Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I ponder curious things. I got to thinking about available solar energy. That’s the amount of solar energy that remains after reflection losses.
Just under a third (~ 30%) of the incoming sunshine is reflected back into space by a combination of the clouds, the aerosols in the atmosphere, and the surface. What’s left is the solar energy that actually makes it in to warm up and power our entire planet. In this post, for shorthand I’ll call that the “available energy”, because … well, because that’s basically all of the energy we have available to run the entire circus.
Now, I don’t agree with the widely-held idea that the planetary temperature is a linear function of the “radiative forcing” or simply “forcing”, which is the amount of downwelling radiation headed to the surface from both the sun and from atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Oh, the radiation itself is real … but it doesn’t set the surface temperature
My theory of how the climate operates is that the globe is kept from overheating by a variety of emergent phenomena. These phenomena emerge when some local temperature threshold is exceeded. Among the most powerful of these emergent phenomena are thunderstorms. In the tropics, thunderstorms emerge when the sea surface temperature (SST) is above about 27°C (80°F) or so. Here’s a movie I made of how the thunderstorms follow the sea surface temperature, month after month.
Figure 1. Tropical thunderstorms are characterized by tall cloud towers. The average altitude of the cloud tops is therefore a measure of the number and strength of the thunderstorms in the area. Colors show average cloud top altitude, with the red areas having the most and largest thunderstorms, and the blue areas almost none. The gray contour lines show sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of 27°, 28°, and 29°C, with the inner ring being the hottest.
Thunderstorms cool the surface in a variety of ways. They waste little energy in the process because they emerge to cool the surface only where it will do the most good—the hottest part of the system.
Among the ways thunderstorms cool the surface is via an increase in the local albedo. Albedo is the percentage of energy reflected back to space. The increase in this reflection (increasing albedo) occurs because the thunderstorm clouds both cover a larger area and are taller than the cumulus clouds that they replace. Their height and area provide more reflective surfaces to reject solar energy back to space.
In addition, the thunderstorm generated winds increase the local sea surface reflectivity by creating reflective white foam, spume, and spray over large areas of the ocean. And finally, a rough ocean with thunderstorm-generated waves reflects about two times what a calm ocean reflects (albedo ~ 8% rough vs ~ 4% smooth). That change in sea surface roughness alone equates to about 15 W/m2 less available energy.
Now generally, we’d expect that additional solar energy would be correlated with warmer temperatures. It’s logical that the relationship should go like this:
More available solar energy –> more energy absorbed by the surface –> higher temperatures.
We’d expect, therefore, that both the available energy and the temperature should be “positively correlated”, meaning that they increase or decrease together. And in general, that’s true. Here’s the available solar energy, which is the sunshine that makes it past all of the reflective surfaces, the sunlight that is the one true source of all of the energy that heats, agitates, and powers the climate.
Figure 2. Available solar energy after all reflection from clouds, atmosphere, and the planet’s surface. The numbers are 24/7 averages.
As you can see, the poles are cold because they only get fifty watts per square metre (W/m2) or so from the sun. And the tropics get up to 360 watts per square metre (W/m2), so they are hot. The tropics are the main area where energy enters the system, and they’re also the hottest.
So far, what we see agrees with what we’d expect—available energy and temperature are correlated, going up and down together.
Now, my theory is that emergent phenomena act to constrain the maximum temperature. So an indication that my theory is valid would be if the amount of available solar energy were to not only stop increasing at high surface temperatures, but would actually go down with increasing temperature when the SST gets over about 27°C.
To see if this is the case, I turned once again to the CERES data, available here. I’m using the EBAF 4.0 dataset, with data from March 2000 to February 2019. The CERES satellite data has month-by-month information on the size of the incoming and reflected solar energy flows. The information is presented on a 1° latitude by 1° longitude gridcell basis.
According to the CERES data, incoming solar energy at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) is ~ 340 W/m2. The total reflected is ~ 100 W/m2. That leaves 240 W/m2 of available energy to warm the world. (Numbers are 24/7 global averages.)
To investigate the relationship between the surface temperature and the available energy, I looked at just the liquid ocean (not including sea ice). I do this for several reasons. The ocean is 70% of the planet. It is all at the same elevation, with no mountains to complicate matters. There’s no vegetation sticking up to impede the winds. It is a ways from human cities. All of this reduces the noise in the data, and makes it possible to compare different locations.
What I’ve done is to make a “scatterplot” of available energy versus sea surface temperature (SST). Each blue dot in the scatterplot below shows the available solar energy versus the sea surface temperature (SST) of a single 1°x1° gridcell.
Then I’ve used a Gaussian average (yellow & red with black outline) to see what the data is doing overall. (In this dataset, it turns out that the Gaussian average is basically indistinguishable from averaging the data in bins of a tenth of a degree (not shown). This lends support to the validity of the line.) The yellow/red line outlined in black shows the 160-point full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) Gaussian average of the data. The red area simply highlights the part above 27°C.
Figure 3. Scatterplot of available solar energy versus liquid sea surface temperature. Blue dots show the results for each 1° latitude by 1° longitude gridcell. Yellow/red line is 160-point full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) Gaussian average. The part of the data where the average SST above 27°C is highlighted in red
In Figure 3 we see that above ~ 27°C, the thunderstorm initiation temperature, the available solar energy stops rising, takes a ninety-degree turn, and starts dropping. You’ve heard of things being “non-linear”? This graph could serve as the poster child of non-linearity …
It’s worth noting that at temperatures from about 3°C to 27°C, the temperature is indeed a linear function of the available solar energy. So the common misunderstanding is … well … understandable. In that temperature range the sea surface is going up about 0.1°C per additional W/m2, which is the same as ~0.4° C per doubling of CO2 … but of course, that ignores the area in red, where the relationship is totally reversed and energy goes down as temperature goes up.
This is strong support for my theory that emergent phenomena actively regulate the global temperature and constrains the maximum temperature. It is also evidence against the current theory of how climate works, which is that the temperature slavishly follows the available energy in a linear fashion … as I noted, this is as non-linear as you can get..
In the areas where the sea surface temperature is over ~ 27°C there is less and less energy available with each additional degree C of surface warming. The size of the decrease is large—6.6 W/m2 less energy is available when the surface temperature has risen by each additional 1°C.
Figure 4 shows the location of these areas (shown in blue/green with white borders) where available solar energy goes down when the temperature goes up (negative correlation).
Figure 4. Gridcell by gridcell correlation of available solar energy and surface temperature. Blue box show the tropical area discussed below (130°E – 90°W longitude, 10°N/S latitude).
Investigating the energy flows further, loss of incoming energy via increased albedo is only one way thunderstorms cool the surface. It is an important method of thermoregulation because it acts just like the gas pedal in your car—the thunderstorms are controlling the amount of energy entering the planetary-scale heat engine we call the climate. And above a sea surface temperature of ~ 27°C, they are cutting the incoming energy down.
The thunderstorms which are cutting down the total available solar energy are also cooling the surface in a host of other ways. First among these is evaporation. Thunderstorms make rain, and it takes solar energy to evaporate the rain. That energy is then not available to heat the surface.
Figure 5 Scatterplot of the sea surface temperature versus the rainfall in the equatorial Pacific area shown by the blue box above (130°E – 90°W, 10°N/S). The blue dots show results from the TAO moored buoys in the blue box. The red dots show gridcell results from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite rainfall data and Reynolds OI sea surface temperatures. Graphic from my post Drying The Sky
Figure 5 above has SST data from two separate datasets, Tao buoys and the Reynolds OISST dataset. It also has rainfall data from two separate datasets, the TRMM data and TAO buoys. They agree very well, giving support to the relationships displayed.
And once again, it is highly non-linear …
Because the tropical oceanic thunderstorms are temperature related, so is the rain. Above 27°C, every single 1°x1° gridcell (red dot) and every TAO buoy (blue dot) in the equatorial Pacific area outlined in blue in Figure 4 above has rain.
In addition, by the time the open ocean temperature reaches its maximum value of 30°C, almost every gridcell has nearly three meters (ten feet, or 120″) of rain. At high sea surface temperatures, rain is not optional. This is clear evidence of the thermal nature of the thresholds involved.
It’s an important point. The thresholds for all of these emergent temperature-regulating climate phenomena (e.g. dust devils, cumulus fields, thunderstorms, squall lines) are temperature-based. They are not based on how much radiation the area is receiving. They are not affected by either CO2 levels or sunshine amounts. When the tropical ocean temperature gets above a certain level, the system kicks into gear, cumulus clouds mutate into thunderstorms, albedo goes straight up, and rain starts falling … no matter what the CO2 levels might be. Temperature-based, not forcing-based. It’s an important point.
And below is the rainfall data from 40° North to 40° South, expressed as the amount of energy needed to evaporate the rain.
Figure 6. Scatterplot of 1° x 1° gridcell annual average ocean-only thunderstorm evaporative cooling on the vertical axis, in watts per square metre (W/m2) versus 1° x 1° gridcell annual average sea surface temperature on the horizontal axis. Evaporative cooling amount is calculated from the rainfall—it takes ~ 80 W/m2 for one year to evaporate a metre of rainfall. Graphic from my post, How Thunderstorms Beat The Heat
As I write this, I think hmm … I could use the relationship shown in red above, between tropical sea surface temperature and evaporative cooling. Then I could add that TRMM data to the solar availability data to see how much is available after albedo and evaporation. Hmm … I’m off to write a another bunch of code in the computer language simply called “R”.
(Best computer language ever, by the way, and R was something like the tenth computer language I’ve learned. It’s free, cross platform, free, killer free user interface “RStudio”, free packages to do almost anything, good help files, and did I mention free? I owe Steve McIntyre an unpayable debt for convincing me to learn to code in R. But I digress, I’m off to write R code …)
…
OK, here’s the result. The scatterplot as above, scale about the same, but this time showing what’s left after removing both albedo reflections and the energy used for evaporation. This covers the area where rainfall was measured by the TRMM, from 40° N latitude to 40° S latitude.
Figure 7. Scatterplot, available solar energy minus evaporative cooling, versus sea surface temperature from 40°N latitude to 40°S latitude. Because it is only the middle latitudes the ocean doesn’t get much cooler than 15°C.
I note that when we include evaporative cooling, the drop in available energy starts at a slightly lower temperature, 26°C vs 27°. And it is decreasing much faster and further than just the 6.6 W/m2 decrease per degree of degree warming from albedo alone as shown in Fig. 3 above.
Figure 7 shows that there is 44 W/m2 less available energy per additional degree of warming above 26°C. So it is decreasing about seven times as fast as from albedo alone. On average there is less energy left over for warming at 30°C than at 15°C … go figure.
And finally, here’s the distribution of the solar energy once we’ve subtracted the reflected energy and the energy used for evaporation. What remains is the energy available to heat the planet and to fuel plant growth.
Figure 8. Available solar energy after albedo and evaporation losses. TRMM data only covers from 40° N to 40°S latitude.
Note that there are some areas of the oceans where any additional solar forcing goes into increasing clouds, increasing thunderstorms, and increasing evaporation, with little to nothing left over to heat the area …
Now, remember that my hypothesis is that the widely-believed claim that there is a linear relationship between forcing and temperature is not correct.
Instead, I say emergent phenomena come into existence when a temperature threshold is passed, and that they act to oppose further heating.
My main conclusions out of all of this? It supports my hypothesis regarding emergent phenomena regulating the temperature, and this is clear evidence that temperature is NOT a linear function of forcing.
And on a side note, the US passed a sad milestone today—the number of COVID pandemic deaths (a once-off phenomenon) finally equaled two-thirds of the annual number of deaths from obesity. In the face of this hidden gustatory emergency of 300,000 US obesity deaths per year, I recommend mandatory gastric banding of the entire populace and fine-enforced social distancing from donuts …
My best regards to everyone, end all lockdowns, the emergency is over. Let’s get back to work, school, and play,
w.
The Small Print: When you comment please quote the exact words you are discussing, so we can all be in on the secret subject of your ideas.
I read this yesterday, when there were only a few comments.
Forgive me if someone already asked above. Can any of the climate models’ output be tested to see whether they exhibit any of these phenomena (manifested in the real world) that you identify above?
While I’ve always been a bit squeamish about your choice of the term “emergent” for the behavior of the atmosphere, I have not come up with a better word. An MS ChE, I have enough math, thermodynamics and physics to accept without question that the atmosphere is “active”, mostly due to the “catastrophic” (in the mathematical sense) effects of water phase changes that occur. Too complex to model. Brings back awful memories of partial differential equations in BSL.
I don’t even try to explain that to folks without the technical background. From those who have some technical background (or believe they do!), I often get, “you are not a meteorologist”.
Your new observations support the validity of your heresy, I believe.
Dave,
The climate models have serious problems and there should be no further reliance on any of their results.
See my peer reviewed manuscript in the September issue of the journal Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans and on another thread on this site.
Jerry
“The climate models have serious problems and there should be no further reliance on any of their results.”
Jerry
Are you going for broke with this one?
Cat versus pigeons doesn’t even come close.
Phillip.
Mathematics cannot be refuted. Have you read the manuscript? It was reviewed by an excellent atmospheric dynamicist and he was shocked by the results but agreed with them in the end.
The amusing thing is that Charney was closer to the correct system in 1947, but then the modelers went backwards from there. It took a mathematician of Heinz Kreiss’ ability to develop a theory [the Bounded Derivative Theory (BDT) for hyperbolic systems with multiple time scales] to prove how the correct dynamical system (the reduced system) should be derived.
That system is introduced in my manuscript and I discuss in detail all of the continuum and discreet sources of error in the hydrostatic system that is used by all global climate and weather models.
I am happy to explain in detail any questions you have about the manuscript, the BDT,
or the concept of the reduced system.
Jerry
Hi Jerry,
What you have done is ways beyond my pay grade and I will struggle with following your work.
No criticism of you, just saying.
Philip
Philip,
Just read the text in my manuscript and ignore the equations (details).
If nothing else look at the results from the two numerical models in the numerical examples section , one the complete dynamical system and one the corresponding reduced system. As predicted by mathematical theory, the results are very close. The latter model is the system the modelers should be using but are not.
Jerry
Jerry,
I am going to you take up your offer. Starting here with the first sentence of your manuscript on Judith Curry’s blog. https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/manuscript.pdf
“Numerical analysis requires that a number of derivatives of the continuum solution of any differential system of equations exist in order that the numerical approximations of the derivatives of that system are ensured to have sufficiently small truncation errors.”
OK this sentence is not in your publication but I want to start here anyway.
I will try and explain what I think it means and you can correct me.
If one of the purposes of mathematics is about description of data then an equation is a predictor of data trends and the data differences to the computed value arise because of the following possibles:
1. Measurement error.
2. An unrecognised high frequency signal not captured by the equation.
3. An inappropriate use of an equation based on a false premise.
4. Something else.
In a complex model we may have islands of certainty in which a given equation fits and then we need to apply a different equation elsewhere where for example a different scale applies. I assume that the issues being addressed are the boundaries between equations where there may be a gap e.g. y=1/x at y=0 or perhaps a massive kink where the gradient derivative function goes haywire.
How am I doing so far?
Philip,
The evolution of many (if not all) fluids are decribed by a time dependent set of partial equations. There is of course some question as to the accuracy of those equations
in describing the particular real fluid. However in many fields the quations have been accepted as being fairly accurate. In the case of atmospheric sciences the widely accepted system is the compressible Euler equations of gas dynamics, e.g., an equation for the entropy, the 3 equations for the 3 dimensional velocity, and the pressure. As the dissipation in the atmosphere is quite small, the behavior of these equations is well approximated by the same equations w/o any dissipation. That system is essentially a symmetric hyperbolic system and is well understood mathematically.
As there are five equations, there are five frequences that are present (high frequency sound waves, mid frequency inertial/gravity waves, and low frequency (slow) advective waves). For random initial data, all five frequencies will be excited. However, clearly sound waves and inertial/gravit waves are not well measured by the current observational system and also do not contain the major part of the energy. The advective wave contains the majority of the energy (the highs and low pressure system seen on weather maps) and are the only hope of being observed by the current obs system.
Thus a (reduced) system that accurately describes only the advective wave is desirable
for a number of reasons. There is no reason to include a computation of the other waves because the are not well observed and are only a small perturbation on the advective component. Also those higher frequency waves cause havoc on the current parameterizations (forcing) so they are removed from the solution by choosing special initial conditions that precludes their excitation. This process is aptly called initialization in the atmospheric science community.
To ensure that the ensuing solution evolved mainly on the slow (advective) frequency,
Kreiss introduced the Bounded Derivative Theory (BDT) as to how to choose the initial
data to mathematically ensure that the resulting solution will evolve on the advective time scale for a matter of time. These conditions involve a 2d elliptic equation for the pressure p and a 3d elliptic equation for the vertical component of the velocity w. As these elliptic constraints can be used to accurately describe the evolution of the advective motion, they can be combined witha single time dependent equation for
the advective motion with the constraints providing the values of the remaining variables.
Note at this point the hydrostatic sytem that is the basis for all current global models does not use a 3d equation for w and is therefore the wrong system of equations.
In a hyperbolic system, small perturbations in the initial conditions leads to a small (bounded) perturbation in the solution for a period of time. Thus if the error in a numerical method (the truncation error) is sufficiently small and the method is stable, then the numerical solution will converge to the continuum solution for a period of time.
Here note that the obs error in the initial data and the forcing (parameterization) error
amust be smaller than the truncation error in an accurate numerical approximation.
I hope this is a first step in helping you to understand my manuscript, but please continue to ask me questions where I have not been clear. The more you understand, the easier for you to help others understand the serious mistakes that have been made by climate modelers.
Jerry
Philip,
Did I lose you? Tell me about your field of interest (geology)? Did you have any training in oil exploration using seismic data? Any calculus? I need to know at what level to pitch my
explanation.
Jerry
Hi Jerry,
No still here.
That was OK but a picture / diagram / graph would help.
Pitch as low as you like, I prefer my math in simple word explanations, they are the easiest to understand but the hardest to craft 😉
Philip,
You didn’t help me much with some idea of your interest or training so I could relate my
explanation more to what you are familiar with. 🙁
In my manuscript I compare two different models. One is based on the multiscale hyperbolic system that has been mathematically proved to reproduce the large scale soltuions of the unmodified atmospheric equations of motion if the initial conditions are chosen appropriately using the Kreiss Bounded Derivative Theory (BDT). The second is based on the reduced system that has only one time scale (frequency) and is obtained by adding a time dependent equation for the vertical component of the vorticity to the initialization constraints used to initialize the multiscale or unmodified atmospheric equations of motion. Mathematics based on estimates of the evolution of the ensuing soltuion being dependent only on the slow (advective) time scale [or independent of the fast (high frequency) time scales] states that theses two methods of obtaining the slowly evolving solution should provide the same results. As you can see from the plots of the output of the two different numerical models that is exactly the case.
Note that the hydrostatic (primitive) equations used in all global climate models have never been proved (and cannot be proved) to be close to the unmodified system of atmospherics equations. They were derived simply by assuming that the two large terms
in the scaled version of the equation for the vertical component of the velocity are exactly equal. Although this seems physically reasonable because of the necessary approximate balance between the terms, mathematically this leads to the wrong system of equations.
Note that the correct 3d elliptic constraint for the vertical component of the velocity (w) has a very special property, namely that small scale perturbations at the surface are not propagated very far up into the atmosphere. This result is demonstrated in the plots of w when the surface values are a set of random numbers. This is in stark contrast to the 1d integral for w (Richardson’s equation or the vertical integral of the continuity equation) in the hydrostatic system. If you read Sylvie Gravel’s manuscript (google scholar or on climate audit),
small errors at the surface in that case are amplifed and lead to an unrealistic growth of the horizontal velocity at the surface. In hydrostatic models a large dissipation term is added in an attempt to slow down this growth but then destroys the accuracy of the numerical method.
Jerry
Jerry,
My interest and training is unimportant.
But if you insist, I am looking for a high signal transmission with low noise distortion 😉
It is the clarity of your response (which is independent of the observer) that is important.
Thank you for the detailed explanation.
Jerry,
Thinking on you may wish to counter that resonance in a receiver is a fundamental requirement for the acceptance and assimilation of a signal.
This underlines the importance of both received and understood.
For now however it is over and out from me.
Philip,
According to your site you have done a bit of climate modeling yourself. 🙁
Jerry
Jerry,
I would love to be able to follow your work in an open forum.
For example:
1. Research Gate
2. Academia
3. LinkedIn
Even your most recent work in Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans, p.101143.
has no author contact details.
:-0
Philip,
The climate modelers now have to explain how they obtain the “right” answer using the wrong atmospheric dynamical system of equations, that system having a large continuum error due to the excessive dissipation, and numerical approximations that do not satisfy the basic requirements of numerical analysis. That ends any pretense the modelers have to claiming
anything about the results from their models.
Jerry
Willis I read before , I believe from you that with hotter climate the clouds in tropics would rise earlier which means sun would be blocked earlier and closer to the time the suns rays are strongest. Then after the thunderstorms the clouds generally go away which allows heat to escape via radiation since now there is less water vapor. Is this what your theory is ? It seems correct to me. So we have data showing clouds indeed happen earlier in warmer climate?
Willis thanks for the nice graphical depiction of the real “tipping point”; the agw types simply got it backwards. Excellent post, as always.
Willis Eschenbach Glad to see that you got down to the nitty gritty on quantifying your observations of thunderstorm heat transfer while bobbing about on the South Seas. Good post ! I got to thinking and remembered that Roy Spencer had such thoughts as well a while ago. I looked and miraculously landed right on that source in my iMac AGW archives. Turns out that he had a couple unorthodox papers rejected and exiled by Geophysical Research Letters and wrote a book instead, Climate Confusion. (2008-Encounter Books)
My link was to weatherstreet.com page which talks about all this and a third of the way down the page includes a paper, “Global Warming and Nature’s Thermostat: Precipitation Systems.”
https://weatherstreet.com/weatherquestions/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm#bio
You should take a look at this and maybe chat about this with Dr. Roy on this.
Roy Spencer: “What we really need to know is how the efficiency of precipitation systems changes with temperature. Unfortunately, this critical understanding is still lacking. Most of the emphasis has been on getting the models to behave realistically in how they reproduce average rainfall amounts and their geographic distribution — not in how the model handles changes in rainfall efficiency with warming.
Fortunately, we now have new satellite evidence which sheds light on this question. Our recently published, peer-reviewed research shows that when the middle and upper tropical troposphere temporarily warms from enhanced rainfall activity, the precipitation systems there produce less high-altitude cirroform (ice) clouds. This, in turn, reduces the natural greenhouse effect of the atmosphere, allowing enhanced infrared cooling to outer space, which in turn causes falling temperatures. (Our news release describing the study is here.)
This is a natural, negative feedback process that is counter-intuitive for climate scientists, most of whom believe that more tropical rainfall activity would cause more high-level cloudiness, not less. Whether this process also operates on the long time scale involved with global warming is not yet known for sure. Nevertheless, climate models are supposedly built based upon observed atmospheric behavior, and so I challenge the modelers to include this natural cooling process in their models, and then see how much global warming those models produce.” https://weatherstreet.com/weatherquestions/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm#bio
“My best regards to everyone, end all lockdowns, the emergency is over. Let’s get back to work, school, and play,”
============
My hometown’s latest idea for Halloween is to allow trick-or-treating, with the homeowners displaying either a red or green placard to indicate their willingness to be exposed to the little monsters.
10 % of the usual turnout would surprise me.
There are additional cooling effects from thunderstorms that I haven’t seen mentioned before. When the rain or hail falls from altitude there is a physical transport of heat. The rain will transport 4.2 Joules for every gram and for every degree Celsius of temperature change. The melting of hail will add in an extra 334 Joules per gram of latent heat. Some portion of the rainfall will also evaporate before reaching the ground absorbing an extra 2.3kJ/g.
While there is also a significant transport of air as it is dragged down by the rain, I expect that this mechanism does not move much heat because of the compressability of air.
Here’s a list for you, Peter, from my 2009 post “The Thermostat Hypothesis“.
w.
Great analysis and article Willis!
Especially, because it is a description of the continuous heat exchange process engaged in forming weather.
i.e. Not focus on the brief peak temperature moments or averaged absolutes so commonly favored by alarmists.
I love your description of the R language.
But then, I fondly remember a period of time when having just one language program/compiler earned free versions of most competitor products. Allowing code happy crackpots like me to make use of the best computer language products.
Willis
What’s your take on this new Austrian paper using a new data source, showing unexpectedly that clouds have a net warming effect (!?)
https://notrickszone.com/2020/09/11/austrian-analyst-things-with-greenhouse-effect-ghe-arent-adding-up-something-totally-wrong/
Willis,
As a lover of symmetry and neatness, I continue to be troubled by the hot blob in SST at the West end of the equatorial Pacific (the warm pool) not matched at the East end at Peru. My reading has not uncovered a reason for it, so for mental comfort I leave open the possibility of a geothermal hot spot that is either of constant energy output or (hard to accept) varying measurably over centuries and helping explain minor aspects of global T change. I seek better observations for the asymmetry.
This does not question the thrust of your essay, but it might be another lead for explaining mechansms. As others have asked, why can global T change despite these emergent processes tending to stabilise it.
There are many potential answers to that question and the real answer depends on measurement and interpretation.
The measurements and interpretations that you have assembled here are important and thought provoking. They have to lead to better comprehension of the real world, thank you. Geoff S
Wind blows the warm surface waters west. My next post is on this.
w.
Geoff
Your reading needs to include the Bjerknes feedback and the Humboldt current, Peruvian upwelling and the anchovy. These all explain the eastern equatorial Pacific cooler SST.
For instance did you know that the Humboldt current is “currently” the coldest it’s been in the whole Holocene, cooling sharply over the last century:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GL080634
Phil Salmon,
Been there, done that, still not satisfied. Thanks, Geoff S
Willis
What happens to the all the energy carried upward in the high rising cloud towers? How much is carried north and south by hadley cells, how much is radiated to space and how much is returned to the surface below?
Thanks for all your thought provoking articles and posts.
Hello again Willis,
Upon much reflection (and after our exchanges noted far above), I respectfully submit the following for your consideration as the “something else” that I believe is a significant factor currently missing in your elegant theory of emergent phenomena to correctly explain observed weather patterns.
I believe this is the most probable explanation for heating the oceans above the implied incoming solar radiation limit associated with the 27 °C (maybe 26 °C) sea surface temperature as inferred from your presented Figure 3 and Figure 7 graphs with attributions to cumulonimbus cloud top albedos (plus evaporation factors).
First, I make reference to your modification to the Kiehl and Trenberth atmosphere/surface “energy flows” diagram, which you posted on September 15, 2020 at 10:33 pm under this WUWT article: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/09/15/the-surface-energy-budget/
I note in particular that your diagram gives: (a) 53 W/m^2 of LWIR radiation from Earth’s surface that passes through the troposphere, and (b) a net of 339 W/m^2 LWIR surface-to-troposphere radiation, with 321 W/m^2 LWIR back radiation from the troposphere to the surface. In regards to the latter, note that only an additional 18 W/m^2 from the troposphere would balance the radiation exchange, and anything above an additional 18 W/m^2 from the troposphere would PROVIDE NET WARMING TO EARTH’S SURFACE. This is truly an emergent phenomenon/tipping point!
Now I have to assume your values are based on “average” weather conditions for the planet:
— about 67% cloud coverage (ref: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/85843/cloudy-earth#:~:text=One%20study%20based%20on%20nearly,clouds%20at%20any%20one%20time. )
— average relative humidity of 80% over the oceans (ref: https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog_held/47-relative-humidity-over-the-oceans/ )
What is important to note (the additional emergent phenomenon) is that with the >80% RH necessarily associated with sea surface temperatures above, say, 25 °C, and perhaps associated wind-induced wave action—increasing evaporation that pumps much more water vapor into the lower atmosphere—the aforementioned W/m^2 values for the atmospheric “energy flows” will change significantly. The condensed water micro-droplets associated with visible cloud coverage approaching 100% will essentially block the 53 W/m^2 that would otherwise pass through the troposphere, because cloud water droplets are particularly effective in absorbing/scattering LWIR across the full spectrum from 7-14 microns wavelength where most of the Earth’s surface radiates most of its energy associated with an average temperature of ~300 K.
In addition, the increased RH between surface and cloud condensation altitude (i.e., cloud base) will increase the amount of surface LWIR that is absorbed in the lower troposphere for otherwise clear sky conditions (i.e., for all view factors not blocked by clouds).
Together, I suspect these changes actually warm the lower troposphere to the point of exceeding the loss of 44 W/m^2 per °C that is shown for the red line in your Figure 3 (heck, just the 53 W/m^2 being totally blocked/absorbed then radiated back to Earth would offset the equivalent of 1.2 °C at the stated loss rate of 44 W/m^2 per °C). I believe it is this overall warmer atmosphere that can provide, via back radiation to Earth’s surface, the additional heat input needed to (temporarily) drive surface water temperatures to as high as 30 °C.
However, I do agree that CN cloud formation coupled with increased percent cloud coverage (and perhaps associated precipitation) must eventually rule the day and force the cooling that is apparent in your data plots. Fundamentally, I conclude that the cooling indicated is a real phenomenon.
I am appreciating your “Theory of EP” more and more each day!
Willis
Your overall picture of climate with adaptive and emergent properties is one I strongly agree with. There are several narratives and bodies of theory on this theme which point to the same essence. Without going into excessive details, I think the work of the late Ilya Prigogine is central to understanding climate:
Russian-Belgian physical chemist Ilya Prigogine, who coined the term dissipative structure, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977 for his pioneering work on these structures. …
In his Nobel lecture,[4] Prigogine explains how thermodynamic systems far from equilibrium can have drastically different behavior from systems close to equilibrium.
Climate is a about structures – clouds, storms, atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems, ice structures etc. These are all Prigogine’s dissipative structures, participating in the great enterprise of moving heat by exporting entropy – hence the structure. (With too much entropy atmosphere and ocean would be uniformly turbulent and featureless.)
Anyway here are some wiki links
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Prigogine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissipative_system
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_system
In short, climate science and modelling are treating a dissipative system as a conservative system, and it’s not working.
“treating a dissipative system as a conservative system, and it’s not working”
Phil
Very nice point.
Phil Salmon: “thermodynamic systems far from equilibrium can have drastically different behavior from systems close to equilibrium”
WR: “thermodynamic systems far from equilibrium” and “can have drastically different behavior”. Interesting, thinking about enhanced gradients, both vertical (cooling stratosphere, warming troposphere) and horizontal (still cold Greenland – warming N. Atlantic)
Indeed, modelling needs to be with the right physics, not endless fudges and tweaks.
Phil,
Actually they are modeling a fluid that is closer to molasses than air, i.e. , they are using excessive dissipation because they are using discontinuous parameterizations that unrealistically add too much energy into the smallest scales of the model. The dissipation is necessary to keep that energy from growing too large resulting in the model blowing up without it.
The resulting damage to the numerical accuracy is discussed in the Browning, Hack and Swarztrauber cited in my manuscript mentioned above.
Jerry
Jerry
I’m stoked that you commented on my comment – nice start to the weekend! I have seen your article “Structural errors in global climate models”. Pat Frank shared it with me in a recent thread. It was on my mind when I made my above posting.
https://judithcurry.com/2020/06/20/structural-errors-in-global-climate-models/
I hadn’t realised that the modellers turned the atmosphere to syrup with utterly nonphysical dissipation and viscosity, just to stop it from “blowing up”. I’m not an expert here, but I suspect that the modellers turning their backs on Ilya Prigogine is the cause of this mess. Treating a dissipative far from equilibrium nonlinear system as if it were linear and conservative, can’t lead anywhere good.
Phil Salmon writes: “Climate is a about structures – clouds, storms, atmospheric and oceanic circulation systems, ice structures etc. These are all Prigogine’s dissipative structures, participating in the great enterprise of moving heat by exporting entropy – hence the structure. (With too much entropy atmosphere and ocean would be uniformly turbulent and featureless.)”
Dear Phil, I think things are not quite so simple. There are degrees of farness from thermodynamic equilibrium. Prigogine’s dissipative structure theory is sometimes said to refer to the “far from equilibrium” case, but it still requires local thermodynamic equilibrium, which means that it excludes such very-far-from-equilibrium phenomena as lightning, and cannot deal with rapidly changing structures such as those of strong turbulence, in which entropy becomes undefinable. Processes really very far from thermodynamic equilibrium, such as occur in the atmosphere, have to be described by dynamical details beyond the scope of the second law. Such is wildly outside the scope of feasible large-scale computer calculation.
Now they’re rediscovering Prigogine
https://www.nature.com/articles/nnano.2015.250
Joseph Potsma has been saying this for a long time. His recommendation would be to code your model to run in simulated real time, rather than than averaging available solar input across the globe. He has a number of videos on his YouTube channel climate of sophistry. They can be long winded, but you may find yourself with a collaborator if you reached out to him.
I would much prefer collaboration across common ideas than this continued atomization of the realists.
Huh? EVERY modern climate model runs in “simulated real time”. None of them “average available solar input across the globe”. That’s just not true.
w.
Postma has been pushing this completely fallacious argument for years. He takes greatly simplified conceptual illustrations such as the Kiehl-Trenberth power flow diagrams that are merely trying to explain the basic concept, and claims that these form the “basis” for climate science. As Willis keeps saying, EVERY climate model breaks down the earth into small sections updated at small time intervals.
By Postma’s logic, I could dismiss all analysis of electrical alternating current (AC) circuitry because I have found some simplified analyses that use direct current (DC) approximations.
I think the climate models have many, many problems, but this is NOT one of them.
Instead, I say emergent phenomena come into existence when a temperature threshold is passed, and that they act to oppose further heating.
Can I suggest an additional aspect to your “model” of thunderstorms acting as an emergent “thermostat” opposing thermal input above a temperature threshold? Ocean upwelling (local) and sea surface cooling.
Take a hurricane – the extreme thunderstorm. One of the consequences of hurricanes that you don’t hear journalists talk about so much is a sharp cooling of the sea surface after the storm. This can be by several degrees. It is caused by wind-impelled upwelling.
In the ocean generally temperatures decrease with depth – most sharply at the thermocline. Even in tropical ocean the temperature 2-4km down is close to zero. This means that anything that increases vertical mixing, such as storm winds, will cool the surface and thus cool the climate, at least locally.
This upwelling-sea surface cooling effect of tropical storms add another significant cooling element, opposing the ocean heat that generated the storm.
“O Rabin” should be “Ocean” (not Yiddish Shakespeare). Spell-shmuk
Fixed. I hate typos, even Yiddish typos.
w.
Good post Willis and a lot of discussion as your posts always generate.
I’m probably crazy to do this, but Zoe, here’s a thought experiment for you.
Imagine a planet identical to the earth but made out of solid rock. No geothermal heat at all. None.
Otherwise, identical to the earth in all respects, oceans, mountains, topsoil, the whole deal. Revolving around the sun just like the earth, same incoming solar, same downwelling radiation from the atmosphere, all the same … just no geothermal heat.
The steady-state temperature of the earth’s surface is something like 15°C. Here’s my question.
What would be the steady-state core temperature of the duplicate earth made of solid rock with no internal geothermal heat at all?
w.
PS—For those wondering why I asked this, I got to thinking … just where did Zoe go wrong? Where is her wrong assumption that’s led her so far astray?
So I went to her first post about geothermal heat, where I found the following:
Here’s a tip. People wonder how I can find flaws in papers quickly. One is by the words chosen. Saying that something is “commonly well-known” is a huge red flag in that regard …
My first conclusion was that she was talking about how deep the annual variation in temperature penetrates. But that didn’t seem right either.
So I turned to my bible in these matters, the college text of Geiger’s called “The Climate Near The Ground”. First published in the 1920s, it’s now in its Sixth Edition. In it, Geiger describes 54 years of measurements of ground temperatures in Potsdam. Results were
So it’s decreasing on something that looks like exponential decay with a half-depth of about 12 metres.
As a result, that couldn’t be what Zoe was talking about … curiously, upon further examination she actually was claiming that everything below ten metres was heated solely and only by geothermal heat.
Next, she takes the difference between the temperature at 100m and 50m, extends the trend up to the surface and gets 13.08°C … not 13°C, mind you, but 13.08°C. She figures if there were no sun, that’s what the surface temperature would be.
Now, her fundamental misunderstanding is in the sentence I quoted above, viz:
Because she believes that, she thinks that the temperatures at 100m and 50m are due solely and only to geothermal heat … not true.
So I’ve devised the thought experiment above. The answer to my question, of course, is that when the solid rock version of the earth with no geothermal heat reaches steady-state, the core will be at the same temperature as the average surface temperature.
It has to be the same temperature as the surface, because if the core is colder than the surface, the solar heat at the surface would flow to the core until the temperatures equalized.
That means that the solar heat is reaching, not a mere ten metres into the rock, but all the way down to the core … which means that her method is based on an incorrect understanding of thermodynamics. Ground temperatures below 10 metres are NOT due to geothermal alone, because solar energy goes all the way to the core. So extending them to the surface does NOT mean that that’s the temperature that would occur in the absence of solar energy.
So Zoe … what do you think the core temperature of the solid rock planet is, and why?
Willis,
Nice, really nice.
Popcorn futures soar.
Very good. Awaiting a response mentioning “cold rays”, or something similar.
Willis:
I have debated the topic of possible geothermal power flux influence on-line with others before. I’m always surprised how people tie themselves in knots to argue that this minuscule flux has more influence than the above-ground radiative fluxes.
In one such discussion thread with someone who also pointed to the fact that below about 10 meters, there was no significant seasonal oscillation, let alone daily oscillation, in the borehole temperature data as evidence for his argument.
I pointed to several of the borehole temperature profiles he provided, asking that if his argument were correct, why the 10-meter temperature of the tropical borehole was higher than that of the temperate-zone borehole, which was higher than that of the polar borehole.
“So Zoe … what do you think the core temperature of the solid rock planet is, and why?”
Hey, Willis, you are almost there.
It depends on the compressibility of the solids comprising that solid rock planet.
The gravitational centre of any accumulation of mass is a point source so ANY movement towards that point source involves compression of molecules into a smaller space.
Such compression involves heating because when molecules move closer together some of the potential energy in the spaces between them is converted to kinetic energy.
In the case of Earth we have the mantle which is comprised of solid material but because of the pressure within the Earth forcing those solid molecules closer together with depth heat is generated which makes the solid mantle develop liquid characteristics so we have an up and down convective circulation within the mantle even though it is a solid.
The heat in the Earth’s interior is a consequence of the energy locked into that up and down circulation of the mantle in exactly the same way as the surface temperature enhancement of the Earth’s surface is a consequence of the up and down movement of the mass of the atmospheric gases.
The same general principle applies within stars, black holes and indeed the entire universe from its centre of gravity outwards.
One cannot just ignore it for an atmosphere around a planet as the so called climate scientists have done.
And it links in to your thermostat hypothesis because emergent phenomena ensure that the various systems acquire long term stability whether they be atmospheres, planetary mantles, stars, black holes or the universe itself.
It really is that simple and all pervasive.
Stephen Wilde September 28, 2020 at 10:26 am Edit
Stephen, I rarely answer you because it looks like you are driven by personal animus.
In this case I will say LEARN TO READ!!! In my thought experiment there is NO internally generated internal heat. Why not?
Well, let’s say it’s because the planet formed thirty-‘leven billion years ago, all further compression stopped thirty-three billion years ago, and all such heat is long gone.
Or not, pick your reason, but the thought experiment is as specified no matter what dumb objections you make.
w.
Willis
Question on microbursts and impact on cooling.
As I have read your series on emergent phenomenon I have tried to relate them to my own experience in various areas of the world. Several years ago I got caught in what I assumed was a tornado but found out it was actually a microburst. I found an estimate that there are as many 10 microbursts for every tornado. Those columns of descending masses of cold air must have some impact cooling.
Thoughts?
Joe,
Have a look at Brinicles. These ice stalactites form around a descending flow of dense brine sourced from floating sea-ice.
A different medium, water versus air, a different temperature, but the same principle applies – descent of a core of dense fluid under the action of gravity.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-sea-ice-brinicles-form/
“descent of a core of dense fluid under the action of gravity.”
Yes. During the descent, molecules move closer together because the centre of gravity is a point in space so compression occurs inevitably and that results in heating as potential energy converts to kinetic energy during the descent towards that point.
Doesn’t matter whether one is considering a gas, a liquid or a solid.
Molecules moving closer together generates heat, A well established principle of basic physics.
The failure of climate radiative physics to take that into account is a travesty.
It seems to be recognised in connection with star formation and black holes in space so why is it ignored in relation to atmospheric gases descending towards a planetary surface ?
A bizarre omission.
Stephen:
As with so many others without formal thermodynamic education, you confuse the effects of dynamic compression with that of static pressure.
Dynamic compression transfers power to the compressed system at the rate of (Force times Velocity). So the compression of the initial formation of the earth made it very hot indeed. But for the 4 billion+ years since then, the “Velocity” term in (Force times Velocity) has been zero, so no additional power has been transferred to the earth by this mechanism in these 4 billion+ years.
So the earth has had at least 4 billion years to cool off, transferring energy to deep space by radiation. The remaining geothermal power flux (less than 0.1 W/m2) is trivial, and probably comes mostly from radioactive decay and tidal friction anyway.
“Dynamic compression transfers power to the compressed system at the rate of (Force times Velocity). ”
Ed Bo.
That is a new one for my list.
Please confirm that the Dimensions of Dynamic Compression are ML^2T^-3
and that the descriptive term which should be applied is Joules per second i.e. Watts
Is this then also equivalent to momentum times acceleration?
Digging a deeper hole for myself we then have Pressure times rate of change of Volume equals Power?
Hi Philip:
This is basic high school physics.
Mechanical work = Force x Distance
(technically force integrated over distance).
Work is energy, which has units of M L^2 T^-2. In SI units 1 Joule = 1 kg m^2 s^-2.
Power is the rate of energy transfer, so here is work per unit time. So it has units of M L^2 T^-3. In SI units, 1 Watt = 1 kg m^2 s^-3.
Calculating it as Force times Velocity, Force has units of M L T^-2 (e.g. F = ma). In SI units, 1 Newton = 1 kg m s^-2. Velocity has units of L T^-1 (m s^-1 in SI). So FxV has units of 1 Watt = 1 kg m^2 s^-3.
The units are equivalent to those of (momentum times acceleration). I am not sure if that is of any real use — it may be.
And yes, (Pressure times dVolume/dt) has units of power as well.
Ed Bo
“The units are equivalent to those of (momentum times acceleration). I am not sure if that is of any real use — it may be.”
Mathematics when applied correctly has many uses.
Thanks.
“This is basic high school physics.”
Ed Bo,
Maybe, however I have no memory of having ever heard the term.
A look up online for “Dynamic Compression” gives no suitable hits.
Can you point me to a suitable text book source?
Philip:
By “dynamic”, I am simply emphasizing the motion of compression as it is occurring, that is, when the velocity is non-zero.
BTW, I have taken entire courses in “dynamics”, studying the forces involved in motion, and other entire courses in “statics”, studying the forces involved (usually gravitational) without motion. There are, of course, full textbooks devoted to both subjects.
Ed Bo,
Thanks,
Please recommend one.
I don’t know the correct keywords to make a successful search by myself.
Philip:
I’ll have to see what I can find online.
Any high-school, or introductory undergraduate, physics textbook will have the general definitions and equations for mechanical work and its power transfer that I mentioned. Halliday & Resnick’s text was very popular when I was a student.
You may also want to find an introductory thermodynamics text. Because of the importance of piston engines, they will have the analysis for compression of gas in a cylinder.
Because the concept of “zero velocity means zero power transfer” is so basic and easily understood from the equations, it may not be explicitly called out in accompanying texts, as it is understood that students would grasp it immediately.
Philip:
This is the very first high school text I found. It introduces the subject of work on text page 140, using the equation W = F * s.
It does not discuss power rate, but all you have to do is differentiate it:
dW/dt = F * ds/dt
which can also be expressed as:
Power = F * v
Ed Bo,
Thanks I appreciate your expert eye.
A comment (not a quibble) if Velocity equals Zero then the process cannot be dynamic by definition.
What I am edging towards here is to establish the difference between a bounded and an enclosed system.
A enclosed (confined) system is by definition a bounded system, however a bounded system need not be enclosed.
For example in meteorology we find dynamic air-masses that are clearly defined and bounded by fronts but are also unconfined.
The momentum thought applies to vertical motion. At the surface the vertical velocity may be zero so M*V equals zero, however in an ascending convection cell above the ground the upward velocity can be so large that the air can carry solid objects aloft against gravity.
Hey guys…I’ve seen all the comments on compression heating etc. Yep….understand. BUT….that column of air I was in was a heck of a lot cooler than a couple of minutes before.
ebeni,
No dispute here that the descending air you experienced on the ground was cold.
The point is that the descending air above you was even colder but it warmed as it fell.
Willis. Thanks for this posting.
I am still recording as before and recently set up some experiments to monitor energy. I am using temperature since it is the same as energy when making comparisons with other metrics.
I have recently began my “Grassroots” portion of the Underground monitoring. It is a probe placed just below the St. Augustine grass in my front yard. Since I do not have a wireless sensor that will transmit from underground, I have resorted to making visual readings. This probe is part of an array of sensors placed both under ground and above ground. The one placed close to the top of the grass level is my control for the rest of them. It can also be transmitted to my recording studio.
So what I have found is very interesting. All the probes below the grass appeared to be quite linear (straight line). The pattern is a sawtooth that ramps up all day and ramps down each night. After choosing my times to make my readings I found the peaks and troughs occur when the temperature above the ground matches the temperature of the grassroots probe.
To me it looks like the energy is being absorbed from the atmosphere. When the temperature above passes through the UG probe temperature the pattern is flattened or makes a bulge in the shape. The UG ramp does not change.
I have a second array that is placed in the middle of an open field. I have a hill to the east and west that reduces the amount of direct light you would get on the coast.
This array also shows a ramp. It is also about 10 degrees higher than the one under the grass.
This grassroots experiment is a simple one that anyone can do. I get the steak probes from wally world. Which may be hard to get now since they are made in China.
Keep up the good work.
Lee
Convincing!
You should be nominated a Nobel Prize candidate!
Describing the flawed Hansen–Schlesinger “forcing and feedback” formalism, Willis writes as follows, about “forcing”.
“the current theory of how climate works, which is that the temperature slavishly follows the available energy in a linear fashion”.
Also “Now, I don’t agree with the widely-held idea that the planetary temperature is a linear function of the “radiative forcing” or simply “forcing”, which is the amount of downwelling radiation headed to the surface from both the sun and from atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases.”
Also “It supports my hypothesis regarding emergent phenomena regulating the temperature, and this is clear evidence that temperature is NOT a linear function of forcing.”
Willis defines his “available energy” as follows: “Just under a third (~ 30%) of the incoming sunshine is reflected back into space by a combination of the clouds, the aerosols in the atmosphere, and the surface. What’s left is the solar energy that actually makes it in to warm up and power our entire planet. In this post, for shorthand I’ll call that the “available energy”, because … well, because that’s basically all of the energy we have available to run the entire circus.”
Contrary to this view that Willis expresses, it seems to me that his definition of “forcing” is not that of the orthodox Hansen–Schlesinger “forcing and feedback” formalism. I think that the latter defines “radiative forcing” as the difference between Willis’s “available energy” and the outgoing longwave radiation.
I am not criticising Willis’s view that the Hansen–Schlesinger doctrine is wrong, nor am I criticising his view that the towers of deep tropical convection, with their threshold behaviour, are very important in the process of planetary energy balance. I agree with him on those points. Here, I am just drawing attention to the difference between his definition of “‘radiative forcing’ or simply ‘forcing'” and the more orthodox definition of the term.
Why is the troposphere colder at its top than at its bottom?
At its bottom, it is exposed to the condensed matter of the earth’s surface, which is heated radiatively by the sun. At its top it is exposed to two objects, to the stratosphere by conduction, and to the 2.7K of outer space by radiation. This precludes thermodynamic equilibrium. Energy generally flows up through the troposphere from bottom to top by three mechanisms, which run at different paces. Circulatory convection is the fastest, though it is limited by friction, so that it is intermittent, going on only when a threshold is crossed; it is a complex and localised phenomenon, and is well described as ’emergent’, as Willis observes. The next fastest is radiation, which is complicated. The slowest is conduction.
Circulatory convection in the troposphere, in a thunderstorm, involves both circulatory motion of matter and cyclical phase changes of water. Willis’s article shows how it not only transfers energy up through the troposphere, but also reduces the amount of solar heating of the condensed matter of the earth’s surface. This is by two mechanisms, both due to cloud formation. One is increased reflection of solar radiation to outer space. The other is obstruction of the downward passage of solar radiation through the troposphere to the condensed matter of the earth’s surface, so that instead it is absorbed locally in the troposphere, thereby heating it, instead of heating the condensed matter of the earth’s surface. This local heating speeds up the escape of the locally absorbed energy to outer space. When energy is transferred up through the troposphere by a thunderstorm, there is a local enhancement of radiation to outer space.
Prior to a thunderstorm over the sea, there is increased flow of water, as vapour, from the sea into the troposphere, due to raised temperature. This added water vapour acts as a greenhouse gas, and increases the absorption, by the lowest troposphere, of long-wave radiation from the condensed matter of the surface of the earth. It also increases the back radiation from the lower troposphere to the condensed matter of the surface of the earth. This is the so-called “positive feedback by water vapour”, dearly beloved of global warmists, and crucially essential to their thesis. Besides its long-wave effect, added water vapour increases absorption of solar radiation in the troposphere, preventing some of it from reaching the earth’s surface. The added water vapour also strongly enhances the upward transfer of energy through the troposphere by circulatory convection. In the thinking that talks of “positive feedback by water vapour”, the latter two mechanisms would be correspondingly described as “negative feedback by water vapour”.
Since circulatory convection generally transfers energy through the troposphere faster than does radiation, it seems likely that the so-called “positive feedback by water vapour” is outpaced by such “negative feedback by water vapour”. If so, the wind is taken out of the sails of the global warmists.