From the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The missing piece of the climate puzzle
In classrooms and everyday conversation, explanations of global warming hinge on the greenhouse gas effect. In short, climate depends on the balance between two different kinds of radiation: The Earth absorbs incoming visible light from the sun, called “shortwave radiation,” and emits infrared light, or “longwave radiation,” into space.
Upsetting that energy balance are rising levels of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), that increasingly absorb some of the outgoing longwave radiation and trap it in the atmosphere. Energy accumulates in the climate system, and warming occurs. But in a paper out this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, MIT researchers show that this canonical view of global warming is only half the story.
In computer modeling of Earth’s climate under elevating CO2 concentrations, the greenhouse gas effect does indeed lead to global warming. Yet something puzzling happens: While one would expect the longwave radiation that escapes into space to decline with increasing CO2, the amount actually begins to rise. At the same time, the atmosphere absorbs more and more incoming solar radiation; it’s this enhanced shortwave absorption that ultimately sustains global warming.
“The finding was a curiosity, conflicting with the basic understanding of global warming,” says lead author Aaron Donohoe, a former MIT postdoc who is now a research associate at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory. “It made us think that there must be something really weird going in the models in the years after CO2 was added. We wanted to resolve the paradox that climate models show warming via enhanced shortwave radiation, not decreased longwave radiation.”
Donohoe, along with MIT postdoc Kyle Armour and others at Washington, spent many a late night throwing out guesses as to why climate models generate this illogical finding before realizing that it makes perfect sense — but for reasons no one had clarified and laid down in the literature.
They found the answer by drawing on both computer simulations and a simple energy-balance model. As longwave radiation gets trapped by CO2, the Earth starts to warm, impacting various parts of the climate system. Sea ice and snow cover melt, turning brilliant white reflectors of sunlight into darker spots. The atmosphere grows moister because warmer air can hold more water vapor, which absorbs more shortwave radiation. Both of these feedbacks lessen the amount of shortwave radiation that bounces back into space, and the planet warms rapidly at the surface.
Meanwhile, like any physical body experiencing warming, Earth sheds longwave radiation more effectively, canceling out the longwave-trapping effects of CO2. However, a darker Earth now absorbs more sunlight, tipping the scales to net warming from shortwave radiation.
“So there are two types of radiation important to climate, and one of them gets affected by CO2, but it’s the other one that’s directly driving global warming — that’s the surprising thing,”
…says Armour, who is a postdoc in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.
Out in the real world, aerosols in air pollution act to reflect a lot of sunlight, and so Earth has not experienced as much warming from shortwave solar radiation as it otherwise might have. But the authors calculate that enough warming will have occurred by midcentury to switch the main driver of global warming to increased solar radiation absorption.
The paper is not challenging the physics of climate models; its value lies in helping the community interpret their output. “While this study does not change our understanding of the fundamentals of global warming, it is always useful to have simpler models that help us understand why our more comprehensive climate models sometimes behave in superficially counterintuitive ways,” says Isaac Held, a senior scientist at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory who was not involved in this research.
One way the study can be useful is in guiding what researchers look for in satellite observations of Earth’s radiation budget, as they track anthropogenic climate change in the decades to come. “I think the default assumption would be to see the outgoing longwave radiation decrease as greenhouse gases rise, but that’s probably not going to happen,” Donohoe says. “We would actually see the absorption of shortwave radiation increase. Will we actually ever see the longwave trapping effects of CO2 in future observations? I think the answer is probably no.”
The study sorts out another tricky climate-modeling issue — namely, the substantial disagreement between different models in when shortwave radiation takes over the heavy lifting in global warming. The authors demonstrate that the source of the differences lies in the way in which a model represents changes in cloud cover with global warming, another big factor in how well Earth can reflect shortwave solar energy.
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The paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/47/16700 (open access)
Shortwave and longwave radiative contributions to global warming under increasing CO2
Significance
The greenhouse effect is well-established. Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, reduce the amount of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) to space; thus, energy accumulates in the climate system, and the planet warms. However, climate models forced with CO2 reveal that global energy accumulation is, instead, primarily caused by an increase in absorbed solar radiation (ASR). This study resolves this apparent paradox. The solution is in the climate feedbacks that increase ASR with warming—the moistening of the atmosphere and the reduction of snow and sea ice cover. Observations and model simulations suggest that even though global warming is set into motion by greenhouse gases that reduce OLR, it is ultimately sustained by the climate feedbacks that enhance ASR.
Abstract
In response to increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2, high-end general circulation models (GCMs) simulate an accumulation of energy at the top of the atmosphere not through a reduction in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR)—as one might expect from greenhouse gas forcing—but through an enhancement of net absorbed solar radiation (ASR). A simple linear radiative feedback framework is used to explain this counterintuitive behavior. It is found that the timescale over which OLR returns to its initial value after a CO2perturbation depends sensitively on the magnitude of shortwave (SW) feedbacks. If SW feedbacks are sufficiently positive, OLR recovers within merely several decades, and any subsequent global energy accumulation is because of enhanced ASR only. In the GCM mean, this OLR recovery timescale is only 20 y because of robust SW water vapor and surface albedo feedbacks. However, a large spread in the net SW feedback across models (because of clouds) produces a range of OLR responses; in those few models with a weak SW feedback, OLR takes centuries to recover, and energy accumulation is dominated by reduced OLR. Observational constraints of radiative feedbacks—from satellite radiation and surface temperature data—suggest an OLR recovery timescale of decades or less, consistent with the majority of GCMs. Altogether, these results suggest that, although greenhouse gas forcing predominantly acts to reduce OLR, the resulting global warming is likely caused by enhanced ASR.
Note: This study was published in November 2014, but was not covered by WUWT then. Thanks to Dennis Wingo for bringing it to our attention.
… But the authors calculate that enough warming will have occurred by midcentury …
I would like to apply for a job in an industry where you can only check whether the work I have done is of any use AFTER I am dead….
The desire for that kind of life of security and ease is indeed seductive, but for some it’s as somebody here aptly put it a while back – his name on the office door felt like an epithet on his tomb.
I’m gonna have an epitaph rather than an epithet, for fear of what my heirs might choose pithily to say.
Errrr…37 years. Not enough coffee yet. Coffee probably destroys the environment, but you’ll have to pry it out of my cold dead hands to get it away from me.
Either works…
And I thought the science was settled.
Looks like it simply wasn’t understood at all.
Now, put your hand up if that is a surrise.
Auto
‘surprise’ – of course!
Sorry.
Auto
The mid-century mark is becoming increasingly important to AGW prognosticators. President Barron will have to deal with it.
That’s funny. During the 1970s the year 2000 was seen as the point at which all society on Earth collapsed….
Seems like 30 years in the future is a good time to forecast disaster…
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was 33 years ahead of its time. Generally seems like a good amount of time in advance to be science fiction.
Re Earthling2: And Blade Runner was 35 years in the future, 1982 to 2019. 30 years does seem to be a good rule of thumb doesn’t it? And, how many predictions of anything that far out have come true? I still want my jet pack dammit!
“The mid-century mark is becoming increasingly important to AGW prognosticators.”
I think you mean AGW procrastinators?
Severian,
I want my own willing and compliant replicant as portrayed by Sean Young.
The dates are chosen pretty much blithely with the only qualification being that it’s ‘just around the corner’, ‘near enough to inspire urgency, but not soon enough to debunk’.
Remember the title of that idiotic movie, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’?
It’s all about messaging with these guys. It gets tiring when every single word or action becomes just another way to pimp their pet issues. The language itself get perverted with spin, opportunism, and PC policing, to the point where you can’t even talk to each other anymore.
And an honest word never gets said.
Back To The Future – also 30 years…..
Orwell’s novel 1984 was published in 1949, 35 years.
I notice that their pictures show no clouds, even though NASANOAA says that earth’s cloud cover is around 60%.
And clouds keep short wave solar incoming radiation from reaching the condensed earth’s surface, where it can actually warm the earth. The earth is NOT warmed by its atmosphere.
The solid and liquid earth are hotter than the atmosphere. Clouds cool the surface they do not heat the atmosphere.
G
PS forget about moderation; my recent posts , simply refuse to post and give me a curt rejection message.
I posted one yesterday a few paragraphs long, which upon hitting the post comment button simply disappeared, never to be seen again.
But I have never seen a rejection message, except once or twice a while back that I was writing too many posts…slow down.
But they were short one to five words replies to various comments.
[On this site, there is a specific list of “key words and trigger phrases” that will dump your comment into the “to be reviewed” queue. “Denier” or “Fraud”, for example, will always require your comment to be reviewed. Approved, most often, after review, but always reviewed. Be patient, there were 2.2 million comments approved before yours came up. .mod]
@mod – 2.2 million? Now, that’s a busy day… (Sorry, I get strange late at night. Had this image of a stadium full of Shakespeare’s monkeys, all busily clicking “Approve” buttons…)
“and give me a curt rejection message”
I had that too. I think it is just a glitch in the site mechanics, or maybe exceeding a count. I find that closing the tab and opening a new one generally fixes it.
Thank you Mod.
I was not really too worried about it.
I have stuff go to moderation all the time, but usually it posts the comment with a note at top that I am sure only I can see telling me y comment is awaiting moderation.
But occasionally one does not do that. Sometimes they reappear after closing the browser, and reopening it, sometimes not.
I think sometimes it is just a glitch and the comment never made it to the WUWT server.
And…2.2 million is a lot!
“and trap it in the atmosphere” i thought it was emitted in every direction immediately.
So true.
and to think I though that increased water vapour in the atmosphere meant that more clouds formed and that those clouds then reflected short wave radiation back into space……..
Maybe these MIT people also have a hypothesis as to how increased CO2 prevents cloud formation from higher levels of water vapour ???
I don’t think that this paper is helped by the fact that the extent of artic and antarctic ice, taken together, hasn’t declined at all ……..
And the higher the relative humidity the greater the enthalpy so considerably more energy is needed to raise the air temperature.
What tangled webs we weave, LOL.
I knew this “paper” was a steaming pile when seeing the following sentences:
“The greenhouse effect is well-established.” – Ah, yes the “well established” effect that has never been empirically shown – better known as “Hypothetical BS”
“Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, reduce the amount of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) to space; thus, energy accumulates in the climate system, and the planet warms.” – Ah yes, except when it doesn’t. 450mya with 10 times the current CO2 concentration, which was rising to about 11 times the current CO2 concentration, the Earth’s temperature managed to plummet from a temperature far higher than today into a full-blown glaciation which lasted millions of years. But we shouldn’t be bothered by such “inconvenient” facts.
“However, climate models forced with CO2 reveal that global energy accumulation is, instead, primarily caused by an increase in absorbed solar radiation (ASR).” – Ah, once again, MODELS reveal…the product of their input ASSUMPTIONS, and NOTHING more.
This “paper” is a fine illustration of what happens when “science” becomes an extrapolation of a glorified form of one’s own assumptions, without any connection to the real world. Kind of a microcosm of “climate science” generally.
Yeah, how many papers involving, say, complex orbital calculations feel the need to start out by saying, “The law of gravity is well established.” Apparently warmunists must have some sense of insecurity in their belief system.
First of all the “trapping of energy” is bogus and bad thinking scientifically.
Second, what about the fact that most of the absorbed IR radiation is re-emitted almost instantaneously? The assumption that it heats the atmosphere is wrong. In daylight the CO2 and water vapor are saturated, both absorbing and emitting such that their effect is negligible, basically a wash.
It is at night that CO2 and water vapor unilaterally convert heat to IR in the absence of insolation and actively cool the atmosphere.
Third, the article above say that water vapor absorbs shortwave radiation, which is just plain wrong.
Fourth, they do not address the fact that the upper tropical troposphere, where this heating is supposedly happening, has not been warming, but has intact been gently cooling for about 40 years.
Finally, they completely ignore the water cycle and the convection mechanism that is responsible for carrying about 85% of the solar insolation energy budget to altitude, away from Earth’s surface, where adiabatic cooling occurs and the latent heat of water vapor is realized and lost to space.
Too many holes in their typically lousy model as well as their line of thinking. Focusing only on radiation, the surface, and these “radiative gases” (not greenhouse gases, as they function in no way to trap any energy) ignores other this more powerful negative feedback heat engine that naturally ramps up when warming occurs. The oceans and solar output set the climate temperature and the water cycle keeps the Earth at the set point fairly well.
It’s the water cycle and they ignore it? Wow.
Right on the nose… well done!
Well said sir higley.
So ooo … you are suggesting that Bill Nye/Al Gore’s Bell Jar experiments are … WRONG!? Denier! Denier! Burn him! He’s a witch!
Water vapour absorbs solar near infrared, lots of it.
Water vapor absorbs strongly in the “near” IR. Near means closer to visible light, and most of this can legitimately be considered SW. More importantly, it is all incoming from the sun, because the earth radiates at temperatures cooler than this spectrum.
This is an interesting spin on the water vapor feedback. It can explain the current UAH puzzlement. Last time I checked, atmospheric water was not increasing.
Absorption of solar radiation by water vapor in clear and cloudy skies: Implications for anomalous absorption
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/1999JD901153/pdf
slowed … not trapped … they are morons …
not slowed, either- and certainly not trapped-
it is redistributed globally at the speed of light.
then the water gas has it and dumps it with the rest of its load when it changes phase.
and in the end, it’s all about the sun and the planet of water.
… not slowed either — it’s all wrong.
gnomish beat me to it — must have posted at exactly the same instant.
That Solar Radiation Spectrum is potentially interesting, if there was only some particular meaning to the colors used.
accumulation of energy at the top of the atmosphere not through a reduction in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR)—as one might expect from greenhouse gas forcing
+===========
in other words no GHG effect.
“in other words no GHG effect.”
No. To quote the paper:
“The greenhouse effect is well-established. Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, reduce the amount of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) to space; thus, energy accumulates in the climate system, and the planet warms.”
The expectation had been that GHG’s would restrict OLR, but this in the long run would be balanced by the greater radiation from warming. This paper seems to say that GHG-reduced OLR along with atmospheric absorption of SW would together balance the extra outgoing OLR from warming (which is, you guessed it, worse than we thought, in terms of warming).
As noted at the bottom the paper is now at least three years old. It hasn’t overturned everything.
The greenhouse effect is well-established
========
assertion is not proof. observation is prior. by the authors own words: “not through a reduction in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR)—as one might expect from greenhouse gas “
“No. To quote the paper:
“The greenhouse effect is well-established. “
So the paper is in error from the very start, just mindlessly quoting “the mantra”
Thanks for that , Nick !! Keep digging deeper , petal….. Its funny !!
“This paper seems to say…… ”
A load of fantasy and anti-science BS.
It hasn’t overturned everything
≠=========
a theory fails if any prediction fails.
all that. is require to overthrow Newton is two objects that don’t fall at the same rate in a vacuum. you don’t need to show newton to be false for all objects. just a single failure is sufficient.
simple models help us understand why our more comprehensive climate models sometimes behave in superficially counterintuitive ways,
Explain why this isn’t an admission that this “simple model helps us understand why all our predictions keep turning out wrong”.
‘The emperor has no clothes’; you are a busted flush, Nick.
Nick
You cited
“…greenhouse gases, such as CO2, reduce the amount of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) to space; ”
This is a poor description of what happens. It does not ‘reduce’ the OLR. There is no stash of OLR up there somewhere. No accumulating pile of IR. Increasing the concentration of CO2 or water vapour increases the ability of the atmosphere to radiate IR into space as it increases the number of radiators. While it increases the number of absorbers, the overall impact is that from space, the number of radiators ‘seen’ at the effective radiating altitude increases. The passage of a photon from anywhere to space is delayed a few microseconds, but the amount of OLR is not reduced.
I agree with higley7 that there are several fundamental flaws in this 2014 version of reality, just as there are with earlier versions.
A comparison that is not made is between the current temperature of the Earth with GHG’s and what it would be without them. The comparison is always made to the Earth without an atmosphere whereas the interesting comparison is Earth with and without GHG’s in the atmosphere.
With water available on the surface, the temperature might be higher than it is now, meaning the net effect of added GHG’s is cooling. Incoming SW and LW would heat the surface, the surface would heat the no-GHG air in contact with it, and the atmosphere would warm, with no way to cool radiatively. Heat would accumulate in the air, the air would heat the surface by contact at night.
With water and no CO2, we would have rain, thunderstorms, thermals, wind, a lapse rate and lots of global warming (relative to no atmosphere at all). Would adding CO2 always increase the average temperature of the troposphere already dominated by huge amounts of water vapour?
On the other hand the temperature might be a bit lower, crediting some GHG net warming. It might be a lot lower, but it will never be as low as an Earth with no atmosphere at all.
According to the chart above, there is a 350 W/sq m difference between clouds v.s. no clouds over tropical land. That is 100 times the supposed forcing of a few hundred ppm of CO2. Cloud feedbacks will dominate CO2 forcing, easily.
It’s another model, which may or may not bear any similarity to what actually happens.
Crispin. It is not the surface, it is the oceans, which hold 1000 times as much energy as the atmosphere. It is the energy in the oceans that drives global weather. CO2 is a bit player.
Crispin,
“It does not ‘reduce’ the OLR. There is no stash of OLR up there somewhere.”
No stash is needed. With more GHGs, the layer which emits to space in their wavelengths is at higher altitude. The emitting gas is colder. That reduces OLR. The colder GHG is just as good as warmer at absorbing IR. So the high GHG layer gets warmer than it was before, at that altitude, but still cooler than the former, lower, emitting altitude.
“The comparison is always made to the Earth without an atmosphere whereas the interesting comparison is Earth with and without GHG’s in the atmosphere.”
I don’t think that is true. The comparison is between an atmosphere with and without GHGs. If water is excluded, some assumption has to be made about albedo. That’s the basis of the 33°C difference.
Nick
,
>>“It does not ‘reduce’ the OLR. There is no stash of OLR up there somewhere.”
>…With more GHGs, the layer which emits to space in their wavelengths is at higher altitude.
The true picture of what is happening is not represented by the idea of an emitting layer. There is a continuously more open ‘window’ to space that broadens with altitude. The emitting layer idea is used as an analogy and is not useful for conceptualising what happens when the concentration of CO2 is increased without (meaningfully) expanding the volume of the atmosphere. Having more emitters in an unsaturated atmosphere means the efficiency of disposal is increased.
>The emitting gas is colder. That reduces OLR.
The OLR is never reduced. The emitting gas at high altitude is colder, that is true, and so is the space above them, however this mixes metaphors. There is no emitting layer, and it does not ‘rise’. The concept it ‘rising’ is an inappropriate extension of the metaphor. The entire atmosphere emits, and increasing the concentration of GHG’s cause it to emit more efficiently. The same applies with black carbon at night – it is very efficient at sending heat ‘north’.
>The colder GHG is just as good as warmer at absorbing IR. So the high GHG layer gets warmer than it was before, at that altitude, but still cooler than the former, lower, emitting altitude.
There is no such emitting layer. Even discussing an ‘effective emission altitude’ is misleading. If the total energy leaving the system is the constant, then increasing the concentration of emitters lowers the effective altitude because more of them send photons through ‘the window’. Even from ground level the window is open a little.
>>“The comparison is always made to the Earth without an atmosphere whereas the interesting comparison is Earth with and without GHG’s in the atmosphere.”
>I don’t think that is true. The comparison is between an atmosphere with and without GHGs. If water is excluded, some assumption has to be made about albedo. That’s the basis of the 33°C difference.
I know it is true, and that is why it is not discussed. The impression is given, repeatedly, that without an atmosphere and with a GHG atmosphere is the two cases to consider. Then it is claimed that the GHGs are the cause of all the difference. This is untrue. An atmosphere with water (which is a GHG but claimed to be only a feedback) and no GHG’s would be quite warm indeed. Adding GHG’s would not change the temperature much at all.
Considering an atmosphere without any GHG’s or water vapour, it quickly becomes apparent that it would be quite warm because the atmosphere would have a heating mechanism and no way to cool radiatively. Adding GHG’s to such an atmosphere, even water vapour, would cool it considerable.
This makes a lie out of the claim that the difference between a no-atmosphere Earth and a GHG + wet atmosphere is warmer because of the GHG’s alone. The additional claim is that because all the proposed 33 deg of warming is ’caused by the GHG’s’, then doubling the concentration will give some large increase in the bulk temperature. A no-GHG atmosphere that would be warmed by contact with the surface and having no way to radiatively cool itself, will not be warmed by the addition of 0.04% CO2. It will definitely not by warmed further by the addition of more CO2 because that is just adding emitters capable of cooling the atmosphere.
This is fundamental to how atmospheres and radiative cooling work. To assess the impact of an increase in CO2 concentration, it is imperative that the appropriate comparison is between an atmosphere with and without CO2, not a planet as we have now and no atmosphere at all. The latter comparison teaches is nothing at all about the impact of GHG’s because there is no baseline. No baseline, no quantifiable impact. I am surprised the IPCC has not discussed this.
I have seen amateur comments claim that the atmosphere without and GHG’s would be -33 but inevitably their references cite a no-atmosphere case like the moon, not a no-GHG atmosphere. In the early stupid days of CAGW it was maintained, even in journals, that water vapour was ‘only a feedback’ and that without GHG’s the world would be frozen. Gavin made that claim, among others. The ‘only a feedback’ story was defended vigorously. It is B.S. An earthly atmosphere with water and no other GHG’s would be nearly indistinguishable from what we have now. That being the case, adding CO2 has very little effect.
So, let’s resume this :
The cheese hole effect is well established
more cheese, more holes in the cheese
more holes in the cheese, less matter in the cheese
Hence more cheese, less matter in the cheese.
where cheese= GHG, matter = OLR hole =lower OLR
@Crispin in Waterloo
An atmosphere without any GHG (including, no GHG effect of water) would be a funny thing, and i have seen NO decent paper adressing this issue (only some obviously stupid -18°C temperature, with no serious back up)
It would still be ruled by gravitational lapse rate, hotter at the bottom than at the top, so at altitude high enough, any evaporated stuff (some otherworldly water with no GHG property, or whatever) will condensate and give it energy. But this condensed stuff will also radiate energy… negating the assumption that the surface directly radiate to space.
It would still heat in day, and cool at night.
It would still prevent the surface to lose as much energy as it would lose ithout any atmosphere
Nick,
On one hand “Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, reduce the amount of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) to space”.
On the other hand, “While one would expect the longwave radiation that escapes into space to decline with increasing CO2, the amount actually begins to rise.”
For Gawd’s sake, which is it? Are there no reliable measurements of OLR? Or is there such confusion that model novelists have to say, ” … after a while, things change and it works the other way?”
What a cop out.
In the years since publication, have any authors of GCMs changed their model fundamentals to cope with the paper’s suggestions? Or is the paper just more ‘unicorn farts’ as Mosher would say. Geoff.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/everystockphoto/fspid31/34/90/75/6/aurora-nitrogen-emission-3490756-o.jpg
Geoff,
“In the years since publication, have any authors of GCMs changed their model fundamentals to cope with the paper’s suggestions?”
You should read the abstract again. This paper is reporting the results of GCM runs. The models aren’t wrong; they are saying that our ways of thinking need revision in the light of model results. Absorption within the atmosphere will be a bigger factor than reduction of outgoing OLR. That’s what the models are telling us, not what we have to tell the models.
Nature’s version of the UHI effect, i.e. albedo. Duh.
So they’ve solved all the issues with cloud cover? I doubt it.
No, but according to their models, they have.
Wow! So the models agree with Lindzen & Choi that net outgoing radiation is NOT reduced by an increased concentration of GHGs. Instead, All the warming is down to albedo?
The paper is either saying exactly that — only albedo matters — or it says nothing at all. While it seems to ignore the importance of the water vapor feedback.
My vote is “nothing at all.” The paper presents a textbook example of the reification fallacy by observing a counter-intuitive phenomenon that only exists in an abstract model and trying to attach some physical significance to it.
Now that the AGW believers have noticed that the outgoing radiation just does not go back and also does not stay the same (a thing that other researchers have already noticed when they examined the atmosphere of the Antarctic and found that increasing CO2 even helps to cool it down ) the shirt must be put on from below. Now the atmosphere suddenly absorbs more sunlight, which mechanism this is due to, but remains clerical-glorified.
Well yes but it’s definitely “settled” wildly oscillating contradictory hypotheses you know.
Speaking of albedo … all of my local building departments, CA Title-24, Greenpoint Rating, and LEED … all … insist upon “light colored” if not “white” roofs for every one of my buildings. Only thing is … that all the local Design Review Commissions BAN light colored roofing as annoying to neighbors and generally obnoxious-looking. So which is it going to be Nanny State? “Planet-saving” WHITE roofs? Or attractive buildings? I fEEl soooo guilty for each “dark” roof I Design. Ohhhhh mammmmaaa
I’ve gotten to hate white autos — especially since the US Forest Service went from a light forest green to white. I traded last February — a white for a nice bright blue.
A few years ago we had a new roof put on. We asked for the whitest shingle the company made. Still, it seems to be about that of our Moon. For the past week it has been very white. Six inches of snow tends to do that. Now this morning it is back to its former dull color.
My friends’ doctor told him that those little blue pills do not help with albedo either.
From the they have wrong but global warming theory is correct anyway department.
Unless it’s from the “the theory is correct but nobody has interpreted it correctly so far” department.
The proper terminology is “Fake but accurate” brought you to by the infamous Dan Rather whose motto was “I can’t wait til tomorrow for a story I need today.”
carl sagan got famous for doing it before dan rather did
The atmosphere grows moister because warmer air can hold more water vapor, which absorbs more shortwave radiation.
≠========
the hotspot predicted by models has not happened. if anything atmospheric moisture is decreasing.
That’s the one thing that keeps getting glossed over.
The models all basically admit that CO2 alone doesn’t have enough “greenhouse power” to make the amount of warming they’re predicting, so they assume that there will be a large increase in water vapor in the atmosphere, multiplying the heating effect by a factor of at least two (and three, in some models).
If there’s not a dramatic increase in water vapor worldwide, AGW theory fails on yet another level.
I guess the above will be “authorization” for the next “adjustment” to the Historical Temperature Record so that it will agree with the computer generated “temperature forecasts/models”.
“That’s the one thing that keeps getting glossed over.”
That is one thing.
Everything else real is also being glossed over, and by glossed over I mean completely ignored.
“The greenhouse effect is well-established. Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, reduce the amount of outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) to space; thus, energy accumulates in the climate system, and the planet warms.” — What is the relationship [Climate sensitivity factor] between CO2 converting long wave radiation in to temperature? Is it linearly related and curvilinearly related? In 1970s-80s, I presented models to estimate global solar radiation and net radiation.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Been a while lets see how good my memory is, you will need to check these numbers.
CO2 has a symmetric stretching mode at around 1388 cm-1, asymmetric stretching mode at around 2349 cm-1, and a bending mode at around 667 cm-1. Hit a CO2 molecule with the shorter wavelengths it kicks out an emission in the longer wavelength. Hit it with 15 micron it will emit the higher frequencies. On a lab bench at 275K to 325K and 1 atmosphere the effect is about 4.4% to 8.0% for the higher frequencies to lower and I think it’s about 3.5-6% for the reverse but check both of these it has been a while. The gas mixture changes things around with Nitrogen and Water helping and any chemical site will explain why.
You obviously have access to a university and you can do a simple setup to check the numbers, get a quantum dot count the photons in and the photons out converted. Or do an article search on something like “IR single photon CO2 spectroscopy” which should eliminate all the bulk studies.
Does any of that help in climate science .. nope. That is on a bench under controlled situation and you are driving one way and measuring the other. In the real world you have both interactions together and you have all the various temperature and pressures in different proportions. You basically need a top to bottom cross section of the atmosphere and integrate that conversion along the entire section to know the answer of what it does. That is where you need climate science and real answers.
Has anyone challenged or proven the assertion that a CO2 molecule, after absorbing a photon, emits it in a truly random direction? Why doesn’t the direction in bias the direction out? At all?
A good question Crispin and I think the answer lies in two physical mechanisms. Firstly that you cannot predict precisely when the IR excited molecule will re-emit. Secondly the molecules are in thermal motion so I think the photon re-emission momentum is about as random as random can be. If this were not so you could arrange for the mother of all powerful lasers.
It is random because we can’t know, from the information available, what molecule absorbed, what molecule emitted and what the spatial orientations were when absorption or emission occurred.
There is a complicated QM explaination to why the emission is random direction. However we can stay inside classical physics and give you an answer (lie) which will make sense. The emission under the classical story can only be relative to the position of the molecule. The molecule has no preference to direction so even if the emission is relative to the molecule position the distribution of emissions will be random thru all the directions.
This question always arises in classical physics people because of the stupid rutherford model of the atom and you have the nucleus in the way and an electron energy being involved. Since you have an orbital the temptation is to say that an emission might slam into the nucleus because you have turned the atom into a solid 3D thing. It’s the same problem of why don’t two electrons in the same orbital crash into each other occasionally. There is a notion of “collision” in quantum mechanics, where two objects briefly have a localized interaction but it is not really like the classical colission.
For the more advanced the true answer you need to know how localized the QM interaction is. If the wave packet representing the photon is spatially well localized, then the momentum uncertainty is large and you can say the emission is in all directions at the same time.
Experimentally you set up a quantum dot in the middle of a circle with detectors. You emit one photon and randomly select to view the photon with one detector you will see the photon flash. If you turn on all the detectors you will see the photon on exactly one detector and one detector may see it more than others. Why, well because one detector may be slightly closer or more sensitive, faster. The probability wave spreads out from the emission point and the first sensor to observe the wave it collapses at. You can no longer see the photon at the other sensors because there is only E=hv energy available and once absorbed at one point the probability of seeing it at any other point drops to zero.
For all the anti-QM crackpots I am not interested in discussing it and your comments will be ignored.
“and the planet warms rapidly at the surface.”
Except its not warming rapidly. It is barely warming at all.
The only warming in the whole satellite temperature data has come from El Nino events.
The latter of these will shortly drop back to equal to or below its starting temperature.
Between El Nino events, there has been NO WARMING.
And the scientific method is —
Donohoe, along with MIT postdoc Kyle Armour and others at Washington, spent many a late night throwing out guesses as to why climate models generate this illogical finding …
Then just model it.
No verification with observations, no measurement need to be done, no validation of the computer model(s).
No, just guess a new
suppositionsuperstition and off you go.AndyG55, you made a bet with me nearly 4 years ago when you said:
“And there is good reason for this plateau, and why we are almost certainly going to start heading down hill”
That was on 4th January 2014 when the UAH 13 month rolling anomaly was about 0.15°. It’s now about 0.35°, and October was 0.65° (in non El Nino conditions).
Four years ago I said:
“I’m open to any number of years, but let’s say if that in three years global temperatures start trending downwards, I’ll revise my thinking. I sincerely hope that in the reverse case you will be open to revising yours.”
You agreed you would revise your thinking if temperatures did not go down. It has now been 4 years and the temperature has gone up steeply. Will you do what you promised and revise your thinking?
Temperatures are starting to drop.
A slight delay, but not by much. See what happens over the next few months.
Or are you going to rely on El Nino transients as well.
There is NO WARMING in the satellite data except for El Nino events
Get over it. !!
I don’t know what its like in the USA, but down here in Australia we have had the COLDEST start to November in 49 years…..
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/coldest-start-to-november-in-23-years-set-to-continue-20171104-gzf07g.html
I WANT MY SUMMER !!!
According to news, UK is also set for a very cold November,
http://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/875231/Snow-weather-forecast-November-coldest-winter-heavy-snow-UK-BBC-weather
And looking through some news links I found Canada is in a deep freeze as well
http://www.620ckrm.com/2017/11/09/regina-experiences-coldest-november-9-in-98-years/
Then apparently USA as well
https://www.agweb.com/article/the-us-witnessed-its-coldest-november-weather-in-38-years-ben-potter/
Heck, even HAdCRUT shows that the El Nino has already disappeared from the surface temperature.
And a solid, deep La Nino appears to be on the way.
Got your fossil fuel powered heating all ready to go ?
AndyG55, I replied to you in a thread below.
The test of observed warming will come over the next five years. The last super El Nino, 1998, showed, after an initial undershoot, what appears to be a stepwise increase in temperature. So, will the just-passed super El Nino show a step-wise increase in temperature or not? If it does not — then there will be no observed warming. If it does, the there may be a warming trend — but of a nonlinear rachet-pawl variety.
The acid test for global warming will be in 10 years, when the AMO (C) becomes negative and at the same time the PDO is still negative. Then we will see what effect CO2 has. Apart from the coming weak solar cycles.
I hope you’re right that the post 2015/16 El Niño warming will be zero, but that’s not what the satellites are currently showing.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/11/uah-global-temperature-update-for-october-2017-0-63-deg-c/
Dr. Spencer has made a statement on his website. Please read everything and not just the balloons of AGW.
I read most of Spencer’s blog posts. I just re-read the one about the large Oct. temp anomaly. He merely says that the UAH troposphere has diverged from the surface data, but he provides no explanation.
And any AVERAGE warming is seen in slight increases in night time temps and winter temps ( if they are accurate, which is unlikely). The Earth isn’t getting ‘warmer’ it getting milder, if anything at all. Since when did ‘mildness’ harm anything or anyone.
Well, some nut trees (like the almond in my back yard) need some hard frosts to stimulate flowering . . Hey, you asked ; )
The amounts of chilling needed to stimulate optimum flower production in nut and fruit trees is usually not a whole lot.
Which is why things like almonds can even be grown in southern California, and we can even grow peaches in Florida.
But even with no chilling, there will still be flowering, and production.
But it will not be optimum.
And if such conditions persisted over many years and wide areas…do you think these species would be capable of adaptation, or would they just toss in the towel and commit almond tree seppuku?
We are only just beginning to understand epigenetics, but it is safe to say that species that have survived on Earth for tens of millions of years have been through some serious disruptions…many of them, warm and cold, dry and wet, you name it…and they are still here.
Life adapts.
That is why it is life.
http://fruitsandnuts.ucdavis.edu/Weather_Services/chilling_accumulation_models/about_chilling_units/
And then there are the stats on exactly how much vertical elevation or change in latitude is required to counter a given rise in temp.
It aint much.
AndyG55, today you say:
“Temperatures are starting to drop.
A slight delay, but not by much. See what happens over the next few months.
Or are you going to rely on El Nino transients as well.”
On January 8 this year you said:
“Start of 2017. That’s 3 years
Let’s see where the go over the few months shall we.
December 2016 was 5th December in UAH and 9th December in RSS.
Looks like I might be pretty much on track.”
On January 4 2014, you said:
“we are almost certainly going to start heading down hill.”
Can you see a pattern yet?
Poor mat, getting desperate are you.
You can see the cooling phase coming, slightly delayed.
Trying to get in a couple of meaningless jibes before it does.
Can you see the pattern!
You don’t seem to have any knowledge about what an El Nino is.
Hint, little child. Its a big release of energy from the oceans.
ie.. and ocean COOLING event.,
… and there’s been one heck a LOT of energy that been released from the oceans over the 2015/16 El Nino TRANSIENT.
More than I thought, yes, it does seem that the effect of all those strong solar cycles last century was actually larger than anticipated.
Have you seen the large El Nino starting to form ??
Got plenty of fossil fuel powered heaters?
La Nina forming…….. time to CHILL-OUT
Make sure your fossil fueled electric heaters are working properly.
Mat,
Of course…the pattern is completely obvious to anyone paying attention in the slightest:
Everything warmista alarmists have ever predicted or warned about has failed to materialize.
Every.
Thing.
No exceptions.
None.
Now…that is a pattern!
Am I misunderstanding something, or missing something? How can this theory be reconciled with the historic records showing temperature rises precede CO2 rises, and not vice versa?
Yes!
It can’t – QED. But their BS story is that once the ~800 year time lag has passed and BOTH temperature and CO2 are rising, that CO2 “contributes” to the warming. Unfortunately, their BS conveniently overlooks two GAPING holes in this “story” –
ONE, there is NO increase in the “rate” of warming, after the ~800 year time lag has passed and CO2 AND temperature are both rising.
TWO, even if one could argue (perhaps plausibly) that the scale of the graph is insufficient to show the (minuscule!) “contribution” of CO2 to the rising temperature, there is STILL one place where the supposed “contribution” of CO2 CANNOT hide. When whatever is (excuse me) REALLY causing the temperature to increase stops, what we SHOULD then see, if their BS was valid, is temperature CONTINUING TO INCREASE at a lower rate, that lower rate being the “contribution” of CO2 to the temperature rise. Instead, what we see is TEMPERATURES FALLING, WHILE CO2 LEVELS CONTINUE TO RISE, and then CO2 levels falling ?AFTER the SAME ~800 year time lag has passed.
So CO2’s “contribution” is NOTHING, essentially.
Bingo!
If they want to use those Vostok graphs, they need to realise that :
1. Peak CO2 levels were NEVER able to maintain peak temperatures.
2. In fact, peak CO2 levels were ALWAYS coincident with the temperature starting to drop sharply.
>>
. . . that CO2 “contributes” to the warming. Unfortunately, their BS conveniently overlooks two GAPING holes in this “story” –
<<
They never point to the cooling sides of the graph. According to their logic the higher CO2 should be preventing temperatures from dropping–but it doesn’t. Frank Lansner covered it quite well back in a 2009 post (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/).
Jim
so what caused the little ice age. how do we know modern. warming post 1850 is simply warming due to end of lia? since climate models cannot explain the lia how can anyone be confident models can explain what happens post lia?
There seems to be no satisfactory answer, if any, to that question. Was it a decrease in solar radiation? Was it a decrease in CO2? Was it a mix? As long as there is no valid answer to that, there will be no explanation or prediction of things to come. Furthermore, models based on CO2 as driving force do not work properly, as Donohoe, Armour et al show. The seeds of doubt germinate…
“so what caused the little ice age.”
I’d settle for a solid explanation of what drive ENSO. I’m wondering if that’s not the climate clock tick.
The little ice age never happened, it was a localized event, don’t you read your Mann? There is one tree in Siberia which proved this.
Geodetic factors spawned by mantle discharges in the deep oceans of the Pacific as theorized in this blog a year ago. Can someone recall the exact article?
oscillation is the natural behavior of most systems, controled by the system eigenvalues.
Now, ENSO involves wind pattern, so obviously you need a solid wind model to understand ENSO.
And is not only the LIA, also they connot explain the MWP before. So like the romanian warming period and the follow dark ages before the MWP. None of this up and downs they understand.
I like the Romanian and Bulgar warming periods.
Javier November 13, 2017 at 7:20 am
I like the Romanian and Bulgar warming periods.
And they like you too.
And, what caused the recovery from the LIA?
The end of the LIA, obviously.
Because it’s not about science, it’s about politics and population. Models don’t have to explain anything, just keep you from seeing what the magician’s left hand is doing while he is doing his show with the right. It’s all about the dazzle in front of your eyes, while the dull in the background goes unnoticed as it steals your money, your car, your freedom, and eventually, your life.
“At the same time, the atmosphere absorbs more and more incoming solar radiation; it’s this enhanced shortwave absorption that ultimately sustains global warming.”
I thought the atmosphere was transparent to SWR.
It didn’t work. Second try.
Dan: It seems to me, from looking at that graphic, that there is very little room for CO2 to do anything in its absorption band. Water vapor already blocks what appears to be 50% of the same wavelengths, which means that any increased CO2 can only ever block that final 50% of that narrow band, regardless of how much CO2 increases.
Mr. Schrumpf, that is what it also appears to me.
There are several different cartoons depicting what is thought to be the budget, such as this one from which you will note that it is claimed that the atmosphere absorbs 16% and clouds absorb 3% of incoming solar irradiance
Thus, the atmosphere is not transparent to the wavelength of incoming solar irradiance.
And
this cartoon is a lie: it represents a round surface, when it assume the Earth to be flat. Flat, one-side, not rotating, homogenous, no wind, close to equilibrium.
A plain lie.
And they dare paint skeptics as ‘flat Earther”. Trenberth and friends ARE the flat Earther here.
The truth is, the Earth is NOT at equilibrium.
Not in time.
It gains energy during ~half the day and lose at early morning, evening and night. It gains energy in late winter- early summer and lose energy in late summer-early winter. however, it also turns part of this day-summer extra energy into chemical energy (photosynthesis), turned back into heat during night&winter. It is closer to the sun (receive more energy) during north hemisphere winter. etc.
Not in space.
It gains energy at lower latitude, and lose at higher latitude.
This budget cartoon do not help understand, it helps planting false ideas in everyone mind.
And two-thirds of the energy absorbed by the surface comes from the atmosphere. We don’t really need much energy from the sun.
I am frequently criticising this cartoon, and I consider that it is divorced from all reality.
I was merely pointing out that it has always been part of the AGW theory that the atmosphere is only partially transparent, and not completely transparent, to the wavelength of incoming solar irradiance.
PS. In addition to the points raised above, the cartoon also ignores the fact that approximately 70% of the planet’s surface is covered by water, and the oceans do not absorb solar irradiance at their surface, but rather at depth.
It has “back radiation 324” and shows all 324 absorbed by surface. Huh? No! From the upper levels, back radiation is mostly absorbed by the intervening water vapour and CO2 molecules multiple times before some of it reaches the surface. Some is re-radiated into space, some downwards and some sideways. Similarly “390 surface radiation” is captured on the way up and partly radiated back. Anyone agree?
According to this cartoon, the net energy gain from space is 168+324=492 Watts and the losses 390+78+24=492 Watts, a perfect balance. But look at the “67 Absorbed by Atmosphere” on the incoming stream. Of that total, half would be emitted as IR up and the other half down. Where is the “Absorbed by atmosphere” on the outgoing stream? Is it the “324 Back Radiation”? Can’t be. That 324 is only half of what would have to be absorbed to give that total downwards. GHG’s absorbing 648W would radiate about 324 downwards. If there is 324 down, there is 324 up. 648 W harvested out of 492 W? Call my patent lawyer!
The 67 W incoming absorbed would be shed 50% up and 50% down. To get 324 down-pointing from GHG’s there would have to be 648 outgoing, but the outgoing total is only 492, of which 24+78 are noted as not being radiative in the region of interest. How can 492 outgoing total be captured by GHG/s and 66% of it be send downwards again? It is not a mirror.
The cartoon is unrealistic so let’s look a little deeper: 492 outgoing total balancing 492 incoming cannot generate “324 absorbed by surface” exclusively from back radiation because the GHG molecules would have to capture 492*132%=648 W of outgoing radiation to do it, and there isn’t that much available. Taking the cartoon’s claim for 40 W ‘window’ as correct, it means the available energy is only 492-40 = 452. Thus the claim is that of 452 W available radiation, 143% of it is captured by GHG’s and 50% of that sent down to the surface to be absorbed.
I think a demonstration of a 43% return above unity would attract a lot of attention among the perpetual motion machine enthusiasts.
If you discount the 492 for thermals and evaporation, and from the remaining 390 radiation 40 W is lost through the window, there actually is only 350W IR radiation available, with 92.6% of it retuned to Earth? That means the GHG’s are capturing 85% more energy than is available and sending half of it back to the surface. Scotty, turn on the hyper-drive! I don’t think I can take and moooooore!
All this goes to demonstrate that, “A chart is an inaccurate representation of a partially understood truth.”
and, as pointed out lower, the surface lose MORE than the maximum energy it could possibly get if the atmosphere absorbed already all of earth emission (perfectly effective GHG case): 24+78+390=492 lost, versus a theoric maximum of 67+2×168 = 403 maximum possible to receive.
Also notice that the atmosphere somehow radiates 70% more downward that upward, 324 versus 195, and that again this 324 figure exceed the maximum of 235 in the case of a perfectly opaque to Earth radiation GHG.
This atmosphere isn’t a blanket that just prevent energy to get out, it is a Maxwell deamon heating device.
This cartoon doesn’t pass the first basic coherence check, but is is still teached everywhere. Says it all about “climate science”.
Waterloo,
Do energy levels allow the following repetitive cycle scheme?
After a burst of downwelling hits the surface and assuming it is mostly absorbed, it will heat the surface. The surface will become hotter and emit IR, some upwards.
The upgoing will be like that at the start of the cartoon, some heading up to heat the air, radiate in all directions, including a new lot of downwelling.
This cycle repeats over and over.
For simplicity, think that equal amounts of upwelling and down are produced each cycle. Upwelling goes to space, goodby. So we have a series where the participating upwelling becomes half, three quarters, seven eights etc, converging on 100%. The downwelling might as well not exist because these are rapid dissipative processes.
I have grossly simplified this scenario to set readers thinking about another cartoon diagram.
The clear sky atmosphere is. But I assume you know clouds blocks sunlight. So does dust, contrails, aerosols, etc.
Solar insolation at the equator under clear skies is around 1,150 w/m2 and not 1,361 w/m2 showing that even clear sky atmosphere absorbs considerable amounts of incoming solar irradiance.
“spent many a late night throwing out guesses as to why climate models generate this illogical finding before realizing that it makes perfect sense — but for reasons no one had clarified and laid down in the literature.
They found the answer by drawing on both computer simulations and a simple energy-balance model.”
Oh…. so computer simulations and simple naive energy balance models.. after many hours of guessing and no doubt drinking merrily !!
Throwing out “guesses” ie , they had no idea what they were doing ..
….. as seems pretty obvious from their conclusion.
These seem like the sort of guys CSIRO might hire. ! Right Nick !
The whole thing reads like a desperate attempt to conjure up an excuse for why the climate models don’t mirror reality and so that the alarmists can go on pretending their work is worthy of being regarded as anything remotely scientific. I suggest Andy you just join the rest of us in quietly being contemptuous of this and keep watching real observations over corrupted model inputs and outright deception.
… and convection and conduction, and state change, and …
and when it absorbs shortwave radiation it gets warm, and when it emits longwave radiation it colds down. Last bit is also usually omitted.
why climate models generate this illogical finding
≠==========!
because the theory is wrong. that is the simplest explanation and thus the most likely to be correct.
the human mind can invent a million reasons why it is logical for computer models to be illogical. it is especially helpful if these explanations concern the distant future and thus cannot be tested.
+1
So let me get this right.
Are they saying that CO2 doesn’t absorb, then reflect long wave, or short wave radiation back down to the planet? Instead, the planet’s surface is heated directly by short wave radiation, which by passes atmospheric CO2 molecules, which reflects long wave radiation, which also passes by atmospheric CO2 unhindered, straight back out to space?
Something I never really got anyway. How does a CO2 molecule know what direction the earth is so as to reflect back any absorbed radiation. Surely a molecule would radiate any absorbed energy equally from its ‘circumference’? (If a molecule has such a thing).
Please forgive my ignorance.
It’s magic.
It is claimed that CO2 radiates in all directions, and thus approximately one half of the radiated photons are radiated in a direction that is downwards towards the direction of the surface. The other half is radiated in an upwards direction towards TOA from where it is radiated to the void of space.
Actually, there are several other directions for the radiation to go. A molecule would have to be very close to earth to radiate even 25% towards it, assuming equal radiation in all directions.
“Yup”, it is factual science that ……. “one half of the radiated photons” are subject to the “force of gravity” and return to the earth’s surface ………… and ……. the “other half of the radiated photons” are repelled by the “force of gravity” and go flying out into space.
Ya know, kinda like re-emitted photons from atmospheric CO2 molecules being empowered with positive (+) and negative (-) gravitational charges.
Eritas
rockyredneck
That’s kind of what I thought.
Samuel C Cogar
Thanks, that was entirely unhelpful.
All directions means what it says, ie., a full 360 degrees. The geometry of the spherical Earth and its spherical atmosphere means that it is inevitable that slightly less than 50% of the radiated photons will find their way downwards to the surface.
HotScot – November 13, 2017 at 9:52 am
AW GEEEEZE, …… HotScot, ………….
And all I’za wasa trying ta do was appease the AGW “fence-stragglers” who keep testifying to the fact that they absolutely, positively disbelieve and disagree with the “junk-science” claims of CO2 causing Anthropogenic Global Warming ……… while in betwixt the aforementioned testimonials …….. they tout, quote, mimic and/or plagiarize their thoughts, beliefs and agreements that increases in atmospheric CO2 is and/or has been a direct cause of increases in near-surface air temperatures.
Their belief/opinion about CAGW is like the weather, …… it changes at a moment’s notice.
OH MY OH ME, …. I really don’t think I can agree with the above statement, ……. even iffen the earth’s surface was “Biblical flat”. And the reason for that is, …… as the distance from the surface increases (altitude) …… the per se “re-emission window” for directing the CO2 emitted photons toward the surface …….. keeps decreasing exponentially.
Like a Quarterback throwing a pass, ……. the farther away the “receiver” is, ……. the smaller the “football launch window” is.
But the “BIG” question is, that no one has yet accurately calculated, …… how much is 50% of the CO2’s re-radiated photons?
As far as I’m concerned, ……… guessing and estimating just don’t get it.
“How does a CO2 molecule know what direction the earth is so as to reflect back any absorbed radiation”
Easy, molecular diodes.
Paul
Seems fair. So does it mean the CO2 molecules then direct all the absorbed long and short wave radiation directly back down to the earth’s surface?
Actually somewhat more than half are directed towards space. It’s called atmospheric refraction. radiation that is not emitted directly upwards, will be refracted towards the zenith, because the refractive index of the atmosphere decreases with altitude.
As a result of this refraction when the sun sets it is already geometrically below the horizon before its visual disk touches the horizon.
Also the GHG absorption lines are broadened by Temperature (Doppler effect) and also by collisions (density effect, so a downward directed photon will encounter a greater probability of being re-absorbed by a GHG molecule, than an upward directed photon which will encounter a lower density and temperature which narrows the GHG absorption lines, so it increases the probability of escaping upwards, and re-absorbing downwards.
So more than 50% can escape to space.
And the individual CO2 lines (thousands of them) do NOT overlap the thousands of water lines, so it is incorrect to say that water already bsorbs the radiation that CO2 can absorb.
Those spectrum cartoons smudge the real absorption lines to make it look like it is one big gap. It isn’t.
You need to look up a real measured CO2 or H2O absorption spectrum in the atmosphere. Try … ” The Infra-Red Handbook ” …, published by ERIM for the Department of Naval Research.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 77-90786
ISBN: 0-9603590-1-X
ANY incoming solar spectrum radiation that is scattered/reflected/absorbed/whatever in the atmosphere, is solar spectrum energy that never makes it to the deep oceans to get stored; so it is a net loss to the earth’s energy budget input.
And the LWIR emitted by the atmosphere, will more likely escape to space, than reach the ocean surface, where it will be absorbed in less than 50 microns of water surface, and cause evaporation rather than propagation to the colder depths.
G
What we are observing is ironic science, mixed with fake science. Ironic science occurs when there is a path error.
A path error is an incorrect physical assumption which is in most cases due to ignorance concerning the real physical mechanism(s).
The path error makes the scientific problems in question impossible to solve. Ironic science does not converge on the truth. It goes in circles.
The warming in the last 150 years was caused by a reduction in cloud cover. The reduction in cloud cover was caused by changes in the solar cycle, as opposed to changes in atmospheric CO2.
Observations to support the above assertion is the lack of warming for the last 18 years, fact that the predicted tropical tropospheric hot spot did not occur, and the fact that there are periodic cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo record that correlate with solar cycle changes.
The above conclusions also explain why there are periods of millions of years in the paleo record when atmospheric CO2 is high and the planet is cold and vice versa.
https://twitter.com/NikolovScience/status/929486296531079168
This is Occam’s razor.
Until we know clouds, we will never properly understand the planet’s climate and how it is driven.
Sorry, that wasn’t clear at all
This: “Instead, the planet’s surface is heated directly by short wave radiation, which by passes atmospheric CO2 molecules, which reflects long wave radiation, which also passes by atmospheric CO2 unhindered, straight back out to space?”
Should read: Instead, the planet’s surface is heated directly by short wave radiation, which by passes atmospheric CO2 molecules, and the planet reflects long wave radiation back, which also passes by atmospheric CO2 unhindered, straight back out to space?
When the planet reflects short wave radiation it is still short wave on the way out. It only becomes long wave after after it is absorbed and then emitted at a different frequency.
Richard M
So does CO2 absorb it all and reflect it, or are their other atmospheric influences like water vapour, methane, clouds and even dust particles that contribute. I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that question.
My understanding is that Tyndall declared that water vapour was the dominant greenhouse gas and that whilst not insignificant, the effect of the other greenhouse gases was minor. Nor could his laboratory possibly include clouds, nor accurately replicate varying amounts of atmospheric particulates caused by volcano’s, fires and weather events like hurricanes and tornado’s.
Sorry to be a pain, but it seems to me there’s to many variables to boil down climate change to just one trace atmospheric gas, and only a small part of that due to mankind. It also seems to me that trying to average anything within climate science is utterly futile.
It has been warmer many times.
CO2 has been higher more than many times…it has almost always been higher, including periods were it was also warmer.
No life threatening catastrophes ever happened…instead life prospered.
And it cooled off every time, eventually.
Because natural variability is, always has been, and always will be a far larger effect.
“Out in the real world, aerosols in air pollution act to reflect a lot of sunlight, and so Earth has not experienced as much warming from shortwave solar radiation as it otherwise might have.”
We must start to subsidise aerosols.
Absolutely reasonable. Send your proposal to the EU in Brussels, garnished with the magic key words “global warming, climate change, Al Gore says so” and you won’t have to wait long until they fork out the subsidies requested, and probably a lot more.
My application is already in the post. I have also recommended an Aerosol Conference in St Lucia.
Oh no. You also need a friend selling “aerosol anti warming device”, that could also double as energy producing device, while getting rid of an awful GHG (CH4 for instance).
I got a picture.
How much would I get for a sneeze?
So where is all the water vapor?
In the depth of the oceans?
With the heat that disappeared, at some stage they are going to reappear and then we will be doomed!
It turned into hiroshima bombs, billions of them, hiding in the ocean. We are doomed
” “I think the default assumption would be to see the outgoing longwave radiation decrease as greenhouse gases rise, but that’s probably not going to happen,” Donohoe says. “We would actually see the absorption of shortwave radiation increase. Will we actually ever see the longwave trapping effects of CO2 in future observations? I think the answer is probably no.””
So the greenhouse effect theory is wrong.
Oh well, back to the drawing board.
“The paper is not challenging the physics of climate models…..”
Of course not! To challenge the physics of the models would be blasphemy and subject the authors to a possible inquisition. Never mind that the physics of the climate models in use demands a persistent hot spot in the upper troposphere somewhere along the equatorial band and nobody has ever found it.
Concerning the graphics depictions. Are any of them accurate depictions of what one would expect from the poles?
Seems like a lot of hand waving and mumbling. I don’t buy it.