Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In considering how the energy flows around the planet, I got to thinking about the amount of solar energy that is absorbed rather than transmitted by the atmosphere and the clouds. As with many other such questions, I turned to the wonderful CERES satellite data. Figure 1 shows what CERES has to say about the average amount of solar energy absorbed by the atmosphere.
Figure 1. Total amount of solar energy absorbed by the atmosphere on average on a 1° latitude x 1° longitude basis. CERES Data, Mar 2000 – Feb 2017.
As you can see, just under eighty watts per square metre of incoming solar energy doesn’t make it to the ground. Instead, it is absorbed in the atmosphere. This is a bit more than a fifth (22%) of incoming solar energy. It is also about the same amount of sunlight that is reflected by the clouds.
And Figure 2 below shows the same data, but this time showing the absorption as a percentage of incoming solar energy. Obviously, where there is more solar energy, more energy will be absorbed in the atmosphere. Showing the atmospheric absorption as a percentage of incoming solar energy removes that bias.
Figure 2. Total amount of solar energy absorbed by the atmosphere, as a percentage of incoming solar energy, on average on a 1° latitude x 1° longitude basis. CERES Data, Mar 2000 – Feb 2017.
As I’ve mentioned before, I love the surprises that come from turning a huge mass of numbers into a picture. Here is what is the surprise of the 64,800 individual 1°x1° gridcell calculations was for me. See the red areas? Those are the areas where the largest percentage of incoming solar energy is being absorbed.
Now, the absorption of solar energy in the atmosphere is due to “aerosols”. In the most general sense, this is a term for a variety of chemicals and elements which are held aloft in the atmosphere. Aerosols include things like sulfur dioxide from volcanic eruptions, salt crystals and molecules from sea spray, a variety of bacteria, and black carbon and hydrocarbons from fossil fuels and forest fires. A number of aerosols are human-generated. I’d kind of expected to see increased absorption near cities and industrialized areas of the northern hemisphere.
But none of that was the case. The surprise to me was, it looks like the red areas are from plant-generated aerosols. The Amazon rainforest, the tropical forest areas of Africa and Asia, the forested tropical islands of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, those were the main sources of aerosols.
And on the other hand, there is little vegetation in the arid areas of northern Mexico, the Sahara and Atacama deserts, Southern Australia, and southern Africa; or in the mountainous areas of the Rockies, the Andes and Himalayas; or in the polar areas of Greenland and Antarctica. These areas in greens and blues have clearer air, with less solar energy absorbed in the atmosphere.
Huh. Plant-based aerosols are the major player in terms of solar absorption. Go figure That would certainly not have been my first guess.
And this brings up another of those curious evolutions over time. Warmer surface temperatures generally mean more plants. More plants mean more plant aerosols. More plant aerosols mean more atmospheric absorption of incoming solar. More atmospheric absorption of solar means less solar energy making it to the ground. And finally … less solar energy hitting the ground means cooler surface temperatures.
And vice-versa, of course.
So the plants are affecting the amount of sunlight making it to the ground, with more sunlight making it through the atmosphere when and where plants are scarce and less sunlight making it through the atmosphere when and where plants are abundant …
Who knew? Likely somebody, but certainly not me …
Next, here’s the evolution over time of the amount of solar energy absorbed by the atmosphere:
Figure 3. Change over time of the absorption of solar energy by the atmosphere. Top panel is the raw data. Middle panel shows the repeating monthly changes. Bottom panel shows the residual signal after the seasonal component is removed. CERES Data.
There is a very slight drop over time in the absorption (a tenth of a watt per decade) which is not statistically significant (p-value 0.08). Overall, the data is surprisingly stable.
I also note that the El Nino/La Nina pump is clearly visible in the 2015-16 data. I showed in a paper called The La Nina Pump that there is an oddity about the La Nina pumping action. The La Nina pumping action is wind-driven, and it moves huge amounts of warm water first westward across the Pacific and from there towards the poles. The oddity is that it begins in November, lasts one year, and ends in the following November.
This same change is visible in the bottom panel above. In November 2015, the atmospheric absorption of solar energy peaked and began to drop. This drop ended in November of 2016, in parallel with the La Nina pumping action of that Nino/Nina episode.
Overall? I’d say what stands out is the stability, plus or minus half of a watt over the period.
w.
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Plants and aerosols, look up voc ‘s and blue ridge mountains – blueish for a reason.
Yes indeed isoprene . . .
https://blogs.csiro.au/ecos/beating-eucalypt-blues-new-ways-model-air-quality/
Some years ago, I house sat for a friend, a barrister who was away from home a lot, in exchange i swam in his pool.
One day he rang me to say, “The carpet sellers have brought around a carpet for me to experience to see if I want to purchase it, go have a look & see what you think.”
I was an old worn out rag, faintly gold in color, which belonged at the tip. “has he lost his senses ??”
I had a swim & though I should have a better look, just incase I had missed something of the experience.
I was afternoon, the back wall looking out was glass, as the afternoon sun touched the carpet it began to shine a gentle golden hue which grew until it was a thick lush grass, before long the air in the room was filled with translucent gold.
How did this happen ??
Years later I realised that the carpet was a semiconductor – hand made – most likely by a family of illiterate carpet makers somewhere in the Middle East.
We do not have the knowledge to replicat this object today.
[?? .mod]
I remember someone posting about the Smoky mountains would have to be cleared for the air quality to meet some of the new regulations being proposed by the EPA at the end of Obama’s reign. Due to the high aerosol content being produced by the trees.
James Bull
Willis, you said
Instead, it is absorbed in the atmosphere. This is a bit more than a fifth (22%) of incoming solar energy. It is also about the same amount of sunlight that is reflected by the clouds.
I am a bit confused by the terms what we are talking about. Which is it?
Are we talking about albedo + some energy that gets stuck in the atmosphere?
You mean like:
Concrete, asphault, automotive paint, oil covered water, tilled soil, polluted water, carbon soot?
What I think is hilarious is that most solar panels absorb more heat than they produce in power and unlike foliage – or even concrete – they don’t actually reflect it back into space. We’ll literally heat the planet MORE with solar panels than with fossil fuels.
Yes prjindigo. Been saying this for years. If you want to heat the planet then plaster it with solar panels. The Stephan-Boltzmann equation says so.
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Global Warming – Did we Pass or Fail?
A detailed analysis of global warming, in the different regions of the Earth.
– The Arctic region
– the Antarctic region
– the Land
– the Oceans
This is one of the most important articles ever written about global warming.
Can we save the Earth, and the human race?
Have the 1.5 and 2.0 degrees Celsius temperature limits, become irrelevant?
https://agree-to-disagree.com/global-warming-did-we-pass-or-fail
One of the biggest (out of quite a few) logical fallacies at the core of the global warming alarmist narrative, is the:
“we’re discovering it for the first time so it must be a new thing that never happened before”
logical fallacy.
This logical fallacy is at the core of numerous modern eco scares:
-global cooling
-global warming
-ozone hole at Antarctica
-acid rain
-ionizing radiation effects
-etc…
Hint to scientists:
If you, by means of better technology for measurement and detection, detect something for the first time, don’t automatically assume that the thing you are detecting never existed before you detected it. It probably did exist, for a very long time.
If this “pass or fail” article is founded on this same “we’re discovering it for the first time so it must be a new thing that never happened before” logical fallacy, then it is invalidated at the very outset and not worth reading. Fail.
Sheldon Walker, your analysis is nonsense.
You used surface temperature “data” since 1880,
and carved it up into different regions.
You have taken haphazardly collected data,
and treated it as accurate to one decimal place.
Most of the measurements were made with
instruments that could not have had
margins of error under +/- 0.5 degrees
in a laboratory environment.
A majority of our planet’s surface has no
thermometer data, even today the
numbers are still made up by bureaucrats
predicted a lot of global warming, and
want to be right.
There is no way to verify or falsify their
wild guess “infilling”.
There were very few Southern Hemisphere
temperature measurements before 1900,
and few before 1940, outside of Australia.
You have made the serious mistake of
ignoring data quality before using the data.
That’s anti-science.
might want to consider satellite aerosol products
All plants produce organic aerosols, such as Isoprene (2-methyl-1,3-butadiene), which is “…a volatile, climate-active gas, produced by all manner of living organisms,…”, please see: http://jcmurrell.co.uk/projects/isoprene/
“the absorption of solar energy in the atmosphere is due to “aerosols”.” Not so, you are forgetting water vapour absorbs IR, and ~55% of solar energy is IR.
When climate scientists are asked if man is affecting the climate, they can put their hand on their heart and say yes, even if , in truth, they know that a major part of the influence is deforestation, leading to a reduction in plant aerosols entering the atmosphere.
There is something puzzling going on. Many people cannot seem to get it into their brains that nearly half of the heating effect of the Sun is in the near infrared and is not visible, and which water vapour absorbs considerable amounts of. This post only serves to reinforce the ignorance.
What’s the source for claiming absorption is primarily due to aerosols? Obviously they have an effect, but as far as I’m aware water vapor is considered the primary cause of atmospheric absorption of solar radiation.
If you check the RSS climatology you’ll see much of the spatial pattern is explained by water vapor.
In the stratosphere, O3 and O2 absorb the highest energies of UV, ie UVC and most of UVB.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Ozone_altitude_UV_graph.svg?download
“Essentially all UVC (100–280 nm) is blocked by dioxygen (at 100–200 nm) or by ozone (at 200–280 nm) in the atmosphere. The shorter portion of this band and even more energetic UV causes the formation of the ozone layer, when single oxygen atoms produced by UV photolysis of dioxygen (below 240 nm) react with more dioxygen. The ozone layer itself then blocks most, but not quite all, sunburn-producing UVB (280–315 nm). The band of UV closest to visible light, UVA (315–400 nm), is hardly affected by ozone, and most of it reaches the ground.”
See https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1852 This provides an overview of the interaction of plant aerosols and climate.
Hmm, well, I think President Reagan had something to say along these lines. It is also rather well known in and around the old South of the USA, see: Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains, for instance.
That said, water clouds are also aerosols. These are the most visible and variable ones, too, at least where I live. Absorbers are emitters. Whether they’re net one or the other is conditional. Chemistry is also conditional, and sometimes extremely conditional.
What I don’t understand, and perhaps someone can enlighten me here, is why so much attention is being paid to the atmosphere to begin with in this regard. Liquids don’t have absorption bands like gasses do, so the ocean absorbs all light that passes through the atmosphere and isn’t reflected off the surface, which to my understanding is most of it.
Given our very shoddy understanding of ocean circulation and deep ocean temperature, and the fact that it has an enormous heat capacity while water vapour plays a major role in atmospheric regulation, doesn’t it make more sense that most of the short term variation in climate (by which I mean millennial scale) is due to the dynamics of the ocean? This is true empirically positively in terms of ENSO, negatively in terms of the failure of climate models and CO2 driver hypothesis generally, but also rationally in terms of the overwhelming difference in thermal masses involved.
Am I missing something here?
Is there any way you could normalize the data to remove the effect of the sun’s angle as a function of date? Or does this not even matter, since you are only considering the the absorption occuring within the atmosphere, and not re radiation from the ground?
How should we be looking at this data with respect to the angle of the sun’s ray’s? Does the Sin of that angle matter here?
How about a graph of total less (reflected + absorbed) over time? And question: would geographical distribution changes not create local “extremes” even the average and total stay the same?
I am not sure what these data mean. The sentence “just under eighty watts per square metre of incoming solar energy doesn’t make it to the ground…this is a bit more than a fifth (22%) of incoming solar energy” suggests that the authors subscribe to a “flat-earth” model of the Earth as a flat disc, uniformly illuminated by a 1/4 of the actual insolation, 24 hours a day. This simple model is widely used in climatology, but of course it only provides time- and space-averaged values.
Regarding the absorbtion by the atmosphere, it can only happen during daytime, so percentages should be OK. I just wonder whether they are computed from sound data. For example, instead of 24-hour averages, could we have data for 6 am to 6 pm of local time, or 9 am to 3 pm? Would there be any difference between 9 am to noon and noon to 3 pm?
Thanks for providing us with a fascinating analysis.
Would you be willing to admit the possibility that the high rates of atmospheric absorption of solar energy over eastern mainland China might, in fact, be caused by the thick milky brown layer of low clouds that often covers the entire region during certain times of year due to particulate pollution from industrial activity? You often see this milky brown mass dispersed and blown far out into the Pacific ocean. There is no way that isn’t causing the high rates of absorption as per your map, in my humble opinion.
Plants transpire water to the atmosphere causing cooling.
So more CO2 leading to more plants to more transpiration cooling is a negative feedback of CO2.
In the Carboniferous the evolution of trees and the spread of plants and trees over the continents, dramatically cooled the climate.
Also it dramatically lowered the concentration of CO2. The mechanism of photosynthesis suggests that it has evolved in a CO2-rich atmosphere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RuBisCO
Yes, RuBisCO is one of those words like “photosynthesis” that scientists find awkward to mention since their existence runs counter to established CAGW alarmist dogma.
The spread of plants on land also transformed the continents from being largely arid to being covered by humic soils. (The mineral part of soils were present thanks to the extensive Cryogenian glaciations grinding up rocks into silicate particles which later formed the basis – together with CO2-fueled plant activity to make soil.) By bringing soil and transpiration to the continents, plants also brought the hydrological cycle itself inland. This is a major example of the operation of the Gaia principle. Life shapes the earth to its own advantage. Some might think that we humans are an exception to this rule. But we are not. CO2 enrichment of the biosphere is the best thing that has happened to it in millions of years.
“This is an insanity.” He mumbled, sighed quietly, exhaling into the hot air. Not that anybody could have heard him even if he talked at a decent volume. He might have yelled, but 50ft away, ear covers on, the nearest worker wouldn’t have heard him above the din of moving the Burner. They most likely say the same thing a hundred times a day. It was honest work, good paying work for a young man without much education in Brazil.
He wasn’t as ashy as some, being a controller, but everywhere close to him, the other workers, and the path behind him. Like God himself had taken a God sized brush and just made a line 200 meters wide, miles long. Flattening everything with its bristles, then leaving charcoal black in its passing down through the brilliant green of the Amazon.
Using fire to fight fire. Or fire to fight heat. Burning it all down.
“Thanks Willis.” It was a blessing and a curse. Everybody said it.
Because of Aerosols. They were making the Earth warm. Not Co2. Not man. G-Damned Nature.
And to stop it, they needed to stop the source. That means the Amazon. And the Congo.
And if they burn it, like firing off a volcano, they also lowered the temperature fast. Then they kept it from coming back by stopping the one thing that absorbed the most sunlight and turned everything on its head. So the World is saved. And the World is ruined. After years trying to preserve the rainforests, they found they need to destroy them.
“Insanity” he repeated. Then creeped the Burner forward.
Hi Josh!
Ever heard of photosynthesis?
Hey Phil!
It’s just a joke on the main heating element being aerosols and not CO2.
The Amazon is a basically neutral for O2 or CO2 production/use, due to the total number of animals and related decomposition living in. Often it is net balance. There are many papers on this: https://phys.org/news/2017-05-amazon-river-carbon-dioxide-emissions.html just to pick one quickly out of the interwebs.
The oceans can handle all Oxygen production needed for a significant portion of time in the future. Did the calculation years ago – and if we removed all of the trees we still would have enough production, and large enough reserves, to handle all of the animals oxygen needs for tens of thousands of years. Might need to revisit that. Ha!
Have a great day man.
One very important question needs to be clarified here for myself and many others I’m sure. What is the definition we should use to clearly specify the state of water (H2O) in the atmosphere? I’ve seen too many discussions mix non-visible vapor with visible clouds. And of course there is rain where the term ‘condensing water vapor’ is quite different to the condensation of water vapor to form a cloud but the use is mixed like spaghetti and ice cream.
What is water vapor: Seems that the general consensus is that if you can’t see it LWIR has no effect on it even though it’s there as can be determined by dew point and other methods.
What is haze: Well, you can see it as a result of scattering of visible light. How much energy is being absorbed by the SWIR being scattered? Is LWIR from the ground heating it thus the parcel of air it’s suspended in?
What should a low lying visible cloud be called that you can still see thru and looks like a puff of cigar smoke? Do you call it water vapor or liquid? Would you call it sky fog or water vapor or liquid? Should the water vapor already condensed to form a large well developed cloud be called water or water vapor? If you want to call it water can I pour a shot of bourbon in a glass of it?
What is it called at the psychometric boundary layer where the water vapor is invisible to LWIR and the human eye but starts to condense into a visible “sky fog”, but now visible then absorbs LWIR energy such as say 100+ F temp ground emission but emits at say 60 F emission temp. How much is retained in the forming cloud? Is there some form of pulsation effect where the H2O is in a state of condensation but in doing so immediately goes onto a state of evaporation? Would this be a state of super-heat and supersaturation at the same time?
What a boundary layer …… H2O starts to condense and releases sensible heat but that causes it to become visible and now absorb a portion of the LWIR energy hitting it? How thick/deep/high could this process become? Would the process develop over 10 feet or 100 feet or could it grow to hundreds of feet? Would it be visible as light gray or develop into a higher density appearing dark in color?
Anyway, it would be nice to establish standard terms meaning the same thing/phase. Just make sure it is used across the board. Perhaps use the terms; “the invisible elephant” and the “white elephant” and the “liquid elephant”. As it is now it seems the pink elephant we need to see is obscured from view and water IS the elephant in the room.
I don’t know the answers, but the fact that I post this comment is that I have a few questions on the matter.
One more thought along the lines of “What is water vapor” and “What is condensation” is that there doesn’t seem to be agreement as to what an aerosol is.
Hell, let’s just toss in some vague temperature numbers and a bucket full of watts/sq meter and average it all together and get some useless number that will hide the fact that little is really known but will sound really smart.
But Willis has been doing a good job of rocking the boat. Observations of his success comes within the comments in most of his posts. He sees what some others don’t want to see and shares it with us. Just looks at the data. Imagine that.
The article gave me a flashback. Many years ago (20?) I read an article that proposed that intensive farming and thereby clear cutting of forests in the 18th and 19th centuries led to the end of the little ice age
This is very lovely – we have decided that plants control climate – via their modulation of solar input.
I asked this some recently and have re-opened my Dropbox account.
At the end of this link is a pdf (~6.6MB) of some screenshots I took from the NASA JPL OCO2 gallery of about 10 months ago.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8n1zceskj0c1h8d/OCO2%20-%20Copy.pdf?dl=0
It shows large CO2 anomalies where we see CERES with large solar anomalies in exactly the same places – i.e. where all the plants are.
Why is the CO2 gathering above the plants. Surely if it came from fossil fuel burning AND that CO2 was causing Global Greening, that is The Very Last Place(s) on Earth where it should be.
Now it gets REALLY interesting if you visit the OCO gallery..
https://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/gallerydataproducts/
Where has all the CO2 gone?
Why is there no CO2 above the forests where it was previously?
Hello NASA – any comment?
To my mind it absolutely stinks.
It trashes the whole notion that increasing CO2 levels are coming from the burning of fossil fuels.
It gets worse, because it supports my notion, since year dot of posting on here, that the CO2 is coming from the soils of this planet – especially soils that are rich in organic content.
The sorts of soils that are much sought after by farmers and wars have been fought over them since time immemorial. The mostest worstest bit being, why is there no obvious CO2 coming from the farming regions apart from probably China and India.
There should be.
Reason being why the CO2 is all above the big forests, The Last Remaining Places on Earth with high organic soils and also why the world is greening in all those places.
The CO2 is coming from their soils- its release being promoted by nitrogen (and sulphur) oxides – released around the world as a by-product of burning the fossil fuels.
Nitrogen and sulphur being THE primary Liebig Limiters for all plants and microbial growth on this world.
I finally found the link after thinking it had been deleted, read this and laugh/cry/be amazed/think
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/1403483/British-acid-rain-helps-our-trees-says-Norway.html
BUT – huge amounts of nitrogen is being thrown at the World’s farmland, deliberately and on purpose by the farmers – not just a little bit sprinkling down from rain-showers and after the stuff has travelled around the globe and falling into the ocean on the way.
Get my drift..
The farmland soils of this world have been *seriously* eroded, they *should* be releasing CO2 and are not.
Cut through the hype, the cherry picking, the confirmation bias and self-delusion.
Look around at the people all around you.
Fat. Diabetic. Riddled with auto-immune problems. Cancerous. Demented. Stunted growth – especially among the womenfolk (Abe Lincoln was 6 feet 4 inches tall and NOT especially tall amongst his peers)
All diseases that were unknown a century ago……
Before we get into the mental problems leading to garbled politics and science of which Climate Science is the latest in a series of panic attacks and hasty ill-conceived over-reactions – to otherwise trivial problems and quite often make the problem even worse.
What changed to effect almost everyone on the planet, if not the food?
We actually are in some very deep shit here.
NASA knows it, how could they possibly not – and are hiding it.
Ehrlich was correct but he let his prediction become sensationalised and anyway, how do YOU expect his prediction to pan out…
…….Doom laden TV adverts telling you to listen out for sirens blaring then go hide under the table when they do?
…….Weary old tramps leading horse and carts down dirty streets, stopping at houses with crosses painted on the doors while moaning endlessly ‘Bring out your dead’
Must try harder……
Willis ….. just a question. You say in your article that solar energy is absorbed by aresols. When I look at your graphs, the highest absorption is in areas with the most humidity, like jungles, …. whereas, deserts, like the southwest US, have little to no humidity and very little atmospheric absorption. Granted, I know nothing about this, but do you include water vapor as an aresol? Could water vapor be playing a strong role here?
The reason I ask is I’ve always heard that aresols reflect solar energy, hence why we see a cooling following a volcanic eruption. It would seem to me that energy absorbed vs energy reflected would result in two very different scenarios. Absorbed energy would participate in the energy budget of the atmosphere, where as reflected would not. I recall your earlier postings that note how cloud formation decreases input into the system over the tropical ocean …. hence, very little absorption taking place, more reflection. Whereas, over these land masses, water vapor does not reach levels to form clouds as happens over the ocean, thus the water vapor instead absorbs energy.
Thoughts?