Reposted from Dr. Roy Spencer’s blog
June 7th, 2019 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Abstract: A simple time-dependent model of Earth surface temperatures over the 24 hr day/night cycle at different latitudes is presented. The model reaches energy equilibrium after 1.5 months no matter what temperature it is initialized at. It is shown that even with 1,370 W/m2 of solar flux (reduced by an assumed albedo of 0.3), temperatures at all latitudes remain very cold, even in the afternoon and in the deep tropics. Variation of the model input parameters over reasonable ranges do not change this fact. This demonstrates the importance of the atmospheric “greenhouse” effect, which increases surface temperatures well above what can be achieved with only solar heating and surface infrared loss to outer space.
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post regarding why climate scientists use ~340 W/m2 as the global average solar flux available to the climate system, here I present a model which includes how the incident solar flux (starting with the 1,370 W/m2 solar constant) varies across the Earth as a function of latitude and every 15 minutes throughout the diurnal (day/night) cycle.
I am providing this model to avoid any objections regarding how much solar energy is input into the climate system on average, how that averaging should be done (or whether it is even physically meaningful), whether the nighttime lack of any solar flux should be excluded from the averaging, whether certain assumptions constitute a “flat-Earth” mentality, etc. Instead, the model uses the actual variations of the incident solar radiation on the (assumed spherical) Earth as a function of latitude and time of day. For simplicity, equinox conditions are assumed and so there is no seasonal cycle.
This is not meant to be a realistic model of regional climate; instead, it goes beyond the global averages in the Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget diagram and shows how unrealistically cold temperatures are when you assume there is no greenhouse effect — even in the deep tropics during the afternoon. The model “evolves” the final temperatures, from any starting temperature you specify, based upon a simple energy budget equation (energy conservation) combined with an assumed surface heat capacity. Imbalances between absorbed solar energy and emitted IR energy cause a temperature change which eventually stops (in a long-term average sense) when the daily rate of emitted IR energy equals the daily absorbed solar energy.
The time-dependent model has adjustable inputs: the solar constant (1,370 W/m2); an albedo (for simplicity assumed 0.3 everywhere); the depth of the surface layer responding to solar heating (using the heat capacity of water, but soil heat capacity is similar); and, the assumed broadband infrared emissivity of the surface controlling how fast energy is lost to space as the surface warms. I set the time step to 15 minutes to resolve the diurnal cycle. The Excel model is here, and you are free to change the input parameters and see the results.
Here’s how the incident solar flux changes with time-of-day and latitude. This should not be controversial, since it is just based upon geometry. Even though I only do model calculations at latitudes of 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, and 85 deg. (north and south), the global, 24-hr average incident solar flux is very close to simply 1,370 divided by 4, which is the ratio of the surface areas of a circle and a sphere having the same radius:
If I had done calculations for every 1 deg. of latitude, the model result would have been exceedingly close to 1,370/4.
If I assume the surface layer responding to heating is 0.1 m deep, a global albedo of 0.3, and a broadband IR emissivity of 0.98, and run the model for 46 days, the model reaches very nearly a steady-state energy equilibrium no matter what temperature I initialize it at (say, 100K or 300 K):
Note that even in the deep tropics, the average temperature is only 29 deg. F. At 45 deg. latitude, the temperature averages -11 deg. F. The diurnal temperature variations are very large, partly because the greenhouse effect in nature helps retain surface energy at night, keeping temperatures from falling too fast like it does in the model.
There is no realistic way to remove the very cold bias of the model without including an atmospheric greenhouse effect. If you object that convection has been ignored, that is a surface cooling (not warming) process, so including convection will only make matters worse. The lack of model heat transport out of the tropics, similarly, would only make the model tropical temperatures colder, not warmer, if it was included. The supposed warming caused by atmospheric pressure that some believe is an alternative theory to the GHE would cause (as Willis Eschenbach has pointed out) surface temperatures to rise, making the surface lose more energy to space than it gains from the sun, and there would no longer be energy balance, violating the 1st Law of Thermodynamics. The temperature would simply go back down again to achieve energy balance (we wouldn’t want to violate the 1st Law).
I hope this will help convince some who are still open-minded on this subject that even intense tropical sunshine cannot explain real-world tropical temperatures. The atmospheric greenhouse effect must also be included. The temperature (of anything) is not determined by the rate of energy input (say, the intensity of sunlight, or how fast your car engine burns gas); it is the result of a balance between energy gain and energy loss. The greenhouse effect reduces the rate of energy loss at the surface, thus causing higher temperatures then if it did not exist.
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Thanks for taking the time to (attempt to) pound some sense in the anti-GHG, its pressure cowboys.
Embrace the power of AND.
As long as that AND is between heat and work…
“…even intense tropical sunshine cannot explain real-world tropical temperatures. The atmospheric greenhouse effect must also be included.”
And the greenhouse effect is increasing.
Lord_Huron+D,
“And the greenhouse effect is increasing.”
What evidence do you have to support this? According to actual measurements I’ve seen this is not true. E.g Gero/Turner 2011
Richard M:
“Radiative forcing – measured at Earth’s surface – corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect,” R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
Not where I live, and the trend toward cooler temps over the past few decades is inconsistent with an increasing “greenhouse” effect.
Lord Huron-the +D does that reflect your college grade in Science.?
“Greenhouse effect ” keeps the planet alive. Climate change is what puts green($) in to the pockets of people like Algore and the whole warmist industry..
R Shearer, with all due respect, where you live is not relevant to what’s going on globally.
It may or may not be. So far any potential increase is so far below the level of the noise that it can’t be detected.
“I hope this will help convince some who are still open-minded (…)”
See what you did there? You insulted the folk who are not yet persuaded, while confessing that you are _not_ open minded!
I think Roy did a good job with the phrasing, using positive words. No insult.
Are you suggesting that his goal be to persuade closed minded people?
I am open minded, and this post went a long way towards helping me understand the subject matter. If I had already made up my mind (closed it) I would not have been open to the learning.
I do not understand how you found insult.
I can sense some of why you are a hermit, Oldguy.
It takes a mighty weird reading of that statement to conclude that the good Dr. has confessed to being closed minded.
The only insult is to those too closed minded to look at the evidence being presented.
How do you explain the temperature on Venus, when sunlight does not reach the surface, due to its thick, reflective atmosphere?
Maybe E = σ T^4 plus Venus appears larger than Earth as viewed from the sun. Differences in atmospheric density, composition, etc. – many factors here.
Is it possible that the Venus surface temperature is actually cooler than Earth’s?
Assume Earth’s atmosphere at sea level: P ~1.014 bar and T ~287K
Assume Venus’ surface atmosphere: P ~ 92 bar and T ~735K
As a very, very, very rough calculation, I used a diesel engine calculator to estimate earth’s surface temperature if it were compressed adiabatically to 92 bar- equivalent of Venus. The calculator estimated that at a pressure of 92 bar, Earth’s surface temperature would increase to 1384K – nearly twice the surface temperature of Venus. This is hypothetical and does not account for many other factors.
Does your calculation give the temperature immediately following compression, only, or does it include heat loss due to convection to altitude and resultant radiation to space?
Wouldn’t the dynamics of a refrigerator circuit be more applicable? Compression heating, followed by radiative heat loss and expansion cooling?
SR
It’s not a steady state temperature – this exercise just illustrates that comparing gas temperatures at different pressures can be like apples and oranges.
“Is it possible that the Venus surface temperature is actually cooler than Earth’s?”
NO. Russia actually landed a probe on to the surface of Venus. It didn’t last long but it did have enough to take pictures, collect data and send it all back to earth. Venera 14 measured a surface temperature of 465C at a pressure 94 times greater than on earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_14
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera
;<)
A day of the surface of Venus (solar day) takes 117 Earth days. Because Venus does not tilt on its own axis, there is no seasonal variation. The Venus atmosphere just like all substances does not reflect heat radiation from the Sun, but absorbs it.
So you do not recognise “Albedo” then?
Sunlight does reach the surface.
Correct. As proven by the Russian landers.
due to its thick, reflective, clouds.
The thick cloud are a surface. And this surface is about 50 km above rocky surface which not warmed at all by any direct sunlight. Well, there is no direct sunlight at rocky surface, and it’s not warmed by any of the indirect sunlight which reaches it, either.
Venus’s surface temperature can only be explained by its very thick atmosphere created by carbon dioxide (96%).
CO2 is plant food, but there are no plants on Venus.
20 W/m² of sunlight, on average, reach the Venusian surface.
16000 W/m² of IR down-welling are needed to explain Venusian surface temperature in terms of the GHGE.
It’s a puzzle.
Looks like we need more CO2.
But those pesky plants and algae keep absorbing it to form the basis of the Earths biosystem. If C02 goes below 150 ppm then life on Earth will be reduced to a few bacteria, deep ocean vents and tardigrades.
Energy transport should take into account the operation of the winter stratospheric polar vortex.
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/clisys/STRAT/gif/zu_sh.gif
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/clisys/STRAT/gif/zt_sh.gif
It keeps bugging me that to assume no greenhouse effect, you have to also assume that no water exists on the planet. That would change albedo and atmospheric circulation, wouldn’t it?
Would the global air circulation be anywhere close to how is is now?
Absolutely not. The specific gravity of the water vapor is much lower than the specific gravity of the air.
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-gravities-gases-d_334.html
Likewise, ozone decomposition is important in stratospheric circulation because the ozone molecule has a higher molecular weight than other molecules in the stratosphere.
In the upper troposphere, ozone is not mixed with water vapor.
http://oi66.tinypic.com/33vlx8o.jpg
The second figure very closely models real world observations of clear day total-solar plus terrestrial (downwards infra-red) irradiance, and also surface air temperature at 1.2m (plus many degrees Celsius depending on the season), at several locations in Australia including Alice Springs in the central desert. The curve is affected by cloud and humidity. The greenhouse effect is plainly obvious. The only point in dispute is the amount due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
Clouds are a liquid/solid and thus absorb and emit a much broader frequency of photons, in fact they absorb all near and far IR photons. Water vapor has a relatively high heat capacity and thus cools much slower than dry air. Neither of these phenomenon are related to the “greenhouse gas” effect.
What is clear is that pseudoscience has confused the masses into believing that the radiative emissions corresponding to the vibrations of gas molecules controls the properties of atmospheres rather than the laws which actually do.
” the depth of the surface layer responding to solar heating (using the heat capacity of water, but soil heat capacity is similar)”
“Water has an especially high heat capacity at 4.18 J/g*C … Land, on the other hand, has a much lower heat capacity, which is usually less than 1 J/g*C.”
https://geo.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Book%3A_Oceanography_%28Hill%29/04%3A_Properties_of_Water/4.2%3A_Heat_capacity%2C_the_ocean%2C_and_our_weather
Water is also sneaky in that it can hide or release significant amounts of energy by changing phases without a temperature change.
Very important in real models.
Dear Dr. Spencer,
You write: “There is no realistic way to remove the very cold bias of the model without including an atmospheric greenhouse effect.”
Could you maybe seperately quantify the greenhouse effect of H2O, CO2 or any other relevant source to further explain this statement? Since we have to ‘fight’ the greenhouse, according to politicians, we need to know the ‘enemy’.
Best regards,
Scarface
That is an interesting question, and while we all know the science is settled, this question is ‘impossible to answer’. Enter Wikipedia weaseling here.
So in fact the Wikipedia source claims taking all CO2 only out of the atmosphere would take 9% of the GHE away, while eliminating both all methane and CO2 would take at least 12%.
The GHE changes the planet’s albedo via cloud, sea level, plant life, and ice feedback, so this is much irrelevant a number anyway. And I’ll quote wikipeople again: Clouds also absorb and emit infrared radiation and thus affect the radiative properties of the atmosphere.[19]
Today we’re having extreme (well, for me at least, Floridans may disagree)+27C or 80F, and the regulating thunderstorm will most probably hit in the afternoon. There’s the feedback readily available.
Thanks!
Scarface: “Could you maybe seperately quantify the greenhouse effect of H2O, CO2 or any other relevant source to further explain this statement? ”
WR: Table 1 of ‘The Greenhouse Effect and Carbon Dioxide’ is very interesting. See https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wea.2072
Row 2 gives the downward radiation incident at the surface for the different greenhouse gases for all the named gases, if removed from the atmosphere:
H2O – 208 W/m2 (91.1%)
CO2 – 16 W/m2 (7.0%)
O3 – 2.6 W/m2 (1.1%)
CH4 – 0.8 W/m2 (0.4%)
N2O – 0.8 W/m2 (0.4%)
At the surface the highest concentration of water vapor is found. It is where we measure surface temperatures. It is where the greenhouse effect is most important. Water vapor plays the main role: 91.1%.
Thank you!
The surface temperature in medium and high latitudes depends on the height of the tropopause (convection height).
http://oi68.tinypic.com/2j0hy1g.jpg
For comparison, the current temperature in Idaho.
Kudos, ren. What we mistake for the greenhouse effect is actually the heat of compression the air receives as it descends from the radiating altitude to the surface. Any model that ignores this is simply wrong.
pochas,
Correct.
Maybe you are confusing GHE and work of expansion or compression of a gas volume as it’s pressure changes, which manifests itself as the temperature lapse rate of the atmosphere. Certainly different. Both contribute to warmth at low altitudes.
For every unit of air that is descending, there is a unit of air rising.
For the air falling to gain more heat than the air rising loses, conservation of energy would have to be violated.
Compression on the night side is not ‘descending’.
As relaxation on the day side is not ‘rising’.
Of course, the main greenhouse gas is water. Anyone who has lived in an arid climate can attest to that. link The days are blistering hot and the nights are freezing.
In the vicinity of Lake Ontario the night time sky feels like a comforting blanket. In North Dakota, the night time sky feels like the cold of outer space.
Exactly, so why are we not seeing in this model very hot temperatures in the equitorial/tropical regions during the hours say 10 am through to 6 pm?
In the tropics, it does show a 60F swing between day and night. That’s the kind of swing you can expect in a desert. link For a dessert to have that kind of swing it would have to be something like a baked alaska. (Am I a real commie or am I just a Groucho Marxist?)
Where does it show a 60F swing?
The graph titled “No-Greenhouse-Effect Model Temperatures at Different Latitudes”. The top curve is the area near the equator.
And you actually believe it drops to zero degrees F every day?
I don’t know what that graph purports to show, but it can’t be Tropical temperatures.
baked alaska — am I just a Groucho Marxist?)
That’s the best dessert I ever hoard…..(tapping cigar)
“Anyone who has lived in an arid climate can attest to that. The days are blistering hot and the nights are freezing.”
This is one of those tired, often repeated “facts” that has little real evidence. Ever been to Phoenix or Las Vegas in summer at midnight? Even then, the A/C has difficult keeping up. Drier atmosphere do lose heat more quickly than humid ones, but just because 85° “feels” cold after a 110° day doesn’t mean it’s “freezing cold”.
Both the Phoenix and Las Vegas areas are artificially humid. And then there is the heat island effect at night.
you might be interested in seeing these results:
https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:6011cd61-5241-4597-af0c-60fe397eb4a4
1) note how in Las Vegas where they changed a desert into an oasis, minimum T has increased by 5K since 1974.
2) note howin Tandil (ARG) where they chopped all the trees, minimum T has decreased by 2K since 1974.
Your example proves my point. Diurnal temperature ranges may have dropped somewhat, but the “blazing in the day and freezing at night” idea is in everyone’s heads. I’ve lived in dry deserts and in colder, higher elevations. Fifty miles outside Phoenix or Yuma are still really, really warm at night.
Failing to include magnetic flux from solar wind, geophysical torsion from the pair-body Lagrange (moon earth neutral point offset from axis of rotation), cosmic radiation and solar tidal thermal input make the “model” nothing more than a joke.
It “models” nothing at all. It is simply an input chart that occludes all other energy sources.
Please provide your better model, as you clearly can do more than a joke. Or then just shut up.
A couple comments Prjingo –
There is not other energy source? The energy is retained by items like water and dirt and air, but those are not sources, unless you want to model the residual heat of the planet, or possibly the small amount from cosmic radiation?
It models a simple black body radiation to and back from an earth sized sphere and a sun, placed like ours are, in defense of those who would say the current models used use a flat earth instead of a round one.
It makes a very clear example of exactly that, but only that, since that is what he wanted to model.
Prjindigo says: “It is simply an input chart that occludes all other energy sources.”
Sort of like climate models occlude natural variability of the sun, oceans, etc. etc, etc.
Prjindigo you don’t seem to undestand what a model is at all.
Changes in circulation in the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere depend on changes in ionizing radiation at these atmospheric levels.
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/onlinequery.cgi?station=OULU&startday=08&startmonth=05&startyear=1989&starttime=00%3A00&endday=08&endmonth=06&endyear=2019&endtime=00%3A00&resolution=Automatic+choice&outputmode=default&picture=on
The greenhouse effect reduces the rate of energy loss at the surface, thus causing higher temperatures then if it did not exist.
Oh. Not the insulating effect of air mass, cloud cover…water vapour…
I suppose you call those greenhouse effects…and then conflate the ‘greenhouse effect’ as being ONLY carbon dioxide?
Isn’t that what is called ‘bait and switch’?
Dr Roy,
I must be a bit slow but are you actually saying that a disc and sphere receive the same amount/intensity of light energy – allowing for the sphere to rotate and assuming equinox and dividing by 4?
Clearly the angle drops off toward the poles so despite rotation around the axis, there will still be less strength of insolation per area of a sphere than a disc. You only have to stand at a lower latitude or see long afternoon shadows to observe light rays spread over a larger area when the sun is at a low angle.
The sun never gets overhead here but of course it did when I lived above one of the tropics.
I know, this can’t be what you mean though.. I guess? 😉
The area of a disc is pi.r^2. Half the sphere of the Earth is sunlit at all times & shows an area of pi.r^2 to the sun. The surface area of the sphere is 4.pi.r^2 so that energy emitted from the surface is spread over four times the area of the incoming.
Of course but I did think I was stating the obvious! The point I was making is that the relevant climate issue comes about as a result of geometric shape presented to the sun, the not surface area! And yes, a static hemisphere receives half the light of a disc with the same surface area. What matter’s to climate is the uneven insolation of this 3D geometry compared to the even illumination of a disc. Averaging conceals this important difference, particularly as it is the very reason we have climates – plural – as apposed to one singular and global climate!
“Instead, the model uses the actual variations of the incident solar radiation on the (assumed spherical) Earth as a function of latitude and time of day. For simplicity, equinox conditions are assumed and so there is no seasonal cycle.”
Judging by the best long temperature record (CET), almost of the warming took place in the winter months.
http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/CET-SW.htm
I’m no expert any of these matters, but the above modelling looks to me at best to be incomplete, at worst to be wrong.
The albedo is mainly a function of clouds, but given that we know that the sunlit side of the moon has a temperature nearer 127 degC, and it reaches this temperature very quickly, how can the afternoon temperatures in the equitorial/tropical regions of the planet reach at best about 7 to 10 degrees for a few hours?
There must at best be something very wrong with this model.
If the temperatures predicted by this model were to be correct, there would be little oceanic evaporation and hence very little in the way of clouds, and hence the albedo would not be 0.3 as suggested.
No wonder climate science is in so much trouble, when this type of model is put forward as a way to explain things or identify processes.
It is a very good explanatory device that Dr. Roy is using here. Albedo is stated to be 0.3, unlike the moon at 0.12. The moon rotates once a month, Earth once a day. This article improves the climate science knowledge of many interested people.
I think if you are doing a grid and measuring flux by latitude, you MUST also ,include reflectivity by latitude because that changes with angle of incidence. Especially over water. Albedo is a great general term when looking at the disc of the earth, but when you look at absorbtivity and reflectivity over the arc of the globe, it most definitely changes from equator to pole (ok, this is assumption since I don’t have the numbers, but I cannot see how it would not).
I see that in Roy’s thread our contributor Philip Mulholland has posted this:
Philip Mulholland says:
June 7, 2019 at 4:24 PM
“Dr.Spencer thinks convection is a purely cooling effect which is the same mistake as Trenberth et al. in that they miss out the release of Kinetic Energy in the descent phase.
The reason for that being important is extensively described here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/02/modelling-the-climate-of-noonworld-a-new-look-at-venus/
from which one can see that convective overturning delays energy loss to space without any need for GHGs and thus accounts for the greenhouse effect.”
I cannot post at Roy’s blog because he banned me several years ago when I tried to explain to him that at any given moment half the troposphere is moving on an upward trajectory within low pressure cells and half on a downward trajectory within high pressure cells. A basic meteorological principle that he disagrees with, apparently, and is prepared to ban someone forever for pointing it out.
Thus I will have to contribute here instead if anyone still thinks that Roy is right in light of Philip’s work.
The truth is that the greenhouse effect is a direct consequence of convective overturning causing a delay in radiative emission to space and radiant gases are nothing to do with it.
That simple fact needs to be out in the wider world as soon as possible.
Stephen,
I agree with what you say but it is also true that without a greenhouse effect providing resistance to the flow of radiant heat through the atmosphere there would be no vertical circulation. The two effects work together with the lapse rate to produce the temperature profiles we see in the troposphere.
Bernie.
Bernard
If there is a lapse rate there will be convection because the surface is always unevenly heated leading to temperature and density variation in the horizontal plane.
Radiative material in the atmosphere is not needed.
The greenhouse effect that raises the surface temperature is convection. Conduction and convection provide that resistance to outward radiation because they operate more slowly than the speed of light.
If there were no convection then the atmosphere would behave like a rigid solid, conduction would filter upwards and the atmosphere would become isothermal with no lapse rate with all energy to space going out from the top.
The lapse rate is caused solely by the conversion of KE to PE with height and that conversion requires convection alone.
Convection cannot be suppressed if there is uneven surface heating as there must be on a rough surface on a sphere illuminated from a point source.
Convection is present in all gases because of the weak bonds between molecules which is why we need the Gas Laws
Stephen,
If the atmospheric gases cannot radiate heat, which requires GH gases, then it cannot transfer heat away from the planet and convective overturning will not occur. The GH gases are essential for the atmospheric heat engine to work and the lapse rate determines the temperature gradient in the troposphere. Without GH gases in the atmosphere the plant’s surface would radiate directly to space and much colder as Dr Spencer points out.
Ocean vaporization in the tropics provides convection.
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/clisys/STRAT/gif/zt_nh.gif
If there are no GHGs then anything emitted from the surface goes straight to space. Anyone who doubts the greenhouse effect should inspect Earth’s radiation spectrum, which is quite clear about the question.
A convecting non GHG atmosphere would still use surface energy to fuel convection so less would radiate to space or are you saying that the same parcel of kinetic energy at the surface can be in two places at once or carry out two tasks at once ?
The fact is that one must apportion surface KE between convection and radiation when there is a convecting atmosphere interposed between surface and space.
Read the link to Philip Mulholland’s article.
I have some questions for all those that say that CO2 is responsible for Warming the Atmosphere and therefore the Planet’s Surface.
Only a percentage of the warmth in the Atmosphere is provided by LWIR, especially in the tropics where most of the sunlight stikes causing Convection.
If the only Heated gas in any quantity in the upper Atmosphere that Radiates LWIR is CO2 what do you call the other heated gases (Nitrogen & Oxygen) that hold their heat and do not radiate LWIR.
The only Gas that can remove that heat from Convection that is present in the Atmosphere is CO2, so what do you call it?
“so what do you call it?”
Water vapor. Water vapor is the only important greenhouse gas. If you’re an alien who sees infrared looking at the earth, what you see is not a blue marble, but a fuzzy ball that looks like Venus, which is water vapor doing its job of cooling the planet. And, since water vapor can make it rain, it is doing a powerful job of stabilizing the earth’s temperature as well.
A minimum atmospheric temperature, or tropopause, occurs
at a pressure of around 0.1 bar in the atmospheres of Earth1
,
Titan2
, Jupiter3
, Saturn4
, Uranus and Neptune4
, despite great
differences in atmospheric composition, gravity, internal heat
and sunlight. In all of these bodies, the tropopause separates
a stratosphere with a temperature profile that is controlled
by the absorption of short-wave solar radiation, from a region
below characterized by convection, weather and clouds5,6
.
However, it is not obvious why the tropopause occurs at the
specific pressure near 0.1 bar. Here we use a simple, physically
based model7
to demonstrate that, at atmospheric pressures
lower than 0.1 bar, transparency to thermal radiation allows
short-wave heating to dominate, creating a stratosphere. At
higher pressures, atmospheres become opaque to thermal
radiation, causing temperatures to increase with depth and
convection to ensue. A common dependence of infrared
opacity on pressure, arising from the shared physics of
molecular absorption, sets the 0.1 bar tropopause. We reason
that a tropopause at a pressure of approximately 0.1 bar is
characteristic of many thick atmospheres, including exoplanets
and exomoons in our galaxy and beyond. Judicious use of this
rule could help constrain the atmospheric structure, and thus
the surface environments and habitability, of exoplanets.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.465.8585&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Without GHGs, it maters not where the energy is ultimately released in the earth/atmosphere system, Stephen. Convection just moves it higher to be released.
I am appalled by many of the comments on this Thread. Dr. Spenser made a toy model with the sole purpose of showing the necessity of GHGs to obtain earth’s temperature regime, nothing else.
Some of you excoriate Dr. Spenser because his model fails to list all earth processes, totally misunderstanding its purpose.
Some of you are pressure cowboys, ignoring real science.
You all need to get a grip; you are not helpful in the real climate debate.
Dave,
Roy accepts that convection upwards cools the surface but then he omits the thermal effect of returning warmth to the surface in descending air.
That is a clear accounting error and fatal to his model.
It is true that the two processes net out to zero but nonetheless they cause a retention of additional energy in the system since convection is slower than radiation.
That causes the surface temperature to rise higher than S-B.
Philip Mulholland shows clearly via a mathematical model that the effect occurs even if no GHGs are present.
How strong is the calculated effect, especially as compared to the measured effect of GHGs?
Also, you are going to have to explain the reasoning behind: “It is true that the two processes [Rising and falling air masses?] net out to zero but nonetheless they cause a retention of additional energy in the system since convection is slower than radiation.”
Miskolczi stated his conclusions as: –
New relationships among the flux components have been found and are used to construct a quasi-all-sky model of the earth’s atmospheric energy transfer process. In the 1948-2008 time period the global average annual mean true greenhouse-gas optical thickness is found to be time-stationary. Simulated radiative no-feedback effects of measured actual CO2 change over the 61 years were calculated and found to be of magnitude easily detectable by the empirical data and analytical methods used.
The data negate increase in CO2 in the atmosphere as a hypothetical cause for the apparently observed global warming. A hypothesis of significant positive feedback by water vapor effect on atmospheric infrared absorption is also negated by the observed measurements. Apparently major revision of the physics underlying the greenhouse effect is needed.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/05/23/an-analysis-of-the-earths-energy-budget/?fbclid=IwAR0rDkmPm0HLFVau7-aZ8rl80De2SzTIl7798jNj7y7aQMN9mz06TdkHW6o
Then revise physics for us, ren.
Exactly, any model of an atmosphere that does not include convection and gravitational potential energy is not a model of an atmosphere, but rather the model of a simple radiator in a fantasy world. This “model” is literally ignoring all physical processes that are keeping the atmosphere aloft in the first place.
Yes, gases are opaque to certain narrow frequencies of IR, so what? Emission and absorption by the gas molecules in these frequencies contribute near zero energy to the translational kinetic energy of the gas in nature because the vectors of these photons are random and equal in all directions, thus cancelling each other out.
Star heats surface, fraction of the surface receives enough energy to become volatile, volatile molecules receive further energy from collisions with the surface and spread that energy to other volatiles via collisions, a force called buoyancy creates the structure of the atmosphere, and now an energy reserve exists above the planet surface which stores solar energy that irradiated on the planet in the form of kinetic and gravitational potential energy.
Once you quantify those processes, which are basically scientific laws, then you can move on to quantifying noise variables, like the insignificant emissions from the atmosphere itself, but something tells me that climastrology will continue to persist bassackwards.
That basically would argue for the at WUWT mostly unwelcome hypothesis of Nikolov and Zeller. The atmosphere in its whole would be heating the planet, not trace gases. Gravitational force is converted into pressure, pressure causes heating. Gravitation plus atmosphere generates the “greenhouse” effect.
Gravitation is a steady force of matter, so it works steadily on the atmosphere. It thereby does not generate additionally energy in terms of W/m2 incoming solar irradiation but it amplifies its heat by applying a constant force of contraction on the atmospheric mass that is expanding due to solar irradition resulting in pressure generating heat or how radiationists like to phrase it, IR.
The problem of the radiative nature of the “greenhouse” theory is that it neglects the energy transfer by other mechanisms than radiative transfer that all work in the atmosphere thereby generating heat through pressure by atmospheric mass and gravity.
In a hypothetical comparison of open convective atmospheres of planets, temperature would be therefore equal at the same pressure height in the atmospheres independent of total atmospheric mass and total incoming solar irraditaion just through the classical ideal gas law PV = nRT; and as far as we know from measurements of interplanetary probes that seems to be the case.
If one thinks again about the term “heat trapping”, then it does not sound so wrong anymore – though it’s not CO2 trapping the heat, it’s the atmosphere as a whole through pressure.
Now you only have to bring in the different greenhouse forcings around the world. In the tropics it is high but at the poles and in the deserts it is very low because of low water vapor contribution.
“The lack of model heat transport out of the tropics, similarly, would only make the model tropical temperatures colder, not warmer, if it was included.”
Sure, that is true, but:
Polar region is much colder, with less outgoing IR radiation. Polar region IR energy loss is about half of the tropical region in the real World. In your model this effect is even more significant. Heat radiation at the pole according to your model is about 30% of that at the tropics. This means, that any energy transported from tropics to poles will retarded for a significantly longer time, which would cause rise of the global average temperature of your model.
How can this model be right given:
1. what we know about temperatures on the moon?
2. what we know about temperatures in deserts where the main greenhouse gas, water vapour, is all but absent?
Roy has explained to us why weather changes temperature, so that for instance clouds make it warmer in winter. Although they make it cooler in summer. What goes on in the atmosphere changes surface temperature. This fact is trivial.
“Greenhouse” is of course a bad name for it since the heating in a glass greenhouse is nothing to do with radiation. The greenhouse warming hypothesis is highly inductive, assumption built on assumption built on assumption. That inductive approach allows you to construct whatever hypothesis you want.
The only way to do science however is by deduction. What does the evidence say – does it refute a conjecture or not. The palaeoclimate record refutes the CO2 warming conjecture. CO2 increases in response to warming, not the other way around, in all history before humans. Ignoring this deductive evidence and sticking to a purely inductive narrative is misleading and falls short of science.
+100
It’s even worse than that. There are well understood theories and physical laws that could act as a starting point for climate models rather than working backwards from a grossly pseudoscientific assumption. And in fact there are those that have done this and have accurately modeled rocky planet atmospheres based on these well accepted laws but the climastrology community ignores them.
“The palaeoclimate record refutes the CO2 warming conjecture. CO2 increases in response to warming, not the other way around, in all history before humans.”
err no.
C02 is both a cause of warming, and a response to warming.
Second. The paleo record, ice cores, show Both. as predicted
What are the mechanisms that have caused a flux of CO2 in the atmosphere prior to humans and within the time contained in ice core records?
Seriously, can competent scientists argue that the ~100 ky and ~40 ky glacial cycle were controlled by some magical phenomenon that causes minor fluctuations of CO2 in quasi-regular patterns?
Seriously, can competent scientists argue that the ~100 ky and ~40 ky glacial cycle……
—————–
Robert W.
Seriously, no matter what, “glacial cycles” do not even exist.
Simply a matter of colloquial messing around with terminology, as per means of
forcing silly assumptions…
Glacial periods, or Glacial seasons, very much proper to consider than.
Same as in consideration of Winter periods,
or Winter seasons versus “Winter cycles”… where Winter cycles do not really even exist… unless colloquially considered as per such, as per child talk…
Just saying that “glacial cycles” terminology very lose and most probably very misleading, if not careful.
just saying.
cheers
“What are the mechanisms that have caused a flux of CO2 in the atmosphere prior to humans and within the time contained in ice core records?”
Look up Mr Milankovitch.
Yep, every time CO2 is at its highest levels we re-glaciate.
The climate editors at work:
In 1991
CO2-climate relationship as deduced from the Vostok ice core: a re-examination based on new measurements and on a re-evaluation of the air dating
J. -M. BARNOLA P. PIMIENTA D. RAYNAUD Y. S. KOROTKEVICH
Tellus, Volume43, Issue2
April 1991, Pages 83-90
Abstract
Interpretation of the past CO2 variations recorded in polar ice during the large climatic transitions requires an accurate determination of the air-ice age difference. For the Vostok core, the age differences resulting from different assumptions on the firn densification process are compared and a new procedure is proposed to date the air trapped in this core. The penultimate deglaciation is studied on the basis of this new air dating and new CO2 measurements. These measurements and results obtained on other ice cores indicate that at the beginning of the deglaciations, the CO2 increase is either in phase or lags by less than about 1000 years with respect to the Antarctic temperature, while it clearly lags the temperature at the onset of the last glaciation.
In 1999:
Ice Core Records of Atmospheric CO2 Around the Last Three Glacial Terminations
Hubertus Fischer, Martin Wahlen, Jesse Smith, Derek Mastroianni, Bruce Deck
Science 12 Mar 1999:
Vol. 283, Issue 5408, pp. 1712-1714
Abstract
Air trapped in bubbles in polar ice cores constitutes an archive for the reconstruction of the global carbon cycle and the relation between greenhouse gases and climate in the past. High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 ± 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations. Despite strongly decreasing temperatures, high carbon dioxide concentrations can be sustained for thousands of years during glaciations; the size of this phase lag is probably connected to the duration of the preceding warm period, which controls the change in land ice coverage and the buildup of the terrestrial biosphere.
Stauffer B. Climate change: Cornucopia of ice core results.
Nature. 1999 Jun;399(6735):412.
News and Views
Petit et al.1 report that, within the uncertainties in the record, the increases in Antarctic temperature, CO2and CH4were in phase during all four transitions.
By contrast, based on measurements on the same core, Fischer et al.2 have claimed that for the last three terminations there was a time lag of 500 to 1,000 years between the temperature increase and the CO2increase. The question of lags and leads in climate change is obviously a highly important one. But identifying a 500-1,000-year time lag is taking the current data and state of knowledge to its limits. Uncertainties stem not only from the limited sampling frequency but also from the problem of assigning dates to the air-containing bubbles in the core3 (air becomes enclosed in bubbles only at about 100 m below the snow surface, and so air and ice at the same level are of different ages).
Even if there does indeed turn out to be a time lag, CO2can still be an important amplifier for the temperature increase during the glacial-interglacial transition, which itself lasts several thousand years. However, whether amplification by greenhouse gases was responsible for 50% of the temperature increase, as Petit et al. speculate, also remains a hypothesis for the moment.
In 2012
Shakun JD, Clark PU, He F, Marcott SA, Mix AC, Liu Z, Otto-Bliesner B, Schmittner A, Bard E. Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation.
Nature. 2012 Apr;484(7392):49.
Abstract
Here we construct a record of global surface temperature from 80 proxy records and show that temperature is correlated with and generally lags CO2 during the last (that is, the most recent) deglaciation. Differences between the respective temperature changes of the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere parallel variations in the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation recorded in marine sediments. These observations, together with transient global climate model simulations, support the conclusion that an antiphased hemispheric temperature response to ocean circulation changes superimposed on globally in-phase warming driven by increasing CO2 concentrations is an explanation for much of the temperature change at the end of the most recent ice age.
In 2013
Synchronous Change of Atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic Temperature During the Last Deglacial Warming
F. Parrenin, V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Köhler, D. Raynaud, D. Paillard, J. Schwander, C. Barbante, A. Landais, A. Wegner, J. Jouzel
Science 01 Mar 2013:
Vol. 339, Issue 6123, pp. 1060-1063
Abstract
Here we propose a revised relative age scale for the concentration of atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic temperature for the last deglacial warming, using data from five Antarctic ice cores. We infer the phasing between CO2 concentration and Antarctic temperature at four times when their trends change abruptly. We find no significant asynchrony between them, indicating that Antarctic temperature did not begin to rise hundreds of years before the concentration of atmospheric CO2, as has been suggested by earlier studies.
“The job’s a good-un.”
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Study #1: CO2 lags.
Study #2: CO2 lags.
Study #3: CO2 lags. Many uncertainties. CO2 driving temperature is speculative; remains a hypothesis.
Study #4: Did not identify the 80 proxies used. AMOC changes, superimposed on their climate model’s speculation that CO2 drove temperature changes “… is an explanation for much of the temperature change at the end of the most recent ice age.”
Study #5: “Here we propose a revised relative age scale …” Has anyone verified this revision in the six years since this study? Or does this study have the quality of typical CliSci studies: not reproducible?
Conclusion? There is no “The job’s a good-un.” if this is all you can find. Wrong Weed Patch.
None of this crap has anything to do with proving CAGW. Currently, temperatures are not following UN IPCC climate model speculation.
David
You missed the sarcasm in my post.
Ice core data with CO2 lagging temperature did not fit the CAGW hypothesis.
So instead of changing the hypothesis they changed the data.
This is absolute fraud.
The Shakun paper in particular is a disgrace.
He trawled for the worst possible proxies he could find – some of his biological proxies barely resolved the Holocene from the last glacial maximum.
Mixing 80 such proxies together and adding in a false start to the Holocene in the form of the Bolling-Allerod and Younger Dryas, plus a sprinkling of inter hemispheric bipolar seesaw, Shakun conjoured up an outcome to please the Climagisterium – faked evidence that CO2 change preceded temperature change.
What Shakun et al did to paleo climate data to force it to confess the primacy of CO2, is the same as what Ramsey Bolton, in the Game of Thrones, did to Theon Greyjoy to turn him into “Reek”.
I think the key point missing in this discussion is where the actual cooling of the planet takes place. In a model without GHGs the cooling can ONLY take place at the surface. This means it does not allow for a lapse rate to increase the temperature from a point higher in the atmosphere.
Hence, the need for GHGs. But, what if there was something else? Let’s assume we have a special molecule that acts exactly like a GHG except for one difference. It only radiates away from the surface towards space. It still interacts with other molecules and transfers energy back and forth kinetically.
Hence, we now have a mechanism to raise the point where the Earth cools. This allows the the formation of a lapse rate higher in the atmosphere just like we get with GHGs. So, what would the temperature of the surface be with this model? What would be the difference between it and the GHG model?
My own guess is that the temperature would be almost identical to the GHG model. But note, there is no back radiation. All energy transfer back to the surface would be via convection and conduction. Thoughts?
Richard
A non GHG atmosphere would still have a lapse rate because convection cannot be prevented for an unevenly illuminated surface and once convection starts the conversion of KE to PE with height causes a lapse rate.
Convection removes KE from the surface in one location and returns it to the surface in another and the time delay in emission to space caused by that delay results in extra energy within the system and thus a higher surface temperature.
There is no way around it.
Convection causes the greenhouse effect.
Sorry Stephen, I’ve seen you make this claim many times. It misses the point. Sure, you can get convection, but that cannot raise the elevation of the radiating surface because without GHGs there is nothing to radiate away the energy above the surface.
In your example the warmest place is still at the surface where the energy is radiated away. If it wasn’t then it would violate the 1st law.
Of course all radiation is from the surface for a non GHG atmosphere but that does not preclude a lapse rate.
Descending air returns KE to the surface which then radiates it to space so as to maintain hydrostatic equilibrium.
Read Philip Mulholland’s article.
I keep repeating my claims because nobody has yet rebutted them in a way that does not breach the Laws of Thermodynamics.
Philip has created a working model that effectively demonstrates my claims.
Anyway, if the incorrect science is constantly repeated then my correct science must also be repeated.
Stephen, I agree you would still have a lapse rate. However, the surface temperature would still be at the S-B value for the solar radiation. For Earth, that would be -18 C. It would then get cooler above the surface.
Hence, this cannot raise the average surface temperature as we see today. The output energy MUST be equal to the input energy. If the surface temperature were elevated then the planet would radiate more energy than it is receiving. No can do.
Sorry, there is no way around it. You MUST elevate the radiating surface above the physical surface to have the physical surface warmer than the input energy would dictate. To do that you MUST have radiating gases in the atmosphere.
Now, the real question I presented above is whether back radiation is necessary for this to occur. If not, then it is pretty easy to see that adding in more CO2 (or any radiating gas) may not be what determines the temperature.
My own feeling is N&Z got is partially right. A planet’s temperature is determined by the ideal gas law (IGL), the atmospheric mass and energy received. However, you still need radiating gases to allow the radiation altitude to be lifted. And, most importantly, once you achieve the IGL determined temperature there is no way that can be increased. This is why more CO2 can not have any real effect on the global temperature.
Richard
The surface beneath a convecting atmosphere will not be at the S-B temperature.
It will be as warm as necessary to provide both radiation to space AND the energy required to support convective overturning.
S-B should not be applied to a surface beneath a convecting atmosphere.
Philip’s model demonstrates that by apportioning surface energy between radiation to space and conduction / convection to the atmosphere (both beneath rising and descending columns of air where the sign is equal and opposite) one can calculate the various thermal characteristics of every planet with a convecting atmosphere.
The simplest verbal description is as follows:
“i) Start with a rocky planet surrounded by a non-radiative atmosphere such as 100% Nitrogen with no convection.
Assume that there is no rotation to confuse matters, ignore equator to pole energy transfers and provide illumination to one side from a nearby sun.
On the illuminated side the sun heats the surface beneath the gaseous atmosphere and, since surface heating is uneven, gas density differentials arise in the horizontal plane so that warmer, less dense, Nitrogen starts to rise above colder, denser, Nitrogen that flows in beneath and convective overturning of the atmosphere has begun.
After a while, the entire illuminated side consists of less dense warm rising Nitrogen and the entire dark side consists of descending, denser and colder Nitrogen.
The Nitrogen on the illuminated side, being non-radiative, heats only by conduction from surface to air and cannot assist cooling of the surface by radiating to space.
There will be a lapse rate slope whereby the air becomes cooler with height due to expansion (via the Gas Laws) as it rises along the line of decreasing density with height. That density gradient is created by the pull of gravity on the individual molecules of the Nitrogen atmosphere.
At the top of the rising column the colder denser Nitrogen is pushed aside by the warmer more buoyant and less dense Nitrogen coming up from below and it then flows, at a high level, across to the dark side of the planet where descent occurs back towards the surface.
During the descent there is warming by compression as the Nitrogen moves back down to the surface and then the Nitrogen flows along the surface back to the base of the rising column on the illuminated side whereupon the cycle repeats.
Thus we have a very simplified climate system without radiative gases consisting of one large low pressure cell on the illuminated side and one large high pressure cell on the dark side.
ii) The thermal consequences of convective overturning.
On the illuminated side, conduction is absorbing energy from the surface the temperature of which as observed from space initially appears to drop below the figure predicted by the S-B equation. Instead of being radiated straight out to space a portion of the kinetic energy at the surface is being diverted into conduction and convection. Assume sufficient insolation to give a surface temperature of 255K without an atmosphere and 33K absorbed from the surface into the atmosphere by conduction. The surface temperature appears to drops to 222K. Those figures are illustrative only since there is dispute about the actual numbers for the scale of the so called greenhouse effect.
On the dark side the descending Nitrogen warms as it falls to the surface and when it reaches the surface the cold surface will rapidly pull some of that initially conducted energy (obtained from the illuminated side) out of the descending Nitrogen so that the surface and the Nitrogen in contact with it will become warmer than it otherwise would have been, namely by 33K.
One can see how effectively a cold, solid surface will draw heat from the atmospheric gases by noting the development of radiation fog above cold surfaces on Earth. The cold surface quickly reduces the ground level atmospheric temperature to a point below the dew point.
That less cold Nitrogen then flows via advection across the surface back to the illuminated side which is then being supplied with Nitrogen at the surface which is 33K warmer than it otherwise would have been.
That describes the first convective overturning cycle only.
The key point at that stage is that, as soon as the first cycle completes, the second convective cycle does not need to take any further energy from incoming solar radiation because the necessary energy is being advected in by winds from the unlit side. The full effect of continuing insolation can then be experienced once more so the surface goes back up to 255k from 222k.
ADDITIONALLY the air moving horizontally from the dark side to the illuminated side is 33K warmer than it otherwise would have been so the average temperature for the whole sphere actually rises to 288K
Since that 33K flowing across from the dark side goes straight up again via conduction to fuel the next convective overturning cycle and therefore does not radiate out to space, the view from space would show a radiating temperature for the planet of 255K just as it would have done if there were no atmosphere at all.
In that scenario both sides of the planet’s surface are 33K warmer than they otherwise would have been, the view from space satisfies the S-B equation and radiation in from space equals radiation out to space. Radiative capability within the atmosphere not required.”
Stephen, your “correct science” seems to ignore the fundamental reality of GHGs.
Dave,
GHGs radiate and have a thermal effect but it is neutralised by convective changes and those changes in convection are so small that one could never discern them within natural variability.
I don’t get it, Stephen. You say (unmeasured) changes in convection neutralizes GHG thermal effects. After “neutralizing” GHG’s thermal effects, are you saying that changes in convection then exactly duplicate the otherwise supposed warming effect of GHGs?
Stephen, sorry to break it to you but your description is not valid. Adding in a dark side simply cools the average temperature. Any air movement to the dark side would warm that underlying surface slightly and that would start to radiate. It just wouldn’t radiate at the same temperature as the light side.
Eventually your system would reach equilibrium and the dark side would probably develop a gradient from the light side to the furthest point away.
The light side would also develop a gradient to the furthest point from the dark side.
The airflow would be pretty consistent. The temperature on the light side would be warmer than the dark side but still not above the S-B temperature. Sorry.
The average temperature would probably end up at the S-B temperature of the light side divided by 2.
Incorrect.
Read the link relating to the model built by Philip Mulholland.
The descending air on the dark side feeds energy to the surface on the dark side at the same rate as ascending air on the lit side draws energy from the surface via conduction and convection.
Equilibrium is reached whereby radiation in from space equals energy out to space whilst energy from surface to air on the lit side balances energy from air to surface on the dark side.
To provide the energy for both processes to run in parallel one needs extra kinetic energy at the surface which for Earth produces a temperature enhancement of about 33k,
GHGs not involved.
“but that cannot raise the elevation of the radiating surface because without GHGs there is nothing to radiate away the energy above the surface.”
All matter radiates energy, even N2 and O2 gas, which are responsible for radiating most of the heat that is retained within the atmosphere. They emit energy corresponding to the molecules internal degrees of freedom, just like any other gas.
“even N2 and O2 gas, which are responsible for radiating most of the heat that is retained within the atmosphere.”
But what do they radiate?
How much of it?
So are you saying that CO2 is no different to the other gases other than it absorbs LWIR and mostly imparts that energy to the other gases via collisional kinetic energy?
Robert W Turner,
I believe the amount of radiation from non-GHGs (O2 and N2) is so small that it can essentially be ignored. If it isn’t then I would just add them to the list of GHGs. All the arguments remain the same.
Over 1 year ago, I developed a spreadsheet model of the Earth’s daily temperature cycle, at different latitudes. The output is very similar to Dr Roy Spencer’s.
But I wanted to make it more realistic. So I added a simple Greenhouse effect. I did this by returning a fixed percentage of the outgoing energy back to the surface. I kept increasing the percentage until I got an average temperature of 15.0 degrees Celsius for the Earth.
The percentage of returned energy gave me an estimate of how strong the greenhouse effect is. And I tried increasing the percentage, to see what would happen with higher levels of CO2.
It is a fairly simple model. but it produces quite realistic results.
I find this fascinating as to me it mirrors what happens in modern closed circuit steam generating plants which operate at constant pressure and temperature. An increase in energy input to the boiler results in an equivalent increase in energy output, with the pressure and temperature remaining constant.
It is the way the Rankine Cycle operates and this shows that that is way the Hydro Cycle reacts to any increase in energy input, such as the GHE or otherwise.
The pressure is determined by gravity and is thus more or less constant and the temperature that results is locked into the thermodynamic behaviour of the water which again is not a variable. Hence this thermostat type reaction to variable heat input.
As an aside it it worth noting that there is no increase in the quantity of working fluid (water), being a closed system. All that happens is an increase in the mass flow rate; so looking for an increase in atmospheric water content is not necessarily relevant.
As in all natural systems the equilibrium position is the point about which they oscillate giving rise to weather type situations rather than long term climate stability. A matter which can only be determined by honest statistical methods if long term projections are to be made.