We publish this here, not to confirm that it is correct, but to stimulate the debate needed to determine whether or not it is correct or if it’s simply an exercise in curve fitting. ~ctm
George White, August 2017
Climate science is the most controversial science of the modern era. A reason why the controversy has been so persistent is that those who accept the IPCC as the arbiter of climate science fail to recognize that a controversy even exists. Their rationalization is that the IPCC’s conclusions are presented as the result of a scientific consensus, therefore, the threshold for overturning them is so high, it can’t be met, especially by anyone who’s peer reviewed work isn’t published in a main stream climate science journal. Their universal reaction when presented with contraindicative evidence is that there’s no way it can be true, therefore, it deserves no consideration and whoever brought it up can be ignored while the catch22 makes it almost impossible to get contraindicative evidence into any main stream journal.
This prejudice is not limited to those with a limited understanding of the science, but is widespread among those who think they understand and even quite prevalent among notable scientists in the field. Anyone who has ever engaged in communications with an individual who has accepted the consensus conclusions has likely observed this bias, often accompanied with demeaning language presented with extreme self righteous indignation that you would dare question the ‘settled science’ of the consensus.
The Fix
Correcting broken science that’s been settled by a consensus is made more difficult by its support from recursive logic where the errors justify themselves by defining what the consensus believes. The best way forward is to establish a new consensus. This means not just falsifying beliefs that support the status quo, but more importantly, replacing those beliefs with something more definitively settled.
Since politics has taken sides, climate science has become driven by the rules of politics rather than the rules of science. Taking a page from how a political consensus arises, the two sides must first understand and acknowledge what they have in common before they can address where they differ.
Alarmists and deniers alike believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that GHG gases contribute to making the surface warmer than it would be otherwise, that man is putting CO2 into the atmosphere and that the climate changes. The denier label used by alarmists applies to anyone who doesn’t accept everything the consensus believes with the implication being that truths supported by real science are also being denied. Surely, if one believes that CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas, that man isn’t putting CO2 into the atmosphere, that GHG’s don’t contribute to surface warmth, that the climate isn’t changing or that the laws of physics don’t apply, they would be in denial, but few skeptics are that uninformed.
Most skeptics would agree that if there was significant anthropogenic warming, we should take steps to prepare for any consequences. This means applying rational risk management, where all influences of increased CO2 and a warming climate must be considered. Increased atmospheric CO2 means more raw materials for photosynthesis, which at the base of the food chain is the sustaining foundation for nearly all life on Earth. Greenhouse operators routinely increase CO2 concentrations to be much higher than ambient because it’s good for the plants and does no harm to people. Warmer temperatures also have benefits. If you ask anyone who’s not a winter sports enthusiast what their favorite season is, it will probably not be winter. If you have sufficient food and water, you can survive indefinitely in the warmest outdoor temperatures found on the planet. This isn’t true in the coldest places where at a minimum you also need clothes, fire, fuel and shelter.
While the differences between sides seems irreconcilable, there’s only one factor they disagree about and this is the basis for all other differences. While this disagreement is still insurmountable, narrowing the scope makes it easier to address. The controversy is about the size of the incremental effect atmospheric CO2 has on the surface temperature which is a function of the size of the incremental effect solar energy has. This parameter is referred to as the climate sensitivity factor. What makes it so controversial is that the consensus accepts a sensitivity presumed by the IPCC, while the possible range theorized, calculated and measured by skeptics has little to no overlap with the range accepted by the consensus. The differences are so large that only one side can be right and the other must be irreconcilably wrong, which makes compromise impossible, perpetuating the controversy.
The IPCC’s sensitivity has never been validated by first principles physics or direct measurements. It’s most widely touted support comes from models, but it seems that as they add degrees of freedom to curve fit the past, the predictions of the future get alarmingly worse. Its support from measurements comes from extrapolating trends arising from manipulated data where the adjustments are poorly documented and the fudge factors always push results in one direction. This introduces even less certain unknowns, which are how much of the trend is a component of natural variability, how much is due to adjustments and how much is due to CO2. This seems counterproductive since the climate sensitivity should be relatively easy to predict using the settled laws of physics and even easier to measure with satellite observations, so what’s the point in the obfuscation by introducing unnecessary levels of indirection, additional unknowns and imaginary complexity?
Quantifying the Relationships
To quantify the sensitivity, we must start from a baseline that everyone can agree upon. This would be the analysis for a body like the Moon which has no atmosphere and that can be trivially modeled as an ideal black body. While not rocket science, an analysis similar to this was done prior to exploring the Moon in order to establish the required operational limits for lunar hardware. The Moon is a good place to start since it receives the same amount of solar energy as Earth and its inorganic composition is the same. Unless the Moon’s degenerate climate system can be accurately modeled, there’s no chance that a more complex system like the Earth can ever be understood.
To derive the sensitivity of the Moon, construct a behavioral model by formalizing the requirements of Conservation Of Energy as equation 1).
1) Pi(t) = Po(t) + ∂E(t)/∂t
Consider the virtual surface of matter in equilibrium with the Sun, which for the Moon is the same as its solid surface. Pi(t) is the instantaneous solar power absorbed by this surface, Po(t) is the instantaneous power emitted by it and E(t) is the solar energy stored by it. If Po(t) is instantaneously greater than Pi(t), ∂E(t)/∂t is negative and E(t) decreases until Po(t) becomes equal to Pi(t). If Po(t) is less than Pi(t), ∂E(t)/∂t is positive and E(t) increases until again Po(t) is equal to Pi(t). This equation quantifies more than just an ideal black body. COE dictates that it must be satisfied by the macroscopic behavior of any thermodynamic system that lacks an internal source of power, since changes in E(t) affect Po(t) enough to offset ∂E(t)/∂t. What differs between modeled systems is the nature of the matter in equilibrium with its energy source, the complexity of E(t) and the specific relationship between E(t) and Po(t). An astute observer will recognize that if an amount of time, τ, is defined such that all of E is emitted at the rate Po, the result becomes Pi = E/τ + ∂E/∂t which is the same form as the differential equation describing the charging and discharging of a capacitor which is another COE derived model of a physical system whose solutions are very well known where τ is the RC time constant.
For an ideal black body like the Moon, E(t) is the net solar energy stored by the top layer of its surface. From this, we can establish the precise relationship between E(t) and Po(t) by first establishing the relationship between the temperature, T(t) and E(t) as shown by equation 2).
2) T(t) = κE(t)
The temperature of matter and the energy stored by it are linearly dependent on each other through a proportionality constant, κ, which is a function of the heat capacity and equivalent mass of the matter in direct equilibrium with the Sun. Next, equation 3) quantifies the relationship between T(t) and Po(t).
3) Po(t) = εσT(t)4
This is just the Stefan-Boltzmann Law where σ is the Stefan Boltzmann constant and equal to about 5.67E-8 W/m2 per T4, and for the Moon, the emissivity of the surface, ε, is approximately equal to 1.
Pi(t) can be expressed as a function of Solar energy, Psun(t), and the albedo, α, as shown in equation 4).
4) Pi(t) = Psun(t)(1 – α)
Going forward, all of the variables will be considered implicit functions of time. The model now has 4 equations and 7 variables, Psun, Pi, Po, T, α, κ and ε. Psun is known for all points in time and space across the Moon’s surface. The albedo α and heat capacity κ are mostly constant across the surface and ε is almost exactly 1. To the extent that Psun, α, κ and ε are known, we can reduce the problem to 4 equations and 4 unknowns, Pi, T, Po and E, whose time varying values can be calculated for any point on the surface by solving a simple differential equation applied to an equal area gridded representation whose accuracy is limited only by the accuracy of α, κ and ε per cell. Any model that conforms to equations 1) through 4) will be referred to as a Physical Model.
Quantifying the Sensitivity
Starting from a Physical Model, the Moon’s sensitivity can be easily calculated. The ∂E/∂t term is what the IPCC calls ‘forcing’ which is the instantaneous difference between Pi and Po at TOA and/or TOT. For the Moon, TOT and TOA are coincident with the solid surface defining the virtual surface in direct equilibrium with the Sun. The IPCC defines forcing like this so that an increase in Pi owing to a decrease in albedo or increase in solar output can be made equivalent to a decrease in Po from a decrease in power passing through the transparent spectrum of the atmospheric that would arise from increased GHG concentrations. This definition is ambiguous since Pi is independent of E, while Po is highly dependent on E, thus a change in Pi is not equivalent to a the same change in Po since both change E, while only Po changes in response to changes in E which initiates further changes E and Po. The only proper characterization of forcing is a change in Pi and this is what will be used here.
While ∂E/∂t is the instantaneous difference between Pi and Po and conforms to the IPCC definition of forcing, the IPCC representation of the sensitivity assumes that ∂T/∂t is linearly proportional to ∂E/∂t, or at least approximately so. This is incorrect because of the T4 relationship between T and Po. The approximately linear assumption is valid over a small temperature range around average, but is definitely not valid over the range of all possible temperatures.
To calculate the Long Term Equilibrium sensitivity, we must consider that in the steady state, the temporal average of Pi is equal to the temporal average of Po, thus the integral over time of dE/dt will be zero. Given that in LTE, Pi is equal to Po, and the Moon certainly is in an LTE steady state, we can write the LTE balance equation as,
5) Pi = Po = εσT4
To calculate the LTE sensitivity, simply differentiate and invert the above equation which gives us,
6) ∂T/∂Pi = ∂T/∂Po = 1/(4εσT3)
This derivation does make an assumption, which is that ∂T/∂Pi = ∂T/∂Po since we’re really calculating ∂T/∂Po. For the Moon this is true, but for a planet with an semi-transparent atmosphere between the energy source and the surface in equilibrium with it, they aren’t for the same reason that the IPCC’s metric of forcing is ambiguous. None the less, what makes them different can be quantified and the quantification can be tested. But for the Moon, which will serve as the baseline, it doesn’t matter.
Define the average temperature of the Moon as the equivalent temperature of a black body where each square meter of surface is emitting the same amount of power such that when summed across all square meters, it adds up to the actual emissions. Normalizing to an average rate per m2 is a meaningful metric since all Joules are equivalent and the average of incoming and outgoing rates of Joules is meaningful for quantifying the effects one has on the other, moreover; a rate of energy per m2 can be trivially interchanged with an equivalent temperature. This same kind of average is widely applied to the Earth’s surface when calculating its average temperature from satellite data where the resulting surface emissions are converted to an equivalent temperature using the Stefan-Boltzmann Law.
If the average temperature of the Moon was 255K, equation 6) tells us that ∂T/∂Pi is about 0.3C per W/m2. If it was the 288K like the Earth, the sensitivity would be about 0.18C per W/m2. Notice that owing to the 1/T3 dependence of the sensitivity on temperature, as the temperature increases, the sensitivity decreases at an exponential rate. The average albedo of the Moon is about 0.12 leading to an average Pi and Po of about 300 W/m2 corresponding to an equivalent average temperature of about 270K and an average sensitivity of about 0.22 C per W/m2.
As far as the Moon is concerned, this analysis is based on nothing but first principles physics and the undeniable, deterministic average sensitivity that results is about 0.22C per W/m2. This is based on indisputable science, moreover; the predictions of Lunar temperatures using models like this have been well validated by measurements.
The 270K average temperature of the Moon would be the Earth’s average temperature if there were no GHG’s since this also means no liquid water, ice or clouds resulting in an Earth albedo of 0.12 just like the Moon. This contradicts the often repeated claim that GHG’s increase the temperature of Earth from 255K to 288K, or about 33C, where 255K is the equivalent temperature of the 240 W/m2 average power arriving at the planet after reflection. This is only half the story and it’s equally important to understand that water also cools the planet by about 15K owing to the albedo of clouds and ice which can’t be separated from the warming effect of water vapor making the net warming of the Earth from all effects about 18C and not 33C. Water vapor accounts for about 2/3 of the 33 degrees of warming leaving about 11C arising from all other GHG’s and clouds. The other GHG’s have no corresponding cooling effect, thus the net warming due to water is about 7C (33*2/3 – 15) while the net warming from all other sources combined is about 11C, where only a fraction of this arises from from CO2 alone.
Making It More Complex
Differences arise as the system gets more complex. At a level of complexity representative of the Earth’s climate system, the consensus asserts that the sensitivity increases all the way up to 0.8C per W/m2, which is nearly 4 times the sensitivity of a comparable system without GHG’s. Skeptics maintain that the sensitivity isn’t changing by anywhere near that much and remains close to where it started from without GHG’s and if anything, net negative feedback might make it even smaller.
Lets consider the complexity in an incremental manner, starting with the length of the day. For longer period rotations, the same point on the surface is exposed to the heat of the Sun and the cold of deep space for much longer periods of time. As the rotational speed increases, the difference between the minimum and maximum temperature decreases, but given the same amount of total incident power, the average emissions and equivalent average temperature will remain exactly the same. At real slow rotation rates, the dark side can emit all of the energy it ever absorbed from the Sun and the surface emissions will approach those corresponding to it’s internal temperature which does affect the result.
The sensitivity we care about is relevant to how the LTE averages change. The average emissions and corresponding average temperature are locked to an invariant amount of incident solar energy while the rotation rate has only a small effect on the average sensitivity related to the T-3 relationship between temperature and the sensitivity. Longer days and nights mean that local sensitivities will span a wider range owing to a wider temperature range. Since higher temperatures require a larger portion of the total energy budget, as the rotation rate slows, the average sensitivity decreases. To normalize this to Earth, consider a Moon with a 24 hour day where this effect is relatively small.
The next complication is to add an atmosphere. Start with an Earth like atmosphere of N2, O2, and Ar except without water or other GHG’s. On the Moon, gravity is less, so it will take more atmosphere to achieve Earth like atmospheric pressures. To normalize this, consider a Moon the size of the Earth and with Earth like gravity.
The net effect of an atmosphere devoid of GHG’s and clouds will also reduce the difference between high and low extremes, but not by much since dry air can’t hold and transfer much heat, nor will there be much of a difference between ∂T/∂Pi and ∂T/∂Po. Since O2, N2 and Ar are mostly transparent to both incoming visible light and outgoing LWIR radiation, this atmosphere has little impact on the temperature, the energy balance or the sensitivity of the surface temperature to forcing.
At this point, we have a Physical Model representative of an Earth like planet with an Earth like atmosphere, except that it contains no GHG’s, clouds, liquid or solid water, the average temperature is 270K and the average sensitivity is 0.22 W/m2. It’s safe to say that up until this point in the analysis, the Physical Model is based on nothing but well settled physics. There’s still an ocean and a small percentage of the atmosphere to account for, comprised mostly of water and trace gases like CO2, CH4 and O3.
The Fun Starts Here
The consensus contends that the Earth’s climate system is far too complex to be represented with something as deterministic as a Physical Model, even as this model works perfectly well for an Earth like planet missing only water a few trace gases. They arm wave complexities like GHG’s, clouds, coupling between the land, oceans and atmosphere, model predictions, latent heat, thermals, non linearities, chaos, feedback and interactions between these factors as contributing to making the climate too complex to model in such a trivial way, moreover; what about Venus? Each of these issues will be examined by itself to see what effects it might have on the surface temperature, planet emissions and the sensitivity as quantified by the Physical Model, including how this model explains Venus.
Greenhouse Gases
When GHG’s other than water vapor are added to the Physical Model, the effect on the surface temperature can be readily quantified. If some fraction of the energy emitted by the surface is captured by GHG molecules, some fraction of what was absorbed by those molecules is ultimately returned to the surface making it warmer while the remaining fraction is ultimately emitted into space manifesting the energy balance. This is relatively easy to add to the model equations as a decrease in the effective emissivity of a surface at some temperature relative to the emissions of a planet. If Ps is the surface emissions corresponding to T, Fa is the fraction of Ps that’s captured by GHG’s and Fr is the fraction of the captured power returned to the surface, we can express this in equations 7) and 8).
7) Ps = εxσT4
8) Po = (1 – Fa)Ps + FaPs(1 – Fr)
The first term in equation 8) is the power passing though the atmosphere that’s not intercepted by GHG’s and the second term is the fraction of what was captured and ultimately emitted into space. Solving equation 8) for Po/Ps, we get equation 9),
9) Po/Ps = 1 – FaFr
Now, we can combine with equation 9) with equation 7) to rewrite equation 3) as equation 3a).
3a) Po = (1 – FaFr)εxσT4
Here, εx is the emissivity of the surface itself, which like the surface of the Moon without GHG’s is also approximately 1, where (1 – FaFr) is the effective emissivity contributed by the semi-transparent atmosphere. This can be double checked by calculating Psi, which is the power incident to the surface and by recognizing that Psi – Ps is equal to ∂E/∂t and Pi – Po.
10) Psi = Pi + PsFaFr
11) Psi – Ps = Pi – Po
Solving 11) for Psi and substituting into 10), we get equation 12), solving for Po results in 13) which after substituting 7) for Ps is yet another way to arrive at equation 3a).
12) Ps – Po = PsFaFr
13) Po = (1 – FaFr)Ps
The result is that adding GHG’s modifies the effective emissivity of the planet from 1 for an ideal black body surface to a smaller value as the atmosphere absorbs some fraction of surface emissions making the planets emissions, relative to its surface temperature, appear gray from space. The effective emissivity of this gray body emitter, ε’, is given exactly by equation 3a) as ε’ = (1 – FaFr)εx.
Clouds
Clouds are the most enigmatic of the complications, but none the less can easily fit within the Physical Model. The way to model clouds is to characterize them by the fraction of surface covered by them and then apply the Physical Model with values of α, κ and ε specific to average clear and average cloudy skies and then weighting the results based on the specific proportions of each.
Consider the Pi term, where if ρ is the fraction of the surface covered by clouds, αc is the average albedo of cloudy skies and αs is the average albedo of clear skies, α can be calculated as equation 14).
14) α = ραc + (1 – ρ)αs
Now, consider the Po term, which can be similarly calculated as equation 15) where Ps and Pc are the emissions of the surface and clouds at their average temperatures, εs is the equivalent emissivity characterizing the clear atmosphere and εc is the equivalent emissivity characterizing clouds.
15) Po = ρεsεcPc + ρ(1 – εc)εsPs + (1 – ρ)εsPs
The first term is the power emitted by clouds, the second term is the surface power passing through clouds and the last term is the power emitted by the surface and passing through the clear sky. GHG’s can be accounted for by identifying the value of εs corresponding to the average absorption characteristics between the surface and space and between clouds and space. By considering Pc as some fraction of Ps and calling this Fx, equation 15) can be rearranged to calculate Po/Ps which is the same as the ε’ derived from equation 3a). The result is equation 16).
16) ε’ = Po/Ps = ρεs εcFx + ρεs (1 – εc) + (1 – ρ)εs
The variables εc, Fx and ρ can all be extracted from the ISCCP cloud data, as can αc and αs., moreover; the data supports a very linear relationship between Pc and Ps. The average value of ρ is 0.66, the average value of αc is 0.37 and αs is 0.16 resulting in a value for α of about 0.30 which is exactly equal to the accepted value. The average value of εc is about 0.72 and Fx is measured to be about 0.68. Considering εs to be 1, the effective ε’ is calculated to be about 0.85.
From line by line simulations of a standard atmosphere, the fraction of surface and cloud emissions absorbed by GHG’s, Fa, is about 0.58, the value of Fr as constrained by geometry is 0.5 and is measured to be about 0.51. From equation 13), the equivalent εs becomes 0.71. The new ε’ becomes 0.85 * 0.70 = 0.60 which is well within the margin of error for the expected value of Po/Ps which is 240/395 = 0.61 and even closer to the measured value from the ISCCP data of 238/396 = 0.60. When the same analysis is performed one hemisphere at a time, or even on individual slices of latitude, the predicted ratios of Po/Ps match the measurements once the net transfer of energy from the equator to the poles and between hemispheres is properly accounted for.
At this point, we have a Physical Model that accounts for GHG’s and clouds which accurately predicts the ratio between the BB surface emissions at its average temperature and predicts the average emissions of the planet spanning the entire range of temperatures found on the surface.
The applicability of the Physical Model to the Earth’s climate system is a hypothesis derived from first principles, which still must be tested. The first test predicting the ratio of the planets emissions to surface emissions got the right answer, but this is a simple test and while questioning the method is to deny physical laws, surely some will question the coefficients that led to this result. While the coefficients aren’t constant, they do vary around a mean and its the mean value that’s relevant to the LTE sensitivity. A more powerful testable prediction is that of the planets emissions as a function of surface temperature. The LTE relationship predicted by equation 3) is that if Po are the emissions of the planet and T is the surface temperature, the relationship between them is that of a gray body whose temperature is T and whose emissivity is ε’ and which is calculated to be about 0.61. The results of this test will be presented a little later along with justification for the coefficients used for the first test.
Complex Coupling
In the context of equation 1), complex couplings are modeled as individual storage pools of E that exchange energy among themselves. We’re only concerned about the LTE sensitivity, so by definition, the net exchange of energy among all pools contributing to the temperature must be zero. Otherwise, parts of the system will either heat up or cool down without bound. LTE is defined when the average ∂E/∂t is zero, thus the rate of change for the sum of its components must also be zero.
Not all pools of E necessarily contribute to the surface temperature. For example, some amount of E is consumed by photosynthesis and more is consumed to perform the work of weather. If we quantify E as two pools, one storing the energy that contributes to the surface temperature Es, and the energy stored in all other pools as Eo, we can rewrite equations 1) and 2) as,
1) Pi = Po + ∂Es/∂t + ∂Eo/∂t
1a) ∂E/∂t = ∂Es/∂t + ∂Eo/∂t
2a) T = κ(Es – Eo)
If Eo is a small percentage of Es, an equivalent κ’ can be calculated such that κ’E = κ(Es – Eo) and the Physical Model is still representative of the system as a whole and the value of κ’ will not deviate much from its theoretical value. Measurements from the ISCCP data suggest an average of about 1.8 +/- 0.5 W/m2 of the 240 W/m2 of the average incident solar energy is not contributing to heating the planet nor must it be emitted for the planet to be in a thermodynamic steady state.
Thus far, GHG’s, clouds and the coupling between the surface, oceans and atmosphere can all be accommodated with the Physical Model, by simply adjusting α, κ and ε. There can be no question that the Physical Model is capable of modeling the Earth’s climate and that per equation 6), the upper bound on the sensitivity is less than the 0.4C per W/m2 lower bound suggested by the IPCC. The rest of this discussion will address why the issues with this model are invalid, demonstrate tests whose results support predictions of the Physical Model and show other tests that falsify a high sensitivity.
Models
The results of climate models are frequently cited as supporting an ‘emergent’ high sensitivity, however; these models tend to include errors and assumptions that favor a high sensitivity. Many even dial in a presumed sensitivity indirectly. The underlying issue is that the GCM’s used for climate modeling have a very large number of coefficients whose values are unknown, so they are set based on ‘educated’ guesses and it’s this that leads to bias as objectivity is replaced with subjectivity.
In order to match the past, simulated annealing like algorithms are applied to vary these coefficients around their expected mean until the past is best matched, which if there are any errors in the presumed mean values or there are any fundamental algorithmic flaws, the effects of these errors accumulate making both predictions of the future and the further past worse. This modeling failure is clearly demonstrated by the physics defying predictions so commonly made by these models.
Consider a sine wave with a gradually increasing period. If the model used to represent it is a fixed period sine wave and the period of the model is matched to the average period of a few observed cycles, the model will deviate from what’s being modeled both before and after the range over which the model was calibrated. If the measurements span less than a full period, both a long period sine wave and a linear trend can fit the data, but when looking for a linear trend, the long period sine wave becomes invisible. Consider seasonal variability, which is nearly perfectly sinusoidal. If you measure the average linear trend from June to July and extrapolate, the model will definitely fail in the past and the future and the further out in time you go, the worse it will get. Notice that only sinusoidal and exponential functions of E work as solutions for equation 1), since only sinusoids and exponentials have a derivative whose form is the same as itself, given that Po is a function of E. Note that the theoretical and actual variability in Pi can be expressed as the sum of sinusoids and exponentials and that this leads to the linear property of superposition when behavior is modeled in the energy in, energy out domain, rather than in the energy in, temperature out domain preferred by the IPCC.
The way to make GCM’s more accurate is to insure that the macroscopic behavior of the system being modeled conforms to the constraints of the Physical Model. Clearly this is not being done, otherwise the modeled sensitivity would be closer to 0.22 C per W/m2 and no where near the 0.8C per W/m2 presumed by the consensus and supported by the erroneous models.
Non Radiant Energy
Adding non radiant energy transports to the mix adds yet another level of obfuscation. This arises from Trenberth’s energy balance which includes latent heat and thermals transporting energy into the atmosphere along with the 390 W/m2 of radiant energy arising from an ideal black body surface at 288K. Trenberth returns the non radiant energy to the surface as part of the ‘back radiation’ term, but its inclusion gets in the way of understanding how the energy balance relates to the sensitivity, especially since most of the return of this energy is not in the form of radiation, but in the form of air and water returning that energy back to the surface.
The reason is that neither latent heat, thermals or any other energy transported by matter into the atmosphere has any effect on the surface temperature, input flux or emissions of the planet, beyond the effect they are already having on these variables and whatever effects they have is bundled into the equivalent values of α, κ and ε. The controversy is about the sensitivity, which is the relationship between changes in Pi and changes in T. The Physical Model ascribed with equivalent values of α, κ and ε dictates exactly what the sensitivity must be. Since Pi, Po and T are all measurable values, validating that the net results of these non radiative transports are already accounted for by the relative relationships of measurable variables and that these relationships conform to the Physical Model is very testable and whose results are very repeatable.
Chaos and Non Linearities
Chaos and non linearities are a common complication used to dismiss the requirement that the macroscopic climate system behavior must obey the macroscopic laws of physics. Chaos is primarily an attribute of the path the climate system takes from one equilibrium state to another and is also called weather, which of course, is not the climate. Relative to the LTE response of the system and its corresponding LTE sensitivity, chaos averages out since the new equilibrium state itself is invariant and driven by the incident energy and its conservation. Even quasi-stable states like those associated with ENSO cycles and other natural variability averages out relative to the LTE state.
Chaos may result in over shooting the desired equilibrium, in which case it will eventually migrate back to where it wants to be, but what’s more likely, is that the system never reaches its new steady state equilibrium because some factor will change what that new steady state will be. Consider seasonal variability, where the days start getting shorter or longer before the surface reaches the maximum or minimum temperature it could achieve if the day length was consistently long or short.
Non linearities are another of these red herrings and the most significant non linearity in the system as modeled by the IPCC is the relationship between emissions and temperature. By keeping the analysis in the energy domain and converting to equivalent temperatures at the end, the non linearities all but disappear.
Feedback
Large positive feedback is used to justify how 1 W/m2 of forcing can be amplified into the 4.3 W/m2 of surface emissions required in order to sustain a surface temperature 0.8C higher than the current average of 288K. This is ridiculous considering that the 240 W/m2 of accumulated forcing (Pi) currently results in 390 W/m2 of radiant emissions from the surface (Ps) and that each W/m2 of input results in only 1.6 W/m2 of surface emissions. This means that the last W/m2 of forcing from the Sun resulted in about 1.6 W/m2 of surface emissions, the idea that the next one would result in 4.3 W/m2 is so absurd it defies all possible logic. This represents such an obviously fatal flaw in consensus climate science that either the claimed sensitivity was never subject to peer review or the veracity of climate science peer review is nil, either of which deprecates the entire body of climate science publishing.
The feedback related errors were first made by Hansen, reinforced by Schlesinger and have been cast in stone since AR1 and more recently, they’ve been echoed by Roe. Bode developed an analysis technique for linear, feedback amplifiers and this analysis was improperly applied to quantify climate system feedback. Bode’s model has two non negotiable preconditions that were not met by the application of his analysis to the climate. These are specified in the first couple of paragraphs in the book referenced by both Hansen and Schlesinger as the theoretical foundation for climate feedback. First is the assumption of strict linearity. This means that if the input changes by 1 and the output changes by 2, then, if the input changes by 2, the output must change by 4. By using a delta Pi as the input to the model and a delta T as the output, this linearity constraint was violated since power and temperature are not linearly related, but power is related to T4. Second is the requirement for an implicit source of Joules to power the gain. This can’t be the Sun, as solar energy is already accounted for as the forcing input to the model and you can’t count it twice.
To grasp the implications of nonlinearity, consider an audio amplifier with a gain of 100. If 1 V goes in and 100 V comes out before the amplifier starts to clip, increasing the input to 2V will not change the output value and the gain, which was 100 for inputs from 0V to 1V is reduced to 50 at 2V of input. Bode’s analysis requires the gain, which climate science calls the sensitivity, to be constant and independent of the input forcing. Once an amplifier goes non linear and starts to clip, Bode’s analysis no longer applies.
Bode defines forcing as the stimulus and defines sensitivity as the change in the dimensionless gain consequential to the change in some other parameter and is also a dimensionless ratio. What climate science calls forcing is an over generalization of the concept and what they call sensitivity is actually the incremental gain, moreover; they’ve voided the ability to use Bode’s analysis by choosing a non linear metric of gain. For the linear systems modeled by Bode, the incremental gain is always equal to the absolute gain as this is the basic requirement that defines linearity. The consensus makes the false claim that the incremental gain can be many times larger than the absolute gain, which is a non sequitur relative to the analysis used. Furthermore, given the T-3 dependence of the sensitivity on the temperature, the sensitivity quantified as a temperature change per W/m2 of forcing must decrease as T increases, while the consensus quantification of the sensitivity requires the exact opposite.
At the measured value of 1.6 W/m2 of surface emissions per W/m2 of accumulated solar forcing, the extra 0.6 W/m2 above and beyond the initial W/m2 of forcing is all that can be attributed to what climate science refers to as feedback. The hypothesis of a high sensitivity requires 3.3 W/m2 of feedback to arise from only 1 W/m2 of forcing. This is 330% of the forcing and any system whose positive feedback exceeds 100% of the input will be unconditionally unstable and the climate system is certainly stable and always recovers after catastrophic natural events that can do far more damage to the Earth and its ecosystems then man could ever do in millions of years of trying. Even the lower limit claimed by the IPCC of 0.4C per W/m2 requires more than 100% positive feedback, falsifying the entire range they assert.
An irony is that consensus climate science relies on an oversimplified feedback model that makes explicit assumptions that don’t apply to the climate system in order to support the hypothesis of a high sensitivity arising from large positive feedback, yet their biggest complaint about the applicability of the Physical Model is that the climate is too complicated to be represented with such a simple and undeniably deterministic model.
Venus
Venus is something else that climate alarmists like to bring up. However; if you consider Venus in the context of the Physical Model, the proper surface in direct equilibrium with the Sun is not the solid surface of the planet, but a virtual surface high up in its clouds. Unlike Earth, where the lapse rate is negative from the surface in equilibrium with the Sun and up into the atmosphere, the Venusian lapse rate is positive from its surface in equilibrium with the Sun down to the solid surface below. Even if the Venusian atmosphere was 90 ATM of N2, the surface would still be about as hot as it is now.
Venus is a case of runaway clouds and not runaway GHG’s as often claimed. The thermodynamics of Earth’s clouds are tightly coupled to that of its surface through evaporation and precipitation, thus cloud temperatures are a direct function of the surface temperature below and not the Sun. While the water in clouds does absorb some solar energy, owing to the tight coupling between clouds and the oceans, the LTE effect is the same as if the oceans had absorbed that energy directly. This isn’t the case for Venus, where the thermodynamics of its clouds are independent from that of its surface enabling clouds to arrive at a steady state with incoming energy by themselves.
Even for Earth, the surface in direct equilibrium with the Sun is not the solid surface, as it is for the Moon, but is a virtual surface comprised of the top of the oceans and the bits of land that poke through. Most of the solid surface is beneath the oceans and its nearly 0C temperature is a function of the temperature/density profile of the ocean above. The dense CO2 atmosphere of Venus, whose mass is comparable to the mass of Earth’s oceans, acts more like Earth’s oceans than it does Earth’s atmosphere thus Venusian cloud tops above a CO2 ocean is a good analogy for the surface of Earth and will be at about the same average temperature and atmospheric pressure.
Testing Predictions
The Physical Model makes predictions about how Pi, Po and the surface temperature will behave relative to each other. The first test was a prediction of the ratio between surface emissions and planet emissions based on measurable physical parameters and this calculation was nearly exact. The values of αc, αs, ρ, and εc in equations 14) and 16) were extracted as the average values reported or derived from the ISCCP cloud data set provided by GISS while εs arose from line by line simulations.
Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 illustrate the origins of αc, αs, ρ, and εc, where the dotted line in each plot represents the measured LTE average value for that parameter. Those values were rounded to 2 significant digits for the purpose of checking the predictions of equations 14) and 16). Clicking
on a figure should bring up a full resolution version.
The absolute accuracy of ISCCP surface temperatures suffers from a 2001 change to a new generation of polar orbiters combined with discontinuous polar orbiter coverage which the algorithms depended on for consistent cross satellite calibration. This can be seen more dramatically in Figure 5, which is a plot of the global monthly average surface temperature derived from the gridded temperatures reported in the ISSCP. While this makes the data useless for establishing trends, it doesn’t materially affect the use of this data for establishing the average coefficients related to the sensitivity.
Figure 5 demonstrates something even more interesting, which is that the two hemispheres don’t exactly cancel and the peak to peak variability in the global monthly average is about 5C. The Northern hemisphere has significantly more seasonal p-p temperature variability than the Southern hemisphere owing to a larger fraction of land resulting in a global sum whose minimum and maximum are 180 degrees out of phase of what you would expect from the seasonal position of perihelion. To the extent that the consensus assumes the effects of perihelion average out across the planet, the 5C p-p seasonal variability in the planets average temperature represents the minimum amount of natural variability to expect given the same amount of incident energy. In about 10K years when perihelion is aligned with the Northern hemisphere summer, the p-p differences between hemispheres will become much larger which is a likely trigger for the next ice age. The asymmetric response of the hemispheres is something that consensus climate science has not wrapped its collective heads around, largely because the anomaly analysis they depend on smooths out seasonal variability obfuscating the importance of understanding how and why this variability arises, how quickly the planet responds to seasonal forcing and how the asymmetry contributes to the ebb and flow of ice ages.
While Pi is trivially calculated as reflectance applied to solar energy, both of which are relatively accurately known, Po is trickier to arrive at. Satellites only measure LWIR emissions in 1 or 2 narrow bands in the transparent regions of the emission spectrum and in an even narrower band whose magnitude indicates how much water vapor absorption is taking place. These narrow band emissions are converted to a surface temperature by applying a radiative model to a varying temperature until the emissions leaving the radiative model in the bands measured by the satellite are matched and then the results are aligned to surface measurements. Equation 15) was used to calculate Po which was based on reported surface temperatures, cloud temperatures and cloud emissivity applied to a reverse engineered radiative model to determine how much power leaves the top of the atmosphere across all bands. This is done for both cloudy and clear skies across each equal area grid cell and the total emissions are a sum weighted by the fraction of clouds modified by the clouds emissivity. To cross check this calculation, ∂E(t)/∂t can be calculated as the difference between Pi and the derived Po. If the long term average of this is close to zero, then COE is not violated by the calculated Po. Figure 6 shows this and indeed, the average ∂E(t)/∂t is approximately zero within the accuracy of the data. The 1.8 W/m2 difference could be a small data error, but seems to be the solar power that’s not actually heating the surface but powering photosynthesis and driving the weather and that need not be emitted for balance to arise. Note that ∂E/∂t per hemisphere is about 200 W/m^2 p-p and that the ratio between the global ∂E/∂t and the global ∂T/∂t infers a transient sensitivity of only about 0.12 C per W/m^2.
Figure 7 shows another way to validate the predictions as a scatter plot of the relative relationship between monthly averages of Pi and Po for constant latitude. Each little dot is the average for 1 month of data and the larger dots are the per slice averages across 3 decades of measurements. The magenta line represents Pi == Po. Where the two curves intersect defines the steady state which at 239 W/m2 is well within the margin of error of the accepted value. Note that the tilt in the measured relationships represents the net transfer of energy from tropical latitudes on the right to polar latitudes on the left.
The next test is of the prediction that the relationship between the average temperature of the surface and the planets emissions should correspond to a gray body emitter whose equivalent emissivity is about 0.61, which was the predicted and measured ratio between the planets emissions and that of the surface.
Figure 8 shows the relationship between the surface temperature and both Pi and Po, again for constant latitude slices of the planet. Constant latitude slices provide visibility to the sensitivity as the most significant difference between adjacent slices is Pi, where a change in Pi is forcing per the IPCC definition. The change in the surface temperature of adjacent slices divided by the change in Pi quantifies the sensitivity of that slice per the IPCC definition. The slope of the measured relationship around the steady state is the short line shown in green. The larger green line is a curve of the Stefan-Boltzmann Law predicting the complete relationship between the temperature and emissions based on the measured and calculated equivalent emissivity of 0.61. The monthly average relationship between Po and the surface temperature is measured to be almost exactly what was predicted by the Physical Model. The magenta line is the prediction of the relationship between Pi and the surface temperature based on the requirement that the surface is approximately an ideal black body emitter and again, the prediction is matched by the data almost exactly.
For reference, Figure 9 shows how little the effective emissivity, ε’ varies on a monthly basis with a max deviation from nominal of only about +/- 3%. Figure 10 shows how the fraction of the power absorbed by the atmosphere and returned to the surface also varies in a relatively small range around 0.51. In fact, the monthly averages for all of the coefficients used to calculate the sensitivity with equation 16) vary over relatively narrow ranges.
The hypothesized high sensitivity also makes predictions. The stated nominal sensitivity is 0.8C per W/m2 of forcing and if the surface temperature increases by 0.8C from 288K to 288.8K, 390.1 W/m2 of surface emissions increases to 394.4 W/m2 for a 4.3 W/m2 increase that must arise from only 1 W/m2 of forcing. Since the data shows that 1 W/m2 of forcing from the Sun increases the surface emissions by only 1 W/m2, the extra 3.3 W/m2 required by the consensus has no identifiable origin thus falsifies the possibility of a sensitivity as high as claimed. The only possible origin is the presumed internal power supply that Hansen and Schlesinger incorrectly introduced to the quantification of climate feedback.
Joules are Joules and are interchangeable with each other. If the next W/m2 of forcing will increase the surface emissions by 4.3 W/m2, each of the accumulated 239 W/m2 of solar forcing must be increasing the surface emissions by the same amount. If the claimed sensitivity was true, the surface would be emitting 1028 W/m2 which corresponds to an average surface temperature of 367K which is about 94C and close to the boiling point of water. Clearly it’s not once again falsifying a high sensitivity.
Conclusion
Each of the many complexities cited to diffuse a simple analysis based on the immutable laws of physics has been shown to be equivalent to variability in the α, κ and ε coefficients quantifying the Physical Model. Another complaint is that the many complexities interact with each other. To the extent they do and each by itself is equivalent to changes in α, κ and ε, any interactions can be similarly represented as equivalent changes to α, κ and ε. It’s equally important to remember that unlike GCM’s, this model has no degrees of freedom to tweak its behavior, other than the values of α, κ and ε, all of which can be measured, and that no possible combination of coefficients within factors of 2 of the measured values will result in a sensitivity anywhere close to what’s claimed by the consensus. The only possible way for any Physical Model to support the high sensitivity claimed by the IPCC is to violate Conservation Of Energy and/or the Stefan-Boltzmann Law which is clearly impossible.
Predictions made by the Physical Model have been confirmed with repeatable measurements while the predictions arising from a high sensitivity consistently fail. In any other field of science, this is unambiguous proof that the model whose predictions are consistently confirmed is far closer to reality than a model whose predictions consistently fail, yet the ‘consensus’ only accepts the failing model. This is because the IPCC, which has become the arbiter of what is and what is not climate science, needs the broken model to supply its moral grounds for a massive redistribution of wealth under the guise of climate reparations. It’s an insult to all of science that the scientific method has been superseded by a demonstrably false narrative used to support an otherwise unsupportable agenda and this must not be allowed to continue.
Here’s a challenge to those who still accept the flawed science supporting the IPCC’s transparently repressive agenda. First, make a good faith effort to understand how the Physical Model is relevant, rather than just dismiss it out of hand. If you need more convincing after that, try to derive the sensitivity claimed by the IPCC using nothing but the laws of physics. Alternatively, try to falsify any prediction made by the Physical Model, again, relying only on the settled laws of physics. Another thing to try is to come up with a better explanation for the data, especially the measured relationships between Pi, Po and the surface temperature, all of which are repeatably deterministic and conform to the Physical Model. If you have access to a GCM, see if its outputs conform to the Physical Model and once you understand why they don’t, you will no doubt have uncovered serious errors in the GCM.
If the high sensitivity claimed by the IPCC can be falsified, it must be rejected. If the broadly testable Physical Model produces the measured results and can’t be falsified, it must be accepted. Falsifying a high sensitivity is definitive and unless and until something like the Physical Model is accepted by a new consensus, climate science will remain controversial since no amount of alarmist rhetoric can change the laws of physics or supplant the scientific method.
References
1) IPCC reports, definition of forcing, AR5, figure 8.1
AR5 Glossary, ‘climate sensitivity parameter’
2) Kevin E. Trenberth, John T. Fasullo, and Jeffrey Kiehl, 2009: Earth’s Global Energy Budget. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 90, 311–323. Trenberth
3) 2) Bode H, Network Analysis and Feedback Amplifier Design
assumption of external power supply and active gain, 31 section 3.2
gain equation, 32 equation 3-3
real definition of sensitivity, 52-57 (sensitivity of gain to component drift)
3a) effects of consuming input power, 56, section 4.10
impedance assumptions, 66-71, section 5.2 – 5.6
a passive circuit is always stable, 108
definition of input (forcing) 31
4) Jouzel, J., et al. 2007: EPICA Dome C Ice Core 800KYr Deuterium Data and Temperature Estimates.
5) ISCCP Cloud Data Products: Rossow, W.B., and Schiffer, R.A., 1999: Advances in Understanding Clouds from ISCCP. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 80, 2261-2288.
6) Hansen, J., A. Lacis, D. Rind, G. Russell, P. Stone, I. Fung, R. Ruedy, and J. Lerner, 1984: Climate sensitivity: Analysis of feedback mechanisms. In Climate Processes and Climate Sensitivity, AGU Geophysical Monograph 29, Maurice Ewing Vol. 5. J.E. Hansen, and T. Takahashi, Eds. American Geophysical Union, 130-163.
7) M. E. Schlesinger (ed.), Physically-Based Modeling and Simulations of Climate and Climatic Change – Part II, 653-735
8) Michael E. Schlesinger. Physically-based Modelling and Simulation of Climate and Climatic Change (NATO Advanced Study Institute on Physical-Based Modelling ed.). Springer. p. 627. ISBN 90-277-2789-9
9) Gerard Roe. Feedbacks Timescales and Seeing Red, Annual Review of Earth Planet Science 2009, 37:93-115
10) Stefan, J. (1879), “Über die Beziehung zwischen der Wärmestrahlung und der Temperatur” [On the relationship between heat radiation and temperature] (PDF), 79: 391–428
11) Boltzmann, L. (1884), “Ableitung des Stefan’schen Gesetzes, betreffend die Abhängigkeit der Wärmestrahlung von der Temperatur aus der electromagnetischen Lichttheorie” 258 (6): 291–294
If anyone thinks this is just a case of curve fitting, I would be interested in knowing what leads you to believe this and and/or what other laws of physics can describe the measured behavior?
It may be interesting but this presentation is EXCEEDINGLY long.
So far I’ve got through a couple of pages and I have not seen any science. How about giving us a version without all the political railing and just get to the point of the science.
I don’t disagree with what is said but we know all that and I’m not going to spend the two hours wading through your political moans to get to the point where I see some science.
Greg,
You must not have gotten very far. Just about everything from ‘Quantifying The Relationship’ on about the science and the only mention of politics was where I took a page from politics to identify common ground.
Yes the preamble is only 886 words, little over a single page.
Then it’s straight into the maths
So co2isnotevil = George White?
Pure . . . unadulterated . . . gibberish with formulated gobbledygook.
You may be reading the wrong presentation. The vast majority of this piece is science beginning with the section on Quantifying the Relationships, page 2. It’s not difficult to skip to.
OK, I’ve read further now but it is horribly verbose. I just read the para on projections which laboriously describes various sine waves etc. Sometimes a picture paints a thousand words.
Yes after a couple paragraphs I just scrolled to the comments. It was just too much for me…Maybe later tonight I can read more of it… The comments are usually interesting to me…
Yes I normally read an article in diagonal at first but this IS long; I will make the time to read it but I must say one thing from the intro: Since politics has taken sides,
Politics hasn’t gotten involved or taken sides, this whole abuse of science was driven by a political ideology from the start.
Well for starters the moon is NOT a black body. It’s not even a very good approximation of a black body.
G
George,
What do you consider a good approximation? Besides, all you need to do is plug in the actual emissivity and it the equations will describe the system. The point here is that the basic T^4 dependence between forcing and temperature and the corresponding 1/T^3 relationship between temperature and forcing are immutable properties of first principles physics. The only degree of freedom the emissivity. There are no provisions in the physics to alter the basic T^4 relationship of any Planck like emitting surface regardless of its emissivity.
not much that is a pure black body, is there?
Surely the% that acts as a black body is worth considering??
i.e. it is acting like a smaller black body.
angech,
And the fraction that is not an ideal BB can be quantified with an emissivity making it appear gray. In effect, a gray body is a non idea black body and the only thing that separates them is a non unit emissivity.
Well there can only be “approximations” to a black body since NO real black body does or can exist.
But the calculated thermal radiations spectrum calculated for a theoretical Planck black body is very useful as a source for experiments with various radiation sensors and other devices.
So quite good approximations can and are built for operation at single standard point Temperatures. One such device that you can buy off the shelf is a “copper freeze” pseudo black body which operates at the freezing point of molten copper. Some physical things have been specified in terms of a Platinum Freeze black body, but such things are too expensive fr anybody but the most taxpayer funded laboratory organizations.
Such laboratory instruments can produce Planck spectrum radiation with total emittances that match the Stefan Boltzmann value for that Temperature to something like a 1% discrepancy, and also match the Planck formula for the spectral radiant emittance over a wide wavelength range, perhaps to 2-3% wavelength (frequency) point values.
Deep sea water is strongly absorptive for EM radiation that is longer than about 0.7 microns wavelength almost out to the radio frequencies at which submarine radio communication can function, so those deep ocean can emit that “pink” radiation spectrum to some extent, but do not emit strongly at wavelengths near the peak of the solar radiation spectrum.
Some stars can be quite good approximations to the BB spectrum, and at least our own sun is one such example; but even that has UV discrepancies from the Planck formula.
Earth’s surfaces do emit “thermal” radiation spectrum that are functions of the Absolute Temperature, and somewhat material independent; but nothing absorbs or emits 100% of ALL EM radiation from zero wavelength up to zero frequency; or even 100% of just a single such frequency.
Thermal radiation spectrum are bound by the Planck spectrum as a limiting envelope. Discrete non thermal radiations that are material dependent, are NOT bound by the Planck limit, and generally are not greatly Temperature dependent, anyway.
G
Thermal radiating surfaces do have a “spectral radiant emissivity.” It is anything but constant over frequency, so no real body is grey (or gray); they all are “colored”.
G
What are GW’s credentials ?.
Has he bothered to submit this stuff to the scientific community ?
WTF? That’s like saying, ” What are GW’s mathematical credentials? Has he submitted the equation,
2+2=4 to the mathematical community for evaluation?”
Alan,
While my credentials shouldn’t matter, in a nutshell they are, Cornell EE with emphasis on solid state physics and electromagnetics. I’ve worked for HP, Weitek, Google and for about 15 years as a consultant to fabless semiconductor companies. In addition, my education never stopped and I’ve spent nearly 2 decades studying the climate system. I’ve been retired for a couple of years now, but did well enough to retire in my 50’s in order to ski 100+ days per year while I still could, so I’m also an expert skier and can ski almost any pitch that holds snow, some people might even consider me an extreme skier. When I’m not skiing, I’m studying the climate, writing code for my own purposes and dabbling in theoretical physics.
Kinda knocked that one outta the park.
co2isnotevil
Anybody that ski’s is alright by me, oh and why do you have to have credentials to have an idea or knowledge anyway?
This is long, but the length seems to be warranted by the substance. It is clear that a lot of study and thinking went into this – kudos to the author.
That said, it would be useful to add a proper abstract that presents the key ideas and gives an overview of how the argument will be developed. As it is, one has to dive in without a clear sense of direction and thus on easily gets lost.
Another suggestion would be to add captions with proper explanations to the figures. Many people like going over figures and captions first to figure out whether a paper is of interest to them. For this, it is useful to have captions that are intelligible without reference to the body of the text.
In case the author sees this: thanks for consideration.
WHILE I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION:
Can you explain how the human contribution to CO2 influx into the atmosphere, which is 3% of the total influx, the rest being from natural sources, can in any scenario lead to a climate catastrophe.
Try a scenario based upon magic, superstition, or witchcraft! They’re the only ones that work well – standard physics, chemistry, meteorology, etc., etc., won’t cut it.
It can’t and it doesn’t.
personally….I think it was real convenient that they were able to make the CO2 graph….fit the temp graph 😉
(emphasis on ‘make’)
Supposedly it remains in the atmosphere and accumulates over the years.
So does any effect that it has, so duration cancels and the forcing, if any, depends only on the instantaneous value. EPA got it wrong.
Exactly. You see, “man-made” CO2 is very different from “natural” CO2. Just like “green” electrons are different from “fossil” electrons.
Actually, I think they are simply looking for a new jobs program for the peasantry, sorting out the different molecules and electrons. Something like sending the Chinese peasants out with teaspoons to dig a new canal…
JH, yeah we can. See my comment disproving Murry Salby a few months ago. Without even going into his math flaws. You present a very weak argument. Please learn better ones. As an example for you, see the long response comment now far below.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/20/a-consensus-of-convenience/#comment-2586427
A very flawed analysis that did not even remotely establish its thesis.
It is quite simple, I am surprised you need assistance with it! Clearly, human-caused CO2 is way badder than natural CO2. Because it is manmade it must be much worse because man. And thus it is badder than natural CO2. Is that clear for you?
/sarc
So you admit being off-topic.
I’m not sure why would you like me do that. I don’t quite buy CAGW.
You got this wrong. The human contribution at decadal scale, is more than 100%. That is, without human emissions, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere were decreasing. At monthly scale, natural fluxes totally overwhelm human emissions.
Of course, I believe you would not believe this, so we can safely agree to disagree. Though, if you believe in positive natural CO2 emissions over multi-year scale, you are just wrong.
Nonsense. CO2 is driven by temperatures such that the rate of change is proportional to temperature anomaly. Human impacts are negligible.
Hugs
Ya, because everything was in perfect balance before man came along. The earth was a perfect utopia with nothing but peace loving animals before man too. Your lost dude.
No!!!!!!??????!!!!
That’s the question so many of have been asking for years.
Joel, try leaving the water running into your bathtub at 3% above the maximum flow rate of the drain, i think that might have a catastrophic outcome.
SO you’re saying that there is only one drain… and that other rate of removal mechanisms don’t come into play? That the times in the past when the earth had stable, massively productive ecosystems with 6,000+ ppm CO2 levels did not exist? That those epochs still exist?
Simple analogies make money for Bill Nye and Al Gore… but you need to bring a better game to this forum to not embarrass yourself.
Scientifically literate persons can agree with “the” consensus (or any other consensus) without behaving unreasonably when their view is challenged.
The problem is when people agree with the consensus BECAUSE IT’S THE CONSENSUS.
That’s something a scientifically-literate person would be embarrassed to do.
Science cares about one thing, and one thing only—evidence—and consensus is a form of opinion, not evidence.
That’s Rule One of Science Club, and anyone who doesn’t like it is welcome to find a rewarding job in the Humanities sector. They can’t be a scientist, because they failed the first condition of entry.
“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What are relevant are reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
– Michael Crichton
Brad Keyes:
You state “Science cares about one thing and one thing only – evidence – and consensus is a form of opinion, not evidence. That’s Rule One of Science Club””
No, there must ALSO be a consensus that the EVIDENCE is correct (e.g., continental drift, which took many years for a consensus to be formed)..
Another example: I have found conclusive evidence that climate change is simply due to the reduction in the amount of dimming Sulfur Dioxide aerosol emissions in the atmosphere.
This “model” – that a reduction in the amount of SO2 aerosol emissions in the atmosphere will always cause temperatures to rise – has been empirically tested AND VALIDATED multiple times, without attracting any consensus.
For the subject “Climate Change”, there can be only one completely validated model, so any discussions of other models are really moot.
George White posted an excellent article, but he erred in not offering an alternate model for climate change.
Burl,
the reason most scientists can’t even define the word ‘consensus’ is that a consensus doesn’t mean, or prove, or constitute evidence for, jack $#!1 in science, and it never has.
All non-pathological sciences have contempt for the phenomenon of majority agreement, which is why (until Oreskes reared her distractingly-sexy head) nobody in science ever bothered to quantify any consensus about anything.
You’re being circular. The formation of a consensus is a necessary precondition for one thing, and one thing only: the formation of a consensus.
In order for everybody to agree with you, a majority must agree with you. Uh, yes. Sure. So what?
In order to be right, you only need to get the agreement of NATURE.
@Brad – I agree with you in the main. But I do wonder about your tastes in (theoretically) feminine beauty…
Writing Observer, It’s obvious you are not familiar with the concept of Southern Gentlemanship
“…until Oreskes reared her distractingly-sexy head…” well yeah encountering her visage would undoubtedly distract me from all thoughts of sex, so you got it right in that respect.
“Alarmists and deniers alike believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that GHG gases contribute to making the surface warmer than it would be otherwise, that man is putting CO2 into the atmosphere and that the climate changes.”
No, we do not agree on these things.
As the label “greenhouse gases” was created to support a meme, it is bogus. These gases are more accurately called “radiative gases”, as they can convert IR to heat and heat to IR. In sunlight, these gases are saturated and converting IR to heat and heat to IR, having no net effect. It is during the night, with no solar input, that these gases cool the atmosphere.
There is not evidence of any kind that these gases contribute to surface warming. This is an unfounded assumption perpetuated as established science, which it is not.
Yes, we are putting exponentially more CO2 into the air over time. However, CO2 goes up linearly, which means that we have no detectible effect on atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Even if CO2 warmed the climate, it is not our doing if we are not affecting the CO2 concentration.
The climate changes, yes.
A score of 1 out of 4. Really sad.
higley,
You are confusing a finite, non zero effect with no effect whatsoever. As I said, the issue is with the magnitude of this finite effect.
Higley also – Since O2, N2 and Ar are mostly transparent to both incoming visible light and outgoing LWIR radiation, this atmosphere has little impact on the temperature, the energy balance or the sensitivity of the surface temperature to forcing.
At this point, we have a Physical Model representative of an Earth like planet with an Earth like atmosphere, except that it contains no GHG’s,
The Guest needs to explain why these 2 statements cannot both be true.
All material above 0 Kelvin emit radiant energy –
O2 and N2 are not greenhouse gas molecules — they can’t release the photon’s energy
Please see – http://vixra.org/pdf/1504.0165v2.pdf and see the experiments and reasoning behind why this is not correct.
Reinterpreting and Augmenting John Tyndall’s 1859 Greenhouse Gas Experiment with Thermoelectric Theory and Raman Spectroscopy. Blair D. Macdonald
This paper reveals, by elementary physics, the (deceptive) role thermopiles play in this paradox. It was found: for a special group substances – all sharing (at least one) electric dipole moment – i.e. CO2, and the other greenhouse gases – thermopiles – via the thermoelectric (Seebeck) effect – generate electricity from the radiated IR. Devices using the thermopile as a detector (e.g. IR spectrographs) discriminate, and have misinterpreted IR absorption for anomalies of electricity production – between the sample gases and a control heat source. N2 and O2 were found to have (as all substances) predicted vibrational modes (derived by the Schrodinger quantum equation) at 1556cm-1 and 2330cm-1 respectively – well within the IR range of the EM spectrum and are clearly observed – as expected – with Raman Spectroscopy – IR spectroscopy’s complement instrument. The non–‐greenhouse gases N2 and O2 are relegated to greenhouse gases, and Earth’s atmospheric thermoelectric spectrum was produced (formally IR spectrum), and was augmented with the Raman observations. It was concluded the said greenhouses gases are not special, but typical; and all substances have thermal absorption properties, as measured by their respective heat capacities.
8 Heat Capacity
Vibrational behaviour of molecules, as described above, determines the Specific Heat Capacity of a substance. Heat capacity is the true measure of heat absorption. All substances, including atmospheric gases, absorb and radiate infrared (IR) heat. When heat energy is applied to a substance, the ability for the substance to absorb the heat energy and raise the temperature of the substance is known as the specific heat capacity[34]. The converse of emitting energy (cooling down) when released from the heat energy source is true. If – based purely on how the non-‐GHG’s are currently defined – N2 and O2 are non‐GHGs because they do not absorb heat, then this must imply they both have no specific heat capacity; this is, of course, not true. N2 and O2 not only have vibrational behaviour – as I have shown (above) in this paper, expressed in their respective absorption bands in the infrared; but also have respective specific heat capacities – as shown (alone with other gases) in the following table.
So with a Specific Heat Capacity of N2…1.04 & O2…0.919 (kJ/(kgK) plus a x35,000 volume, does CO2 really matter?
DD,
“The Guest needsh 2 statements cannot both be true.
All material above 0 Kelvin emit radiant energy –
O2 and N2 are not greenhouse gas molecules — they can’t release the photon’s energy”
BB radiation is a property of liquids and solids but not gases. Gases are narrow band absorbers and emitters of photons, while liquids and solids are broad band absorbers and emitters of photons. When we look out into space, we do not detect gas clouds by the BB emissions of its gases. We can only infer the existence of gases by absorption lines seen as other energy passes through them or by the emission lines of very hot gases.
As the electron shells of gas molecules start to interact in a liquid or solid, the degrees of freedom in the shared electron cloud increases, allowing photons of different energies to be absorbed, as well as reducing the restrictions on what energy photons can be emitted. This spans more and more possible energies as the number of molecules in the liquid or solid increases. Collisional broadening of the spectral lines of a gas exhibits a similar effect, where small amounts of energy can be extracted from or added to the energy of a collision, spreading the allowed energies of absorption and emission on either side of resonance. This effect is largely irrelevant in Earth’s atmosphere since it generally requires much higher temperatures and densities. It’s quite likely that the supercritical fluid form of CO2 comprising the bottom 100 meters or so of the Venusian atmosphere has the broadband absorption/emission properties of a liquid (Planck) and not the narrow band absorption and emission characteristics of a gas.
The O2 and N2 in the Earth’s atmosphere has no relevant absorption or emission lines in either the visible or LWIR spectrum. It neither emits photons or absorbs them and the only effect it has with any other molecule is translational owing to collisions with the surface, clouds and other gas molecules. Since they are not involved with any flux of photons, they have no influence on the radiative balance or the sensitivity, which involves only photons, as only photons can enter (Pi) or exit (Po) the planet. All N2/O2 and Ar can do is to rearrange surface energy which has little to no influence on what the steady state balance must be.
Note that an energized GHG molecule is travelling at the same speed as any other gas molecule, thus the energy of an absorbed photon is not available to be shared by collisions, although collisions can increase the probability that an energized GHG molecule will emit a photon and this has the same net effect. While collisional broadening provides a mechanism to convert state energy into translational energy, it does so in roughly equal and opposite amounts above and below resonance, so little to no NET photon energy is actually ‘thermalized’ as translational energy and most of the energy stays as a flux of photons passing from GHG molecule to GHG molecule until either returning to the surface or exiting out into space. This is evidenced by the roughly 3 db attenuation of otherwise saturated absorption lines, when observed from space, and a continuous flux of absorption band photons at all altitudes, despite a relatively short mean distance a typical absorption band photon will travel before being absorbed. If GHG’s are absorbing 100% of the photons emitted by the surface in specific absorption bands, the only possible explanation for the limited 3 db power reduction at TOA (a factor of only about 1/2) are GHG re-emissions that got past other GHG’s molecules allowing them to leave the planet. The roughly 50/50 distribution up and down is related to the random direction that a GHG molecule will emit a photon.
I think every molecule can. Since all molecules have electron transitions.
I beleive oxygen has electron transitions giving absorption bands at: 761.9, 864.5, 1270, 1580 nm (plus other less energetic modes). Whitlow & Findlay, Can. J. Chem. 45 2087 (1967).
Nitrogen too:
mark,
Yes, O2 and N2 do have absorption/emission lines, but at the line energies, they have no real influence on the result.
The bulk of the energy emitter by the surface is between about 2u and 20u (2000 nm to 20000nm) and well above the O2 lines while the incoming photons from the Sun have wavelengths well below the wavelengths absorbed by O2 and N2.
So while they will have a finite effect, any effect they do have is buried in the noise.
CoEvil – ” they have no influence on the radiative balance or the sensitivity, which involves only photons, as only photons can enter (Pi) or exit (Po) the planet. All N2/O2 and Ar can do is to rearrange surface energy which has little to no influence on what the steady state balance must be.”
Hourly Tifariti, Morocco (Western Sahara)
Wed 8/9 High – 36°/ Low – 20°
Specific heat (= specific heat capacity) is the amount of heat required to change temperature of one mass unit of a substance by one degree.
Air Properties – @Temperature (oC) Density – ρ – (kg/m3) Specific Heat – cp – (kJ/(kg K)) = @ 20 Deg 1.005 (kJ/(kg K))
@ 40 Density = 1.127 Specific Heat 1.005
Take the first 15 metres & for every m^2 => 15 m^3 * 1.127 * 1.005 (36-20) = 270 KJ or over 12 hours = 6.25 W/m^2
Are those CO2 molecules really tired after rubbing up against the other 2,500 molecules 6 x 10^24 times every night? Or do the other molecules do some of the radiating themselves.
Below a frequency of around 100 GHz, which includes most of the spectrum used for radio communications, the energy of individual photons is almost negligible at less than 10−4 eV or 10−24 Joules.
DD,
Specific heat has little to do with the energy balance, only how long it takes to get there and once there, the size of the variability in response to the size of any forcing periodicity. LTE means that sufficient time has passed for the system to come to equilibrium, so how long it takes doesn’t matter. If we look at the p-p Pi for the S hemisphere, it’s about 190 W/m^2 while the monthly average seasonal surface temperature (again, average emissions converted to a temperature) varies by about 5C p-p. On the other hand, the N hemisphere seasonal range of Pi is 183 W/m^2 p-p while its temperature range is about 12C p-p.
The difference in the p-p variability in Pi is due to the alignment of perihelion relative to the hemispheres and while close to being the same, the p-p temperature variability in the S is much less than that of the N and this is due entirely to the fact that the S is dominated by water while the N is dominated by land. Look at a globe and the distribution of water and land is close to be complementary between hemispheres.
The difference is related to the time constant which is longer for the S hemisphere than it is for the N hemisphere, which relative to my model means is embodied by the k coefficient. While it means that the response is smaller in the S for about the same change in Pi, the average value of the periodic response has had sufficient time to be representative of the LTE response of the system.
Other gas molecules do not radiate, only the trace GHG gases radiate photons that can eventually exit to space. The water in clouds does radiate, but it is also absorbing energy at the same time.
The energy of an individual photon doesn’t really matter. It’s the number of photons times the energy per photon that matters. Consider that the various fusion reactions of H, He etc. a single reaction only releases on the order of 10E-12 Joules which isn’t a whole lot of energy either.
“””””….. BB radiation is a property of liquids and solids but not gases. Gases are narrow band absorbers and emitters of photons, while liquids and solids are broad band absorbers and emitters of photons. …..”””””
Black Body Radiation is a hypothetical radiation from a hypothetical and non-existing source; a TOTAL ABSORBER.
So there is nothing real that emits black body radiation.
But every material that has a Temperature higher than zero kelvin, can and does emit THERMAL radiation, which is entirely a consequence of that Temperature.
Start by recognizing first that TEMPERATURE is a macro property of assemblages of real particles, that are constantly in collisions with each other. NO Collisions: NO Temperature !!
Temperature recognizes the mean Energy per degree of freedom of a large assemblage of real particles (atoms, ions, molecules, whatever).
Next one has to recognize that real particles; atoms, molecules, possess kinetic energies that overwhelmingly reside in the nucleus of those atoms.
A proton is 1836 times as massive as an electron; a neutron is 1837 times as massive as an electron. The lightest elements typically contain equal numbers of protons and neutrons (cept hydrogen).
So the nuclear mass ration is about 3673 for the lighter atoms and even higher for the heavier elements.
So virtually all of the kinetic energy of atoms in motion is concentrated in the nucleus.
Now one has to recognize that the nucleus and the electron cloud, contain equal and opposite electric charge, so they experience the same magnitude Coulomb force in an electric field.
So when two massive atoms collide, the electrons and the protons experience similar coulomb forces, but all the KE is in the nucleus, so it decelerates much slower in a collision.
If the colliding electron clouds slow down, but the more massive nuclei, keep on charging, the electric charge distribution must become asymmetrical forming an electric dipole moment that is NOT zero.
Maxwell’s equations tell us that accelerated electric charge MUST radiate energy. The extent of that radiation depends on the trajectories of the collisions, which is totally random.
The duration of atomic and molecular collisions at ordinary Temperatures, is an eternity in the general scheme of things, so while those particles are kissing each other, they are singing like a choir.
STOP telling people that gases DO NOT radiate THERMAL RADIATION; they DO !!!
Seen any black gases lately ?? Gases are NOT TOTAL ABSORBERS; ergo they are NOT radiating BLACK BODY radiation, but they most certainly are radiating THERMAL RADIATION due solely to their Temperature.
Take a drive down Highway 280 to Sand Hill Road, and look at the two mile long building that houses the Stanford Linear Accelerator.
That electron accelerator exists precisely because accelerating electric charges radiate constantly.
So if you have electrons rotating around a circle, they are constantly accelerating (acceleration is a change of velocity, which is a vector and has a direction as well as a speed. So changing direction is acceleration.
So electrons speeding up in a straight line radiate less than ones speeding up around a circle.
This is just 4-H Club Physics; I don’t know why everybody doesn’t already know that.
G
George,
Relative to the energies involved in the atmosphere, this effect is small to non existent. The energy of a typical CO2 molecule in motion in the atmosphere is on the order of the energy of a 10u photon. So, for a collision to emit any relevant EM, it would need to convert nearly ALL of the translational kinetic energy into a photon and the molecules temperature (not that individual molecules have a temperature) would drop to about 0K. Clearly this can’t happen, moreover; the relatively low energies converted to EM would result in photons that are no where near energetic enough to be representative of BB emissions whose mean wavelength would need to be about 10u for an atmosphere at the same ‘temperature’ as the surface.
Yes, more complicated things happen at higher energies, but these levels of energies are not found anywhere in the atmosphere and bringing up these kinds of higher order effects only makes a complex issue more confusing.
The connection between molecules in motion and BB emissions is that the energy distribution of the photons of BB radiation emitted by a liquid or solid at some temperature is about the same as the energy distribution of the translation energy of molecules in motion at the same temperature. In a way, this is a macroscopic manifestation of the duality of matter as being representable as either a particle or a wave.
I think I sort of understand the argument. I tend to think my math skills are fairly bad, and the article could use translation to English, not math and engineering jargon.
Still, it is a coherent, if difficult, argument as to why the IPCC models require very unlikely positive feedback, and are thus about as worthwhile an enterprise as using genetic engineering to produce flying pigs
The picture that illustrates this is figure 8, where the IPCC linearizes the sensitivity as passing from average conditions (surface temperature on Y, surface emissions on X) through the origin as represented by the blue line. The magenta line illustrates the approx 0.2C per W/m^2 sensitivity of a nearly ideal BB at the surface temperature and the green curve represents the approx 0.3C per W/m^2 which is the sensitivity of a gray body whose temperature is that of the surface and whose emissions are what we observe from space.
The Moon is unarguably nearly an ideal BB. The Earth’s surface is also very close to an ideal BB. The atmosphere between the Earth’s surface and space makes the planet appear gray from space, that is, the planet emits less energy than it temperature would suggest and this attenuation factor is called the emissivity. This is all quantified by the Stefan- Botzmann Law and the planet certainly seems to be obeying that laws and one of the consequences of this laws is a low sensitivity.
Yes, the actual concepts in the article are not terribly complex, but stated in jargon, which acts as shorthand, which can get hard to read. Dr Richard Lindzen tends to do a rather good effort in unpacking equations, even if it means over a thousand words to state one equation in English.
Given that the Earth is a water world on which the oceans cover approximately 70% of its surface area, and given that all but no solar irradiance is absorbed at the surface of the ocean (the bulk of solar irradiance is absorbed at a depth of between say 2 and 10 metres below the surface), whereas all energy (not absorbed in the atmosphere) is radiated from the surface, on what basis can the Earth be considered as close to an ideal blackbody?
Richard,
I said the SURFACE is close to an ideal body and you explained exactly why. It emits what it absorbs and absorbs nearly everything from the Sun. The planet as a whole when viewed from space is decidedly gray relative to the surface temperature. That is the effective emissivity is less than 1 while the emissivity of the surface itself (i.e. what it would be without an atmosphere) is closer to 1.
TH, and Dr. Lindzen repeatedly uses rather than trashes Bode, which should give all some sense of the reliability of this guest post.
“TH, and Dr. Lindzen repeatedly uses rather than trashes Bode”
And they are misapplying it for the many reasons I’ve outlined.
TH, the requisite high climate model feedback is easy to disprove in several ways. Have done so here and at Climate Etc countering Moncton’s pseudo refutation, which is both logically and factually flawed. Same here on different grounds. See long comment far below time wise.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/20/a-consensus-of-convenience/#comment-2586427
Finally a news network that will be fair and give reals facts.
Bannon to start his own TV Network.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/08/begins-bannon-plotting-fox-news-…
Former Chief White House Strategist and current executive chairman of Breitbart News, Steve Bannon, is wasting no time in expanding the leading populist news network. Bannon is reportedly plotting a television channel to rival Fox News. Strikingly, the idea was first proposed by former Fox News CEO, the late Roger Ailes.
“Bannon is reportedly plotting a television channel to rival Fox News.”
Good! That and about three more conservative news tv channels and we will be equal to the big five the Liberals have at their disposal.
That will give me something to watch since I avoid listening to the Trump bashing on Fox News, and am spending less and less time listening to them lately as a result.
I hear Fox News ratings are falling. Maybe there are lots of people like me out there that don’t appreciate the Trump bashing on Fox. If we wanted to hear Trump bashing, we could tune to any one of the other channels for that. Perhaps a few less liberals on your “fair and balanced” news shows would help the ratings. I could do without Charles Krauthammer and Juan Williams and Shepard Smith and some of the weekend anchors. When they come on, I turn the channel. I have no time for Liberal propaganda on the Fox News Channel.
Yet, “The science is settled”, “the debate is over” is what those who profit from caGW keep claiming, profit in money or ideological political influence.
In science, the only real personal profit should be in getting closer to learning what is true in the natural realm.
PS Man is a part of the natural realm.
It is controversial since it is not a science. It gave up long ago, applying scientific principles.
This is because the IPCC, which has become the arbiter of what is and what is not climate science, needs the broken model to supply its moral grounds for a massive redistribution of wealth under the guise of climate reparations.
They do not even hide this fact, they have been brazenly open about it for years:
“One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”
~ Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair, UN/IPCC WG-3
The Paris Accord has been shown in various studies to accomplish temperature mitigation on a scale so small that it could barely be measured. The UN, the IPCC and the alarmist community went ape sh*t when the US announced that they would exit the accord, not because the means to avert impending disaster was thwarted, but because the massive transfer of wealth they intended to manage (read “skim”) was denied to them.
Pakistan was furious when they realized no (USA) money would be flowing into the feeding trough. Threatened to continue using (gasp!) coal.
(yawn)
At the risk of sounding like I am trying to one up you, I disagree. They “threatened” to do exactly what they had intended to do (and were well along the road) in the first place. Only now they have a scapegoat to justify their actions. Its not THEIR fault they “have” to use coal, they’re being forced
Good point David, everyone will need a scapegoat eventually, it will be all someone else’s fault, no one goes to jail.
Apparently all of climate change consensus science is up for challenge, except the greenhouse effect. Questioning the greenhouse effect is taboo, and those who do so are worse than climate change alarmists and climate change d-nigh-ers combined.
CO2 is a radiative gas. Whether it is a GHG, or a GHG at concentrations of circa 300 to 400 ppm, is yet to be determined. That is one of the fundamental issues on which the jury is out on.
Nope. It is a GHG. What net impact it has on the complex Earth climate system is at question, not whether there is one. Perhaps that is what you meant. If so, apologies.
If you look at the classical text books (whether Chemistry or Physics) and look up the properties of CO2, being a GHG is not one of the described properties of that gas.
Whether a gas is a GHG (ie., whether it effects the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere) can only be answered by empirical observational data. To date, notwithstanding the use of our best measurement equipment within the limitations of that equipment and observational practices, it has proved impossible to wean out the signal to CO2 from the noise of variation in temperature. We therefore do not know whether CO2 is or is not a GHG (at any rate once CO2 exceeds around 260 ppm).
I put it to you that it is more probable than not that the temperature profile of the (contiguous) US is not an outlier, and that it is more probable than not that the Northern Hemisphere has a broadly similar temperature profile as that of the (contiguous) US, such that the Northern Hemisphere temperature today (if it were to be properly measured) is broadly similar to that of the 1930s/1940s notwithstanding the increase in CO2 from around 300 ppm to around 400 ppm which suggests that CO2 may not be a GHG at all (at least not at levels above around 300 ppm).
Further there appears no correlation between CO2 and temperature on any time scale, and to the extent that there are similarities it appears that CO2 lags temperature change and does not drive temperature change(paleo by around 600 to 1000 years, and recent by around 4 to 7 months), which suggests that CO2 may not be a GHG (at least not at levels exceeding 200 ppm).
Further, on a numerical basis, the Martian atmosphere has an order of magnitude more molecules of CO2 than that contained in Earth’s atmosphere, and the molecules of CO2 in the Martian atmosphere are much more closely/densely packed, and yet there does not appear to be a measurable (radiative) GHE on Mars, which suggests that CO2 may not be a GHG.
Let us stick to the known science, and that is that CO2 is a radiative gas with the ability to absorb and emit photons at varying and limited wavelengths. What the effect of that property is when the gas forms parts of the Earth’s atmosphere has yet to be determined.
Thanks for the long post richard verney. It coincided with my general understanding and your articulate summary reinforced my own thoughts very well. Until some evidence of CO2 planetary atmosphere heating is presented I will be sticking with the term ‘radiative gas’ also.
Yea, string theory was like this for about 30-35 years. Older physicists mau maued PhD candidates to accept the theology or go fining & job-less. Stanford physicists declared the theory “so beautiful it doesn’t need proving”.
Then CERN demonstrated there in no SuperSymmetry (a fundamental requirement).
Poof! Been there, done that. A couple of generations of bright young academic careers have been ended or mis-spent; physics’ 200+-year run of major discoveries every 25 (or so) years has been spent chasing down rat-holes.
Even the brightest of theoretical physicists can believe in the tooth fairy with every fiber of their being, but that doesn’t make it true.
Bust just look at all the shiny toys and taxpayer dollars we could spend on HEP, and no one had to get their hands dirty with a trade like condensed matter.
I’ve been screaming for well-nigh a decade on WUWT that consensus “climate science” is predicated upon a boneheaded supposition of “feedback,” which fails to recognize that the gain of actual feedback systems is supplied by an internal source of power (usually an op-amp) independent of the input. Such a power source simply doesn’t exist anywhere in the climate system! Yet ill-founded notions of “feedback” persist even among AGW skeptics. The present explication of that fundamental gaffe (among others) is most welcome.
1sk1,
Did you read this one?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/07/how-climate-feedback-is-fubar/
In addition to the assumed power supply, Bode’s analysis also requires linearity and the relationship between forcing and temperature is quantifiably and measurably a T^4 relationship which is barely approximately linear over a small range and certainly no where near linear across the range of temperatures found on the planet.
These two violations of the preconditions to use Bode’s feedback analysis provides all the wiggle room they need to lend plausibility for their otherwise unsupportable arguments.
Yes, I saw it, read it and complimented it!
the idea of a feedback does not rely on an op-amp or it’s external electrical supply.
Stop screaming and start thinking.
Where did I claim that the power source need be electrical? Stop yapping and start reading intelligently.
greg,
Can you explain the PHYSICAL origin of the 3.3 W/m^2 said to arrive as feedback from the next W/m^2 of input (forcing) in order to replace the energy emitted by a surface 0.8C warmer? The only possible way it could be this much is if there’s a hidden power supply supplying Joules for the output above and beyond the input.
What climate science considers ‘feedback’ is the fraction of surface power absorbed by the atmosphere and which is ultimately returned to the surface. The atmosphere has a finite capacity to store energy and in the steady state, what goes into the atmosphere must leave the atmosphere and it can either leave by returning to the surface or leave by exiting out to space.
The basic problem is that without the implicit power supply, the output of the gain block can EITHER contribute to the output of the model, or be consumed as feedback, but not both. In a Bode amplifier, neither the input or the feedback is consumed, but measured to determine how much power to deliver to the output from an implicit supply, thus output power is not consumed to generate feedback. In the language of electronics, the input impedance of a Bode amplifier is assumed to be infinite, while the input impedance of the climate feedback amplifier modelled by the consensus is essentially zero.
“Can you explain the PHYSICAL origin of the 3.3 W/m^2 said to arrive as feedback..”
Anthrop. CO2 is what they call an “external forcing” ie it is not part of the natural system. This impedes some of the outgoing IR and warms the atmosphere and hence the surface. This heat obviously is basically solar in origin. The warmer surface increases atm. water vapour which is also a strong GHG. The leads to an additional blocking of outgoing IR.
This will feed back on itself and either converge to a stable level or boil the oceans. We are still here so I guess it’s the former.
Since WV has many more active bands I see no necessary problem with this convergence being greater than the original , though IFAIK it is reckonned to roughly double the resulting warming and hence sensitivity. ( I think that result is wrong in reality but not mathematically impossible ).
Greg,
‘CO2 is what they call an “external forcing”’
Technically, CI2 is not a forcing at all, but doubling CO2 is EQUIVALENT to 3.7 W/m^2 of incremental solar forcing, so whatever effect 3.7 W/m^2 more post albedo incident power will have is what the IPCC claims doubling CO2 will have.
The real question is that if the next W/m^2 of forcing is claimed to result in 3.3 W/m^2 of ‘feedback’, why aren’t all of the 240 W/m^2 of accumulated solar energy resulting in the same amount of ‘feedback’? What’s so special about Joules absorbed by CO2 and returned to the surface that makes them so much more powerful than Joules of energy arriving from the Sun?
“The only possible way it could be this much is if there’s a hidden power supply supplying Joules for the output above and beyond the input.” That would be those “Heat Trapping Clouds”, “The missing “Hot Spot” plus “The Fudge Factor” .
I could almost claim that “Bode” himself probably never even heard of an “Op Amp”.
Op Amps were developed to do …. Analog Computation ….
Addition , subtraction, frequency selection filtering etc.
For most real electronic circuit analog circuit needs, an op amp is just about the worst possible amplifier you could choose. They are all but worthless for anything except DC operations.
For example, an off the shelf low power rail to rail CMOS op amp with which I am familiar (one of many) has a DC voltage gain (amplification) of about 560,000. That is chicken feed; some of them have a gain of 10 million or more.
Despite its very low operating power consumption, this one I am referring to has a voltage source output impedance of close to 50 Ohms, so it can source or sink as much as 10 milliamps, even though the amplifier itself is only consuming about 0.5 micro-amps from its power supplies.
BUT, that 50 Ohm DC source has an apparent output shunt capacitance to ground of about 0.27 FARADS !! NO, not pico-farads or microfarads; 270 milli-farads.
So if the output even tries to move, there is a whacking big capacitance stopping it from going anywhere in a hurry.
So for example if you wanted to have a stereo system, that could reproduce frequencies as high as say 30 KHz so that is still had good phase response at more hearable audio frequencies of say 10-15 KHz, so you get clean transients, and you needed to amplify the 500 uV or so signal froma moving coil phono-pickup or perhaps microphone, to get say 100 Watts of real audio power to put into real loud speakers, rather than cigarette pack speakers in your finger toys, then you aren’t going to get there with any operational amplifier. You would need a unity gain cutoff frequency of 100 GHz to go with that 10 million DC gain
These days, op amps are just for lazy circuit designers who can’t design a proper amplifier for some general purpose application so they use an op amp. instead.
As I recall, Bode circuit analysis, actually involved TIME, and the “propagation delay” from “input” to “output”.
When was the last time you saw a Bode analysis of some purported climate system, where propagation delay was considered in the feedback “circuit”.
Using Bode theory in relation to climate is simply BS; total BS in fact.
G
George
Modern linear power amplifiers are technically op amps implemented with discrete components which are designed for much higher output powers and lower output impedances. PWM amps are a different story and are characterized in the Z domain, rather than the S domain.
You forgot to mention the very high input impedance of an op amp which means that the input+feedback is measured to determine how much power to deliver from the power supply. For an equivalent model of the climate, the input and output impedances are the same and the input+feedback is consumed by the gain block to provide the Joules delivered to the output.
“Yet ill-founded notions of “feedback” persist even among AGW skeptics.”
Actually, you hear a lot more about feedback from skeptics than from scientists. It doesn’t appear in any GCM’s. It is basically an aide for explanation and understanding.
But the issue of power source is a nonsense. There is a massive solar flux running through the system, and the feedbacks that people talk about are based on modulating that, just as transistors modulate the current of the power supply.
It doesn’t appear in any GCM’s.
Which nonetheless calculate a sensitivity in excess of that calculated for CO2 alone. If not from feedbacks, then from what?
“If not from feedbacks, then from what?”
Feedbacks are a way of seeking to explain it. But the GCM sensitivity comes from solving the equations for flow and energy transport.
NIck,
The solar flux is the forcing input not the implicit power supply. You should also try and take a crack of where the extra 3.3 W/m^2 of ‘feedback’ arising from only 1 W/m^2 of forcing comes from? If each W/m^2 of the ‘massive solar flux’ of 240 W/m^2 entering the system also resulted in 3.3 W/m^2 of ‘feedback’, the surface temperature would be near the boiling point of water.
According to our solar expert,Leif (and the IPCC), variations in TSI over the 11 year solar cycle vary by about 0.1% which is about 0.25 W/m^2 based upon K&T figures.
So does that mean with feedback one gets an extra 0.8 W/m^2 making a gross change over the course of the cycle of more than 1 W/m^2, and if so, why can we not detect the solar cycle in the temperature data sets?
Of course the variations in TSI between weak cycles and strong cycles is far more than 0.1%
So does that mean with feedback one gets an extra 0.8 W/m^2
For gosh sakes, no. That’s energy input into the system, and it is SW. GHE affects LW, not SW, and egress, not ingress. Totally different physics. Further, GHE adds precisely ZERO energy to the system. The effect is achieved by changing the temperature profile from surface to TOA with low altitudes getting warmer and high altitudes getting colder, the “average” temperature as seen from space changes by nothing.
@richard Varney,
That is very interesting! If we assume an extra 0.25W per square meter, things get really ugly, really fast – for the AGW clan, that is! The surface area of the Earth is about 510 million square km, and half of that, at any given time, is exposed to the sun. Assuming that variation, and a full year, it means the Sun’s input variability to the Earth is about 558,450 TWh.
According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Energy_supply.2C_consumption_and_electricity), total world energy consumption is around 110,000 TWh.
Seems to me that man – for all our self-aggrandizement and self-flagellation – can equal about 20% of just the variability in output from the Sun. Yet somehow, a molecule that cannot create the level of feedback required, when combined with a relatively low level change in total power consumption, vastly swamps something that is half an order of magnitude larger in just it’s variability!
Nick Stokes August 20, 2017 at 3:36 pm
“If not from feedbacks, then from what?”
Feedbacks are a way of seeking to explain it. But the GCM sensitivity comes from solving the equations for flow and energy transport.
Nick, that’s circular logic and you know it. The equations produce a result that is greater than direct effects of CO2. So that’s what? Magic? Or equations predicated on the existence of feedback?
Stop being so precious.
“Or equations predicated on the existence of feedback?”
No, the equations are what they are. The issue here is that 1sky1 says that climate scientists have used wrong ideas about feedback. And CO2 says that they don’t accord with para 6.3.2 in Bode. But the scientists don’t define feedback at all in the models. The wonky logic put here is:
1. The results look like a feedback interpretation would help
2. You must be assuming feedback
3. You haven’t got it as it is in Bode (actually not true, but whatever).
If you don’t like the feedback interpretation you create, don’t use it. But don’t blame the scientists.
Nick,
How is this any different then my model which also does not represent feedback explicitly?
The answer to this rhetorical question is that my model has only 3 coefficients whose values can be measured for each pixel in the satellite data, yet the typical GCM has thousands of coefficients whose values are at best an educated guess driven by presumed bias.
@ davidmhoffer August 20, 2017 at 6:35 pm
David.
Thanks your comment.
I may have misunderstood the point that co2isnotevil was making, but my understanding of the point he is seeking to make is that per doubling of CO2 one gets a direct increase in forcing of ~1.2 W/m^2 plus an additional feedback forcing of ~3.3 W/m^2 giving a total forcing per doubling of CO2 (including feedback) of ~4.5 W/m^2 and this begs the question, that IF there is a positive feedback to a temperature change caused by an increase in the forcing from CO2, why is there not a similar feedback to any warming caused by a change in the forcing of solar irradiation?
Put differently, do feedbacks only apply to changes in temperatures caused by additional forcings of GHGs but not to temperature changes caused by additional forcings of solar irradiance
I would suggest that IF there is a positive feedback, and if this consists of additional water vapour consequent upon a warming ocean, then, if anything, one might expect to see a stronger feedback to changes in solar irradiance than changes in CO2, since the ocean is all but opaque to DWLWIR but absorbs solar irradiance. We know that solar warms the oceans, whereas we do not know whether CO2 warms the oceans.
Richard,
Yes, this is my point. What’s so special about Joules captured by GHG’s and returned to the surface that makes them 4x more powerful at warming the surface then Joules arriving from the Sun. The unit of work is Joules and it takes work to change the temperature and to sustain a temperature in the presence of emissions that otherwise remove energy.
Nick Stokes August 20, 2017 at 3:36 pm
“If not from feedbacks, then from what?”
Feedbacks are a way of seeking to explain it. But the GCM sensitivity comes from solving the equations for flow and energy transport.
Knock it off with the woo Nick. If it looks like feedback and quacks like feedback then it’s feedback. The mathematics doesn’t care about your hand-waving.
Nick Stokes August 20, 2017 at 11:01 pm
“Or equations predicated on the existence of feedback?”
No, the equations are what they are. The issue here is that 1sky1 says that climate scientists have used wrong ideas about feedback. And CO2 says that they don’t accord with para 6.3.2 in Bode.
Nick, you’re taking things other people said and putting them in my mouth. You’ve gone from being precious to disingenuous. I took you to task for something YOU said, you are now taking me to task for something other people said. I do not support anything CO2 or 1sky1 have said, I disagree even with the notion of Bode being valid in any way in the climate discussion.
Which takes us back to our original disagreement. You see there’s no notion of feedbacks in the models, and I say the models produce an effect greater than CO2’s direct effect, and this can only come from the equations themselves encompassing physics predicated on the existence of feedback mechanisms.
Richard Verney
IF there is a positive feedback to a temperature change caused by an increase in the forcing from CO2, why is there not a similar feedback to any warming caused by a change in the forcing of solar irradiation?
AND
CO2isnotevil
Yes, this is my point. What’s so special about Joules captured by GHG’s and returned to the surface that makes them 4x more powerful at warming the surface then Joules arriving from the Sun.
1. I don’t agree with the 4x number, but the fact that there is a difference is sound.
2. Joules coming from the sun (from outer space) to the surface and warm the surface in accordance with SB Law. They are carried by shortwave radiation and traverse the TOA to the surface in a single step.
3. Joules leaving the surface do not, repeat DO NOT have a direct path from surface to escape at TOA. They are carried by longwave radiation which gets intercepted millions upon millions of times.
4. Many of those interceptions result in joules being transferred to other molecules such as O2 via collisions. Some of those interceptions result in joules being carried off by new photons radiated in random directions some of which are back toward the surface.
5. The processes above change several very important things. These include:
a) warming the atmosphere at elevation which SW downward toward surface does not
b) this messes with the lapse rate
c) This messes with the amount of water vapour the air can contain at any given elevation. Water vapour also being a GHG, this changes the total GHE over and above CO2 alone
d) this messes with Mean Radiating Layer. Upward photons for the most part don’t escape in a direct pth to space, they escape at some point between the surface and the TOA. More GHG’s mean that the MRL must not exist at a higher elevation….which messes with lapse rate again.
Keeping in mind that I am a hardcore skeptic, sorry, but the physics of the GHE simply do not, repeat do NOT, repeat do NOT directly compare to the physics of warming from the Sun. You cannot compare the two, and you can’t compare to the moon either. If the warming mechanisms were both strictly applications of SB Law, sure. But SB Law describes a very simple system which is useful as a first order calculation of temperature due to input from SW from the Sun. Trying to quantify a completely different set of physics like the GHE which for the most part has zip, nada, nothing to do with direct warming (in fact it is technically retarded cooling!) and arguing that there should be some linear 1:1 ratio between them is just wrong.
David,
“1. I don’t agree with the 4x number, but the fact that there is a difference is sound.”
The actual min discrepancy is 4.3/1.6 = 2.7, while the max discrepancy is closer to 4.3/1, since the data suggests that incrementally, each W/m^2 of additional solar input only results in about 1 W/m^2 of surface emissions.
The min discrepancy is calculated as 4.3 W/m^2 being the presumed effect of 1 W/m^2 of CO2 equivalent forcing on surface emissions, while 1.6 is the average surface emissions per W/m^2 of accumulated solar forcing. I can make a case for the incremental sensitivity being less than the average, but the other way around requires violating COE.
And BTW, all of my arguments are supported by the measured data. If you can find other data that falsifies the T^4 dependence between surface temperature and planet emissions, or can dispute the linear relationship between surface emissions and planet emissions, I’d be interested in reviewing it. BTW, here is the scatter plot of surface emissions vs. planet emissions that demonstrates the linearity, the slope of which is about 1.2 W/m^2 of incremental surface emissions per W/m^2 of solar input.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/sens/po/se.png
Increasing surface emissions from 390 W/m^2 up to 361.2 W/m^2 represents a temperature increase of about 0.2C corresponding to the slope of the PI to T relationship shown in figure 8.
More GHG’s mean that the MRL must not exist at a higher elevation….
Strike the not in that sentence. Not enough coffee yet this AM.
CO2isnotevil
BTW, all of my arguments are supported by the measured data.
Ah yes. Make an argument that there should be equivalency based on the physics, and when I show that the physics is ENTIRELY different, you argue that the data supports you. Which changes the physics being entirely different by nothing. It is a complex matter which you have over simplified. When dealing with effects that are very small in comparison to the main driver (in this case the sun) it is easy to come up with many models that produce a believable result for the wrong reasons. Read my comment again, read ristvan’s again, and Nick Stokes made a valid comment about integration from equator to pole versus smudging SB Law across entire surfaces. Rotational speed other people brought up, the non linear response of temp to input (SB Law) makes this an important point. You cannot wave these things away based on a result that produces the answer you want.
” … and when I show that the physics is ENTIRELY different”
You did not show this in any way shape or form. You just claim it does, but have not expressed any physical laws that support your position or that will override the requirements of COE and the SB Law relative to the macroscopic behavior of the planet. Claims are irrelevant.
All you have done is cite the perceived consequences of complexity that can’t be quantified or tested. This is not science. Please come up with actual, repeatable, tests as I have done to support my hypothesis.
Sorry Nick; but the massive solar flux is simply the INPUT signal to the SYSTEM. It isn’t the power supply.
Any “feedbacks” if they exist, would select some fraction of the “output”, say a Temperature change, or CO2 change, to modify the input signal .
Feedback “amplifiers do NOT modulate the power supply, they modify the INPUT, in such a way as to make the OUTPUT, (MTF) totally independent of the SYSTEM, and controlled totally by the feedback circuit elements.
Weather and climate effects act to change the amount of INPUT solar energy that makes it through to the SYSTEM, such as to store it in the oceans. It’s invariably negative, and simply a variation on Le Chatalier’s Principle.
G
This purported “aide for explanation and understanding” is constantly employed by famous modelers, such as Trenberth and Hansen–the very people who should know better. In fact, the iconic K-T cartoon goes so far as to show a LW “backradiation” loop separately from the terrestrial emissions in a schematic that otherwise shows only NET heat transfers. This creates the false impression that atmospheric backscattering is more important to surface temperatures than insolation.
Ironically, this patent confusion between the solar flux INPUT and the power source required to maintain the power gain of bona fide Bode feedback only underscores my point that ill-founded notions of complex system behavior are endemic “climate science.”
David M. Hoffer says:
Yet, by arguing against Nick Stokes’ contentions that there are no hidden feedbacks in “the equations,” he supports the very point I’m making. Perhaps he missed my earlier statement:
That statement is tantamount to the stance that the actual climate system operates as a feed-through system for solar energy, which is merely redistributed spatio-temporally and in wavenumber–without any amplification.
CO2isnotevil
but have not expressed any physical laws that support your position
LOL. Go get yourself a spectroscopy text book and read it. Go get an atmospheric physics text book and read it. Go read the stuff ristvan told you to. Figure out why averaging temps and then calculating w/m2 gives a different answer than converting temps in w/m2 and THEN averaging. I’m not going to teach you these things in a blog comment, I’m telling you what to look at. You want several years of physics explained to you with all the formulas and references, that’s what the text books and courses are for.
david,
Is your response to Stokes or me?
I have a thorough understanding of radiative physics and have even written a line by line atmospheric simulator whose results correspond to those from Modtran, moreover; I understand perfectly well why you must calculate average temperature as the equivalent temperature of average emissions and not as a linear average of temperatures and I have also explained this many times in these comments.
The reason I rolled my own was because Modtran was too much trouble to integrate into my climate simulation framework, moreover; I already had some code that performed very high performance numerical integration that I wanted to use. As a result, the performance I achieve is significantly better than Modtran and I have virtually an infinite number of speed/precision/space tradeoffs that I can choose from.
1sky1;
Such a power source simply doesn’t exist anywhere in the climate system!
If you pay attention to the actual explanations of the physics, what you will find is that no power source is required. There is NO additional power added to the system ANYWHERE in the GHE theory. The effective black body temperature of earth is EXACTLY the same AFTER CO2 doubles as it is BEFORE. EXACTLY THE SAME. What changes is WHERE the warmth is, surface get warmer, high altitudes get colder, but the over all temperature is EXACTLY THE SAME.
Think of a dam on a lake. Water is going over the dam at the same rate it flows into the lake from the river. Raise the dam a foot. Water stops flowing until it tops the dam, and then flows at exactly the same rate as it did before. Is the depth of the lake 1 foot higher? Yes it is. Was there an additional source of water added to the system? No. Is the river flowing faster? No. But the lake is still one foot higher.
David,
The power source he is referring to is the one that amplifies 1 W/m^2 of forcing all the way up to 4.3 W/m^2 of surface the IPCC’s claims. In your dam analogy, at about 1.6 W/m^2 per W/m^2 of forcing, the water starts to overflow the spillway.
More than 1 W/m^2 per W/m^2 is possible, but it is incorrect to consider this feedback, based on what Bode calls feedback. The absolute maximum is only 2 W/m^2 per W/m^2 of forcing and this is if all of the surface energy emitted is absorbed by the atmosphere. The reason this is not infinite, as pedantic feedback theory would suggest (i.e. the runaway condition), is because only about half of what the atmosphere absorbs will find its way back to the surface while the remaining half exits out to space.
If the atmosphere absorbed all surface emissions and starting with 1 W/m^2 of solar input:
1 W of solar absorbed by the surface, emitted and absorbed by the atmosphere
1/2 up, 1/2 down
1/2 absorbed (all directed down from above is ultimately emitted and absorbed by the atmosphere)
1/4 up, 1/4 down
1/4 absorbed
1/8 up, 1/8 down
…
1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + … = 2.0
CO2isnotevil;
I suggest you start by reading these:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/07/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-light-and-heat/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/29/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-molecules-and-photons/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/28/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-atmospheric-windows/
David,
Upon a quick review, nothing in any of the articles you referenced was new to me, nor was there anything that immediately popped up as something I disagree with, although I didn’t study the articles in enough detail to identify flaws. I understand all of this from a macroscopic view, a spectral perspective, a statistical distribution of states, quantum mechanics and how to connect all these views together. It would be a mistake for you to underestimate my level of understanding.
co2isnotevil August 21, 2017 at 5:01 pm
David,
The power source he is referring to is the one that amplifies 1 W/m^2 of forcing all the way up to 4.3 W/m^2 of surface the IPCC’s claims. In your dam analogy, at about 1.6 W/m^2 per W/m^2 of forcing, the water starts to overflow the spillway.
The dam was an analogy to demonstrate that no additional power/water source is required to raise temp/level. The use of the term “forcing” confuses many. As ristvan pointed out downthread, it should be better thought of as retarded cooling. You can equate the retarded cooling to a given w/m2 for a given temp change, but there is no power source, nor does there need to be one.
As another over simplified analogy, consider a classic teeter totter sitting level. Measure its height above the ground every foot, average it, and you get a number. Tip one end all the way down to the ground so the other end is up in the air and repeat the measurements and average. You will get the exact same number. Yet one end is clearly higher. Call that end the surface temp. It is higher due to the redistribution of the teeter totter’s material, with the average kept the same. No extra teeter totter material was added to raise the one end higher in the air.
Climate is a more complex matter because it isn’t linear and rigid like the teeter totter, there’s a lot more than that going on. But the same thing happens, the temps go up at one end and down at the other, no additional power source required.
David,
I agree that CO2 can not be considered ‘forcing’, but it is and while the term ‘forcing’ has been misapplied, non the less, we are stuck with it. Only the Sun actually forces the climate and even most consensus scientists will acknowledges that an anthro forcing of X W/m^2 means that the effect being quantified is EQUIVALENT to X W/m^2 of incremental post albedo forcing from the Sun while keeping anthro forcing constant.
And yes, the climate is complex, but more precisely, the atmosphere is complex which is why I model it as a black box implementing the simplest model that can emulate the observed behavior at the boundaries of the atmosphere. To the extent that I can predict the boundary behavior, and the SB Law plus COE does a damn good job, the complexity effectively washes out. Whatever ultimate effect all of this complexity has is already being manifested in the response predicted by the top down Physical Model and measured by the data.
Again, I want to point out that my analysis works not only global averages, but down to an arbitrarily small temporal and spatial resolution.
Regarding linearity, the climate is definitely non linear in the power in/temperature out domain, but it is demonstrably far more linear in the power in/power out domain and the reason is that all Joules must be treated uniformly.
the reason is that all Joules must be treated uniformly.
But they aren’t. You claim superior understanding, then make statements like this. As a unit of energy, all joules are equal. As an effect on temperature, they are not. Their effect depends on the temperature undr consideration. 1 j/s means a LOT more at -100 than it does at +100.
You keep on asserting your superior knowledge. You should stop and consider that understanding the math does not mean you’ve applied it to the physics correctly. As for treating things like a black box in order to simplify things, Einstein cautioned, make things as simple as possible, but not simpler. One of the grievous errors made by the IPCC is to assume that large numbers of errors cancel each other out. You got a math result that seems to match observations, and so you conclude that is what has happened.
I any event, arguing the point with you seems fruitless, you are clearly wedded to your theory. At day’s end, it matters not one whit if your results conform to observations or not. The only way to determine if it is curve fitting or not is to see if it has predictive skill.
david,
“As an effect on temperature, they are not. ”
You are missing the point. While 100 Joules/sec will affect the temperature differently than 200 Joules/sec, when 100 Joules are applied, each Joule has the same effect. When 200 Joules are applied, each of these Joules has the same effect. The non linearity between power and temperature seems to be the source of your confusion. This is why it’s more appropriate to perform analysis in the energy domain.
My point is when 240 Joules are applied, each results in 1.6 W/m^2 at the surface. When 241 are applied, the next one will not result in 4.3 at the surface, but only 1.6.
You are missing the point. While 100 Joules/sec will affect the temperature differently than 200 Joules/sec,
That wasn’t my point. Never said that. You just defeated an argument I never made while insisting I am the one who missed the point. LOL.
david,
You said that all Joules are not treated the same since they have a temperature dependent influence and of course they do, which is quantified by the SB equation. If you apply W/m^2 to a body starting from 0 K, then as it warms, the effect of each incremental Watt gets smaller and smaller relative to the increasing temperature. But what I’m talking about is applying power to a system which is already at or close to its equilibrium temperature, for example when considering the sensitivity.
For any system that’s in equilibrium, all the Joules applied to it will have exactly the same influence at all times if the only thing those Joules are doing is replacing emissions to keep the temperature from changing. If that influence is to change the temperature, rather than just maintain it, the common effect each Joule has relative to the new temperature is slightly different, but not appreciably so over a small incremental change in the temperature, none the less, at each new temperature, all of the incoming Joules will have the same effect, albeit a different effect than it had before the temperature change.
you miss the point, yet again.
David,
Why don’t you re-express your point in a new thread and in context that’s relevant to the problem at hand which is establishing the climate sensitivity from an equivalent model of the planet. I’ve been juggling many different threads with many different people and concepts can easily get crossed between them.
David M. Hoffer says :
Whose “actual explanations?” Certainly not those in the misleading K-T cartoon of power fluxes, showing 492 W/m^2 absorbed at the surface, of which only 168 W/m^2 is due insolation. The total is even more than the TSI of 342 W/m^2 at TOA ! That stark disparity has been usually “explained” by aberrant notions of “greenhouse forcing,” which conflate local emissions of stored energy with system-wide heat transfer. In fact, the IPCC annual reports misrepresent the total “transfer function” of the climate system as a product of amplifying, static-gain “feedbacks.” Since power, unlike highly mutable energy, cannot be stored but must be constantly generated, the inflated power fluxes would indeed require an additional power source in the feedback-system model, well beyond that required by Hansen’s claim of positive water-vapor feedback.
BTW, while Hoffer’s analogy of the GHE with a dam storing flowing water is certainly a step in the right direction in illustrating the crucial difference between stored energy levels and those in flux, it’s flawed by an implicit threshold of overflow that has no correspondent in the atmospheric retardation of LW radiation to space. An even greater shortcoming of the dam analogy as a climate model is the lack of any accounting of non-radiative means of heat transfer, which in reality constitute the principal means of heat transfer from surface to atmosphere,
Line 6 of the article: you need “whose” [meaning “belonging to whom”] not “who’s” [meaning “who is”]. Examples: The person whose opinion is most important is your wife. Who’s coming to the party besides Janice? Remember: No pronoun contains punctuation–none. If there is punctuation, the expression is a contraction, and a complete rendering would involve at least two words, a pronoun and a verb.
It’s encouraging that this is the worst error you found …
John
Does your post mean that’s what you got from the entire 8,800-word technical article, or that you only got to line 6?
It’s helpful to grammatically correct an article, or head post, because the author may intend to post it as a PDF or publish it, and would like the opportunity to polish it.
(In that vein, I noticed several instances of its/it’s misuse in the article. A simple scan will find them, if you have an eye for such things.)
In this vein, I noticed a doubled “from”. Do a search for “from from”. I thought the article was well written. The math is over my head, so I can’t comment on the conclusions (intelligently, that is). But this is definitely something worth spending time on to learn the subject.
I’ve fixed these in my version, but can not fix the version here.
George is my peer, I have reviewed it and like it, so it is peer reviewed, go to print.
Seriously, my opinion it is much simpler than this. Forcing’s, imbalances, feed-backs can be argued to the last W/m^2. What caused the last few de-glaciations? Believers argue it was CO2, “There is no convincing evidence that a sufficiently large reservoir of old metabolic carbon existed in some mysterious location in the glacial ocean only to be ventilated during de-glaciation” And why every 100,000 years like clockwork. Until
this can be explained, the theory has not been proven, it is not the driver of climate but make take a back seat to it.
–Venus
Venus is something else that climate alarmists like to bring up. However; if you consider Venus in the context of the Physical Model, the proper surface in direct equilibrium with the Sun is not the solid surface of the planet, but a virtual surface high up in its clouds. Unlike Earth, where the lapse rate is negative from the surface in equilibrium with the Sun and up into the atmosphere, the Venusian lapse rate is positive from its surface in equilibrium with the Sun down to the solid surface below. Even if the Venusian atmosphere was 90 ATM of N2, the surface would still be about as hot as it is now.–
Yes, as long as there were acid clouds and the elevation of these clouds were the same with Nitrogen atmosphere.
I would say the “discoveries” of Venus is what gave the pseudo science of the greenhouse effect theory it’s legs.
Or the question asked was why was Venus so hot [and the false assumption that Venus was like Earth]. Anyhow the wrong conclusion was that it’s was related to CO2. Or they ignored the massive clouds of Venus.
The correct answer is what caused Venus to be hot, is the liquid droplets of the acid clouds of Venus. Or a liquid surface of droplets of clouds. Liquid not gas. And gas make it hot due to lapse rate of gas- ideal gas law.
The negative lapse rate is also the only thing which can cause the highest air temperature on Earth. Or the record for highest air temperature will be always be at or below sea level on Earth.
Something everyone knows.
Or in the various times the Mediterranean Sea was dry, and therefore had low elevation, it was assumed it would have very high air temperature even during glacial periods. Or was supposed to
air temperature around 80 C- or +20 C hotter than highest recorded air temperature of Death Valley:
“The official highest recorded temperature is now 56.7°C (134°F), which was measured on 10 July 1913 at Greenland Ranch, Death Valley, California, USA. ”
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/highest-recorded-temperature
[which is below sea level and is near high elevation deserts]
Anyways, I think it’s simple to explain Earth’s average air temperature. Earth average temperature is controlled by Earth’s largest surface, which is the ocean and the ocean is at sea level [doh].
Or if had largest areas below sea level, it might be possibility be considered as having something to do with average temperature of Earth.
Anyways, ocean area is largest area, it obviously related to average global temperature.
So one needs to know how the ocean surface warms the air [evaporation] and be aware that the ocean average surface temperature is 17 C.
The rest is details.
Or if covered Mars tropics with water and surface temperature was 10 C,
So 25 degrees latitude north and south is Mars tropics and covers close to 50% of Mars
surface [23.5 degrees S and N on Earth is 40%]..
Mars average global temperature would be about 0 C. Or the “tropical ocean” causes Mars average global temperature to rise by about 50 K.
Now increasing Mars average temperature is not important- but increasing the pressure where people live is important- unless you want to always be in spacesuit.
10 meter deep on Earth is 1 atm with 1/3 less gravity on Mars, 10 meters of water is 1/3 atm.
1/3rd atm is enough pressure to breath without pressure suit [or spacesuit].
Or compared to what others consider of how to Terra-form Mars, what talking about is very cheap.
It’s cheap to do, and makes infrastructure cheaper to build on Mars.
The other Venus assumption is “it was a earth like planet” before the “run away”.
Low CO2 sensitivity has been around for decades, Lindzen is one, but there are others
http://notrickszone.com/50-papers-low-sensitivity/#sthash.thmTGJnQ.RLiaH7Ii.dpbs
The paper by Harde 2016 is similar to this George Smith posting
For a simple description of how the radiative “Greenhouse effect” actually operates, see
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=5911
Surface biology has a large impact on surface albedo, and long term atmospheric composition
George White is the correct name, not smith.
BW, Lindzen and Choi 2011 is ‘wrong’. Their second paper was a response to indisputably valid valid criticism of their first, but does not solve the cheryypick lag function criticism. This from a person who spent a day in person with him getting his critique of my climate chapter of Arts of Truth.
There’s a gazillion George Smiths; one on nearly every street corner. And collectively we are booked into every motel on the planet; but only for an hour.
And for the legal disclaimer, NO I am NOT the George E. Smith who is the 2009 Nobel Physics Prize winner, for inventing the CCD (Charge Coupled Device) while he was at Bell Labs.
There are actually people who do know both of us.
And don’t ask me form my credentials; I don’t have any !
G
PS I didn’t write anything that somebody here has referred to.
“The 270K average temperature of the Moon would be the Earth’s average temperature” This is false. One of the many reasons: Earth rotates faster.
Yes, if the Moon was in Earth’s geostationary orbit it would have 24 hour day. But the Moon is GEO would cause some problems.
It maybe been there is the past, but it’s good thing to have it be in the past.
While the tidal effect would be insane and a Moon that took up most of the night sky would be interesting, the only effect it would have on the Moon’s temperature is to decrease the high temperatures and increase the low temperatures, but the average will remain the same.
— co2isnotevil
August 20, 2017 at 2:46 pm
While the tidal effect would be insane and a Moon that took up most of the night sky would be interesting, the only effect it would have on the Moon’s temperature is to decrease the high temperatures and increase the low temperatures, but the average will remain the same.–
The article is correct about some things, one thing it’s correct about is the lunar surface heats up rapidly. Earth being a water planet heat up up very slowly- thousands of years.
And because what being warmed is a liquid, Earth climate is complicated- lunar climate is uncomplicated.
This is one area where the analogy between the Earth and the Moon breaks down.
The speed of rotation matters where the body is not a perfect blackbody, and in particular where energy is not absorbed at the surface and where there are lags.
The Earth is a water world with approx 70% of the surface covered by ocean, and solar irradiance is not absorbed at the surface of the ocean, but rather at depth. There are lags in the system with the ocean containing a vast reservoir of latent heat.
With such differing characteristics, no meaningful comparison between the Moon and the Earth can be made.
Well if the earth’s oceans are a vast reservoir of latent heat “””””….. There are lags in the system with the ocean containing a vast reservoir of latent heat. …..”””””
Then those oceans can ONLY give up that latent heat by FREEZING.
They have to give that 80 calories per gram or frozen water, to the atmosphere; the oceans have to absorb vast quantities of latent heat in order to become a small portion of earth’s atmosphere. That can come only from the sun, and at the rate of about 590 calories per gram of water evaporated.
G
Adrian,
How does the rotation rate affect the average temperature? It affects the extremes, but when you calculate the average temperature as the EQUIVALENT temperature of AVERAGE emissions, as I specified, in the steady state, average emissions are equal to the average incident energy independent of the rotation rate.
Simple answer is heat capacity of lunar surface. Lunar surface has very low heat capacity.
Earth with it’s oceans has a huge heat capacity.
Earth would less effect having 29.5 day long day as compared to the Moon, but if Earth’s days were 29.5 times longer, don’t you think the nights could be colder?
Or at sea level in tropics air temperature never gets to 0 C, but if Earth’s day was 29 times longer, could the tropics reach below 0 C every night?
gbaikie,
The heat capacity is the ‘k’ in my equations and primarily affects the amount of time it takes to reach equilibrium, that is, how much E it takes for some increase in T.
If the Earth day was 708 hours, equatorial nights could indeed drop below 0C, but daytime high temperatures would increase to 70 or 80 C and the averages would remain mostly the same. Even mid latitudes would have day time highs over 50C and night time lows less than 0C. However; the nature of water may prevent this since at about about 300K, ocean temperature increases slow way down relative to increasing solar energy and this energy seems to be converted into Hurricanes.
@ co2isnotevil at August 20, 2017 at 3:26 pm
You miss a very fundamental point and that is that the Earth is nothing like a blackbody since it does not absorb energy at the surface, whereas it radiates energy from the surface.
This is one of the fundamental errors in the K&T energy budget cartoon.
Richard,
“since it does not absorb energy at the surface, whereas it radiates energy from the surface”
What do you think is happening to all that solar energy that heats up the oceans, concrete and dirt? Where do you propose all this energy is being absorbed? Clouds absorb some solar energy, but in LTE are tightly connected to the water in the oceans thus for identifying the LTE state, we can consider that solar energy absorbed by clouds has been equivalently absorbed by the oceans.
My point relates to the speed of rotation.
One of the mistakes in climate science is to consider the position as if the Earth is essentially immersed in a warm bath where energy is received uniformly over the entire surface area of the planet 24/7 all year long. That is not our system. Energy is being received in bursts, and where energy is being received is not where energy is being radiated from.
If something is a perfect blackbody, the speed of rotation does not matter, but where a body is not a perfect black body and where energy is not absorbed at the surface but rather within the body itself, and where there is material which is a poor conductor but one which possesses a large latent heat capacity, the speed of rotation becomes important. This set up, gives the body the potential to warm because energy can accumulate at a rate different to that at which it is radiated.
If this planet rotated once a minute, gradually the deep ocean would heat up more, ocean circulatory patterns would change which would probably lead to an ice free Arctic (as well as changes to atmospheric patterns which I am ignoring since we are considering an atmosphere free world).
One cannot compare a fast rotating water world such as the Earth with a slow rotating grey body such as the Moon. It does not follow that absent atmosphere they would be the same temperature.
There have been significant changes in the temperature of this planet over the past few thousand years, eg., Minoan Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, and these changes are not due to variations/perturbation in the orbit/eccentricity/inclination of the planet, nor changes in (so called) GHGs, nor (as far as we know) changes in solar irradiance. Whilst these changes were not caused by changes in the speed of rotation of this planet, these changes are possible because the planet is nothing like a blackbody.
It absorbs energy in one place (in 3 dimensions) and radiates it in another place. The planet is a heat pump and energy is constantly being moved around. Some of the energy absorbed may take thousands of years to surface and be radiated, some of it can be released in relatively short cycles such as ENSO cycles.
Richard,
It’s an energy constraint, nothing more, nothing less. The LTE average emissions will be the same independent of how fast or slow the object rotates. Explain how the average output emissions of the Moon are not equal to its average input emissions and/or how does the rotation rate affect the average incident energy? It certainly affects the distribution, but has no affect on the total number of Joules entering the surface and exiting it which is averaged over at least a whole number of night/day cycles.
–gbaikie,
The heat capacity is the ‘k’ in my equations and primarily affects the amount of time it takes to reach equilibrium, that is, how much E it takes for some increase in T.
If the Earth day was 708 hours, equatorial nights could indeed drop below 0C, but daytime high temperatures would increase to 70 or 80 C and the averages would remain mostly the same–
Ocean surface temperature controls average temperature, ocean will not warm more than 35 C, because the sunlight’s intensity is not sufficient to overcome evaporation heat loss.
And longer day might not change the average ocean temperature, but we have consider the heat capacity of the atmosphere. Or average global temperature is air temperature not the 3 C the entire ocean’s average temperature.
Or ask anyone what happen if sun disappears, within days the atmosphere collapses, but oceans will maintain their temperatures for long time.
So with long night, the sky falls down, though it would be supported by the average air temperature which is the same as average ocean temperature. Or one obviously would get more wind, but even a powerful global wind lack enough heat to warm the night. Ocean waters could manage this task. One could imagine the Antarctic Circumpolar Current could increase and help out But our current land configuration isn’t going to support much in terms of east west movement of ocean water.
Anyways such a things makes it complicated. But if you agree the nights in tropics will cool to 0 C or colder that wipes why we have an average global temperature of 15 C- because the average tropical temperature is about 26 C, and that makes tropics, less than 15 C, which makes average global temperature about 5 C. Without even really getting into night time temperature of rest of the world..
gbaiki.
“which makes average global temperature about 5 C.”
You are neglecting the offsetting effect of longer days and the much higher temperatures that will result.
The total solar input arriving at the surface at the equator under clear skies at noon is about 1300 W/m^2 which if applied continuously would result in a surface temperature exceeding the boiling point of water.
Oh , forget the global wind in relationship to slower rotation, so rotation of 1000 mph at equator,
drops 1000 / 29 which is 34 mph. So could have upper troposphere winds 0f + 100 mph with surface of about 30 mph. Or say 1/3 atmosphere roughly going 3 times speed of lower and more massive part of atmosphere. And I guess it travels west.
And we would have tiny terminator line like Venus [or would we?]
And we currently have polar vortexes and i guess they become more pronounced and constant.
Actually I think we just get stronger polar vortexes. And it looks like vortexes are making the global wind. Though I could also say they are “following it”.
Any ways not a fierce winds as I first thought.
— co2isnotevil
August 20, 2017 at 6:18 pm
gbaiki.
“which makes average global temperature about 5 C.”
You are neglecting the offsetting effect of longer days and the much higher temperatures that will result.–
We are are not talking about the amount of solar energy the Earth absorbs, we talking about average global air temperature. Or the amount of energy Earth has currently absorbed is roughly the average temperature of the entire ocean of Earth- which has average temperature of about 3 C.
What makes Earth have an average temperature of 15 C, is the average temperature of the tropical region which is 40% of Earth surface.
Plus the tropical ocean warms the rest of the planet Earth.
Or tropical ocean is the heat engine of Planet Earth. So average global temperature of Earth is the tropics and the amount of heating the tropics heats the rest of the world.
Or if eliminate the near uniformity of tropical night and day average air temperatures, you will lower Earth’s average air temperature. But that alone doesn’t have anything to do with how much solar energy is absorbed by Earth.
In terms of the the moon, faster rotation [because surface has low heat capacity] does mean the Moon absorbs more solar energy. And if the Moon absorbs more solar energy the lunar regolith below the surface is warmed more. Which coupled with shorter nights that means the night will be warmer and therefore the Moon will have a higher average surface temperature [and higher average temperature below the surface].
Or I can look at it this way, water has high specific heat, it require about 4 times more solar energy [or anything warming it] than an equal mass of rock. Or if heat water from 1 C to 2 C, the same amount heat warms most stuff from 1 to 4 C. And warmer something is, the more it radiates that heat into space. And ocean highest temperature is 35 C and land is about 70 C.
But a more important aspect is water is transparent and conducts heat poorly [if there is difference in temperature, water mostly gets heat to the surface via convectional heat transfer.
But water isn’t surface like rock and absorbs sunlight mostly 1 meter or more beneath it’s surface.
So ocean tropical water fairly uniformity warm down to 100 meters and that inhibits convectional heat loss [not much difference of temperature of the water per say inch or foot depth].
And ocean thermocline in addition to sunlight heating through meters of ocean depth also has wave action which makes the water have a more uniform temperature.
gbaikie,
“In terms of the the moon, faster rotation [because surface has low heat capacity] does mean the Moon absorbs more solar energy. ”
The rotation rate has nothing to do the average EMISSIONS and this is what the average temperature I’m talking about is based on. The heat capacity determines how much E is needed to result in some temperature T, so a larger heat capacity will require more E in order to come to the same equilibrium T which just means it takes more time for equilibrium to be reached and LTE assumes that enough time has passed to achieve equilibrium. But, relative to balance, we are concerned with balancing the rates of energy, not absolute energy and the balance of rates is dictated by COE and nothing more. If the Moon receives X W/m^2 from the Sun it will emit X W/m^2 when it is in thermodynamic balance no matter its composition or rotation rate and the average temperature is based on X W/m^2.
“What makes Earth have an average temperature of 15 C, is the average temperature of the tropical region which is 40% of Earth surface.”
I should mention in terms of geometry and rotation the tropics gets more sunlight- or as commonly said, the tropics gets half or more of all the sunlight from the sun. And it’s 40% of earth surface.
Which shouldn’t be confused with amount of daylight time- which is roughly equal anywhere.
Or tropics gets more sunlight which above 45 degree above the horizon [or within 45 degrees of zenith].
It’s very wrong to think in terms of averages when you deal with temperatures. Temperature is an intensive value, if you are dealing with non-equilibrium, almost always (except very particular circumstances) you will get wrong physical results with the average. Your average is done with T, the black (or gray) body emission is ~T^4. Even from this remark with a little bit of thinking you can realize how having different extremes (and the entire range between them) will change things.
What would happen to daytime temperatures if the day was 48 hours long.
The daytime maximum temperature might then be 10C higher than it is now. 12 extra hours of sunlight in which the temperatures rise by an average of 0.8C/hour. Nightime temperatures might then be 10C lower as well.
What would happen to clouds and rain then. Certainly more daytime evaporation and thermals which should mean more clouds. Any ground in the sunlight is going to get much hotter than it is now.
Once you have worked your way through that, now make the Earth solar day 2,784 hours long (like it is on Venus) and then redo the math. You know what you get, you get day-time Earth surface temperatures just like they are on Venus.
Bill,
The temperature does not increase indefinitely in response to a longer day. It asymptotically approaches the temperature corresponding to the incident energy.
Better not call it an average temperature then. The expression “average temperature” suggests a number calculated from raw temperatures, rather than from energy fluxes.
Averaging temperature is a meaningless metric. Only averaging emissions and converting the result to an average temperature has any relevance to the physical behavior of the system If you want to ‘average’ two temperatures, T1 and T2, the proper equation is Tavg = (T1^4 + T2^4)^.25
I meant,
Tavg = ((T1^4 + T2^4)/2)^.25
— Bill Illis
August 21, 2017 at 4:44 am
What would happen to daytime temperatures if the day was 48 hours long–
Most amount energy from the sun occurs during part of the day referred to as peak solar hours.
Roughly this is 3 hour before and after 12 noon. Or when the sun is the highest in the sky.
Or in the polar regions of Earth one has very long daylight hours, but sun stays near the horizon
and is not very intense.
So peak hours in 12 hour day is 1/2 of the day- 6 hours. And in these hours one gets the most amount energy from solar panels. Or roughly of the 24 hours one gets 1/4 of the time having peak hours. And so with 48 hour day you would get 12 hours of peak hours.
Or with the Moon it’s day is 29.5 times longer than earth day, and in terms peak hours 6 times 29,5 is 177 peak hours.
The lunar surface reaches a temperature of about 120 C. when the sun near zenith [straight up].
The lunar surface if instead have only 46 hours of peak hours would also reach about 120 C.
And if lunar surface had only 6 hours of peak hours [like earth] would also reach about 120 C.
Even if the Moon had only 4 hours of peak hours, the surface would also reach about 120 C.
Or the lunar surface can rapidly heat up. But what is rapidly warming up in the first couple inches
of “lunar dust” and roughly speaking it’s like asking how quickly can cardboard warm up- which is about 15 min [or less].
An ocean or just swimming pool is a completely different topic..
Or a wet piece of cardboard would first need to dry out before it can reach it’s highest temperatures- which could take hours.
I’m not saying you should be averaging temperatures. I’m saying you should not use the term “average temperature” for what might perhaps more appropriately be called “emission-equivalent calculated temperature” or some such. You have lots of comments here that result from taking the notion of “average temperature” literally.
Michael,
Yes, I understand that this can be confusing, especially since climate science emphasizes temperature and not emissions, even though the two are exactly equivalent. This is why I keep qualifying it with being an EQUIVALENT temperature corresponding to average EMISSIONS.
co2isnotevil
You are forgetting about time and emissivity.
Ground versus air temperature and solar radiation over two days at the Kansas solar radiation tower in May.
Actual molecules absorb energy for a period of time before they re-emit it. It is does not take long for a surplus of energy to accumulate when the solar energy is coming in at 1,000 joules/m2/second (1,200 at the tropics).
The Net radiation out does NOT equal the radiation coming in during the day-time. It accumulates in the molecules in the rock and soil and even air molecules. While the “accumulation rate” can be extremely small (on the order of 0.008 joules/m2/second), this adds up to a extremely big net accumulation number as those seconds tick off. In Venus’ case, the accumulation time in seconds is over 5 million seconds.
Bill,
“The Net radiation out does NOT equal …”
Not all the time. At night, emissions are infinitely larger than incoming which is zero. It’s not until later in the AM that incoming starts to exceed outgoing and in the late afternoon when the temperature is at its max, emissions again become larger than incoming.
You misunderstand my use of the term NET which is a long term average over some number of periods of the largest periodicity in the stimulus. This basically means the average across a whole number of years.
” In Venus’ case, the accumulation time in seconds is over 5 million seconds”
I don’t know if this suppose to slow or fast.
But I say if cooled Venus and Earth by 50 K, Venus would warm back up quicker than Earth.
But I don’t know if Venus was ever cooler than it is now.
Or in terms of 50 K cooler, I don’t either planet has been this cold.
Gbaikie,
“But I say if cooled Venus and Earth by 50 K …”
It would depend on what you cooled. If you cooled the Venusian surface, it would take far longer to re-establish the temperature because 1) the available energy is less (high albedo) and 2) higher temperatures requires more W/m^2 to sustain.
If you cooled the clouds in direct equilibrium with the Sun, they would warm up faster because in the steady state, they were relatively cold to begin with.
Another of my hypotheses is that Venus started out as a small gas giant that wandered into the inner solar system where the Sun eventually stripped off its lighter gases leaving only the heavier CO2 in its wake. It could have also ejected the super Earth that we usually see associated with other solar systems. Its interior would have probably been even hotter then as it would have had more mass compressing its atmosphere. Something that has always bothered me about Venus is that it has far, far more CO2 then we have on Earth since the mass of the CO2 in the Venusian atmosphere is about the same as the mass of the Earth’s oceans. I think that its even possible that one of the gases stripped from the proto Venus was water vapor, which Earth scavenged and is why we have so much water, while Venus has so little by comparison. Of course, this one is much harder to test …
“Another of my hypotheses is that Venus started out as a small gas giant that wandered into the inner solar system where the Sun eventually stripped off its lighter gases leaving only the heavier CO2 in its wake”
Also the sunlight would convert methane into CO2. Like water, methane is quite abundant in the solar system [and the universe]..
The question is where did water go?
With Earth it is thought Earth water came from it’s interior and via smaller impactors- lets say less than 100 km in radius [or 100 km diameter rock will boil Earth’s oceans- and kills everything- and 100 radius rock does more than that].
Venus would have even higher impact velocities as compared to Earth, but would say Venus thick atmosphere as general rule “protects it” from all impactors. Or 100 diameter rock hitting Venus would be more survival-able as compared to hitting Earth despite it having +10 km/sec velocity added to it.
Or in terms of puny nuclear weapons, Venus is a fortress. If space aliens attack, you should want to live on Venus. Mars is also good, basically Earth is one of worst planet to be on. But Venus is in some ways better than any of inner planets or moons.
Or the reason nuclear weapons are dangerous is the atmosphere and the surface. Large impactor make the ocean surface dangerous- 1/2 km high wave going speed of sound type stuff.
Now anything over 1 km radius, isn’t going to be stopped by the Earth’s atmosphere, and may not be stopped by Venus atmosphere, but when hits the surface it creates air shockwave [and some earthquake force]. Now with nukes one wants the explosion to occur somewhere around 1000 meters above surface, because you using the atmosphere to deliver the energy over wider area and the surface of earth deflects the shockave.
Such technique would be useless on Venus, because of it’s thick atmosphere.
Now assumption with Venus is you are 50 Km above the surface. Being at high elevation on Earth- flying plane- is also a relatively safe place to be- but Venus and it’s larger atmosphere it’s safer.
Back to big rocks, the huge impact energy would be sort of like exploding a large nuke in deep ocean water on Earth. Near the impact site, you are dead, the point is what are effect 500 or 1000 km distance from impactor. And so what happens with 100 diameter rock hitting Venus, well it could increase temperature by 100 C- so, that causes atmosphere to expand, and you end up at higher elevation and a bit warmer- maybe 10 C.
Shockwave, there would be largely deaden by thick atmosphere and largely confined to the rocky surface.
Or basically the entire rocky planet could be molten and it’s not much of a problem.
Anyhow, going back to gas giant, the large impactors could not reach surface and blast off huge chunks of the amosphere
gbaikie,
It’s hypothesized that a Mars size rock impacted the Earth and the Moon arose from the debris as Earth’s axis got slightly tilted.
Venus has a slow retrograde rotation meaning that at one time, it’s axis is flipped 180 degrees. But, where is it’s Moon? Surely an impact large enough to flip it upside down would have created enough debris for a Moon to form, even with an atmosphere comprised of 90 ATM of CO2.
But, if it was a gas giant with a lot more atmosphere that bounced off another gas giant in the outer solar, for example, Uranus, which also has unusual rotation and tilt, it would have been a more elastic collision and the cores deep within would probably have never come in contact with each other. Kind of like two balloons bouncing off each other.
Planetary formation models generally predict the formation of a ‘super Earth’ somewhere in the inner solar system, but ours has none, even though these have become one of the most common kind of exoplanets discovered.
I suspect that a Venus/Uranus collision occurred very early on and Venus was hurled into the inner solar system, did a gravitational dance with the proto super Earth in about the same orbit as Venus is in now and replaced it by ejecting the super Earth into the far reaches of the solar system. There wouldn’t even need to be actual collisions and gravitational slingshot effects are also a plausible cause, even for the initial Venus/Uranus collision. Such a planet beyond Pluto is now generally thought to exist.
‘Planetary formation models generally predict the formation of a ‘super Earth’ somewhere in the inner solar system, but ours has none, even though these have become one of the most common kind of exoplanets discovered. ”
It may be common because, they are looking for earth like planet and lack the detection abilities and find more massive earths [more easily detected,
But not that paying a lot attention to it, it seems they finding a lot gas giants very close to their stars. Again, easier to detect, Bur gas giants aren’t “supposed” form near their stars. And no doubt one gets explanations for how this happens.
But it seems the take away is, gas giants do form and/or get near their stars.
What we know or what is theorized is that gas giants can and do form quickly.
So maybe venus formed quickly as gas giant, and then during “great bombardment” Venus the gas giant got smashed.
Or we don’t know if the “great bombardment” is common- we just “know” it occurred with Sol system.
gbaikie,
Something else about Venus is that because of its very slow rotation, it has no magnetic field to speak of. which means that it would not be very protected by the solar wind.
” co2isnotevil
August 24, 2017 at 10:35 pm
gbaikie,
Something else about Venus is that because of its very slow rotation, it has no magnetic field to speak of. which means that it would not be very protected by the solar wind.”
How much of Venus atmosphere is being currently lost?
Or do you think Venus loses more than Mars.
“MAVEN measurements indicate that the solar wind strips away gas at a rate of about 100 grams (equivalent to roughly 1/4 pound) every second. “Like the theft of a few coins from a cash register every day, the loss becomes significant over time,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “We’ve seen that the atmospheric erosion increases significantly during solar storms, so we think the loss rate was much higher billions of years ago when the sun was young and more active.”
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-mission-reveals-speed-of-solar-wind-stripping-martian-atmosphere
Seconds per day: 86400 – 8,640,000 grams – 8640 kg – 8.64 tonnes
8.64 times 365 is 3153.6 tonnes per year. And:
“The science team determined that almost 75 percent of the escaping ions come from the tail region, and nearly 25 percent are from the plume region, with just a minor contribution from the extended cloud”
So 25% of it comes from area above poles. Hmm, I wonder how fast the stuff escaping Mars travels at:
“This electric field accelerates electrically charged gas atoms, called ions, in Mars’ upper atmosphere and shoots them into space.” How fast are they shot.
Anyways they trying to figure out how much water is lost. How much water is gained?
So got 8 tons leaving, 2 tonnes from polar region. And some portion of it, is water.
They say Mars gets hit more then Earth, And suppose they mean per square meter [square km] of cross section:
“Researchers guessed that anywhere between 0.4 and 110 tons of the star stuff entered our atmosphere every day–that’s a pretty wide range. But a recent paper took a closer look at the levels of sodium and iron in the atmosphere using Doppler Lidar, an instrument that can measure changes in the composition of the atmosphere. Because the amount of sodium in the atmosphere is proportional to the amount of cosmic dust in the atmosphere, the researchers figured out that the actual amount of dust falling to the earth is along the lines of 60 tons per day.”
http://www.popsci.com/60-tons-cosmic-dust-fall-earth-every-day
60 times 365 is 21,900 tons.
Plus:
“Estimates for the mass of material that falls on Earth each year range from 37,000-78,000 tons. Most of this mass would come from dust-sized particles….
…Over the whole surface area of Earth, that translates to 18,000 to 84,000 meteorites bigger than 10 grams per year.”
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/75-our-solar-system/comets-meteors-and-asteroids/meteorites/313-how-many-meteorites-hit-earth-each-year-intermediate
Or it seems likely Mars is gaining water, rather than losing it.
Now, I was “always under the impression” Venus got less impactors than Earth or Mars, and still think it’s reasonable assumption. And in terms gaining water, it seems even more likely less water gets to Venus from extraterrestrial matter.
Anyways I trying to number of impact crater there was on Venus. Short story is there seems a lot more than I thought. And terms rate, it matters when you imagine Venus was re-surface.
They tend to think the planet re-surfaced itself, I tend to think impactors did it.
Or getting back to Venus being gas giant- maybe it’s just Venus loss a lot of it’s atmosphere from impactor- within last billion or two years.
Oh, you know your idea of balloons hitting. So maybe comet with big diameter atmosphere- Comets can have have a huge diameter atmospheres. Or comet nuclei could even miss Venus but the atmospheres collides- say at 60 km/sec, So one could get average gas molecule couple times the Venus escape velocity- escape being about 10 km/sec
Don’t think a comet would work, as while the atmospheres are large. they are very diffuse and to get the bouncing balloon effect, you need a really dense atmosphere.
— co2isnotevil
August 25, 2017 at 11:14 am
Don’t think a comet would work, as while the atmospheres are large. they are very diffuse and to get the bouncing balloon effect, you need a really dense atmosphere.–
Did you heard of the light foam of Shuttle External Tanks damaging the Columbia Orbiter?
https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/EXTERNAL-TANK-INSULATION-Columbia-Space-Shuttle-Explosion
I think that was somewhere around 500 meter/sec
Incredible Comet Bigger than the Sun:
“The sun remains by far the most massive object in the solar system, with an extended influence of particles that reaches all the planets. But the comparatively tiny Comet Holmes has released so much gas and dust that its extended atmosphere, or coma, is larger than the diameter of the sun. The comparison is clear in a new image. ”
https://www.space.com/4643-incredible-comet-bigger-sun.html
And size it’s nucleus
“This amazing eruption of the comet is produced by dust ejected from a tiny solid nucleus made of ice and rock, only 3.6 kilometers (roughly 2.2 miles) in diameter.”
So that has gravity of about 1/1000th of 1 gee and I thinking of something with bigger nucleus,
say +50 km in diameter, or something with 1/100th of 1 gee [or more]. Or something we haven’t seen- at least, before we invented telescopes.
So dwarf planet Ceres [a very big space rock- biggest in the Main asteroid belt]. Has gravity of
“0.029 g”- wiki
Or less than 1/30th. So even though Ceres is bigger than what I have in mind, the comet could have more volatilizes on it’s surface than Ceres. Or we sent, the spacecraft, Dawn to Ceres and there are no large quantities of water at surface and Ceres outgasses some amount of water at it’s distance from the sun [2.67 AU- or about 1/10th of earth distance solar flux] though it’s still believed [I think] that Ceres mantle has more fresh water than Earth.
So as example what would happen if Ceres orbit was change so it pass between say Venus and Mercury and crossed Venus distance when Venus was within 100,000 km of it- more twice GEO and 1/3 the Moon’s distance.
So Ceres’ year is 4.6 years and it’s year would change to about 2 years or less [as wild guess] or the trajectory leg towards the sun from it’s Aphelion to Perihelion is about 1 year. Or about 9 months to reach Venus distance from Aphelion. Or 9 months of getting more heating than getting now. Or rough guess once reaches earth distance it will travel about 2 months before crossing Venus orbital distance. It’s a slow comet or fast moving asteriod. Or if hit earth it would have impact of about 30 km/sec, and with Venus it’s would about +40 km/sec. Or it would pass Venus at about 40 km/sec though any of it’s gas would impact at +40 km or could be about 50 km/sec.
So in longer time period of getting to Mars distance, it’s going out-gas more though amount out gassed is temporary in terms of years but not very temporary in terms of 9 months. And by reaching earth distance, what was outgasing should increase by factor of ten and what wasn’t out gassing, would warm enough to begin out gassing.
Or when comets get closer to the sun, it’s sometimes described as vaporizing swimming pools per second or water.
So big comet should make more gas and hold more gas, and be in process of leaving the comet forever but hasn’t completely left yet.
I don’t think you can ever get the cloud of dust surrounding a comet to have anywhere near the densities required for a balloon like collision. It would need to be a comet with the mass of Neptune. It’s not the size of the gas and dust cloud, but how dense it is.
I don’t know if there’s an upper limit on the size of a comet. It would depend on how primordial they are relative to the supernova’s that created their elements. If they arose from aggregating smaller particles, they could potentially be Earth sized or larger. If they are the size of the chunks directly precipitating out of supernova remnants and they are the smaller particles that aggregated together to create planet sized objects, they will likely be far smaller.
“I don’t think you can ever get the cloud of dust surrounding a comet to have anywhere near the densities required for a balloon like collision. ”
I am not sure what you mean by balloon collision- my assumption was low density like air of balloon. Though a party balloon would have high density. Or air is 1.2 kg per cubic meter at sea level, and it would have about that density. Though also could be thinking of high elevation balloon which would roughly has density of high elevation. Or on Earth 100,000 ft is same pressure as mars sea level [1/100th of an atm]. Or Mars density is .02 kg/cubic, hydrogen high atmosphere balloon would be somewhere around less than .01 kg/cubic meter. Or if had large balloon in space it could much less than .01 kg/cu meter.
Since a large balloon with party balloon density of 1.2 kg is impossible in space- the structural strength isn’t possible- if it’s very large, generally I assumed it was vaguely in ballpark of .01 kg/cubic. Of course space density varies, but around 5 molecule per cubic cm, or in cubic meter
5 million molecule. And Moon atmosphere is about 100 molecules per cubic cm.
So in terms of range, lunar atmosphere would be about the least possible [anything that amount or less seems silly] all way up to .01 kg/cu meter [or seems anything more gets into structural issues- or talking about a hollow sphere of some sort]. But broadly there seems like there could be wide range of density of a balloon in space.
But if picked 01 kg/cu meter and sphere of 10,000 km [10 million meters] the volume being, using
google: 4.19×10^21 cubic meter or 4.19×10^19 kg
Or earth’s atmosphere being, 5.1 x 10^18 kg
Or basically have something like a earth atmospheric mass hitting a gas giant atmosphere at say 50 km/sec. And seems like it would affect the less dense higher atmosphere [though this higher atmosphere has a higher total mass than “balloon” hitting it].
Though rather being at a significant distance, the comet could graze the planet’s atmosphere- it could even have nucleus “tunnel” thru the upper atmosphere, and be deflected or bounce off the atmosphere. If nucleus has vector changed in anyway it could experience deceleration force [gee force] and break apart or explode [break apart quickly].
We have video of asteroid glazing earth, see if can find it.
I had not seen this one before, sort of boring:
There is another- again not one I was thinking of;
http://www.amsmeteors.org/2016/02/earth-grazing-fireball-over-wisconsin-and-michigan-caught-on
Again others, but not one thinking of- but exciting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQgfGe-6EJU
Anyhow, those are small rocks- we get rocks size a cars on a monthly basis, and of course also have spacecraft related debris
“I am not sure what you meant by balloon collision”
Two gas giants colliding where the atmosphere’s bounce off each other and the cores never come into contact. This is what I think the nature of the collision that flipped Venus upside down was. Otherwise, where is its Moon?
–But if picked 01 kg/cu meter and sphere of 10,000 km.–.
That’s radius not diameter
With apology to George White, just a quick reminder
So far so good for the polar explorer Pen Hadow who started his polar voyage four days ago. It looks he might have a bit of a luck following him. Prevailing winds are his friends, the current position marked with green circle
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-4.67,93.55,892/loc=-163.208,72.888
Concentration of the see ice on his route to the pole appears to be about 45%
This would have been better posted in the Open Thread thread that is titled ROAD TRIP.
Where is that sailboat that is traveling to the North Pole in all that ice??
somewhere near the orange line off Alaska
I have not had the time to analyse the article but I would say that it would appear to be wrong. The average temperature of the moon is not 270K but rather 197K. Thus the supposed “physical model” would appear to be wrong for the simplest case and so I would not believe the predictions when it comes to the earth.
The author also states that ” since the climate sensitivity should be relatively easy to predict using the settled laws of physics and even easier to measure with satellite observations” and while it is true that the climate sensitivity is easy to measure the only draw back is that it will take several thousand years since that is how long the oceans take to reach thermal equilibrium. So there is a simple experiment – double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, wait 1000 years and measure the average temperature change. And the good thing for the skeptics is that we appear to be on track for doing precisely that.
Average air temperature is directly connected to ocean surface temperature.
But Earth average temperature is related the ocean’s average temperature [volume of oceans not surface]. Or earth average temperature is connected to Earth average ocean temperature.
“wait 1000 years and measure the average temperature change.”
In thousand year the volume of the ocean can increase, it’s unlikely to warm up within 1000 years as much as ocean warmed in the last interglacial period, but it could increase by as much as 1 C,
which might increase the ocean surface temperature and therefore have a higher average temperature of couple of degrees.
We will certainly be about to measure such a change in ocean temperatures- probably in less time than 1 century, but such increase in global air temperature won’t be felt as noticeable change, slightly warmer winters, higher latitude have longer growing seasons. Or it’s warmer by small amount but not hotter.
The basic failing here is the notion of T. You don’t say exactly where it is the T of. Eq (3) puts it into a S-B equation, for which it would have to be the T of an emitting surface. But that isn’t the same as in (2), where it seems to be a volume T. And of course, T is variable over the surface, hugely so for the Moon. You can talk of an surface average, but there is no S-B law that says an average flux is the fourth power of any average. And for the Earth, it isn’t even just surface. A lot of emission comes from the high trpopsphere.
I’m sure someone will mention the use of GMSTA, but that is carefully defined as an average anomaly. People wearily explain why you shouldn’t even try to calculate average surface temperature, let alone use it in any kind of physics.
So the math leading to (6) makes no sense.
So as described T is a function of location and is defined at each point on the surface. Indeed right up to equation 6 everything is defined at a point on the surface, which makes total sense because the Moon lacks significant convection or any other mechanism to transport heat from one location another so each location can be considered independently of the others. This means that sensitivity can be found independently at each point on the surface.
The problems with averages that you mention are real, however the author seems aware of them, and in any case the issue of averaging only arises subsequent to equation 6 which appears to me to be an equation defined at a point on the surface.
“Indeed right up to equation 6 everything is defined at a point on the surface”
Well, the immediate application following (6) starts:
“If the average temperature of the Moon was 255K, equation 6) tells us that ∂T/∂Pi is about 0.3C per W/m2.”
“equation 6) tells us”. The equation is applied using averages, and includes no indication of space dependence. And it goes on:
“As far as the Moon is concerned, this analysis is based on nothing but first principles physics and the undeniable, deterministic average sensitivity that results is about 0.22C per W/m2. This is based on indisputable science”
The “indisputable science” in this arithmetic is certainly based on wrongly applying the S-B formula to an average. I see no attempt anywhere to calculate at each surface point and integrate.
Nick,
The math leading to 6) is describing the Moon. The later hypothesis is that there’s a connection in the physics from the behavior of the Moon to that of the Earth and I developed that connection in tiny steps and then tested a couple of prediction of that hypothesis. In the end, nothing about how the Earth behaves could not be accommodated by changes to the attributes of the model and the tests of the data confirmed that the planet does indeed conform to the laws of physics and that the sensitivity to incremental solar energy is exactly as predicted.
Nope your assertion Moon~Earth is just wrong. See several pointed specific examples in long belated below comment.
ristvan,
“Nope your assertion Moon~Earth is just wrong. ”
Then how do you explain why the relationship between output emissions (Po) and the surface temperature (T) exhibits the T^4 relationship predicted by the model? If it’s not SB and COE that dictates the relationship between the surface temperature and planet emissions, what laws of physics are relevant and why do those laws emulate the behavior of the SB Law? Moreover; you have acknowledged that the model works correctly for an Earth like planet without water and GHG’s, and you would probably also agree that if the oceans were a liquid that is not also acting as a GHG, the equations will also work. So, how can adding a few trace gases to the atmosphere so completely change the laws of physics?
It stands to reason that output emissions have a T^4 relationship with temperature since both the surface and clouds emit roughly Planck spectrums and even emissions from atmospheric GHG’s originated from Planck spectrum emitters initially. Once emissions pass pass through atmospheric GHG’s some emission bands are attenuated, but this is a linear reduction in power that can be fully accounted for by an emissivity and is not a modification of the basic T^4 dependency, nor the T^-3 dependence on the sensitivity (when expressed as degrees per W/m^2) which for all intents and purposes is immutable! Even a gray body emitter with an emissivity of 1E-99 exhibits the basic T^4 dependency.
GE, I answwr your questions in detail in the long below comment. No need to repost here out of time thread.
Shell theorem with simultaneous flow. I don’t think I am introducing something strange. Gauss law.
You did not just see a clear, logical, well-argued refutation that utterly destroys the fake science, consensus CO2 climate alarmism.
cue the: ****((FLASSHY THINGY))****
What you just saw was swamp gas from a weather balloon trapped in a thermal pocket that refracted the light from Venus.
Germino,
The max temperature is about 396K and well over the boiling point of water while the min temperature is about 90K. Don’t know where you are getting your temperature data, but the average is certainly over 197K, even when averaging temperatures.
Besides, I calculate the average temperature as the EQUIVALENT temperature of average emissions and unless the average emissions are equal to the average incoming energy, it will not be in a steady state.
You must honor Conservation of Energy. At an average temperature of 198K, the average emissions are only 87 W/m^2 based on the SB LAW. At an albedo of 0.11, the average incident power is about 304 W/m^2. What’s happening to the other 217 W/m^2?
Given that we have insufficient data to calculate the average surface temperature of the Earth, it seems highly unlikely that we possess sufficient data to calculate the average surface temperature of the Moon (albeit I consider it far simpler to calculate the average surface temperature of the Moon)..
You state that the minimum temperature is 90K, but that sounds highly dubious to me given that craters at the polar region (with axial tilt of just 1.5deg) receive little or even no solar irradiance at any time.
Richard,
Yes there are pockets that are colder, but relative to the whole, it doesn’t matter much. At 90K, the emissions are only about 3.7 W/m^2, so relative to the 305 W/m^2 of average incident energy, the difference between 90K and 0K is in the noise.
Thanks your reply.
I do accept that in principle one could obtain a ballpark figure for the temperature of the Moon by carrying out a SB type calculation. How ballpark the result would be would depend upon a number of factors not least whether we possess sufficient data on the albedo of the Moon over all latitudes.
Indeed, you might have seen: http://www.lunarpedia.org/index.php?title=Lunar_Temperature
However, such an approach is far more complicated with the Earth, because the Earth is anything but a black body, and it is far from clear whether SB applies to gases.
Richard,
The Earth is clearly not an ideal BB, nor is the Moon or anything else for that matter. However; the T^4 dependence of emissions on temperature is immutable for both the Moon and the Earth. Another name for a non ideal black body is a gray body.
I ought to have done a quick search before I commented.
I have very quickly reviewed several sites and none give an average surface temperature for the Moon, and indeed, they even give some variation in temperatures that ought to be the same. But my main focus was the minimum temperature of the Moon.
It appears that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter measured temperatures of minus 238 deg C (35K) in craters at the South pole, and minus 247 deg C (26K) in a crater at the North pole.
Thus it would appear that the minimum temperature is rather lower than you suggest.
Since those locations never see the sun this is unsurprising. Is the temperature in such peculiar locations relevant to the overall calculation? Only a tiny fraction of the surface never sees the sun.
Ian
The Moon has a very cratered surface, and that will inevitably lead to complex shadowing of solar irradiance. The point you make about the relevance of craters at the poles carries weight. This as you suggest, is only a small area.
As I see it, a far more difficult problem is that the albedo is highly variable and this leads to problems in calculating, from first principle, the average temperature of the moon , viz
https://img.purch.com/h/1000/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5zcGFjZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzAxOS8wOTEvb3JpZ2luYWwvanVseS1za3l3YXRjaGluZy1wb3J0bGFuZC5qcGc=
The accuracy of the calculation would depend upon how many latitude bands are assessed individually and one would need to know the albedo at all latitudes, and I guess we simply do not have that data.
That does not mean that it is impossible to calculate a ball park figure. the problem is what size is the ball park? Do we get the temperature to within 2K, 5K, 10K etc?
When one is dealing with T to the power of 4, small differences can soon add up to significant values.
“When one is with T to the power of 4, small differences can soon add up to significant values.”
Actually, we are conserving energy flux expressed as rates of Joules (power) where temperature goes as 1/Power^4. A small error in Joules has only a small effect on the temperature. The problem is when you apply temperature centric analisys where a small error in temperature results in a large error in Joules.
The image that I referred to above has better contrast than does the image below, and the better contrast emphasises the variable albedo issue.
How can the addition of a greenhouse gas, which is able to emit radiation, DECREASE the emissivity of the planet!? Yet this is the absurd inversion of logic and reason you have to accept to believe in the greenhouse effect.
The addition of a greenhouse gas above a planetary surface can’t effect the emissivity of the surface. Its emissivity will be exactly as before, since nothing about the surface itself has physically changed. The emissivity of the atmosphere can only increase, because you are talking about adding gases that are better able to emit than what’s currently there!
So, overall, the emissivity of the planet (surface plus atmosphere), can only increase, not decrease, as you add greenhouse gases.
Graham,
See the response to rajinderweb. In a nutshell, more GHG’s decrease the emissivity as the net attenuation of surface emissions becomes a larger fraction and in the context of this model, the effective emissivity is the ratio between the emissions of the planet and the emissions of the surface.
Very well done.
I have a specific question about a minor detail. You mention at one point 1.8 +/- 0.5 W/m2 of the 240 W/m2 of the average incident solar energy that seems not to be contributing to warming the planet and conjecture that this energy may be going into photosynthesis or driving the weather. I don’t think that conjecture can be sustained.
Energy is conserved and heat is the highest entropy form that energy can typically take. While energy can indeed be temporarily stored as the kinetic energy of large masses of air or the chemical energy stored in the wood in a forest, those reservoirs of energy are finite, and eventually all that energy will be converted back into heat. For climate what matters is the equilibrium so unless those reservoirs of energy are changing in size (there is admittedly some evidence for that with respect to global greening), they cannot act as sinks for energy. Can I suggest gradual warming of the deep ocean as an alternative.
How positively can it be stated that 1.8 +/- 0.5 wm2 is actually and factually “missing” at all? Are our measurements of what actually, factually arrives at the surface, and what escapes to space so undeniably accurate that we “know” it cannot possibly be accounted for in any other way?
The idea that the exact same amount of energy arrives at the surface every day, and that the exact same amount of energy leaves the atmosphere every single day is idiotic. And unscientific.
Yes. A problem with the measurements is another very likely explanation.
It is a very hard number to measure. It is the difference in two large numbers each of which is difficult to measure, particularly over the full spectrum. Furthermore as you note there is geographic and time averaging to take into account. It is unsurprising that it is not zero. However these factors should theoretically all be taken into account in computing the error term. Since the actual number is just a hair over three standard deviations above zero, under the rules of the game of science as currently played, it is large enough (just) to require some sort of explanation.
This imbalance is a well known issue that has nothing to do specifically with the authors work, except that he needs to use the numbers in his calculation.
Aphan,
This is actually a 3 decade average, not a daily average, although for any 12 month period, the average dE/dt is measured to be close to zero. During the summer, dE/dt is large positive and during the winger, dE/dt is large negative.
Ian,
Photosynthesis converts energy into chemical bonds, not heat where some of this energy is sequestered to the bottom of the ocean, to eventually become fossil fuels. There’s also the consideration that weather is basically the consequence of a global heat engine which can not be 100% efficient (Hurricanes are the extreme example).
I actually think it has more to do with the accuracy of the data. After all, the ISCCP data originated from GISS.
The 1.8 W/m^2 is also tiny compared to the average 190 W/m^2 p-p variability in the dE/dt term per hemisphere. While it is a larger fraction of what’s left after averaging the two hemispheres, its basically the result of subtracting two large and somewhat uncertain numbers from each other since the two are 180 degrees out of phase.
I had not considered oil or clathrate formation so yes that is a distinct possibility. However your other point about the inefficiency of weather as a heat engine doesn’t help. If the engine is inefficient it will fail to use all the available energy with the excess being released … as heat. You can’t destroy energy in an inefficient engine. You can only fail to use it or waste it as heat.
Ian,
Energy is also stored by raising water against the force of gravity, which we can extract as hydroelectric power. Water flowing down rivers contributes to entropy primarily by eroding rocks and not heating the surface. Even wind and wave damage from storms is not energy converted into heat, but into disorder.
I’d have to think about that.
Thought experiment: If you crush rocks in a rock crusher are you using up energy? I’m pretty sure it can all be accounted for. The rocks will get hot due to friction and mechanical stresses and the energy you use to break chemical bonds in the rock will mostly be recovered (as heat) as the surface oxidises and new chemical bonds are formed.
“While the differences between sides seems irreconcilable, there’s only one factor they disagree about and this is the basis for all other differences.”
In my opinion, there’s your first problem. Getting all sides to AGREE that there is, indeed, only one factor that they are all in disagreement about.
Problem #2 is getting them to agree that that EXACT one factor is the “ONLY” thing that forms the basis for all the other differences between sides.
How sure are you that everyone else, regardless of which point of view they currently hold, can or will accept your conclusion?
It would be a wonderful and amazing world if all people were rational, logical, and fact based in their thinking. But the evidence demonstrates otherwise. And in my opinion, THAT is the root issue that