Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Reflecting upon my previous post, Where The Temperature Rules The Sun, I realized that while it was valid, it was just about temperature controlling downwelling solar energy via cloud variations. However, it didn’t cover total energy input to the surface. The total energy absorbed by the surface is the sum of the net solar energy (surface downwelling solar minus surface reflections) plus the downwelling longwave infrared, or DWIR. This is the total energy that is absorbed by and actually heats the surface.
According to the CERES satellite data, globally, the solar energy absorbed by the surface averages 162 W/m2. The downwelling longwave averages 345 W/m2. Conveniently, this means that on average the earth’s surface absorbs about a half a kilowatt per square meter on an ongoing basis. (And no, I have no interest in debating whether downwelling longwave radiation actually exists. It’s been measured by scientists around the world for decades, so get over it, Sky Dragons. Debate it somewhere else, please, this is not the thread for that.)
Let me note in passing that a doubling of CO2, which will increase the DWIR by something on the order of 3.7 W/m2, and which it is claimed would lead to Thermageddon, would be less than a 1% change in total downwelling radiation at the surface … which would easily be offset by a small change in total cloud cover. But I digress.
Here is the correlation between temperature and total surface absorption.
Figure 1. Correlation of total surface absorption with temperature.
Note the similarity to the previous graph showing just the correlation between surface temperature and downwelling solar energy at the surface.
Now, to explain how this can happen I need to take another digression. I was attracted to the study of the climate, not by questions about why the temperature was changing so much, but by why it was changing so little. As a man with some experience of heat engines and governors, I found it amazing that the temperature of such a possibly unstable system could only have changed by ± 0.3°C over the entire 20th century. Why should such a world, with clouds appearing and disappearing, with huge volcanoes popping off every few decades, with winds going up and down, with storms and hurricanes appearing and vanishing, why would it be so stable in the long-term? So I started looking for some long-term kind of feedbacks that could explain it.
I was living in Fiji at the time. After literally months of fruitless searching and thinking about long-term slow feedbacks, one day I thought “Hang on. I’m looking at the wrong end of the time spectrum.” What I realized was that if there was something that kept the daily temperatures from going outside a certain range, that would, in turn, keep the weekly, monthly, annual, decadal, centennial, and millennial temperatures from going outside that same range.
And because I was living in Fiji, the answer was right above me. The daily tropical weather typically looks like this: clear at dawn, clouding up with thermally-driven cumulus clouds in the late morning, perhaps thunderstorms in the afternoon if the day is warm enough, clearing some time after dark. Lather, rinse, repeat, as they say.
I also realized that there were two variables in that scheme—the time of onset of the cumulus clouds and the thunderstorms, and the amount of each of them. I hypothesized that these factors were what controlled the tropical temperature. Since then I have amassed a lot of evidence that my hypothesis is correct, including this post and its predecessor.
There are some important things to note about this process. First, the time of the emergence of the cumulus fields and the thunderstorms is NOT dependent on total forcing. Instead, they are responding to surface temperature. When the surface is cool at dawn, clouds form later, and more sunlight comes in, warming the surface. When the surface is warmer, clouds form earlier, throttling the energy input to the system, and cooling the system back down.
As a result, the system is not affected by small changes in insolation. For example, if a volcanic eruption reduces the amount of sunshine making it through the stratosphere, the tropics cool. And when they cool, clouds form later, letting in more sunlight, and rebalancing the system.
Next, the response is based, not on average temperatures, but instantaneous temperature. As such, it is obscured by monthly or yearly temperature averages.
Finally, the response is immediate. There is no lag of days, weeks, or months. As soon as the temperature crosses some given threshold, clouds form immediately, cooling the surface. This effect is so powerful that although the morning sun is growing stronger and stronger, when the clouds kick in, the temperature can actually drop. Here’s a graph of the long-term average daily swings of a number of TAO buoys spread across the Pacific. Here are the locations of the buoys. I’ve used those on the equator because they have the most data. The TAO buoy data is available here. 
Figure 2. Locations of the TAO buoys
These readings were taken by the automated buoys every ten minutes.
Figure 3. Daily average temperatures, equatorial TAO buoys.
In the cooler areas at the bottom of the graph, the onset of the morning cumulus field merely slows the daily warming. But in the warmer areas, when the clouds appear, the temperature actually drops. The differences can be seen clearly when they are expressed as anomalies about their individual average values, viz:
Figure 4. Daily temperature anomaly variations, equatorial TAO buoys.
Note that this “overshoot”, the ability to drive the temperature below the local initiation temperature threshold, is critical to controlling a lagged system such as the climate. It is also present in thunderstorms. They generate their own fuel once they are started, allowing them to cool the surface below the initiation temperature threshold.
Next, I divided the days into those which were warmer than usual from midnight to 5 AM, and compared them with the days which were cooler than usual during that same time span. Here’s the result:
Figure 5. Averages of warm and cool days, one of the warmest TAO buoys
This shows the temperature control in action at one of the warmest TAO buoys. On days which start out warmer than normal, the clouds and thunderstorms form earlier and more strongly. By evening the temperatures cool towards the average value. The opposite happens when the temperature from midnight to 5 AM are cooler than usual—cumulus form later and more scattered, thunderstorms may not form at all. And as a result, the surface warms towards normal.
With that understanding, we can take another look at the graphic in Figure 1, which I reproduce here:
Consider that this is a long-term average. This means, for example, that temperatures in the green and light yellow areas immediately outside the gray lines are not really slightly correlated with the total downwelling radiation.
Instead, it means that the number of days during which they are negatively correlated is slightly less than the number of days when they are positively correlated. However, this average conceals an important fact—the negative and positive correlations are not randomly distributed.
Instead, emergent phenomena like cumulus fields and thunderstorms occur earlier and more strongly exactly when and where the surface is hot. So those areas around the gray outlines of negative correlation are doing the same thing as the areas within the gray outlines—cooling down the hottest days and warming up the coolest days. The only difference is that the warm days are less frequent than inside the gray outlines. This puts limits on how much analysis we can do using averages, as I highlighted in “The Details Are In The Devil“.
In conclusion, let me say that the emergence of the tropical cumulus fields and associated thunderstorms are not the only temperature-linked phenomena which participate in global temperature regulation. Other phenomena include dust devils, squall lines, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, the El Nino-La Nina pump, cyclones, and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Likely more as well …
Me, I’m sitting on a hill in the Solomon Islands on what is scheduled to be my last day here … you’re welcome to read about it, along with the story of the Crocodile and Tufala Panadol over at my blog, Skating Under The Ice.
Best of life to all,
w.
My Strong Advice: When you comment, please QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU ARE DISCUSSING so that we can all understand your thoughts and objections. Be forewarned that I’m likely to ignore your claims, hold you up to ridicule, and generally rubbish your name if you don’t have the polite kindness to quote someone’s words. I’m fed up with people saying things like “I disagree strongly with what you said”, when it is not clear who “you” is and it is totally unknown which of their statements the commenter disagrees with. If you wish to refute someone’s ideas, you need to QUOTE THEIR WORDS, and the TELL US WHAT IS WRONG WiTH THEM. Anything else is handwaving and with be referred to as such.
FURTHER READING:
Albedic Meanderings 2015-06-03
I’ve been considering the nature of the relationship between the albedo and temperature. I have hypothesized elsewhere that variations in tropical cloud albedo are one of the main mechanisms that maintain the global surface temperature within a fairly narrow range (e.g. within ± 0.3°C during the entire 20th Century). To…
An Inherently Stable System 2015-06-04
At the end of my last post, I said that the climate seems to be an inherently stable system. The graphic below shows ~2,000 climate simulations run by climateprediction.net. Unlike the other modelers, whose failures end up on the cutting room floor, they’ve shown all of the runs ……
The Tao That Can Be Spoken … 2011-08-14
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve started to look at the data from the TAO/TRITON buoy array in the Pacific Ocean. These are an array of moored buoys which collect hourly information on a variety of environmental variables. The results are quite interesting, because they relate directly to…
TAO/TRITON TAKE TWO 2011-08-25
I wrote before of my investigations into the surface air temperature records of the TAO/TRITON buoys in the Pacific Ocean. To refresh your memory, here are the locations of the TAO/TRITON buoys. Figure 1. Locations of the TAO/TRITON buoys (pink squares). Each buoy is equipped with a sensor array measuring…
Cloud Radiation Forcing in the TAO Dataset 2011-09-15
This is the third in a series ( Part 1, Part 2 ) of occasional posts regarding my somewhat peripatetic analysis of the data from the TAO moored buoys in the Western Pacific. I’m doing construction work these days, and so in between pounding nails into the frame of a building I continue to…
TAO Buoys Go Hot And Cold 2015-06-16
I got to thinking about how I could gain more understanding of the daily air temperature cycles in the tropics. I decided to look at what happens when the early morning (midnight to 5:00 AM) of a given day is cooler than usual, versus what happens when the early morning…
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Willis clouds are no where near the top of atmosphere. Being water droplets they will act as black body radiators just the same as oceans or ground. All of the wavelengths emitted in ghg wavelengths will be absorbed just as if emitted from the ground or water
Thunder cloud top are still within the bulk of the atmosphere and oils be considered as part of the earth as far as if emissions are concerned. The only difference e is in SW light which will be reflected from the tops of clouds just as it is from the ground – hmm so no difference there. I do not see how clouds (low level) can affect solar gains significantly.
Ok clouds are not solid water so will absorb little of the same radiation. So most is reflected from presumably internal reflection in the water drops.
So sw radiation causes only a small amount of warming of the cloud.
But the BB emission from the cloud tops (Cb) will be about 200W/m^2 less than that emitted from the surface (260 vs 460).
He’s concerned with surface temperature.
Also I wonder if the clouds starting earlier also gives them more time to spread out due to wind ( or other factors) , thus blocking even more of the sun.
Having spent much time in the tropics I am not surprised by the conclusions set out here by Willis Eschenbach. I am not a scientist but I am a trained mariner. (Have sent in more weather reports than most in the past 50 years.)
Our ‘climate scientists’ should all be sent to live in the tropics for a while. That after all is the region receiving most solar energy. The importance of cloud cover soon becomes apparent. On a clear day you can fry an egg on the steel plates of a ship; but no chance if there is cloud cover.
On a related subject I have read that heat generated near the centre of the earth is negligible in the matter of surface climate. I think this conclusion is incorrect. More research needs to be done on heat generation at the heart of large massively dense bodies such as our Earth. For example, I suspect gravity has more effect on temperature than is currently understood. But would welcome comments.
John, there appear to be three major issues around heating of the ocean from below through the seafloor:
1. Is geothermal energy powerful enough to make a difference upon the vast ocean heat capacity?
2. If so, Is geothermal energy variable enough to create temperature differentials?
3. Most of the ocean floor is unexplored, so how much can we generalize from the few places we have studied?
Some people studying this, mainly marine geologists think the effects are not trivial. An overview of research is here:
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/10/05/overview-seafloor-eruptions-and-ocean-warming/
It does make a difference in large ice-sheets. At the bottom, geothermal energy warms the glacier from the bottom up so that most are about -2.0C to -4.0C at bedrock while they can be -50C in the middle of the glacier.
Ocean water is different. It becomes more dense until it gets to -1.7C, so the bottom layer of ocean/lake water is always the coldest water. If it gets warmed up it will rise up and be replaced by colder water flowing in from somewhere else. The whole planet needs to warm up so that there is no/less cold water source(s) available. Ie. the poles have to warm up to warm up the deep ocean.
Bill Illis December 22, 2017 at 9:08 am
Ocean water is different. It becomes more dense until it gets to -1.7C, so the bottom layer of ocean/lake water is always the coldest water. If it gets warmed up it will rise up and be replaced by colder water flowing in from somewhere else. The whole planet needs to warm up so that there is no/less cold water source(s) available. Ie. the poles have to warm up to warm up the deep ocean.
You seem to be confused here. Freshwater has a maximum density at 4ºC so the bottom of lakes in winter will be at that temperature whereas the surface will get colder and freeze, that’s why ice forms at the surface not the bottom. Ocean water density is more complicated and depend strongly of salinity but doesn’t have the maximum density property if salinity is constant. (Hence thermohaline circulation)
Phil. the pro-global warming crowd is confused about many things, especially the density of water and the thermohaline ocean circulation. Let the real oceanographers do that part because you guys always get it backwards.
Bill Illis December 22, 2017 at 1:33 pm
?w=840
Phil. the pro-global warming crowd is confused about many things, especially the density of water and the thermohaline ocean circulation. Let the real oceanographers do that part because you guys always get it backwards.
Well if you’re an oceanographer, you’re one who’s got it backwards!
Do you really think the bottom waters of a freshwater lake is always the coldest?
Density of seawater depends on salinity and temperature:
http://oceansjsu.com/images/density2.gif
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/the-oceans/content-section-3.2
Ron, you would think that 40000+ vents would have a measurable affect, do we know if anyone is actually trying to find out how much?
AC, they estimate the number of seafloor vents is somewhere between 100,000 and 10,000,000. So yes, it must make a difference, but such uncertainty makes it impossible to know how much.
Ron Clutz December 23, 2017 at 1:15 pm
While that is true, we can certainly make some order-of-magnitude estimates. I find the following:
And this reference shows a 10 W/m2 heat flow over an area of about 1200 m^2.
That’s about 12E+3 watts. Assuming the biggest number of vents, 10E+6, and that they are all this large and with this large a heat flow, this gives a total heat flux of 1.2E+11 watts.
However, the area of the ocean is about 3E+14 square metres … which gives an ocean-wide average of 0.0004 W/m^2 … I’m sure you can see the problem.
In addition, observations show that these vents don’t change much even over decades. Makes sense, Old Faithful doesn’t change much either. As such it is unlikely that they are responsible for variations in climate.
w.
Vast ranges of volcanoes hidden under the oceans are presumed by scientists to be the gentle giants of the planet, oozing lava at slow, steady rates along mid-ocean ridges. But a new study shows that they flare up on strikingly regular cycles, ranging from two weeks to 100,000 years—and, that they erupt almost exclusively during the first six months of each year. The pulses—apparently tied to short- and long-term changes in earth’s orbit, and to sea levels–may help trigger natural climate swings.
“People have ignored seafloor volcanoes on the idea that their influence is small—but that’s because they are assumed to be in a steady state, which they’re not,” said the study’s author, marine geophysicist Maya Tolstoy of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory . “They respond to both very large forces, and to very small ones, and that tells us that we need to look at them much more closely.” A related study by a separate team this week in the journal Science bolsters Tolstoy’s case by showing similar long-term patterns of submarine volcanism in an Antarctic region Tolstoy did not study.
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/seafloor-volcano-pulses-may-alter-climate
Excellent thought!
I think CO2 obsessed “climate team” members should also spend a few years in places; e.g. Atacama desert, Sonoran desert, High desert region of America, etc.
After a few tropical years, followed by several years in various deserts, they should develop better understandings of what water vapor accomplishes.
Willis
‘According to the CERES satellite data, globally, the solar energy absorbed by the surface averages 162 W/m2. The downwelling longwave averages 345 W/m2.’
My understanding is that solar energy includes SW and LW radiation. I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.
Your implication seems to be that there is some other source of LW radiation. Then you seem to be sidetracked by some Skydragon illusion.
I don’t understand your point. Perhaps it is your phrasing that has me confused.
Alex December 22, 2017 at 4:06 am
Willis
‘According to the CERES satellite data, globally, the solar energy absorbed by the surface averages 162 W/m2. The downwelling longwave averages 345 W/m2.’
My understanding is that solar energy includes SW and LW radiation. I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.
Solar energy contains very little radiation above a wavelength of 5 microns whereas the DWIR originates from GHGs and exceeds 7 microns.
Your implication seems to be that there is some other source of LW radiation.
Compared with solar yes, it comes from the emissions from GHGs.
Alex here is what The Sun out puts as far as we can tell.
From Wiki.
In terms of energy, sunlight at Earth’s surface is around 52 to 55 percent infrared (above 700 nm), 42 to 43 percent visible (400 to 700 nm), and 3 to 5 percent ultraviolet (below 400 nm).[6]
Its interesting that 162 W/m2 and 345 W/m2 are coming in – 507 W/m2 total – (the numbers are slightly different in different sources) but the surface acts as though it has only 390 W/m2 of energy on hand at any one time on average.
Energy in, Energy out, Energy accumulation at any one time. Time is part of this equation.
Bill Illis December 22, 2017 at 9:18 am
Thanks, Bill. You seem confused about the energy budget. The surface absorbs about half a kilowatt per square metre. It loses about 390 W/m2 via radiation, and about 110 W/m2 by a combination of evaporation and conduction/convection. There’s no “accumulation”.
Regards,
w.
Alex December 22, 2017 at 4:06 am
Thanks, Alex. There are two kinds of infrared IR, sometimes referred to as “near infrared” for the one present in solar energy, and “far infrared”, also called “longwave IR” or “thermal infrared”. This is emitted by all objects except monatomic gases, with the amount radiated depending on their temperature
There is an entire planet in which every solid object and most gases are sources of LW radiation. Nothing to do with sky dragons. The 345 W/m2 mentioned in my quote is the downwelling thermal (longwave) IR radiation coming down from the atmosphere.
Regards,
w.
No, it is most common to split IR in to 3 bands.
• Near IR-A: 700 nm–1400 nm (215 THz – 430 THz) and the region closest in wavelength to the red light visible to the human eye
• Mid IR-B: 1400 nm–3000 nm (100 THz – 215 THz)
• Far IR-C: 3000 nm–1 mm (300 GHz – 100 THz)
Although Wiki also shows the less common 5 bands.
Near-infrared
Short-wavelength infrared
Mid-wavelength infrared
Long-wavelength infrared
Far infrared
Another source
Definition
infrared radiation (IR)
Posted by: Margaret Rouse
WhatIs.com
Contributor(s): Jessica Scarpati
Infrared can be subdivided into multiple spectral regions, or bands, based on wavelength; however, there is no uniform definition of each band’s exact boundaries. Infrared is commonly separated into near-, mid- and far-infrared. It can also be divided into five categories: near-, short-wavelength, mid-, long-wavelength and far-infrared.
Also there is no “Infrared IR”, it is all Infrared Radiation and abreviated to IR.
You know how much I just love to nit pick.
Willis- “The 345 W/m2 mentioned in my quote is the downwelling thermal (longwave) IR radiation coming down from the atmosphere.”
345 W/m2 downwelling thermal IR radiation suggests an atmospheric temperature of 6.2C as measured by an IR gun looking upward. My measurements are that a low humidity clear sky is 1.1C or 320 W/m2. Increasing humidity levels raise the temperature (and increase the downwelling radiation) up to the formation of clouds when the IR measurements of the cloud bottoms are within a degree or so of the ocean surface temperature.
Basically what I am saying is that downwelling atmospheric radiation ranges from 320 W/m2 to 467 W/m2 (which is equal to the IR from the ocean surface). The net radiation energy loss from the surface ranges from zero when completely overcast, to 147 W/m2 in clear, low humidity, sky conditions.
My solar panels on a clear day (6 hours) easily collect 4800 W/m2 / 24 hours equals 200 W/m2 of solar insolation per hour. On a cloudy day my solar panels may not get any watts, but the ocean’s radiative net loss then is zero too.
The energy balance all boils down to when clouds form during the day.
Also it has been established that the ocean temperature is very stable, within a few degrees all the time, so what is the mechanism that causes clouds to form during the day? It isn’t changes in the temperature, the temperature doesn’t change.
What it is is the Suns rays, it heats (increases the specific heat) the surface and triggers evaporation. The warmer the surface is initially, the faster the suns rays triggers evaporation. Evaporation creates moist humid air which is less dense than drier air, it is displaced by denser drier air (wind) which increases the rate of evaporation.
The least important variable in this whole process is CHANGES in downwelling IR radiation from the atmosphere, the 147 W/m2 potential difference simply doen’t matter. It is like finding limits in calculus, when the changes get small enough they can be discarded.
jinghis December 22, 2017 at 7:08 pm
Willis- “The 345 W/m2 mentioned in my quote is the downwelling thermal (longwave) IR radiation coming down from the atmosphere.”
345 W/m2 downwelling thermal IR radiation suggests an atmospheric temperature of 6.2C as measured by an IR gun looking upward. My measurements are that a low humidity clear sky is 1.1C or 320 W/m2. Increasing humidity levels raise the temperature (and increase the downwelling radiation) up to the formation of clouds when the IR measurements of the cloud bottoms are within a degree or so of the ocean surface temperature.
IR guns usually don’t include the CO2 region of the spectrum so the downwelling would be more than your measurement.
http://www.fluke.com/fluke/inen/thermometers/fluke-568-2-566-2.htm?pid=56090
You are lumping quite a few assumptions there jinghis. Most of which do not discuss or consider Willis’s cloud/T-storm temperature control(s).
You appear to be micro focused on a small portion of Willis’s description.
Taking your comment on it’s face:
If the surface’s “net radiation energy loss” is zero, with steady incoming soar radiation; that describes a closed loop scenario with constant incoming radiation; meaning steadily increasing temperatures… How does that actually work?
I think you need to read Willis’s article and underlying theory. Perhaps again.
You also appear to conflate sea surface temperatures with atmospheric temperatures
Again, taking your statement at face value, you imply that sea surface temperatures are atmospheric temperatures under the assumption that sea surface temperatures are unaffected by incoming radiation.
Leaving an impression that all tropical oceanic atmospheric areas daily temperatures are restricted to the temperature of the ocean, alone.
Let’s take your statements piece by piece:
“Triggers evaporation”; Evaporation is a cooling function.
Leaving one with the impression that cold moist air rises to displace warm moist air.
Remember, relative humidity is affected by temperature.
But, absolute atmosphere water content does increase; which means increased atmosphere’s water vapor that is all GHG, absorbing infrared radiation across a very large portion of the IR spectrum.
Consider, your daily solar panel average:
200W/m² supplies you with energy, but 147 W/m², 73.5% of your 200W/m², is inconsequential?
A side comment: A 24 hour incoming solar panel energy average is confusing. It is a view that obscures incoming useful solar panel radiation absorption bell curve that actually occurs over a small portion of those 24 hours.
Your solar panel production references come across as anecdotal; especially the claims regarding solar radiation on cloudy days.
Having spent a substantial portion of my work life outdoors, all day; I can attest to getting sunburned on cloudy days.
Yes, miles tall active thunderclouds really do minimize incoming sunlight reaching the ground; but that is one extreme, not a description for all cloudy conditions.
Alex, the term “solar IR” refers to the portion of the solar spectrum “below Red” or 0.7 microns and always originates from the Sun. Solar IR is often called “SWIR” for short-wave IR. Solar spectrum energy drops to near zero at 4 microns.
The Earth also emits IR energy, but the wavelength starts around 4 microns and extends down from there, so it is called “terrestrial IR” or “LWIR” for long-wave infrared. These terms are often confused in casual discussions of Earth’s energy balance, but are completely distinct because the two curves have almost no overlap, and have opposing “directions”
Note that the outgoing IR must always match incoming solar energy assuming net planetary albedo is constant at 0.3. “Albedo” is just means reflected. Energy absorbed is 1 minus reflected.
Assuming the solar constant is 1360 watts per square meter, then
Solar absorbed by Earth is 1360/4 times (1- 0.3) which equals 238 watts per square meter.
Planetary outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) is also 238 watts per square meter on average, so Earth’s temperature can never change unless net planetary albedo changes. Net planetary albedo is VARIABLE, it is often considered a constant to simplify some calculations.
Excellent comment bw!
One minor addition to your excellent graphic is the consideration that many discussions only reference water vapor’s GHG activity.
Water’s three forms, which water vapor is one form. Liquid and solid water are both active IR absorbers, greatly increasing water’s radiative activity spectrum.
“so Earth’s temperature can never change unless net planetary albedo changes.”
Er No.
Moisture & Clouds don’t just reflect Radiation, they absorb it and prevent it getting to the Surface.
More cloud, temp goes down, less cloud temp goes up, you only have to look at this graph to see the realtionship.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT3%20and%20TropicalCloudCoverISCCP.gif
So it is not just albedo, I also wonder how you explain Albedo’s effect on El Nino, or didn’t you notice that it also changed the Temperature?
I find Willis’ comments perfectly in line with my understanding of climate change. Since the early discusion by Svensmark of GCR effect on clouds,
e.g. Space Science Reviews November 2000, Volume 94, Issue 1–2, pp 215–230
it has been obvious that the amplification sign on solar radiance was sensitive to some other factor. Cloud initiation vs surface or lower stratosphere temperature seems to fit the bill.
All those observations about the so called tropical thermostat are correct but no reason for the process is supplied.
I recall it being general knowledge in the 1950s and no doubt it was clear to seamen for centuries previously, that in the tropics over the oceans there is a maximum temperature that can be reached and that evaporation and convection is the limiting process in action.
So WHY does it happen ?
It is a matter of the amount of energy required to break the bonds between molecules of liquid water so that the phase change to a gas can occur.
Once the necessary amount of energy is provided to start the process then adding more energy goes not to raising the temperature further but instead to accelerating the rate of phase change. The same reason why water boils at 100C and adding more energy makes it boil faster without going higher than 100C. Boiling is just evaporation which occurs below the surface so that bubbles of gas can form. As we all know the 100C boiling point of water is pressure dependent and so is the evaporation point at temperatures less than 100C.
The determining factor for the amount of energy required to start the phase change from liquid to gas is the atmospheric weight bearing down on the water surface because the tendency of that weight is to hold the water molecules together in liquid form more effectively than by relying on the forces of molecular attraction alone.
A lower atmospheric weight sets a lower maximum temperature and a higher atmospheric weight sets a higher maximum temperature.
As an extreme example to illustrate the point we know that if there is no atmosphere at all then no added energy is required at all since then the internal energy of the liquid is enough on its own to permit evaporation to space.
So, if the top limit for the surface temperature of oceans is determined by the mass of the atmosphere does that not suggest something regarding the effect of the mass of an atmosphere on an entire planetary surface ?
One additional complicating factor (there are many) is that seawater is saltwater. This fact alters evaporation processes and kinetics. Evaporation of course leaves behind saltier water which subtly but importantly changes the thermodynamics at scales from microphysics to the thermohaline major ocean heat transport currents. But the alterations are in the kinetics (time domain). The time domain means that if evaporation rate increases (acceleration) the formation rate of higher salinity surface water also goes up, and this subtly resists more evaporation. Salt is slowing the system response down to increased heating.
Joel O’Bryan December 22, 2017 at 5:55 am
One additional complicating factor (there are many) is that seawater is saltwater.
Which as I pointed out in a comment on Willis’s earlier post high salinity water such as Red Sea and Dead Sea have higher maximum temperatures which would be expected from Willis’s hypothesis because the required evaporation rate for cloud formation would occur at a higher temperature.
Yes, seawater has different latent heat of evaporation compared to fresh water and the temperature response curves are extremely non-linear.
There is also a different specific heat. Pure water specific heat is 4.18 Joules per gram per degree. Seawater is about 4.0 Joules/g.C
That’s almost a 5 percent difference.
The salinity of the equatorial Pacific also generally increases east to west, just as surface temps do. Evaporation is the key.
And like a lava lamp wax glob rising and then descending, the warmer but higher salinity water in the Western equatorial Pacific descends in the water column because it is denser despite being warmer. Thus the beginnings of an El Nino form as a warm, highsalinity blob of water descends and heads eastward riding on top of the thermo-haline boundary layer at 300-500 meters depth. Lava lamp style dynamics. Chaotic.
Stephen Wilde December 22, 2017 at 4:07 am
All those observations about the so called tropical thermostat are correct but no reason for the process is supplied.
I recall it being general knowledge in the 1950s
Really, you were following this when you were in primary school?
Stephen,
Yes it is the gas laws again, Henry’s, Charles’, Boyle’s, and, Avogadro’s Hypothesis. These applied on their own plus the knowledge that: moist air is lighter than dry air as water molecules have a lower molecular weight than Oxygen or Nitrogen; and, Infra-red cannot heat water only increase evaporation and cooling – provide all the rules needed to generate the wet and dry lapse rates — ‘green house (sic) gases’ are not needed.
Ian W and ferdberple
Thank you.
I see the terms of the debate gradually shifting at last.
Ian W December 22, 2017 at 6:44 am
Infra-red cannot heat water only increase evaporation and cooling
Not true!
Phil, quote an experiment that shows low levels of infrared can be used to warm a volume of water in an open environment. There isn’t one. Not one. Despite the simplicity of setting one up. Infrared is absorbed by the first water molecule it hits and if it adds sufficient energy that molecule will ‘evaporate taking the latent heat of vaporization with it cooling the volume of water.
What do you suppose happens if the humidity is 100%?
Does infrared just cause evaporation and no heating then?
No matter how much infrared?
menicholas December 22, 2017 at 10:45 am
What do you suppose happens if the humidity is 100%?
Does infrared just cause evaporation and no heating then?
No matter how much infrared?
Exactly, the idea that absorption of radiation by liquid water automatically increases the kinetic energy of that molecule so that it leaves the surface is false. Even if it did some of those molecules would be heading down not up!
Ian, do not waste your time trying to debate with those two.
Especially do not try and talk experiments with them.
They are true believers and ignore any contrary evidence.
I have seen those experiments and as you say no warming.
At 100% humidity water molecules leave the surface and almost immediately condense but continue their convection upward. This can be seen over bodies of water in the early morning when they appear to ‘steam’. What is seen is actually small water droplets rising in convective up drafts.
Ian W December 22, 2017 at 6:34 pm
At 100% humidity water molecules leave the surface and almost immediately condense but continue their convection upward. This can be seen over bodies of water in the early morning when they appear to ‘steam’. What is seen is actually small water droplets rising in convective up drafts.
And at 100% humidity an equal number of water molecules leave the atmosphere and coalesce at the surface.
Stephen, what multiple places in the world are closest to the sun, so should get the most insolation, as the Radiation has less atmosphere to navigate and are also closest to “back radiation”, so they should also get the most of that as well.
They also do not have a lot of open water to evaporate to keep them cool.
Under those circumstances you would expect those places to have some of the highest Surface temperatures as well.
But of course we know that Mountain tops are freezing, what could possibly so easily counteract all that warmth I wonder?
Conduction to cold air plus rapid upward convection would do it.
And when the air descends again into adjoining lower levels it heats up at the dry adiabatic lapse rate so as to reduce surface cooling.
As people are beginning to realise there is nothing in the energy budgets of Trenberth or Willis to deal with that aspect since they ignore non radiative transfers completely.
And as ferdberple says below it is mere hand waving to suggest that there is no effect because convection is a zero sum process. The reality is that both DWIR to and from GHGs and convective overturning are net zero in themselves but both involve a delay in energy transmission through the system and so must cause surface heating.
The thing is that if conduction and convection are doing it then the net effect on surface by DWIR must be zero and I contend that that is because convection can change to neutralise radiative imbalances as stated here:
http://www.public.asu.edu/~hhuang38/mae578_lecture_06.pdf
“Radiative equilibrium profile could be unstable; convection restores it to stability (or neutrality).
Willis has observed the process of convective adjustments in action but not realised the significance. His tropical thermostat is a non radiative process but he insists on trying to describe it only in radiative terms and people here are noticing that one cannot do that.
Stephen, I cannot agree with “warm the surface”, only slow the rate of cooling leaving it warmer at the end of the night.
Even air that rises and descends again is going to be colder than the surface.
In the case of mountains, the lapse rate, dropping air temps and thinning atmosphere are quite enough to negate any extra radiation they receive. As you say radiation is only a small part of the overall energy movement equations.
Yet the “Science” treats the Earth as one smooth solid surface.
AC
I did refer to a reduction of cooling but of course that leaves the surface warmer than it otherwise would have been,
Just like an electric fire which relies on resistance to the flow of electrons the conduction and convection between surface and atmosphere offers a resistance to the flow of radiation in and out.
“convection is a zero sum process” misses the point that convection transfers heat from lower to higher altitude, bypassing much of the so-called “greenhouse effect” in the process. Combine that with the phase changes, and water evaporating absorbs a lot of heat, then releases it at higher altitude when it condenses into the water droplets that form clouds, or even freezes into ice crystals that become precipitation.
Stephen:
We have synergy of thought here.
For a long time now I have considered water to be the prime planetary thermostat. This based on three properties namely: Very high latents heats. Being lighter than dry air. Having convenient ( for us) temperatures at which phase changes occur. And Additionally our gravity is just about right.
The process is a Rankine Cycle.
Evaporation/boiling takes place at the surface at low partial pressures — The boiler. Expansion takes place as it rises; thus doing work against gravity — The piston.
During this process energy is dissipated, partly to Potential Energy via the work done and partly by dissipation to the surroundings.
When all or most of the energy is used up it is exhausted to the condensation phase, which is a bit complex as it could result in either liquid water or solid ice to be formed.as further energy is dissipated.
When sufficient liquid/ice has been formed gravity takes control and the cycle enters the feed pump/ heater phase, whereby the water descends as rain, ice, snow etc . And is compressed as it descends receiving heat from the surroundings in the process.
At this point the water returns to the Boiler at the correct pressure for recycling.
The overall cycle in thermodynamic terms transfers some 680 WattHrs./ Kg. Up into the atmosphere, a proportion of which reaches the cirrus clouds nudging the Troposphere radiating energy to space.
Generally this process is independent of CO2 and reacts to any increase in external energy input by merely cycling faster rather than increasing the operating temperature.
Hence the stable thermostat process which has served us well over millions of years.
Where greenhouse gases are concerned these are ancillary to the above process and can easily be accommodated due to the relatively small entrapment energies involved.
My regards
Alasdair
This is exactly the mechanism that explains how water pumps heat from the ocean/lake surface waters to the upper atmosphere, bypassing the “greenhouse effect” that pretends to trap the heat near the surface.
Yes Alasdair, that is a reasonable analogy but not complete enough. That setup just uses the vertical plane for conversion of KE to PE which is a minor factor. In the atmosphere it is compression of gases in three dimensions that matters most since that produces vastly more conversion of KE to PE in ascent and correspondingly large amounts of heat in the subsequent descent.
Furthermore, in adiabatic convective overturning there is no dissipation to surroundings at all because all that PE is hot heat and does not radiate so it is all preserved for repeated cycling up and down indefinitely once the atmosphere has reached hydrostatic equilibrium.
For a first cut assumption at LW radiation balance during this emergent phenomenon, I would guess that the violent uplift of energy rich air to 17,000 m would enhance outbound atmospheric radiation above the uplift. Concurrently, the dried out sinking air should afford increased surface radiation opportunities around it.
Do satellites have the spatial and temporal resolution to observe this?
“For example, if a volcanic eruption reduces the amount of sunshine making it through the stratosphere, the tropics cool.”
It may cause El Nino conditions to emerge.
Interesting change of tack from The Guardian-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/scientists-have-beaten-down-the-best-climate-denial-argument/ar-BBH8pfz
Bit of a change from- Everbody who’s anybody knows we’re all doomed to fry in Hell unless we stick up more windmills and solar panels.
I don’t see any interesting change at all! They are showing a graph that puts the observed temp above the models (false) …. they claim skeptical arguments are debunked in the peer reviewed publications (false) …. they claim clouds are an amplifying mechanism for CAGW (also false).
All I see is the same propaganda I expect from the leftist rag. So …. just what is the change in tact you are referring?
Hi Willis,
Interesting reading as always. Although I generally support your thermostat theory, it seems to be active only in the tropics, so one has to wonder what the impact on the global temperature is. One interesting thing might be to use the PIRATA data (same website that you linked), which goes from -20 to +20, rather than TAO’s +/-10, to get some idea of what happens at higher latitudes. Another idea might be to guesstimate the percentual “leverage” the thermostat has, i.e. how many Joules of energy can it add or deduct to the average daily dosis received from the sun? Is it 10%, 1%, or 0.1%?
Best regards and thanks again for your efforts.
Frank
Frank, if you are going to start moving away from the tropics then the various circulations caused by the rising air in the ITCZ such as the Hadley cells and the Walker Circulation must be considered. The Corioliis effect on these circulations causes the overal atmospheric circulations and the interfaces between the air currents at different speeds causes the Rossby waves in the jet streams. Then you start seeing the entire atmosphere as a heat engine moving heat energy toward the poles where it radiates to space.
If this heat engine is moving “heat” (adjective) energy from the tropics toward the poles, why is it so cold at the poles ??
Also “heat” (adjective) energy is the energy in the purely mechanical motions of real matter consisting of atoms and molecules. Only rarely can those atoms or molecules acquire escape velocity, and escape the earth into space.
So almost NO “heat” (adjective) energy can escape to space.
However, real physical materials that are “heated” (verb) by the “heat” (adjective) energy, which we generally refer to simply as “heat” (noun) are capable of emitting various types of “Electro-magnetic radiant” (adjective) energy which CAN escape to space.
Such “EM radiation” (noun), which is either Long Wave (IR) or microwave, is almost invariably emitted isotropically, so usually only about half of it will escape directly to space, but conversely also only about half of any long wave EM radiation at any altitude in the atmosphere, will be directed towards the earth and become a part of the “Downwelling Long wave” (adjective) radiation that Willis, Phil , and others mention; but often don’t mention the isotropic distribution thereof.
It has always puzzled me, that a puny 162 W/m^2 of “Total Solar Incident” (adjective) radiation energy; 98% of which lies between 0.25, and 4.0 microns wavelength reaching the earth’s surface, can “heat ” (verb) that surface causing it to emit (on average) about 390 W/m^2 of LWIR EM radiation upwards, most of which is absorbed by GHGs and clouds etc, which then give rise to 345 W/m^2 of “Downwelling Long Wave” (adjective) EM radiation; which presumably should be accompanied by a similar 345W/m^2 of “Upwelling Long Wave” (adjective) EM radiation from that same GHGs, clouds etc that must head towards outer space.
I presume that the incoming 162W/m^2 of incident solar spectrum radiant energy (well power) is actually augmented by some additional (izzit about 83 W/m^2) of solar incoming that gets reflected, and also exits from the earth as the “albedic” (Willis adjective) component.
But somehow that accepted 162 W/m^2 incoming solar spectrum power, gives rise to at least 345W/m^2 of exiting LWIR EM radiation.
And more amazing is that at TOA, this all started out as 1362W/m^2 average (over a year) of TSI.
Do these TAO buoys have a name other than TAO ??
G
Mr Smith, you forgot the Sarc tags.
ROFL.
I have no clue if it is a parallel kind activity but I do remember many Denver summer days with clear mornings and afternoon thunderstorms. Often day after day of them.
Same thing, thermal control of incoming sunlight.
w.
I think you can also see how this mechanism would work when we are in a glaciated state. when the northern and southern hemispheres are iced over and reflecting more light/energy and at the same time the mid latitudes are governed by this mechanism which also puts a limit on the amount of incoming energy making it to the surface, you can see how you can have a warm equatorial region on a glaciated planet.
Conversely on a warming planet this mechanism would put an upper limit on the energy reaching any latitude and thus you would see warm northern and southern latitudes with the mid latitudes looking much as they do today.
This would explain much of the fossil evidence that we see today
Heat won’t flow from a cooler to a hotter (Flanders and Swan).
Heat won’t flow from hotter to colder but air masses and ocean currents can.
What!
whoopsie.. I meant colder to hotter. I have a bad cold and would best be served to close the lid on my laptop, take some Nyquil and a shot of Jack and just give it up for a while.
Phillip: Is that heat (noun), heat (verb), heat (adjective), or some other grammatical form of heat? H/t to g.
And no, I have no interest in debating whether downwelling longwave radiation actually exists.
=======!==
Willis, a serious question. what about downwelling conduction? this is in all respects that I can see the equivalent of downwelling radiation except as to the distance over which it operates. yet nowhere is this considered in the total energy reaching the surface.
I mean this quite seriously because I see it simply ignored as energy conducted away from the surface, stored awhile in the atmosphere the returned to the surface. thus reducing the cooling that occurred when the energy was first conducted away from the surface. if you replace conduction with radiation in the above you have the description for the greenhouse effect.
Yes, that’s been my point for over ten years.
ferdberple December 22, 2017 at 6:02 am
ferd, the amount of energy flowing from the atmosphere to the surface is minimal for a simple reason—warm air rises. This means that when heat flows from the surface to the atmosphere it is carried upwards, and is replaced by colder air … which leads to more heat going from the surface to the atmosphere. This process is one-way, by which I mean it doesn’t work in reverse.
Thanks,
w.
Cold air high up becomes warmer as it descends at the dry adiabatic lapse rate. When it reaches the surface it flows outward towards the nearest low pressure cell which contains rising warm air. During contact with the surface it becomes warmer still and reaches maximum warmth beneath the rising cell whereupon it re-joins the upward flow.
You have previously agreed that adiabatic convection is a fully reversible process.
The total energy absorbed by the surface is the sum of the net solar energy (surface downwelling solar minus surface reflections) plus the downwelling longwave infrared, or DWIR.
============
no. energy is also conducted from the atmosphere back to the surface. at the molecular level not all air molecules are travelling the same speed. some will conduct energy away from the surface and some will conduct energy back to the surface. reducing the cooling that occurs from energy conducted away from the surface.
no hand waving is accepted that this is somehow net zero. is you take the energy radiated from the surface that is absorbed by co2 the reradiated back to the surface this is also net zero.
If you are to include conductive and evaporative effects then you have to also include convection of water moleculles that are lighter than Nitrogen and Oxygen and will carry far more heat as latent heat up to the level where they change state to liquid water or ice and release that heat into the atmosphere.
Correct, but note that the portion converted to PE in adiabatic ascent does not show up as heat, cannot radiate to space and reappears as heat again during the next descent towards the surface.
The KE / PE exchange during adiabatic ascent and descent is best seen as a discrete closed loop entirely independent of the radiative flow in and out.
Thus once an atmosphere achieves hydrostatic equilibrium, as they all do, radiation in and out is in balance AND conduction up and down is in balance indefinitely unless the sun stops shining.
The total energy absorbed by the surface is the sum of the net solar energy (surface downwelling solar minus surface reflections) plus the downwelling longwave infrared, or DWIR.
≠========
air that is heated during the day and rises, descends at night and the energy is absorbed by the now cool surface. not all energy absorbed at the surface is due to radiation. I expect when looked at in detail conduction and convection play a much bigger role than has been considered in radiative theory. in effect convection and conduction mimic the GHG effect attributed to co2.
It seems your position is that air warms at the surface, rises, loses no energy, then falls back to the surface bringing the same net amount of energy back to the surface that it originally had when it rose in the first place.
Is this what you are saying?
It goes up as moist air, the water vapour condenses to water losing the evaporation energy which radiates away and comes back down as drier air plus rain, having lost a lot of energy. Basically it works just like a steam engine, using the cold of space (3 K) as the condenser.
tty
Yes, the latent heat of evaporation is radiated to space but not the PE created in lifting the air up against gravity. One can see the effect in the switch between the moist adiabatic lapse rate in uplift and the dry adiabatic lapse rate in descent. Radiation to space from the condensate throws the latent heat of evaporation out to space but the adiabatic component remains present and is recovered during the subsequent descent.
paulatmisterbees
As you say, evaporation and condensation are not radiative exchanges but evaporation removes heat from the surface as latent heat which is a form of PE which is not heat and does not radiate and that PE is released as heat again at a greater height from the condensate which has radiative capability.
The condensate radiates it out to space so that only the adiabatic portion returns to the surface and the portion that is adiabatic is set by the work needed to raise atmospheric mass against gravity to the height at which condensation occurs. That portion exists even in the absence of water vapour.
I’d be more apt to think that conduction occurs when wind carries heat from a warmer place to a cooler place. We see this all the time in warm fronts. This is also the mechanism of heat transport to the poles. But such, IMO would be a global cooling mechanism, as the heat is being carried to a place where it more easily radiated back to space.
Dr Deanster
Only some of the energy being taken up in convection can be radiated to space. A portion of it is converted to PE which is not heat and does not radiate but which reappears at the surface as heat again when the air descends along the lapse rate slope.
Thus the adiabatic portion is forever recycled up and down and cannot escape to space until the sun stops shining and the atmosphere falls to the ground.
Your point about the lateral wind flows is correct. Air reaching the surface after being heated in descent at the dry adiabatic lapse rate then flows across the surface towards the nearest rising column and suppresses surface cooling all along the route.
However notice that the rain can’t heat up as it falls, since water is almost incompressible. The potential energy is instead partially transferred to the atmosphere by friction (this is the reason for the cold outward wind from a cloudburst, “wind shear”) and partly transferred as mechanical energy as the rain hits the ground and runs on downwards. It is this energy that wears down mountain chains to plains in a few million years.
of the adiabatic process is not available to heat the surface either. In the adiabatic process, the energy is used up as physical work, and it is characterized by not transferring energy to its surrounding. Thus, according to your logic …. the adiabatic system is carrying the IR trapped in molecules to the top of the atmosphere, where that radiation is released to space. In the case of water vapor, it radiates IR, and condenses releasing latent heat. In the case of CO2, it just radiates IR, but does not condense. Thus the air dries out, losing most of its heat from water vapor, and a good bit of heat from CO2 as well. As the adiabatic process descends the cooler, drier air becomes a net absorbed of IR from the surface, taking up water vapor and absorbing IR in the ranges of other respective GHGs. The physical energy of movement is not involved in the heating process at all outside of is ability to move IR and heat rich air to a place that is colder, where the IR will be released and absorbed.
So, I’m not sure I’m following how you assume that this process would “reheat” the surface.
The energy of the adiabatic process is not available to heat its surroundings. Don’t know what happened to the first part of my sentence.
Further, if energy of the adiabatic process is transformed into heat as it descends, compresses, then that heat is lost from the adiabatic process, and reappears as IR, which is then taken up by GHG …. and radiated at the TOA.
I’m still not following how you think this process heats the surface. Granted , sinking air, will compress and heat the surface, but now it’s getting into meteorological principles associated with high and low pressure systems.
” Granted , sinking air, will compress and heat the surface”
Precisely. Adiabatic heating. Gas laws : increase pressure of a volume of gas and the temperature will increase with no additional energy input hence adiabatic. In this case work has been done to compress the gas due to gravity.
In my experience, the ability of sinking air to “warm” the surface seems to be greatly influenced by the humidity. Where I live, high pressure in the summer with a constant flow of moisture heats up ….. whereas, high pressure from the arctic with no moisture is flat out cold, and doesn’t warm much at all.
Good work Willis.
Safe travels and Happy Holidays,.
Allan in Calgary.
Thanks, Allan. Dawn here in the Solomon Islands. The thunderstorms of last night have cleared, the thermoregulatory system is hard at work … best wishes to you.
w.
If the solar energy entering the earth’s atmosphere averages 162 W/m2, then the energy absorbed by the surface cannot average more than 162 W/m2. End of. Unless more energy is conjured up out of thin air against the known laws of physics.
The net absorption can’t be more, but the gross absorption can be higher.
No it can’t, not on average.
Totally off topic of course, but WUWT brings up an average of four/five posts a day, and it has been a while since none of the in-house experts has written anything here about the impending ice age, and the number of years since we last saw an increase in global temperature. I feel frustrated.
It certainly can, the balance is between what enters the atmosphere and what leaves the atmosphere, what is absorbed by the surface can be more because not all the radiation that leaves the surface reaches space because we have an opaque atmosphere (particularly in the IR).
It certainly can’t. The surface cannot absorb more than the sun provides to the atmosphere, but it can emit it at a lower rate and so increase its temperature (for a while) until an new equilibrium is established.
Phillip Bratby December 22, 2017 at 10:43 am
It certainly can’t. The surface cannot absorb more than the sun provides to the atmosphere, but it can emit it at a lower rate and so increase its temperature (for a while) until an new equilibrium is established.
Of course it can, what do you think happens to ~300W/m^2 of measured DWIR at the surface?
Where has that 300W/m2 come from. The sun didn’t provide it as it is only giving 162W/m2, so what is the source of all that energy?
All averages and at dynamic equilibrium:-
The surface and near-surface are in radiative equilibrium
Incoming solar prevents atmospheric collapse by IR loss to space. That is the work done on the system. Energy thermalized within the system can do no further work.
All averages and at dynamic disequilibrium:-
The system gains energy and the atmosphere expands. Work done is on the system with the energy provided directly by the sun.
The system loses energy and the atmosphere shrinks. The work is done on space with the energy indirectly provided by the sun.
Phillip Bratby December 22, 2017 at 10:33 pm
Where has that 300W/m2 come from. The sun didn’t provide it as it is only giving 162W/m2, so what is the source of all that energy?
It’s recycled. Say for example that half of the IR leaving the surface is returned via GHGs to the surface, in order to balance the surface will be heated until 162W/m^2 leaves the atmosphere. In order to achieve that 322W/m^2 must leave the surface.
The Eshenbach Steel Greenhouse thought experiment applied to the Earth.
Thank you.
Phillip, you are wasting your time.
They “believe”and will not listen, they will twist everything you say.
Just don’t bother, I have been there and done that.
Phillip, the solar energy entering the Earth’s atmosphere is 1360 watts per square meter.
Yes, but it is spread over 4 times the cross-sectional area. About 25% is reflected from the upper atmosphere, clouds etc and some is reflected from the ground. The rest is the ~162W/m2 absorbed by the surface.
Phillip, the previso is that it is an “Average”, the actual is up to 1360 less losses and back down again for daytime and Nothing at night.
Which the “Average” does not reflect, Nothing means Cooling, there is no continuous input as the Averages indicate.
There is never any kind of steady state or Equilibrium as most Physics laws require, not even during the day as the Earth turns the rate of input varies from hour to hour.
Phillip,
Be careful about this other misdirection from Trenberth. Technically, all 240 W/m^2 of the post albedo solar energy affects the surface temperature. Only the liquid water in clouds absorbs any appreciable amounts of solar energy. Since the water cycle closes the loop between the water in clouds and the oceans and acts between hours and weeks, relative to global yearly averages (and even monthly averages), any solar energy absorbed by clouds is equivalent to solar energy absorbed by surface of the oceans.
CO2isnotevil, the ERBE energy budget (the basis for CERES) shows the atmosphere absorbs 16% of incoming solar energy, and clouds another 3%. Trenberth has much to answer for.
?w=532&zoom=2
Willis,
“I found it amazing that the temperature of such a possibly unstable system could only have changed by ± 0.3°C over the entire 20th century. ”
This isn’t exactly true. A smoothed 5-year average ‘anomaly’ might not vary by this much, but during each year, the planet varies over about a +/- 2C range between January and June. This is because of asymmetries where the N has more seasonal variability than the S and the planet as a whole exhibits the signature of the N hemisphere. The seasonal variability is subtracted out to arrive at the anomaly so the relatively larger variability is obscured from view. Note also that the global yearly variability is out of phase with the solar power, relative to perihelion and aphelion.
Thanks, co2. The part that is subtracted out, the seasonal changes, are fixed and repeat each year. As a result, removing them shows the part that is not fixed, the part that is variable. This residual is the part of interest, not the part that repeats every year like clockwork.
Nor do we have to take a 5-year average. Peak-to-peak the maximum variation over the entire century is only ± 0.7°C. This is still only a ± 0.25% variation in temperature, indicating a very tightly regulated system.
Best to you,
w.
Willis,
If the Earth had no atmosphere, by your definition of regulated, it would be even more tightly regulated whose temperature would be absolutely deterministic and based on the Sun, COE, the SB Law and nothing else. If anything, adding an atmosphere makes the temperature less ‘regulated’ by adding chaotic variability around the regulated mean.
I consider what you’re calling ‘regulation’ effects to be moderation effects. These redistribute the ideal distribution of energy that would occur without an atmosphere making the tropics cooler and the Arctic regions warmer.
co2isnotevil December 22, 2017 at 7:36 pm
When in fact a Planet without an Atmosphere has massive swings in Diurnal temperatures like the Moon.
Water is our regulator or moderator as the difference between tropics and Deserts show.
AC,
Yes, moderation, not regulation. Moderation maximizes the minimum and minimizes the maximum while the average remains unchanged. This differs from regulation which maintains a constant average independent of the stimulus. This distinction is crucial as regulation requires active control, while moderation is the strictly passive process of storing energy at one time and place and releasing it at another.
Considering the atmosphere ‘active’ is the source of so much misinformation as the implicit, yet unacknowledged internal source of Joules powering the gain provides the wiggle room for an absurdly high sensitivity that literally fabricates energy out of thin air.
AC,
One other thing about the Moon is that it’s much larger diurnal swing is largely the consequence of a day length that’s 28 Earth days long. If the Moon had 24 hour days, it’s diurnal variability would still be larger than Earth, but not by as much as you might think.
co2, saying that the GAST in 2000 was 0.3 degrees higher that GAST in 1900 is mostly a guess.
The amount of measurement error for 1900 is unknown. Even the measurement error for 2000 has to be at least plus or minus 0.5 degrees. The null hypothesis then says that the GAST anomaly for 1900 and 2000 are not significantly different. I’d be interested to see the comparison between 2000 and 2017 in absolute degrees with realistic measurement errors.
Not 2000 to 2017, try 1997/1998 to 2017.
In 1998 NOAA made the very big mistake of providing the ACTUAL Temperature that the 1997 Anomaly represented.
It was 62.45F or 16.92C, compare that to the Hottest Year EVVAAAHH 2016 of 58.69F or 14.84C.
Absiolutley no contest.
Of course if you go in and check the Currently “Adjusted” temperature for 1997 you will find it is now only fiven as 57F or 14.53C.
They blame the change on a change of Baseline, just think about that for a moment, if the baseline changes the Anomaly HAS to change as well, but the ACTUAL Temperature MUST remain the same.
Isn’t NOAA Science a wonderful thing?
And by the way they also said that 1998 was even WARMER than 1997.
I can provide the links if anybody is the slightest bit interested.
I don’t find it surprising that the Earth temperature as measured has changed very little during the 20th Century if you sum a very large number of positive and negative numbers which are random would you not expect to end up about zero. I find it difficult to believe that the energy flowing out from the Earth is exactly the same as the energy flowing in without a causal mechanism enabling that, the Earth gains and loses energy at many independent locations.
“if you sum a very large number of positive and negative numbers which are random would you not expect to end up about zero”
No you would not, not if there is autocorrelation between the numbers, which in practice there always is in climate.
Yes, there are multidecadal and multicentury components to GAST.
Any year to year temperatures are not independent samples. The null hypothesis prevails if real measurements include real estimates of uncertainty. Basically, any GAST estimate before the satellite era is not a measurement, but just a guess.
The positive and negative extents are far from random. The mechanism that keeps the energy flowing in and flowing out the same is Conservation of Energy. If more arrives than leaves, the planet warms and if more leaves than arrives, the planet cools. In general, they are not instantaneously the same, but are the same when averaged across a whole number of periods of the time varying stimulus. This time varying stimulus is seasonally variable solar energy per hemisphere and the period is a year.
During the summer of a hemisphere, it will be receiving more energy than it’s emitting, while in the winter, it will be radiating more than it’s receiving. Similarly, during the day, more is received than is emitted while during night time the opposite is true.
Instantaneously, input == output during the late morning and late afternoon and on a daily average basis, shortly after each equinox.
Another dangerous assumption is that the two hemispheres exactly cancel. This couldn’t be any further from the truth.
The idea that we can observe the total energy entering the Earth and leaving the Earth, the global temperature, is false we can try to calculate it but calculation is not observation and we would not be able to observe if the Earth is heating up or cooling down.
donald penman December 22, 2017 at 10:45 am
Donald, despite your objection the CERES satellite does exactly what you say is “false”. Its sensors observe and measure the total energy entering and leaving the earth. And while these measurements are not extremely accurate, they are very precise.
w.
The CERES satellite does have observations but they are displaced temporally and spatially and there are problems joining these observations together it is not possible to observe all the Earth all the time using a single instrument.
donald penman December 22, 2017 at 11:25 am
True. That’s in part why the CERES data is more precise than accurate … but I’m not clear what your point is.
w.
Something can be completely ‘precise’ and totally and utterly ‘inaccurate’.
Its still GIGO.
It might be practicable to measure the amount of energy entering and leaving the Earth with a fair degree of precision. However this would not make it possible to determine “the global temperature” (whatever that is), only the energy balance of the system (of course provided we also know the geothermal heat flow with precision, which we don’t).
tty,
Actually it’s practical and even relatively easy to establish the average surface temperature based on average properties. Relative to the Sun, geothermal heat flow is negligible.
While we can’t predict the chaotic variability around the mean (PDO, AMO and other cycles) we can quite accurately calculate what the mean must be.
Willis wrote: “Other phenomena include dust devils, squall lines, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, the El Nino-La Nina pump, cyclones, and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Likely more as well …”
Commercial aircraft contrails.
Willis, you talk as though the Down Welling IR Radiation all comes from IR radiation from the Earth being absorbed by CO2 and the 50% of it being re-radiated downward. The total radiation from the Sun consists of: IR radiation 50%; visible light 50% ( the atmosphere is transparent to all photons of light except blue light whose photons are absorbed and then re-emitted in random directions by, I believe, nitrogen, which is why the sky is blue.) The last 10% of solar radiation is UV, of which 70%, mainly the high energy A and B UV is absorbed by ozone, ( a product of life on earth,) leaving only 3% UV to reach the surface. Molecules of greenhouse gases cannot differentiate between “righteous” IR from the Sun and “evil” IR from the Earth. They will absorb the IR photons from the Sun, then re-emit them at an indeterminate time and in an indeterminate direction. T
his means that 50% of the IR radiation from the Sun is re-radiated back out into space. Does this make CO2 a Sunshade gas as well as a Greenhouse gas?
J. M., I fear you are confusing near and far infrared. The sun contains “near infrared”, meaning frequencies near to visible light. This is NOT absorbed by GHGs in general.
The other kind of infrared, “thermal” or “far” or “longwave” infrared, is what is absorbed by GHGs,
So when you say:
that is absolutely not true. Molecules of GHGs only absorb and emit at certain frequencies in the thermal radiation band. They are transparent to other frequencies of radiation, whether those are “righteous” IR or “evil IR” …
w.
Andrew, please do not confuse them with Sciency stuff.
You have to remember that their Magic CO2 molecules take low energy, low temperature LWIR and turn half of it around with more power than all the Energy from the Sun reaching the surface put together.
So cue any 1 or 2 of 6, Phil, tty, Trick, Paul, menicholas, Dave or even Mr Eshenbach himself to tell you the many ways that you are wrong.
Some examples
there are more CO2 photons
It has been measured (like the very mixed 400 CO2 ppms have been measured and those measurements were completely discredited by the new CO2 measuring Satellite readings)
Photons are photons
There is no other answer, it must be GHGs and especially CO2. (even though Mr Eshenbach has admitted he thinks they play a very little role, if any at all)
ps you forgot to add 2 other items, the Energy Chart, showing that the shorter wave Radiation has far more energy (Electron Volts) than IR and especially LWIR which is one of the weakest areas of the Radiation scale, even though Mr Eshenbach likes to call it “Thermal”, when all radiation from any object above 0K is Thermal Radiation.
And the fact that Clouds, as well as reducing IR they also reduce those same very energetic shorter wave photons from striking the surface and more importantly entering the Oceans.
J. M. Davidson December 22, 2017 at 11:40 am
Willis, you talk as though the Down Welling IR Radiation all comes from IR radiation from the Earth being absorbed by CO2 and the 50% of it being re-radiated downward. The total radiation from the Sun consists of: IR radiation 50%; visible light 50% ( the atmosphere is transparent to all photons of light except blue light whose photons are absorbed and then re-emitted in random directions by, I believe, nitrogen, which is why the sky is blue.)
The sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering, not absorption and re-emission, the scattering depends on 1/(wavelength)^4 so blue light is scattered about 10 times more than the red end of the visible spectrum.
Molecules of greenhouse gases cannot differentiate between “righteous” IR from the Sun and “evil” IR from the Earth. They will absorb the IR photons from the Sun, then re-emit them at an indeterminate time and in an indeterminate direction.
That’s exactly what they do, the near IR from the sun is only weakly absorbed by ghgs but the far IR emitted by the earth is strongly absorbed by ghgs and there’s more of it.
Only just seen this post.
It appears you are not aware that the earth is more than 100 solar diameters away from the sun!
I suggest you calculate the view factor for that. The integral under the insolation curve has to equal the integral under the earth’s emission curve otherwise we’d fry, consequently the earth’s emission in the IR far exceeds the sun’s irradiance at the same wavelengths.
I love 💗 the correlation map in fig 1, between insolation and temperature. The blue parts are the most interesting – they confirm that the oceans are an excitable medium and that regions exist where, as you say, emergent reactive processes take place resulting in intermittent anti correlation between insolation and temperature – namely the ENSO.
Even cooler is the visual confirmation that the Atlantic has its own enso. Even the Indian Ocean 🌊 has a little one.
During a classic ENSO cycle, in the el Nino part, the ocean surface is warmer than normal due to interrupted Peruvian upwelling. But it’s also more cloudy ⛅️ than normal. Thus less insolation but higher temperature – the blue of anticorrelation in fig 1. In like manner, during the La Nina part, insolation is high due to clear cloudless skies, but equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures are cooler due to robust reactive Bjerkes Peruvian upwelling. Thus again the anticorrelation.
(Hint – notice that the eastern continental seaboard upwelling is responsible for all the anticorrelation in fig 1 – just saying!)
However what is curious is that the blue anticorrelation region is limited to the central equatorial Pacific. One might have expected it to extend to the Peruvian coast to reflect the big triangular ENSO anomalies in the classic 1982/ 1997 type el Ninos. But that leads to the further thing that there are two kinds of ENSO cycles, the classic (strong Bjerknes) type and the Modoki (weak Bjerknes) type. The last true ENSO of the former, classic strong Bjerknes type was the 1997-1999 monster. However all the ENSOs from 2000 onwards have been of the weak Bjerknes or Modoki type. The restriction of the blue anticorrelation region to the equatorial central Pacific, not reaching the Peruvian coast, confirms this, since fig 1 is only from y2k onwards.
Thus I would predict that if we had any of those fig 1 data before 2000, the blue patch on the Pacific would extend further east, connecting with the coast of Peru 🇵🇪.
Is there any data allowing us to look pre-2000 at the fig 1 correlation map? I would love 💖 to see it.
ptolemy2 December 22, 2017 at 11:54 am Edit
I’m sorry, Ptolemy, but I fear you’ve misread the graph. The correlation is between total surface absorption and temperature.
Not so. Neither the Atlantic nor the Indian ocean have an ENSO phenomenon. In addition, Figure 1 doesn’t have anything to do with ENSO variations, because the ENSO in the Pacific happens right on the Equator. I had to think a bit about how to demonstrate it. Here’s a graph showing the standard deviation of the surface temperature after removal of the seasonal values:
You can clearly see the genesis of the El Nino/La Nina variations off of the coast of Peru, as well as how far they extend out along the Equator. However, this is nothing like Figure 1.
I note also that variations in the Gulf Stream off of the NE coast of North America are visible, along with variations in the North Pacific that may relate to the PDO.
This is what I love about science. I come up with a new idea about how to reveal the extent of the El Nino phenomenon, and it shows plenty of other interesting stuff as well.
w.
Very interesting blog post from Willis.
I am not sure I got Correct something in it, but just for the sake of some more clarification to me, if Willis will not mind to explain…
Is it me or in some way it happens what I think was meant meant?!
If I have to consider that this kind of surface-atmosphere response to radiation and RF as per this post, at some point concludes that it is and does happen in a “preemptive” mode, like in a “preemptive” response function to a forcing, like a preemptive response to the RF in this case, am I being wrong with such as understanding about your point made Willis??
Just checking… if I have misunderstood something there.
thanks
cheers
Research from an engineer/scientist who made a living testing gases etc for thermal etc response: https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/the-refutation-of-the-climate-greenhouse-theory-and-a-proposal-for-ahopeful-alternative.php?aid=88698.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3340-3063
If we think of gaseous mixtures as metal alloys with vastly more degrees of freedom, we have taken a useful 1st step. In the above also are experiments showing the actuality of how noble gases handle thermodynamics.
From the article …
So he’s overthrowing not just one but two well-established physical laws using “novel measurement methods” … I await his Nobel prize.
w.
Willis Eschenbach
December 22, 2017 at 2:10 pm: Having worked with Beer-lambert (light extinction) and SB I could see where he was coming from (regularities not so much laes). But circumstances usually alter cases, which the geographers and modellers who lead the warmista failed to grasp. Along with so much else.
However, I make no claims of infallibility for the paper. Being a real scientist of the practical kind, nor does he. Just does the work and places it for perusal. Knowing some will laugh…..Oh well, that is the best medicine.
Even better, what about the downwelling precipitation? It’s a real energy flux in absolute terms (liquid water enthalpy), however only the net flux (deltaH or the heat of evaporation) is of interest at the surface.
It makes no sense to sum the total solar and the DWIR at the surface and count it as “the total energy that heats the surface”. Only the solar heats the surface, evaporation, convection, radiative heat to atmosphere (net) and the direct radiation to space cool it.
This was a reply to
ferdberple on December 22, 2017 at 6:02 am