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]).
I’m wondering if a clearer way of looking at things to bring out the main issues wouldn’t be to imagine what would happen if the sun were to suddenly go out. What would happen next? How much energy is locked in the system? How would this energy dissipate? And what would happen to the atmosphere and climate? I think that depending on whether you opt for the gravitationists, or the CO2 greenhouseists the answers will be different.
Also regarding the original paper at the heart of all this do the greenhouse contingent agree or disagree with the idea that the atmospheric warming is much greater than currently appreciated? Do they agree that the modified way of calculating the S-B temperature of an atmosphereless planet is an improvement on current ways of calculating it?
We are going off at various tangents again.
Refer back to Willis’s unreal and impossible model. It is still useful.
It proposes no convection which results in an isothermal atmosphere because conduction takes over from convection and the lapse rate disappears as heat is conducted upward from molecule to molecule. There is no ATE.
Then switch convection back on again.
The lapse rate will reappear as a result of the up and down movement switching KE to PE in rising areas and PE to KE in falling areas. As the lapse rate returns so will the ATE.
We can use Willis’s own model on his terms and demonstrate that convection up and down within a gravitational field is the cause of an ATE without resort to GHGs.
Willis has proved it for us.
Yes you’re right. Let’s stick to Willis’ model. I agree it could amount to a nice reductio ad absurdum.
I think you have made two good arguments to that effect that are yet to be refuted.
Although on Ned’s side he has yet to answer Willis’ challenge to run his calcs over the two celestial bodies that Willis claims don’t fit his theory.
But what about this second bit? Ned’s paper. After all their paper is at the heart of all this is it not? Is there any agreement between the two sides here on the basic calculations? Could this revolve around something to do with the role of the magnetosphere in modulating solar effects? Are we talking about planets without an atmosphere, or planets without both an atmosphere and a magnetosphere? This would presumably have a big impact on where you start out when adding ATE would it not? The moon has only a very weak magnetosphere. Although the CO2ists should answer your challenge first though.
This thread is over a week old and now has attracted 1,428 comments to date. There are now 49 posts above it but it is unlikely to attract new viewers because the side banner on this blog no-longer shows a list of recent comments.
Too true.
Just as we have got to the nub of the problem with Willis’s model.
Maybe Anthony might consider a new thread inviting comments on my description. No objector here in nearly 1500 posts has specified any flaw in the physics or in the logic.
Or Anthony could start a new thread inviting comments on Willis’s conceptual model rather than taking it as a proof of a disputed issue even before the thread opens.
“No objector here in nearly 1500 posts has specified any flaw in the physics or in the logic.”
Incorrect, that is only in Stephen’s imagination. Both N&Z and Stephen fail 1LOT in their description of adiabatic heating in a free atm. as is the top post point. There is no entity to pump the handle up and down repeatedly as in a bicycle tire pump process for their imagined atm. adiabatic heating process. Pressure alone can not do so.
Do you mean on Mr Eschenbach’s imaginary world?
Or in the real universe?
I mean the real world. Perfom your own observations in the real world, better to be a realist, don’t use Stephen’s imagination, or even N&Z or Willis or mine. Observation is what makes science work not anyone’s imagination. Classrom courses have lab courses attached.
Elon can imagine getting to Mars, observed science has to make it work. Galileo imagined things, but had to climb the stairs and drop the stuff. Stephen’s writing is pure imagination since 2007.
Unfortunately “Class Room Courses” have been teaching the wrong stuff about many things for years.
So what Lab courses prove that there is no recharging of the adiabatic process in the real world?
Because I am sure that I can read about them on the web somewhere.
Trick, actually, don’t bother because we had this discussion a year or 2 ago on one of the Slayer type threads and you didn’t convince me then so I don’t think you will now.
There are just too many inconsistencies for me and whne the so called keepers of the science have to fudge the data it really weakens their cause.
If the real world observations don’t convince A C, there is nothing useful that will convince A C. A C’s comments are then imaginative at best.
”So what Lab courses prove that there is no recharging of the adiabatic process in the real world?”\
All lab courses get results/conclusions from data taken in a real-world process. If whatever is meant by your “no recharging of the adiabatic process” A C can prove its accuracy in a proper lab.
One last comment before I take care of business today.
Overall, I find it hard to believe that pressure is just sitting there waiting to function on behalf of the lapse rate. This is an intuitive belief, and I admit it. Atmospheric surface pressure is huge and I compare it to the weight of 20 grand pianos/m2. I’ve moved pianos; they’re way heavy.
As Holmes pointed out, pressure calculations are used to determine mine temperatures, and although I’m not re-reading that now my bet is that there’re no terms for radiative effects. Yet those who hold that radiative effects rule continually invoke pressure in the form of the lapse rate to make their theory work.
There’s been no definitive proof that the ATE is correct– by that I mean there’s no logical conundrum presented that forces a conclusion one way or another; my guess is that the logical conundrum exists, but we haven’t discovered it just yet.
The simple question seems to be, without invoking PE and KE, how does pressure make for a surface atmosphere temperature above BB? I know Stephen will complain that you need PE and KE but my question is how do we get to KE in the first place, to get the whole things working? Maybe we’re back to the bicycle tire analogy again and that’s OK; I believe we need to dig down and sort it out. How does it work? It works for Chinook winds and everyone understands that, but how does it work under constant pressure?
Somewhere there’s a simple and precise way to state what’s at issue. When we find that key point then we can argue in detail and maybe sort it out.
Don132
“It works for Chinook winds..”
Yes that’s observed local adiabatic warming process. They are local process, dissipate the energy spreading it out & are not global. Try to find an observation to understand the process.
Don, when you return you may like to read this post to increase your knowledge about how simplistic the CO2 GHG theory is compared to how the Atmosphere actually works.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/tropopause-rules/
Unfortunately one of the links no longer works as it is an old post.
Thanks for the link.
Don132
Trick,
Is the Hadley Cell big enough for you?
The hadley cell is not a chinook wind.
So what is your understanding of a Hadley Cell?
Just google string: hadley cell
& look for real world observations which then should equal yours, Willis’, N&Z’ and my understanding.
You get to KE in the first place via solar heating of the surface.
You get to PE at the end of ascent.
Back to KE at the end of the descent.
Go back to Willis’s model which has no convection no lapse rate and no ATE.
Just switch on convection.
The rising air creates a pool of cool high PE air at the top and falling air creates a pool of warm high KE air at the bottom.
You will observe a lapse rate developing from top to bottom due to the high level cooling and low level warming.
The ATE arises as the lapse rate slope develops.
That is as simple as it gets.
No convection = no ATE
Convection = ATE.
What else is needed ?
Come on Trick, don’t be shy. Tell me in your own words what your understanding of a Hadley Cell is.
”Back to KE at the end of the descent.”
Only in your imagination Stephen. No descent column is ever observed.
In real life there is no descent column as demonstrations show for a fluid warmed from below, there is a fairly well-defined column rising, but that column mushrooms out at the top and spreads out when the column excess warming T equalizes with surroundings & hydrostatic.
Fluid flows in from the bottom at the same temperature and pressure before the uneven warming happened. Again, see youtube search: convection
You have to do experiments with convection to learn what happens Stephen, convection is way too messy for your imagination.
—-
”Tell me in your own words what your understanding of a Hadley Cell is”.
Already did, my words would be found exactly from just google string: hadley cell
Hadley cells are messy. You can get through a whole first course in atm. thermodynamics & atm. radiation without having to deal with them. I observe this long comment string does not contain many who have even done that, I suggest leave Hadley cells for grad. school.
Ah Trick, that’s so sweet. So, you won’t tell you what know in case I find something wrong with it.
You must be a climate scientist.
Ok. Phil, I’m willing to fill in my education on hadley cells. Tell my what is a hadley cell, in your own words. Be prepared, I’ll compare them to what I find using google string: hadley cell
No Trick, that’s not how the game is played, it’s turn and turnabout.
So, take a deep breath, gently does it, in your own words. Off you go.
Phil, by now you should have understood I’m playing no game, Hadley cells aren’t of interest to me – they are easy to google. Hadley circulation adds and subtracts equal amount of thermodynamic internal energy to the surface globally over 4-12+ annual periods as observed with no effect on surface temperatures. All they do is move energy around within the system. Again, in my own words google string: Hadley cell
Or in my own words go to your local college librarian or amazon.com to find what my own words would be on Hadley cells, search string: Hadley cell
In my own words: I play no game, knock yourself out.
Don,
“There’s been no definitive proof that the ATE is correct..”
.
Have you read my papers/above posts?
The so-called ‘lapse rate’ IS the thermal enhancement (or what some mistakenly call the ‘greenhouse effect’).
There aren’t TWO thermal enhancements, there is only one, and it’s caused by solar-powered convection and gravity-powered auto-compression.
The two proofs that the thermal enhancement is NOT caused by any radiatve greenhouse effect is contained in the fact that there is no measured anomalous warming from the so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ on any planetary body, and in the fact that the Ideal gas law and its derivatives forbid any special class of gases.
Robert, the GHE is not the lapse rate. The lapse rate is only a slope. To get the intercept of temperature at the surface T(0), you will need to perform a radiative-convective equilibrium balance at P=surface. That equilibrium is a function of illumination, total surface pressure, mixing ratios of the absorbing gas species and their mass extinction coefficients (i.e. atm. opacity).
Holmes:
“The two proofs that the thermal enhancement is NOT caused by any radiative greenhouse effect is contained in the fact that there is no measured anomalous warming from the so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ on any planetary body, and in the fact that the Ideal gas law and its derivatives forbid any special class of gases.”
But as has been pointed out many times, the gas laws don’t specify where the heat is coming from, and if atmospheric heat is due to GHGs then that would naturally be reflected in the ideal gas law. So I don’t think that’s any proof. If the ATE theory is indeed correct, then there must be a proof that it and it alone can raise the BB temp of a planet.
In re-reading your paper I find nothing that states the exact mechanism for increased KE at the surface, and that seems to be the issue. That pressure establishes the thermal gradient I don’t think is in dispute, but that the mechanism for the starting KE above what would be expected from the BB temp is what I think is missing. To say that this is due to adiabatic auto-compression only explains the lapse rate; I don’t think it explains the heat content of the atmosphere as a whole, whereas the radiative GHE does account for the heat in the atmosphere above BB. If this radiative effects are too weak or are immediately countered by convective effects, that may be so but I think this is conjecture as opposed to proof. The only proof, I think, would be in the demonstration that initial KE must be due to pressure.
Have NZ included radiative effects in their dimensional analysis? I don’t see that they have. But for that matter, is there any universal formula such that given “x” amount of GHG and any other factors, we then get surface temperature? If there is, what is it? If there isn’t, then shouldn’t there be one?
But the bottom line is, given adiabatic auto-compression, how would that necessarily raise the temperature of the surface atmosphere above BB? In the PE/KE account, how do you get the initial KE required? From the sun, yes, but how does that necessarily raise above BB temp?
Don132
Recycling of the potential energy store in the atmosphere explains the surface temperature rise.
When convection starts it creates the lapse rate slope by putting more PE at the top for a cooling effect and more KE at the bottom for a warming effect, that gives the thermal gradient.
You then have to realise that solar input continues as before but once recycling begins nothing is then being taken from the surface to support convection.
Thus you get the full effect from continuing insolation PLUS the extra energy at the surface needed to keep convection running.
It is a simple accounting issue.
Don
“..as has been pointed out many times, the gas laws don’t specify where the heat is coming from..”
.
Yes, and it is I who have (many times) pointed this out.
What is your point here?
My paper shows that the way to rule out a GHG warming is that it is possible to use the molar mass version of the ideal gas law to discover what is NOT causing a temperature change.
How this is done is detailed in the paper;
i.e. If there is a GHE from a GHG then it MUST cause an anomalous change in density, pressure or both.
If no anomalous change in these two are seen then there is no GHE and no such thing as GHG.
.
“..the mechanism for the starting KE above what would be expected from the BB temp is what I think is missing. To say that this is due to adiabatic auto-compression only explains the lapse rate.”
.
But the ‘lapse rate’ IS the THERMAL GRADIENT/ENHANCEMENT which some call the ‘greenhouse effect’!
How can I be more clear?
The mechanism for the production of ‘extra’ kinetic energy in a thick atmosphere has been detailed ad-nausea already. You want it detailed again?
.
“..the radiative GHE does account for the heat in the atmosphere above BB. ”
.
This statement is like pointing to a speck in my eye when there is a beam in your own. A warming atmosphere must comply with the gas laws and expand. An expanding gas cools. Therefore no warming can possibly result from any GHG forcing.
Surface gas temperatures are not determined by a greenhouse effect; they are determined by insolation and auto-compression.
.
“In the PE/KE account, how do you get the initial KE required? ”
.
From the gas laws; they demand it.
”When convection starts it creates the lapse rate slope by putting more PE at the top for a cooling effect and more KE at the bottom for a warming effect, that gives the thermal gradient.”
Not observed Stephen. Convection is nowhere observed putting “more KE at the bottom for a warming effect” because there is nothing pumping the bicycle pump handle up & back down repeatedly in the real world for your ill-advised version of adiabatic warming.
Convection is observed to stop when the T and density of the convected particles equalize with the surroundings somewhere up the column. Which creates mostly hydrostatic atm. along the lapse The rising air is replaced laterally at the bottom of the column.
It is a simple meteorological issue.
”If there is a GHE from a GHG then it MUST cause an anomalous change in density, pressure or both.”
Robert 6:34pm, the gas laws are satisfied with the surface of an IR ~transparent atm. in balance at 255K. The gas laws are also satisfied at 288K with today’s atm. IR opacity. So your statement is false, a GHG must NOT have to cause an anomalous change in density, pressure or both.
”But the ‘lapse rate’ IS the THERMAL GRADIENT/ENHANCEMENT which some call the ‘greenhouse effect’!”
The lapse is a rate not a temperature. You merely put up a strawman with which to fight for no purpose. Your strawman has no bearing on the actual atm. opacity effects on surface temperature (aka GHE).
”A warming atmosphere must comply with the gas laws and expand. An expanding gas cools. Therefore no warming can possibly result from any GHG forcing.”
Earth atm. expands and contracts daily. The 33K is unaffected. No total system warming can possibly result from any GHG forcing but the global surface T can be warmed by atm. opacity increases as upper atm. equally cools by the same effect.
Trick,
Your reply is laughable in its complete ignorance. You said;
.
“a GHG must NOT have to cause an anomalous change in density, pressure or both.”
.
The existence of a GHG, or any change in the concentration of a GHG simply HAS to cause an anomalous change in density or pressure – if the GHE exists.
This is detailed in my latest paper, which if you have read, you certainly have not understood.
In the case of a doubling of CO2 to 0.08% in the Earth’s atmosphere, the anomalous effect HAS to happen.
If the climate sensitivity is 3C (ECS) as claimed by the IPCC, then the anomalous change in pressure (if pressure alone changes) would be of the order of 25x.
In the case of density, (if density alone changes) the anomalous change would have to be of the order 23x.
.
” …the gas laws are satisfied with the surface of an IR ~transparent atm. in balance at 255K. The gas laws are also satisfied at 288K with today’s atm. IR opacity. ”
.
Who said they aren’t?
This is too embarrassing, you haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about on this subject.
.
“The lapse is a rate not a temperature… ”
.
Of course it is. It is a THERMAL GRADIENT/ENHANCEMENT of 6.5c/km in the troposphere.
Give up now before you have us all in fits of laughter at you and your total and sheer ignorance here.
Holmes:
“If there is a GHE from a GHG then it MUST cause an anomalous change in density, pressure or both.
If no anomalous change in these two are seen then there is no GHE and no such thing as GHG.”
But if there is a GHE from GHG then it will not only cause a change in density or pressure or both (simply by virtue of adding GHG molecules) but also raise the temperature, and if it raises the temperature then it must affect density and pressure, as you’ve just stated. So I guess the question to you is, if the radiative GHE were real, would the heating it caused not raise the density and/or pressure of the atmosphere? Is that what you’re saying?
“But the ‘lapse rate’ IS the THERMAL GRADIENT/ENHANCEMENT which some call the ‘greenhouse effect’! ”
The lapse rate can be the lapse rate even if the radiative GHE is true. No one argues that the lapse rate is due to pressure, but how can it cause thermal enhancement? Your proof, above, must be correct; then it would make perfect sense that the enhancement of surface T reflected in the lapse rate is due to pressure.
Don132
Holmes 2:05am: ”The existence of a GHG, or any change in the concentration of a GHG simply HAS to cause an anomalous change in density or pressure – if the GHE exists.”
There is no anomalous change in density or pressure Robert, the change in global surface T from 255K to 288K by increasing atm. opacity is fully explained, not anomalous. The GHE exists simply from comparing Earth and Venus planetary disk brightness temperatures to their global surface temperatures. The thing in between causes the difference.
On Venus, NASA measured the density (by radio signal occultation) at 1bar which data includes Venus’ full atm. opacity (GHE) & their full Venus GHE data is as used in your paper. So, of course your paper uses the full GHE of Venus to calculate the gas law at 1bar as detailed in your latest paper.
”In the case of a doubling of CO2 to 0.08% in the Earth’s atmosphere, the anomalous effect HAS to happen.”
Nothing anomalous about that, it’s very nomalous.
”If the climate sensitivity is 3C (ECS) as claimed by the IPCC, then the anomalous change in pressure (if pressure alone changes) would be of the order of 25x.”
Pressure alone does not change, there are 3 variables, all change as a function of z height.
”Who said they aren’t?”
Robert Holmes says so as Robert Holmes mistakenly calls them “anomalous”. And a thermal gradient is not a temperature Robert, it is a slope. Try a little harder to understand y=mx+b where b is a temperature and m is a gradient NOT a temperature.
“There is no entity to pump the handle up and down repeatedly.. ”
.
What do you think the Sun is doing all the time?
It’s injecting energy into our atmosphere!
Robert:
That is one end of the cycle – the rising part.
It requires that air completes the cycle.
By returning to the surface.
Gravity does NOT do it.
“That is one end of the cycle – the rising part.
It requires that air completes the cycle.
By returning to the surface.
Gravity does NOT do it.”
.
So air goes up and never comes down?
Gravity does not affect air?
Are you kidding?
Don’t you know that what goes up must come down?
This is getting beyond ridiculous; are you guys really scientists?
Good point Anthony; Robert doesn’t understand the atm. is mostly in hydrostatic equilibrium, very little available PE to convert into KE. The sun is in close radiative equilibrium with TOA and surface. There is no entity to pump Earth atm. handle up and down repeatedly for adiabatic surface warming like the bicycle tire pump handle forced up and down.
Robert 7:11pm asks: ”So air goes up and never comes down?”
Air warmed from below in a gravity field goes up until it equilibrates with surroundings. If air is not equilibrated and denser than surroundings, the air will come down. Earth atm. is by and large hydrostatic so look up what is meant by static.
”Gravity does not affect air?”
Air has mass so gravity affects air.
”Are you kidding? Don’t you know that what goes up must come down? ”
What Earth air is buoyant will go up, until it equilibrates with surroundings; what air is not equilibrated and denser than surroundings will come down.
If this was anything but a contrived exercise, it would be agreed by now among scientifically-educated participants that the empirical evidence wins. That is, Gas Laws, Solar System and experimental data from Tyndall through Wood to Hartmann and Klein etc etc.. Maxwell’s work (see Hockeyschtick) and modern Photonics eg Allmendinger who found only UHI behind Temperature increases.
But no, this is not a real debate but a contrivance. We see thought experiments taken as evidential data and pushed as gospel. Such thinking belongs in the realms of thought processes affected by plant and fungal metabolites. Which evolved to twist the mental processes of plants’ main predators, that is our own Animal Kingdom. Pity those affected, rather than give them a lectern…… Brett
Hold a bully pulpit while you can. Just expect the inevitable fate of all such. And know this, that N and Z are just two of many. Where have some folk been the last fifteen years? The real enemy is the academic marxism of Strong, Orestes, Edenhoffer etc. who would destroy us.
“There is no entity in the atm. that applies the pressure to force anything like the person pumping the bicycle handle in the real process of adiabatic heating. ”
Exactly.
Gravity acts to pull air down.
Until the air can compress no more.
Then the atmosphere is in balance between density and gravity.
The cyclist has stopped pumping his tyre.
The LR is set by vertical air motion (there are other processes besides convection that do that).
On ascent air will stop when either it has reached the same temp as the surround atmosphere or the ‘push” from below runs out of CAPE (convection bursts through the tropopause in the Tropics and elsewhere often even though it is colder).
That CAPE is gained from latent heat release in the rising parcel.
In that case it will sink under its own weight (not buoyant).
Otherwise air will converge aloft.
AND spread sideways NOT down.
In the equatorial Hadley cell it gets deflected to the right and converges into the sub-tropical jet (~30N/S) where it is forced to sink. At the surface that air returns to the ITCZ as the NE trades.
That is a zero sum process when LH processes are removed.
Otherwise we would have a continually heating process (its gone round in a circle and by Stephen, been heated, whereby (presumably) gravity is utilised until radiative cooling balances.
Gravity cannot be a source of perpetual energy, obviously (it should be). Gravity gets its effect from mass and thus mass would have to shrink to supply said energy otherwise.
Other than horizontal convergence and the Coriolis force there is NO out of balance force acting on a parcel of air in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings.
It is buoyant.
One of the first things taught at Met school.
As Newton’s First Law of Motion states.
The PE of buoyant air aloft is a red-herring.
Yes, it is in a gravity field.
But it cannot be realised by gravity.
Another force is needed to move air vertically.
Vertical motion in the atmosphere is energy zero-sum,
It sets the LR and does not magic heat from gravity.
Sorry, but it beggars belief that can be believed, with proper meteorological knowledge in place.
Like I said somewhere above Stephen you don’t have that knowledge.
(I speak as a retired UKMO meteorologist)
“The density gradient then determines the angle of the lapse rate slope and the lapse rate slope inevitably induces convection which prevents the KE at the bottom from dissipating by constantly renewing in a recycling process.”
Yes, but the rising air (no LH process) loses exactly the same heat as it gained on descent.
A reversible process.
To whit it gets back to same point at the same temp it started at.
Gravity and density are in balance.
That is when the cyclist has stopped pumping.
You seem to be imaging a constant pumping action whereby gravity is the cyclists arm on the pump.
No, because it acts on the air parcel but it CANNOT move it.
The air moves because of forces other than gravity.
Convection/convergence (mainly but not always at the surface) and isentropic up-gliding and cyclogenesis due to divergence/divergence aloft.
And LH release aloft causes a parcel to become MORE buoyant.
Gravity is but a passive bystander to weather.
It did it’s bit long ago.
Sorry.
Meteorology.
You really haven’t read my description have you ?
Which stage do you consider to be incorrect ?
Stephen:
The nonsense that air having risen via convection, falls back to the surface under the “push” of gravity.
No, something else “pushes” it.
Air is buoyant unless acted upon by dynamical forces.
The atmosphere is in vertical balance otherwise between gravity and molecular density.
It will stay where it is UNLESS acted upon by dynamical forces.
The main one at the top being convergence.
Anthony
I never mentioned gravity pushing anything.
Denser air, being heavier than less dense air around it drops of its own accord
But it makes no difference why it falls. The fact is that it falls and releases KE as it does so.
So you have not shown anything in my description to be inaccurate.
My narrative would be just as correct if the descent were caused solely by convergence.
“The fact is that it falls and releases KE as it does so.”
Rising air that equilbrates in T and desnity at the top with the surroundings doesn’t fall Stephen, the process you describe exists only in your imagination. There are no descending columns as the atm. is largely hydrostatic after the rising air was replaced at the bottom of the column. You are wrong & inconsistent with observation but are too stubborn to admit it.
“Denser air, being heavier than less dense air around it drops of its own accord”
Stephen, that is because gravity is ‘pushing’ (pulling) it down.
The energy is provided by virtue of being within a gravitational field.
The definition of PE.
The cold air is not using its own energy in order to fall.
Gravity provides that.
Hence gravity is not “pumping” the atmosphere continually.
No Gravity is not pumping the Atmospere, but by your description Solar Insolation in combinaion with Gravity is.
Solar pumps it up which also cools it and Gravity pulls it back down which warms it again, in the mean time the surface continues warming all the time the sun shines.
Presumably the whole Atmosphere has expanded slightly, when it cools at night it must contract again.
Is not the expansion (less dense) and contraction(more dense) a form of work.
Of course due to the “quiet sun” the Atmosphere has had a long term contraction, so it should be slightly denser.
But it appears that the Atmosphere also breaths at the top in 3 day to 1 month cycles of expansion and contraction which also causes energy exchanges.
Who new?
A form of Perpetual motion ideed.
A C, the “pumping” you describe does come from solar, the atm. does expand during the daylight from the previous night. However, you cannot use solar for N&Z pumping as eqn. 10a only has pressure. For N&Z purposes, you have to explain the pumping in terms of the pressure variable only in 10a (and Fig. 4.) as the solar does not vary in it.
“The cyclist has stopped pumping his tyre….”
.
You guys are really too funny!
Even denying obvious facts such as that atmospheric circulation and convection exists in order to preserve the fictitious GHE.
Too sad.
Atmospheric circulation and convection exists in harmony with the atm. IR opacity (aka GHE), they help well mix the added GHG ppm. There is no purpose served denying these observations, that is only a strawman suggested by a saddened Robert.
AB: Just insane, like Trick. You ignore the Sun. Please go back to sleep. UK Met Office just goes wronger with each larger Supercomputer. You demonstrate why. Brett
Err, Brett.
The Sun provides the energy within the whole climate system, which gravity balances.
Yes, that comment was insane BTW.
Whatever your misconceptions about meteorology and NWP modelling,
I and they know that.
Any more hand-waving perchance.
Oh, and Brett – I see you seem to think you know meteorology.
Re your question above to Trick.
Do tell us what a Hadley cell is and how they form and function.
I’m all ears ( and meteorology text books are primed for a rewrite, not to mention NWP modellers).
Cue more rage induced incoherence from a MetO hater.
Ned Nikolov January 8, 2019 at 5:55 am
For a change, this time Ned is right about the 33K estimate … but for the wrong reasons.
The Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law can indeed be applied to a sphere. It’s a Law, not just a good idea. But applying it to a real Earth is, as Dr. Robert Brown aptly put it, a “damn hard problem” … just not for the reasons that Ned claims.
These days we commonly use “stand-off” infrared thermometers to measure temperatures from a distance. They work by applying the S-B law. Here’s a typical unit.
According to Ned’s claim above, these only work on flat surfaces, but not on spheres … riiight …
w.
Willis,
I don’t think Ned is saying S-B doesn’t apply to spheres. He is saying that many people incorrectly calculate the temperature of the sphere from the energy that it is receiving. He describes the ratio between the area of the disc (cross section of the earth) compared to the surface of the earth as being 1:4 which it obviously is. He then describes the ‘normal’ S-B based calculation of the earth’s temperature where one divides the average TOA energy by 4 to get the average energy per square meter of the earth’s surface and then take the fourth root of that to derive the average temperature of the earth. Ned says you should first calculate the energy received on every point on the earth’s surface then take fourth root of all those different results to get temperature of every point on the earth’s surface and then average those temperatures … which will give a different answer. He is not saying that IR emission and absorbtion doesn’t exist.
Your example of an IR meter doesn’t prove him ‘wrong’. I’m sure he has no problem with those as they are not based on taking the average fourth root of a sphere’s temperature so won’t be using either of those calculation methods. The IR meters are designed to receive an energy signal from a flat surface so won’t be using any sphere temperature calculations.
A simplified example:
The square root of 9 = 3
The square root of 4 = 2
The average of 3 and 2 is 2.5
But
The average of 9 and 4 is 6.5 The square root of 6.5 is 2.55
Ned is saying that when calculating the average temperatures of spheres, the second method is incorrect.
Thanks, Bernard. I’ve never understood just why Ned thinks this is important.
In any case, energy flux IS conserved. Temperature IS NOT conserved. Therefore, you have to average BEFORE you convert to temperature by taking the fourth root.
In other words, your recommended procedure (first calculate temperatures then average the temperatures) is guaranteed to give a wrong answer.
For example. Suppose we have a very thin plate of silver, which conducts heat very, very quickly. It receives 240 W/m2 on one side and 480 W/m2 on the other side. What will be the temperature of the plate?
If we calculate the temperature on each side separately as you say Ned recommends, we get -18°C on one side and 30°C on the other side. This gives an average of the temperatures to be 6°C.
But here’s the thing. We know that on average the plate has to be radiating 360 W/m2, because energy flux is conserved—it is receiving an average of 360 W/m2 so it has to radiate the same.
And a radiation of 360 W/m2 corresponds to an S-B temperature of 9°C …
There is a deeper problem with averaging temperatures. This relates to the difference between intensive and extensive properties. Temperature is an INTENSIVE property. Mass is an EXTENSIVE property. Suppose we have two glasses, each containing a kilo of water at 17°C. We pour them together, and we end up with two times one kilo = two kilos of water.
But when we pour them together, we do NOT get two times 17° = 34° of water … in fact, adding temperatures together has no physical meaning. Temperature is intensive. Here’s a definition:
Extensive properties like mass or volume depend on the EXTENT of the object. Bigger objects have bigger volumes and bigger masses. We can physically add them together – four two-litre jugs of water equals one eight-litre jug of water, and that is a real physical quantity.
But four jugs at 15°C do NOT equal one jug at 60°C … that has no physical meaning.
Now consider the average. We add up the items to get the total, and divide by the number of items. The average of three litres, five litres, and seven litres is fifteen litres divided by three items equals five litres.
But as shown above, ADDING TEMPERATURES IS MEANINGLESS! We can add 3°C plus 5°C plus 7°C and that gives us a total temperature of 15°C … say what?
Sorry, but there’s no physical reality in that. You can’t average intensive quantities.
So if Ned’s argument is that we need to first calculate the temperatures and then average them, he’s simply wrong … we need to first average the energy fluxes and then calculate the temperature.
Best regards,
w.
Thanks Willis! I’ve been saying that you can’t average intensive properties all along. Individuals, like Mr. Mosher, seem to think you can.
Jim
You’re completely correct re “we need to first average the energy fluxes and then calculate the temperature”. And, in fact, this is what Nikolov and Zeller claim to do with their equations that integrate TSI over a sphere. Their primary claim (“discovery”) is that the accepted “multiply by four” methodology is incorrect and results in far too high a value for a “gray body”.
I can easily imagine checking this experimentally with a vacuum chamber, a sphere covered with sensors, etc. The main point being that if N&Z are correct about this, then something is seriously wrong with the accepted “Trenberth models”. That, of course, doesn’t mean their ATE theory is correct, but to me this would be the place to start. With all the money being spent on climate research, why is there no definitive answer to what the Earth’s average temperature would be without an atmosphere? At least one that I can find.
“Earth’s average temperature would be without an atmosphere?”
Average temperature has no meaning, or at least no useful meaning.
Suppose you have a gram of water at 0 C; and a liter of water at 100 C. What is the average temperature? 50 C. But mix the water, and what is the result? Very nearly 100 C.
Reverse the experiment; one gram at 100 C and one liter at 0 C. What is the average? 50 C. Mix them; what do you get? Very nearly 0 C.
A planet whose average temperature was 17 C would be pretty nice, unless like the moon that average is obtained by having one side very hot and one side very cold.
Temperature is a measurement; an average of measurements is not itself a measurement. It can be useful for something although right now I’m not sure what exactly.
I completely misused the term “TSI” above. I meant insolation.
The opposite to this situation is the recent “plastic straw” debacle. At least in Leftie states, nobody questions the assumption that plastic straws are destroying the environment; all the debate is what to do about it.
In the N&Z case, nobody even wants to talk about their primary argument that Earth’s blackbody temperature is calculated way too high. If disproven, then the rest of their argument becomes far less relevant since greenhouse gases currently seem to explain everything. This seems like a weird approach to a layman like me.
Willis Eschenbach January 8, 2019 at 3:53 pm
‘Thanks, Bernard. I’ve never understood just why Ned thinks this is important.’
Willis,
Thanks for the description of intensive versus extensive properties which I agree is very important to differentiate between when talking about temperatures. I think your silver film example receiving back to back energy is difficult to compare to averaging the temperatures of two adjacent square meters on the earths surface. I would like to suggest another approach.
Imagine we did not know that the average energy received at TOA from the sun was 1361W/m2. Imagine also that the only data we had was the annual average temperature of each square meter of the earth’s surface – all 510 trillion of them! How would we calculate the incoming solar energy constant from that?
I think the best way would be take Ned’s calculation method and run it backwards!
In other words, start by averaging the 510 trillion temperatures to get one average global temperature and then work backwards taking the fourth power of that single average temperature, combining with the S-B constant and an emissivity assumption, adjusting for the earth being a sphere (ie. multiply by 4) and hey presto you would get the average TOA solar energy per square meter.
This is the identical method, in reverse, that Ned uses to calculate the S-B temperature of the earth with no atmosphere. This would get you back to 1361W/m2 which I think proves that Ned’s method is correct.
On this point, calculating the S-B temperature of the earth with no atmosphere, it seems to me that Ned is correct. It’s not an issue of intensive versus extensive, rather it boils down to taking an average of a set of numbers and then taking a fourth power (or a fourth root) of that average gives you a different answer than taking the fourth power (or root) of each of the numbers in the set and then averaging those results. I think when you run the S-B calculation backwards, starting with the temperature of each square meter and ending at the solar constant, the logic he is using seems to be intuitively correct.
I have no idea if the rest of his conclusions are correct but on the issue of how to calculate the S-B temperature of the earth with no atmosphere, I think his order of calculation looks to be the correct one. He says that we should break down the solar energy into all the 51 trillion different energy values that impact each square meter on earth, then take the fourth root of each of those numbers to get the temperature of each square meter, then average those temperatures to get the average world temperature. This order of calculation is better than assuming that every square meter of the earth receives the same energy from the sun – which I have to say does sound over-simplistic and definitely comes up with a different answer.
Of course, if this is correct, it means that the temperature of the earth with no atmosphere would be a lot lower than most people think.
Best regards
Dan says:
‘Their primary claim (“discovery”) is that the accepted “multiply by four” methodology is incorrect and results in far too high a value for a “gray body”.’
Dan,
I don’t think they have a problem with the “multiply by four” step in the calculation as that is simply the ratio of a sphere’s surface area to its cross-sectional area, which is basic geometry. Their issue is do you ‘average then take the fourth root’ or ‘take the fourth root then average’ when calculating temperature from emissions? You get a different answer each way.
Willis,
Apologies, but I think I fluffed the logic of reversing Ned’s calculation, However, knowing your knowledge in this area, I’m pretty sure you know what I meant to say!
🙂
Bernard,
re: “I don’t think they have a problem with the “multiply by four” step in the calculation as that is simply the ratio of a sphere’s surface area to its cross-sectional area, which is basic geometry.”
If you’ve read their papers, that really is the problem. The issue is the angle of incidence of the radiation being different along the surface of a sphere. In a perfect sphere, there is only one point that presents a perpendicular surface to the sun, which maximizes the amount of radiation that is absorbed at that point. As you get further from it, the angle of incidence increases, less energy is absorbed, and more is reflected. The poles aren’t cold because they are 93,003,959 miles from the sun but the equator is “only” 93,000,000 miles.
To me an almost perfect analogy would be air from a fan hitting a sphere vs. hitting a round disk with the same surface area. It’s pretty intuitive that there would be a lot more air pressure hitting a disk (being held perpendicular to the stream of air) than the sphere. You could further draw the sphere out to a sharp cone with the point facing the fan to make it even clearer. Same surface area, but less wind energy affecting the object.
I hope that makes sense, and again, I think it’s weird that this isn’t the main thing the experts are addressing.
Michael2,
Some good points, but take it up with the IPCC and others who want to control our lives. They invented the terms; the rest of us just try to use them appropriately.
Ah well, usual pattern.
Gravitationalists present a sound position then the objectors pile in with distraction and obfuscation so that the thread is lost.
Wait for the next relevant thread and set out the truth yet again 🙂
Mind you, each time I learn from the objectors and recruit more followers.
A fun game , is it not ?
Especially if Willis and Leif take my bait and show themselves up 🙂
Gravitationalists present a sound position…
They seem to convince themselves they do.
In your various word descriptions of your supposed process, I’ve yet to see anything that indicates the thermally driven up and down movement of parts the atmosphere (and suggested associated energy transfers) aren’t zero sum; that any localised surface heating in one place isn’t cancelled out by cooling somewhere else. Have you expressed your process mathematically so it can be examined without the ambiguity of words?
Why do you call yourselves gravitationalists? Your process, even if real, is thermally (solar) powered. Gravity doesn’t power anything here, it’s just part of the environment; affecting everything equally. Might as well call yourselves surfacists, planetists, or air-cellists (windbags?).
…recruit more followers.
I expect that’s a zero sum game as well. Those you excite in this round are compensated by those lost to eventual realisation + those dulled by the tedium.
If you ever bothered to read my description you would see that I fully accept that the up and down motion is zero sum, Indeed, that is the whole point because zero sum means no energy in AND no energy out so it is obviously a closed energy loop that needs a store of kinetic energy at the surface to maintain the ongoing process.
Have you engaged your brain at all ?
Have you engaged your brain at all ?
Of course, that’s how I can see that the consequence of the balanced up and down motions is balanced localised areas of cooling and warming. Resulting in no global significance.
…a closed energy loop that needs a store of kinetic energy at the surface to maintain the ongoing process.
So you’ve solved global warming and achieved perpetual motion in the same thread.
>>
. . . achieved perpetual motion in the same thread.
<<
Ahhh! Something on this thread I can agree with! From my thermodynamics text:
Jim
All you need for convection within a gas is density variations in the horizontal plane.
It is possible to have perpetual motion within a gas because of the weak bonds between molecules. It is just that in a gravitational field the motion gets organised into an up and down pattern.
Perpetual motion in a gaseous body is not the same as an admittedly impossible perpetual motion machine because it does not create or destroy energy. It just constantly redistributes the available energy due to external forces being stronger than the bonds between molecules.
One such external force being gravity, another being rotation and a myriad of ways that other types of material can interfere with the distribution of gas molecules.
So, no, it is not a perpetual motion machine, just a normal feature of the natural world operating in accordance with the GAS Laws.
“It is possible to have perpetual motion within a gas because of the weak bonds between molecules.”
No. There are losses in such a process, no perpetual motion.
“then the objectors pile in with distraction and obfuscation so that the thread is lost.”
Stephen:
I gave you the meteorology.
That is not “distraction and obfuscation”.
Unless you have a confirmation bias that self-fulfilingly makes it so.
The processes I describe above have been observed/are observed and measured on a daily basis, and those obs go into NWP models as the starting conditions for forecasts.
Don’t ever fly if you maintain it is incorrect
Gravity does not cause air to sink of its own volition.
And so does not continually pump atmospheric vertical circulation.
Here is a vid explaining the formation of a Hadley cell…..
Anthony,
In the video you posted, the presenter at point 4:40 has an example diagram that shows air rising at the poles.
Have a look at this video instead:-
“And every high pressure cell around the planet contains descending, warming air.
You can ignore all that ?”
No, and as I say it isn’t – it’s a basic.
What isn’t is that it’s initiated by gravity.
There is NOT a continual “pumping” of vertical motion in the atmosphere caused by surface convection and upper cooling/descending under the weight of gravity.
If it is not Gravity, why does it descend when it looses bouncy?
Why doesn’t it just stay there or move laterally only?
See my comment at your Divergence/Convergence comment.
“In the video you posted, the presenter at point 4:40 has an example diagram that shows air rising at the poles.”
Yes, it does Philip:
The Poles are cold.
Cold air is cyclonic in nature (winds in the NH aloft flow around anticlockwise) .
Converging winds at the surface.
Air can go nowhere other than up.
It starts aloft, with the greatest horizontal deltaT between air masses at the jet level. Air moves from warm to cold (more air above a parcel in a warm column than air in the cold) – so a pressure difference.
It flows towards lower pressure aloft, turns right (NH) and forms the PJS.
Below, LP systems are constantly being formed under the local divergence areas in the PJS.
Converging air at the surface rises and diverges aloft.
“Cold air is cyclonic in nature ”
Cyclones develop when warm air rises and colder air moves in at the base to replace it.
However the rising air is always warmer than its surroundings throughout the uplift process.
Anticyclones develop when cold air descends and warmer air moves up from below in a nearby low pressure are and then moves horizontally to feed the anticyclonic downflow.
However the falling air is always colder than its surroundings throughout the descent process.
Thus the assertion that cold air is cyclonic in nature is misleading. It certainly feels that way on the ground but in fact cyclones are driven by rising air that is warmer than its surroundings. That is why they develop over sun warmed land areas or over warm oceans as noted by Willis.
However, none of this is germane to the point at hand. The fact is that every high pressure area of whatever size and wherever located contains air that is warming during the descent and thereby delivering KE back to the surface to feed the adjoining area of uplift.
It is a zero sum process but you must have an energy source at base (on Earth 33k above S-B) to keep it running otherwise you really are proposing a perpetual energy machine.
“Cyclones develop when warm air rises and colder air moves in at the base to replace it.
However the rising air is always warmer than its surroundings throughout the uplift process.”
No, you talk of tropical cyclones.
Different process.
I talk of baroclinic ones (at the edges of Hadley cells).
“Anticyclones develop when cold air descends and warmer air moves up from below in a nearby low pressure are and then moves horizontally to feed the anticyclonic downflow.
However the falling air is always colder than its surroundings throughout the descent process.”
No, No No.
Anticyclones develop when converging air aloft is forced to descend (nowhere else to go is why).
Whether fed by converging winds to the south (subtropical cell) or from the cell to the north.
Not because it is cooling.
It can only descend under cooling if there is a deltaT between it and the surrounding air.
We are talking mass air transport here and not a local thermals , though the same applies and that has LH release as a complication.
The mass of air will cool at the same rate so where is the differential cooling around a parcel within it??
We are back to the buoyancy thing.
It’s all described fully in my posts and in the vid I linked.
“Thus the assertion that cold air is cyclonic in nature is misleading. It certainly feels that way on the ground but in fact cyclones are driven by rising air that is warmer than its surroundings. That is why they develop over sun warmed land areas or over warm oceans as noted by Willis.”
It’s basic thermodynamics and meteorology Stephen.
You return again to tropical storms.
They are an enhanced convective system but in fact a TS changes rotation through it’s vertical structure.
They become warm core as they rise. and as such the cyclonic (ACW in NH) lower down changes to anticyclonic (CW further up) such that the outflow rotates out in the opposite way the inflow came in.
Thermal differentials and convergence/divergence.
Not gravity.
Gravity did it’s thing long ago,.
“thereby delivering KE back to the surface to feed the adjoining area of uplift.”
Yes, it is, BUT it lost it on the upward ascent and as such is zero-sum
And please stop with your cockeyed imaginings of meteorology
Mind that would destroy your investment in your theory I know.
Sorry – real world.
Baroclinic systems also have rising air at the centre which is warmer than the surrounding air. In that case the additional warmth is supplied from the warm sector air which spins towards the centre and is there uplifted due to it being less dense than the surrounding air. Once the cold front catches up with the warm front the supply of warm air to the centre fails and the system dissipates.
So there is no essential difference between tropical and baroclinc cyclones with regard to the basic thermal structure. Relatively warm air in the centre which then cools with height.
As regards anticyclones it is right that the pattern of convection in the atmosphere usually has a single anticyclone supplied by outflows from more than one adjoining low pressure cell so there is convergence but the descent then occurs because the air at the top of the anticyclone is colder and denser than the air around it having previously been cooled in adiabatic uplift.
It then warms throughout the descent.
But that is all off topic since you accept that falling air releases KE as it descends.
Your only fundamental objection is that convection being a zero sum process it cannot heat the surface above S-B
If you were right then that would be a perpetual motion machine because there would be no energy left at the surface after radiation to space with which to fuel the ongoing convective process.
“It then warms throughout the descent.”
No. There is no descent column observed Stephen, you simply imagine that process, the rising convective air was replaced laterally at the bottom.
“Baroclinic systems also have rising air at the centre which is warmer than the surrounding air. In that case the additional warmth is supplied from the warm sector air which spins towards the centre and is there uplifted due to it being less dense than the surrounding air. Once the cold front catches up with the warm front the supply of warm air to the centre fails and the system dissipates.
So there is no essential difference between tropical and baroclinc cyclones with regard to the basic thermal structure. Relatively warm air in the centre which then cools with height.”
Stephen, you are talking to a meteorologist.
There is nothing you an teach me on the subject.
Sorry.
No, a baroclinic system get it’s energy from divergence aloft and the release of LH.
The system dissipates because the LH release part dissipates and the divergence aloft moves away leaving the system as a cut-off Low through it’s depth…. NOT the cutoff of sensible heat.
“but the descent then occurs because the air at the top of the anticyclone is colder and denser than the air around it having previously been cooled in adiabatic uplift.”
How many more times!!
It does NOT descend because it is colder it descends because it is converging aloft and has nowhere else to go.
The rule is if there is divergence (HP) at the surface there MUST be convergence aloft.
“If you were right then that would be a perpetual motion machine because there would be no energy left at the surface after radiation to space with which to fuel the ongoing convective process.”
It is right.
Stephen – The convection process is fuelled by the GHE, and the take up/release of LH.
Anthony,
Anthony,
You seem not to realise that my description takes the flow divergences and the latent heat release as a given and so I fail to see any significant difference between our descriptions. We are just using different words.
But it doesn’t matter here since we were considering Willis’s non GHG atmosphere so you can’t have the GHE providing fuel for convection unless the GHE is mass induced.
So you miss the point entirely
”..so you can’t have the GHE providing fuel for convection unless the GHE is mass induced.”
No Stephen, a non-GHG atm. still radiates, there is still convective activity as the fluid is still warmed from below in a gravity field. The GHE is not singularly mass induced as you write, the atm. IR opacity (commonly GHE) originates from the mixing ratios, mass extinction coefficients of the various radiation absorbers at the local total atm. pressure.
This is being a realist about observed natural processes; Stephen just hasn’t the education in basic meteorology & the physical sciences so resorts to being an imaginativist instead of a realist.
Anthony Banton says
“It does NOT descend because it is colder it descends because it is converging aloft and has nowhere else to go.
The rule is if there is divergence (HP) at the surface there MUST be convergence aloft.”
Definition of Convergence aloft.
“Convergence aloft causes surface pressures to rise
Air diverges from high pressure systems at the surface
Surface winds flow clockwise and outward in NH
Air sinks, warms, and dries, inhibiting cloud formation”
Do you agree with this?
Well, Anthony,
I see the downward leg in which air is warming by compression.
The same for every other circulatory feature.
And every high pressure cell around the planet contains descending, warming air.
You can ignore all that ?
And every high pressure cell around the planet contains descending, warming air.
What is a high pressure cell? Don’t cells contain high and low pressure areas?
No
But a circulation does.
Could you please do some homework ?
No
But a circulation does.
Good grief. A (Hadley / Farrel) cell is a circulation.
Can you check your homework and then explain what you meant by “high pressure cell”?
PJF
In meteorology a high-pressure cell is another term for an anticyclone, an individual area of high air pressure.
In climatology an atmospheric cell, such as the Hadley Cell, is a circulation system driven by convection.
Philip, thanks for your link. However, I could not see anything within that geography article that supports your suggestion that “high pressure cell” is a meteorological alternative term for an anticyclone (individual area of high pressure). The page uses “cells” (high and low) only in the normal context of Hadley, Farrel, etc, cells.
Indeed, the page separately describes a “high-pressure system, sometimes called an anticyclone”.
An admittedly brief search of the infernal interwebs didn’t find any difference across meteorology and climatology in the description of atmospheric cells. There certainly weren’t many examples of “high pressure cell” beyond engineering devices.
PJF
I think that this issue is one of terminology, and simply relates to the use of the same word cell in two distinctly different ways: –
1. To describe a geographical zone of a given areal extent with a common meteorological feature.
2. Used to describe a volume involved process, such as a Hadley Cell, that is a climatological component of the planet’s atmospheric circulation system.
YMMV
Willis: “I just have to shake my head at how some people state untrue things with such calm aplomb. ”
You’re absolutely right, and that’s one of my shortcomings. I took what Stephen said and made some assumptions I shouldn’t have. You have my apology.
I’m trying to reason this out and especially I’m trying to find some solid ground that can be debated. But, maybe I’m in the wrong place and wasting time I could be spending on more productive matters.
Don132
Thanks, Don, your most gracious apology gladly accepted.
w.
How does the use of the term ‘cell’ for an area of high or low pressure detract in any way from the point being made ?
The use of the term ‘cell’ pops up in weather forecasts all the time and if you google ‘high pressure cell’ you come up with lots of results relating to areas of high and low pressure in an atmosphere.
And for those who aver that convective overturning is a zero sum process that does not mean that it has zero energy content. You still need an energy store at the surface to feed into it and that is where the ‘extra’ 33k at the surface comes into it.
Also, nobody has registered that you can get a lapse rate and an ATE just by allowing convection to occur within Willis’s non-convecting model.
A true perpetual motion machine would be convection without an energy store at the base to feed into it.
Some people here have no difficulty believing in that.
Sad that Don has succumbed to the pressure of misinformation here.
“A true perpetual motion machine would be convection without an energy store at the base to feed into it.”
Good point Stephen! The sun is an energy source by virtue of its burning a fuel so supplies the energy for convection. Any gas specie in the atm. is not an energy source as it burns no fuel.
Stephen, I haven’t succumbed to anything yet. I may be dumb but I’m not stupid. I have questions and if the ATE is correct then I’d expect that those who support it and who are experts at it– I am not, because apparently I had a major misunderstanding about it– need to step up to the plate and provide clear and distinct answers. The two problems I see are:
1. In T = PM/Rρ, T affects PM/Rρ. If T is caused in part by GHGs, then that affects PM/Rρ. Holmes assumes that GHGs do not affect T and therefore do not affect PM/Rρ, and that’s how he proves that GHGs don’t affect PM/Rρ. Small problem? I see the same basic problem with NZ. I could be wrong.
2. In your version, KE rises, becomes PE, falls and becomes KE, new KE rises, but I see nowhere where the initial KE plus descending KE can be multiplied to become a thermal enhancement. How?
I call them as I see them. In my stumbling and fumbling way, that’s my sole contribution to this discussion.
Don132
Don, out of interest have you applied the same critique to the GHG Theory?
“…have you applied the same critique to the GHG Theory?”
No. That’s not the concern now. The concern, stated in the top post, is the validity of the ATE theory as presented by NZ, Holmes, and Stephen Wilde, and specifically the challenge posed by Willis’ model, which has not been refuted. I think that’s plenty to handle for now.
Don132
Having checked the current usage for the term ‘cell’ I see that it is now reserved for a circulation that combines both up and down movements.
That was not always the case.
So, in my earlier comment just substitute the term ‘high pressure areas’ for the term ‘high pressure cells’
In general, any area with pressure above 1000 mb will be termed high pressure and will contain descending, warming air.
At any given moment half the atmosphere is rising and half is falling.
High pressure areas contain air that is circulating downwards and warming whilst low pressure areas contain air that is circulating upwards and cooling.
High and low pressure regions contain air that is well mixed mostly rotating laterally, mostly perpendicular to the pressure lines. The winds from high and low pressure hit you in the face or back, not the top of your head. Stephen simply imagines descending columns that don’t exist in nature to suit his particular views.
Here is my summary of what I think I understand:
First we need to take the approach that Einstein did, ie, use a FACT as a start point of the thought experiment.(In Einsteins case, as I understand it, there was no change in the speed of light, despite the source being in motion towards or away from our measuring instrument. ‘Impossible’, everyone said, but that’s what the measurements showed.)
That FACT that we are starting with, as per NKs paper, is that the planets observed surface pressure and planet insolation sets the surface temperature, via a Pressurizing Thermal Effect(PTE), not the Greenhouse effect. “Impossible”, everyone says.
What we do know, is that the surface Pressure P is constant around our world, with MINOR variations(low pressure cells, ie, rising, high pressure cells, ie, descending, extreme turbulence, ie, tornadoes, massive turbulence, ie, hurricanes, very slow turbulence, ie, Hadley circulation)
The NK hypothesis develops a paramaterized PV=nrT (ideal gas law), to describe mathematically the PTE, and it appears to work on known planets.
We understand that T in that equation, at the planets surface, is subject to many effects, radiation, conduction, evaporation, thermalization, and convection.
But according to the hypothesis, T is grounded at the planets surface by PTE. This surface P and T must then be the start of the P and T lapse rate, rising up through the Troposphere.
The P atmospheric lapse rate is controlled by rising/sinking air. T drops as it must with P, as the atmosphere ascends in the Troposphere but is moderated by the H2O content. In the thin upper atmosphere, ie, the Tropopause and Stratosphere, GHG radiation moves heat faster than thermalization and thus controls T. These GHGs also cool the earth at altitude.
V is a direct function of T.
GHGs distribute heat horizontally efficiently, reducing temperature differences and thus V (atmospheric height) differences( which drive polar, warm/dark side winds. Thanks Steven)
The ‘back radiation we see in a GHG atmosphere is the result of the surface pressure induced T. Thermalization extinguishes GHG radiation heat transfer immediately (Happer). Convection takes the GHG thermalized heat to to elevations where GHG radiation dissipates that heat. Thunderstorms are most efficient as a daily heat pump.(thanks Willis)
In a non GHG or transparent atmosphere, the planets surface is the radiating surface. Conduction and convection create a hot body of atmosphere that cannot cool, except by conduction on the dark side of the planet. The amount of heat transferred to the dark side depends upon air/surface conduction rates, which is highly dependent on wind speeds.
Wind speeds will be much higher on a non GHG planet.
The GAT surface temperature is the same, barring inefficiencies due to wind momentum and friction effects. There is no “Greenhouse effect”.
In conclusion, is our chasing of GHG radiation as the driver of GAT misguided? Time will tell, with results from more probes.
We need to wait maybe 15 years, like Einstein did, when his detractors measured the bending of light around the sun to prove him wrong.. and failed.
”That FACT that we are starting with, as per NKs paper, is that the planets observed surface pressure and planet insolation sets the surface temperature.”
EdB 8:47am: No. That is not a fact with which to start.
Read their paper closely especially Fig. 4. The fact is they write mean surface “air pressure alone” sets the surface temperature Ts. This is ruled out by the 1LOT as the top post points out. They or others did not check their work closely enough before it was published. Now they cannot successfully defend their own paper at least in these comments, or at least so far. And in 15 years it will be just as indefensible.
When N&Z show out of sample application for their “new” formula, they resort to other than mean surface “air pressure alone” to explain other solar system object Ts (e.g. orbital illumination, albedo). So even N&Z show in their own paper mean surface “air pressure alone” does not set Ts – as they show in Fig. 4.
So.. you are one skeptic, among thousands, nay millions, about the GTE.
Time will tell.
It is clear that you have reading comprehension problems where their paper is concerned.
Fig 4 does NOT say ” mean surface “air pressure alone” sets the surface temperature Ts”
it actually says
Figure 4:
The relative atmospheric thermal enhancement (
Ts/Tna ratio) as a function of the average surface air pressure according to Eq. (10a) derived from
data representing a broad range of planetary environments in the solar system.
Saturn’s moon Titan has been excluded from the regression analysis leading
to Eq. (10a).
They also actually say
“Furthermore, the relative atmospheric thermal enhancement (RATE)
defined as a ratio of the planet’s actual global surface temperature to
the temperature it would have had in the absence of atmosphere is fully
explicable by the surface air pressure alone (Eq. 10a and Figure 4).”
That is the only place the the words “air pressure alone” appear.
This is the second time I have had to point out to you that you are not bothering to read their ACTUAL WORDS and MEANING.
Your Bait & Switch technique needs some more work.
Don’t all the equations used to prove ATE rest on the assumption that GHG warming cannot be baked into the parameters used to determine surface T?
T is determined by the parameters and the parameters are influenced by T; I noted an “equals” sign in there somewhere. If T rises by GHG effects then it affects the parameters, even if GHG warming isn’t explicitly in the parameters. Why does it have to be?
I don’t think you can assume the conclusion in order to prove the conclusion.
Is that said with enough calm aplomb for everyone?
Don132
N&Z words: “as a function of the average surface air pressure according to Eq. (10a)”
“fully explicable by the surface air pressure alone (Eq. 10a and Figure 4).”
There is no statement about “their distance from the Sun” in Fig. 4 and Eqn. 10a has no orbital variable only P. It is A C doing the bait & switch here not me. But that’s ok, A C is just following N&Z who report to the media:
“The Zeller-Nikolov discovery means that Earth’s atmosphere keeps us warm via gas-compression heating under the weight of Earth’s approximately 300-mile-thick atmosphere, not by the greenhouse effect.” See link in top post.
So for solar objects “their distance from the Sun” doesn’t matter, that was just a bait & switch. Atlas is holding the earth up on his left shoulder and with his right hand pumping furiously to create N&Z’s compression heating. You know like a diesel engine no need for a spark plug…..or for N&Z, fuel.
Then in “Model Application and Validation” N&Z switch back into relevance “their distance from the Sun” and other important information like albedo, even N&Z don’t use just Eqn. 10a. The N&Z paper itself is bait & switch A C and you have been caught hook, line, and sinker.
You either just do NOT READ & COMPREHEND or you are being deliberately misleading, you use absolutely classic warmist cherry picking of a few words or half a sentence or talk about omissions of words in area when they have already been explained.
You present your own version of what other people write.
As I said up thread we have had this conversation before and last time I said I wouldn’t bother, but your comments are destructive to debate, so I will to continue to correct your errors in quotations.
A C, here is the full N&Z text for your convenience in your efforts:
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/New-Insights-on-the-Physical-Nature-of-the-Atmospheric-Greenhouse-Effect-Deduced-from-an-Empirical-Planetary-Temperature-Model.pdf
Ho, you found it, I found it 2 days ago, how do you think I was posting what they ACTUALLY WROTE?
Which is why I know when you are talking crap about it.
You should try actually READING it instead of finding the odd word you want to misquote.
No misquote by me A C, I quoted N&Z verbatim. The full paper text quotation each time would be a bit over kill don’t ya’ think? I’ve posted a couple times the clips and wrote that’s to allow for a search string to read the full context material. A C seems to have found the quotes just fine which proves I didn’t alter them in any way.
So where is the quote clip begin & end point that makes A C perfectly happy?
You do not even read what I write, I quoted the exact words that they wrote compared to the selected words that you say that they wrote and you just keep repeating the same nonsense, so like last time.
Goodbye.
A C really means A C quoted the exact SELECTED words that they wrote compared to the selected words for a search string that I say that they wrote. Read their whole paper A C, you can then read the selected words in context like anyone else.
Don January 9, 2019 at 3:02 am
This just gets better. Your claim is that in order to keep editors from prejudging him based on his name, Ned Nikolov picks an alias that is so dang obvious that everyone will know it is him …
… is that your final answer?
Meanwhile, surprise, surprise, the Editor did NOT know it was Nikolov. And when I pointed it out to the Editor, the editor didn’t like being played for a fool, and refused to print his paper.
Funny how life works out.
w.
Stephen https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/31/giving-credit-to-willis-eschenbach-for-setting-the-nikolov-zeller-silliness-straight/#comment-2582989 :
“When convection starts it creates the lapse rate slope by putting more PE at the top for a cooling effect and more KE at the bottom for a warming effect, that gives the thermal gradient.” I thought pressure created the lapse rate slope, but OK.
“You then have to realise that solar input continues as before but once recycling begins nothing is then being taken from the surface to support convection.” I don’t understand this.
When the sun hits the earth it warms and by conduction this leads to KE in the atmosphere. The KE rises and in so doing becomes more and more PE. Meanwhile, the KE that rose is replaced by new KE, exactly the same as before. The PE/KE higher up goes hither and yon (scientific term) and eventually returns more to the surface where it converts to the same KE as before. The PE/KE that’s falling as this KE/PE is rising– let’s say they meet at exactly the same time and place on the surface– can’t have more energy than the newly-created KE caused by surface conduction. So how do you get from there to surface thermal enhancement?
Don132
Let me restate, with calm aplomb, the two conclusions I see so far:
1. In T = PM/Rρ (part of Holmes’ proof for ATE), T affects PM/Rρ. If T is caused in part by GHGs, then that affects PM/Rρ. Holmes assumes that GHGs do not affect T and therefore do not affect PM/Rρ, and that’s how he proves that GHGs don’t affect PM/Rρ. Assuming the conclusion. Credit goes to Willis, as I first heard of this problem from him. I see the same basic problem with NZ. I could be wrong.
2. In Stephen’s version, KE rises, becomes PE, falls and becomes KE, new KE rises, but I see nowhere where the initial KE plus descending KE or any additional KE from the atmosphere/surface/sun interaction can be multiplied to become a thermal enhancement. How?
In addition, those who oppose Willis’ model haven’t explained how it’s unphysical; it’s highly improbable, but not impossible. They also have not explained how the universal ATE would operate on such a planet.
If anything, I’ve been favoring the gravitationists all along. Just sayin’.
Thanks to Anthony and others for allowing this discussion to continue.
What do the supporters of the ATE say?
Don132
Clive Best addressed the issue here.
http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=6305
The sky dragons are correct that gravity is necessary for a greenhouse effect, but it isn’t sufficient. You still need greenhouse gases.
Don
“Holmes assumes that GHGs do not affect T and therefore do not affect PM/Rρ, and that’s how he proves that GHGs don’t affect PM/Rρ”
.
Nonsense.
The exact opposite in fact.
I have shown that a change in GHG concentrations does not anomalously affect pressure or density, and so cannot possibly affect temperature anomalously either.
.
“…the circular reasoning is clear..”
.
There is no circular reasoning, because you misunderstand the process I undertook. This is obvious when you state this total fiction;
.
“the foundational assertion of both Holmes and NZ is that pressure, density, and insolation can be used to solve for surface temperature; therefore, there is no effect from GHGs.”
Holmes:
“I have shown that a change in GHG concentrations does not anomalously affect pressure or density, and so cannot possibly affect temperature anomalously either.”
If GHG are found in an atmosphere, then they add to atmospheric mass and thereby influence pressure or density: granted.
If GHG do not heat the atmosphere, then T = PM/Rρ is true.
IF GHG do heat the atmosphere, then T = PM/Rρ is also true because increasing T affects PM/Rρ.
The only way T = PM/Rρ can prove that GHGs do not affect T is by proving that T, however warmed to become T, does not affect T = PM/Rρ. Is that what you’re stating?
Don132
Don,
You are getting there slowly.
The key word to watch for is ‘anomalously’.
Yes, GHG (or any other gas) added to an atmosphere affects density, pressure and molar mass.
But do they affect these ANOMALOUSLY? That is the key point.
For example, if 0.04% CO2 were added to our atmosphere, and its climate sensitivity were 0c, then there would be no unusual changes in density, pressure or molar mass.
BUT – if 0.04% CO2 were added to our atmosphere, and its climate sensitivity were 3c, then there would be VERY LARGE (i.e. anomalous) changes in density or pressure.
These MUST be of the order 10 to 25 times what would be expected in the 0c case.
This is how the existence or not of the GHE can be tested in real atmospheres.
Holmes: “… if 0.04% CO2 were added to our atmosphere, and its climate sensitivity were 3c, then there would be VERY LARGE (i.e. anomalous) changes in density or pressure.”
And, there would be a corresponding anomalous change in T. So T = PM/Rρ still holds.
If GHGs affect T, then T affects PM/Rρ, regardless of where the T came from, and if the T increase is anomalous, then so would PM/Rρ changes be anomalous: the anomalies cancel out, as it were.
Don132
“If GHGs affect T, then T affects PM/Rρ, regardless of where the T came from, and if the T increase is anomalous, then so would PM/Rρ changes be anomalous: ”
.
You have it all backwards, I think on purpose. You are a troll.
“You have it all backwards, I think on purpose. You are a troll.”
I don’t expect you to roll over and admit that the theory you’ve defended so ardently is based on assuming that a tautology can stand as a proof, but I assure you I’m not a troll, and accusing me of that is a way of dismissing someone through insults– an ad hominem argument.
“In Stephen’s version, KE rises, becomes PE, falls and becomes KE, new KE rises, but I see nowhere where the initial KE plus descending KE or any additional KE from the atmosphere/surface/sun interaction can be multiplied to become a thermal enhancement. How?”
That is dealt with in my narrative thus:
The energy initially required to provide the PE in the atmosphere is drawn from energy that would otherwise have radiated to space.Willis accepts that but will not take the next step.
Once the adiabatic loop closes with the return of surface air back to the base of the rising column the process no longer needs to draw KE from the outgoing radiation because it is being provided by the circular flow so the surface is no longer being cooled by convection and the surface goes back to S-B BUT you still have the extra energy in circulation.
You then have two sources of energy namely the continuing insolation PLUS the KE locked into the closed adiabatic loop.
Anthony Banton accepts that you need KE at the base to keep convection running. That must be in addition to the KE needed to radiate 255k to space so you must then have 288k at the surface.
So, 255k radiates to space and 33k recycles in and out of the adiabatic loop indefinitely.
Anthony Banton says that the 33k comes from the (radiative) greenhouse effect but I described a non radiative atmosphere so it MUST come from the mass induced greenhouse effect and NOT downward radiation.
The only way you can resist that conclusion is by proposing that the atmospheric gases do not convect and I have described why that is impossible. For convection to begin all one needs is density variations in the horizontal plane and they cannot be prevented for a rotating, rough surfaced sphere illuminated externally.
So, if the process works for a non radiative atmosphere it must be a mass induced effect.
“Once the adiabatic loop closes with the return of surface air back to the base of the rising column the process no longer needs to draw KE from the outgoing radiation because it is being provided by the circular flow so the surface is no longer being cooled by convection and the surface goes back to S-B BUT you still have the extra energy in circulation.”
Not observed to exist Stephen. The rising column of convective air warmed at the bottom in a gravity field is replaced with air at the bottom of the column not replaced from air at the top. Your narrative is faulty as falling columns do not exist in a mostly hydrostatic atm., the rising air equilibrates with upper surroundings and ceases to rise or fall.
The overall circulation neither creates nor destroys energy, thus the sutface equlibrium is maintained by circulation either at 255K or 288K depending on the IR opacity of the atm.
Air involved in adiabatic uplift or descent cannot reach equilibrium with its surroundings because PE is not heat and can no longer conduct or radiate.
The temperature differential with the surroundings continues throughout uplift and descent which is why air at the top has to be forced sideways until it finds a route downwards at a distance from the rising column where the air below it is providing less resistance.
It is a mechanical process forced by density and thus weight differences.
I’ve been telling you to study it for years but you never bother.
“I’ve been telling you to study it for years but you never bother.”
I’ve been telling Stephen to open his eyes and LOOK at convection processes for years but Stephen never bothers preferring to just incorrectly imagine what happens instead. Stephen never will understand what really happens even though all Stephen has to do is go to youtube search: convection.
Observations show a fluid involved in adiabatic uplift (meaning too quickly to get to equilibrium with surroundings at first) or descent does fairly quickly reach equilibrium with its surroundings and still, PE is not heat and can no longer conduct or radiate.
Trick:
Please ignore what I’m about to say if continuing to debate incurably delusional folks like Mr. Wilde still amuses you.
For the benefit of those whose minds are still open, though, I would concede a perpetually overturning atmosphere for the sake of argument, because in isolation the perpetually overturning atmosphere violates only the Second Law, not the First, and even most people who think they understand entropy really don’t. (I include myself; at this moment, for example, I wouldn’t be able to derive the thermodynamics definition from the statistical-mechanics one.)
No, I’d focus instead on considering the First Law violation that results from what Mr. Wilde says is that perpetually overturning atmosphere’s consequence, i.e., from continually withdrawing energy from that perpetually overturning atmosphere to cause the surface (together with, somehow, the non-radiative atmosphere) to emit more than the surface absorbs from the sun.
That is, I would concentrate on Mr. Wilde’s response to my summary.
In view of how little success I’ve had in my attempts to explain things to Don132, though, you’re perfectly justified in ignoring my suggestion.
Joe Born: “In view of how little success I’ve had in my attempts to explain things to Don132.”
You haven’t been keeping up with all the comments, have you?
Don132
Joe, Mr. Wilde is quite obviously not trained in the modern physical sciences to any great extent so, unless that changes, Mr. Wilde does not evidence the physical laws learned thru experiment and observation. In legislated law, ignorance of the law is not a defense.
Joe Born January 10, 2019 at 3:26 am
“together with, somehow, the non-radiative atmosphere)”
There is NO non-radiative atmosphere.
Let me ask you, does Oxygen radiate?
“There is NO non-radiative atmosphere.”
That’s correct A C, any mass radiates at each temperature and at every frequency so all planetary atmospheres radiate, even the ones in thought experiments whether the commenter realizes it or not.
@Trick
“any mass radiates at each temperature and at every frequency”
NOT SO. Most solids radiate IR across an essentially continuous spectrum because solids have many bonds (including hydrogen bonding sometimes) that can share the IR energy in absorption and emission. Gases do not, and therefore ONLY radiate in their permitted quantum bands.
Suggest you guys learn some basic quantum spectroscopy.
”Gases do not, and therefore ONLY radiate in their permitted quantum bands. Suggest you guys learn some basic quantum spectroscopy.”
I do too, where what you write is observed incorrect Don, much of the basic gas quantum spectroscopy was done in the 1920/30s maybe little later when the field was an active research topic. The work proved a gas will radiate at each temperature and each frequency just like a solid, the lines are broadened for several unique reasons. Specialist textbooks in the 50s,60s explain the various multiple level quantum jumps. Contact a librarian, they will be happy to show you the research in the stacks.
Take the 15u CO2 band. There are several vibrational levels just at v1 (first activated state) and many more at higher states. Each of those has associated rotational levels. (For CO2, changes in rotational levels cannot be produced by photon absorption, but can be via kinetic collisions.) Each of these v and s states is a distinct quantum energy. Collectively they may resemble a continuous spectrum, but they are not. (Even with solids that appear to have a continuous spectrum, that is made up of many, many distinct quantum lines very close together.
The 15u CO2 band is referred to as a single band because the central 15u v level has the greatest magnitude. Two other reasonable strong v levels are at 16.2u and 13.9u. There are a total of 13 vibrational levels, spanning ~9.4-18.4u. Thus, in one sense this 15u band is almost continuous across a wide spectrum. HOWEVER, as the v states move away from the central 15u, their intensity for absorption and emission decrease by several orders of magnitude. These outher v states (and associated rotation states) have increasing importance as the CO2 concentration increases. View a satellite IR spectrum to see the 15u band widening they produce (and increased warming). The 15u CO2 band is definitely NOT like the “continuous” spectrum of many solids.
DonB, like almost everybody on here you state your opinion with a great deal of certainty even when you are obviously wrong.
The Satellite Atmospheric Temperature measurements are of Radiation.
The Radiation measured is from Oxygen.
If Oxugen cannot radiate how are the Satellites reading it?
Satellites measure the IR spectrum escaping Earth. That spectrum peaks ~10-15u, depending on surface temperature. Look up what gaseous molecules absorb IR in that region and somewhat wider (2-20u). You will find H2O, CO2, CH4 and a few rare gases. You won’t find O2. At wavelengths these gases do not absorb-emit, the satellite measured emission comes from the surface and matches a black-body temperature curve for that surface temperature. GHG that absorb match blackbody temperature curves for the temperature at the atmospheric height they emit IR that escapes to space.
As I said, the O2 and N2 bonds are strong and require higher quantum energy changes in the UV, not the IR.
”For CO2, changes in rotational levels cannot be produced by photon absorption”
Only the translational molecular KE is not quantized; rotational, vibrational KE of all molecules (and atoms) is always observed to be quantized.
Collectively the gas is measured as a continuous spectrum; the individual molecules emit at a specific frequency but primarily because molecules all move at different speeds, the lines are broadened into continuous spectra. Just see the Planck curve, every frequency and temperature that is input, outputs a nonzero radiance – this curve was discovered from multiple experiments on gas as well as solid, liquid, plasma.
DonB, Oxygen radiates in the microwave band and that is what the Satellites read.
So to say that O2 and N2 do not radiate is not correct.
The latest work by Raman Spectropy suggests that that O2 & N2 also radiates in the IR band.
O2 and N2 don’t have dipoles an thus cannot have vibrational transitions, which are what produce the major IR emissions. They do have very low energy rotations. Microwaves have much lower radiation energy compared to the IR. Earth warms VERY little from absorbing microwaves. Satellites used for weather and Earth’s energy loss measure primarily in the IR, not the microwave region.
Don, although N2, O2 have no static dipole they exhibit a weak dynamic dipole as they vibrate.
The collision-induced fundamental vibration-rotation band at 6.4 micron is the major absorption signature of O2 in the thermal infrared. N2 has two major bands influencing the infrared radiation: the collision-induced roto-vibrational fundamental band at 2400 cm^-1 and the collision-induced roto-translational band at 100 cm^-1. These are very weak but nonzero, reducing OLR through Earth atm. due their abundance by about 0.1 to 0.2 W/m^2 each. For comparison that’s about 15% of the OLR reduction by trace gas CH4.
For a GHG to be of consequence it must absorb Earth’s IR radiation at a wavelength where the largest loss of surface energy occurs. The surface largely emits IR around 280-300K, and the peak intensity of that IR release occurs about 10u. Because CO2 also absorbs and emits this IR energy at high altitudes where it is colder, the peak of IR emission there shifts more toward 15u. So the 15u band is ideally located to have a major influence on IR absorption-emission.
A 2400 wave number (4.1u) is way down the surface IR release curve, where intensity is much lower, only a few percent of what it is at 10u and 288K. And, as that wave length corresponds to quite high temperatures not found in the atmosphere, so no atmospheric absorption and emission at 4u. Thus any IR release occurring around 4u intercepts a very small amount of outgoing IR energy and has little GHG effect. That is why the 4.4u band for CO2 is not considered important, although it has little IR absorption competition from H2O. Same with the very minor absorptions for O2 and N2. The 100 cm^-1 you mention for O2 is VERY far out in the IR, where emission energy is almost non-existent, so has NO effect on GHG warming.
Again, Don, you are incorrect to write “no atmospheric absorption and emission at 4u” and “NO effect on GHG warming.” You are correct to write “very minor absorptions for O2 and N2” as the mass of the atm. absorbs at all temperatures and all wavelengths, though some more than others.
“the mass of the atm. absorbs at all temperatures and all wavelengths, though some more than others”
Then why do satellites measure the full IR radiation across ~10-13u, whose BB temperature indicates emission from the surface with no absorption? This is near the maximum intensity of IR emission.
Satellites measure the IR radiation reaching their viewports in the scene across ~10-13u, whose thermometer temperature indicates emission from the near surface atm. with little absorption in between.
Stephen:
“The energy initially required to provide the PE in the atmosphere is drawn from energy that would otherwise have radiated to space.” But as I understand the basic physics, as it’s been explained to me in comments from older posts, a radiating molecule does not lose kinetic energy: it does not slow down or lose internal energy in the process of radiating. Is this correct? And don’t you mean that the initial energy is to provide KE in the atmosphere (not PE as you say), which then becomes PE? The issue of how we get to additional KE to cause thermal enhancement is key.
If it’s correct that radiating molecules don’t lose internal energy, then your next statement is also false: “Once the adiabatic loop closes with the return of surface air back to the base of the rising column the process no longer needs to draw KE from the outgoing radiation…”
So yes, I’m confused. Please clarify.
Don132
If radiative energy leaves a molecule it cools down and radiates less UNLESS the lost energy is replaced, as it is, by fresh insolation.
My narrative is perfectly clear on the issue which is a matter of timing.
Convection holds back an energy store sufficient to hold the atmosphere off the ground and maintain convection.
That results in a surface warmer than BB.
“That results in a surface warmer than BB.”
Warmer than surroundings not warmer than BB. Locally if convection started the unevenly warmed surface is warming the gas from below in a gravity field but when the surface air flows in replacing the convecting rising air, the surface returns to ambient equilibrated with surroundings and convection ceases. The warmer air rises until it equilibrates with surrounding air on the lapse gradient and convection ceases, there is no downward movement at that state.
Anthony Banton says that the 33k comes from the (radiative) greenhouse effect but I described a non radiative atmosphere so it MUST come from the mass induced greenhouse effect and NOT downward radiation.
Presumably, Anne Elk (Miss) felt emphatically that her theory (which was hers) on Brontosauruses logically precluded other ideas concerning varying volumetric dimensions along sauropods.
It has to be either radiative OR mass induced, not both.
No other options.
Ned Nikolov wrote:
That’s me!
How petty-minded of Ned to smear his hosts and his readers with implied insults at the same time as asking them all to do him the favour of spending their valuable time reading his papers over and over again and to pay close attention while they’re doing so too! I guess he must think that what he has to say in them is really important. But I think he would find that he had a more receptive audience if he was to adopt a less presumptuos and desultory manner.
Anyway, after having read most of the contents of the two papers that he has asked us to read (I shall probably never get time to read through all his detailed mathematical arguments even once in what remains of my present incarnation, let alone do it 2 or 3 times as he requests), I have come to think there are some basic points of difference between his alleged “discovery” and the existing conceptions and theories of orthodox physics. That is not meant to imply that what he thinks he has discovered is necessarily wrong, of course: it is just meant to imply that Ned’s “discovery” is in conflict with some of the physical laws of the universe as orthodox physics currently understands them to be.
Ned’s central claim and purported “discovery” is stated in the Abstract of his 2017 paper as follows:
[Note: GMAT means “Global Mean Annual near-surface equilibrium Temperature” – from same Abstract.]
According to established orthodox physics, it is absolutely impossible for any GMATs to be predicted just from a knowledge of those two variables.
Why? Because those two variables do not appear to contain any information pertaining to a planet’s global mean surface temperature (i.e. its GMAT) that can be extracted by any kind of data analysis currently known to humanity. One doesn’t need to study Ned’s particular analysis to understand that, from the standpoint of orthodox science, his results are physically impossible. It is a well-established principle of data-analysis that you cannot extract information from data that do not contain it to begin with. Yet Ned is claiming that his analysis has done precisely that! That is a revolutionary claim, because if it is true it must overturn practically all of known physics after razing it to the ground first.
Allow me to demonstrate, taking Ned’s first “driving variable” – TOA solar irradiance – first.
In orthodox physics, the temperature of a gas is conceived fundamentally as being entirely a phenomenon of kinetic energy. More precisely, it is conceived as being determined solely by the average kinetic energy of the molecules comprising the gas. That is to say, no other factors are involved and the mathematical relationship between absolute temperature (T) and average kinetic energy (K) is the simple linear one:
where C is a constant.
It follows from this simple mathematical relationship that the only “driving variable” that can possibly determine the near-surface temperature of a planetary atmosphere is the kinetic energy of the near-surface gas molecules and nothing else. The more kinetic energy they possess the hotter the globally-averaged near-surface temperature will be and, conversely, the less kinetic energy they possess the colder it will be.
Now, it is also generally understood in orthodox physics that those near-surface atmospheric molecules obtain their kinetic energy originally from the radiation that the planet absorbs from the Sun. So if we know how much energy the planet is absorbing from incoming solar radiation, we can calculate quite readily and easily the amount of kinetic energy the near-surface molecules must contain and, from that, the global mean near-surface temperature – GMAT.
But how can we tell how much incoming solar energy the planet is absorbing? We must find that out before we can calculate the GMAT, but Ned’s first “driving variable” – the TOA solar irradiance – doesn’t tell us. It only tells us how much incoming solar energy is available for absorption, not how much is actually absorbed. In order to determine that we need to know the value of another variable: the planet’s reflectivity, or “albedo” (α). If we know that and we know the value of the TOA solar irradiance too, we can calculate the quantity of energy being absorbed quite easily. But Ned’s first “driving variable” cannot give us the information we need about the planet’s albedo because it doesn’t contain that information. So the planet’s near-surface atmosphere’s average kinetic energy cannot be calculated from Ned’s first driving variable and its near-surface global mean temperature cannot be calculated either.
Still, Ned claims that it’s the combination of the two variables that enables him to make his predictions, so let’s take a look at his second one now – surface pressure – again from the standpoint of orthodox physics.
Again, there is absolutely no information about near-surface global mean temperatures available to us from the knowledge of surface pressures. This may come as a surprise to readers who have been attempting to rationalize and explain the “N&Z effect” by means of the well-known gas law equation (PV = nRT), but if they would care to visit this Wikipedia page they may see that the kinetic theory of gases which underlies the gas laws does not apply to gases in gravitational fields. Whereas under the ordinary gas laws Pressure and Temperature are interrelated, for a planetary atmosphere the surface pressure is a function solely of the planet’s surface area and the weight of the atmosphere in its gravitational field. Therefore, surface pressure contains absolutely no information about the near-surface global mean temperature whatsoever.
Given, then, that neither of Ned’s primary “driving variables” contain any information at all about the GMAT, how can he possibly be able to extract enough information about it from them to predict it accurately from a knowledge of those two variables. As I’ve shown, according to orthodox physics, he can’t and therefore it must be an illusion.
Until the 1970s ‘orthodox’ physics via Maxwell et al was clear that atmospheric mass created the greenhouse effect.
Since then there has been an aberration due to astrophysisists with no meteorology knowledge taking over climatology for themselves.
All they know about is radiative transfers which is not sufficient because the atmosphere runs on potential energy which is not heat and cannot conduct or radiate.
Stephen, in the past, I’ve pointed you to an American meteorologist Edward N. Lorenz who in May 1955 published a foundational paper of the conversion of atm. PE into KE: “There is no assurance in any individual case that all the available potential energy will be converted into kinetic energy.”
The paper covered many of the local convection and large-scale circulation topics discussed in this thread. Google string: Available Potential Energy and the Maintenance of the General Circulation
Even though you (and many other commenters) lack much of the pre-req.s for the math involved, the discussion should not be beyond your reach due your interest in the subject. To date, you have not bothered to evidence learning from it. Try again, little more intently, studiously.
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/qj.3351
In fact not Willis nor any other Contras have adressed N+Z’s actual Paper. Must be lacking the nous? Brett
Brett:
“In fact not Willis nor any other Contras have addressed N+Z’s actual Paper. Must be lacking the nous?”
Let’s refrain from name-calling, please.
As I see it, the foundational assertion of both Holmes and NZ is that pressure, density, and insolation can be used to solve for surface temperature; therefore, there is no effect from GHGs. However, it’s entirely possible that GHGs can be affecting pressure and density or other parameters that are affected by temperature, since the equations are in the form of T = PM/Rρ (Holmes’ version): there’s an equality stated. So even if GHGs affected T, you’d still get the same relationship: T = PM/Rρ. This has been pointed out by others. But now maybe the circular reasoning is clear, as is the fault: assuming the conclusion.
Those who have been following WUWT for a time know that I’ve always been a supporter of the ATE theory, and that I had a huge argument with Willis over it some time ago. But unless the two key objections I’ve stated can be answered straightforwardly, then I don’t see that the gravitationists are standing on any solid ground, but are instead insisting that circular logic is valid as a proof. I don’t think so.
Don132
“As I see it, the foundational assertion of both Holmes and NZ is that pressure, density, and insolation can be used to solve for surface temperature; therefore, there is no effect from GHGs.”
.
No.
I am not leaping from an assertion to a conclusion like this.
See my past posts, this has been explained ad-nausea in words of one syllable several times already.
Go back and read my posts.
Holmes, if the radiative GHE is real and it raises T, then what happens to PM/Rρ? Do they remain the same?
I don’t need to re-read anything. We’re talking about simple and basic points of logic here, and all you have to do is give your answer so we can clarify things.
You seem to be asserting that even if the radiative GHG were true, then it can’t affect PM/Rρ. All other forms of heating of the atmosphere are allowed, but radiative GHG heating is the sole source of heating that doesn’t affect PM/Rρ. Or to put it another way, you’re saying that T affects PM/Rρ in all cases except one, and that’s when T is altered by radiative effects.
Don132
“Holmes, if the radiative GHE is real and it raises T, then what happens to PM/Rρ? Do they remain the same?”
“You seem to be asserting that even if the radiative GHG were true, then it can’t affect PM/Rρ”
.
Don, you are just trolling me now.
“Don, you are just trolling me now.”
You don’t see the blatant logical contradiction?
I’m not trolling anyone. All along I’ve been arguing in good faith. I consider “trolling” just another ad hominem attack.
The argument I presented has been seen by many others; I’m not the first, although maybe others haven’t laid it out in quite the same way.
Don,
“You don’t see the blatant logical contradiction?”
.
No I don’t.
If you skim through the paper, you will arrive at your conclusion. If you follow the logic step-by-step as it is outlined, then greater clarity should emerge.
I never said that if the GHE were true, then it couldn’t affect PM/Rρ.
Quite the reverse in fact.
After many explanations, you still seem to have almost everything backwards, perhaps deliberately, this is why I was suspicious.
.
“T affects PM/Rρ ”
.
You keep saying this – again backwards.
What sets T is PM/Rρ not the reverse.
This is why any GHE must make a big change in density or pressure or both.
There is no evidence that it does.
“This is why any GHE must make a big change in density or pressure or both. There is no evidence that it does.”
There is a ton of published evidence IR opacity (aka GHE) makes a big change in density and pressure & even thermometer temperature starting in 1861. Robert is just behind in his reading.
Trick;
“There is a ton of published evidence IR opacity (aka GHE) makes a big change in density and pressure ”
.
No; there is published evidence that there is a change in density and pressure in the region of the atmosphere associated with the region of IR opacity. That is not conclusive evidence of warming caused by the IR opacity itself, just as a rise in temperature associated with a rise in CO2 is not conclusive evidence of attribution.
This problem cannot be solved by looking at the Earth alone, which is why I introduced several other planetary bodies atmospheres in my papers.
A comparison must be made between atmospheres with varying amounts of GHG in them i order to determine attribution.
“No; there is published evidence that there is a change in density and pressure in the region of the atmosphere associated with the region of IR opacity.”
The atm. IR opacity is a global change Robert not regional. The gases are thoroughly well mixed. Locally, there may be some gas concentrations but globally gases are well mixed in the troposphere by winds.
” just as a rise in temperature associated with a rise in CO2 is not conclusive evidence of attribution.”
You may want to reword that. A rise in temperature associated with a rise in CO2 is conclusive evidence of attribution as was shown in 1861, along with other gases.
”This problem cannot be solved by looking at the Earth alone”
NASA measurements of other planets such as Mars and Venus show the same results as on Earth once the illumination, grey absorber mixing ratios, mass extinction coefficients and total atm. pressure differences are accounted. That is, surface temperatures of these planets have been reasonably measured and are computed with 1LOT surface balances using that input information.
” just as a rise in temperature associated with a rise in CO2 is not conclusive evidence of attribution.”
.
Alright, if you like I will reword it to;
” just as a rise in temperature happening at the same time as a rise in CO2 is not conclusive evidence of attribution.”
.
“NASA measurements of other planets such as Mars and Venus show the same results as on Earth..”
.
Really?
A direct solar insolation of less than 20W/m2 at the surface of Venus can result in emission from that same surface of 15,000W/m2? Really?
”Alright, if you like I will reword it:”
That’s better.
”Really?”
Yes, total available radiation is ~170 W/m^2 & at Venus surface there are no true atmospheric windows at IR wavelengths greater than 3micron. Downward radiation to the surface increases with increasing concentration of infrared-active gases, accompanied by higher atmospheric (tropospheric) temperatures. See page 36 of Bohren 2006.
Venus surface T rises to achieve 1LOT balance with each IR opaque layer until Venus atm. thins out in the IR at total pressure about 0.1 to 0.2bar and radiation directly to space becomes possible. Starting from 93bar, 1LOT equlibrium at each P(z) layer means the surface achieves solar input balance around 732K.
Read my response at 6.58 pm Jan 9th
I wrote my previous comment through bleary eyes very late last night and upon re-reading it in the cold grey light of dawn this morning, I see that I wrote some gibberish about Ned’s first “driving variable” – TOA solar irradiance. The gibberish began with the second sentence of this paragraph:
My brain must have already started to switch off. Of course we can’t calculate “the amount of kinetic energy the near-surface molecules must contain and, from that, the global mean near-surface temperature” just from knowing how much energy (or power, to be strictly accurate) the planet is absorbing from incoming solar radiation! If we could, this whole controversy would never have arisen.
Let me try to correct and clear up my gibberish, then, by saying that the amount of power which the planet is absorbing from incoming sunlight (i.e. its insolation) only enables us to calculate what NASA has (misleadingly, IMO) called the planet’s “black body temperature” and what Willis has called its “S-B temperature”, which is the theoretical maximum temperature that insolation can support by itself (i.e. without being supplemented by power from some other source, such as the greenhouse effect).
Nevertheless, this correction does not detract from the thrust of my argument, which was that, from the standpoint of orthodox science, the TOA solar irradiance does not contain any information about the global mean surface temperature for Ned’s, or anyone else’s data analysis to extract. Since his second “driving variable” – surface pressure – doesn’t contain any information about it either, his claim to be able to predict it from those two variables alone seems scientifically baseless to me.
Can you name the “Driving Variables” that are not used in you estimation please?
A C Osborn, January 10, 2019 at 9:26 am:
I’d be happy to do that, AC, if I knew what you are referring to. Do you mean the mathematical parameters of a heuristic formula that can be used for calculation purposes but don’t explain anything, such as N&Z claim to have come up with? Or do you mean the causal physical factors that orthodox science says determine the global mean surface temperatures of planets with atmospheres?
I could probably describe the latter, but not the former.
The latter please.
Thanks, A C. I hoped that was what you were asking me.
Please see my latest comment below, 3rd item, for my answer.
To summarize where we are at this point:
A lot of people have argued the physics to dismiss NZ.
But at heart it seems that any formulation of T = PM/Rρ (presuming that NZ’s equation follows the same logic, if not the same form) for all planets is not a proof for where T comes from or where PM/Rρ come from: the formula T = PM/Rρ is a tautology, not a proof. This has been pointed out by several people but seems to have been glossed over.
In Stephen’s formulation, it seems to depend ultimately on the fact that a radiating molecule losses kinetic energy. So far, no one has stepped up to defend that position, which as I remember is not true.
Don132
If a “radiating molecule” does not lose Kinetic Energy, what Energy does it lose when radiating Energy.
@A.C.O.
Take CO2 as an example. When it absorbs energy in the 15u band, it has higher internal energy. When that CO2 collides with another molecule (e.g., N2 or O2), some of that higher internal energy is transferred. At sea level, molecular collisions occur about every nano-second. However, there is a bond relaxation time after that CO2 acquires extra energy, and after that time the CO2 may lose that extra energy by emitting 15u band photons. This relaxation time is about 0.1-1 sec. Thus, transferring extra energy via collisions occurs much faster than by IR emission.
However, the CO2 molecule may also gain internal energy via collisions. This increases the rate of energy loss via IR emission relative to collision.
Remember, the 15u IR band is several microns wide, not just at 15u, and contains several vibrational transitions. But, the 15u one occurs with higher frequency.
I know.
Don
“In a GHG-free atmosphere, the effective emissions height is the surface. So then how does the temperature rise above BB?”
.
There are two objections here.
First, there is doubt about the accuracy of the BB law, N&Z and others have papers on this.
Second, I do not believe the first statement is correct. In a strongly convecting atmosphere, why would the effective emissions height be at surface?
.
“I think what’s so hard to comprehend is how pressure alone raises temp above BB.”
.
Well, the fact is it doesn’t. Who said it does this ‘alone’?
It’s the Sun which powers the creation of potential energy in the atmosphere, because it powers convection. Convection of a thick atmosphere in a gravitational field results in a thermal gradient and a thermal enhancement through the generation of KE (temperature) in regions >10kPa.
.
“I don’t get where the extra KE comes from for thermal enhancement above BB temp. ”
.
This has been explained many times.
.
“Your above example assumes GHGs that raise emissions height above the surface.”
.
No it doesn’t. It assumes that either the BB law is wrong, or the emissions height is not at the surface in a non-GHG atmosphere.
“This has been explained many times.”
And all such explanations for “I don’t get where the extra KE comes from for thermal enhancement” violate 1LOT as shown in the top post.
don – stop playing silly games. steven- feeding trolls is a waste of time. don check the ratio of radiant emittances to ke collisions. but there is no good intent here is there. brett
Brett,
What will the ratio of radiant emissions to KE collisions tell us?
The central issues are the contradictions at the heart of Holmes’ formulation and Stephen’s. You can weave all the epicycles you want (mixed metaphor; sorry) and you can refer to the GHG theory and point to flaws in it, but the central issues are the contradictions that if not resolved satisfactorily, prove that the ATE is just plain wrong. I’m sorry. If you want to discard logic and go your separate way, that’s your business.
Silly games? I’ve spent a great deal of time the last couple of days debating the issue, with a goal toward getting to key foundational concepts; I have a sense of humor but I assure you I’m deadly serious, and I’ll not accept any evasions from the hard logic that we seem to have come to.
There can be any number of theories to explain something and they can all be internally consistent and make perfect sense. But, are they consistent with basic laws of physics and with logic? It’s not unknown for theories to take on lives of their own and to be championed and ardently defended, only to later falter when foundational assumptions are proved wrong. Eugenics, perhaps? Others can no doubt think of many, many examples.
No good intent? Yes, there is: the truth, no matter where it falls. That’s the only horse I’ve ever had in this race.
Don132
Don,
I’ve shown you the logical problem for the radiative theory.
If you get an ATE from convection in a non radiative atmosphere then the radiative theory is wrong because it can’t be both. I have given you evidence that established science recognises that convective adjustments neutralise radiative imbalances such as those from GHGs.
You now know that if one switches off convection in Willis’s model then there is no ATE.
If you switch convection on again the ATE comes back.
I can’t add any more if that doesn’t help you.
I note that you seem to have accepted Joe’s implausible assertion that an atmosphere out of hydrostatic equilibrium can somehow be retained. I’ve no idea why you backtracked on that issue.
A fair amount of storms exist at any time on earth’s surface, and above, mostly in the troposphere, so those regions are windier, not hydroststic, but are not blown off into space because the mass does not not reach even a small fraction of escape velocity.
Again, it is just Stephen’s imagination that a non-hydrostatic atmosphere cannot be retained, Stephen simply ignores the observational evidence.