Note: I normally don’t publish anything related to the ideas of Nikolov and Zeller, for three reasons: 1) It’s just wrong, 2) It invariably descends into a shouting match. 3) These two guys published a paper under fake names to fool the peer-review process, which is a professional no-no.
But, here we are. I thought this was important to share. – Anthony
Giving Credit to Willis Eschenbach (originally published at drroyspencer.com)
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
The non-greenhouse theory of Nikolov (and now Zeller-Nikolov) continues to live on, most recently in this article I’ve been asked about on social media.
In short, it is the theory that there really isn’t a so-called “greenhouse effect”, and that the excess planetary surface temperatures on Earth, Venus, and other planets above the Stefan-Boltzmann (SB) temperature calculated from the rate of absorbed solar radiation is due to compressional heating by the atmosphere.
This is a popular alternative explanation that I am often asked about. Of course, if there is no “greenhouse effect”, we don’t have to worry about increasing CO2 in the atmosphere and all of the global warmmongers can go home.
I have posted on this blog many times over the years all of the evidences I can think of to show there really is a greenhouse effect, but it is never enough to change the minds of those who have already convinced themselves that planetary surface temperatures are only a function of (1) absorbed sunlight and (2) atmospheric pressure, as Zeller and Nikolov claim.
I’ve always had the nagging suspicion there was a simpler proof that the Zeller-Nikolov theory was wrong, but I could never put my finger on it. My co-worker, Danny Braswell (a PhD computational physicist) and I have joked over the years that we tend to make problems too difficult… we’ve spent days working a problem when the simple solution was staring us in the face all along.
Enter citizen scientist Willis Eschenbach, a frequent contributor at Wattsupwiththat.com, who back in 2012 posted there a “proof” that Nikolov was wrong. The simplicity of the proof makes it powerful, indeed. I don’t know why I did not notice it at the time. My apologies to Willis.
Basically, the proof starts with the simplified case of the average planetary temperature without an atmosphere, which can be calculated using a single equation (the Stefan-Boltzmann equation). Conceptually, in the absence of an atmosphere, sunlight will heat the surface and the temperature will rise until the rate of emitted infrared radiation from the surface to outer space equals the rate of absorbed solar energy. (To be accurate, one needs to take into account the fact the planet is rotating and spherical, the rate of heat conduction into the sub-surface, and you also need to know the planet’s albedo (solar reflectivity) and infrared emissivity).
The SB equation always results in a surface temperature that is too cold compared to surface temperatures when an atmosphere is present, and greenhouse theory is traditionally invoked to explain the difference.
Significantly, Willis pointed out that if atmospheric pressure is instead what raises the temperature above the S-B value, as the Zeller-Nikolov theory claims, the rate of energy loss by infrared radiation will then go up (for the same reason a hotter fire feels hotter on your skin at a distance). But now the energy loss by the surface is greater than the energy gained, and energy is no longer conserved. Thus, warming cannot occur from increasing pressure alone.
In other words, without the inclusion of the greenhouse effect (which has downward IR emission by the atmosphere reducing the net loss of IR by the surface), the atmospheric pressure hypothesis of Zeller-Nikolov cannot explain surface temperatures above the Stefan-Boltzmann value without violation of the fundamental 1st Law of Thermodynamics: Conservation of Energy.
This is a simple and elegant proof that radiation from the atmosphere does indeed warm the surface above the S-B value. This will be my first go-to argument from now on when asked about the no-greenhouse theory.
I like to give credit where credit is due, and Willis provided a valuable contribution here.
(For those who are not so scientifically inclined, I still like the use of a simple hand-held IR thermometer to demonstrate that the cold atmosphere can actually cause a warmer surface to become warmer still [and, no, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is not violated]).
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What happens in the center of a star when the fuel runs out?
What happens in the center of a gas giant planet after it has condensed?
Does it stay just as hot as it started out after 4.5 billion years have elapsed?
Seems you know – tell us.
If one considers a complex non-equilibrium system with thermal interchanges based on conduction, convection, and radiation emission/absorption, then it would be astonishing if changing one parameter didn’t have an effect on the system as a whole. The important questions are how much, how fast, when, where, what happens next if all other inputs don’t remain the same, etcetera.
Of course, the above arguments constitute no formal proof or refutation of anything at all. But a little bit of scientific experience of how the universe usually works can take you along way when needing to wade through so much material which often turns out to be ill-informed, wrong, or just plain BS. That is the real purpose of peer review. It is just a filter, not a guarantor of anything.
So we return to the usual. Some people on both sides are very good at arguing around the houses. But I’ve also ‘won’ arguments I should have not have won in the bar. It’s physical evidence that eventually wins in science, and that means properly testable predictions. Nobody has won anything noteworthy at all in climate-science by that metric. They just have models of varying degrees of plausibility.
Agreed. After all these years and billions the computer models do not correctly predict the temperature on Venus. NK is the only one?
That is what intrigues me about NZ. Their equation PREDICTS the surface temperature on these celestial bodies. I have seen zero predictive formulas from any greenhouse gas theory proponents, just models and conjecture based on other equations. If GHGs can do what the proponents claim, develop an equation to describe it. NZ have done this and I have seen nobody that can dispute the correctness of the equation. As more celestial bodies are explored, I think the NZ will eventually get the Nobel Prize.
” If GHGs can do what the proponents claim, develop an equation to describe it. ”
OK
dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co)
Where ‘dF’ is the radiative forcing in Watts per square meter, ‘C’ is the concentration of atmospheric CO2, and ‘Co’ is the reference CO2 concentration.
There you go.
dF == 5.35 In(C/Co)
Does that apply universally for all planetary atmospheres? When we plug it in for Mars what do we get?
Don132
You have not shown your working for all of the planets, please do so.
And while you are at it show the Surface Temperature of the Moon according the S& B calculations.
There are so many “Unknown, Unknowns” about our universe, that we, as a Human race, are blindingly jumping off of the cliff of stupidity.
A good place to start is to get all of the “known knowns” straight, and then clear out all of the “known but ain’t so’s”.
In all of the discussions of earth’s temperature I have yet to see a note about the internal temperature of the earth.
“The heat of the Earth is replenished by radioactive decay at a rate of 30 TW.[17] The global geothermal flow rates are more than twice the rate of human energy consumption from all primary sources.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient
Roy, total heat flow from the earth is estimated at 44 Terawatts constant flux. Divide that by the area of the earth and you get about 86 milliwatts per square metre … on a planet where downwelling total radiation averages about half a kilowatt per square metre.
Since geothermal heat is only about two-hundredths of one percent (0.02%) of total incoming energy, it is usually ignored in energy balance calculations.
w.
That’s cool Willis, I calculated the heat flow from the earth a few years ago with information in the 50th edition of the CRC Handbook on Chemistry and Physics. I got 88 milliwatts/sq meter. Nice to see corroboration. Thanks for all your writing. A Prosperous and Happy New Year to you and yours, and all who contribute here while I’m at it.
As long as we are going to look at the fundamentals, we should agree at the start on proper terms and definitions. Things are missing and some are confused. I see several problems, and they are rooted in the errors in the arguments commonly used to claim that if the GHG’s were removed from the atmosphere, the temperature of that atmosphere (for arguments sake, 2 m above the surface) would be very low, like the average temperature of the surface of the moon.
It is always based on a calculation of GHG back radiation, and absent that back radiation, the argument goes that the surface will radiate directly to space as if the planet had no atmosphere even if it has one. That’s silly. Why? Because it has one!
In the example the IPCC uses, the planet has an atmosphere, but it has no GHG’s. The claim made is that absent GHG’s, the atmosphere will cool until it is the same temperature as the surface would be in the absence of any atmosphere.
The argument presented in the article above, supposedly invalidating something, approaches this from the opposite side: It claims that a planet without any atmosphere will be temperature X (average about -18C) and that adding an atmosphere will cause no change to the surface temperature, argued on the basis that if are no GHG’s there is no back radiation so therefore there is nothing to increase the (average) surface. Too many aspects of reality are ignored, including the physical presence of an atmosphere in contact with the surface.
Huh? If there is no back radiation, there is still convective heating of the atmosphere and the surface will cool against the air. The arguments in both cases ignore the fact that the surface heats the air whether there are GHG’s or not. That is a pretty big omission in something claimed to be a proof or a disproof.
There are two sources of heating of the atmosphere (surface heating and GHG’s), and two for cooling it (radiation to space or cooling against the surface). Convective heating from the hot surface lowers the daytime surface temperature. GHG back radiation re-heats the surface if there are GHG’s present. Absent the GHG’s, the atmosphere is still heated by the surface, and that heat will drive vertical circulation patterns. There is no need for GHG’s to drive convective circulation of air over a hot surface. Without this air circulation over the surface, the surface would be about 200 C during the day. In fact it is about 70 so there is 130 C of cooling of the surface, energy transferred to the air. No GHG’s need be involved in this. The “disproof” implies this heating does not occur.
Obviously such a GHG-free atmosphere cannot cool by radiation in the temperature range we might expect. The air would be heated day by day until the system was in thermal equilibrium. At what temperature will that happen? It will be a heck of a lot higher than the average -18 C. If the incoming radiation equals outgoing radiation from the surface and an atmosphere without any GHG’s is present, the temperature of the air 2m above the surface will be what? 50 C? 100 C?
At this point we have to move beyond “-18C average temperature” and look at the peaks, because the system rotates and is a globe. The surface temperature in the daytime at the equator might be over 100 C and so will the air above it. At night the surface can cool but the air cannot as it does so poorly against a cold surface below.
The Nikolov-Zeller claims are not valid because the have failed to describe the system properly. They implicitly accept that there is convective heating (because there is a vertical temperature profile) but ignore such heating in their explanation. Further, they do not understand the absorption, emission and refraction of IR.
Willis’ disproof also ignores convective heating and its influence in the presence or absence of GHG’s. There are flips in the text from surface temperature to air temperature, with and without an atmosphere, but narry a mention of the influence on the air temperature from its contact with the surface – something that continues with or without GHG’s. A portion of all heat reaching the surface from above or below heats the air directly – if an atmosphere is present.
Gavin Schmidt’s “explanation” of the GHG effect correctly shows that the back radiation drops to zero in the absence of GHG’s but completely ignores the convection heating component of the energy paths. He too claims that the air temperature will drop to -18C. Even that is incorrect: it is an over-simplification using the “moon” example because it speaks of average, not actual temperature. It is convenient for his argument in that if there was no convective heating, averaging gives the same answer. Which is to say, ignoring a portion of reality gives an answer – just the wrong one.
From the article above
“In other words, without the inclusion of the greenhouse effect (which has downward IR emission by the atmosphere reducing the net loss of IR by the surface), the atmospheric pressure hypothesis of Zeller-Nikolov cannot explain surface temperatures above the Stefan-Boltzmann value without violation of the fundamental 1st Law of Thermodynamics: Conservation of Energy.”
This is simply untrue. The presence of any atmosphere will limit the surface temperature during the daytime. In the absence of any greenhouse effect, the air temperature will rise (a lot) because it will be cooling the daytime surface. The “In other words” explanation is incorrect. It also violates the 1st Law of Thermodynamics by failing to consider convective heat transfer as well as radiative heat transfer. That doesn’t make the Nikolov-Zeller hypothesis correct, but it is an incomplete disproof.
The awful implication of the correction for the influence of GHG’s is that in their absence, the air temperature would rise because it cannot cool radiatively. GHG’s not only heat, they cool. When it comes to the temperature of the atmosphere, its radiative cooling from convective heating has to be part of the explanation. It is missing.
Good summary.
Add any of a number of other factors, not the least of which is clouds, and accurate modeling becomes intractable.
In reality, it has been warmer with more CO2 and it has been cooler with more CO2. It’s also been warmer and cooler with less CO2. It simply is not possible to definitively say what the climate will do without uncertainty.
Yes. The key word is “tractable”.
Edward Lorenz gave some valedictory lectures which MIT archived a few years ago. (They were just non-searchable images of text when I looked at them.)
He went out of his way to caution later generations of meteorologist and climate-scientists to only study problems that are tractable. It seems to me they have ignored his advice completely in the pursuit of funding. It is a broken science.
Nicely put. I might add that the atmosphere is moving heat by wind to take the heat to locations where it is cooler, ie, the poles. This is not a 100% efficient process, so the actual temperature profile on the surface will deviate from the ideal.
EdB
We do not have to invoke the wind and distribution until we have agreed that the surface heats the air directly. That is the first stepping stone. If the surface heats the air, then it has be appear in each expression. Next, we have to agree that GHG’s cool the air, and again this must appear in each expression.
For example, the cooling by radiation to space exceeds the total heating by GHG’s and IR direct from the sun. Why? Because cooling has to include atmospheric heating by the surface, heating that is not even mentioned!
We do have to invoke the diurnal surface temperature because the air convects heat so poorly downwards. In other words, it is heated easily and carries the heat away, but does not give it back easily. Not at all. Check the effectiveness of heating an upper plate by electrically heating a lower plate, using air as the transfer medium, then trying to heat the lower plate by electrically heating the upper one. Bi-i-i-ig difference in the heat transfer rate.
Without doing any math at all, it is intuitively clear that without GHG’s the air will be hotter than the average surface temperature. When using “average insolation and average temperature”, this salient fact is obscured.
I don’t expect everyone to catch onto all the ramifications of this immediately. This “backward calculation to what the temperature would be if…” is so badly handled in the “formal” climate science community, it requires, as in the case of Lucy Van Pelt where Linus has to unlearn everything she taught him, some stern organisation.
Zeller started off with a misunderstanding (a common one) wherein temperature and energy were confused. It is confusing because an albedo and a temperature can equal an energy gain or loss rate, which is power. But temperature is an intensive metric and energy is quantitative. They are tossed around willy-nilly in the hypotheses with no proofs emerging at all.
Even the concept of a global average temperature is very misleading. To make a meaningful quantification one has to consider the humidity at the time each temperature was recorded to make an effort to get the enthalpy of the atmosphere. It is trivial to demonstrate an increase in energy in a parcel of air at a lower temperature. Global warming implies an increase in enthalpy, a calculation not possible from a temperature set alone.
This whole GHG warming story is very, very screwed up.
Screwed up? Yes, beyond belief screwed up. The only sensible thing to do is ignore the ‘experts’ and watch the UAH graph. Over the next 50 years we should know how much warming will occur. My bet is that natural factors will dominate any CO2 effect.
“Obviously such a GHG-free atmosphere cannot cool by radiation in the temperature range we might expect. The air would be heated day by day until the system was in thermal equilibrium. At what temperature will that happen? It will be a heck of a lot higher than the average -18 C. If the incoming radiation equals outgoing radiation from the surface and an atmosphere without any GHG’s is present, the temperature of the air 2m above the surface will be what? 50 C? 100 C?”
I don’t know where on earth you could have gotten that idea.
An atmosphere (N2 and O2 only) and without GHGs would be transparent to LWIR.
And there would therefore be no impediment to its escape to space.
The Earth’s surface would be at the S-B BB equilibrium temp in such a case.
Some convection and turbulent mixing would still occur due to DeltaTs created by diurnal and latitudinal SW heating of the surface.
(DeltaTs create DeltaPs create winds/turbulence).
“the temperature of the air 2m above the surface will be what? 50 C? 100 C?””
No it would be at -18C the S-B equilibrium temp (given a BB ) or therabouts.
Anthony Banton
“An atmosphere (N2 and O2 only) and without GHGs would be transparent to LWIR.
And there would therefore be no impediment to its escape to space.
The Earth’s surface would be at the S-B BB equilibrium temp in such a case.”
The statement misses the point that the air (N2 and O2 only) would be heated by that hot surface, cooling it, storing heat in the atmosphere. This component of atmospheric heating is missing from the “LWIR” argument. Trenberth 2009 acknowledges direct heating to be 168 W/m^2 with GHG’s and 336 in their absence (I think he underestimates it but that is a different discussion).
In the next paragraph you agree there is heating of the air – immediately after implying there is not. Your conclusion therefore cannot be correct. You cannot heat a parcel of O2-N2 and have its temperature rise, and then at night, have it cool to the temperature of the surface 1 or 2 km below. That cannot happened because it cannot cool radiatively and it is unlikely to impinge on the radiating surface. Once warmed, the air would remain warm, considering of course the adiabatics.
I have already covered the rest of the explanation.
“The argument presented in the article above, supposedly invalidating something, approaches this from the opposite side: It claims that a planet without any atmosphere will be temperature X (average about -18C) and that adding an atmosphere will cause no change to the surface temperature, argued on the basis that if are no GHG’s there is no back radiation so therefore there is nothing to increase the (average) surface.”
I think you are misunderstanding the proof of this post. It requires no position on the presence or absence of back radiation heating the surface. The N-Z theory is that an atmosphere alone heats the surface beyond the black body temperature that would otherwise exist, and that therefore not all heating comes from GHGs. To test this, you just hypothesize an atmosphere without GHGs, such that the atmosphere cannot radiate energy OUTWARD into space, and that all radiation out into space has to come from the surface of the planet. Since the surface of the planet is at a first temperature at equilibrium with space without an atmosphere, it follows that the atmosphere per se cannot not heat the surface (e.g. by it’s mere existence independent of GHGs) because if it did, equilibrium would not be maintained at the boundary of the planet’s atmosphere with space. The surface temperature would rise and more radiation would escape into space than what is coming in.
Not true. We are using averages. The equatorial area will be cooled and the poles will be warmed from conduction, convection, winds. When overall thermal balance is achieved, we will have an average temperature T . Double the density of the atmosphere, and we get T2.
There is no way around it. Density changes the average temperature, without GHGs
The temperature of a substance only reflects the amount of heat it is storing, proportional to its heat capacity. What you’re describing is the atmospheric science equivalent of a Ponzi scheme; you think that the process of moving heat around within an enclosed system will over time increase the amount of heat that the system stores.
No, the average temperature reflects the SB fact of T4 radiation. The heat loss rate varies with the density since the temperature distribution is different with the two densities.
Not true. If the atmosphere is actually transparent to IR (and visible), than it no more blocks outgoing radiation than it does incoming. Thus the radiative surface of the body becomes the solid surface and its temperature will assume the S-B balance (taking into accounts its emissivity). The atmosphere will not be heated or cooled except by convection from the solid surface, so once it reaches thermal equilibrium it may be discounted totally. Of course not even pure N2 is completely transparent to all frequencies and all matter, even gasses, above absolute zero radiates something.
Paul Blasé
“The atmosphere will not be heated or cooled except by convection from the solid surface, so once it reaches thermal equilibrium it may be discounted totally”
Quite correct. Thank you for understanding and agreeing with my main point which is that this process affects the temperature of the atmosphere just above the surface.
The point is not to show that the energy incoming and the LWIR outgoing (plus reflections) are in balance – we already know that from black-boxing the system. The important point is what the temperature of the air is under different conditions. Several correspondents, some just above, claim that the air temperature will be the same as the surface when there is no air. Extraordinary! Even NASA doesn’t get it right.
The whole point of the exercise is to speculate on the temperature of the air near the surface where we live in the presence or GHG’s – not so? Having make the incorrect claim that the air temperature without any GHG’s would be the SB temperature of the surface, they go on to claim that any heating of the air above the SB temperature is caused by greenhouse gases. Clearly, if in the absence of GHG’s, the surface has been heated to “equilibrium” as you called it, then the addition of GHG’s does not account for all the difference between the SB temperature -18 C and the current +15 C.
GHG’s can only account for a portion of it. I hold that the addition of the first few ppm of GHG’s cools the atmosphere (a lot). GHG’s cool radiatively. They also add back radiation to the surface. The new equilibrium in the presence of GHG’s will have a different air temperature and a different surface temperature.
If the IPCC cannot get the most fundamental aspects of atmospheric heating correct, how can the other speculations tell us something about the nature of the real world? Read what they say about GHG heating of 33 C. It is silly because it ignores the heating of the air by the surface prior to accounting for the GHG effect. Remember, the GHG effect is cooling direct from the atmosphere and back-radiating, not just the latter.
Crispin in Waterloo December 31, 2018 at 11:57 am
Not true. There will only be convective heating of the atmosphere only until such time as the lowest layer of the atmosphere is the same temperature as the surface. After that, since the two are at the same temperature there will be no heat flow.
I guess you missed the part about how the planet is evenly heated from all sides so there is no day or night.
w.
Ah, yes, the non physical model as proof. Nope. There is no such thing as a thousand suns giving uniform heating. We only find spinning planets on orbits around a sun. It’s time to bin this non physical concept.
ECB, it’s called a “thought experiment”. Einstein was famous for using them. They are invaluable for understanding things when we cannot do real experiments.
Should we “bin that non physical concept” of an elevator in space as well? Nope. Thought experiments are very useful.
Now, N&Z claim that their theory does NOT require GHGs to raise the temperature of the surface of a planet above the S-B temperature. My thought experiment proves that their claim is not possible. Without GHGs the only way for the planet to lose energy is radiation from the surface … and it cannot radiate more than it is receiving.
Does this apply to earth? Nope. It applies to the N&Z claim, and it shows that their claim violates the laws of thermodynamics. Q.E.D.
w.
A non physically based thought experiment proves nothing.
OK if you want a more realistic thought experiment let’s try a revolving atmosphere less planet with the same properties as the moon. At noon on the equator it will have a temperature ~390K at dawn it will be ~133K and at dusk ~163K. Add an atmosphere and the noon temperature of the surface will drop and the temperature on the nightside will rise due to conductive and convective heat transfer. Because the only mechanism of heat loss to space is radiation and the first law of thermodynamics the total heat loss rate is equal to the insolation. Consequently the average T^4 will be the same, the average T will be slightly different due to Holder’s inequality.
Willis:
That is a most creative way to avoid discussing the omitted direct heating of the air by the surface. The examination of the Zeller hypothesis should be conducted in a thought experiment which has day and night.
Kurt:
“To test this, you just hypothesize an atmosphere without GHGs, such that the atmosphere cannot radiate energy OUTWARD into space, and that all radiation out into space has to come from the surface of the planet.”
Correct – that it an essential part of any claim to be assessing the air temperature near the surface, with or without GHG’s. You will have noticed by now that NASA et al do not include it.
“Since the surface of the planet is at a first temperature at equilibrium with space without an atmosphere, it follows that the atmosphere per se cannot not heat the surface
That is true only if there are no GHG’s.
“…(e.g. by it’s mere existence independent of GHGs) because if it did, equilibrium would not be maintained at the boundary of the planet’s atmosphere with space.”
Now you stepped off the pier. GHG’s function in exactly the same manner as a half-silvered mirror. If you put a half silvered mirror around an infrared it increases the temperature inside the box until the output equals the input. That will only happen (equilibrium) once the temperature inside has risen. That is the “greenhouse effect”.
“The surface temperature would rise and more radiation would escape into space than what is coming in.”
Still true as long as there is no “half-silvered mirror”. All you have argued is that without GHG’s there is no greenhouse effect. We already knew that. As soon as your hot surface atmosphere bare planet gains at atmosphere (supposed pure argon) the “air” would be heated by the surface during the daytime and could not cool at night. The next day it would heat again and not cool. Et cetera.
I will post a refutation of Zeller separately.
“The awful implication of the correction for the influence of GHG’s is that in their absence, the air temperature would rise because it cannot cool radiatively. GHG’s not only heat, they cool. When it comes to the temperature of the atmosphere, its radiative cooling from convective heating has to be part of the explanation. It is missing.”
Sorry that’s incorrect.
Without GHGs, then the atmosphere would be completely transparent to LWIR exiting space.
Zero attenuation.
It would cool entirely by radiation from the surface.
Convection would not be needed.
“It would cool entirely by radiation from the surface”
No, it would cool ~partly~ by radiation from the surface. The other parts would be by convection and conduction. Are those parts negligible? I think not.
Suppose all the wind on the planet suddenly stopped and the atmosphere became a horrifying stillness… The temperature would rise very quickly, both the atmosphere and the ground.
Most of the energy in the atmosphere is moved around by the wind/convection, not radiation. Changing the radiative properties of the atmosphere by increasing the CO2 from 0.03% to 0.05% is simply not going to make any difference to those winds. At least, that’s my 2c of understanding.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/10/wind-an-important-forgotten-or-ignored-weather-variable/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/15/bad-news-for-wind-power-globally-winds-are-slowing/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/05/study-global-wind-speed-dropping-wind-farms-victim-of-atmospheric-stilling/
“The temperature would rise very quickly, both the atmosphere and the ground.”
You neglect the night side. Or if rotating, the night period.
At night the surface cools to space by radiation (convection stops) and winds still due frictional drag and stratification.
Come morning as the sun heats the ground it then has to warm out the surface inversion (cold air) that has formed overnight. Without the destabilisation of heating created by GHGs (back-radiated heating of the surface), then it would take just as long to warm out that inversion and hence allow convection, as it did to cool it … and then the surface cools again as the next night occurs.
The atmosphere would still have winds due to latitudinal deltaT (differential heating).
And hence some turbulent mixing.
But surface convection?
No, I don’t think so.
Yes, there is a night side which cause some things to happen. But, you are totally missing the point. I’m not talking about what causes winds and whether there would be any or not.
I’m talking about what the wind/convection does. Suppose there was no convection AT ALL (stopped somehow) ->the Earth would warm dramatically. The wind is a major factor in the distribution of heat around the planet. Changing the radiative properties is not going to significantly change this fact.
The ocean is The Greenhouse – captures solar radiation throughout a volume (top 100 metres)
It has very high specific heat content – it takes a lot of energy to heat water.
Nothing else comes close in the entire universe.
Via evaporation from its top surface it ‘gives’ captured energy to the atmospheric gases.
Simply = mechanical mixing
They, oxygen & nitrogen, have not only VERY low thermal conductivities but also VERY low emissivities.
The low emissivity means they can ‘support’, ‘have’, ‘maintain’, ‘store’, ‘be at’ elevated temperature while radiating *very* small amounts of energy.
Where Dr Spencer goes wrong…..
From here:
https://www.omega.com/technical-learning/infrared-temperature-measurement-theory-application.html
(Does he REALLY expect us to believe that a fluffy white cloud, at (say) 2000 metres high in a blue sky is at a temperature of 41 degC? What happened to Lapse Rate – is he saying that the ground directly beneath that cloud is at 60+ degC?)
It goes on:
And the emissivity of oxygen/nitrogen is vanishingly small, like that of silver or aluminium – see my highlight in the above.
Where does that leave your Watts/sqm Boltzmann power calculations?
The temperature is high but the power is low. Very low
From here:
http://tech-know-group.com/papers/JCao_N2O2GreenGases_Blog.pdf
IOW, CO2 would have a cooling effect, if any.
They were right the first time, back in the 70’s.
Ammonia has a higher specific heat than water, as does liquid lithium, and helium.
Hydrogen has far higher SH.
Yes, but not a lot of that on Earth.
I was responding to this statement:
“It has very high specific heat content – it takes a lot of energy to heat water.
Nothing else comes close in the entire universe.”
Recall that this is, at it most basic level, a science site.
The statement was wrong.
Just sayin’.
The temperature of the base of the cloud is the temperature of the Lifted Condensation Level (LCL) and it is what it is. You should not presume to know what the height of the cloud is. Also, BTW, it is 41 deg Fahrenheit not Celsius.
If in case this may help.
In simpleton argument, “green house effect” is wrongly conceived… or so do I consider it, as at this point in time. 🙂
Officially it consist strictly as in the consideration that RF and “radiation effect outcome” (like either warming or cooling)
in climate happens to be or is binary or a bipolar relation structure.
And it clearly seems not to be that way or the case in hand…
It is or it seems to be more like a Tri-Polar relation in the reality, actually.
Where RF contributes to the radiation imbalance,but it is not the only contribution to radiation imbalance.
The other one, which has no name to be addressed as yet, is a radiation potential contributing to the radiation imbalance… due simply of the fact, of the atmospheric thermal expansion or atmospheric thermal variation, as a result of the atmosphere’s volume and surface expansion, or variation…
due to the thermal variation .
The “green house effect” the radiation effect in climate depends in both these factors, RF and thermal expansion of the atmosphere, a Tri-Polar relation so to speak, or claim.
The radiation effect it will contribute to add on in warming or a gain in heat content in the system, only if both factors contribute to it…in synchronicity.
You have one of them only contributing when the other is not, completely outside the clause of synchronicity among;
then the “green house effect” in this case means loss of heat content from the earth system…
Where wider the departing from this synchronicity, higher the thermal loss from the system.
In this explanation given here, about the GH perception, in a Tri-Polar relation, the radiation imbalance could very well trigger a significant thermal heat loss from the system, if it happens to increase solely due to only one of the factors, which ever that be, either RF,,, or the thermal expansion (or thermal variation of atmosphere)…
Simply put, the increase of “sunshine potential” aka what we consider as GH effect, could and would lead to a
condition of a significant Earth’s negative energy balance, when only influenced by one of the factors that
contributes to it (ether that being the RF or the thermal variation of the atmosphere)… where GH effect increasing, would lead to loss or cooling, not a gain or warming.
Tri-Polar structures or Tri-Polar functions work and behave in a given system, in far much more complex and very much different ways than the bipolar ones…usually.
Sorry if this a bit long, and hopefully the point made may be understood, regardless of it being subject
to be wrong, or found wrong.
Thank you Anthony…and happy new year to you…and any one else… 🙂
cheers
The disagreement is not with mechanism, but with effect, or rather effectiveness.
Enter citizen scientist Willis Eschenbach, a frequent contributor at Wattsupwiththat.com, who back in 2012 posted there a “proof” that Nikolov was wrong. The simplicity of the proof makes it powerful, indeed. I don’t know why I did not notice it at the time. My apologies to Willis.
Basically, the proof starts with the simplified case of the average planetary temperature without an atmosphere, which can be calculated using a single equation (the Stefan-Boltzmann equation). Conceptually, …
This is already unnecessarily complicated.
What needs an answer first before anything else is this really simple question.
Zeller and Nikolov state simply that the surface atmospheric temperature on all planets can be calculated from atmospheric pressure (mass of the atmosphere) and gravity (mass of the planet) alone.
IS THIS TRUE?
Or not.
It’s really simple – three columns of numbers.
Does anyone have the answers this?
Any discussion without starting at this question is a waste of time and a distraction.
Is it true? Read “The Mystery of Equation 8“. It is true but meaningless, because it is a result of “overfitting”.
w.
If it is true, then atmospheric and planetary mass alone explain surface atmospheric temperature. (Distance from the sun also presumably plays a role.)
Thus there is no role for atmospheric composition, it doesn’t matter if it is nitrogen or ammonia or CO2 or whatever.
Also there is no role for radiative effects which are then shown to always equalise and come out in the wash.
It’s game over. Zeller and Nikolov are correct.
“It’s game over. Zeller and Nikolov are correct.”
Even without mentioning any numbers.
BTW, “Tasfay Martinov” is a fake name.
Yes, about half the names here are fake. I’ve also posted as:
phlogiston
belousov
Tatonka Chesli (very briefly)
phil salmon (my actual name)
ptolemy2
Tasfay Martinov
Just a bit of fun.
First amendment anyone?
Tasfay Martinov January 1, 2019 at 1:52 am
I can understand you not having the balls to post under your own name. But don’t try to pass off posting under a half-dozen names as “a bit of fun”. It is a slimy trick intended to deceive. It allows you to post things and then not take responsibility for them, which is a cowardly act.
You just canceled your vote with me.
Bye …
w.
Willis
Your response to my transparency is to call me slimy and a coward. Fine. But denying what is in reality a very thin web anonymity would haves chilling effect on free speech. As you can see I don’t hide who I am to anyone interested. Call me what you like, but web anonymity is a choice that for now is backed by law and something that many find valuable.
Try to rely more on force of argument and less on bullying and coercion. It’s what you say, not who you are, that should matter.
Phil.
Lest you should think this is me Willis, it is not!
And the “compression heating” quote in the lead is deliberate fake news, a CNN specialty, or more like Spiegel just this week.
Yet it goes back to Aristotle the poisoner, a long tradition….
Tasfay Martinov
January 1, 2019 at 1:52 am
————–
I do like your choice of “ptolemy2”, really 🙂
Nick
I said “if”. I don’t have the numbers to hand. I get the impression that Willis and others are not disputing Z&N’s simple mathematical proposal but engaging in a debate about mechanisms and explanations. See my post below about Popper and deduction / induction.
Unfortunately it is not true and easy to prove wrong and there are a hundred ways to skin this cat because it is “not even wrong”.
“It’s game over. Zeller and Nikolov are correct.”
did you check the data? like the data they used for the moon ( actually amodel)
or the data used for the earth ( not correct as well)
or the data they ignored?
Tasfay Martinov
Consider what the temperature of Venus would be if it were located beyond the orbit of Pluto. I cannot imagine that it would be as warm as it is close to the sun. The heat has to come from somewhere, and the inverse-square law says that a body close to a heat source will receive much more heat than one at a great distance.
Sorry, I’m just a dumb high school guy plus a few years of life so I can only think in simple terms. Help me out.
Some where I heard about PVT. Would converting liquids and solids (oil, coal, limestone to cement) into gasses add heat to the atmosphere? Does this increase volume? Is the volume limited by gravity? Does it expand as it gets warmer? Are these materials not made with energy from the sun then conserved until burned?
In any case I got a kick out of that linked article: Elect more Democrats or we are all doomed.
I think the answer to all of your questions is yes, except for perhaps there are many exceptions to the last question.
It is only a proof to someone who understands basic physics. You cannot explain heat and material balances to a dog.
Tom
I’ve explained heat and material balances to my dog many times. She watches me intently the whole time. But, I can tell by her body language that what she is thinking is, “When do I get the treat?”
I am not sure if this will add to the argument, but I did an experiment with my physics classes a couple years back to support (or refute) Willis’ claims. Perhaps there is something I am missing about this experiment.
I wanted to simulate a vertical column of air molecules. Since all the horizontal motion cancels, I only needed to worry about vertical motion. I set up a small airtrack (near frictionless sliders on a linear track) on a very slight incline, and placed a series of sliders on the track representing molecules. I gave each a small amount of energy at random positions and allowed them to bounce around. Once the system was in equilibrium, the molecules at the bottom of the track moved faster than the ones at the top.
Next, I put more sliders on the track, put them in the same relative positions (basically increasing the density of sliders), and then allowed them to bounce around. When equilibrium was reached, the sliders at the bottom were moving faster than before, and the height that the top slider reached was higher than in the first experiment. However, when I repeated this by placing sliders at the bottom (with no initial gravitational energy), I did not see the corresponding increase in velocity at the bottom, and height at the top.
Next, I tried to simulate the column of air being energized from the bottom by using a drill with an irregular shaped spool at the bottom, to strike the lowest slider with small amounts of “random” energy, 10 seconds on, 10 seconds off (day and night). There are small frictional losses in the sliders, which may represent energy losses to space. I used one slider, four sliders, then 8 sliders to see if there was any difference. With around the same amount of power being added to the system, the more sliders I added, the more speed the “atmosphere” molecules had at the bottom, and the higher the top slider would bounce. This was true if I started all the sliders at rest on the spool or if I started them in random positions along the slider (starting them off with gravitational potential energy).
Now, to me, this suggests that the mass of the atmosphere would impact the temperature at the surface, independent of GHG. Compression also does not need to be invoked to explain this either. And yet, the oceans also behave as a fluid. Why do the oceans not exhibit a lapse rate? It would seem that my experiment should also be valid for molecules of a vertical column of liquid, but they don’t.
Any insight would be appreciated. I’m having a hard time puzzling out my results.
Thanks
Water is incompressible, so it does not undergo changes in volume as the pressure changes, at least not enough to make much difference.
It is not that air is a fluid that causes compressional heating, but that it is a gas.
Same number of molecules in a smaller volume with the same total internal energy means they must move faster and are thus hotter.
If you had taken physical chemistry you would have studied this in detail.
Here is a place to start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_process
I have a degree in Chemical Engineering and have taken graduate thermo, and of course undergrad PCHEM. This is a about the apparent temperature changes with height in a column of fluid, not the temperature of the entire batch. Sorry to have confused you, my description above was brief.
I am not in the least bit confused.
You asked why the ocean, being a fluid, does not have a lapse rate like the atmosphere.
Consider that PV=nRT is the ideal gas law, not the ideal fluid law.
PV= nRT is an energy balance and deals with the average states of the entire mass of gas, not the distribution of temperatures within a volume.
?
Well then consider that using the example of the ocean having no lapse rate falsifies your hypothesis that compression has nothing to do with it.
Basically, N&Z have made the grade school error of postulating a perpetual motion machine. Compress some gas, use the heat created, but the heat is still there! Great!
Is that really what NZ say?
Don132
Stephen Wilde December 31, 2018 at 11:22 am
As far as I know this is simply NOT true. If there are ongoing non-radiative processes (conduction/convection), they simply lower the object’s temperature … but whatever the lower temperature resulting from conduction/convetion might be, the S-B equation accurately calculates the radiation coming from the object at that temperature.
w.
It’s nice to see that W agrees that a non GHG atmosphere will lower the surface temperature.
EdB, since I have NEVER denied that GHGs raise the surface temperature, I have no clue what you are referring to.
w.
Willis,
I can tell that you have not read the description of the process that I linked to. You should do so.
Stephen, I can tell that you have not answered the question. I’ve posted it below. Give it your best shot.
w.
If the temperature was pressure related, wouldn’t the temperature be even all over the earth? Why then are the poles cold and the equator hot?
Also, if the temperature was pressure related, why does the air cool when a cloud goes overhead?
No, the incident radiation is less at the Poles because of the angle it hits the earth. Equator maximum and poles minimum
Very informative article. I unlearned something I thought I knew and while I may not be any smarter, I think I am now less ignorant. WUWT is always a must read.
If I read that right, there is no need for freon-based air conditioning is a Zeller-Nikolov world, as it just doesn’t work.
A quick glance at comments tells me we seem to be talking at cross-purposes.
Why would an atmosphere that absorbs heat from the surface from conduction/convection with the surface (and not, note, by “compressive heating”) necessarily lead to more radiation from the surface? Atmospheric heat isn’t adding heat to the surface, is it, if it isn’t radiating to the surface? Might it be slowing radiative heat loss by the surface … kinda like, ummm, let’s see… GHGs?
I’m happy to see supporters of N-Z.
Glad to see everyone is staying civil. It’s a slippery slope once we start calling names. We can all just have little fun with this and try to puzzle it out without assuming that the person who doesn’t understand us is an utter ass and doesn’t know jack.
I’ll have more to say when I have time to read carefully.
Happy New Year, All.
Don132
Referring to the Dutton/Brune Penn State METEO 300 chapter 7.2: These two professors quite clearly assume/state that the earth’s current 0.3 albedo would remain even if the atmosphere were gone or if the atmosphere were 100 % nitrogen, i.e. at an average 240 W/m^2 OLR and an average S-B temperature of 255 K.
That is just flat ridiculous.
NOAA says that without an atmosphere the earth would be a frozen ice-covered ball.
That is just flat ridiculous^2.
Without the atmosphere or with 100% nitrogen there would be no liquid water or water vapor, no vegetation, no clouds, no snow, no ice, no oceans and no longer a 0.3 albedo. The earth would get blasted by the full 394 K, 121 C, 250 F solar wind.
The sans atmosphere albedo might be similar to the moon’s as listed in NASA’s planetary data lists, a lunarific 0.14, 390 K on the lit side, 100 K on the dark. (Nikolov & Kramm)
And the naked, barren, zero water w/o atmosphere earth would receive 25% to 40% more kJ/h of solar energy and as a result would be 20 to 30 C hotter not 33 C colder, a direct refutation of the greenhouse effect theory and most certainly NOT a near absolute zero frozen ball of ice.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6466699347852611584
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6457980707988922368
https://sos.noaa.gov/Education/script_docs/SCRIPTWhat-makes-Earth-habitable.pdf
With 30 % albedo: 957.6 W/m^2, 360.5 K, 87.5 C, 189.5 F
With 14% albedo: 1,176.5 W/m^2, 379.5 K, 106.5 C, 223.8 F
With 0% albedo: 1,367.5 W/m^2, 394.0 K, 121.0 C, 250.0 F
I’m a layman in this subject.
I understand how force applied to a gas, say in a pump, will heat it and gravity is a force.
I also understand how some gases react to IR radiation by absorbing and emitting it.
I can’t see how the two theories discussed here are mutually-exclusive.
I’m probably wrong though.
A planet w/o an atmosphere will have one side very hot and the other very cold, unless it spin rapidly by respect of its heating star. Since SB equation is to the fourth power, the hot side will radiate a lot. So it is logical that w/o an atmosphere, a planet will radiate much more for the same globally averaged temperature than one with an atmosphere that will smooth the min max temprerature.
Has anyone ever plotted the average global air pressure with time? How does that correlate with the average temperature?
And does P1V1T1 still equal P2V2T2?
Not for the atmosphere, no.
The atmosphere is not a homogeneous entity contained in a box.
It’s T, P and density vary in 3D throughout it
Additionally Charles’s law (which comprises the Ideal gas law), states that, for a given mass of an ideal gas at constant pressure, the volume is directly proportional to its absolute temperature, assuming in a closed system.
The atmosphere is not closed.
It is free to expand into space. (V can change)
It can exchange mass into/out of the system.
Then why is it possible to calculate the temperature of a point on the Earth’s surface based on incoming UV radiation and absorptivity/emissivity properties only, with no reference to downwelling IR radiation? How then is it possible to calculate the temperature profile of the atmosphere again with no reference to downwelling IR? If there is the claimed downwelling IR energy that is in excess of the energy received from the sun and which heats the solid and liquid surface of the earth, why can’t we recover it for nice free energy? Why is it that lines of constant temperature are also approximately isobars (snow line), why Jericho is warmer that Jerusalem and death valley warmer than everywhere else in the UK (based on elevation/pressure?). When I can see why, I’ll accept that the Greenhouse effect is correct and the atmospheric effect incorrect, I hope that somebody can help me.
Significantly, Willis pointed out that if atmospheric pressure is instead what raises the temperature above the S-B value, as the Zeller-Nikolov theory claims, the rate of energy loss by infrared radiation will then go up (for the same reason a hotter fire feels hotter on your skin at a distance). But now the energy loss by the surface is greater than the energy gained, and energy is no longer conserved. Thus, warming cannot occur from increasing pressure alone.
Wrong – this WADR is dysfunctional epistemology and a corrective dose of Karl Popper is needed.
You are confusing and mixing the conjecture with its mechanistic explanation. The conjecture is the conjecture. The explanation is something else.
Z&N’s conjecture is:
“Atmospheric surface temperature can be simply derived from (1) solar irradiation and (2) atmospheric pressure, only.”
The Popperian test of this conjecture is simple – do the arithmetic, is it true or not – and it is risky? If it were not true it would be easily and quickly shown not to be true. A Popperian refutation.
But there is no refutation. The maths holds up and the claimed relationship is true.
So the conjecture has survived a true objective and risky test.
Willis’ claimed refutation argument collapses epistemologically because it is inductive and avoids the simple deductive question of conjecture-testing. The refutation argument creates a straw man. It says, “here is the mechanistic explanation that I think Z&N propose for their observation and here’s why that explanation is false.”
No – that radiative explanation is Willis’, not Z&N’s. It is a straw man. You can’t bring in explanation when trying to refute a conjecture. It’s much simpler and logically cleaner than that. We propose that A1.B.1/C1 = A2.B2/C2. It’s either true or not, yes or no.
The question of explanation is a separate question from the conjecture itself. You can’t refute conjecture by saying “here’s a possible explanation for the conjure which is false”. This only shows that the refuter is wrong, not the conjecturer.
Conjecture-refutation is deductive, explanation crosses into the territory of inductive. Popper, following Hume, showed that the truth-finding process of science can only be deductive. He went as far as to say “there are no inductive inferences”. Which is as much as to say “there are no climate computer simulations”.
How can Z&N’s conjecture – mathematically not refuted so still in play – be explained? That is our problem. Not theirs. A “problem” for those who are curious, i.e. for true scientists.
What Z&N have given us is an observation, an empirical mini-law. Surface gas temperature is related to solar irradiation and gravitational pressure. How can it make sense thermodynamically? Find out – if you want to achieve something worthwhile as a scientist. But don’t confuse observation with explanation, deductive with inductive.
For example, Weggener proposed the conjecture that continents move, separating and colliding. His conjecture was opposed for the wrong (Popperian) reason. It’s rejection was inductive, not deductive. The opposing argument was in the end one of smallness of imagination and courage. It said – we can’t possibly imagine any mechanism for continents drifting, so we won’t take seriously the (albeit circumstantial) evidence and argument for it.
Weggener was right, and acceptance of his theory which is now the foundation of geology was delayed half a century by blurred epistemology, confusing deduction with induction, and deficient imagination.
Today, accepting a conjecture that runs counter to CAGW requires adherence to strict Popperian epistemology – is it refutable? If so, is it refuted or not? However it also requires imagination and almost unimaginable courage in the political environment of climate science.
There was a mountain of physical evidence for the continents drifting, e.g. that South America was once joined to Africa.
It was not merely circumstantial evidence.
Popper of the Mont Pelerin Society, Aristotle’s spawn, is definitely not the rule.
Edgar Allan Poe, another poet, knew this too – Kant of the creeping and crawling inductive-deductive method, who Can’t soar to scientific discovery – silly amphibians! (Mellonta Tauta, Eureka).
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/poe/eureka.html
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/POE/mellonta.html :
Two of Aries Tottle’s disciples were Neuclid and Cant, until the Hog preached something Baconian.
Before claiming to know the “scientific method”, have a look at Poe, Heine, and then wonder how ye missed it.
Some fool at Paris in 1927 tried to smear Einstein as a Kant-ian – response : Chacun a son Quant-à-soi. He was the only objector to the Copenhagen gang, never gave in, even being called a antediluvian.
Planck’s Quantum is not an amphibian “inductive-deductive” Baconian creeping and crawling – the scientific method of discovery is definitely not from jellyfish, not trilobites.
Quantum theory came from a straightforward deductive observation – photoelectric emitted photons had discreet, not continuous energy.
Yes on a cake of deductive you can have inductive icing and even an inductive cherry or two.
After all, conjectures have to come from somewhere.
I actually agree with your exposure of the straw dog above.
Most mechanistic explanations make the pair-wise mistake, such as Newton’s gravitational force thought experiment involving centripetal acceleration. The magic of saying imagine the sun removed and the planet would fly off is the give away, but the real exposure then is the famous 3 body problem.
Where is the error there? It is insidious, widespread, turning up again here.
Conjectures do not come from the data, neither inductively nor deductively. Take Planck’s h (help) idea – nowhere in the data with a calculated horrible UV infinity (BB power spectrum) is such a tiny constant to be found nor even a discreet process. Quantum theory came from the resolution of that infinity; Einstein confirmed it later with the Photo Electric conjecture.
DeBroglie really let the cat out of the bag with his quantum pilot waves. Bohm’s rediscovery of these waves refuted von Neumann’s “impossibility proof” showing how an insidious apparently harmless extra assumption was used as a straw dog. See J.S. Bell on that subject.
I agree but we need at least one more planet or moon with data to prove the hypothesis. Willis has correctly pointed out the paucity of data points to validate the NZ curve. I give them high marks for a simpler method, and I derived their parameterized equations. That’s a start for me.
I look forward to hearing more.
I agree.
And Happy New Year everyone!
Not sure I understand why the slowing of radiative heat loss by atmospheric GHGs wouldn’t violate any laws, but that a slowing of heat loss through an atmospheric density that retains heat would.
Let me rephrase one of the paragraphs in the top post:
“Significantly, Willis pointed out that if [greenhouse gases are] what raises the [surface] temperature above the S-B value, as the [radiative greenhouse] theory claims, the rate of energy loss by infrared radiation will then go up (for the same reason a hotter fire feels hotter on your skin at a distance). But now the energy loss by the surface is greater than the energy gained, and energy is no longer conserved. Thus, warming cannot occur from increasing [greenhouse gases] alone.”
Am I missing something?
Don132
Would it not violate the laws of physics if a dense surface atmosphere did NOT absorb heat from a surface warmed by the sun?
Where is the greenhouse effect? Where is the greenhouse? Are not the oceans significant stores of “greenhouse” energy? Would they not warm an atmosphere even in the absence of GHGs, if such a thing were possible on a water planet?
Nothing is as simple as it seems but sometimes we assume it’s simple.
Don132
The only people that seem to be assuming the atmosphere is simple are the warmistas, when they claim that CO2 is the thermostat of the Earths atmosphere.