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.
Title should be, “MIT discovers Urban Heat Island Effect!!
Now maybe NASA and NOAA climate pseudoscientists/data keepers can admit their mal-adjusted temp data sets are phoney baloney (I know it’s “bologna”.)
Must also say
I am starting to distrust the satellites. For example, I see ocean temperature is dropping, whilst RSS / UAH is going up?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2018/plot/rss/from:1987/to:2018/trend/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1987/to:2018/trend/plot/hadsst3gl/from:1987/to:2018
How does that make sense?
Looking at the version (UAH now at version 6.0) I think what happens is that the probes are degenerated by the awful radiation of the sun (more of the most energetic particles are able to escape during lower solar polar magnetic field strengths)
A delayed effect as the remnants of the El Nino find their way towards the poles and up through the atmosphere. Note from the UAH charts where most of the anomaly is.
Very little warming left in the tropics
And still the wobbly jet stream , making northern Russia FREEZING COLD yet again. I bet they would love some warming !!
ps.
Unless something has gone wrong with the satellite system, I suspect we will see a significant drop over the next couple of months
They are measuring the heat leaving the Earth through the Atmosphere, as the surface cools there be less to leave.
So as Andy says it should fall off a cliff soon.
October had record breaking cold over most of the world and November is even worse.
Black Carbon Soot and Particulate Emissions are higher than ever proven by the grey Soot on the Greenland Ice Cap and Mountain Glaciers; ie the River Reversal from Lake Kluane to the Gulf of Alaska has the same grey Soot on the Glacier. Google for pictures. This causes the Runaway Train effect. Pictures are worth a thousand words.
Non existent Electrostatic Precipitat ors Or poorly maintained Precips with a Once a Year Shutdown or Outages as called in the US. The Soot from Forest Fires and Gas and Oil Wellheads from Venting and -60% inefficient Flare Stacks all additive to Atmospheric Particulate and Soot. With Canada’s impending Carbon TAX firewood burning will increase. They are already burning garbage in our neighborhood to avoid paying a Fee 4 More than 2 Garbage Bags.
Speculation, speculation, I love it. Here’s more. Decreased albedo will allow more longwave out, so cool the oceans. On the other hand recent excursions of solar wind and solar flares might temporarily warm the stratosphere and indirectly the troposphere, without affecting albedo.
An intelligent and educated man (inclusive sense) is never absolutely sure of anything. Showing that one of their treasured narratives is wrong is a surefire trigger for the dimwits.
Why is it that the polar regions have very little reflected sunlight? They are covered in ice and should be highly reflective.
The sun is always low in the sky, giving the light a low angle of incidence, and a lot more atmosphere to penetrate.
All,
Note the third illustration in Anthony’s article. It is the one in blue, green, and white colors. Of interest, in this NASA illustration of CERES measurements, is that there are white areas that supposedly represent outgoing radiation about twice what the incoming TOA flux is. Can anybody explain what is wrong with this picture?
stevekeohane,
It is true that the light reaching the limbs goes through a longer path in the atmosphere than when the sun is overhead. However, the sun is still fairly bright when observed on the horizon (as anyone is all too painfully aware when driving west after work) and we are talking about reflectances of 80-100% for the limbs versus 4% for clear water at noon and less than 20% for most vegetated land at noon. I’m concerned that CERES is only giving us a lower-bound for the outgoing radiation.
David S,
Also, the oceans on the limbs should be showing substantially higher reflectance resulting from specular reflectance at grazing angles. I suspect that CERES is missing this.
“However, a darker Earth now absorbs more sunlight, tipping the scales to net warming from shortwave radiation.”
They have it totally backward. CO2 is saturated, and it does help radiate more heat to outer space. The incoming radiation is what warms the earth and has nothing to do with CO2. More warmth makes more area for the earth to absorb heat. The role of CO2 is to help the earth cool from this additional heat. Gasses N2, O2 and CO2 are transparent to incoming visible radiation. Solar radiation is the answer, not CO2. Conduction and convection are slow, radiation is fast. CO2 rapidly transports heat out of the atmosphere, it is a cooling agent, not warming.
Climate “Science” on Trial; Evidence Shows CO2 COOLS the Atmosphere
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/29/climate-science-on-trial-evidence-shows-co2-cools-the-atmosphere/
This is not a surprise, except do they accurately account for clouds wh/ reflects even the short wave radiation?
MIT scientists have found out that solar radiation is warming Earth climate system. Sorry, no offence meant but this is for me, in a word, pathetic.
Send mony? OK Joe.
The stefan-Boltzmann equation shows it´s face on global scale. A body in vacuum absorbs(gets heated) by a rate that increases the rate as temperature drops. The rate of transfer depends on the emission from earth, T^4-T^4. Co2 decreases the density of the heat flow, radiative imbalance gets proportionally larger, which means that it cools. By (the sb)law, that means temperature decreases.
As T2 gets lower in T1^4-T2^4, from increasing amounts of dry ice, the rate of transfer from TSI increases.
T^4 is the greatest discovery of mankind.
Planet has a self-correcting system that offset each other. Intelligent design, anyone?
Perhaps among the billions of realized possibilities there is one that fits our requirements.
When you are wrong and make a lengthy explanation for being wrong, while remaining wrong, priceless… Now in their mind they are stuck with a paradox ‘n coming to the rescue with more of the same lol
But surely they’re just talking about models? They seem to be saying “We programmed some models. We didn’t understand why they behaved in certain ways. We sat around and speculated as to why. We came up with some theory that seemed to fit. We wrote a paper. Look ma, we’re Climate Scientists ™ !”
Am I missing something? They are treating some programmed models as rhough they are worth investigating how they work. And instead of just looking at the code, they resort to speculation to derive some made-up hypothesis that they then kind of pretend actually pertains to the real world!
The models do what they are programmed to do!
This isn’t science. This isn’t even worthy of the term ‘navel-gazing’. What disturbed me most of all is the vast majority of comments here immediately referring to the real world instead of this obvious fault in logic of theirs. You’ve fallen into their trap by doing so, I believe.
But the science is settled!
The science is settled!!!
The fact that it took decades to recognize and acknowledge the misguided notion that increased CO2 concentrations “trap” LWIR, reducing atmospheric emissions to space, is indicative of the flimsy scientific basis upon which “climate science” operates.
This paper from Massachusetts Institute of Technology has more holes in it than a Swiss Cheese, but is less tasty. When you read that mantra, “The greenhouse effect is well-established. “, it is very hard to keep on reading without laughing out loud.
ntesdorf, you can directly experience the “greenhouse effect” like this. Go to a hot desert. Stay there until the sun goes down. Experience how fast the air temperature drops with radiational cooling. Compare what you feel, to going to a warm moist place, like say, south Florida. Wait for a cloudy evening. Experience how little the air temperature drops with radiational cooling. Water vapor, (i.e. clouds) retards radiational coooling. Water is a greenhouse gas.
C. Paul Pierett, you can directly experience the “greenhouse effect” like this. Go to a hot desert. Stay there until the sun goes up. Experience how slowly and low the air temperature build up, as opposed to Florida, which benefit of much higher GHG (water) content than the desert, so the heat multiplies in Florida’s morning.
Oh. Wait. That the desert that get hotter, quicker, than GHG saturated Florida.
Never mind.
You just forgot the elephant in the room. Water huge water cooling/heating power (depending on whether it evaporates/condensates).
If you want to illustraed GHG effect, you need much better than your petty though experiment, and you need some way to get rid of the elephant. Not that easy…
CPP
You are confusing phase change energy released by condensing water vapor with LWIR from CO2.
Condensing water vapor is a new source of heat energy that flashes out of the act of condensation. It is not the re-emission of absorbed photons from CO2. It does keep night-time temps in Florida higher but it is not the greenhouse effect.
So the GHEis a cooling effect?
MIT read a bit like Comey with Hillary
they provide all the ammunition and evidence to lock AGW up, but then end by saying AGW is correct anyway
Probably seem sort of chain of interests that led to this peculiar behaviour/
Why/how does the climate change?
Fluctuations in:
the albedo, i.e. more albedo = less heat and cooler, less albedo = more heat and warmer,
a 92 W/m^2 ToA variation from perihelion to aphelion due to the elliptical orbit,
a 700 +/- W/m^2 ToA variation from summer to winter due to the tilted axis.
The W/m^2 contribution of GHGs RGHE “theory” amounts to little more than a rounding error.
And mankind can neither cause nor cure it.
There is plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really zero. The initial radiametric calculations came up with a climate sensivity of CO2 of 1.2 degrees C not factoring in feedbacks. One researcher has found that these calculations failed to take into consideration that a doubling of CO2 will cause a slight decrease in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere which is a cooling effect. The reduction in the dry lapse rate will decrease the climate sensivity of CO2 by more than a factor of 20, reducing the climate sensivity of CO2 to less than .06 degrees C.
An important part of the AGW conjecture is that CO2 based warming will increase the amount of H2O in the atmosphere which will cause even more warming because H2O is really the primary greenhouse gas and molecule per molecule is a stronger absorber of IR than is CO2. Those that believe in the AGW conjecture like to assume an amplification factor associated with H2O of 3. However, the AGW conjecture completely ignores that H2O is a primary coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere moving heat energy from the Earth’s surface to where clouds form via the heat of vaporization. According to some energy balance models more heat energy is moved by H2O via the heat of vaporization then by both convection and LWIR absorption band radiation combined. The cooling effect of more H2O is also evidenced by the fact that the wet lapse rate is significantly less than the dry lapse rate which indicates that more H2O has a net cooling effect. So instesd of an amplification factor of 3 we should use an amplification factor of 1/3 which would yield a climate sensivity of CO2 of less than .02 degrees C which is a trivial amount.
The AGW conjecture depends upon the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect caused by trace gases with LWIR absorption bands. The AGW conjecture completely ignores the fact that good absorbers are also good radiators and what ever LWIR photons are absorbed are eventually radiated away. The so called greenhouse gases do not trap heat any more than any other gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. In fact the non-greenhouse gases will tend too hold onto heat energy longer than the so called greenhouse gases because the non-greenhouse gases are such poor LWIR radiators to space. Since heat transfer by conduction and convection dominates over heat transfer by LWIR absorption band radiation in the troposhere, the fact that the so called greenhouse gases absorb LWIR radiation makes little difference.
A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the action of IR absorbiing greenhouse gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass limits cooling by convection. It is a convective greenhouse effect that keeps a real greenhouse warm. There is no radiant greenhouse effect that keeps a real greenhouse warm. So too with the Earth’s climate system. Gravity along with the heat capacity of the atmosphere and the depth of the troposphere provide a convective greenhouse effect. Derived from first principals, the Earth’s convective greenhouse effect keeps the Earth’s surface on average 33 degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be. 33 degrees C is the amount derived from first principals and 33 degrees C is what has been measured. There is no additional warming caused by a radiative greenhouse effect. A radiative greenhouse effect has not been observed on Earth or anywhere else in the solar system for that mater. The radiative greenhouse effect is science fiction. Hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction. This is all a matter of science.
From an analysis of paleoclimate date and the results of work with models one can conclude that the climate change we are experieicnig today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. So far mankind has not been able to change weather events let alone global climate.
Reply
co2islife and nickreality65 seem to make the most sense to me on this topic.
As requested by Anthony in an earlier thread, I have carefully read ‘The Steel Greenhouse’ by Willis Eschenbach and ‘The Warm Earth: Greenhouse Effect, or Atmospheric Pressure?’ by Dr. Roy Spencer, so I feel I have now done enough basic homework to offer my opinion on both the general CO2 greenhouse effect and also on this paper.
The MIT paper confirms its acceptance of the general greenhouse gas effect to get the ball rolling, adds a bit of extra boost from a bigger albedo effect, then tops it off with some extra short wave radiation heating of the atmosphere for good measure, which it states will result in the surface temperatures warming even more.
Willis, Roy and the MIT paper all seem to base their global warming case on the ‘energy budget’ approach that assumes that downward radiation of any kind will result in higher surface temperatures. In other words, all radiation is additive when it comes to temperature. I believe all three are wrong and I can prove it with a simple test. How many ice cubes do you have to surround a pan of water with to raise the temperature of the water by one degree? Ice cubes emit LWIR right? So they must increase the temperature of the water in the pan – right?
The answer of course is that you could surround the pan of water with infinity ice cubes and the temperature of the water would not increase one iota.
We know that the dry atmosphere lapse rate means that at 8000 feet, a dry atmosphere has a temperature below freezing. Just like the ice cubes, It can cannot raise the temperature of the surface one bit because the surface is already warmer than freezing.
This is the second law of thermodynamics, a cold body cannot raise the temperature of a warmer body.
I would love to hear Willis and Roy (and Anthony) on this point. All electromagnetic radiations are not additive with regard to temperature. Only a warmer body (e.g.the sun) can raise the temperature of the earth’s surface.
Therefore the greenhouse effect does not exist if the atmosphere is cooler than the surface. CO2 emits LWIR because it has a temperature, not because it is CO2. A cold object cannot raise the temperature of an already warmer object, even if it is CO2.
Oh please, stop this long debunked 2nd law rant .
“global warming” is not “warming” as a furnace would warm you, it is “warming” as a blanket would warm you, that is, “preventing loss of heat”. And, is this regard, ices cube WOULD reduce the heat loss off a pan of water, compared to the same pan exposed to deep cold space.
This doesn’t mean that GHE makes sense, is only means that your objection do not make sense either. Climate alarmists are not that stupid, and other scientists would had reacted long ago if a violation of 2nd law occurred.
Please link to a debunking of the second law of thermodynamics with regard to the greenhouse effect.
Like most gasses, air is a very good insulator – if you can prevent convection. Which is why fiber glass insulation is used in construction. Insulation is not the greenhouse effect.
Just to be clear, are you saying that, without convection effects, a cold object can increase the temperature of a warmer object?
“Just to be clear, are you saying that, without convection effects, a cold object can increase the temperature of a warmer object?”
Let’s translate it into real world, concrete example:
“Just to be clear, are you saying that your cloth, that are without convection effects, and colder objects your skin, can increase the temperature of your warmer body?”
Do i really need to answer this?
If you answer yes, you debunked yourself the pointless 2nd law violation rant, no need to point any link
if you answer no, well, i guess the colder it gets, the less cloth you wear. Do you?
You clearly didn’t read anything. There simply is no relationship between convection (ice cubes) and radiative transfer. Forget all the stupidity you have read and do one simple thing grab a thermal camera and look at something emitting like your body. Is it emitting … yes it is you can see it on the screen. Now go and stand next to a fire it is far hotter than your body. Do you think your body magically stops radiating heat because it’s near a hotter surface … the hint is you would drop dead if it did.
The part that does my head in, is you people see this all the time with radio signals. Radio signals are just a different frequency band of the EM spectrum. You guys seem to have no trouble that a transmitter kicks out radio waves at one frequency and if you put it near a larger more powerful signal well you have two signals one large one small. In the old days you had the guy next door on his CB band while watched TV in the lounge room. You don’t go all stupid and say the two frequencies are going to interact because they are different frequencies..
So what mental process stops you seeing that thermal emissions are exactly like a radio wave and funny enough they behave the same. Why do you expect them to behave differently?
So next time you see the word thermal emission replace it with the word radio waves and at least you will get close to the right answer and makes less stupid mistakes.
Please try to respond without an ad hominem.
All objects with a temperature above absolute zero emit electromagnetic radiation. That is not the point.
Just because a body absorbs electromagnetic radiation does not mean that its temperature increases. Its temperature would only increase if the source of the radiation was from an object with a higher temperature than its own.
My point is that the lower energy emissions from a cold object cannot raise the temperature of an already warmer body.
It’s obvious really. Consider the sun. It cannot raise the temperature of the Earth above the temperature of the sun. I assume you would agree with that. Same with CO2 – it cannot raise the temperature of the Earth above its own temperature.
If it absorbs the electromagnetic wave it absorbs the energy … what the energy just disappears?
This is where classical physics just goes to the dogs, stop trying to use it. It’s an RF emission that can be sometimes felt as heat, it isn’t convection heat as you know it classical physics rubbish and that is why it can pass thru the vacuum of space. If can sometimes be converted from EM to classical heat but that is a depends thing.
You see this with tanning beds or IR lamps they are lights that emit UV or IR emissions. They will generally pass thru the air with only a little bit of heating of the air. Put a body part in front of it and absorbs it like crazy and you feel heat. That behaviour is nothing like a normal classical convection heat.
So something being hot doesn’t mean a dam thing to an EM emission it works on the frequency. The hot object will absorb the emission because it doesn’t have any of that frequency. Does it make the object hotter well here we go down the classical physics rabbithole again. Temperature is not actually a real thing it is a combination of a number of QM statistics. It is hotter because it now has extra of that new frequency, will you be able to measure it with a thermometer .. probably not.
In RF terms if you gaffer taped your mobile phone to the top of CB antenna. Is there more RF energy at that point where the phone is you betcha .. but they are in two different bands. Here we have the same problem if I don’t measure both bands I may incorrectly deduce things.
So the problem rolls around the measurement of temperature because your classical physics measuring devices can’t really deal with this sort of spread. You can do this with a bunsen flame alongside an oxy torch your thermometer will only ever read the oxy temperature. With or without the bunsen you will read the same temperature which will be the oxy. You might want to try you same argument with this situation can the bunsen make the oxy flame hotter … indeed is it hotter having it there.
Oh I should give you one more example to show you how bad temperature and heat are defined in classical physics. Any vibrating plate or object should actually be viewed as having heat and temperature yet in classical physics you wont be able to measure it or even think of it like that yet the experiment was done by James Joule in 1845.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/173362/violently-shaking-object
You classical thermometer simply wont measure that as heat because it based around a physical process 🙂
I hope this reply appears in the right place!
LdB,
In your example, a bunsen flame and an oxy flame will make a third object hotter if the third object has a lower temperature than either of the flames. But a bunsen flame would not make the oxy flame hotter.
I just looked up the temperature of an oxy flame and it apparently is 3480 c. If you put two oxy flames together, they still would only have a temperature of 3480 c. It is not additive, the temperature does not become 6960 c.
Apparently, a bunsen burner flame has a temperature of 1500 c. If you blended a bunsen flame with an oxy flame, you would actually cool down the oxy flame. The combination would have a temperature somewhere between 1500 c and 3480 c.
Imagine two white hot bars of steel brought together. Their temperatures would not change. Temperature is not additive that way. It only adds if the absorbing body is colder than the emitting bodies.
LdB
I totally agree with your point that temperature is not the same as energy. I think ‘classical physics’ would also agree. You can create a temperature increase by transforming other forms of energy into heat, e.g. friction, micro-wave ovens, electrical induction etc. I am just talking about radiative or conductive temperature exchanges.
Yes I think you have got it that heat/temperature is problematic in classical physics. You wouldn’t consider having a hot poker stationary and a hot poker on a vibrating compactor as different temperatures either and I doubt any of your classical temperature measuring devices would record that 🙂
For QM absolute zero means nothing is moving in the reference frame you are measuring. A new problem in classical physics you don’t even consider a reference frame you have a universal reference frame.
What it shows you is you need extreme care when mixing QM and Classical physics you usually need to massage terms. You can probably understand now how QM can do weird things with classical temperature. You can make it appear and disappear and you can even build things like thermal invisibility cloaks. Really it’s not that strange there are just a lot of problems with how classical physics defines things and we can punch holes in it.
You live in a Quantum Universe and sometimes Classical Physics is just really really wrong 🙂
Here is a real world challenge for you.
The suns surface is 5700 deg C
The suns corona is around 2M deg C
So does the suns surface heat the corona or the corona heat the surface. Why aren’t the two the same temperature or the surface closer to the corona they have had a couple of billion years to stabilize.
Oh and in case you were do most normal radio waves react with the atmosphere like thermal emissions, well the answer is yes they do
http://www.mike-willis.com/Tutorial/gases.htm
It’s what causes attention and dissipation of the RF energy into the atmosphere. So all human RF emissions are directly heating the atmosphere it just is a very tiny amount because we don’t have the watts per square meter the sun has.
I would agree that all electromagnetic radiation has the potential to increases temperature when it is absorbed, including radio waves. The question is what temperature can be achieved?
CO2 absorbs and emits radiation in the 13-15 micron wavelength range. This is equivalent to black body emissions at a temperature of -80c to -50c. Thus, the CO2 emissions do have the capability to increase the temperature of the earth’s surface to -50c to -80c. The Earth is already above this temperature so it has no effect.
Electromagnetic radiation is not additive with respect to temperature when the absorbing body already has a temperature above that of the emitting bodies. It is additive if the absorbing body is cooler than the emitting bodies. The basic principle is that temperature only flows from a warm body to a cooler body.
You can play classical games with temperature. There is more energy you can do more work with it. In your bunsen + oxy situation above take a huge pot of water and put it ontop of both. The pot of water will heat far faster than the oxy alone because you have more energy available per second. You can do the same thing on a stove top put two burners under the same pot. In classical physics you call it all gets lumped under heat transfer and it’s an adhoc set of laws in the same way as temperature. The underlying feature is more energy means more ability to do work which is more aligned with heat capacity rate. I am sure there are twenty different classical laws covering it all to patch the bad definitions.
The underlying problem is temperature in a classical sense is something that makes a column of liquid expand up a capillary tube which is how it was originally derived. Later science sort of equated it motion of molecules but even that isn’t anywhere near correct. As I told you in QM there isn’t such a thing as temperature it is a made up statistic to match the human measurement.
So for me to deal with this in classical physics I am having to try to create narratives around the conversion from QM to Classical physics and it will break because I am having to create lies. If you want to stay with your view the temperature wont rise (you are selecting the hotter one) that is fine but you have more energy and more energy density you will still melt more ice and more energy to drive other things. What would you like to call this new feature in your classical physics. All I can try and do is work with your definitions patch it and lie, so it makes some sense. The problem is I will be able to make thermal energy disappear and appear in you current definitions.
I should give you the problems with this statement
You aren’t dealing with a classical quantity stop trying to use classical laws. To show you how badly what you are doing is I would advise you to look at laser cooling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_cooling
With your theory about CO2 and blackbody above how do I use laser beam which you would class as hot to cool something. It’s a pure frequency you will be able to give me a crazy classic blackbody temperature that you will put my laser beam is at. Yet I can use that hot beam to cool an object to absolute zero.
Yep the heat is going from a cold object to a hot beam … the very thing you said can’t happen and you were certain of it. That is just one on many experiments in which I make the cold magically jump to the hot.
Again the message you can’t use Classical physics on a Quantum problem .,.. stop doing it.
If you want to argue I would like you to remembering this statement
Temperature is a made up classical statistic it has vague meaning in QM and to the universe. Any statement you make about a QM process using classical physics will almost certainly be wrong, expect it. QM doesn’t say so just by theory it does so by experiment and everyday use. Currently there are no known violations of QM, so if classical physics conflicts with QM it’s probably wise to assume the classical physics is wrong.
QM makes no confinement that heat/temperature goes from hot to cold it’s just a madeup statistic. There are many places in everyday use and common experiments that assumption is openly violated by QM.
Bernard Lodge November 14, 2017 at 10:13 am
CO2 absorbs and emits radiation in the 13-15 micron wavelength range. This is equivalent to black body emissions at a temperature of -80c to -50c. Thus, the CO2 emissions do have the capability to increase the temperature of the earth’s surface to -50c to -80c. The Earth is already above this temperature so it has no effect.
This is nonsense that results from a fundamental misunderstanding of blackbody radiation!
A blackbody at 300K emits 26.8522 W/m2/sr between 13 and 17 microns
at 270K it emits 18.4933 W/m2/sr
at 223K (-50ºC) it emits 8.53892 W/m2/sr
at 193K (-80ºC) it emits 4.32413 W/m2/sr
Electromagnetic radiation is not additive with respect to temperature when the absorbing body already has a temperature above that of the emitting bodies. It is additive if the absorbing body is cooler than the emitting bodies. The basic principle is that temperature only flows from a warm body to a cooler body.
Again a fundamental misunderstanding of radiation heat transfer.
LdB commented – “Temperature is a made up classical statistic it has vague meaning in QM and to the universe”
Temperature can be measured — it isn’t “made up.” We live in the classical world, not the QM world. I can help you measure temperature if you need help. (Step 1:
go to
your local
hardware store…..
Bernard Lodge wrote:
“CO2 absorbs and emits radiation in the 13-15 micron wavelength range. This is equivalent to black body emissions at a temperature of -80c to -50c. ”
sorry, no.
A BB emits radiation of all wavelengths.
Not just a few. You’re trying
to apply BB formulas to something
that is clearly not a BB
Crackers we always knew you didn’t live in the real world you are an internet troll.
The rest of us live in the real Quantum universe, you don’t even have the intelligence to understand what we are discussing, so please troll off.
Before you placed the ice cubes around the pan it was receiving warm radiation from its surroundings. By placing the ice cubes there you have replaced this warmer radiation with cooler radiation. Therefor the temperature of the pan should fall.
Bernard Lodge,
You said, “a cold body cannot raise the temperature of a warmer body…” That is true if you are talking about heat transfer by conduction. However, when you have a more complex situation of heating and cooling taking place by emission and absorption of electromagnetic energy, what is important is the difference in temperature between two radiating bodies. If you have a heated body radiating into free space, it will lose heat more rapidly than if the radiation is impeded by a ‘blanket’ that introduces a time-delay in the outgoing radiation.
Once again the skeptics are right: more CO2 yields more radiation into space.
Once again the climate hypesters get basic facts,wrong but still claim to he correct….and the science is settled.
Not.
Could it be that the modelers are adjusting the aerosol concentration to make it look like the models are working even though there has been no warming for nearly 20 years? The CO2 theory says CO2 reduces outgoing low frequency radiation. Adjusting the aerosol concentration to make it look like the models are working makes it look like there’s less outgoing high frequency radiation.