Guest essay by Mike Jonas
This is how climate works. It’s all about seeing the ocean and atmosphere separately:
- The sun directly warms the ocean.
- Cloud cover changes naturally, affecting the sun’s warming of the ocean.
- Cloud cover changes have only minor effect on the atmosphere.
- Ocean oscillations warm the atmosphere.
- Greenhouse gases (GHGs), including man-made CO2, warm the atmosphere too.
- The atmosphere has little effect on the ocean, except over very long periods.
- If the ocean cools, the atmosphere radiates excess heat to space.
And that’s about it. Well, OK, a few other things do go on in climate, but those are the essentials.
1. Introduction
It is generally accepted – incorrectly – that man-made CO2 is the principal force changing Earth’s temperature, and that it will lead to catastrophe (the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis, “CAGW”). The “C” in “CAGW” is very important, because that is the major point of contention. Many scientists and others do think that CO2 warms the planet, but not nearly enough to be catastrophic.This document explains how Earth’s temperature really works, and then goes on to explain how extraordinarily badly the process has been misunderstood and misapplied.
The “mainstream” climate science has been a stuff-up of epic proportions. As with so many major stuff-ups, there was not one error but a sequence of related errors, with hubris and a bit of bad luck thrown in. This is not supposed to happen in science – science is supposed to be self-correcting. Well, mistakes do happen in science, and the self-correction process sometimes takes quite a long time. In the case of climate science, there has been some appallingly shoddy science and bad behaviour, protected by the truly awful process by which science currently operates.
In this series of three articles on This is How Climate Works,
· Part 1 describes how climate works.
· Part 2 explains how mainstream climate science went wrong.
· Part 3 looks at the scientific process.
NB. I do not claim to be the first or only person to put forward any of the ideas in this series of articles. I do hope that I am adding some value by putting it all together.
2. This is How Climate Works
2.1 Clouds
In a recent post, I asked “was ‘the pause’ caused by a change in global cloud cover?“. Some clues to how the climate works were in that post.
Put very simply, clouds control Earth’s temperature and hence its climate, and in the long term the sun controls the clouds.
But there are two different cloud-temperature relationships.
2.1.1 Short term: Temperature -> clouds -> water cycle.
When temperature increases,
· evaporation increases by about 7% per 1 deg C as per the Clausius-Clapeyron relation (“C-C”),
· warm humid air convects up to a cooler layer of the atmosphere where the water vapour condenses to form clouds,
· and then it rains (precipitates).
All of this is in line with the IPCC report. The only major issue that I am aware of is just how much extra precipitation there is when temperature increases, and hence how much “cloud feedback” there is. The IPCC put precipitation increase at 2-3% per 1 deg C increase in temperature. Evidence has been presented that puts it much higher, in line with C-C evaporation. But for this part of the discussion, that doesn’t matter. [I re-visit it later].
Cloud and temperature data shows the formation of clouds soon after a temperature increase, typically 1-2 months after:
Figure 1.1. Temperature and Cloud over Tropics Ocean, with some dates highlighted.
What causes the temperature changes is not specified. For some of the highlighted dates, the cause could have been ENSO. The IPCC argue that this pattern applies for any cause of temperature change, and there seems to be no reason to disagree. Obviously, sometimes “noise” will make it difficult to identify.
[Cloud data is from ISCCP, temperature data is from UAH].
2.1.2 Longer term: Cloud -> temperature.
I expect that just about everyone is familiar with some version of the global energy budget
Figure 1.2. Global annual average energy budget, from here).
The item of interest here is the 168 W/m2 of direct solar input that is “Absorbed by Surface”.
Everything to the left of this item in the diagram (Figure 1.2) is reflected to space. Everything to the right of this item is Infra-red (IR) or is converted to IR.
The “168 W/m2” is direct solar radiation, so it contains SW (UV and visible light) as well as IR. Of this direct solar radiation, there is one band of wavelengths, from about 200nm to 1000nm, that is very poorly absorbed by water and by water vapour.
Figure 1.3. Absorption coefficients for water. [From here].
This band of wavelengths passes virtually unscathed (no absorption) through the atmosphere and through the ocean surface, and penetrates many metres into the ocean. I will call this band the ITO (Into The Ocean). The ITO warms the ocean well below the surface with little direct effect on the atmosphere. All other wavelengths cannot penetrate the surface (land or ocean), and enter a rapid cycle of absorption and re-emission until their energy escapes to space, except for a small proportion that manages to enter the ocean, eg. by conduction or as precipitation.
The energy budget as shown in Figure 1.2 is net zero at the surface: 168+324=492 inward, 24+78+390=492 outward. Net zero balance is correct for a stable planet, but there is a big difference in timing between the ITO and the rest. The non-ITO radiation (IR etc) doesn’t hang around anywhere – it spends a very short time being reflected and/or absorbed/re-emitted before nearly all of it escapes to space. But the ITO enters the ocean and its energy can then take a long time to get back up to the surface. That “long time” could be days or months (eg, it might up-well quite quickly), it could be years (eg, waiting to be scooped up in an El Nino), it could be decades (eg, accumulating until an ocean oscillation such as the AMO or PDO brings it to the surface), or it could even be many centuries (eg, taken down into the deep ocean by the THC).
| The ocean acts like a giant heat-pump. Energy from the sun is pumped in short or long bursts by the ocean into the atmosphere. In the short term, or even over decades, the release of energy might bear little relation to its acquisition. |
Those time-scales – days, months, years, decades, centuries – are not “Either-Or” options. The ocean is a large place, and all the timescales apply at some time in some part of the ocean. Similarly, when the energy does reach the surface again, it might do so over a short or long time-scale. In a truly stable planet, the energy budget at the surface would indeed be a net zero, but only over a very long time. On all other timescales, there would be “noise”. And, of course, Earth’s climate isn’t stable over very long time-scales anyway.
There is some debate about whether clouds are net warming or cooling. The generally agreed position is that low clouds are net cooling, while high clouds are net warming, with variations for particular cloud types, etc. But that is all about IR (and EUV) and Earth’s surface (land and ocean) and atmosphere, so it is all irrelevant to this part of the discussion,. It has nothing to do with the ITO. The ITO is affected by the amount of cloud cover – ie. cloud reflectance – and by nothing else of much significance. Cloud height doesn’t matter, only cloud reflectance.With respect to the ITO and the ocean, clouds only cool. More cloud -> cooler, and less cloud -> warmer.
2.2 The IPCC
The IPCC and the models make no allowance for clouds changing independently of temperature. Their view is that clouds are a constant (plus “noise”) until they are affected by temperature. Their view then is that clouds give a positive feedback to temperature. They offer no mechanism, no evidence, and their view is prima facie in the opposite direction to the short term above where temperature increase -> cloud increase.
In the longer term, clouds and temperature do move in opposite directions, as I showed in the ‘Cloudy Question‘ post. ie, temperature and “ClearSky” move in the same direction, and over very large areas of the ocean the cloud cover changes direction several years before temperature does. eg:
Figure 1.5. NH Temperature and ClearSky anomalies, with 11-yr smoothing.
This suggests pretty strongly that cloud cover is in the driving seat, and that the mechanism is as described in 2.1.2 above.
2.3 Sun-Cloud Connection
A long time ago, Henrik Svensmark realised that there was a sun-cloud connection. The sun protects Earth from Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs), and GCRs create aerosols which seed clouds. A more active sun therefore leads to less clouds, and a less active sun leads to more clouds.
The fourth IPCC report dismisses Henrik Svensmark’s theory as ‘controversial’, and ignores it. The fifth IPCC report is interesting. The draft report leaked by Alec Rawls admitted strong evidence for enhanced solar forcing: “Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system []. The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link.“, but the final report contained no such statement and continued to treat total solar irradiance alone as the sun’s only influence.
Henrik Svensmark’s theory has been confirmed in many tests and experiments. For example, by Laken et al (2010) “These results provide perhaps the most compelling evidence presented thus far of a GCR-climate relationship. From this analysis we conclude that a GCR-climate relationship is governed by both short-term GCR changes and internal atmospheric precursor conditions.“.
This might not be the only sun-cloud connection, but the simple fact is that the sun-GCR-cloud link does exist.
2.4 CO2
Much of CO2 theory has been confirmed in many tests and experiments. But only the direct effect of CO2 has been demonstrated. As I described here and here, the indirect effects (“feedbacks”) claimed by the IPCC are unsubstantiated and their use is unwarranted..
The direct effect of CO2 – “Climate Sensitivity” – is generally agreed to be about 1 to 1.2 deg C per doubling of CO2. Some studies observe much lower climate sensitivity (eg. here), but to be on the safe side I will use 1.2. [NB. Studies which find a higher sensitivity tend to be model-based, ie. they make the same errors as the models].
Applying the same data and formulae as I used here, but with a climate sensitivity of 1.2, projected temperature increase from 1750 to 2100 is ~2 deg C. That is using the “Business as Usual” CO2 projection, which reaches 1,030ppm in 2100. Some other years are:
| Year | CO2 | Deg C |
| 1750 | 280.0 | 0.00 |
| 1900 | 296.3 | 0.09 |
| 1980 | 338.7 | 0.27 |
| 2000 | 369.7 | 0.40 |
| 2010 | 389.4 | 0.48 |
| 2017 | 415.5 | 0.55 |
| 2047 | 562.7 | 1.00 |
| 2100 | 1,030.2 | 2.03 |
Table 1. CO2 concentration and temperature projection for ECS = 1.2.
For an ECS less than 1.2, the ‘Deg C’ figures in Table 1 would be lower.
At Mauna Loa Observatory, the current (21 Jan 2017) CO2 measure is 406ppm.
2.5 Clouds vs CO2
The question is often asked: how much of the observed global warming is from CO2 and how much is from natural factors.
In a way, that is a misleading or inappropriate question, because it is based on linear thinking – ‘if you add the components you get the total‘. But climate is non-linear.
The way that direct ocean warming and GHG warming relate to each other is the key.
GHGs warm the atmosphere. The GHG process involves only IR, which cannot penetrate the ocean more than a fraction of a millimetre, where its energy goes mainly into evaporation. ie, the energy goes straight back into the atmosphere. Other ways that the energy from GHGs can get into the ocean is by rain being warmer, and by conduction at the ocean surface (which does a poor job). In the meantime, the atmosphere is busy radiating its heat out into space. And, of course, the heat content of the ocean is much larger than the heat content of the atmosphere. The bottom line is that it will take a very long time indeed for any GHG warming to warm the oceans. It is not exactly surprising that the IPCC do not attempt to say how long it takes to reach equilibrium.
Clear sky – absence of clouds – warms the ocean in and below the surface. That warmth, as explained above, later warms the atmosphere on various timescales. But net heat transfer between ocean surface and atmosphere is from the one that is warmer to the one that is cooler. So, for example, if the atmosphere is already warmer then the ocean will not warm it any further – although it could slow down the rate at which it cools.
So in simple terms the relationship between Clear Sky warming and GHG warming is that GHGs warm the atmosphere and Clear Sky warms the ocean, and then the two of them look for a balance. If the ocean is warmer then it warms up the atmosphere on various timescales as described earlier. If the atmosphere is warmer then it radiates to space.
By 1980, global temperature was no more than about 0.5 deg C higher than in 1850, which was probably little warmer than 1750. The global temperature has since gone up by about another 0.5 degrees C. So the global temperature over the last few decades has been much higher than the temperatures that could be expected from CO2.
/Continued in Part 2.
Mike Jonas (MA Maths Oxford UK) retired some years ago after nearly 40 years in I.T.
###
Abbreviations
AMO – Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
APS – American Physical Society
AR4 – Fourth IPCC Report
AR5 – Fifth IPCC Report
C – Centigrade or Celsius
C-C – Clausius-Clapeyron relation
CAGW – Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming
CO2 – Carbon Dioxide
ENSO – El Niño Southern Oscillation
EUV – Extreme Ultra-Violet
GCR Galactic Cosmic Ray
GHG – Greenhouse gas
IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IR – Infra-Red
ISCCP – International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project
ITO – Into The Ocean [Band of Wavelengths approx 200nm to 1000nm]
NCAR – (US) National Center for Atmospheric Research
nm – Nanometre
PDO – Pacific Decadal Oscillation
ppm – Parts Per Million
SCO – the Sun-Cloud-Ocean hypothesis
SW – Short Wave
THC – Thermohaline Circulation
TSI – Total Solar Irradiance
UAH – The University of Alabama in Huntsville
UV – Ultra-Violet
W/m2 or Wm-2 – Watts per Square Metre
Sounds too simple. Except for sunspot cycle, is the sun considered a constant in the IPCC models? Nothing in nature is simple. The deeper you delve the more complexity is revealed. I liked the following Fernandez article https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2017/01/02/the-new-middle-ages//?singlepage=true
ristvan,
Normal science is about reproducible experiments.
As Einstein said “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
No one has ever managed to demonstrate that CO2 can be used to raise the temperature of anything. No one. Just surmise, assumption, and strident declaration.
Sure, CO2 can be heated. So can all other matter in the universe. The GHE is a widely held delusion – in the same category as phlogiston, the luminiferous ether, N rays, and orgone.
Repeatedly and loudly asserting that anybody who disagrees with the existence of the GHE in the absence of reproductive experimental support is mentally defective in some way, is just demonstrating that you have no experimental facts to support you.
The Earth has cooled for four and a half billion years. Its internal supply of radioactive elements has been largely depleted. Neither the Sun, nor all Man’s puny efforts can prevent the big molten blob of rock on which we live from cooling. Slowly but remorselessly.
Your “observations” are nonsense. Climate is the average of weather, no more no less. Obviously, burning stuff to create CO2 creates heat. Even in the absence of sunlight. I have to point out that at night, the surface loses all the heat it gained during the day. If this was not so, Winter would not be possible, nor would the Earth have cooled during the last four and a half billion years years.
Maybe you could provide some actual scientific experimental evidence, where the heating effect of CO2 has actually been recorded. Complete nonsense, which is why Warmists are reduced to talking about overcoats, insulation, TOA, TCR, and all the other pseudo scientific gibberish that occupies their delusional view of reality.
Hansen, Schmidt, Mann, and all the rest of the self proclaimed climatologists are merely deluded, not necessarily fraudulent or stupid.
I don’t believe in unicorns either. Show me one, and I’ll change my mind smartly, I suspect.
CO2 GHE? Bah, humbug!
Cheers.
Mike Jonas, is this what you intended to write?
Greg – Yes, exactly. Bear in mind that it is part of a simplified summary whose aim is to give a nice simple picture of the overall pattern. To find out more, you need to look to the details.
CO2 actually works to COOL, not warm the atmosphere.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/29/climate-science-on-trial-evidence-shows-co2-cools-the-atmosphere/
LMAO @ur momisugly co2islife: “Mid-Latitude Summer”
..
Nice cherry you picked there buster.
…
What happened to high latitudes?
What happened to Winter?
What happened to low latitudes?
What happened to Spring and Autumn?
“Nice cherry you picked there buster.”
That is the only chart I can find. Feel free to post another that debunks the theory.
“That is the only chart I can find.”
…
I have nothing to “debunk” since your chart/evidence is garbage.
You know. Data. And you know is a morgue for CAGW .
It isn’t really the choice of plot that is wrong here. It is the interpretation, or lack of it. Firstly, yes, a lot of the IR coming from the Earth comes from CO₂, so you could say that is cooling the Earth. But what happens is that CO₂ absorbs photons which had been emitted from the warm surface. And the absorbed heat is re-emitted (likely by different CO₂ molecules) at the same location, which is much colder. So it is lower intensity; radiation is impeded. That has to be made up for by higher emission in unimpeded wavelengths – so warmer surface.
But the graph is actually unhelpful. It shows cooling in K/day/cm-1. It is high at about 1mb. But that is gas at about 2gm/m3. A small emission cools it rapidly. What you see at those peaks is the heat from UV absorbed by ozone being re-emitted by CO₂, which isn’t really about climate at all. The relevant plot is what is below the tropopause.
Yes, that is true, and CO2 has no impact at all on the lower troposphere.
This chart helps explain the chart above. The average path length of a photon leaving the atmosphere is longer than one approaching the earth. A radiated photon from CO2 simply takes 3 steps up, 2 steps back, 3 steps up, 2 steps back. The physics simply don’t support trapping heat, they support just the opposite.
Climate “Science” on Trial; Evidence Shows CO2 COOLS the Atmosphere
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/29/climate-science-on-trial-evidence-shows-co2-cools-the-atmosphere/
The physics simply don’t support trapping heat, they support just the opposite.
The theory doesn’t propose trapping of heat. Trapping of heat is terminology used by reporters in the MSM writing about something they don’t understand and dumbing it down. You’re debunking a claim that the theory doesn’t make.
OK, what I really wanted to do was to address the physics. See any problems with the physics detailed, or the explanation of the chart?
Your chart doesn’t represent the physics. Your explanation doesn’t represent the physics. You’re so far afield from the actual physics that Einstein’s quote comes to mind:
That’s not right. That’s not even wrong.
I suspect your attempt is sincere, but it is wrong.
Please correct me then.
The average path length of a photon leaving the atmosphere is longer than one approaching the earth.
The ones approaching the earth are at completely different wavelengths, have completely different absorption spectrum, and are immaterial to this discussion.
A radiated photon from CO2 simply takes 3 steps up, 2 steps back, 3 steps up, 2 steps back.
You are ignoring the fact that most energy absorbed by CO2 is then transferred by collision to other molecules in the atmosphere. You are ignoring that WHERE the average photon escapes to space is the driving factor, that doubling of CO2 requires that this average height increase (simply because there are now twice as many molecules at all heights that might intercept a photon that would otherwise have escaped) and you are ignoring the effect all these things have on the lapse rate from the Mean Radiating Layer down to the surface.
The physics simply don’t support trapping heat, they support just the opposite.
No. A thousand times no. The physics supports neither trapping of heat nor the opposite. Both would violate the laws of thermodynamics, and is NOT, repeat NOT a claim made by the theory in the first place.
Of course, it converts kinetic to emissive radiation. But it warms the surface.
No one has explained why back radiation doesn’t melt frost at 32F. If it can’t do that, it can’t “warm” the surface. The sun takes seconds to do what back radiation cannot even do. What’s more, if it DID melt frost, you would find it melted only where it was open to the sky, but not under trees, etc. Doesn’t work that way – frost stays until it’s above 32F. Anyone can prove this for themselves. I’m not saying there is no back radiation, I’m saying it can’t ‘heat’ anything.
How if it doesn’t reach the surface, and how could it ever warm the radiating body?
An analogy here is shining a flashlight on a hot stove. Yes, the photons hit the stove. Yes, the photons are mostly absorbed. No, it doesn’t heat the stove. Co2 photons striking the earth’s surface is similar. The entire surface of the earth is like that stove. CO2 is a trace gas. It doesn’t have some magical ability to overwhelm the continuous radiation of the earth. It is a matter of scale.
A flashlight adds additional energy. The GHG effect absorbs outgoing radiation, and a small fraction get sent back to the source. There is no way for a radiating body to warm itself.
There is no way for a radiating body to warm itself.
Always amusing when someone tries to debunk a theory by attacking a claim that the theory does not propose. The theory requires that the effective black body temperature of earth be precisely the same before CO2 doubles as it is after. EXACTLY the same. The theory does not, and never did, contemplate warming the entire system. It cannot, it does not, and the theory never made any such claim.
What the theory claims is that the temperature profile from earth surface to top of atmosphere gets altered. The effective average temperature from surface to TOA remains EXACTLY the same, but the temperature at the bottom (earth surface) is higher and the temperature at the top is colder. As seen from space, the temperature of the planet changes by zero.
Learn what the g*d d*mned theory actually is before making a fool of yourself by debunking a claim that was never made.
You can’t have the top getting colder because it must match the temperature of space, no more and no less.
What happens is that GHGs alter the lapse rate slope differently at different heights and locations so that convection then adjusts the internal mass distribution of the atmosphere until radiation down from GHGs matches radiation out to space from GHGs for a zero net effect.
See Fig 3 here:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/10/for-discussion-can-convection-neutralize-the-effect-of-greenhouse-gases/
You will see that the surface is warmer below rising columns but colder beneath falling columns for a zero net effect.
The author writes: “Cloud cover changes have only minor effect on the atmosphere.”
I regret I was late to the party on this one Mike and to some extent I appreciate your contribution; I expect your heart is in the right place; I’m almost certain your mind is 🙂
Clouds have a significant effect on albedo, subsequently on global temperature. You should work to develop your understanding of this effect.
Best Regards.
@ur momisugly Bartleby
January 28, 2017 at 6:37 pm : Bart, the author is right. Clouds are too late to interfere with IR heating (optical depth/ Beer-Lambert Law). Venus is an example. So it is left for SW in the ocean, where present. Physics is more wonderful than we think….
I have this shirt that reads “There’s an answer for everything, and it’s usually PHYSICS!”
The MODTRAN program disagrees with that statement hugely, as would anyone working outdoors on a hot summer day and a cloud passes over.
Bigly. MODTRAN disagrees bigly. We must stick to the correct terminology. 🙂
Sorry but I just couldn’t resist…
Sorry, you are correct, “Bigly,” or maybe even “hugely.” Either way, it is “SO bad, SO dishonest, MOST corrupt.”
Bartleby and Co2islife – The IPCC explains that low clouds are thought to be net cooling and high clouds are thought to be net warming [of the atmosphere]. So the overall effect on atmospheric temperature is minor. Clouds’ major effect is on the ocean, as I explain. Yes, you can feel the effect of a cloud on a hot summer day, but it hasn’t changed the air temperature around you, it has stopped direct solar radiation from reaching you. You are feeling what the ocean feels.
“Yes, you can feel the effect of a cloud on a hot summer day, but it hasn’t changed the air temperature around you.” That is the effect that is important for warming the oceans. You have to warm something before you can trap its outgoing IR.
” … are thought .. ” meaning they don’t know.
“GHGs warm the atmosphere. The GHG process involves only IR, which cannot penetrate the ocean more than a fraction of a millimetre, where its energy goes mainly into evaporation. ie, the energy goes straight back into the atmosphere.”
Reemitted LWDR from water vapour is assumed in the MOM 4.0 guide used by the models to have an average ocean attenuation of 267mm. MOM guide 8.3.2. This applies to all wavelengths greater than 750nm.
The back radiation energy from WV would likely be incorporated in the ocean by turbulence etc. This is why the oceans do not freeze as Willis has pointed out in various posts.
The back radiation from CO2, on the other hand is almost totally absorbed in the 1mm evaporation layer with it’s energy almost totally returned to space as latent heat of evaporation. In my opinion this would affect the efficacy of CO2 forcing and is a factor not allowed for by the models.
“GHGs” in your quote is too general a term. You should distinguish between WV and CO2.
Bingo!!!
?w=840
Smoking Gun #7: Antarctica isn’t warming, but the Oceans are warming
Smoking Gun #8: Atmospheric Temperatures follow ocean temperatures, not atmospheric CO2.
Smoking Gun #26: PDO/ADO and other Natural Cycles You’ve Never Heard of…and for good reason.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/climate-science-on-trial-the-smoking-gun-files/
@ur momisugly
John Shotsky
January 28, 2017 at 1:22 pm
“AGW is a hypothesis, the weakest form of scientific endeavor. Hypotheses are little more than guesses, and are often disproved. Google: laws, theories, hypotheses to read the actual meaning of these terms.
General relativity is a theory. Not as good as a law, such as the thermal law:”
Janice, you are of course right, and this is one of the killers. The Gas Laws and Poisson relationship, as shown by Maxwell (a truly superior practical physicist) are part of the proof against ghe. All else is piffle. There are plenty of 20th century experimental and empirical backups to this.
— Sun does not control cloud cover
— cloud cover define the sunshine hours and thus global solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface and thus net radiation or radiation balance at the Earth’s surface
— cloud cover reduces day temperature [due to reduction in global solar radiation] but raises night temperature[due to raise in net radiation for that global solar radiation], hence the balance lower temperature on cloudy day — see Figure 1.1 after cloudy day temperature coming down
— cloud/moisture and temperature vary with seasons/general circulation pattern — wind speed & direction — clouds may or may not rain depending upon some localized conditions
— if we look from an aeroplane, you find stretches of cloud cover and stretches of clear skies over oceans.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
“If the ocean is warmer then it warms up the atmosphere on various timescales as described earlier. If the atmosphere is warmer then it radiates to space.”
Not clear at all what is meant. If the atmosphere is warmer than what? The atmosphere radiates to space regardless of the temperature of the ocean, surely? Does the temperature of the ocean have any effect on this? Don’t get it.
michel – It’s in the context of the ocean and atmosphere looking for a balance. So I’m explaining the mechanism by which they achieve the balance.
Mike wrote: “When temperature increases, evaporation increases by about 7% per 1 deg C as per the Clausius-Clapeyron relation (“C-C”)”
Mike needs to learn a little about evaporation. When temperature increases, the C-C relationship means that SATURATION WATER VAPOR PRESSURE increases about 7%/K. This does not mean that evaporation (or technically the rate of evaporation) increases by 7%/K. The atmosphere is not saturated with water vapor.
In the big picture, the rate of evaporation – which is equal to the rate of precipitation – which combined is called the rate of the “hydrologic cycle” or “atmospheric overturning” – depends on the rate water vapor is carried high enough in the atmosphere to precipitate. If we focus just on the surface evaporation, the rate of evaporation is proportional to the surface wind speed and the “under-saturation” of the air over the ocean (100% – relative humidity). If one assumes that absolute humidity doesn’t change, then an increase in temperature produces an increase in undersaturation and therefore evaporation. Once the original relative humidity is restored (typically 80% over the ocean or 20% undersaturation), the rate of evaporation drops.
See Isaac Held’s blog: https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog_held/47-relative-humidity-over-the-oceans/
or more simply: https://scienceofdoom.com/2014/08/15/latent-heat-and-parameterization/
Rational: A thin layer of air over the ocean is saturated with water vapor, but molecular diffusion is too slow to carry water vapor any higher. Turbulent mixing caused by surface wind is needed to transport water vapor perpendicular to the surface. If turbulent mixing brings down air that is already saturated with water vapor, then no net evaporation can occur. Therefore the “undersaturation” of the air turbulently transported downward near the surface of the ocean is also critical to the rate of evaporation.
Suppose the rate of evaporation did increase 7%/K. Given that latent heat removes about 80 W/m2 of heat from the surface, that increase in flux would be 5.6 W/m2/K at the surface. (The net increase in radiative cooling by the surface – OLR-DLR – per degK of warming is much smaller.) If the same amount of heat escaped to space per K of surface warming, ECS would be (3.7 W/m2/doubling)/(5.6 W/m2/K) or 0.66 K/doubling. So ECS is intimately related to the increase in evaporation per degK of surface warming and high ECS requires that evaporation/precipitation increase far less than 7%/degK. (Increasing albedo with warming can reflect some of this 5.6 W/m2/K as SWR rather than OLR.)
Frank – You’re right about the saturation water pressure. Evaporation only increases by the full ~7% if the water cycle also increases by that amount. I’ll try to tighten the wording in any future version.
Cloud cover influences ocean winds, as any blue water sailor will know.
Oh c/mon, clouds aren’t real as they cannot be modeled don’t ya know?
Mike is broadly correct in relation to the ocean atmosphere interaction but I see that as only half the answer to natural climate variability.
The ocean cycles/oscillations work from the bottom up but the sun also has top down effects due to solar induced changes in the slope of the tropopause height gradient between equator and poles.
Both processes affect jet stream tracks by altering the balance between zonality/meridionality which in turn affects global cloudiness/albedo.
Climate change is the outcome of the varying interaction between the two processes and as far as CO2 might have any effect it would be indiscernible.
Many articles, like this of Mike’s, are now getting very close to the content of my work published over the past ten years.
How much do we actually know about Brine currents, or more generally the thermohaline circulation? From what I am reading, this cycle from start to finish could take 1,600 years as currently estimated. We see very little with respect to the influence of these circulations on climate, but they are indeed long term major players. Are these modeled in the GCM’s?
Hi Stephen – I have read your past comments on the jet stream with interest. While I was going through the ISCCP data, it seemed that some of it supported your ideas, though I didn’t follow up that part of it. Even if you are correct [and if I have understood you correctly] it doesn’t help because the CAGWers can simply claim that what you describe is just a cycle that doesn’t affect the long term picture – just as they do with for example ocean oscillations.
Yes, they can do that whatever natural processes one refers to.
In order to tackle them head on one must ascertain why radiative gases fail to destroy the hydrostatic equiloibrium of planetary atmospheres so I deal with that entirely separately thus:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/10/for-discussion-can-convection-neutralize-the-effect-of-greenhouse-gases/
the slope of the tropopause height gradient between equator and poles.??? How? and so?
Climate change is the outcome of the varying interaction between the two processes But not “global” climate change and not permanent. Right? If i understand correctly, you (your articles) define why and how masses of energy move/shift around the globe, but the total of energy in atmosphere changes very little, so little it is impossible for us to accurately measure the variances. Just asking…
Solar particle and wavelength variations alter the balance of the ozone creation/destruction process in the stratosphere differently at varying heights and latitudes.
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-the-climate/
That describes how solar variations can account for all the climate variability that we have observed since cloudiness/.albedo changes can warm or cool the globe by affecting insolation which is one of the three determinates of surface temperature, the other two being atmospheric mass and the strength of the gravitational field.
But what about radiative gases?
If an atmosphere is to remain in hydrostatic equilibrium between the upward pressure gradient force and the downward pull of gravity then potential disruption from radiative gases MUST be neutralised otherwise one loses the atmosphere.
If the surface is heated to a point beyond that required by mass, gravity and insolation then the atmosphere expands so that the top layer goes outside its point of balance (within the new, higher, layer, the upward pressure gradient force EXCEEDS the downward pull of gravity) and that layer is lost to space.
The mass of the atmosphere falls so it expands upwards again (less resistance to the upward pressure gradient force from atmospheric mass)and another layer is lost and so on until the entire atmosphere has gone.
The thermal effct of radiative gases MUST be neutralised:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/10/for-discussion-can-convection-neutralize-the-effect-of-greenhouse-gases/
SW, thank you. I read only the first article before, not the second. Both are logical and i now understand the “height gradient” phrase.
I agree totally. The increase in short waver over the last century has been responsible for ~2/3 rds of the warming and CO2 for ~1/3rd. So .6 C for Solar, .3 C for CO2
My rumination.
Regarding CO2, if oceans are in net discharge, this increased evaporation combined with warmth will cause increased greening. Increased greening will enter into the food cycle driving increases at every stage to result in increased atmospheric CO2 levels. Paleo-evidence from interstadial/stadial periods clearly demonstrate this paradigm as do agricultural experiments on a much smaller scale. CO2 rides the coat tails of another driver.
Regarding the post, the cloud/cosmic ray hypothesis has yet to show up in nature as a consistently cosmic ray driven linked observation in the temperature data. Lab experiments have all been inconclusive. Neither does CO2 for that matter though lab experiments demonstrate its ability to absorb and re-emit long wave IR.
Regarding the null hypothesis, what drives small time segments of climate should first be ruled out as the mechanism driving longer segments of the climate. That has not been done. The CO2 crowd simply ignored the requirements of basic research around intrinsic mechanisms. Therefore, the null hypothesis stands. Both long term and short term variations are internally driven by teleconnections involving the oceans, the atmosphere, and Earth’s orbital/axial mechanics in the presence of a stable solar source of energy.
Rud, this is a straw horse: “The surface has warmed some in the past century. Surely you do not believe gravity has increased or Earth has added atmosphere in the past century? Either or both would be required for your alternative explanation”
We are fairly sure it is the sun/oceans relationship ie energy supply/rate of release changes.
The ‘atmospheric thermal effect’, which perfectly explains surface temps, is a property of gases. The physics of their state of matter, hence the gas laws and Poisson relationship Actually demonstrate they are wrong, and you will be a giant. But I waste my time, and will await developments elsewhere..
“The ‘atmospheric thermal effect’, which perfectly explains surface temps, is a property of gases”
Correct.
More specifically the COMPRESSIBILITY of gases which is the characteristic that made the Gas Laws necessary.
Compression/decompression is all about the transformation of KE to PE and back again within convective columns working within a gravity field.
Ongoing convection requires an energy source at the surface in the form of KE (heat) so on Earth the surface has to rise by 33K above S-B to successfully maintain ongoing convective overturning.
Yes, you do waste my time by misunderstanding my carefully laid out arguments. Now, stop wasting same?
Jose x. Go to edberry.com He disproves the AGW hypothesis in a straight forward fashion.
“The GHG process involves only IR, which cannot penetrate the ocean more than a fraction of a millimetre, where its energy goes mainly into evaporation. ie, the energy goes straight back into the atmosphere.”
Mike
Fig. 1.2 contradicts your statement. Out of 324 W/m^2 back radiation, evaporation is only 78 W/m^2 or a quarter of back radiation. Surface radiation is 390 W/m^2. Now you cannot emit more radiation without increasing surface temperature according to S-B law
Well, suppose that only 78 Wm2 of back radiation comes from GHGs then GHGs would be cancelled by evaporation would they not ?
The rest of that initial 324 Wm2 which is in my view incorrectly described as back radiation is in reality kinetic energy being recovered from non radiative conduction and convection as one descends along the lapse rate slope.
I adopt those numbers just to keep it simple for you.
More likely the actual figures are that GHGs send less than 78 downward and are completely eliminated by enhanced evaporation and the rest of the 78 comes from evaporation induced by recovery of KE from PE in conduction and convection.
So, I think Mike is correct about the effect of evaporation eliminating IR from GHGs without heating the oceans.
The idea that the sky as a whole is radiating down at 324 is nonsense. The vast bulk of that 324 is being recovered from non radiative processes via compression of descending non radiative gases. The existence of the lapse rate slope is the necessary proof.
“The idea that the sky as a whole is radiating down at 324 is nonsense.”
It’s not a matter of opinion. Back radiation has been measured. See Table 2 – values are 317 to 330 W/m^2
https://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/17/the-amazing-case-of-back-radiation/
What happens if only solar radiation heat the ocean?
“The second graph has only solar radiation heating the ocean. Notice that the temperature drops to a very low value (-15°C) in just a few years.”
https://scienceofdoom.com/2010/10/23/does-back-radiation-heat-the-ocean-part-two/
Something may have been measured, but I can think of no better instrument to measure down radiation than frost at 0C degrees. If it doesn’t melt, there is NO measurable downward radiation or else it would rise above 0C and melt. It simply does not happen. Recheck those instruments and see how much of it is hypothetical or computer models. If it can’t melt frost, it sure as hell can’t warm the earth 33K.
You can measure it yourself with a handheld IR thermometer as Dr. Spencer did.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/08/help-back-radiation-has-invaded-my-backyard/
Roy and everyone else do not seem to realise that an IR thermometer records the composite of both IR coming down from GHGs/particulates directly as a result of their radiative absorption characteristics AND the IR coming from the KE retrieved from PE via non radiative processes by those same GHGs and particulates along the lapse rate slope at the height at which the instrument focuses.That latter component is the primary cause of the temperatures at which the GHGs and particulates radiate downwards.
That also explains why the reading is higher when a cloud passes over. Under a clear sky the instrument records the temperature at a location high up along the lapse rate slope where it is colder but a cloud causes the instrument to record at the height of the cloud which is a lower warmer location. The height at which the instrument records the temperature is determined by the optical depth required to trigger the sensor. For example, if you point the sensor at say the inside of a fridge which is colder than the air between you and the fridge then the density of the fridge materials will trigger the sensor and the temperature of the fridge will be recorded rather than the temperature of the intervening air molecules.
The source of the bulk of the thermal activity at any given height is the lapse rate slope which traces the amount of KE retrieved from PE as one descends towards a planetary surface. The IR received directly from from GHGs and aerosol particulates solely as a consequence of their radiative absoorption characteristics is a relatively small component and that from CO2 alone pretty much insignificant.
If their radiative absorption characteristics cause their temperatures to deviate from the lapse rate temperature in their location then that causes density variations which affect convection so that height changes occur so as to neutralise the radiative imbalance.
Due to constant air movement along the lapse rate lope there are always imbalances but taking the Earth’s atmosphere as a whole in three dimensions the imbalances away from the ‘ideal’ lapse rate slope in one location are always offset by imbalances in the opposite direction somewhere else for a zero net effect.
Convection always responds to density variations to make it so.
“Roy and everyone else do not seem to realise that an IR thermometer records the composite of both IR coming down from GHGs/particulates directly as a result of their radiative absorption characteristics AND the IR coming from the KE retrieved from PE via non radiative processes by those same GHGs”
You do not seem to realize that IR is a massless photon and GHG is a molecule with mass. Conversion of PE to KE involves a change in speed of the molecule in the vertical direction while heat is the random motion of molecules in all directions. Emission of photons by atoms involves a change in the quantum energy level of electrons in the atom. They are different phenomena.
Not so.
For gases, compression in situ converts PE to KE and compression also occurs when molecules move down an increasing density gradient.
More KE, more photon emissions.
It is the interchangeability of intermolecular forces between KE and PE combined with the compressibility of gases that has been overlooked.
I used to design infrared thermometers. Often used to measure temperature of telephone pole transformers from the ground with a rifle-like instrument with a scope. The detector has a filter to cut out the atmospheric window, or you would see nothing. In fact, you must also know the emissivity of whatever you are measuring to get an accurate reading. Or, if you know the temperature, you can determine the emissivity.
Compression of gas does not convert PE of gas molecules to KE. PE is dependent on the position of the molecule in a gravitational field. In compression you apply external work to increase the pressure and temperature of gas. It’s not conversion of PE to KE, at least not in the atmosphere. It’s true for gas inside a cylinder with a piston and you put weights to drive the piston,
Within a gravity field density variations alone will cause the necessary work to be done to convert intermolecular forces between KE and PE
“The bottom line is that it will take a very long time indeed for any GHG warming to warm the oceans. It is not exactly surprising that the IPCC do not attempt to say how long it takes to reach equilibrium.”
Mike
This is what IPCC-TAR said on how long to reach equilibrium:
“For a full coupled atmosphere/ocean GCM, however, the heat exchange with the deep ocean delays equilibration and several millennia, rather than several decades, are required to attain it.”
https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/345.htm#fig91
“If the ocean is warmer then it warms up the atmosphere on various timescales as described earlier. If the atmosphere is warmer then it radiates to space.”
The whole atmosphere is cooler than the surface because of environmental lapse rate. In the hypothetical scenario where the atmosphere is warmer, it will radiate and transfer heat to both surface and space.
willhaas said:
“If any gasses in our atmosphere trap heat it would be the non-greenhouse gases that absorb heat via conduction and convection but that are very inefficient radiators to space”
Correct, see here:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/earths-atmosphere-is-warmed-primarily-by-molecules-that-are-not-greenhouse-gases/
For Mike Jonas, this is why there is a maximum energy content that can be achieved by water oceans under any atmosphere of a given weight and at a given level of insolation:
http://www.newclimatemodel.com/the-setting-and-maintaining-of-earths-equilibrium-temperature/
In summary, the weight of the atmosphere alters the amount of energy required by the evaporative phase change and it is that amount of energy that controls the maximum energy content.
John Sotsky,
Too good to be true? Temperature is predicted by irradiation and pressure?
Yes too good to be true. It turns out that the paper that is cited and that is available at several places including tallbloke was actually WITHDRAWN
“WITHDRAWN: Emergent model for predicting the average surface temperature of rocky planets with diverse atmospheres
This article has been withdrawn upon common agreement between the authors and the editors and not related to the scientific merit of the study. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117715005712
Doesn’t precisely inspire confidence on the pressure conjecture.
“not related to the scientific merit of the study.”
And I’m sure I’ve seen another paper from different authors amounting to much the same conclusion.
“not related to the scientific merit of the study.”
Sure, it is so normal to have a paper withdrawn, that I have never actually met anybody that had to go through that. I would say that anything in that paper becomes automatically suspicious, and cannot be cited.
Shouldn’t need to cite it given the Gas Laws plus the basic thermo behind conduction and convection all of which is absent from radiative AGW theory.
Unless we know who caused the withdrawal, and why, we don’t really know anything about the validity of the paper. It is hard to find peer reviewers that will agree with a completely different approach to that which is held by the vast majority. That STILL doesn’t make the vast majority right, it only shows that it only takes ONE person to disprove the popular hypothesis by proving an alternative hypothesis. Not ONE THING about AGW has EVER been proven.
Mike Jonas – Thank you for an outstanding essay. Very well written, readable and understood.
I have a question about a recent article I read online (I can’t find it right now). It stated that there are geothermal outpourings in the trenches (i.e. Marianas I think) and around the islands in the SW Pacific, likely caused by earthquakes, that heat up the ocean right near where the ENSO is suspected to originate. It stated that this may be the primary force behind the ENSO.
Have you heard this and what do you think? I also read a long time ago ( a year or more) that there are similar geothermal vents in the arctic. Could these be contributing to the melting ice caps?
I am a forester by training and have a pretty solid background in science. In my profession, we have used algorithms to model forest growth and I quickly learned they are only as good as their inputs. Ever since Gore’s tragic film I have tried to tell friends and anyone else that atmospheric science has more variables than can possibly be modeled with any type of precision or accuracy on any computers we have today. The above statement, about the absurdity of using ‘tree rings’ to determine the temperature in the past, although possible, has such a wide margin of error as to make it superfluous in climate modeling.