resolutions.
In a sense it’s a matter of the level of abstraction used in the analysis, as I explain in connection with Fig. 6 here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/01/some-updates-to-the-monckton-et-al-irreducibly-simple-climate-model/.
But your wise men don’t know how it feels to be thick as a brick…
@ur momisugly Merrick
August 22, 2016 at 5:26 pm: if only they had seen and then considered how a frost open to blue sky but shaded from sun, can last all day even. In the sun, frost inches away is gone before lunch. GHE, wherefore art thou?
Christopher Monckton,
Your use of the term “climate object’ is interesting to talk about all by itself. How would “climate object” be different than EAS (Earth Atmosphere System)?
John
In reply to Mr Whitman, in mathematics we describe even the most abstract concepts as “objects” so that we can assign properties to them.
Monckton —
You are a master of an elusive style that I would call “droll accuracy”.
Eugene WR Gallun
Eugene WR Gallun on August 22, 2016 at 6:42 pm
– – – – – – –
Eugene WR Gallun,
Indirection argumentation is an effective technique when skillfully blended with direct argumentation. It causes a sophistication such as Monckton’s essays can often have.
John
John Whitman —
Huh?? Is that what i said??
Eugene WR Gallun
Eugene WR Gallun,
No, it is not what you said. I did not say it is what you said. But, we are both addressing the subject of Monckton’s style. N’est ce pas?
John
John whitman
“N’est ce pas?” Is that French? What has France got to do with Monckton? He is an English lord.
Eugene WR Gallun
But all Classically-educated lords speak and read French, albeit, in Chaucer’s telling phrase, “after the school of Stratford-atte-Bow”.
What a fascinating read!
However, I’m still left wondering whether any of this is relavent. Why? Because what if the truth is that the entire system is continuously actively balanced? Does this equation allow for a “no change over time” condition? Does that mean that some of these variables, that we know exist from physics, have to go to 1 in order for the actual data to fit? Or do equations like this force us to ONLY consider molecules like CO2 as the “cause” of an imbalance? My, perhaps naive, intuition keeps nagging at me that both the abosrbance and emission of radiative energy on our blue ball can not be reduced to such a simplistic constant equation. Neither weather (short term) nor climate (long term) can be reduced to such a simplistic equation when all of the phenomena that regulate the earth’s climate are not yet fully understood. IMHO both the radiation being absorbed and the radiation being emitted (regardless of the average altitude) is like that of a flickering candle. They are NOT CONSTANT. At any given location and at any given time radiation being absorbed is DYNAMIC and in addition it also must be a given that the radiation being emitted is dynamic. . .. . . and the “altitude” at which it is being emitted is dynamic. Don’t very large storms covering large very large swaths of the earths surface fairly glow in the IR spectrum, wherever there are clouds, as a direct result of huge radiative energy dumps caused by water’s phase changes? Is that not why we can take pictures of large huricanes from the dark side of the planet in the infrared spectrum? And if we were to observe a movie (add time to the equation) of this radiative energy picture, would we not see the IR ‘glow’ from clouds modulating with time? And would we not see clear down through to the earth surface where no water vapor is present and much higher where thunder clouds have formed? And does not each tiny droplet of water that has condensed from water vapor in a cloud continue to absorb IR radiation and store it in the liquid crystal layer on its surface to create many, many, many surface charges that are later released in one HUGE spike in radiation (lighting strike). I suspect that when the significant role that water plays, as the Grand Regulator, is finally fully understood and mathematically added to this equation, it will finally become evident just how much of an insignificant “feedback” CO2 plays and just how continuously and actively balanced our blue planet’s radiative picture is.
I deeply respect your analytical mind. So my questions Lord Monkton are these: 1) Would it not follow closer to the truth to integrate the radiative energy balance over time? (rather than be seduced into thinking of it as a single simple equation with un-changing constants?) 2) If so, then does not water’s storing and then releasing of energy (absorbing IR and then emitting back to space somewhere else) need to also be included in this equation some how? Have you ever thought about some way to include the role that water plays in this equation? and What do you think about Dr. Gerald Pollack’s theories about the role of water in clouds and in energy transport and apparent radiative balance?
In answer to Don V, the art of mathematics is to find the easiest way to get a sufficiently well-resolved and precise answer. The simple climate-sensitivity equation illustrated in the head posting is remarkably effective in reproducing the climate-sensitivity predictions of even very complex models, precisely because it reduces the interactions between the key parameters to the simplest form, allowing their values to be tweaked at will to allow for the passage of time, for instance.
As for water vapor, it is taken into account in the equation as the largest of the temperature feedbacks whose sum is represented in blue in the illustration.
Finally, I am not familiar with Dr Pollack’s work.
Water is limited solely to the task of making clouds. Water in clouds, has no other role than just to make clouds.
g
Christopher, forget about the climate sensitivity and its contorted representations. It has no physical meaning. Has it not occurred to you that current observations of radiant energy set its value firmly to zero? If not, lets walk it through. This fact follows from the existence of hiatuses in global temperature records. The first of these hiatuses occurred in the eighties and nineties. During the 18 years from 1979 to 1997 global temperature did not change. This fact is shown as figure 15 in my book “What Warming.” Unfortunately IPCC has decided to cover up this hiatus with a non-existent warning, a scientific crime. Although the warming stopped during the hiatus, the Keeling curve shows that growth of atmospheric carbon dioxide did not. But this is impossible according to the Arrhenius greenhouse theory, still used by the IPCC. According to Arrhenius, values of atmospheric carbon dioxide and of global temperature must always change in parallel. This did not happen and that invalidates the use of Arrhenius theory for having made this false prediction.In the hiatus region, you can now find two temperature segments that are both flat and horizontal. Lay them on top of one another and there is no space between them. And this lack of spare between them is proof that the so-called climate sensitivity is zero. When I brought up this hiatus in a paper tat appeared in WUWT in October of last year a little snutnose called Bob Tisdale had the temerity to accuse me of faking these observations. That is a libel and should be disciplined by Anthony Watts. Below is how NASA described this temperature segment in 1997:
“….Unlike the surface based temperatures, global temperature measurements of the earth’s lower atmosphere obtained from satellites reveal no definitive warming trend over the past two decades. The slight trend that is in the data actually appears to be downward. The largest fluctuations in the satellite temperature data are not from any man-made activity, but from natural phenomena such as large volcanic eruptions from Mt. Pinatubo, and from El Nino. So the programs which model global warming in a computer say the temperature of the Earth’s lower atmosphere should be going up markedly, but actual measurements of the temperature of the lower atmosphere reveal no such pronounced activity.”
In addition to the hiatus of the eighties and nineties we recently had another hiatus in the first part of the twenty-first century. It ended in 2012 when the temperature rise of the El Nino of 2016 began to develop. You can use the earlier parts of this period to draw the same conclusion we already obtained, namely that climate sensitivity is zero. This persistent belief in warming comes from the original belief in carbon dioxide greenhouse effect which IPCC blames for AGW. It has never been proven and is false. Hansen knew this and attempted to prove the truth of the greenhouse effect by presenting a hundred year warming curve to the Senate in 1988. Checking his work in Congressional Record I found that this warming curve did not last 100 years like he said. Not sufficient for me to believe in AGW.
In response to Mr Arrak, it is not possible to assume from the length of the Great Pause from 1997-2015 that climate sensitivity is zero. It is possible, for instance, that the additional heat generated by the excitation-deexcitation collisions in the atmosphere is being taken up into the ocean, whence it may someday emerge. However, since the heat capacity of the ocean is very large indeed, and since the ARGO bathythermographs show the ocean warming not from the top down but from the lower strata up, with little or no warming at the surface, it may simply be that the direct forcing from CO2 has been overstated, and perhaps greatly overstated. The feedbacks are certainly overstated.
The feedbacks are certainly overstated.
The positive feedbacks are certainly overstated.
The negative feedbacks are seldom acknowledged.
Actually, even IPCC accepts that the lapse-rate feedback is negative. See e.g. AR5, fig. 9.43a.
My dear Monnckton, you are confused about the “Great Pause from 1997-2015.” It does not exist. Forget the excitation-deexcitation collisions in the atmosphere, forget the Argo, forget the forcing from CO, and forget the heat capacity of the ocean, they are all irrelevant. Whoever named it the Great Pause did not understand that he was fusing three disjoint temperature regions into an imaginary unity. Look again at my figure 15. Even a child can understand that the towering super El Nino of 1998 and that flat region in the beginning of a new century do not belong together. First. the super El Nino of 1998 is sui generis. It started in 1997 and was gone by 1999. Its peak was twice as high as those of the five El Ninos that preceded it,and its base was much narrower. Together, this spells a much higher velocity of arrival and departure as compared to the the other five peaks. It is possible to regard these five as produced by a regular side to side oscillation of Pacific water involving trade winds and the equatorial counter-current. But the the super El Nino itself must have a different origin, perhaps a branch of the south equatorial current or leakage from the Indian Ocean. Be that as it may be, it is followed by a rapid step warming that starts from a La Nina -like bottom in 1999 and in three years raises global temperature by a third of a degree Celsius. It is quite certain that this warming cannot be greenhouse warming because according to the Keeling curve there was no increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide in 1999. It is likely that its warmth is inherited from the large amount of warm water left over from the super El Nino as it departed. The effect of this warm water was to raise all temperatures that followed by a third of a degree Celsius above the base line of the eighties and nineties. This has led to numerous observations of “warmer than ever” temperatures in the twenty-first century. Hansen was the first one to notice that nine out of ten record high temperatures all occurred in the first decade of the twenty-first century. His conclusion was to ascribe it all to the greenhouse effect without checking whether this was possible (it wasn’t). The beginning of the twenty-first century warm period was reasonably smooth and it was possible to regard it as a hiatus region. But soon irregularities came in, including a La Nina in 2008 and an El Nino in 2010. And by 2012 the temperature started to rise towards a new El Nino peak in 2016. Taking account of all this it became clear that long range temperature was on a down-slope of cooling. This is not surprising if we consider that the chunk of warm water that created this feature can no longer be replenished because its source – the super Ell Nino of 1998 – is no linger available. Which leaves us wondering what will happen when the current El Nino of 2016 has run its course. It is easy to say that once the inherited warmth is dissipated the previous baseline ought to be restored. But it is hard to say when.
models are never sufficient
Monckton,
You said, “Next, one must allow for albedo. The Earth (or, in particular, the clouds, which account for some 97% of its albedo) reflect about 30% of all incoming solar radiation harmlessly straight back into space.”
I have seen that 30% value bandied about in numerous articles, but the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (88th ed.) lists a value of 36.7% I question your statement of 97% of the albedo being the result of clouds because Venus, which is shrouded in clouds, has an albedo of 65% (CRC, 88th ed.) I’ve never seen an orbital image of Earth where it looks close to being 97% cloud covered. Because much of the Earthshine that is reflected back towards the sun is from clouds, your statement may be correct. Maybe this is semantics, because I believe that albedo is the wrong parameter to use anyway. It is, at best, a lower-bound on the total reflectivity of the Earth. Water on the surface reflects by specular reflection, not diffuse reflectance, and is not captured by Earthshine on a backdrop of the moon. Even snow and vegetation, which reflect approximately diffusely, typically have a strong forward scattering lobe that is overlooked in estimating total reflectivity.
[Different chemical? SO2 over an opaque Venusian atmosphere? H2O in a clear earth atmosphere. .mod]
Mr Spencer should understand that the albedo of the Earth is not 97% but 30%, and that 97% of that 30% is from clouds, according to a 2011 paper I read a couple of years ago (I should have taken a copy but didn’t).
One can eyeball a picture of the Earth from space and see that just about all the light returned from the image is reflectance from clouds.
Monckton of Brenchley says
It is unwise for Mr del Prete to say that the only thing that matters is changing albedo, when there is not much evidence for a significant enough change in albedo to make a difference to climate sensitivity.
My Reply
Monckton of Brenchley you are clueless when it comes to why and how the climate may change. Your focus of study is wrong and your statement that there is not much evidence a change in albedo can not change climate sensitivity is based on your opinion which is also wrong.
A change of albedo of .5 of a percent is all that is needed to have major climatic impacts.
Your line of study when it comes to the climate does nothing to explain why the earth has transitioned from glacial to inter-glacial conditions and why abrupt climatic changes occur sometimes in decades.
This whole article is a waste of time when it comes to why /how the climate may change especially if one like myself does not believe the GHG gas effect drives the climate but rather it is the other way around.
I do not think you have ever looked at or studied the historical climatic record.
Dr. Spencer knows the albedo of the earth is 30% approximately but that changes.
What governs the climate is one simple basic fact which is total energy coming into the earth versus total energy leaving the earth and what may effect that balance.
Monckton is not addressing this not really.
Question what determines climate sensitivity in your opinion Monckton, and what factors do you think impact or change climate sensitivity ?
Monckton,
For all your vaunted reputation, you apparently have a reading comprehension problem. I did NOT say that the Earth had an albedo of 97%!!! Instead, I questioned the 30% value and I cited the value of 36.7% found in the CRC Handbook.
I disagree with your assessment of “just about all the light returned from the image is reflected from clouds.” It is true that, when present, clouds are very bright and reflect a substantial amount of light back towards the sun, but everything else can be seen clearly as well, except what is under the clouds. What the clouds contribute is the difference between their reflectance and the reflectance of the surficial materials they are covering. The albedo of the moon is about 12% (with dark ultramafic rocks) and Mars is about 15%. By analogy, areas such as the Sahara Desert and Mojave Desert should be at least 15% because they are richer in white quartz sands and generally lack the ubiquitous iron oxide coating of the Red Planet. In contrast, if we lived on a cloudless Waterworld (ala Kevin Kostner) it would only have an albedo of about 2%, although its total reflectivity would be higher.
However, you missed my point. That is, water especially, and also diffuse reflectors such as vegetation and soil, reflect light in a forward direction into space along with their approximately uniform diffuse reflection in all directions. That is not captured by albedo estimates derived from Earthshine, nor do satellites looking down from a position approximately in line with the sun record this reflected light.
For the MODerator,
while water droplets and sulfuric acid have slightly different indices of refraction, which will affect the reflection to some extent, I don’t expect that it will be substantial because there is an upper-bound of 100% and water clouds are highly reflective. I believe that water droplets are more highly reflective because the extinction coefficient for water is lower than for sulfuric acid. That being the case, I would expect that Earth would have an albedo equal to or greater than Venus if Monckton’s claim that 97% of the albedo was created by water clouds.
Mr Spencer had earlier written that he had never seen a picture of the Earth in which it was 97% cloud-covered. A necessary implication of that statement is that he was speculating on whether the Earth’s albedo might be 97%. In fact, the Earth’s albedo is of order 30%; that is the value the models use; other values for various purposes are also available; and Mr Spencer can help himself to any that he prefers.
The central fact remains that lambda-zero is at present determined by reference to emission temperature and not surface temperature; that it is determined on the basis that today’s albedo is of order 0.3; that accordingly the value of lambda-zero is 0.312 or thereby; that that is the value the models and the IPCC use; and that if Mr Spencer wishes to complain about any of these facts (as he should, for there is a lot wrong with the concept of lambda-zero) then he should address his complaint not to me but to the IPCC secretariat.
He did NOT say that clouds give 97% coverage of earth. He did say that 97% of earth’s albedo (it only has one) is due to clouds. NASANOA says that average earth cloud coverage is about 60%, and that is not solid dense cloud like Venus.
When you look at the earth from the moon, it is quite apparent that the “blue planet” is more white than blue, and the condensed surface contribution is only 3%.
The blue planet is actually a black planet, as the deep oceans are black not blue, when viewed away from scattered sunlight. But the reflection coefficient of the oceans is only 2% normally and about 3% for a full hemisphere reflectance, so the oceans contribute virtually nothing to earth’s albedo. The apparent blue oceans in extra-terrestrial photographs are simply blue sky, which in sunlight looks quite the same looking down as looking up. You can’t actually see the sea surface from a plane at 36,000 feet.
G
Christopher, thanks for your post. I’m in a forest working off of a cell phone and I already lost this twice so it will be short.
You say:
Being fond of definitions, I wanted to see the “by definition” you referred to. So I entered “Planck emission surface” into google, and to my great surprise I found it’s a very rare thing, a “googlewhack”.
And what is a googlewhack when it is at home? Well, it’s a phrase of three words or more that google can only find on one single, sad, solitary web page. And which web page did google find it on?
Why … this very web page.
So not only is there no definition of the term anywhere on the web, but as far as google knows, you’re the only man to ever use the term.
Which, of course, makes me very nervous. When a man claims something is true “by definition” and there is no definition … well, I start to wonder.
So where is the definition of this term that you are the only man to ever use on the web?
More later,
w.
I am taking the sentence you quote as a definition. He wants to exclude heat transport by convection or by rain etc. Still, such a surface will emit much less heat over polar regions than over the equator, it will vary between day and night, over oceans, deserts, jungles, and mountains, and I have a serious problem associating a temperature with it.
Mr Eschenbach should try to use a little imagination if he is a search-engine scientist. Try “characteristic emission level” or “emission temperature” or “Planck temperature”, or read the reference cited in the head posting, Roe (2009), where it is made quite explicit that the reference sensitivity parameter is determined not by reference to surface temperature but by reference to emission temperature.
Monckton of Brenchley August 23, 2016 at 1:13 pm Edit
Lord Monckton, with all due respect, that is nonsense. You know very well that you should just use the correct agreed-upon terminology, then we could understand your meaning and not have these dumb discussions.
“Planck emission surface” was your term. You were quite specific about the words, you used them more than once, and you said that by definition that term meant something. So I looked, and I couldn’t even find the term, much less the definition.
Now you say I should have known that the term was … well … let me call the term “lordship specific”. And you advise I should have just kept trying until … until what? How was I supposed to know when I found the right answer? You are the only man on the planet using the term, and you expect us to magically know what it means? I think this aristocracy thing might be going to your head.
You see, I was foolish enough to believe that you knew what you were talking about. That’s why I looked for your term. But apparently, you get to use any term you want, and we’re supposed to guess what the hell you are talking about.
Sorry, Lord Monckton, but I gave up your nasty little “go google it and if you can’t find it shame on you” game long ago. I will not guess which terms you are talking about, nor will I use google to try to figure you out. I don’t go on a snipe hunt for any man. You see, I’ve tried that with other people. I used to go out on a google run, I’d beat the bushes and finally find something similar, and I’d come back and say “were you talking about ‘Planck level'”, only to be told, “Wrong, go look again”.
So I gave it up. I won’t do it. You want to talk with me, you better tell me exactly what you mean, because I’m not going on a snipe hunt for your meaning.
SO: If you are the scientist you claim to be, and the scientist I for one believe you can be, how about you figure out the right terms first, and stop using your own personal idiosyncratic terms and expecting us to guess your meaning? I will not play your stupid “guess what my words mean” game. If you wish to continue the discussion, how about you simply use terms that are understood and used by everyone else? You have a very unusual distinction, one almost no man has—you were the one and only person on the internet using the term “Planck emission surface” … and you expect everyone to simply guess what you mean by it?
Not gonna happen. Science is not about forcing people to guess at your meaning. You want to discuss science, please use terms that people understand. And if you say that something means something “by definition”, let me suggest that have a link to the definition handy. I say this because definitions are a crucial part of science, I’ll want to look at it, and I would not like to embarrass you again.
Which brings me back to the start. You’ve attacked me for my claimed inadequacies … but you didn’t answer the question. So I’ll ask again:
IS THERE A DEFINITION SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE, FOR THE TERM “PLANCK EMISSION SURFACE”?
And if not … why did you say there was one, and more to the point, what are you talking about?
Regards,
w.
Mr Eschenbach continues to strain at gnats. He may be unfamiliar with the long-established best practice of providing a definition for an object that does not yet have its own standard nomenclature. The Planck emission surface is one such. It goes by a variety of names. I gave it a name, just as others have done, and, in accordance with best practice, I provided a definition.
It remains the fact – and no amount of wriggling by Mr Eschenbach can conceal that fact – that he attempted, erroneously, to determine lambda-zero (which also goes by a variety of names) by reference to surface temperature and not by reference to emission temperature. A simple admission that he was wrong would be best practice in scientific discourse, rather than focusing uselessly on semantics.
If I had used the term “Planck emission surface” without defining it, Mr Eschenbach might have had a point. But I defined it, and even used the words “by definition” to make it clear that I was making a definition.
Now, Mr Eschenbach may prefer some other definition, in which case he can address himself to the IPCC and ask them to transfer their calculations of lambda-zero to the hard-deck surface.
“The Earth presents a disk-shaped cross-section to the incoming radiation, but its surface is a rotating sphere. So it is necessary to divide the total solar irradiance by 4, which is the ratio of the surface area of a sphere to that of a disk of equal radius.”
–
Is there a problem with taking an average input for a rotating sphere when it is only a hemisphere receiving the input?
The meter directly under the sun gets a lot more energy to dissipate than one at the edge.
When you throw around T to 4th power loss it does not seem like a straight averaging to me.
I too share concerns when one is dealing with T to the 4th power.
All over this disc is different albedo different absorption and emissivity. The temperature profile varies significantly all over this disc and this potentially poses problems when dealing with a function to the fourth power.
There is only ONE albedo for the earth, and that is somewhere around 0.360. I see 0.350 stated quite often.
“Albedo” is NOT “Reflectance” or Reflection Coefficient.
And in fact most of the cloud contribution to that single albedo number is a consequence of simple refraction (multiple times) by roughly spherical cloud droplets of water or ice crystals. Water only has 2-3% reflectance.
G
This is also a question mark for me. That divide by 4 seems non-physical. The earth is heated by the full power of the sun on one side, whilst the other side is radiating into space. The side being heated is effectively a double cosine integration for lat/long over a hemisphere, or does that not matter?
On a cloudless day at the equator with the sun overhead there is enough energy to potentially heat the surface to just under 88 degC, even including albedo = 0.3. If it were cloudless and the albedo 0 the potential maximum surface temperature would peak at about 120 degC.
The temperature based on average flux is surely not the same as the average of the T^4 temperature based on the actual flux, integrated by double cosine over the hemisphere?
What am I misunderstanding?
Thinkingscientist has a point, and the way that the official determination of climate sensitivity deals with his point is by performing latitudinal mean calculations to allow for differences in mean insolation per square meter when determining the value of the reference sensitivity parameter lambda-zero. He will find the term for the Hoelder inequality coefficient in the calculations.
ThinkingScientist August 23, 2016 at 7:25 am
This is also a question mark for me. That divide by 4 seems non-physical. The earth is heated by the full power of the sun on one side, whilst the other side is radiating into space. The side being heated is effectively a double cosine integration for lat/long over a hemisphere, or does that not matter?
Exactly, do the double integral over a hemisphere and you’ll see exactly where the factor of 0.25 comes from!
You are misunderstanding that climate science is a safe haven for otherwise unemployable statisticians, who don’t seem to realize that they are the only things in the whole universe that are even aware of an average, or respond to information about an average.
The real universe acts in real time and does everything immediately; meaning, as soon as it can happen it does happen, and if it doesn’t happen it is because it CAN’T happen so it doesn’t.
Nothing physical in the universe responds in any way to the average value of anything.
And averages are calculated after the fact from presumably real numbers, which are samples of some continuous function, and there is NO assurance that the average computed from those samples is the true average of the original continuous function.
Only if the discrete sampled values comply with the Nyquist criterion, can the true average of a continuous function be computed.
TSI is 1362 Wm^-2 thereabouts, not 342, and that is the “Forcing” that the illuminated portion of the earth feels, and can heat the surface to perhaps +60 deg. C during the day.
342 can’t get the planet beyond 252 K or thereabouts. The number is floating around somewhere on the web.
G
For Christopher and others debating the term “Planck feedback”, a quick look on Google Scholar finds more that 200 peer-reviewed climate science papers that use that exact term. So regardless of whether it is correct, it is used extensively by professionals in the field and its meaning is well understood.
In other words, if it is right it is right, and if it is wrong, it is so wide-spread that it is a “term of art”, a particular usage of words in a field that is not technically correct but is widely used and accepted nonetheless. These are common in all fields.
As such, Christopher, your insistence that I’m wrong for using the term is bogus. Not only have you quoted other scientists in the past who were using the term WITHOUT BUSTING THEM FOR USING IT, but it is used all over the place by dozens and dozens and dozens of climate scientists.
So I have to conclude your questioning whether I’m using proper terminology is just a red herring. AFTER you bust all of those other scientists and tell them that they are wrong, after you bring the patented Hammer of Moncton down on Brian Soden and Anthony Brocolli and dozens and dozens of other arch-criminals, then and only then you’ll come to me on your list, and you can smite me mightily.
And until then? How about you stop the sideshow and just discuss the science? We know what we are referring to whether it is called a feedback or a parameter, so what difference does it make?
w.
Your comment at 11:37 is priceless, although I do not consider that LOrd M0nckton was suggesting that his definition was true by definition, but rather he was asserting how he defined the expression he was using (of course by implication one might consider that L0rd M0nckton was inferring that it was an accepted definition in common usage).
I agree with you that semantics are often a side show but at the very least a lack of precision may convey a lack of understanding or a sloppiness to reasoning and/or application which could carry consequence, But at the end of the day, I share your view that
although perhaps I would have said I want to know and understand what it is (whatever it be called) what if anything it does, and how large is any effect in the real world conditions of planet Earth.
“How about you stop the sideshow”
A monktopus squirts ink.
your patience is admirable.
“In other words, if it is right it is right, and if it is wrong, it is so wide-spread that it is a “term of art”, a particular usage of words in a field that is not technically correct but is widely used and accepted nonetheless. These are common in all fields’
I recently had a similar discusssion with the bright lights at Goddards about the definition of “ice free”
A clue bird says..
when folks dont want to lose on the science they focus on semantics..
Mr Mosher, as usual, sheds more heat than light. I had suggested in the head posting, mildly enough, that to call the reference sensitivity parameter a “feedback” was infelicitous. I don’t care how many people call it that; it is infelicitious, because it suggests that the reference sensitivity parameter is a feedback, when – as the most cursory glance at the official sensitivity equation will reveal – its role in that equation is manifestly and materially distinct from that of any feedback.
The thrust of the head posting, however, was that Mr Eschenbach was in error (as I had been ten years ago until the great Dick Lindzen kindly put me straight) in assuming that the reference sensitivity parameter falls to be determined by reference to surface rather than emission-altitude temperature.
Is Mr Mosher implying that Mr Eschenbach was right? If so, then climate sensitivity falls very sharply.
It would be better if Mr Eschenbach followed the rule of citing what he actually disagreed with in my posting rather than making up his own straw man from it and tilting at that. What I said, mildly enough, was that his use of the term “Planck feedback” for what is better understood as part of the reference frame within which climate sensitivity is calculated was infelicitous. That there are many others who call what is rather obviously not a feedback a “feedback” is no justification for the use of a term that is calculated to mislead.
The main point of the head posting is that Mr Eschenbach is wrong to attempt to determine the reference sensitivity parameter by reference to the Earth’s surface temperature rather than by reference to its Planck emission temperature. On that, he must surely now admit that he was incorrect. See e.g. Roe (2009), and just about any presentation by Dick Lindzen on climate sensitivity, or any of the climate models (not everything they do is wrong).
I found this lovely interchange in the comments to the IPCC WGI AR5 Second Order Draft.
COMMENT:
RESPONSE:
And yes, the IPCC does indeed call it “Planck feedback” and they do indeed discuss it in Section 9.7.2 under that name, viz: …
So it appears that Lord Moncton tried out his ‘It’s not a feedback’ claim on the IPCC, and they said sorry, wrong.
HOWEVER, as I said, this semantical question is a red herring. I don’t care what it is called, I want to understand what it is and does and how big it is.
w.
Mr Eschenbach seems to know less about the mathematics of climate sensitivity than I had suspected. He may like to read Roe (2009) on the question of how the reference sensitivity parameter is conventionally determined, and on why it is better considered not as a feedback – for it does not act in any recognizable way as part of any feedback loop and its role, if he will only look at the official climate-sensitivity equation, is manifestly distinct from that of any feedback.
As for the IPCC, it is indeed most reluctant to describe how the reference sensitivity parameter lambda-zero is determined. It would much rather keep everyone in ignorance, for it turns out to be hiding something. Using the term “Planck feedback” for what is rather obviously not a feedback is part of what is either a wilful or a herd-instinct sowing of confusion.
It was when I realized that the term “Planck feedback” was being used as a method of confusing the argument that I began to look at what might be hidden behind it. More in due course. Watch this space.
In the meantime, if Mr Eschenbach is unfamiliar with the Planck radiance of a planetary body, I suggest that, rather than making inept use of search engines, he should find a good elementary textbook of astrophysics. But, if he is a search-engine scientist, then let him google “Planck emission”, “emission level”, “characteristic-emission level” etc., and, when he discovers it, he can study it before making the monstrously anti-scientific implication that because he cannot find my name for it it is not a recognized concept.
Like it or not, he is in frank, grave and persisting error in persisting in wanting to determine the reference sensitivity parameter at the Earth’s surface rather than at the Planck emission surface as meticulously defined in the head posting. One who is reduced to futile semantics rather than tackling the substance of a scientific argument does neither himself nor science any favors.
Monckton of Brenchley August 23, 2016 at 1:01 pm
Oh, please. You used a very specific term and claimed it had a meaning “by definition”. I went to look for the definition, and not only could I not find it, I couldn’t find the term itself. How is that my fault?
And no, your Lordship, I’m not ever going to try to guess what you mean. I’m sorry, but trying to guess what goes on in another scientists head is a game for losers.
And now, you encourage me to google more random terms … why? Are you hoping I’ll come across your bogus term?
Lord Monckton, the fact that you do not use understandable terms DOES NOT MAKE IT MY PROBLEM! Nor does it mean I have to guess at your meaning.
So I ask again, as I have asked before:
IS THERE A DEFINITION SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE, FOR YOUR CHOSEN TERM “PLANCK EMISSION SURFACE”?
And if not … why did you say there was one, and more to the point, could you give us a clear definition of just what you mean by your unknown bogus terminology that nobody but you uses? You keep whining about my state of knowledge … but that doesn’t answer the question, it just distracts the easily fooled.
w.
Mr Eschenbach, who continues to wriggle unbecomingly like a stick pig rather than conceding that lambda-zero is determined by reference to emission temperature and not by reference to surface temperature, will find a more than usually precise definition of the term “Planck emission surface” in the head posting. If he would like further details, he may like to refer to the numerous excellent presentations by the great Dick Lindzen on the subject: for instance, the term “characteristic-emission level” is his phrase for what I have called the “Planck emission surface”.
And of course it is not a real surface, as a careful reading of the head posting would reveal to Mr Eschenbach. For it is the locus of all points at or above the hard-deck surface at which incoming and outgoing radiation are equal.
Mr Eschenbach seems to think that there is no point at or above the Earth’s surface at which, in steady state, the incoming and outgoing radiation are equal. In that event, he seems to be coming perilously close to repealing the laws of thermodynamics. For, all other things being equal, one would expect the Earth either to emit as muc radiation as it receives or either to heat up or cool down.
Monckton of Brenchley August 24, 2016 at 12:16 pm
So now you are lowering yourself to a cheap ad hominem attack? There’s a Lord in England who once listed all those kinds of bogus attacks and logical errors and condemned them roundly … oh, wait, that was you! And now you are descending into mudslinging? How the aristocracy has fallen from its own guidelines. Medico, cura te ipsum!
I have your definition, in fact three of them. The problem is that they don’t agree with each other. So I wanted a real definition, like in a glossary or other reference work.
I have only your word for it that you are talking about the same thing as Lindzen, and if your definitions are correct, you are not talking about the same thing.
Ah, my bad. I didn’t realize you were including solar radiation in the equation, as this is the first time it has come up. Prior to that you were talking about IR. So when you said “the incoming and outgoing radiation is equal”, I thought you were talking about IR, when actually you were talking abut incoming solar only, not incoming IR, and outgoing IR. You could have just said that. But now that we have that settled, we have three separate definitions from you:
1. The Planck emission surface is, by definition, the locus of all points of least altitude at which incoming [solar] and outgoing [IR] radiation are equal …
2. This strange surface is the surface from which satellites perceive outgoing radiation from the Earth to emanate …
3. It is – again by definition – one optical depth down into the atmosphere as seen from above …
Unfortunately, those don’t all agree. For example, the satellites perceive outgoing radiation from a) the surface itself, b) the atmosphere, and c) the top of the clouds. According to your definition 1, all of these points must perforce lie on the Planck emission surface. But there is no requirement that at the tops of the clouds the downwelling solar MUST equal the upwelling IR, in fact it’s highly unlikely. So those two definitions disagree.
Also, your definitions assuredly don’t agree with the normal definition of the effective radiation level. The normal definition is that the ERL is 1) an AVERAGE, and 2) different for different longwave frequencies.
In addition, there are areas of the planet where incoming solar and outgoing IR are NEVER in balance at any altitude. So one of your three definitions doesn’t cover the whole planet.
Finally, the definition you have given is NOT for an average. Instead it is for a surface containing all points meeting certain conditions, which is as far from an average as you can get. That defines an actual variable surface. Nor does it contain any discussion of what frequencies you are referring to.
And THAT is why I wanted you to define just what you are talking about, because as far as I can see, it is NOT what Dick Lindzen is talking about. He has defined an average. You’ve defined a surface.
So perhaps you could elucidate the following.
1) According to Dick Lindzen, the “characteristic emission level” is a global average. You say it is not an average, it is a surface of varying height all over the world. Please clarify.
2) The satellites see down one optical depth, by definition … however, this depth varies in both space and time. Sometimes it is well above Dick Lindzen’s “characteristic emission level”, and sometimes it is under that. Dick’s “characteristic emission level” on the other hand, is an average which is stable as long as the forcing is unchanged. Please clarify.
3) At any given instant, some photons from the earth’s surface go unimpeded into space, through what is called the “atmospheric window”. According to you, their Planck emission surface is at the planetary surface. At the same time and place, other photons are intercepted at a variety of heights by a variety of GHGs … so we have a variety of what you call “Planck emission surfaces”. Which one are you talking about?
4) You say that the Planck emission surface is the altitude at which downwelling solar equals upwelling IR. HOWEVER, for about 2% of the world’s surface, this is never true. As you might imagine, these are cold areas where the surface temperature is below the blackbody temperature of the incoming solar radiation. And as a result, the upwelling IR can never match the downwelling solar radiation.
And on a monthly basis, in some months, above as much as 39% of the planet the upwelling IR and downwelling solar aren’t ever equal no matter what altitude you look at. Please clarify what happens to your “Planck emission surface” in those areas. Does it disappear? Does it become the planetary surface? Does it go to infinity?
You see what I mean about your various definitions not agreeing with each other? Over any given location there is always a level which is one optical depth from outer space at any given frequency. But there is NOT always a level where upwelling IR is equal to downwelling solar … so those two definitions simply cannot both be true.
Finally, you say that:
“There is really very little argument about the value of the Planck parameter, for its derivation is so very straightforward.”
However, in fact there is significant argument about how to calculate the value of the Planck parameter, and even about the definition of the Planck parameter. Easterbrook, for example, recognizes two Planck parameters to be used in different situations, ksfc and kcel. Kimoto spends an entire paper discussing different arguments for different values for the parameter. And Lucia Liljegren has written a very strong argument arguing that you and Kimoto are both wrong … and she’s ten times the mathematician that I am.
So it is simply not true that “there is little argument about the value of the Planck parameter”. That’s just you trying to end the discussion before it has even begun by claiming in effect that ‘the debate is over’ … sound familiar? It should, it is a common trick of the climate alarmists … in my experience, when a debater claims “the debate is over” or “there is little argument” or “there is little opposition”, it very much means that there IS argument and opposition, and the debate is NOT over.
Please note that none of this is a claim that I’m right and you’re wrong on the basic issue. That remains to be seen. You may indeed be right. Me, I haven’t gotten that far yet. I’m still trying to figure out your terms and definitions.
w.
The equation in figure 1, and the related derivations, compute the expected change in temperature with respect to changes in available solar radiation. It is incorrect to use that lambda-zero to compute a change in surface temperature due to a change in greenhouse gasses. Using that equation, if you increase the CO2 amount one hundred times, the temperature of the Planck emission surface, and its measured emission, will still be the same because this is determined only by the amount of energy received from outside the system, the albedo, and the assumption that the emissivity is equal to one. The pressure (altitude) where this average “surface” occurs may change, but its temperature will not.
Mr Clemenzi is partly right. The usual approach is to determine climate sensitivity at the emission altitude and then, via the lapse rate (which does not vary much), translate any temperature change at altitude to a corresponding temperature change at the surface. Some authors (see e.g. Vial et al., 2013) argue that temperature feedbacks should be determined by reference to changes in surface temperature, but they do not follow the logic of their argument through to the extent of replacing lambda-zero with lambda-surface in the feedback part of the equation, for that would greatly reduce climate sensitivity, and their paychecks depend on not letting that happen, ever, regardless of mere science.
Monckton of Brenchley August 23, 2016 at 1:31 pm said (emphasis mine)
Actually, the lapse rate varies quite a lot at lower altitudes, both by season and by location. Here are the MODTRAN values for the lapse rate up to the tropopause for six different scenarios. All of them use the default MODTRAN values except for a setting of 400 ppmv for CO2. I’ve “jiggled” the x-axis values slightly and used a 50% transparency so you can see two or more points which land on top of each other.
As you can see, far from your claim that the lapse rate “does not vary much”, the lapse rate actually varies by about two to one, from values around minus 3 to about minus 6 degrees C per 1000 metres altitude depending on season and location …
Again, I’m not saying that you are incorrect in your basic claim about the Planck parameter. I’m just trying to hack through the misconceptions so I can see what you are actually doing.
w.
To confirm the variation in lapse rates by latitude, I calculated them using the mean temperatures and elevations by 10° latitude band. Of course, this can only calculate the lapse rates over the land. Here is that result:
The large uncertainty in the 50°-60°S band is due to the very small amount of land there.
Now, recall that Lord Moncton had claimed that the lapse rate “does not vary much”. However, both MODTRAN and the CERES data disagree strongly. When the standard deviation is nearly a third of the average value, yes, it varies a lot.
w.
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley,
may I accolade the ‘smiling physics readers’ award.
Mr Wundersamer is most kind. I accept the award with – er – a physical smile.
Can’t help; the best analysis + the best performance of ‘climate models’ to get.
Lots of work, I suppose – lots of time.
________________________________________
1st of all is a fast base. Yours the way.
I have tightened the chin strap on my steel hard hat helmet, and ducking all of the ordnance flying around.
BUT, I have to admit, that I am NOT troubled at all, when an author adds the words: ” By Definition ” to a statement, that may in fact be the first utterance of a definition that (s)he has just offered.
Now others may choose to NOT recognize that ” out of the blue ” definition as too new to find in the literature, but there is nothing wrong with the author saying it is a definition, if (s)he wants to designate that term to that subject.
On a first reading, I simply took LMofB’s statement as being his definition of his terminology, although it might also have been a pre-existing term, and definition.
In science papers where it is very common to find “shop” terms and ideas, authors are in fact well advised to define right there terms they used that might not be widely disseminated in the literature.
I once wrote a technical paper for an electronics magazine that was a tutorial on the terms from the Science of Photometry for the benefit of EEs who were starting to play with LEDs.
Naturally, throughout the paper, I used the word “Luminance” many times, referring to the photometric equivalent to “Radiance” for emitting sources of EM radiation.
The editor, thinking that “Luminance” was simply some street term for shiny things, proceeded to methodically replace “luminance” with brightness, illumination, and every other colloquial synonym he could find, as he thought my multiple usage was stuffy.
Then he asked me to proof read his trashy result for technical accuracy.
I simply wrote back that my paper was technically correct as written, and he had turned it into total rubbish. He published my paper verbatim. Never changed a word or letter of even punctuation. We got along famously after I explained that Luminance and the other photometric terms were precisely defined quantities, and not at all interchangeable in science papers.
And as an example, I have yet to find an EXACT definition of the term “Climate Sensitivity ” as used in a peer reviewed scientific paper by whoever the heck it was that first mentioned climate sensitivity, and said “By definition.” Who was that and does anyone have a reference for that paper. Here at WUWT, I have read at least a half dozen ersatz statements on what CS is, that are all different.
G
Moon Fact Sheet Moon/Earth Comparison Bulk parameters
Moon Earth Ratio (Moon/Earth)
Mass (1024 kg) 0.07346 5.9724 0.0123
Bond albedo 0.11 0.306 0.360
Visual geometric albedo 0.12 0.367 0.330
Visual magnitude V(1,0) +0.21 -3.86 –
Solar irradiance (W/m2) 1361.0 1361.0 1.000 check
Black-body temperature (K) 270.4 254.0 1.065
–
albedo. The Earth (or, in particular, the clouds, which account for some 97% of its albedo) reflect about 30% of all incoming solar radiation grudging check
the Earth’s emission temperature, which turns out to be 254.6 Kelvin, check
–
Note both the sun and the earth receive the same solar irradiance yet the earth, with greenhouse gases radiates at a lower temp than the virtually airless moon from it’s Planck emission surface,
I guess because more energy has been reflected.
The bit we live in is nice and warm though.
@angech
The sun receives solar radiation? A short trip.
Hmm… he loves Scotland so much he can only stand to see it ruled from another country, without independence…
He ignores that the SNP is voted in by the majority of Scots… perhaps he’d prefer if it was governed by Labour MPS from Westminster?
And he doesn’t seem capable of using the internet to find a decent cottage… I’ve just found some at £335 for a week.
Bizarre stuff…
Don’t whine. The people of Scotland voted to remain part of the United Kingdom. Get over it.
The people of Scotland also voted to remain in the EU. Well, we can’t have our cake and eat it. Scotland remains in the UK, and the UK is leaving the EU, so Scotland is leaving the EU.
“Willis was infelicitous in referring to the Planck parameter as a “feedback”, for it is unlike any true feedback; he was incorrect (as I had once been) in attempting to determine it at the hard-deck surface rather than the emission surface of the Earth;”
Thanks Lord Monckton, and of course Mr. Eschenbach (who may consider himself beknighted in my heart) for this exchange that helps to illuminate the mysterious concept of feedback. It is infuriating to the senses and aggravates the mind, like finding fractals floating in your soup. Every time I hear the term “re-radiation” I wonder, why would Nature stop at one “re-“? Is it Planck Turtles all the way down?
Until I grasp this concept completely I dare not place a candle between two mirrors, lest the tunnel of light should gain even with the re-radiation of the soot particles upon the mirrors’ surfaces, to swell brilliantly and consume the Earth in a blaze of Glory that is contained only by the urgent gravity of the situation.
For gravity is the firewall with which Nature keeps its silly mistakes from spoiling the whole Experiment. Will wax philosophical, for food.