This video exposes a popular climate myth pushed by the media. Although greenhouse gases warm the earth’s average temperature, CO2 does not trap heat!
Click bait media thrives on fearmongering and publishes misleading illustrations of solar energy entering the earth’s atmosphere, but no energy or little energy escaping back to space. To blame rising CO2 on climate change they must call CO2 a heat trapping gas, so they can then make simple minded claims that any rise in CO2 must increase extreme heating
But all climate scientists agree that the energy absorbed by CO2 is quickly shed in less than one thousandth of a second. Hardly enough time to argue
And satellite data and energy budgets estimated by climate scientists’ have calculated that of the absorbed incoming solar heat, the earth radiates 99.6%, with several tenths of percent uncertainty, back to space as infrared heat waves. The greenhouse effect is more complex because CO2 has both warming and cooling effects.
The only thing getting trapped is the public’s misunderstanding of how the greenhouse effect works and their fear of the future.
Several natural climate dynamics trap heat for much longer periods. And those natural climate dynamics are better able to explain observed warming events.
Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus, authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism, and proud member of the CO2 Coalition.
Below is the transcript to the video
Welcome everyone. This video will expose a popular climate myth pushed by the media. Although greenhouse gases warm the earth’s average temperature, CO2 does not trap heat.
Click bait media thrives on fearmongering. So, ABC news for example, has published this misleading illustration of solar energy entering the earth’s atmosphere, but no energy escaping back to space. To blame rising CO2 on climate change they must call CO2 a heat trapping gas, so they can then make simple minded claims that any rise in CO2 must increase extreme heating and then fearmonger a climate crisis.
But all climate scientists agree that the energy absorbed by CO2 is quickly shed in less than one thousandth of a second. Hardly enough time to argue the heat had been trapped.
Others like climate central who identify as independent scientists and communicators reporting “just the facts about climate change” published this bogus illustration suggesting just half the incoming solar energy is radiated back to space.
But satellite data and energy budgets estimated by climate scientists’ have calculated that of the absorbed incoming solar heat, the earth radiates 99.6%, with several tenths of percent uncertainty, back to space as infrared heat waves. The greenhouse effect is more complex because CO2 has both warming and cooling effects.
The only thing getting trapped is the public’s misunderstanding of how the greenhouse effect works and their fear of the future.
Several natural climate dynamics trap heat for much longer periods. And those natural climate dynamics are better able to explain observed warming events.
Consider that 99% of our atmosphere is composed of 3 gases, oxygen, nitrogen, and argon, and they are not greenhouse gases. Near the surface, a CO2 molecule collides a billion times every second with non-greenhouse gases, transferring the energy CO2 may have absorbed from infrared heat to those non-greenhouse gases.
Conversely oxygen and nitrogen cannot radiate energy away. So, to shed the energy absorbed from collisions with CO2 or the solar heated ground they must collide with greenhouse gases that can radiate that heat away.
If you ever played with newton’s cradle, you understand how energy can be transferred back and forth as energy is lost from one ball and given to another.
Alarmist media only focus on the warming effects of CO2 and ignore the fact that increasing CO2 helps infrared radiation escape from the earth’s atmosphere by cooling the middle to upper atmosphere
There are three distinct atmospheric layers that affect how infrared heat escapes to space. Changes in the atmosphere’s density contributes to how readily infrared heat radiates back to space. At higher altitudes air density is greatly reduced causing fewer collisions and creating wider spaces for infrared to escape unimpeded.
The low-density mesosphere cools with increasing altitude because CO2 radiates more heat back to space, faster than the sun can heat the mesosphere.
The low-density stratosphere also allows more infrared to escape to space, but here the temperature rises with increasing altitude because ultraviolet sunlight interacts with the ozone layer, warming the air faster than CO2 can radiate infrared heat away. However, both observations and modeling have determined that increasing CO2 concentrations are enhancing infrared radiation back to space causing a cooling trend in the stratosphere and mesosphere.
In the dense lower atmosphere, or troposphere, the upwards and downward flow of infrared radiation is approximately balanced, and the warming effect of CO2 is nearly saturated.
Cooling of the troposphere is largely dependent on lower pressure and rising convection currents that carry warm air towards the stratosphere where more heat can radiate away to space. In the troposphere, the transport of heat via convection is as equally important for cooling as infrared radiation.
When air collides with earth’s solar heated surface, it warms, expands, and rises. As the rising air approaches the stratosphere, enough heat radiates away to cool the air and allow it to sink back towards the earth’s surface.
Extreme hot weather typically occurs whenever convection is suppressed. Simply consider the studies that have found stopping convection by rolling up a car’s windows traps heat in a car. In just one-hour temperatures inside the car rise by 43 F.
Convection happens whenever a layer of less dense warm air lies below a layer of dense colder air. During the day, solar heating of the ground creates those conditions and promotes convection. But convection can still be suppressed.
The atmosphere must balance regions of rising air with regions of sinking air. So, the earth is covered by a mosaic of regions dominated by rising convection alternating with regions dominated by sinking air that suppresses convection. Regions of suppressed convection can be temporary, causing above average temperatures lasting for just a day, or extend periods of heating for millennia as experienced by the earth’s great deserts.
Heat waves are common when the downward flow of air beneath a jet stream’s ridge, causes air to rapidly heat as the air compresses. That creates a layer of air that’s warmer than the surface air below and that layer serves as the top of a heat dome that suppresses convection. Combined with increased solar heating from clear skies, reduced convection causes heat waves that trap suffocating heat for days and sometimes weeks.
Conversely, convection is suppressed when the surface layer becomes colder than the air above. This typically happens at night and during the winter.
The ground can shed 20 to 30% of its heat to space by quickly emitting infrared wavelengths to space that are not impeded by greenhouse gases. In contrast because the atmosphere’s heated oxygen and nitrogen do not radiate heat at all. The air can only shed its heat more slowly by colliding with a greenhouse gas that can radiate heat away.
This creates the so-called inversion layers with cold air near the surface and a layer of warmer air above that suppresses convection. In contrast to heat domes, this suppressed convection does not cause a heat wave, but it can trap smoke and pollution near the surface.
Asphalt and concrete absorb and store solar heat, emitting it more slowly than normal and raising nighttime temperatures This trapping of surface heat contributes to urban heat islands and explains why city dwellers suffer the most during heat waves
The oceans trap the most heat for the longest times. Massachusetts institute of technology’s esteemed oceanographers, doctors Karl Wunsch and Patrick Heimbach, calculated the amount of heat trapped in today’s oceans. They estimated that solar heated waters may be trapped for 100 to 10,000 years before that heat can circulated to the surface and escape back to the atmosphere.
The greatest amount of heat is trapped in the Atlantic Ocean, illustrated here by the dark red color. One reason for this concentration of trapped heat is the outflow of warm salty Mediterranean seawater into the Atlantic. The clear summer skies of all Mediterranean climates result in evaporation exceeding precipitation, which causes salty & dense, warm surface waters to sink.
The sinking of dense Mediterranean water creates the warmest waters in the world of any waters at 1000-meter depths.
As detailed in earlier videos, the greatest amount of solar flux into the ocean happens in the eastern pacific during la Nina periods where less cloud cover allows greater solar heating. The trade winds then pile up that solar heated water in the western pacific and Indian ocean, pushing heat down to 200 meters depth and trapping it there for years.
The alarmists’ narratives claim the oceans are heating up because oceans absorb 90% of the so-called “excess heat from CO2’s downward infrared energy.
But the science suggests it is the sun’s visible light that is warming the oceans. Visible light carries far more energy than greenhouse infrared.
And it penetrates to 40 meters depth in murky coastal waters
And up to 200 meters depth in clear open ocean waters
In contrast greenhouse infrared heat penetrates only a few microns past the ocean surface. That heat, absorbed in the ocean’s extremely thin skin layer is not transported to deeper layers but commonly and quickly released to the atmosphere via evaporation, suggesting infrared heat from greenhouse gases are not causing ocean warming at all.
Just as trapped solar heat warms the oceans, if outgoing infrared doesn’t balance incoming solar heating the earth’s climate will warm. So, the debate becomes: are the currently observed warmer temperatures due to natural dynamics that trap heat as described in the first part of this video, or due to the trapping of heat by rising CO2. But atmospheric physics suggests CO2 can’t be more than a minor contributor.
The physics describing how heated bodies emit infrared and how that infrared interacts with greenhouse gases is very well studied and can be accurately modeled as illustrated here in a 2019 paper by atmospheric physicists, Drs. Wijngaarden & Will Happer from Princeton.
The solid blue curve describes a hypothetical condition with no greenhouse gases, and it illustrates how much energy is ideally emitted from a surface with our current average temperature back to space by each infrared wavelength. But keep in mind, without greenhouse gases to re-cycle infrared heat back to the earth’s surface to delay cooling, the earth’s average temperature would become uninhabitable, plummeting to an average temperature just below freezing.
The jagged black curve indicates how much energy actually escapes via each wavelength under our current atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and … With CO2 at 400 ppm. The difference between this curve and the idealized blue curve indicates how much of the energy outflow of each infrared wavelength is reduced by greenhouse gases and instead gets re-directed to the earth’s surface.
And keep in mind, that re-directed infrared has delayed cooling and raised the earth’s average temperature to our very livable current temperature of about 59 degrees Fahrenheit.
Unfortunately, in this and similar graphs, the large areas of reduced outgoing infrared for specific wavelengths, has falsely suggested some of the outgoing energy has been trapped. But that would be a gross misinterpretation.
The large areas of reduced outgoing infrared suggest about 20% could be trapped but that disagrees with evidence from satellite data and energy budgets, indicating at least 99.6% of incoming solar energy, still escapes as infrared. So, if not trapped where does the missing infrared go?
The misinterpretation arises because, when greenhouse gases emit downward heat via a limited number of different wavelengths, the resulting warmed surface then radiates that heat via all possible wavelengths, and that allows more infrared heat to escape via wavelengths of “atmospheric windows” where greenhouse gases do not impede the heat’s escape to space.
However, the large reduction of outgoing infrared wave lengths centered around 15 microns, which are wave lengths CO2 and water vapor absorb, indicates CO2 is involved in the greatest intensity of re-directed downward infrared heat.
The area below the green curve indicates how much energy is affected by just CO2, with the remaining reduction above caused by water vapor.
The red curve shows that despite a doubling of CO2 concentrations to 800 ppm, the downward flow of infrared at these wavelengths is only increased by 1%
Water vapor is the major greenhouse gas and absorbs and re-directs infrared heat from a much larger range of wave lengths.
But again, for every wavelength of re-directed downward heat, that heat is not trapped, a significant portion of that heat always escapes unimpeded through the infrared “atmospheric windows”. And the longer the nights, the greater the escape of greenhouse heat.
Wijngaarden and Happer also modeled how changes in solar heating due to latitude, affected escaping infrared. Surface temperatures common to the Mediterranean would ideally emit infrared with a maximum intensity of about 140 units And…. Freely escaping infrared through atmospheric windows would range between 110 and 50 units
Over much hotter surface temperatures as observed in the Sahara, ideally emitted infrared increases to a maximum intensity of about 190 units Accordingly in the Sahara, the more freely escaping infrared via the atmospheric windows also increases to a range between 160 and 100 units
Thus, atmospheric windows enable negative feedback that reduces overheating. whether the surface temperatures are raised by increased solar energy or by recycled greenhouse infrared, higher temperatures cause more infrared to freely escape unimpeded through those atmospheric windows.
Wijngaarden and Happer also confirmed what other researchers had found. There is no greenhouse warming over Antarctica in the winter.
The wavelengths dominated by CO2 emit more infrared back to space than Antarctica’s cold surface could ideally emit. This surprising result happens because the heat trapped by non-greenhouse molecules comprising the warm air that is constantly transported southward to the Antarctic, continues to collide with CO2 which can then radiate heat out to space.
Unusual warm events in Antarctica that the media ignorantly proclaims to be caused by CO2 warming, are caused when warm winds originating from elsewhere descend to Antarctica’s surface, as observed during its many fohn storm events
So, beware of anyone telling you that increasing CO2 is increasingly trapping heat and causing a climate crisis. They are either ignorant of the science, or dishonestly manipulating your thinking to advance their political agendas.
Truly …. there is no climate crisis
Our democracy depends on a diverse array of good critical thinkers. So, please shun mindless group think. Instead embrace renowned scientist, Thomas Huxley’s advice
Skepticism is the highest of duties and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.
While I agree that CO2 is not a threat, it is a greenhouse gas of major importance.The first error of the author was the statement that Nitrogen, oxygen and argon were the three main parts of the atmosphere. H2O is the third, not argon, and is the major greenhouse gas. The trapping is also misrepresented. If the temperature was the value with no CO2, and the CO2 instantly added, the radiation to space would be lower than without CO2. However, due to the added greenhouse effect, the surface average would warm, radiation to space increase until outward radiation again balanced absorbed radiation from the Sun (all long time averages). There is an increase in temperature due to CO2, it just doses not appear to be at a threat level, and in fact increases crops and tree growth.
The nitrogen and oxygen are actually, indirectly, the most important thermal gases. Without their pressure broadening aide to “GHGs”, “GHGs” would absorb a pittance.
There may or may not be increased temperature due to CO2. There are a number of natural mechanisms that can kick in to rebalance the energy flows, primarily increased evaporation and convection. Latent heat transport to the tropopause via thunder storms is more than enough to counter any CO2 temperature increase.
In short, although CO2 changes energy flows, it is unlikely to affect the overall energy balance (at least not to any significant amount).
Without H2O, CO2 and a few other minor greenhouse gases, Earth-surface radiated LWIR would be free to radiate directly to space (clouds don’t form in the absence of H2O).
The direct loss of surface LWIR energy to space would have an outstanding effect on Earth’s overall energy balance and, hence, surface temperature.
And there are CO2 spectral bands of LWIR absorption that are not covered by H2O absorption bands.
All true enough, but we live on a water world and water is an almost perfect working fluid for a heat engine (which the atmosphere functions as).
“The direct loss of surface LWIR energy to space would have an outstanding effect on Earth’s overall energy balance and, hence, surface temperature.”
N2/O2 also cause direct loss of surface lwir to space. The heat transfered from the surface to the atmosphere by convection cannot be directly radiated frome surface to space.
It could if there were no greenhouse gases or clouds.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, but let me repeat. The heat transferred from the surface to the atmosphere non-radiatively (by convection and evaporation) CANNOT be radiated by the surface directly to space. It’s gone! So, just like the atmosphere absorbs some thermal radiation from the surface, it ‘absorbs’ more by non-radiative means. The result is the same – it’ gone and cannot be radiated directly from surface to space, but it has to make its way up through the atmosphere somehow. None of this is controversial, maybe not understood properly.
According to this NASA estimates, the surface transfers 6x as much energy to atmosphere non-radiatively as it does by thermal radiation.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/EnergyBalance
I’m so fed up with that “si ma tante en avait…” = if my aunt had balls…
That’s totally non scientific and illogical thinking, like the tired trope “all OTHER things being equal”.
Greenhouse so called “theory” is a hoax, all things being equal w/o GHG we would be cold is nonsense.
Leonard, you are quibbling and misconstruing the standard reporting of atmospheric concentrations as an error
Your first error: In the atmosphere H2O can vary from 0 to about 4 % concentration. Because its concentration varies greatly with temperature and altitude, it is typically considered separately. Every text book and scientific journal refers to N2 =78% and O2=21%, totaling 99%. But that is true when there is no water but not true when H2O is 4 %.
Your second error and perhaps your biggest error is not reading (or understanding?) the whole article. The final segment shows the change in infrared emissions for changes in temperature the Mediterranean, Sahara and Antarctica. But you write as if that effect was never considered. So what is your real agenda?
GHGs are “. . . typically considered separately”
For many years textbooks regarding O/N/Ar, have use the word “invariant” to make this distinction.
Good post. Thanks.
Mention is made of the Mediterranean outflow water. It is interesting that the depth is not deep there, thus contributing to the character of the water development in the Sea. Also, the underwater topography in the Atlantic and the Corolis effect help form that warm spot in the Atlantic.
You appear to have missed the term “long term average”, which is the only important term for effects of composition. I do understand the entire article, and don’t disagree with most of it, but totally disagree that there is no CO2 effect. It is a relatively small contribution but does exist. You seem to have not read my write ups on the issue. My agenda is to have all of the truth shown.
And your dishonest trolling has provided the incentive to never read your “write ups”
…
I see no evidence of dishonest trolling in Mr. Weinstein’s comments. This is an unjustified character attack by the author. Such a character attack makes the author look bad, not Mr. Weinstein. A disagreement with the author is not automatically “dishonest trolling”. One does not have to agree with every article here.
I do not agree with this article either. The effect of CO2 is unknown. The author implies he knows the answer. That means the author is guessing. Guessing is not science. Perhaps now I will be character attacked as a dishonest troll by the author?
Mr Greene, When Mr. Weinstein’s wrote I was totally ignoring the effect of CO2 I indeed called it dishonest trolling because that was not the truth at all. And I re-stated what I had wrote to show he was wrong. It was not a matter of whether he disagreed with what I wrote. I saw him comment later he owed me an apology but I am not sure what he specifically referring to.
Now, you disagree with what I wrote, by simply arguing the effect of CO2 is unknown, and then attacking my character by accusing me of just “guessing.” That’s not quite true.
It is well studied what wavelengths CO2 absorbs, No one is guessing about that.
Do you disagree with the evidence of what wavelengths are absorbed and emitted by CO2? Do you disagree with how the different levels of the atmosphere absorb and emit CO2? Do you disagree with the importance of convection? Do you disagree with how the ocean stores heat? Please be specific with your accusations if you want an honest debate.
Now CO2’s “effect” on climate is indeed up for debate because of the many variables affecting climate. So I presented several lines of evidence and concluded the contributions from CO2 to warming could only be minor. Now you call that guessing and not science. I call it presenting a well-supported hypothesis which is the foundation of scientific inquiry.
The difference between my claims and yours, is I presented several lines of evidence. You just engaged in name-calling. How ironic.
Your unusually strong response to people who disagree with you has harmed your reputation.
The primary debate about CO2 involves feedbacks. Those feedbacks are unknown.
Therefore, the effect of CO2 — including interactions with other climate change variables — is unknown.
You imply the effect of CO2 is small.
That’s probably true for CO2 above 400ppm.
I have the same belief.
But beliefs are not facts.
“We don’t know” is the current fact.
Which means both of us could be wrong.
Every article about CO2 should include the fact that the effect of CO2 and feedbacks on the future climate is unknown. The science is not settled.
You imply that it is.
That makes you wrong.
Science is never settled.
Undeserved ad hominems from you indicate your status.
Dr. Jim Steele’s mild responses are very patient with those who quibble abstract details or result in circular arguments
Mr Steele’s responses were not mild.
They were over the top when he attacked Mr. Weinstein as “dishonest trolling”. It is very “leftist” to character attack people you do not agree with. Conservatives should avoid that.
You have just added another character attack.
If you object to my comments, don’t read them.
If you do read them, at least have the courtesy to pick at least one sentence and explain why that sentence is wrong.
My reputation would indeed be harmed if I allowed your dishonest comments to stand without pushing back. I always enjoy good civi ldebate when facts are argued. I never attack character for simply disagreeing as you try to suggest. But you will always invoke my anger when you deliberately lie and fabricate strawmen arguments just to make you look like you are the honest person being calmly objective. The fact that you foreshadowed an attack on your character suggests you were trying to deflect criticism knowing you were about to launch a dishonest campaign. I politely asked you to specify your criticisms but you refused, instead choosing to push more dishonesty and deliberately mis-reporting what this article stated. You are reaping what you sowed.
Richard Greene has a history of being one of the deluded thought police, and has been on a mission to criticize any scientist who does not phrase their skepticism in the exact way as he wants them to. And no matter what single aspect of the many different issues related to the complexity if climate change, he attacks if the talk or article doesn’t include what he wants other to say. Although he is skeptical in the same way most of us here are, his blinding megalomania causes him to lash out at others for simply not saying the words he wants to be said. His “wolf in sheep’s clothing” politely attacks you viciously and while claiming to seek honesty, dishonestly misrepresents what is being said.
Here is an example of him criticizing Judith Curry and Willis Eisenbach on Climate Etc. September 3, 2021 at 10:38 pm
Richard Greene wrote
“I’m sorry to report my strongly negative review, because I do respect Ms. Curry as a scientist, who has met the cancel culture. But I believe honesty is the best policy. I also regret disagreeing with the comment by Eschenbach, whose great articles at WUWT are must reads.
The pitch is unemotional, and has no passion.
It is not persuasive.
It does not focus on the main point of the climate debate:
Climate Predictions versus Climate Reality
There are no obvious errors of fact,
but it generally fails to address the real problem:
ALWAYS WRONG IPCC PREDICTIONS:
The IPCC has made 32 consecutive wrong predictions of rapid, dangerous global warming.”
Then later shows he believes only Richard himself knows how to change minds stating
“Ms. Curry fails to change minds because she misses the main point:”
Greene’ analyses of the problems with climate alarmism usually align with most other rigorous skeptics, but his megalomania does a great disservice, as he attacks good skeptics for not expressing the problem “his way”, instead of letting a diversity of expressions reach out to a diversity of public opinion.
Long term average?
The correlation between co2 and global temperature over the last hundred years is not evident. So either it is so slight as to be completely lost in the noise or it does not exist as the current ”understanding” of the mechanism would have us believe. And what the hell does ”relatively small” mean? The effect of co2 is UNKNOWN. Please stop pretending.
Long term correlation is evident since 1975, which had a faster rate of CO2 emissions growth than prior to 1975. Of course pre-1975 seems to have been forgotten.
When temperatures have been “adjusted”, created or use of airport/urban area thermometers to align temperatures with CO₂’s increasing atmospheric ratio.
NB Cooling the past and heating the present falsifies any CO₂ rate of atmospheric heating claims.
I trust UAH satellite data and the scientists who compile it.
There are many problems with surface temperature data, starting with the integrity of the people who compile the data and their infilling.
While we climate realists can debate the accuracy of the historical climate data, the Climate Howlers could not care less. They predict future global warming at a rate much faster than in the 1979 to 2022 UAH data. Their predictions are detached from reality. That’s the problem.
In the spectral graphs you have intensity of radiation as the area under the curve. Co2 takes a big bite out of that curve, REDUCING the intensity massively. Reduced intensity of radiation=reduced temperature. Only at the poles you see a peak from co2. Co2 acts as a bottom for temperature. According to Wiens law co2 acts as a black body radiating at about 210K. This means that co2 acts as a cooler on the majority of the Earth surface, except for in those places where temperature drops below 210K(the poles).
It does not act like a black-body, the emission lines are very distinct. CO2 at the higher altitudes does radiate to space (at distinct wavelengths) and thus cool the upper atmosphere, but that replace direct cooling from the ground, and thus raises the average altitude of radiation to space. When you then apply the lapse rate, the result is a warmer ground.
Since the largest part of CO2’s greenhouse effect is already in the system @ 400ppm, isn’t it
possible its greatest effect going forward is it’s greening effect?
Bingo. This is the key point. CO2 has a warming effect below 100 ppm. I think your graph actually overestimates the warming effect above 100 ppm since additional CO2 also has a cooling effect above the surface boundary layer.
As Jim Steele correctly points out the cooling effect in the upper atmosphere occurs when CO2 levels increase. This is in direct conflict with the IPCC claim that adding CO2 raises the emission height.
More CO2 cannot raise the emission height because each higher layer in the atmosphere contains less CO2 due to changes in density. That means it cannot absorb all the energy coming from the next lower layer let alone additional energy from other lower layers. When CO2 increases all layers increase CO2 proportionally which maintains this same energy flow structure. The emission height is fixed based on the gravitational force.
This same logic holds for all well mixed GHGs.
Wrong. The total result of the atmospheric greenhouse effect, whether from clouds, water vapor, or CO2 is to raise the average altitude of balance of incoming to outgoing radiation to space. The increase in altitude plus the lapse rate determine the surface temperature.
Sorry, you are not considering the effects of gravity. This reduces CO2 density as you get higher which negates raising the effective emission height.
The average altitude of radiation to space where the absorbed energy from the Sun (on the surface and in the atmosphere) balances the outgoing long wave thermal radiation determines the resulting surface temperature. The lapse rate (a gravity and specific heat dependent term) times that altitude gives the surface temperature increase. Increasing the altitude results in a larger increase.
How you get to that average altitude depends on a lot of factors such as types and amounts of absorbing gases, aerosols, clouds, ice on the surface, etc. Since thie radiation is highly non-linear and the transport of air and water to carry energy from lower to higher latitudes greatly complicated the issue the problem is very hard to get right. Jim made a good presentation but then concluded the effect is not important. I also think it is not a big problem, but we do not know how big it is, and should be less sure of either extreme position.
Pure bafflegab.
Dr. Steele above demonstrated that specific heat atmospheric warming is virtually nonexistent.
CO₂ and H₂O are gravity contained to the lower atmosphere… Yes, the Stratosphere is “high altitude” to us surface bound creatures, there are many miles of atmosphere above.
If you are making a big point calling Dr. Steele Dr. (as if that gives extra authority), then be sure to call me Dr. Weinstein. My ScD is in fluid mechanics and heat transfer (including radiation heat transfer) and 52 years at NASA and NIA. I don’t think a Dr. carries more authority, information speaks for itself.
While everything you said is true, it doesn’t stop us from analyzing how CO2 handles its part of the big picture. When this is done it becomes evident that above the boundary layer CO2 moves energy outward to space in a fashion that is proportional to the gravitational field.
As a result, a higher concentration of CO2 only improves the movement of energy to space.
Since various analyses show increasing CO2 also increases this flow, it should result in some added cooling. As the amount of energy reaching Earth is unchanged, that also means this added energy flow is coming from some other source (e.g. water vapor).
Turns out increases of DWIR, by CO2 within the boundary layer, are likely to increase evaporation. That just might be why CO2 takes over more energy transport to space. The overall water cycle is also enhanced.
All greenhouse gases slow movement of energy from the atmosphere to space including CO2. Evaporation, conduction, convection, and radiation all contribute to transport of captured solar energy to space. but the aerosols (particles and clouds) and greenhouse gases radiate at discrete thermal wavelengths, and this radiation eventually gets to space. This radiation not from the surface directly to space raises the average altitude of radiation to space, and the more greenhouse gases and aerosols, the higher the average location. The lapse rate does the rest to warm the surface more than if the radiation were all directly from the surface.
I am a skeptic on Catastrophic Global Warming and agree the CO2 contribution has a decreasing effect, but that is a well known fact and already factored in to all comments. However, there is some effect, and should not be totally ignored.
And again Leonard you prove you did not read or watch the whole video/transcript, or you are just lying by suggesting it was totally ignored.
i.e I stated “But atmospheric physics suggests CO2 can’t be more than a minor contributor”
Not to mention stating the role of CO2 in the mesosphere, stratosphere and troposphere.
So why are you trolling?
This is a long article. We have to assume it is a good summary of the video. The article implies CO2 changes are too small to matter on the subject of climate change. Since 1995, the IPCC has claimed all natural causes of climate change are too small to matter (“noise”).
Both claims can not be proven.
So both claims are bad science.
“We don’t know” is often good science.
what is all this bollox about CO2 yet again??
a gas which is a mere 0.04% of inventory can do sweet F-A heating.
This especially when considering in previous ages the limestone and fossils of sediementary origin demonstrate an earth with maybe 10x more CO2 without spontaneous combustion of the earth and a very healthy and diverse life on earth.
I always call bollox when we start wheedling apart the silly earth atmosphere without milankovich cycles and vast changes from ice to warmth over what appears to be 100s of millions of years.
simples – the Romans grew grape vines in northern England in the first century AD. Do they do that now??
I have yet to see some IPCC or crappy government report that says it was BAD and resulted in anything other than flourishing of culture and general rude health in AD 0-200, never mind the wonderful MWP where food was plentiful.
give me a break get some pragmatism and say the last 30yrs has been a season of plenty remarkable in human history…
Now all we have to do is tackle the great killers like Malaria eh?
I agree it is not likely a big issue, but the argument that it is not important due to the small amount (0.04%) can bite you. Small amounts of many things can have big effects. In fact the lack of any CO2 would have a huge effect even not including the effect on life.
Nonsense with analogical allusions to “Small amounts of many things can have big effects” or “lack of any CO2” as if any number of deadly small amounts of certain substances are equitable.
yea right 0.04% gas inventory 100% bullshit
Leonard, your first error was the statement claiming Jim was wrong. Your second was not looking up the science.
Composition of Earth’s atmosphere
By mole fraction (i.e., by number of molecules), dry air contains 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases.[8] Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1% at sea level, and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere. Air composition, temperature, and atmospheric pressure vary with altitude.
I stand corrected if the amount you quote for the entire atmosphere is correct and thus need to say I apologies to Jim.. However it is also true that the main part of the greenhouse effect occurs in the lower atmosphere where H2O vapor and clouds dominates.
What’s so very odd, is if Leonard is who I think he is he should know all this very well. That’s why I asked why is he dishonestly trolling, eventhough he does agrees with most of what is presented in my article.
from a 2009 article
NASA Scientist Declares Climate Dissent: ‘Scientific analysis must conclude the basic theory wrong!’
By Retired NASA Scientist Dr. Leonard Weinstein who worked 35 years at the NASA Langley Research Center, finishing his career there as a Senior Research Scientist. Dr. Weinstein is presently a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace.
Dr. Weinstein’s April 23, 2009 Excerpt: The final question that arises is what prediction has the AGW made that has been demonstrated, and that strongly supports the theory. It appears that there is NO real supporting evidence and much disagreeing evidence for the AGW theory as proposed. That is not to say there is no effect from Human activity. Clearly human pollution (not greenhouse gases) is a problem. There is also almost surely some contribution to the present temperature from the increase in CO2 and CH4, but it seems to be small and not a driver of future climate. Any reasonable scientific analysis must conclude the basic theory wrong!”
I stated in this article “atmospheric physics suggests CO2 can’t be more than a minor contributor.
Which agrees with Leonard’s statement “There is also almost surely some contribution to the present temperature from the increase in CO2 and CH4, but it seems to be small and not a driver of future climate.”
But for some weird reason he suggests he “totally disagrees that there is no CO2 effect” as if that is something I ever said. And even though he misrepresents what I have stated he still argues “My agenda is to have all of the truth shown.” Sadly there are a few posters here trying to create that strawman argument.
the moment you say “greenhouse” you become a fearmongering ignorant liar… re-radiative gasses do NOT “reflect” energy.
The term greenhouse gases is a term essentially all who discuss the issue use. It clearly is not the same as the plant growing greenhouse effect, which uses trapping of convection to retain the absorbed solar energy, but in order to discuss a subject you need commonly used terms. Re-radiating gasses do not reflect energy, but the fact that they are at higher altitudes than the surface results in the average location of radiation to space being well above the surface. The lapse rate from that average location down then determines the temperature increase compared to all radiation to space being directly from the surface.
Very nice.
Heat is a FLOW, and trapping a flow is an oxymoron.
You can collect water from a waterfall into a cup, but you can’t collect the phenomenon of falling water into the cup. It falls, it’s done.
Mildly related:
http://phzoe.com/2020/04/08/do-blankets-warm-you/
“Heat” is commonly used among physicists and engineers as a expression of thermal energy, NOT as a expression of energy flow.
Just examine the units of heat contained per unit mass: calories per kilogram, BTU/lbm.
Just look at units for the heating value (energy released from chemical combustion) of fuels: calories per kilogram, BTU/lbm.
Just look at units for the latent heat of fusion or the latent heat of vaporization of substances: calories per kilogram, BTU/lbm
None of the above units involve “flow” terms such as “per second” or flux terms such as “per m^2”
Quite simply, “heat” is taken to be equivalent to energy. And it is well known that energy can flow between objects (e.g., BTU/sec), but that it can also be held static as in E=mc^2.
You statement that heat is a flow is, quite simply, wrong.
That is simply incorrect. I don’t care how “heat” is informally used by engineers.
The definition of heat is very clear:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/heat.html
Heat is defined as energy in transit, i.e. a flow.
‘Quite simply, “heat” is taken to be equivalent to energy.’
Same units, but heat is never internal energy and so can not be equivalent.
Ever used infrared panels. When you switch them on, you feel heat from the panel. It doesn’t heat the air. No heating in a house temperature drops to 15 degrees. Use infrared panels you can set the temperature. Once off, air in the house is still 15 degrees. Energy has to be absorbed by matter. Air space between targeted object doesn’t heat up from the panel only the object matter.
Heat isn’t energy transfer (flow) but heat absorption. In the sun lit thermosphere temperature is freezing yet the molecules can heat up to 2500C. As there are few molecules the temperature is freezing therefore no heat. Unless object at high speed collides with molecules then object can heat up to 1000C..
You are wrong. the conduction and convection from the panels make the air near the panels hotter. However, farther away, the thermal radiation continues until it reaches a surface such as a person or wall, is absorbed, and heats that object. Since all of the energy is absorbed, the walls heat the air by conduction and convection, so the room heats up. Heating the air and circulating it is direct, so the process is different but ends the same over time.
“I don’t care how “heat” is informally used by engineers.”
Why did you leave out the physicists?
“Generally, in the SI system, all forms of energy are measured in terms of joules. Notably, heat is a form of energy, and therefore the SI unit of heat is also joules (J) which are defined as the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of a given mass by one degree. Usually, 4.184 joules of heat energy is necessary to increase the temperature of a unit weight (say 1 g) of water from 0 degrees to 1 degree Celsius . . . Additionally, the British thermal unit (BTU), which is part of the imperial system, is also used to measure or calculate heat.”
—https://byjus.com/physics/unit-of-heat/
(my underlining emphasis added)
It appears you have your work cut out for you to educate physicists and engineers that “heat is a flow” . . . good luck.
“Notably, heat is a form of energy”
Yeah that form is transit, i.e. flow. Notice it never says heat IS energy?
You should complain to Wikipedia and Hyperphysics if you think they are mistaken. Same thing about textbooks.
Some “forms of energy” besides heat:
— potential energy
— kinetic energy
— nuclear binding energy associated with the strong force
— subatomic binding energy associated with the weak force
— electron quantum energy levels associated with electron clouds surrounding atomic nuclei, extending to levels of ionization
— energy as represented by mass (E=mc^2)
— dark energy (relatively recently “discovered”)
Just wondering if any of these forms are also “transit”? This is, able to evolve over time . . . some might say, “flow”.
That’s just energy. None of them have a subtraction sign in their formulas.
All heat equations DO have a subtraction sign, although it may be ommited if not significant enough.
Now you’ve resorted to playing with the term “form”
?
The heat content of a source is the portion of its energy available relative to a selected sink. When the energy flows from the source to the sink it is often called heat flow. The units of Heat is the same as energy.
Uhm, your link doesn’t have that quote, but it has:
“Heat involves the transfer of energy from an object or an energy source to another medium or an object.”
Nice try
LMAO
“LMAO”
That figures, of course.
If you stop laughing long enough, I have a serious question for you and for Leonard Weinstein:
It is absolutely true that EM radiation, such as visible and infrared light—indeed, all EM frequencies—can transfer energy between two objects, independent of their temperatures as long as one or both are above absolute zero temperature.
So, is EM radiation, considering the wave-particle duality of such, considered to be heat?
It’s a very simple question.
Are X-rays considered to be heat? Are radio waves considered to be heat? How about a single photon at a frequency of 10 Hz traveling between two objects . . . is that heat?
These are just a bit more difficult questions.
BTW, in simplifying explanations of complex physical phenomena for general public consumption, many “sources” of such information do run completely “off the rails” in mashing up scientific facts.
OK, you can now go back to “LMAO” . . . otherwise, your time would be taken up in having to educate scientists that photon-EM radiation between objects needs to be redefined as “heat”.
Gordon,
The definition of heat is not a mystery. You were given the definition, but you simply refuse to accept it.
Actually, Zoe, in considering the dust-up between us more thoroughly I believe I have identified why we have such a strong difference in interpreting the word “heat”.
You appear to use “heat” almost always in its verb or gerund form.
On the other hand, I almost always use “heat” in noun form.
The sentence “Let’s heat yesterday’s leftovers for lunch.” would be an example of your use of “heat”. However, the sentence “Southern Australia was suffering from too much heat.” would be an example of my use of “heat”.
In using “heat” (implying “to heat”) as a verb/gerund, it is proper and correct to say that there is a flow of energy involved, such as between burner flame and cooking pot. However, in this case the physical units of measurement are energy per unit time, such as BTU/sec
In using “heat” (implying energy content in a substance, such as air) it is proper and correct to say that no flow of energy is involved. In this case the physical units of measurement are just energy, such as BTU.
There is a distinct difference between BTU/sec and BTU.
I default to the units of measurement in concluding that “heat” is energy, not energy flow over time.
The above should make clear that if one integrates heat flow over time one arrives at the total heat that is exchanged.
I hope this helps.
You’re still not getting it.
https://www.britannica.com/science/heat
“heat, energy that is transferred from one body to another as the result of a difference in temperature.”
“It is incorrect to speak of the heat in a body, because heat is restricted to energy being transferred. Energy stored in a body is not heat (nor is it work, as work is also energy in transit).”
—
“arrives at the total heat that is exchanged”
That is all that is all I said. Once equilibrium is reached there is no flow, right? So there is nothing left to heat. Heat can only exist when there is a differential in energy levels, i.e. when flow is possible.
“Heat can only exist when there is a differential in energy levels, i.e. when flow is possible.”
So, based on this statement, there is no heat contained in a blackbody cavity that is at a temperature of, say, 1000 C?
Reminds of Schrödinger’s cat in the box thought experiment: we’ll never know if the blackbody cavity at 1000C external temperature ever contained any thermal energy until we poke a hole it and let the energy flow out as “heat”.
Yeah, right.
Right. There is no heat contained in anything.
The surface of the blackbody will emit:
sigma*(1273.15^4 – 2.725^4)
And it can do this because it has ENERGY.
Look, I’m not trying to be bitch, but definitions are definitions. I didn’t invent the definition of heat.
Actually, the surface of the blackbody emits sigma*(1273.15^4) units of energy per second. There is no “negative sign” (to use your own words) in the Sephan-Boltzmann law for radiation from a blackbody.
What your equation expresses the net energy exchange between a blackbody at temperature of 1000 C and deep space at an average temperature of 2.725 K. (I so much appreciate your precision in the values you used!)
Per the explicit form of the S-B equation, the energy emitted per unit time from a radiating black body is totally independent of the energy that other external matter may be simultaneously radiating to it . . . it is simply dependent of the fourth power of the absolute temperature of the object being considered.
But thank you for allowing me to point out that this a clear example of heat flow from a single object that is not dependent on the temperature of a second object (i.e., a temperature difference is not a governing parameter in thermal radiation of energy)
“What your equation expresses the net energy exchange”
lol. What you call “net energy exchange” is what is called HEAT.
i presented to you the Radiative Heat Transfer equation.
Yes, I think “transfer” is redundant here, but it’s the convention.
“Actually, the surface of the blackbody emits sigma*(1273.15^4) units of energy per second. There is no “negative sign” (to use your own words) in the Sephan-Boltzmann law for radiation from a blackbody.”
You don’t know that. It’s a convention. It’s a derived property, from the Radiative Heat Equation applied to real world experiments. No experiment in the universe can actually determine this. So this is a philosophical position still debated.
I don’t think an electron can jump and drop levels at the same, and therefore sending and receiving photons at the same precise time is impossible. Therefore I think, strictly speaking, emission IS the heat transfer equation. But I don’t always hold to this standard when I assume the mainstream approach, because explaining it is too cumbersome.
In reply to your question, heat by most common use refers to transferable thermal energy of gases, solids or liquids by conduction, convection, mass transfer, and radiation. Radiation transfer is energy transfer and has the same units as heat transfer, so is the same process. Yes X rays and the others are heat transfer, but have special properties, so often are called by other names. Please don’t get caught in semantics.
“Radiation transfer is energy transfer and has the same units as heat transfer, so is the same process.”
You’re kidding me, right?
Thermal conduction is the same process as radiation just because the have the same units of measurement???
Who knew?
Next you’re gonna tell me that potential energy is the same as kinetic energy because they both have the same units of measurement?
Let me take a try. This is a difficult subject and one must be sure of what they are discussing. EM radiation is a flow of energy. EM radiation has a power associated with it. This power determines how many photons, along with the frequency, can be carried by the EM wave. One should remember that photons are not bullets. They are “quanta” of energy, i.e., small bundles that can be called photons.
Heat is best defined as the motion of sub-atomic particles, atoms and molecules and is called kinetic energy. IOW rotation, vibration, electron levels, etc. This kinetic energy can be measured by thermometers.
Some substances can store energy “latently”, predominately H2O. This stored energy does not increase kinetic energy so it can not be measured with a thermometer. It is called latent heat because it is energy but not measurable directly. That is, it is hidden for the moment.
Energy transfer results in the increase/decrease of energy contained in an atom. As energy is added, the heat contained in a body is increased.
Look at Stephan’s equation. It is basically:
Power = “constant” x “temperature^4
Zoe commented earlier: “Right. There is no heat contained in anything.”
Zoe also commented: “heat, energy that is transferred from one body to another”
I’d like to read Zoe then explain how heat that is “not contained in anything” can then transfer out of a body in which heat is not contained to another body in which the heat is also not contained.
—-
Leonard earlier commented: “When the energy flows from the source to the sink it is often called heat flow.”
So, by implication when energy radiates from a colder source toward a warmer source it must often be called cold flow.
—–
Jim’s comment is most physically accurate: “Heat is best defined as the (hidden) motion of sub-atomic particles, atoms and molecules and is…kinetic energy.”
… which also can be found in the wiki article on heat ref. 1 that Zoe linked. Thus, something physical called heat can transfer only when the atoms/molecules contained in a body physically transfer to another body.
When cold and hot surfaces radiate to each other (photon emission and absorption), the NET energy flow is called the heat transfer, not the individual photons. This clearly is from the hot to the cold body. Also Zoe is wrong. Conduction in a solid is an example where heat transfer occurs with no atoms or molecules physically transferring to another body.
Nice try.
Your third sentence: “EM radiation is a flow of energy.”
Zoe Phin’s third sentence posted above at June 28, 9:23 am:
“Heat is defined as energy in transit, i.e. a flow.”
So, combining the teachings of both of you, the obvious conclusion is that EM radiation and heat are both characterized as being “flowed”. But you refer to EM radiation being in units of power (e.g., watts, or BTU/sec) whereas Zoe says heat by definition only happens when there is flow (e.g., BTU/sec).
What you call power, Zoe calls heat.
So, I’m more—not less—confused by your post . . . or did you instead intend it to be directed to Zoe Phin?
And I’m even more confused when you turn around and state: “Heat is best defined as the motion of sub-atomic particles, atoms and molecules and is called kinetic energy.”
What happened to the photons of radiation that you were just discussing . . . are they carrying heat or not?
Lastly, you state:
“As energy is added, the heat contained in a body is increased.”
This is in direct contradiction to Zoe’s claim that “heat” is not contained because it only exists when there is transit behavior (a flow) between two objects at different temperatures . . . reference her post above at June 29, 2022 9:49 am where she goes so far as to quote britannica.com’s highly limited definition:
“heat, energy that is transferred from one body to another as the result of a difference in temperature.”
With such a Zoe-Britannica definition, I have to pity all those scientists and engineers that have for so long referred to the latent heat of fusion or the latent heat of vaporization that is associated with phase change in a single isolated material. 🙂
Again, did you mean to direct your comments to Zoe instead of me?
“latent heat of fusion or the latent heat of vaporization”
Gordon, physically those are enthalpies of vaporization, fusion, and sublimation. So-called heats of reaction are physically enthalpies of reaction. And so on.
Trick,
Playing the name shell-game, are we?
Ok, those enthalpies are measured in units of energy per unit mass (e.g., BTU/lbm or kcal/kg). Is that heat flow? . . . Nope because there are no units of time involved.
Moreover, in the cases of solid-to-liquid and liquid-to-gas phase changes, thermal energy (BTU or kcal) must be added to the material to effect said phase changes. But Zoe states “There is no heat contained in anything”. . . so what gives?
Finally the energy addition (“flow” to use Zoe’s terminology) between each phase (e.g., solid transforming to liquid) takes place at a constant temperature so it necessarily violates Zoe’s requirement that heat energy flow can only occur between bodies having a temperature difference.
Is there a self-contradiction here, or what?
“Finally the energy addition (“flow” to use Zoe’s terminology) between each phase (e.g., solid transforming to liquid) takes place at a constant temperature so it necessarily violates Zoe’s requirement that heat energy flow can only occur between bodies having a temperature difference.”
Gordon, this is another area where math helps define what is actually occurring. Net heat flow can only happen when two bodies have different temperatures. At equilibrium, there is no net heat transfer yet there is still energy being exchanged.
I have spent several months lately refreshing my familiarity with Planck’s thesis on heat radiation. It is a complicated process and doesn’t even deal with conduction or convection. It is one reason I have been so terribly disappointed in climate scientists that only deal with averages. As soon as your see factors like “T^4” or trig functions needed for absorption, emission, and scattering one should realize that averages simply won’t properly deal with heat radiation. I have searched for papers that begin to deal with these issues as it relates to radiation within the earth’s surface and atmosphere and there is a dearth of anyone attacking the problem with proper mathematical rigor. You can’t even find papers that deal with or even reference O2/N2 conducting heat from the surface to CO2 through collisions. It’s radiation, radiation, radiation.
But phase change, as it is occurring, is necessarily NOT an equilibrium condition is it? That is, heat (ooops, thermal energy) is being continuously added so as to complete the phase change, whether it be solid-to-liquid or liquid-to-gas.
The math is NOT helping you here.
Gordon,
To be honest I probably should have clicked on Zoe rather than your comment.
My post was meant to try and clear up very, very complicated interactions called heat and energy. Thermodynamics and heat flow is a complicated subject that required three classes of university instruction in my EE degree so as to learn about boilers used in electric power plants and things like heat sinks in electronics, both with and without powered convection.
Thermodynamics is the study of heat and heat flow. Physics is the discipline that deals with energy. They are invariably related as you can’t have heat without energy. You can’t have heat flow without exchanging energy in one form or another.
My use of the word “flow” was never formal. It doesn’t mean flux, and it doesn’t imply energy/heat per second.
Why you decided to interpret “flow” as per second is beyond me.
Yeah, for you I probably should have used “per hour”. 🙂
IOW, please give an example of an informal use of the word “flow” that does not involve motion (aka change/translation of matter or energy) over time.
Just one example will do.
Which definition allows NOAA to sophistically use Zettajoules instead of Celsius in their calculation of ocean temperatures.
NOAA uses Zettajoules, because a narrow range of Zettajoules matches their specious drastic temperature increase claims.
In thermodynamics and Physics the term heat flow is used to describe the energy flow from a higher temperature to lower temperature. Energy can exist without heat, but heat specifically refers to the portion that can flow.
Leonard,
Thank you for using the term “heat flow” in your first sentence.
Zoey Phin would argue that that term is needlessly redundant, and it seems that you are agreeing with her interpretation despite your own use of the term.
Look up the definition in wikipedia. That is what I use here. Energy flow from a hot source to a colder source is defined as heat flow, but also can be called energy flow. The distinction is the need for a temperature difference to occur. You can have energy without heat but not heat without energy. It is just a convention.
You continue to use the phrase “heat flow”, whereas Zoey Phin argues that, no, the correct terminology is only “heat”.
That is, according to Zoey, your third sentence should read as “Energy flow for a hot source to a colder source is defined as heat, but also can be called energy flow.”
You two need to get together.
Ooops, my bad . . . make that Zoe instead of Zoey.
Zoey has it wrong, but you also seem confused. the sentence should read: Energy flow from a hot source to a colder source is defined as heat flow..
There is no “trapping” due to greenhouse gases. Rather there is “resistance” (still a dynamic effect), resulting in the average location for radiation balance to space being elevated in the atmosphere from the ground to some higher location in the atmosphere. The lapse rate then results in the surface being warmer than the location of balance. That is all there is to the so called atmospheric greenhouse effect.
I had always thought that the heat content of a body was simply the sum of the kinetic énergies of its constituent atoms.
That’s internal energy.
Heat is a boundary phenomenon, never anything inside an object.
Yet that internal energy results in heat caused by increased motion from kinetic energy. It can be measured with a thermometer. The real problem occurs with “latent” heat that is not measurable with a thermometer. Energy is still needed to create latent heat but it isn’t visible in a kinetic form. It is what happens in steam boilers!
Well yes, some energy can be transfered from an object to a thermometer. We call that transfer heat. It doesn’t mean that energy was heat before transfer to thermometer. If thermometer was the same temperature, there would be zero heat transfer.
No. he heat content of a source is relative to a colder sink.
Not really. NET heat/energy flow requires hot and cold bodies.
Planck proved that a body radiates EM energy based upon its internal energy content, e.g. its temperature. Another body is not required to have that energy flow. An isolated body will radiate and cool all by itself through EM radiation. That is the conundrum of dealing with energy and heat.
EM radiation is from a source to a sink. The sink may be all of space, or a relatively cool surrounding, but it is still a sink. There are temperatures associated with sinks, even space, and heat transfer from the radiating source requires you know the sink. For a much hotter body, the radiation out is much larger than absorption but it still is there.
Heat is not a flow, but heat flow is a valid term. It is the flow of available energy.
Discussing heat with ZoeJoe is a waste of energy. She/he has variously claimed to be an astrophysicist, and more lately a stock trader. She/he used to believe that geothermal heat was what warmed the planet. Very little of her/his data seems reliable. Very possible she/he is an internet quacksalver.
You appear to be mentally ill.
I have an economics degree and I took physics/astronomy courses to fill my science requirement. I have never suggested anything else.
The term “trapping heat” is inaccurate, just as the term “greenhouse effect” is. So what? There are probably more important things to discuss.
Let me recycle the antartica model. As the graph shows GHGs there add emissions, rather than reducing them. The GHE there is negative(!) because the atmosphere is warmer than the surface.
The graph does not show “back radiation” towards the surface, but I think it is easy to understand, “back radiation” from the (warmer) atmosphere down onto the surface, can not turn negative. There actually is a lot of “back radiation”. The big question now is, how this “back radiation”, if it was causing the GHE, could make it negative..?
On top of that, it is pointless to discuss if 3.7W/m2 for a doubling CO2 is a lot, or just little. No one in the orthodoxy claims doubling CO2 would have twice the effect anyway.
Rather what needs to be discussed is the 3.7W/m2 figure itself, because it is wrong.
And the earth is not a greenhouse
The graph shows co2 causing a peak in intensity in a low intensity environment. The poles are the only places where co2 actually adds to radiation. In every location where the graph shows a “bite” cut out, co2 reduces intensity. Reduced intensity=lower temperature, increased intensity=higher temperature. Co2 cools, except at the poles.
No, CO2 warms, except for the poles! However, this is just about understanding the meaning of “back radiation”.
Models are not facts.
This suggests important thermodynamic feedbacks. Increased convection with supposed greenhouse enhancement. lapse rate feedback.
We also have Planck feedback with a temperature change radiating at T^4. This increases radiation pressure across wavelengths including IR windows.
We also have a supposed increase in altitude of effective emission altitude. This altitude now occurring at lower pressure with less resistance to upward emitted IR.
Finally, we have a water vapor density response, where density of air is reduced for every extra gram of water vapor. This is a separate matter from the standard view of a temperature induced lapse rate feedback. Again, this ties into thermodynamic convective effects and also cloud height. This is an area where CMIP6 ensemble members are particularly all over the map.
The complexity of feedback response to a CO2 forcing is overwhelming, where all negative feedbacks may well approach that of the initial forcing. The feedback responses will mostly come from thermodynamic effects, a subject where radiation physicists tend to feel uncomfortable. Thermodynamic effects are never illustrated in the radiation schematics shown to children.
And as RGB said if the feedbacks are very positive then why haven’t we had run away warming before.
Yes indeed. I can’t think of who RGB is but it makes sense what they say. The problem is the complexities. Simpler observations are valuable, such as that.
The funny thing with feedbacks is that they feed-back into one-another. For example, the lapse rate feedback is assumed to be negative at low latitude, and positive at the pole, particularly the north with stable stratification. Increased tropical convection increases polar amplification.
So, the pole has a net increase in Planck radiation pressure where the IR windows happen to be wider. This in response to a negative lapse-rate + water vapor buoyancy feedback in the tropics. You could say excess heat is venting out the poles.
If anything, a mechanism such as that neutralizes any hypothetical positive water vapor radiative feedback which helps to explain low observational climate sensitivity.
There is a positive feedback from global warming as the warmer troposphere holds more water vapor. But there must be a negative feedback that limits the positive feedback and prevents runaway warming. I don’t know what it is, but I can guess: Perhaps clouds increase as troposphere water vapor increases, blocking more incoming solar energy. the increasing cloudiness limit the warming, keeping Earth’s temperature withing a certain range.
I believe Earths very roughly estimated average temperature since 1850 has increased by only +0.4% in Kelvin degrees, which is far from a climate emergency. That could be 100% natural variations of a complex system. And probably manmade CO2 has had some effect. But the effect was obviously small and harmless to humans and animals. Our plants are much happier with more CO2, however.
And that’s good news.
Since 1850 the estimated average surface temperature has increased nearly 1 degree K. However about half this occurred by 1940, where CO2 effects were considered by all to be too small to be a factor. This rise was clearly a natural rise from the unusual cold encountered during the little ice age (1300-1850). The period of 1940 to 1980 actually cooled, then came back to the 1940 level. The period 1980 to present are all that are realisticall at issue. The rise 1980 to present was about 0.5 degrees K, and part of this rise may be natural also (the present temperature is just now at the average for the last 10,000 years). However, there was a trend of dropping temperature for the last 3,000 years that may indicate the end of the present inter-glacial (Holocene) is starting. If so, the CO2 temperature rise may be countering the drop, and there may be a large CO2 effect, but it is saving us. Alternately, we may not be near the end of the Holocene and the rise is still mostly natural. We don’t know. My guess is that a significant portion of the rise from 1980 to present is CO2 related. I would guess up to 0.3 K is CO2 related over a 40 year period and will slow down or even drop from here. The increased CO2 is having very beneficial effect (plant growth), and the slight temperature rise is not a problem (in fact, most of the rise is less colder periods, not more hotter periods).
The only problem is that there is no change in the ratio of σT^4 surface and OLR using NCEP reanalysis area weighted grids globally. So greenhouse enhancement is not observed in reanalysis data.
The annual values plotted are σT^4 1000mb air temp / OLR. I don’t recall the specific value of σ I used but it’s not relevant to the shape.
The ratio bears no relation to CO2 emission. In fact, if anything, greenhouse effect is slightly weaker despite an increased surface temperature. The ratio is practically the same today as 1980s, with a weakening of greenhouse peaking around year 2000.
I am interested if someone can explain this data using greenhouse enhancement hypothesis. It is nagging me. My understanding of greenhouse theory is that the ratio should be going down in tandem with CO2 increase. The opposite has occurred in NCEP reanalysis. Perhaps there is a simple explanation.
https://www.psl.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl?
I have also looked at the NCEP reanalysis from the perspective of thermodynamic equilibrium to quantify IR Window variability.
Where LW up – LW down = IR window. Or LW up – LW down – IR window = zero.
Window = OLR – (Surface flux / 2).
Here we see IR window flux was most intense in year 2000.
From this perspective, the absorbed flux in atmosphere remains largely unchanged. Flux in units W m-2.
I found a strong inverse relationship between specific humidity at 500mb and window flux.
Any insights appreciated.
I hate to tell you this but the global cooling from 1940 to 1975 (you said 1980) was “disappeared”, most likely because cooling while CO2 was rising was inconvenient data for government bureaucrat scientists.
We all have our guesses on the effect of CO2 since 1975. I prefer “we don’t know” … but we do know no one was harmed, and here in Michigan we love the slightly warmer winters and we do not want global warming to stop.
The cooling lasted till 1975. From 1975 to 1980 there was a rise back to the 1940 level (read my actual text ). After 1980 till 1999 there was a small rise with a big spike (el Nino) in 1999.There was a jump after the 1999 el Nino to 2003, and from 2003 to present there have been ups and downs with at most a small net up. Clearly we do not know the actual effect of CO2, but it appears to be no more than a fraction of a degree net since 1850.
RBG is Ruth Bader Ginsberg for people who didn’t know.
Yet another leftist “climate scientist”, along with Al Gore.
I only knew the initials because it annoys me that we share
the R and the G. She was friends with Justice Scalia, which is one good point. Maybe the only one.
bob said “RGB” not “RBG”. The only “RGB” I know would be “RGB@Duke” (IIRC).
The question of “why haven’t we had run away warming before” would more likely come from him than from RBG.
Time for new reading glasses for me.
A minor point but Wijngaarden is at York U in Canada, not at Princeton with Happer. They are an international team.
Yes David. My bad. When writing I knew where Happer was but forgot where Wijngaarden was. I typed the sentence with the intent to look it up and edit that sentence and add York University but I forgot.
Does anybody know where data for the “infrared forcing by greenhouse gases” graph come from? It looks like a result of a measurement, but a measurement of what? A day side of the planet, a night side of the planet, Pacific Ocean, Sahara Desert? Some sort of a homogenized set of measurements?
It gets shed by passing that energy to other molecules in the atmosphere, and that does matter.
But regardless, if there is an increase in a molecule capable of momentarily slowing dissipation of heat in a gaseous atmosphere, that atmosphere will expand and density will decrease to what is was before and continue to be governed by gravity. I don’t think the surface and the atmosphere can be looked on as anything other than a unit. I’m still yet to be convinced that co2 does anything in real terms.
Atmosphere GHG mostly emit a photon. Some of the molecules will bounce into another atmospheric molecule.
Dr Steele reiterated that CO2 in the troposphere is mostly saturated. This makes CO2 incapable of making any more meaningful contributions to atmospheric temperature and the climate, does it not?
It is amazing that this important fact is being hidden away and kept from the masses. What is it that people say about dirty little secrets?
This isn’t about the climate, is it?
This whole thing has never been about climate.
It is about the ‘Karens’ of the world — of all stripes — who think they are smarter and wiser than the “deplorables,” and want to have everyone conform to their view of how things should be. Facts are just an inconvenience to their goal of re-shaping the world.
You bet.
Find a politician or a bureaucrat that truly believes individuals know what they are doing. I suspect 99.9% believe they know best what, when, and how individuals should act and what they should believe. What I learned in PoliSci classes was that governments employee’s job number one was to expand the size of their group. Issue more rules and regulations and hire people to enforce those and who can make more!
This is why the IPCC changed their definition away from the “trapped heat” model and now use the “emission height increase” model.
If the emission height did increase then it wouldn’t matter that the initial surface absorption was saturated. However, it turns out the emission height is a fixed constant determined by gravity’s effect on the density of our atmosphere.
A loose definition of lapse rate is – g / Cp so not density. The folks that say the emission height changes and that causes a higher surface temperature need to show what the updated Cp is. If the Cp goes the wrong way their whole thesis is in tatters.
The only factor to change the lapse rate significantly is change of water phase change (heat transport by evaporation, convection and condensation). This does not change enough with the small temperature changes we are talking about to matter much for the lapse rate.
definition??
Science is not about manipulating names and definitions it’s about experiments, results and being able to replicate them.
Feynmann would have said, if results don’t agree with the method and theories, YOU ARE WRONG!
WTF are we doing listening to some cretins in IPCC on a religious crusade started by Houghton?
They are WRONG!
The media is only reporting on the chickens running around shouting the sky is falling. Does no good to shout something else. We need to show their claims are false.
The lapse height is not density dependent, only gravity and Cp, modified by water phase change. Since it is a gradient, the actual surface temperature depends on defining a temperature (not gradient) at some location. The average location in the atmosphere where radiation to space balances input solar radiation that is absorbed (from surface, atmospheric gases, and clouds) defines a location where temperature is known. The lapse rate time that altitude gives the surface temperature rise. Raising the average emission height would thus raise the surface temperature.
Isn’t density also a function of gravity?
It is specific heat and gravity, not density that defines lapse rate.
So a curious question how much warmer is a Co2 molecule that has absorbed IR than the surround air molecules that it is going to impart its energy too?
Not only is CO2 mostly saturated in its capacity to absorb LWIR within the troposphere due to its relatively high concentration, it is also almost totally blocked in its capacity to absorb LWIR due to the overwhelming presence of overlapping absorption bands of water vapor. See attached figure.
Water vapor overwhelms CO2, where their LWIR absorption bands overlap, due to the combined effects of (1) H2O having a permanent dipole moment whereas CO2 has none, and (2) water vapor being in much higher concentrations, in the range of thousands to tens of thousands ppmv, compared to the current CO2 atmospheric concentration of about 420 ppmv.
Of course, alarmist “scientists” prefer to discuss CO2’s ability to “absorb” LWIR as if it did not coexist with other gases in the atmosphere.
0.71 x 1360 = 963.4
0.17 x 952 = 159.0
963.4-159=804.4
804.4/4 = 201
1.4*1.23*(339^2)/984=201.
1.23kg
78% N2
21% O2
1% other gases
CO2 doesn’t absorb LWIR within the troposphere as the troposphere has wavelengths 9-14 micrometers. No atom absorbs LWIR inside the troposphere atmospheric window 8-14 micrometers.
Atmosphere through pressure (compressed air) and convection heats the air.
159 watts per square meter (636 watts total absorption above the earths average emitted thermal heat) is solar heating that escapes closer to and within the polar regions.
Well, in response, I will argue that 0.593 x 26.794 = 15.889. So, there.
As for the rest of your comment, I’ll just leave that for others to comment on since I’m at a totally loss as how to reply as a gentleman.
There is strong agreement that the effect of CO2 is small, although the definition of small differs. The problem is the Climate Howlers claim a water vapor positive feedback will amplify the effect of CO2 alone by 2x to 4x. That converts AGW into CAGW, which is called “climate change” these days. There is some evidence of a minor water vapor positive feedback, but no evidence of 2x to 4x amplification om the past 50 years. There’s no evidence of a strong positive feedback / runaway warming in climate history, or none of us would be here to debate a water vapor positive feedback.
Like CO2, water vapor likely becomes saturated in its ability to absorb LWIR at very low atmospheric concentrations. Water vapor likely becomes saturated at several hundred ppmv (my SWAG based on the molecule having a permanent dipole moment, unlike CO2), an absolute humidity level less than that found in the driest deserts and at the South Pole.
Being saturated w.r.t. LWIR absorption, water has likewise reached saturation in its ability to provide any additional “amplification feedback” to CO2, which itself is already saturated with respect to LWIR absorption.
The Climate Howlers (your term) can claim anything they want, I’ll look for the scientific method to support or refute such claims.
50% of the sun’s insolation is considered “near IR”. If water vapor is saturated, this near IR will reach the surface, oceans and land, and will cause more water vapor to be formed. Sooner or later clouds will form, limiting the insolation and the creation of more and more water vapor.
My comment referred to water vapor being saturated with respect to LWIR being radiated from Earth’s surface.
Your reply immediately above discusses the near-IR component of solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface.
These are two different things.
Even visible wavelengths from the Sun are absorbed by the ground, water, and some aerosols. The near IR is not in the range of CO2 absorption bands so has little direct effect..
Look at what water absorbs from incoming near IR compared to CO2. And, remember, near IR carries more energy than far IR absorbed by CO2. Is it any wonder that water vapor is THE greenhouse gas?
Yes. It’s clear that at 400ppm we are at saturation and an increase to 800ppm makes little difference, even if it were possible given the limits on fossil fuel reserves. To add some historical perspective, how close to saturation is the often-cited 270ppm “pre-industrial” CO2 level?
At 288 C average temp, that barely discernible few watts out of 240 watts total, between the black 400 ppm line and the red 800 ppm line, works out to a couple of degrees C hotter surface temp. Which is why eco-doomists will consistently claim the effect is NOT saturated, plus they will claim you are a “denier” for believing it is.
Eco-doomists read the New York Times and watch CNN. No wonder they are scared.
Saturation in the troposphere means there is a height to where most of the thermal photons are absorbed. Increasing the CO2 content more decreases this distance. However, it also means there is more CO2 at higher altitudes to absorb and radiate. The location most important is the altitude where the photons radiate to space. Increasing the concentration increases this average altitude. and thus the lapse rate times this altitude gives a larger surface temperature.
I have never liked the “heat trapping” argument, “so what” is a justifiable response. Radiation to Earth from the atmosphere is a much clearer explanation, and one familiar to anyone who has parked a car outdoors in frosty weather.
That’s only seems like a clear explanation when one doesn’t understand the effect gravity has on air density which blocks any significant downward movement of energy.
Jim Steele,
Excellent, excellent, excellent! Thank you.
I can only add this clarification: you state
“But all climate scientists agree that the energy absorbed by CO2 is quickly shed in less than one thousandth of a second. Hardly enough time to argue the heat had been trapped.”
This statement is correct, but IMHO does not go far enough.
William Happer has argued, quite correctly I believe, that in the troposphere CO2 that has absorbed a LWIR photon—distributing (“storing”) that energy in its molecular translational and vibrational modes—will “shed” that energy via collisional exchanges with N2 and O2 molecules with a probability 10^6 to 10^9 times greater than the probability of it radiating a LWIR photon of equal or less energy than the one it absorbed.
The range of probability cited above results from considerations of quantum probabilities for photon emission from an excited CO2 molecule, the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of molecular velocities for an ensemble at a given mean temperature, and the variation of atmospheric temperature and pressure with altitude within the troposphere (ref. standard atmosphere profiles).
For reference:
“For the nitrogen molecule already considered at a temperature of 293 K and at a pressure of 1 bar, a collision frequency of (7 x 10^9)/s results, i.e. within one second a single nitrogen molecule will collide on average with 7 billion other molecules!”
— https://www.tec-science.com/thermodynamics/kinetic-theory-of-gases/mean-free-path-collision-frequency/
At a given pressure and temperature, collision frequency scales as [(d^4)/m]^0.5, where d is kinetic diameter and m is the molecular weight of the gas species.
So, working out the math, a normal (unexcited) CO2 molecule at NTP conditions would have a collision frequency of about 5 x 10^9 per second. Under energy equipartition laws, an excited CO2 molecule would be expected to be colliding even faster than that due to its increased translation speed.
{Note for the purist physicists out there: yes, collisional frequencies for ensembles of gases actually happen at a factor of sqrt(2)=1.4 times faster than stated above when taking into account the actual approach speed of two particles compared to using only their own speed as a basis of mean free path/collisional frequency calculations . . . in the overall context of my post, this is pretty much a distinction without a difference.}
The bottom line point to be made: LWIR energy from Earth’s surface that is “absorbed” by greenhouse gases is, within the order of nanoseconds, distributed (“thermalized”) to nitrogen and oxygen in the troposphere and it is the isotropic thermal radiation from ALL atmospheric gases (as a function of their temperature variation with altitude) that warms Earth’s surface.
True, but it is also true that those Nitrogen molecules will constantly be colliding/energizing with CO2 molecules which leads to emissions. Given Kirchhoff’s Law this means the rates of absorption and emissions are about the same within any given temperature range.
As a result, we know that CO2 does emit energy. This is where the saturation argument comes into play. CO2 cannot absorb any more energy at the lowest level of the atmosphere since it is already all absorbed. However, with more CO2 we will an increase in emissions.
If this sounds like a cooling influence you would be correct. The energy radiated downward is from within the atmospheric boundary layer which exists in thermal equilibrium with the surface. Hence, no warming occurs. The increase in radiation upward will then lead to a small cooling effect.
“True, but it is also true that those Nitrogen molecules will constantly be colliding/energizing with CO2 molecules which leads to emissions.”
Note quite correct. Almost all molecular collisions will tend toward equipartioning (averaging) of the translational and vibrational energy states of the two colliding molecules.
However, comparably few molecular collisions will create in either of the colliding molecules just the right quantum mechanical configuration to result in spontaneous emission of a LWIR photon. Such emission will be governed by probability laws of quantum mechanics.
And there is the much higher probability that CO2 molecules—as well as all other atmospheric molecules—will radiate photons just due to their inherent temperature being above absolute zero (i.e., “thermal radiation), said photons averaging frequencies much lower than the LWIR portion of the EM spectrum.
BTW, Kirchhoff’s law can only be applied to a luminous (hot) gas that is in thermodynamic equilibrium. This is not the case being considered with LWIR-excited CO2 molecules being mixed with N2 and O2 molecules that have not been excited by LWIR, with the N2 and O2 species not being considered to be luminous.
CO2 has half energy that N2 & O2 possess. Doesn’t absorb in the troposphere as there are limited wavelengths that CO2 would accept.
9.5 micrometers (very weak absorption)
10 micrometers (no absorption) hemisphere summer
11 micrometers (no absorption) spring/fall arctic region
12 micrometers (no absorption) Arctic region low
13 micrometers (very weak absorption) 250hpa global average
14 micrometers (weak absorption) Above tropopause.
15 micrometers (absorption) Mesosphere or lower stratosphere Antarctic region winter.
Please consult the attached figure, which is only very weakly dependent on season of the year and geographical latitude.
CO2 absorbs LWIR across relative broad bands, not at only discreet micron frequencies.
CO2 has energy?
Yes, CO2 has the potential to (and usually actually does) have energy manifested as molecular translational kinetic energy, KE = (1/2)*m*V^2, and as mechanical energy manifested in the rotational and vibrational (stretching and bending) modes of its molecule bonds.
Altogether these motions determine the sensible temperature of a given CO2 molecule, with recognition that the mean temperature of an ensemble of CO2 molecules is determined by statistical averaging of the naturally-occurring Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution range of these motions.
The problem with that argument is that it misses the fact that these nitrogen and oxygen molecules also collide with the CO2 molecules. The CO2 and H2O absorb thermal energy wavelengths (not direct sunlight), transfer the energy to the O2 and N2 to heat it but the increased temperature of these gases than transfers the energy back to the CO2 (back and forth) until some of the energy is radiated to space.Since the collisions continue, the gas goes into near equilibrium with absorbed photons going to the surrounding, and the surrounding giving it back to the CO2 which radiates to space to balancerinput and output.
That is not a “problem with (my) argument”, but is instead a feature of it!
As I stated in my bottom-line point:
“. . . it is the isotropic thermal radiation from ALL atmospheric gases (as a function of their temperature variation with altitude) that . . .”
You are correct, I skimmed over and missed that part.
Not quite Leonard. CO2 has very low conductivity and diffusivity when it comes to thermalised energy..ie heat from warmed N2 or O2.
I point attention to two fundamental
thermodynamic properties, namely
• the thermal conductivity λ, a property that determines how much heat per time unit
and temperature difference flows in a medium;
• the isochoric thermal diffusivity av, a property that determines how rapidly a temperature change will spread, expressed in terms of an area per time unit.
It, CO2, may get the hit but doesn’t give it up or change temperature easily.
“in the troposphere CO2 that has absorbed a LWIR photon—distributing (“storing”) that energy in its molecular translational and vibrational modes—will “shed” that energy via collisional exchanges with N2 and O2 molecules”
LWIR at 15 micrometers will not heat N2 or O2 molecules if N2 & O2 collide with a warmer object like the earth surface that emits at 10,11,12,13 micrometers.
N2 & O2 means air is 289K (10 micrometers)
At 15 micrometers CO2 is 193K its peak absorption.
Unless you think 15 micrometers is 289K.
The false assumption is that CO2 is in equilibrium with earth’s surface temperature and N2 & O2 have zero energy and given energy by CO2 at constant rate.
It’s the opposite. N2 & O2 are 99.9% of the air and collide with the surface that has been heated by the sun.
N2 & O2 collide with each other as well as CO2.
CO2 speed of sound is slower than N2 & O2. If CO2 had so much heat it would move faster than N2 & O2.
Air 340 meters per second
CO2 278 meters per second.
I give up . . . there is no reason for further discourse between us.
Give up because you are lost?
With respect to Stephen Lindsay-Yule, yes, totally.
With respect to facts, no, not at all.
But it’s funny. I like alternative history novels. I also enjoy alternative universes with different physical laws.
Putting unrelated facts together for a theory takes a special skill. I lost that skill ages ago.
I admire your perseverance.
Water evaporation and latitude differences (source of most air and water currents) along with turbulence cause the convection and thermal plumes that transfer the energy up. N2 and O2 heating at the surface also transports energy up, but I think it is the water-vapor/rain mechanism that is the strongest effect since Earth is mostly covered by water.
The Earth is 100% covered by its atmosphere.
The atmosphere stands between the Sun and the Earth’s surface, both land and ocean.
What issue are you referring to with that comment? I was referring to the major sources of energy transfer from the surface to the upper atmosphere.
Without an atmosphere, there would be no “water-vapor/rain mechanism that is the strongest effect”.
Scientists have established that without an atmosphere Earth’s surface temperature would drop below the freezing point of water. This is mentioned by Jim Steele in his video that is linked in the above article.
Ahh but the CO2 is more massive and it is momentum that is conserved in collisions. Also what is with the use of distance for temperature? Are you referring to peak black-body wavelength at those temperatures? If so keep in mind that gases are not black bodies.
I don’t mean to quibble, only add some detail. The CO2 molecule is slower than the air O2 and N2 molecules on average (higher molecular wt), and when they absorb photons do not increase in velocity but in vibration modes which redistribute with collisions. Otherwise you are correct in the transfers.
I don’t mean to quibble either, but you really should investigate what a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of gas molecular velocities means when combined with elastic-inelastic collisions, both in the context of a mix of different gas species.
That is, a gas collision between a relatively slow, relatively heavy CO2 molecule and a relatively fast, but lighter N2 (or O2) molecule can indeed cause an increase in velocity of the CO2 molecule. It happens frequently in the atmosphere.
It is absolutely TRUE that when a CO2 molecule absorbs a photon it can increase (or decrease) in velocity. The physical law underpinning this statement is known as the conservation of momentum . . . and it stands alongside the principle of conservation of energy. Photons have momentum.
Finally, the energy equipartition principle states that it is “natural” (most likely determined by the Second Law of Thermodynamics and laws governing quantum mechanics) that a step change in energy tends to be equally distributed among all available degrees of freedom in the system. Translational motions (i.e., velocities in x-y-z space) are degrees of freedom alongside vibrational modes.
Photon momentum is very small, so it is the vibration modes mainly affected by photon absorption. Any gain in any mode eventually redistributes. I will add you profound lecture next to my ScD degree in fluid mechanics and thermal science.
The belief that CO2 controls the planet’s heat balance and thus it’s temperature is mostly INCORRECT. The planet’s heat balance is controlled by CLOUD COVER which reflects the incoming solar. Cloud cover is in turn controlled by sea surface temperature. SST determines how much water vapor evaporates to form clouds, especially low level clouds that also reflect the most sunlight back to outer space.
Some numbers:
Ocean Albedo around .08
Earth cloud local Albedo as high as .9
Moon Albedo around 0.12 ( bare rocks and dust)
Venus Albedo (all clouds) 0.73
Earth’s average cloud cover about 65%
So what do you think might cause “ocean planet” Earth’s Albedo to be .30 ?
If kids learned about albedo in school, instead of “CO2 traps heat”, the eco-doomers would only have pollution to make their case for control of industry.
Make sure the talk about albedo is surface, not TOA. Clearly surface albedo correlates surface temperature. As Zoe Phin or Erl Happ will happily point out, 0.01 change has more effect than doubling CO2.
That’s an interesting graph. It seems to show at scales of a month or two, that decreased global albedo (decreased cloud cover most likely) causes SST increase, in keeping with the cloud cover hypothesis. The long term curve waviness must be due to other SST change phenomena.
Water vapor and clouds dominate the heat balance at the surface and mid levels of the atmosphere, but CO2 contributes significantly to radiation to space at the top of the atmosphere. The combination results in the the net balance. Without CO2 we would likely have a negative feedback from more ice forming at higher latitudes and thus much colder. Even a small amount of CO2 reduces this feedback, and the further increase in CO2 has less effect.
Obviously GHG gases radiate to outer space. But if CO2 wasn’t there, the H2O at lower altitude would just send more IR through the IR transparent N2 and O2 to outer space. A Modtran calc will tell you approximately how much.
And thanks for your comments Leonard…your knowledge in the field is appreciated by me, maybe not Jim who gets cranky if he thinks he is being dissed….
DMackenzie:
You say that cloud cover reflects the incoming solar.
NO, the incoming solar is controlled by the amount reflective industrial SO2 aerosols circulating in the atmosphere, which in 2019 were 72 million tons + those from volcanic eruptions.
Cloud formation, in turn, reflects the amount of temperature change wrought by the SO2 aerosols.
Low clouds cause more reflection of incoming solar radiation than trapping of outgoing longwave radiation. More low clouds decreases radiative forcing. Less low clouds increases it.
High clouds cause more trapping of outgoing longwave radiation than reflection of incoming solar radiation. More high clouds increases radiative forcing. Less high clouds decreases it.
Denser clouds cause more more reflection of incoming solar radiation than trapping of outgoing longwave radiation. More low clouds decreases radiative forcing. Less low clouds increases it.
Absorbed solar radiation is controlled by the amount of the SO2. But it is also controlled by snow/ice cover, cloud cover, solar output, orbital perturbations, various other aerosols, etc.
Cloud cover and composition does respond changes catalyzed by SO2. But clouds respond to other changes as well.
bdgwx:
One can think of the SO2 aerosols as a sunshade. Everything that happens beneath it is dependent upon the amount of solar energy that passes through it.
Thanks, Jim! Another excellent, detailed article- another keeper!
Nothing is done out of ignorance, everything is intentionally malevolent. CO2 is plant food, not a pollutant. The left knows this and pursues its Luddite policies anyway, because rationing energy is control. Get back to us when the “solution” to every Climate Change “problem” isn’t less money and less liberty for the people. Until then the “scientific” charts and graphs are just props.
Yes, as I always like to point out, the “climate scare” of the 70s was global COOLING, and yet, through a slightly different intervening mechanism, it was ALSO supposedly “caused” by industrialization and those ‘evil’ fossil fuels.
When the environmental catastrophe du jour about-faces 180 degrees and YET the supposed ’cause’ and the prescribed ‘solution’ remain the same, you know you’re being conned.
“As detailed in earlier videos, the greatest amount of solar flux into the ocean happens in the eastern pacific during la Nina periods where less cloud cover allows greater solar heating.”
One reason for this warming was correctly highlighted, the light penetration into the open ocean, which I have previously highlighted in my science poster(s) and in blog posts.
There is a small element of truth wrt clouds, but it leaves out the most important factor driving the eastern tropics to begin warming, the increase in ASR with increasing TSI.
The fact is during the La Nina the eastern tropics has had mainly cloudless conditions for several years already w/o a temperature increase.
It has only warmed up recently because of higher sunspot activity that increased over last year, driving TSI up beyond the sun-ocean warming threshold I established in 2014.
Please don’t think tropical warming happens just because of less clouds, it’s not true.
Bob, Imust disagree with you again. Your logic is faulty and silly when you argue “The fact is during the La Nina the eastern tropics has had mainly cloudless conditions for several years already w/o a temperature increase.”
During La Ninas the eastern Pacific is cool because there is an increase in cool upwelled water. Furthermore the observed greater heat flux into the eastern Pacific is then transported and concentrated in the western Pacific,Indian Ocean, Kuroshio Current eetc . Warm water residuals from a previous EL Nino are also transported westward. All together these dynamics keep temperatures low in the eastern Pacific despite the observed heat flux And cool temperatures there is not evidence that less clouds dont allow more solar heating. If you ever spent much time outside the cloud effect would be very perceptible.
“If you ever spent much time outside the cloud effect would be very perceptible.”
That’s funny that you should say that as I once worked outside for 15 years just about every day, after mountain biking for ten+ years, and have always been an outdoorsman since my youth. Now one of my inside jobs is keeping track of cloudiness, UV index, and heat waves.
My interest in weather began early in life. My ninth grade science teacher set a few of us up to do daily weather data observations and forecasts for the local AM radio station, which I did for over a year. I am no stranger to the weather Jimbo.
“During La Ninas the eastern Pacific is cool because there is an increase in cool upwelled water. Furthermore the observed greater heat flux into the eastern Pacific is then transported and concentrated in the western Pacific,Indian Ocean, Kuroshio Current eetc .”
Sort of two disconnected statements there… is cool… the observed greater heat flux… is transported and concentrated…
Jim, you missed the important warming link involving solar irradiance changes.
A cooler ocean area doesn’t provide positive heat flux to a warmer ocean area, ie,
polar region colder water doesn’t provide positive heat flux to the lower latitudes, it provides cooling, or a negative heat flux to the warmer waters it encounters.
The net heat flux you showed is for a period of time, what time period? Did the period overlap the solar minimum and maximum evenly? That would be important as the step changes in the eastern tropics are solar cycle induced. The odds of the solar cycle entrained tropical pattern shown below occurring 9x in a row without solar forcing are 1:1.9x10E11, impossibly silly odds.
Bob says “ I am no stranger to the weather Jimbo”
Hmmm Sorry. That was just the impression you give.
Jim I give no such impression, that was all in your head.
Try not to blame me again for your wrong thinking.
Jim Weber:
You say that the eastern Pacific is cool because there is an increase in cool up-welled water during La Ninas.
This is nonsense.
A La Nina forms because of a volcanic eruption that injects reflective SO2 aerosols into the stratosphere, causing cooling.. And an El Nino forms after those reflective aerosols eventually settle out of the atmosphere, causing warming. El Ninos FOLLOW La Ninas, rather than precede them, as you state .
burl, You seem narrowly obsessed with aerosols, and unaware of all the scientific observations and modeling, supporting the cause of the ENSO cycles, which you blindly dismiss as non-sense. I suggest you become better informed before labeling everything nonsense if their explanation does not involve aerosols.
Jim Steele:
NASA’s Fact sheet on atmospheric aerosols “Atmospheric Aerosols: What Are They and why Are They So Important?” states that SO2 aerosols “reflect sunlight and cool the lower atmosphere and the Earth’s surface”‘
Since all of the scientific observations and ENSO modeling efforts ignore the major effect of SO2 aerosols, they are indeed nonsense.
Burl 3:45 pm, that article is from 1996. Modern CERES measurements of changes in all aerosols since 9/2002 attribute 0.01 +/- 0.04 W/m^2 of warming to aerosols since then vs. changes in water vapor of 0.31 +/- 0.19 W/m^2 in the same period. Measurements with 95% confidence can’t even discern whether changes in aerosols in the period are warming or cooling surface temperature, albeit in very small amount.
Trick:
A WoodforTrees.org plot of 1850-2020 Jan-Dec average anomalous global temperatures shows that every temperature change can be correlated with changing levels of SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere.
I have no idea how Ceres could be so far off the mark!
See my paper in Google Scholar “A Graphical Explanation of Climate Change”.
Actual measured change in SO2 attribution to global warming doesn’t agree with your theory and paper, burl. The sign isn’t even observed with confidence. You will need to find a theory for Google Scholar that really does agree with instrumental observations.
burl should put up a paper showing the issue to advance the work, let researchers know, and that burl doesn’t have any idea how CERES is off the mark. Better yet, investigate, research, then publish the reason CERES is off the mark.
Jim is correct. El Nino is caused by a decrease in cool water upwelling whereas La Nina is caused by an increase in cool water upwelling. The upwelling itself is modulated primarily by the Walker Circulation. The Walker Circulation is modulated primarily by the Pacific SSTs. Thus the oscillation. There is some evidence to suggest that other agents, like the solar cycle, pump the oscillation a bit.
bdgwx:
No, El Ninos are caused decreased levels of SO2 aerosols in the atmosphere, which increase the intensity of sunlight striking the Earth’s surface.
Maybe tropical warming is not only less clouds, but a fall in surface albedo.
https://reality348.wordpress.com/2021/06/14/the-linkage-between-cloud-cover-surface-pressure-and-temperature/
As albedo falls away, temperature increases. The relationship is watertight. No other influence needs to be invoked other than ENSO which throws a spanner in the works unrelated to the underlying change in the Earths energy budget.
The local presence of clouds can either cool or heat the surface depending on their type, altitude, and time of day/night.
How do you think that affects surface albedo?
That’s the all encompassing correlation. Read the previous link.
“As albedo falls away, temperature increases. The relationship is watertight.”
Thanks for your response Macha, but your watertight argument is leaking. Empirical evidence is going against the idea you mentioned.
Let’s look at what happened with SST since 2020, under relatively sunny skies.
SST has cooled under record-setting sunshine, which started in the tropics.
http://climate4you.com/images/SunspotsMonthlySIDC%20and%20HadSST3%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1960%20WithSunspotPeriodNumber.gif
I understand why you said that because albedo does has the effect you mentioned on land all the time, but not always on the ocean, which depends on TSI level too.
Long duration low TSI leads to fewer clouds; the opposite leads to more clouds.
The record sunshine extremes came about from the solar minimum’s cooling effect on the tropics, specifically the eastern tropics. We are now seeing this turn around with higher solar activity in SC25, the US drought is receding as a result.
Greenhouse gases absorb infra-red radiation emitted by the earth. Some of that absorbed energy is reradiated through to space by the warming atmosphere. The HITRAN spectral database enables that initial absorption by the greenhouses gases, chiefly CO2 and H2O, to be determined. The energy balance at the top of the atmosphere shows how much of that energy is retained by the earth and how much is reradiated to space. Please see http://www.ijaos.org/article/298/10.11648.j.ijaos.20210502.12 .
for a detailed analysis, showing that the climate sensitivity to CO2 is a miserly 0.5degC. There is no climate emergency.
I suspect even your analysis overstates the CO2 warming effect by not compensating for the effect of thermal equilibrium in the atmospheric boundary layer where most of the downward IR originates.
And you can show with the Modtran on-line version, selecting fixed RH, and some reasonable cloud cover yielding 260 or less Watts/m^2 outgoing IR, that double, double, double current CO2 (that’s 8 times current CO2, totally expending fossil fuels) results in about 2.2 C “ground temp. offset”…..don’t believe me ?…run it yourself until you get the hang of it on UChicago’s Modtran website. Of course its logarithmic so the first 2x is the biggest, which is what the doomsters always pick, along with clear sky CO2 forcing.
That is a radiation only model. It shows the amount of energy radiated to the surface. It tells you nothing about the feedback. I realize most skeptics have never even thought about the effect of the atmospheric boundary layer. However, the term thermal equilibrium should be a hint.
Let’s say one of those photons from doubling CO2 lands on a temporarily cooled surface molecule. It now warms it. Next up an N2 molecule strikes the surface molecule. After the doubling energy gets transferred to the N2 molecule. Before the doubling the N2 molecule likely warmed the surface. IOW, energy moves in the opposite direction.
As a result, much of the energy that would warm the surface only results in some minor changes in how the surface and atmosphere interact to maintain their equilibrium state. They still remain in thermal equilibrium and no real warming of the surface happens. Energy just moves around.
So, how much of the energy hitting the surface in Modtran originates in the atmospheric boundary layer? I’d venture it is over 99%.
Its not a General Circulation Model but the Modtran web version allows you to pick amongst 14 different cloud types, rainfall, relative or absolute humidity, and 6 different localities representing different latitudes.
With reasonably good parameters. Treatment of greenhouse gases is correct.
It’s still a radiation only model. It does not tell you a thing about how the boundary layer/surface responds. Here’s another thought.
How much energy is conducted between the boundary layer and the surface. Not net energy flow, actual energy flows both ways. Remember, 100% of the atmosphere is involved instead of just .04%. Collisions occur thousands of times faster than radiation events.
This along with wind driven turbulence is why thermal equilibrium exists. The downward IR from CO2 is lost in the round off error.
I think you have it about right. The main argument the CGW group uses is water vapor positive feedback, but that effect is not likely due to cloud feedback having opposite effects on average.
What do you think this equation does?
1.4 x 1.23kg x 339.58 m/s /1360 Joules/watt = 146 watts
This equation is the natural greenhouse effect.
78% N2
21% O2
0.9 Argon
0.1 other gases
1.23kg of mass with velocity of 339.58 meters per second.
Every 1000 joules raise temperature by 1°C
Here you see desert areas outgoing longwave radiation close to 350 watts per square meter
yet earth emits 544 watts per square meter at 40C. The natural greenhouse effect has 198 watts per square meter and outgoing infrared radiation is 345 watts per square meter.
This is the trapped energy being recycled. The fohn wind is compressing of air raising air above dew point making descending clouds disappear. 198 watts is due to 1 bar pressure. If these main gases were gone. CO2 or water vapor would not recycle 200 watts of radiation. There would be no water on earth without 1 bar pressure.
Jim – It is too much to expect of the general public that they would understand radiant heat transfer or how greenhouse gases behave at the atomic level, but at the macro level I think it is fair to say that greenhouse gases trap heat even though that is not exactly what happens, if your definition of a heat trap is something from which heat cannot escape. They do understand that the presence of greenhouse gases causes the atmosphere to be warmer than it otherwise would be, something which is not in dispute.
The general public can also understand what really is happening without the scare factor- “Like a
light blanket, GHGs keep the heat from escaping as quickly”. E-Z peasy!
Tom.1 , Indeed it is too much to expect the public to grasp physics of radiant heat transfer. That’s why the alarmists have gotten away with such false claims that CO2 traps heat and simply fear monger rising CO2 is the cause of all bad weather. Alarmists give the simple-minded argument more CO2 causes more warming. But they hide and distort thee other half of the science that can be presented in an understandable way. Alaarmists have systematically attempted to block debate and publications and denigrate skeptic scientists who do explain the other half, as I am attempting to do here and in all my videos.
Alarmists ignore CO2’s saturation effect that limits warming, they ignore the cooling effect of increased CO2, they ignore the greening effect as CO2 nourishes plant growth, they ignore the natural climate dynamics that cause extreme weather or simply argue more CO2 makes alll extreme weather worse, providing no analysis other than its because CO2 traps heat. I remember Michael Mann once saying on his RealClimate website, words to the effect that “they are battling for the public’s belief”
I can only hope my videos are a small contribution that improves the public’s understanding of the science, all the science, and frees them from the undeserved paranoia induced by the climate crisis fear mongers with a political agenda!
Almost 8 billion people are first-hand witnesses to up to 47 years of global warming since 1975. Actual experience with global warming trumps any climate science predictions of the future climate. For all of those 47 years, there were predictions of rapid dangerous global warming by government bureaucrat scientists, that never happened. Yet the public still believes predictions of climate doom. Thats the real problem: Irrational belief in predictions of doom, which have always been wrong. Politicians use those beliefs to create fear. When people fear the future, they often demand that their government “do something”. And that is exactly what leftists in government want to hear.
I went to youtube, clicked like and hope we can help increase circulation of this video!
I prefer simpler arguments to use against alarmists.
Rud, your 1.16 C is based on including IR emitted within the atmospheric boundary layer. This is probably over 99% of the downwelling IR and cannot cause warming since this layer exists in thermodynamic equilibrium with the surface.
Point 2-5 are then irrelevant.
‘I prefer simpler arguments to use against alarmists.’
Very sage advice, as usual.
But the problem is that the alarmists are so ‘prolific’ in their communications that it’s hard to pin them down. For example, I’ve seen it claimed that doubling CO2 will result in a 3C equilibrium change in surface temperature (1.2 CO2 + 1.2 H2O + 0.6 other feedbacks), so using a supposedly IPCC approved formula to convert this temperature change to ‘forcing’ gives about 9.6 w/m^2. Great stuff, except that applying the S-B equation to a 3C change would alternatively result in a 16.5 w/m^2 increase in forcing. This is a huge miss (42%), very much on the order of GCM overstatements (~2x) of temperature increases in the mid-troposphere, which the alarmists have no qualms about ignoring.
So, all of this is a long-winded way of saying that, while I agree with your points, I think Jim Steele’s presentation, above, provides an excellent means of confronting alarmists’ claims on the basis of the science.
I reckon a “back to basics”, “model-less” presentation for the public would be a sound starting point.
Key points should be facts about climate(s) that are accepted as indisputable, eg –
Howse about just reading a long list of wrong predictions of environmental doom since the 1960s. 100% wrong. If all past predictions were wrong, why believe future predictions.
After all, “climate change” is nothing more than a prediction of doom. After laughing at the past predictions, present the one climate prediction in history that was right — my own prediction from 1997: “The climate will get warmer, unless it gets colder”
Tell them that prediction summarizes Climate Science 101.
Better yet, take their Sunday New York Times, roll it up, and smack them upside the head. That won’t change their mind on climate change either. But it sounds like fun.
Frank from NoVA said: “Great stuff, except that applying the S-B equation to a 3C change would alternatively result in a 16.5 w/m^2 increase in forcing.”
A 3C change at the surface would result in a 16.5 W/m2 increase in response at the surface. The force and its surface response are two different, though related, concepts. The force is the perturbation of the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) or ΔEEI where EEI = ASR – OLR, ASR is absorbed solar radiation, and OLR is outgoing longwave radiation at top-of-atmosphere (TOA). The response is ΔUWIR from the surface. Note that ΔEEI and ΔUWIR are two different values. For example, if the climate sensitivity is 0.75 C per W/m2 then a ΔEEI = +4 W/m2 will lead to a response of ΔT = 3C and ΔUWIR = 16.5 W/m2 at the surface. The point is that care needs to be taken not conflate the force with the response. They are different concepts.
Ok, here’s my conundrum (h/t Howard Hayden):
ASR [=] absorbed solar SW = solar constant at orbit x (1 – albedo)
OLR [=] outgoing LW to space, and
GHE [=] sigma x Ts^4 – OLR
at equilibrium we must have:
ASR = OLR, and
GHE = sigma x Ts^4 – solar constant at orbit x (1- albedo)
Based on CO2 doubling, IPCC says that Ts will increase by 3C (including feedbacks and conversion of 3C to forcing is about 9.6 w/m^2. But increasing Ts by 3C gives (S-B) an increase in surface flux of 16.5 w/m^2. Inserting these values into our equilibrium equation gives:
GHE + 9.6 = sigma x Ts^4 + 16.5 – solar constant at orbit x (1-albedo)
Obviously this doesn’t balance so there has to be a change(s) in either the solar constant, and/or a decrease in albedo and/or the IPCC’s assumed change in Ts of 3C is incorrect.
Hopefully you can help me out with this.
You are correct. It is believed there will be a decrease in albedo in response to the warming. That means in equilibrium both ASR and OLR ultimately increase. Donohoe et al. 2014 explain this better than I. Pay particular attention to figure 1 (c) for an instantaneous pulse of CO2 or (d) for a gradual increase. Notice that in both cases ASR increases due to the shortwave feedback which means OLR must ultimately increase to equilibrate with the higher ASR. A higher OLR then needs a higher Ts which means UWIR from the surface must respond by more than the amount of the original force. There is no violation of the law of conservation here because more solar radiation is being absorbed as well.
BTW…the Loeb et al. 2020 publication mentioned below provides observation evidence supporting the idea that the shortwave feedback is indeed positive strongly suggesting that surface radiation response will be more than the original force.
From Donohoe et al (Discussion and Conclusions):
‘We have shown that, in most climate models, the OLR reduction associated with GHG forcing is alleviated within only a few decades and that the subsequent energy accumulation (and thus, global warming) is caused entirely by enhanced ASR.’
Sorry, but I can’t buy this because they are now violating the required equilibrium condition that ASR = OLR. Not to mention that the IPCC has projected in their various RCP-based scenarios that albedo will (slightly) increase. So it looks to me like this is just one more case where the IPCC attempts to backfill basic problems with its theory and projections rather than addressing these directly.
Here’s a suggestion: Assuming that the IPCC’s all-in forcing of 9.6 w/m^2 is ballpark correct, one could arrive at a theoretically defensible increase in surface temperature of about 1.8C, a big chunk of which we’ve already seen according to the IPCC. This would also ‘fix’ a glaring issue with the GCMs, which is that they are all running too ‘hot’.
Moreover, while 1.8C is not a negligible temperature increase, much larger increases and decreases have occurred in the past without detrimental effect on life, meaning the impetus for government(s) to curtail human liberty and crater the world’s economies would be eliminated.
Donohoe et al. 2014 is not making projections. They are doing idealized simulations to demonstrate how ASR and OLR respond to forcing and explain why both ASR and OLR increase. The simulations for (c) and (d) do not go far enough out for the full equilibrium response. You can see in (c) the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) goes from +7.0 W/m2 to +1.5 W/m2 completing about 80% of the response. In (d) you can see the EEI at about +2.0 W/m2 out of the +7.0 W/m2 of forcing with forcing still continuing to increase keeping the EEI persistently positive. The green and red dotted lines in (c) and (d) will eventually converge; it’s just not shown.
+9.6 W/m2 will cause a lot more than 1.8 C surface response. Per IPCC AR6 the total force so far is +2.8 W/m2 with an EEI of +0.8 W/m2 resulting in about 1 C of warming. Even assuming the climate sensitivity remains at a relatively low 1 / (2.8 – 0.8) = 0.5 C per W/m2 then +9.6 W/m2 would result in 4.8 C of warming. Note that it is believed the climate sensitivity (in C per W/m2) starts low and ends high as tipping points are activated.
‘Even assuming the climate sensitivity remains at a relatively low 1 / (2.8 – 0.8) = 0.5 C per W/m2 then +9.6 W/m2 would result in 4.8 C of warming.’
Let’s stick with the IPCC’s all-in / best estimate of 3C per CO2 doubling. That gives 9.6 w/m^2 increase in GHE vs. 16.5 w/m^2 increase in surface LW emission, which doesn’t balance. And if, as Donohoe et al 2014 ‘non-project’, that both ASR and OLR both increase, it still won’t balance.
I don’t know if bad models that run hot drive the IPCC’s stipulated 3C warming or if a bad assumption of 3C warming drives the models to run too hot. What’s clear to me is that there is a disconnect between the IPCC’s projections of surface warming and CO2 forcing and that disconnect can only be remedied by dialing back on the surface temperature projection.
Ah…the 9.6 W/m2 figure was in reference to the GHE; not the forcing. Anyway, the GHE increase and UWIR increase are not expected to match or balance. They certainly are not in balance today with the GHE at around 155 W/m2 and UWIR at about 395 W/m2. Obviously there is significant spread already so it would not be expected that perturbations or adjustments to these figures would move in tandem.
The IPCC used several techniques when arriving at the 3 C best guess with a likely range of 2.5 to 4.0 C. These fall under 4 broad categories: Process Understanding, Instrumental Record, Paleoclimate Data, and Emergent Constraints. These 4 categories do include elements of global circulation models (GCMs or what most people refer to as “models”), but its not solely based on GCMs hot or otherwise. And remember that ECS is the output of these types of analysis; not an input. It is also interesting to note that the evidence actually points to the ECS being higher than 3 C so in that regard the IPCC is actually more on the conservative or skeptical side of the aisle here. The details are described IPCC AR6 WG1 Chapter 7.
‘Anyway, the GHE increase and UWIR increase are not expected to match or balance.’
I never said they were. What’s expected to balance at equilibrium is:
GHE = UWIR – OLR
This relationship is not predictive, but it must be satisfied if there is to be consistency between what the IPCC identifies as forcings and what it projects to be the resultant surface warming. So if GHE increases by 9.6 w/m^2, the net change in UHIR – OLR has to increase by 9.6 w/m^2, as well. But if Ts increases by 3C, then UWIR increases by 16.5 w/m^2, so something is amiss.
If ΔGHE = +9.6 and ΔUWIR = +16.5 then ΔOLR = +6.9 and ΔASR = +6.9.
BTW…where did you get the ΔGHE = +9.6 W/m2 figure?
‘If ΔGHE = +9.6 and ΔUWIR = +16.5 then ΔOLR = +6.9 and ΔASR = +6.9.’
Yes, as I said above, this relationship is not predictive but it has to hold at equilibrium and can be used to check what the IPCC’s predicts for a CO2 doubling. And since the change in ASR has to mirror the change in OLR, that implies about a 2 point reduction in albedo. The IPCC, of course, can’t explain any of this.
‘BTW…where did you get the ΔGHE = +9.6 W/m2 figure?’
From here (based on 3C increase):
temperature increase eqn derivation.pdf