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.
CERES data measures both TOA and surface fluxes. Loeb et al (2021) follows the IPCC tradition of howling in the discussion to obscure the fine print and data, but data shines. It shows 3x more warming from absorbed solar radiation than from CO2 and all other trace GHG’s combined. There is a water vapor feedback of .3 W/m2/decade from warming, but the warming itself is 3/4 from ASR.
The Loeb et al. 2021 publication is not saying that 3/4 of the warming was caused by an increase in ASR. The authors are not actually quantifying warming nor is ASR even a force or cause in the catalyzing sense. What the authors are quantifying is the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) trend from 2002/09 to 2020/07 and the attribution of that trend using the partial radiative perturbation technique (PRP). The PRP method does not provide information about the catalyzing force or cause of the EEI; only the attribution of it in regards to the variables that contribute to it now and as a result of feedbacks caused by warming. That last part is worth repeating. The attribution is after the other variables (clouds, water vapor, etc.) have changed in response to the warming of the climate system.
What the graphic is saying is that the catalyzing force (strongly insinuated to be primarily well-mixed greenhouse gases and secondarily by aerosols and land use changes) caused changes in clouds, water vapor, surface albedo, and temperature that together with GHGs and aerosols combine to produce the net attribution in panel (f). In other words, anthropogenic forcing caused a change of +0.2 W/m2.decade in clouds, +0.3 W/m2.decade in water vapor, +0.2 W/m2.decade in surface albedo, and -0.6 W/m2.decade change in temperature. In other words, this publication deals a devasting blow to Lindzen’s iris theory or other negative cloud feedback hypothesis while strongly suggesting that the cloud feedback is, in fact, positive. In a nutshell, this is not the kind of publication you want to use if you want to support the position of a smaller than consensus effect from anthropogenic forcing.
I’ll finish my post with a statement from the authors which lays this out in no uncertain terms.
Conversely oxygen and nitrogen cannot radiate energy away.
That can’t be true.
All matter with a temperature greater than absolute zero emits thermal radiation.
From Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_radiation
Wikipedia is sometimes right, this is physics orthodoxy.
So much so that IR wavelengths are called temperature.
Phil, Show me the evidence of a O2 and N2 emission spectrum with emissions in the range of 4 to 200 microns relevant to the earth’s infrared and greenhouse discussions. Other than ozone there is no significant radiation emitted and thus to shed its absorbed energy O2 and N2 must collide with a greenhouse gas that do emit infrared in that range.
Physicist argue “In order for a vibration to absorb infrared radiation and become excited, the molecule must change its dipole moment during the vibration. Homonuclear diatomic molecules such as N2 and O2 do not have dipole moments.
https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Analytical_Chemistry/Molecular_and_Atomic_Spectroscopy_(Wenzel)/4%3A_Infrared_Spectroscopy/4.1%3A_Introduction_to_Infrared_Spectroscopy
I’m sure that’s all true Jim
So I’m genuinely puzzled: why are we told that
All matter with a temperature greater than absolute zero emits thermal radiation.
Apparently what N2 and O2 emit depends on their temperature.
Just like for everything else.
They can’t “emit nothing” – that doesn’t make sense.
Why does the generalization of emitting radiation if above absolute zero suggest that the emissions from the earth with temperatures ranging from about 35C to -50C have to be in wavelengths from 4 to 200 microns relevant to this analysis ?
Phil, you have a common misconception, diatomic N2 and O2 gases emit nothing at normal Earthly temperatures. They are TRANSPARENT to IR in this range. So what you think is emitted by them was actually emitted from the ground, ocean, clouds, or greenhouse gases.
Phil, true only if you model “all matter” as a black body. Black body is not a good approximation for gases. Could you please provide a link?
Phil was correctly quoting what wikipedia showed, but as is often the case, wikipedia was wrong. The entries often need editing.
Gases are a special case of “matter” that only exist by virtue of confinement,either by a gravitational field or a container. The gas can lose or gain energy by conduction as it will always be in touch with the ground or the container, therefore the laws of thermodynamics are maintained and energy can flow to or from the gas.
Dnalor50
That’s a good insight I hadn’t heard before. Thanks.
Absolutely correct and a great point!
So many are so focused on GHG gases being able to re-radiate a LWIR photon that they totally miss the fact that ALL atmospheric gas species continuously radiate isotropic thermal radiation because they have temperatures above absolute zero.
However, having said that, I take issue with your closing sentence that “So much so that IR wavelengths are called temperature.”
Atmospheric gases may be continually radiating isotropic radiation, but if the atmosphere was made up of oxygen and nitrogen the radiation going to space would be all from the ground as the ‘non-radiatve’ gases can’t emit directly to space. Imagine a translucent container in space containing oxygen at standard temperature and pressure. The gas would not radiate directly to space, but the container would pick up energy from the gas by conduction and re
radiate to space.
Dnalor,
What you state is simply not correct.
Nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2) are NOT known as “non-radiative” gases.
In the context of the above article and reader comments, they are properly known as “LWIR-inactive” gases.
All material substances having a temperature above absolute zero—which necessarily encompasses nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere—radiate energy. And not all of this isotropically-radiated energy is blocked from passing directly to space . . . both nitrogen and oxygen exist at what is commonly referred to as top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA).
“. . . for scientists studying the balance of incoming and outgoing energy on the Earth, it is conceptually useful to think of the altitude at about 100 kilometers above the Earth as the ‘top of the atmosphere.’ “
— https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov
Most of the atmosphere (99.9999%) by mass is below 100 km.
“Up to around 100 km the composition is fairly “normal”, in that it’s what we surface-dwellers would expect: mostly molecular nitrogen (N2 rather than N) and molecular oxygen (O2) with a small amount (0.93%) of argon and traces of some other gases (carbon dioxide, neon, etc.).”
— http://wordpress.mrreid.org/2014/08/01/the-composition-of-earths-atmosphere-with-elevation/
“All material substances having a temperature above absolute zero—which necessarily encompasses nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere—radiate energy. ”
Agreed Gordon. Everything above absolute zero will transfer energy to a colder place by some means or other. Oxygen and Nitrogen do not radiate much directly to space at 288k, but the bottom of the atmosphere and the ground will tend to equalise (via conduction) and the ground will radiate IR to space. My bad for calling oxygen and nitrogen non radiative. Let’s just say they don’t radiate much at 288 k except for the odd high speed collision. If the atmosphere was made up of only oxygen and nitrogen the emission height would be at ground level as the atmosphere would be a transparent window.
You got this one wrong. see my comments above. Wikipedia got this one wrong.
Wikipedia is wrong as shown. Solids and liquids both emit thermal radiation, but gases are a different animal. Each molecule (or atom) is a large distance from other molecules, so individual rather than group character occurs, and there are specific photon energy levels (wavelength) that are allowed and the rest that are not. The result is narrow absorption and emission lines (bands) depending on the nature of the molecule. Atoms such as Helium and Argon for example would not absorb or emit photons until ionization occurs, which requires much higher energy photons. Diatomic gases such as O2 and N2 have vibration and rotation modes and require UV photons to excite. CO2, H2O, CH4, etc. absorb and emit photons in the thermal band.
Look up “pressure broadening” (aka “collision broadening”) of radiation.
I would also suggest reading up on Maxwell-Boltzmann distributions in gas ensembles. These are derived for gases considered to be in the continuum flow region of gas density, such as exists in Earth’s troposphere and stratosphere.
Individual gas molecule behavior only becomes relevant in the free molecular flow regime of gas density, which occurs in the atmosphere at altitudes above ~150 km.
The CO2 heat trapping story rests on an inversion of cause and effect.
The atmosphere’s temperature is not because of emitted IR radiation.
The atmosphere emits IR radiation because of its temperature.
Every time I say CO2 does not trap heat I get called a “climate denier”. Of course CO2 does not trap heat. That’s basic physics.
CO2 molecules absorb photons of specific wavelength and by collision with the N2 and O2 transfer energy to them. O2 and N2 also collide with CO2 and transfer energy to them. In some cases the CO2 emits the photos before another collision so it goes up, down, or sideways. i.e. the CO2 intercepts the transport of the radiation to space and makes the atmosphere warmer than otherwise. The net effect is some heating.
CO2 like any polyatomic molecule will impede the transmission of energy via infrared radiation. That necessarily causes Ein > Eout on the side of the CO2 layer where IR emission is occurring until the temperature increases enough to achieve an Ein = Eout balance again. During the period in which Ein > Eout we say energy is being trapped. Alternate phrasings are energy gain, energy accumulation, and the like. They all mean the same thing in that more energy is going in than coming out of the system.
It is certain that you rely on the fact that CO2 traps energy on a daily basis whether you realize it or not. For example, many HVAC systems use NDIR sensors in which the CO2 traps the energy on the IR emitter side of the cuvette causing the IR detector on the other side to receive less energy. The more CO2 in the cuvette the bigger the trapping effect. In this manner the NDIR sensor can inform the HVAC control system how much CO2 is in the air and thus the control system can increase airflow as needed. Millions of these NDIR sensors exploiting the trapping effect are deployed in commercial and industrial environments.
Another example is that of radiative transfer models (like RRTM) all use the correct physics in which polyatomic molecules impede the transmission of infrared radiation causing the energy it carries to get trapped. These radiative transfer models are in widespread use by services you likely rely upon on a daily basis. Weather forecasting is but one example. All modern weather forecasts depend on the knowledge and fact that polyatomic gas species (like CO2) trap energy. Life and death decisions are made on daily basis using this knowledge.
CO2 traps energy. Period. This is as settled as anything can be settled.
bdgwx, How odd but totally expected that you say “CO2 traps energy. Period. This is as settled as anything can be settled.”
Without disagreeing that CO2 sheds its energy in <0.001 seconds, and without criticizing the totally dishonest illustrations pushed by the media falsely showing half to all the incoming energy as being trapped, bdgwx instead talks about CO2 being trapped in a cuvette of an IR detector . And, unintentionally in agreement with me, points out that models all use the physics with molecules impeding the transmission of infrared radiation, but then plays with words to say its trapped. Impeded transmission or delayed cooling evokes a very different understanding than trapped. Period!
I cant remember for sure, but hasn’t bdgwx been a proponent of a bogus climate crisis?
I’m just point out what “trap” in this context means. I have no loyalty to the word though. In fact I prefer gain, retain, or accumulate over “trap”. They all mean the same thing. They all mean that the internal energy of system U increased which occurs when Q > 0 (or using more modern symbology Ein > Eout). The statement “CO2 traps energy at the surface” is equivalent to the statement “CO2 causes energy to accumulate at the surface” and the like. Either one is fine. And although I prefer the later I’m not offended by the former. In fact Merriam Webster defines “trap” as any of various devices for preventing passage of something often while allowing other matter to proceed. So while CO2 is more of an actor than a device and its interaction here is concerning energy rather than matter the word fits reasonably well otherwise since it mostly allows incoming shortwave energy to enter, but partially prevents outgoing longwave radiation from exiting. Likewise I have no problem with people saying that insulation traps heat in their home or that the door traps heat in their oven.
FWIW…I’ve never described the trapping of energy in the climate system and consequential warming (which is real) as a “crisis”.
No bdgwx, The video presented the context in which to understand why the term “trapped heat” is being criticized. Compared to oceans trapping heat for years and urban heat islands for days, CO2’s one thousandth of a second is ridiculously insignificant. What you are doing bdgwx, is trying to change the context to continue supporting the way the media has distorted the notion of trapping heat.
bdgwx stated:
“CO2 like any polyatomic molecule will impede the transmission of energy via infrared radiation. That necessarily causes Ein > Eout on the side of the CO2 layer where IR emission is occurring until the temperature increases enough to achieve an Ein = Eout balance again.”
This is not correct on several fronts.
1) By general terminology a “polyatomic molecule” is a molecule of two or more atoms. (However, sometimes “polyatomic” is reserved for molecules of three or more atoms in order reserve the term “diatomic” to distinguish molecules having two and only two atoms.) In this definition, there is no requirement that the atoms be of different elements. It is well-know that N2 and O2 are LWIR-inactive molecules: the simple linear bond between the identical atoms means that they have neither a permanent dipole moment nor a temporarily-inducible dipole moment and thus simply do not interact with LWIR. N2 and O2 do not impede outbound LWIR from Earth’s surface to space.
2) In actuality, CO2 molecules (like water vapor molecules) that intercept outbound LWIR serve the very useful purpose of redistributing that absorbed energy to ALL gas species in the atmosphere (overwhelmingly N2 and O2) via molecular collisions taking place at NTP at rates faster than 5-7 x 10^9 per second. Assuming the excess energy in a LWIR-excited CO2 molecule is pretty much equilibrated with other non-excited gas molecules within 10 collisions (a near-certain statistical probability), a LWIR-excited CO2 will loose its excess energy within the order of about a nanosecond . . . this is 10^6 to 10^9 times faster than the same molecule would radiate a photon that carried all or most of that excess energy, according to Dr. William Happer who has worked out the quantum mechanical probabilities (e.g., time constants) for such radiation under typical atmospheric conditions. As Jim Steele correctly points out, such short time constants do not merit the term “trapping”. I will go one step further and state that a delay on the order of a nanosecond does not even merit the term “impeding”. Heck, in one nanosecond, light travels a distance of only 0.3 m (about 1 foot)!
3) This redistribution of LWIR energy amongst ALL atmospheric gases explains why all gases have the same temperature variation with altitude . . . one simply does not find CO2 gas temperatures getting hotter than N2 or O2 and any given altitude. Conversely, one simply does not find the non-LWIR active gases N2 and O2 getting colder than CO2 at any given altitude.
4) It is generally acknowledged that the “e-folding length” associated with GHG absorption of surface LWIR (the Beer–Lambert law) means that such absorption is essentially asymptotically complete with 5 km altitude above Earth’s surface.
5) The distribution of LWIR energy to all atmospheric gases via molecular collisions means that there is an enormous increase in the volume (actually, the number of individual molecules) that is (are) isotropically thermally radiating energy that originated as surface LWIR, with about half of this thermal radiation being directed to space. This simple fact falsifies your statement “That necessarily causes Ein > Eout on the side of the CO2 layer where IR emission is occurring until the temperature increases enough to achieve an Ein = Eout balance again”.
Despite your assertion, the science in this matter has NOT settled on the situation that you state.
Gordon Dressler said: “This simple fact falsifies your statement “That necessarily causes Ein > Eout on the side of the CO2 layer where IR emission is occurring until the temperature increases enough to achieve an Ein = Eout balance again”.”
I stand by what I said. And this has been experimentally confirmed ad-nauseum since the 1800’s. In fact, this experiment occurs millions of times per minute throughout the world. If you work in an office building the experiment is probably happening nearby via a NDIR sensor used by many HVAC systems. And it doesn’t matter if the energy is reemitted or thermalized. Either way some of it is not making it to opposite of the emission source and gets “trapped” on the emission side.
I guess I should have focused on the main error in your argument:
On Earth, Ein and Eout never really balance, primarily because:
(1) thermal capacitance (aka thermal “inertia”) of the world’s oceans introduces phase delay in responses to changes in energy flows,
(2) Ein is continually varying long term as a function of Earth’s tilt and distance with respect to the Sun over periods of months, years, centuries, millennia, and hundreds of thousands of years (ref. Milankovitch cycles), and
(3) Ein is continually varying short term as a function of albedo (cloud coverge and ground coverage by snow/ice) over periods of days, weeks and months.
Simple fact is this: throughout the vast bulk of the atmosphere, CO2 has absolutely no impact, because the rate of change of CO2 with height is controlled by the lapse rate (6.5C/km). It wouldn’t matter if CO2 increased by 10x, that lapse rate would remain the same, through the bulk of the atmosphere irrespective of the concentration.
That’s the way I see it as well. Rather than down voting, perhaps someone could explain why it’s wrong.
The lapse rate is a GRADIENT, not level. It is the level that changes due to H2O and CO2. The CO2 change is much smaller than that due to H2O, but not zero, or not even negligible.
“Simple fact is this: throughout the vast bulk of the atmosphere, CO2 has absolutely no impact, because the rate of change of CO2 with height is controlled by the lapse rate (6.5C/km).”
That “simple fact” is easily falsified. The relative concentration of CO2 with respect to other gases is approximately constant in the well-mixed troposphere, and is even approximately the same at 100 km altitude, which atmospheric scientists commonly refer to as TOA (top of the atmosphere). However, the absolute concentration of CO2 (ppmv) does vary with altitude, pretty much in accordance with the ideal gas law P=rho*R*T.
“Up to around 100 km the composition is fairly “normal”, in that it’s what we surface-dwellers would expect: mostly molecular nitrogen (N2 rather than N) and molecular oxygen (O2) with a small amount (0.93%) of argon and traces of some other gases (carbon dioxide, neon, etc.).”
— http://wordpress.mrreid.org/2014/08/01/the-composition-of-earths-atmosphere-with-elevation/
Bottom line: the rate of change of absolute CO2 concentration (ppmv) changes with both pressure and temperature as altitude increases, NOT only as a function of lapse rate.
I see you still believe the GHE nonsense has some influence on Earth’s energy balance.
There are 4 modes of convection. They are partitioned by the precipitable water.
A level of free convection will form when TPW reaches 35mm – 15.3C for a saturated column. Below that the atmosphere will not experience convective instability and remains well-mixed.
It take TPW above 47mm to form cyclic convection – 22C with relative humidity averaging 82%. Convective instability between 35 and 47mm occurs sporadically because the instability depletes the low convecting zone without fully saturating the dehumidified zone.
Cyclic convection cannot exist above TPW of 100mm – 30C at 80% RH . The LFC is close to the ice cloud base and the surface sunlight is restricted to just enough to sustain the convection. Ocean surfaces temperature collapses above 30C as that temperature can only exist where convection is disrupted..
The ability of the atmosphere to produce an LFC in the TPW range 37 to 100mm prevents Earth from becoming an iceball. If there instability did not occur then the water vapour would build to 100% and ice cloud would form to prevent sunlight reaching the surface. The whole surface would cool to below freezing.
Hi RickWill,
this presentation reminded me of one or two of your ideas.
https://youtu.be/ABFwtr1g3z0?t=2508
He explains the problem of low resolution climate models. All my work is based on actual measurements compared with what I expect from a single column model with high vertical resolution. I now have the model in the form that it can be used by others if they wish.
My contact details are available at this link:
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNhFRuXseL3rQ9SXoa
The model is executed in Excel and there is an explanation included.
Without giving it much thought, I felt that no deep convection would result in all the water evaporating and losing hydrogen. However the recent understanding is that convection would shut down and Earth would become an iceball.
An LFC cannot form below 15.3C SST and it interesting to see how the humidity goes up below this temperature at top and bottom of the globe:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=relative_humidity/orthographic=-254.34,-87.14,388/loc=98.360,-53.277
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=relative_humidity/orthographic=-245.69,94.24,388/loc=-47.318,47.622
Without the ability of a condensing, buoyant gas that solidifies to a reflective solid in the atmosphere to form an LFC and cloud, convection would shut down due to permanent ice cloud cover.
A note on one of the papers referenced in the video – Ramanathan was on to the 30C limit but got caught up in the IPCC agenda.
And of course there is significant driver of real climate change due to orbital changes shifting what the sun sees on Earth.
I think you are in agreement with the presenter if you give it some thought:
The overwhelming dominant factor in the atmosphere is water in all its phases.
Most especially water droplets which, like other surfaces (solid or liquid), radiate continuous IR spectra.
Water in all its phases in the troposphere are in direct physical contact with eachother and the surrounding material.
The greenhouse effect as it is labelled cannot be accounted for by gases, it is the ample water droplets and ice in the troposphere which dominates emission spectra.
Even in so-called clear sky condition microdrops of liquid water exist in abundance in the turbulent boundary layer, emitting continuous IR spectra.
Greenhouse effect defined as surface function T^4 – OLR.
Earth energy budgets appears to be dominated by the evaporation and condensation of water. The water is free to be variable in area, altitude, and phase in thermodynamic process to resist perturbations to greenhouse effect by emission of non-condensing gases.
More or less water will be evaporated and condensed, variable in space, time, and altitude.
I believe this is in line with your view, and so too in the presentation where there was no change in observed greenhouse effect despite a model experimental increase in temperature by solar input.
The energy budget is dominated by ice.
Sea ice over oceans prevents a huge loss of heat. Once ocean water gets to -1.8C, heat loss crashes.
Atmospheric ice shuts down convection over oceans when SST reaches 30C. There is not enough sunlight getting to the surface to keep convection going. The only Ocean surface warmer than 30C are rare spots where convection is disturbed by adjacent land conditions.
I don’t see any contradiction. Tryna work wit ya but it’s a fail lol.
Of course in this view greenhouse effect (surface T^4 – OLR) is variable in local profiles. Averaged profiles results in an unchanging total greenhouse effect where energy is simply redistributed depending on scenario. The question remains why average greenhouse effect remains unchanging, despite the freedom for surface temperature to vary.
If greenhouse gasses do not trap head but raise the temperature of the atmosphere, where does their extra energy come from?
There’s no extra energy. They do NOT raise the temperature of the atmosphere, they slow the cooling of the sun’s heating the surface. The temperature is higher than it would be if they didn’t delay the cooling. There’s a meaningful distinction there. Analogous to how an ordinary blanket (not the electric kind) will delay convective cooling of your body, the heat source is not in the blanket.
I ”believe” it raises the temperature of the atmosphere leading to decreased density, and increased volume thereby not really changing the temperature at all regardless of how much co2 or H20 whatever the hell other ”greenhouse” gases there are. I ”believe” the temperature is governed by the Sun, gravity, and the position of the Earth relative to the sun.
Of course I could be completely wrong but no one has convinced me otherwise yet.
If you lay under a blanket and heat up, where does the extra energy come from? They are not the same (the blanket is trapped convection, and the atmosphere is delayed radiation transfer) but make the point that slowing loss to the surrounding causes temperature rise.
So what happens at saturation? Is the loss slowed then?
Saturation where? Absorption near the surface may be saturated, but all that means is that almost all thermal photons are absorbed in a particular length (analogous to a mean free path) before thermal photons are also admitted. You can think of the process as the absorbing gases cause a resistance to radiation transfer similar to an insulator being a resistance to conduction. In order to transfer a given amount of energy in a given thickness, the hot side has to be hotter, the higher the resistance.The fixed amount of energy is the absorbed solar energy.
Hi Jim
Love your videos!
Hope you’ll excuse my fussy criticism here. The professor pronounces his name “wine garden” not “widgen garden”
https://youtu.be/TAUYb-I5Las
The Dutch means “vineyards” and would be pronounced something like vain harden, but I’m sure he gave up on getting North Americans to pronounce the guttural h.
Thanks Rich. I worried how his name was pronounced, so I guessed.
I take Jim Steele very seriously on the subject of natural causes of climate change. I can’t take his statements on man made carbon dioxide emissions seriously.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas. More greenhouse gases in the troposphere should impede Earth’s ability to cool itself by some amount. That amount is unknown because there are too many climate variables to know exactly what each one is doing.
Is CO2 the cause of the global warming since 1975? No one knows. But it is likely to have caused more than 0% of the warming, and less than 100% of the warming. That’s not precise, but climate science has many questions without answers.
An easy analysis is to assume CO2 caused ALL the warming since 1975, although very unlikely to be true. The next question: Was that warming and CO2 increase bad news? In fact, there are warmer winter nights in Siberia and greening of our planet, since the 1970s. That’s good news.
Here in Michigan we love global warming and are not happy about 2022 so far. The winter was mild, with less snow that any year since 1977, by far (1977 is when I moved here). But the weather has been unusually cool after the winter. We want our global warming back.
I have no respect for people who believe CO2 “does everything” or people who say CO2 “does nothing”. The right answer is “we don’t know” exactly what CO2 does — they are just wild guessing. The climate is milder today than in 1700. CO2 increases may be some part of the cause. We ought to be celebrating the current climate. Irrational fears about the future climate should not drive government policies.
You do not understand this at all. The way that increased CO2 traps more heat happens at the TOA, and only by increasing the altitude at which the atmosphere is freely able to radiate to space, thus decreasing the temperature at which the atmosphere is freely able to radiate to space, thus decreasing the heat transfer, but no one can calculate the magnitude of this effect. Immediately pick up the phone, talk to the boss of the Mechanical Engineering Department at your school, he will verify.
And you really do not get it. All matter above Absolute Zero, which is basically All Matter, radiates all the time, including Oxygen Nitrogen and Argon. The warmer the matter is, the higher the frequency at which it radiates is. At the TOA. the entire atmosphere radiates at the frequency corresponding to its temperature, distributed by the Plank Spectrum of course.
You are correct that sometimes a molecule will radiate a photon which will immediately be re-absorbed by surrounding molecules, low in the atmosphere. High in the atmosphere, where there are many fewer molecules, CO2 absorbs and re-radiates at the 15 micron frequency corresponding to -80C, half the photons go up, half go down. Of course it is not just the 15 micron frequency, pressure broadening, shoulders and all those miniscule effects.
A little bit more CO2, the effect happens higher, which means a bit lower temperature, a bit less transfer to space. Calculate that effect, you cannot, no one can.
Once again, contact the Head of ME at your school, he will verify. This is what happens. ME’s live to control heat, we know a lot about this, there is a lot of money involved, power plants, engines, trains, planes automobiles, etc….
Michael Moon said: “Calculate that effect, you cannot, no one can.”
RRTM and many other radiative transfer models do this quite effectively. Daily planning and even life and death decisions depend on the effect being calculated for weather forecasts. Many people are, in fact, calculating it. And anyone who has ever made a decision based on modern weather forecasts has relied upon this calculation whether they realized it or not.
Really? A gas of Argon or Helium continually radiate if above absolute zero? The wikipedia article is wrong and needs editing.
Leonard, argon and helium do radiate continually since all mass radiates. Editing wiki in this regard would be never ending.
I object to the article title. There are many climate change terms that are not accurate or misleading.
“Traps heat” is good enough for me.
There are much bigger problems with climate change words.
Greenhouse effect is misleading,
since it is unrelated to actual greenhouses.
The first big problem is “carbon pollution”
The second big problem is “climate emergency”
In my opinion, the title of this article is stupid.
I’d have changed the title if I was an editor here.
That doesn’t mean the author of the article is stupid.
CO2 as “carbon pollution” causing a “climate emergency” is the big problem with inaccurate words. “Traps heat” is small potatoes.
Richard you seem to be engaged in some personal vendetta.
Yet another character attack for no good reason.
You’ve got to learn to roll with the punches.
The article title is stupid, in my opinion.
The article itself is good except that the direct effect
of CO2 is not the big debate. The big debate is over
positive feedbacks to CO2 increases. Those numbers
are not known, and there is a huge disagreement
about them.
Gentleman Jim: Your website is among two dozen
climate and energy websites on my Bookmarks list.
You are the go-to guy on natural causes of climate
change. But … I go berserk when anyone implies
they know exactly what CO2 does (including feedbacks)
in the long run, even when the claims match my own beliefs.
The primary problem with climate science is too many
people claiming to know the future climate.
The right answer about CO2 is we don’t know
and we could all be wrong. The evidence so far is
no climate emergency. Not even close.
I can’t even identify any climate problem
from the rising CO2 emissions. But it is always
possible that another 50+ years of CO2 emissions will
be a problem. My own opinion is more CO2 would be more
good news for plants. But I could be wrong.
Indeed you have gone “beserk” .
If you can’t handle me, a climate realist since 1997, with relatively minor complaints about the article, then what happens when actual climate alarmists attack you?
Just to annoy you even more, I put your article on my climate science and energy blog, with attribution, and changed the title to:
“Beware of anyone telling you that increasing CO2 … is causing a climate crisis. They are either ignorant of the science, or dishonestly manipulating your thinking to advance their political agendas.”
I still think the term “traps heat” is just a small problem with climate scaremongering. The phrases “carbon pollution” and “climate emergency” are the big problems.
You are pretty funny Richard. Perhaps you can take your own advice and roll with the punches.
Your whiny rants based on your assumption as you stated “The author gives the impression the effect of CO2 is small and the science is settled on that issue.”
I have never ever said the science is settled.That is your fabrication to create a straw dog you could go beserk over. Such bizarre behavior.
I asked you to be specific about your complaints, but instead you avoided honest and civil discussion and just insisted that no one knows, blah blah blah, so no hypothesizing. How unscientific
Finally you engage in weeny arguments that it weakness to counter punch, so that only you can throw punches with out criticism. Now that is stupid. There’s no need to “handle you”. People can see you are a bubble off.
And people here can see that you are an incredibly rude author. You first attacked Mr. Weinstein’s character, and now you’ve repeatedly attacked mine. Perhaps there were other character attacks in the thread too.
The title of the article was stupid click bait.
Period. A title does influence the impressions while people are reading the article. Your title is not a good summary of the article. It should be.
“Absorbs heat” may not be a technically accurate term but CO2 does interfere in Earths ability to cool itself. “Absorbs heat” is not any more misleading than the term “greenhouse effect”.
They are minor issues, except maybe to you.
I did not claim you said climate science was settled. I said your article gave that impression. You highlighted my words in your comment and then misinterpreted them.
“No one knows” the exact effect of CO2 is extremely scientific. That you do not agree shows you have too much certainty.
There might be a different opinion for each scientist who is asked. Happer is not the only scientist in the phone book. I like his work, but he could be wrong too. The ECS is guessed by many scientists. The guesses are a fairly wide range ever since the +3.0 degrees C. +/- 1.5% C. in the 1970s. That’s a huge plus or minus 50% range claimed by the IPCC for decades. With such a wide range of guesses the correct ECS is obviously not known.
You may think the effect of CO2 is small.
I think the effect of CO2 is small
Happer thinks the effect of CO2 is small.
All three of us could be wrong.
The climate in 100 years is unknown
and the track record for predicting the
climate has been miserable.
Many times in science the right answer is “we don’t know”. You don’t seem to get that fact.
That makes you wrong.
The biggest problem with modern climate science is that so many scientists claim the future climate is predictable and can only get worse.
As climate realists we need to refute the scary climate predictions as inaccurate, and not claim we have a better prediction. Because we don’t.
You lie again Richard. Your own website that you directed me to quotes ““The author gives the impression the effect of CO2 is small and the science is settled on that issue.”
I never said the science was settled or that the exact effect is known overall.
Your dishonest rants over a strawman that you fabricated is what is really rude, so you should just roll with the punches that you instigated. Instead of a civil discussion of what you spefically disagree with, as you admitted you went “beserk” You made our disagreement personal and refused to deal with the specific scientific questions I asked you to address.. You really dont smell your own stink.
Repeated rude remarks come from you.
As an author you should try to be polite to people who dont agree with you. You can not accomplish that.
My disagreement starts with the title of your article. You attack the term “absorbs heat”, which is merely technically inaccurate, and then imply anyone using that term is stupid.
Well, we should consider what ordinary people think the term “traps heat” means. They think it means more CO2 in the atmosphere increases the average temperature. That is a reasonable assumption about CO2. Therefore, the term “traps heat” is not really misleading people too much, and they are not stupid if they think that.
The real science question is the long-term effect of added CO2 with feedbacks. No one knows that answer. You intentionally or inadvertently give the impression that the effect of CO2 is very small and harmless. You give that impression with great confidence. And then defend yourself by saying ‘I never actually said that’.
I also disagree with a conclusion of your article:
“So, beware of anyone telling you that increasing CO2 is increasingly trapping heat and causing a climate crisis.”
In fact, CO2 is likely to be trapping heat that would otherwise escape to space, using a VERY broad interpretation of that phrase.
But climate alarmists usually do NOT claim the current climate is a crisis. How could they?
Their claim is that a climate crisis is coming in the future, mainly from an imagined strong water vapor positive feedback that greatly amplifies the relatively small effect of CO2. That imagined climate crisis has been “coming” for at least 50 years si far. The real science problem is the imagined future climate crisis. Not the term “absorbs heat’.
I can live with term “absorbs heat”
By your standards, that makes me stupid.
Which means you are wrong.
Leftists are experts at creating misleading terms.
To them, reckless government spending is an investment. Misinformation is from anyone who doesn’t agree with them. Even the old term greenhouse effect is not technically accurate.
Absorbing heat is not technically accurate.
But we don’t need to be language police.
The real problem is always wrong wild guesses of the future climate, which for mysterious reasons can only get worse if you are a leftist.
I await your next batch of entertaining character attacks with popcorn and good humor. You’ll never win an argument with character attacks.
Richard, you and Jim both can be a bit too quick to take offense if I may say so (thankfully I am perfect).
Let me rile you up.
You say that we don’t know the effect of CO2 after all the feedbacks. That is obviously true. If you ask the length of a piece of steel or the height of Jim Steele for that matter, you can never know. Even if you can measure with uncertainty in Ångstroms, that’s still an estimate. At some level of precision and uncertainty, the estimate is fit for purpose and we treat the estimate as the answer even though we understand that it isn’t perfectly accurate.
To argue as you are that on the one hand we are unable to state with confidence that the effect of CO2 on warming is small and at the same time that there is no climate crisis doesn’t make sense to me.
If the effect of CO2 on warming can’t be confidently constrained to an upper limit which can be described as “small” based on observations, then you imply that the effect of CO2 on warming might be large, right? For that to be true, a very powerful natural cooling would need to be presently counteracting what would otherwise have been a dangerous warming? The natural cooling could reverse at any moment and reinforce the warming from CO2?
That sounds to me like an argument for the precautionary principle. Not a good argument, mind you.
If you don’t think that it’s reasonable to set the upper bounds on CO2’s effect by assuming that all warming since 1850 was due to anthropogenic CO2, then on what basis do you say that there is no climate emergency? N.B. Nobody is claiming that all warming has been due to CO2. What is implicitly claimed is that the effect of CO2 is not greater than the observed temperature rise and counteracted by some unknown natural cooling.
For CO2 to have a greater effect than the observed warming can only be due to other counteracting effects. Other counteracting effects that are unknown to us could vary and possibly go away or reverse.
CO2 is apparently rising faster than we have observed in the past. If we don’t have cause to say that the effect of CO2 is small, then it seems to me that we have an emergency. We can’t say that there’s no emergency just because the harmful effects haven’t occurred yet.
If you open the valve on a gas pipe and fill your house with methane, you have an emergency even though there hasn’t been an explosion yet. If you open the valve on a cylinder of compressed air and it displaces the air that had been in your house, you do not have an emergency.
The difference is like saying you can’t estimate the effect of CO2 vs saying that empirical evidence points to it being harmless.
You are a true diplomat and should run for political office.
My concern is there seems to be a different ECS for each climate scientist, with a large range of guesses. That means the science is not settled. We know a warmer troposphere holds more water vapor, suggesting a positive feedback. So I can’t completely dismiss the water vapor positive feedback.
What offended me most about Steele’s otherwise good article is the title — ‘if you say CO2 traps heat, then you are stupid’.
In fact, “traps heat” is not misleading people like the term “climate emergency” does.
The media have FAR bigger problems than the use of the term “traps heat”. How about publishing every prediction of environmental doom with no questions asked? Censoring contrary opinions? And never discussing 40+ years of failed climate model predictions? “Traps heat” is the least
of their problems.
It is also counterproductive to call climate alarmists stupid. No matter how much fun it is to insult leftists. They may not get the science in Steele’s articles. But they understand it when you quote decades of scary climate predictions that never came true. And they get insights when you point out they have been living with actual global warming for up to the past 47 years, which harmed no one.
For me (and others) to be right about more CO2 in the atmosphere (beneficial, in my opinion), a very large percentage of climate scientists would have to be wrong. That’s why I say the ECS of CO2 is not known. And the futire climate in 100 years is not known. Not even if the climate will be warmer or colder in 100 years.
Observations suggest adding CO2 to the atmosphere so far has been harmless at worst. And another 50 years of similar CO2 emissions should not be bad news. I’m extrapolating the climate in the past 50 years for a prediction of the climate in the next 50 years. Unfortunately, the climate in any 30 to 50 year period has had a poor track record for predicting the climate in the next 30 to 50 years.
And my biggest problem with your constant whining is you have continued to misrepresent this article and me just so you can get on your high horse present your self as the “climate realist” . You try to dismiss the article with persistent dishonesty and create straw man arguments. And when your dishonesty is exposed, again and again, you whine that I’m being so rude. What a piece of work!
Again, I never called the scientists stupid. Read the damn title and notice the word media that you now have dishonestly substituted with the word scientists.
Media Claims CO2 “Traps Heat”! A Big Lie or A Big Stupid ???
Then look at the dishonest illustrations I posted to show beyond a doubt, how the media has been propagandizing that CO2 is trapping heat and causing a crisis. But you prefer to justify that dishonesty, argue that using the word trapped is OK because there are other words you want to be attacked, and then make false accusations about what I said. That you continue to spam the comments with your false whinning makes me and others ask : are you that stupid or just an A-hole?
Skinny skin personified. I’ll bet you’re the only geology summer camp manager that ever got fragged.
Gee Oilybob, Give me credit for my superhuman restraint. I restrained my characterization of Richard Greene, aka Cliff Claven aka Ye Editor, to thee honest and objective characterization of him as a dishonest liar. He should be proud that I managed my anger and didn’t call him what I subjectively felt, that he was a disgusting, dishonest, scumbag birthing-parent sexual penetrator.
Your anger needs management.
You attacked people who use the term “absorbs heat” as stupid. That’s no way to change minds.
You specifically attacked the media. But the media just repeat what they are told by government scientists. So you indirectly attacked scientists too.
In fact, claiming that greenhouse gases “trap heat” that would otherwise escape to the infinite heat sink of outer space is a simple way of describing global warming. So “traps heat” is not a language problem. And people (including scientists) who say “traps heat” are not stupid. Impedes cooling would be a better term.
Greenhouse effect is also not related to actual greenhouses. If you want to be a word sheriff, climate emergency and carbon pollution are the primary propaganda words.
And the claimed ability to predict the long term climate trend has been a fantasy so far.
“Traps heat” is not important compared with those big issues.
I did not criticize the science in your article.
I actually reprinted it on my blog with attribution and a changed title. And a note that the article implies too much certainty about the effects of CO2.
Now if you want to complain about me, go ahead — I can take it — I’ve been married for over 40 years so complaints don’t bother me. And don’t think that verbal anger makes you look good.
Perhaps my anger needs management, but your dishonesty is the more crucial problem and I gladly unleash my anger on liars hoping they will make a greater effort to be honest! The skeptical arguments require honesty, but you are undermining honest skepticism with lies!
Now under your pseudonym Cliff Claven.. you have praised my science articles as some of the best, but when I point out how the media has abused the word “trapped”, that has put a bug up your ass and you as you admit went beserk. Hmmm..beserk management anyone? DO you ever smell your own stink?
I’ll ask again, do you think the media’s illustrations of trapped heat that I presented are honest, or stupid. Indirectly you continue to support their absolutely wrong and distorted notion of trapping energy. Why do keep ducking that question, choosing to focus on me instead? Bizzare!
The article puts the word trapped into perspective, ranging from CO2 holding heat for less than a thousandth of a second to the oceans holding heat for 100s to thousand of years. And so from that perspective, to blame global warming on CO2 trapp heating is either stupid or dishonest. Soo I am definitely attacking the use of the word “trapped heat” because it is being abused and has misled hundreds of people with whom I discuss this issue with.
But you chose to go on the personal attack, acting as the word sheriff that you try to accuse me of being. You repeatedly argue ““Traps heat” is not important compared with those big issues (that you think are more important”. Therefore if I think it is important, you want to ride in on your high horse and attack? As if all those other issues seem so concerned can ever be discussed in one video under 20 minutes. Or that by putting trapped heat by CO2 into perspective of all the other natural dynamics, is detracting from your beloved issue. How bizzare!
So it seems more likely its all about your ego , you want it your way or else.
I managed my anger when you lied that I stated the science was settled. I now see you have edited your lie now to mean since I didnt really say it, I must have implied it. But better yet you could have simply managed your dishonesty and admit that you dont know if that was what I implied or not, since “not knowing” is what you claim makes you a realist! Perhaps if you managed your ego and dishonesty, you could have just asked me if that was what I was implying. But you went on a dishonest attack.
To your first post I politely asked you to be specific about what you thought I was overstating, but you ignored that and said you believe it is all about feedbacks. Oddly the last segment of the video was all about how the atmospheric windows that serve as vital negative feedbacks that helps keep the climate balanced. But you never address that issue.
Instead you repeated your rants that CO2 effects are not known so I was not being scientific, even though the evidence I presented was based some of the best data on radiative transfer of heat there is to date.
What is even more bizarre, you agree with me on most everything and even with video’s statement that “atmospheric physics suggests CO2 can’t be more than a minor contributor” but then attack me for presenting that science that supports those beliefs, because the sheriff says we should say “we dont know what CO2 does”. But that’s a lie because we know many things about what it does, and we are trying to see how it all fits together with natural causes.
Your arguments are so bizzare, so unfounded and so contradictory that the only logical explanation for your lies and personal attacks is that it is all driven by your ego wanting you to be the word sheriff deciding what words can discussed or not. And by hook or crook you will shoot down whoever strays from your delusions.
It was obvious as you said “I did not criticize the science in your article”. That’s because I strive to present impeccable honest science .
You couldn’t criticize my science, so you donned the hat of the “word sherif” and opted for personal attacks fabricating that my attack on the false media claims showing heat being trapped, was really calling scientists and everyone who was misinformed by the word “trapped” must be stupid. Thank God you are there to save those imaginary people from my imaginary condemnation that you alone fabricated.
btw Send my deepest sympathies to your wife. I feel her pain.
Yes, CO2 traps heat. That’s why we have convection.
You mean that absent CO2, but still having an adiabatic lapse rate and water vapor in the atmosphere we would not have atmospheric convection???
Who knew?
The word “trap” in this context of energy means Ein > Eout. Anything that causes a system to switch from Ein = Eout to Ein > Eout leading to ΔT > 0 is said to “trap” energy/heat. Anything that acts as a thermal barrier to impede the transmission of energy can “trap” heat. This includes adding insulation to your home, closing the door on your oven, closing the windows in your car, and countless other examples. Polyatomic gas species “trap” energy/heat as well because they impede the transmission of energy delivered via infrared energy. Placing a polyatomic gas species between a hot body and cold body will result in the hot body warming further and the cold body cooling further because energy/heat is “trapped” (Ein > Eout) for the hot body while energy/heat is denied (Ein < Eout) for the cold body. And the reason why polyatomic gas species are called greenhouse gases is because they “trap” energy/heat just as a greenhouse “traps” energy/heat. The concept of Ein > Eout is same in both cases. What is different is the physical processes by which Ein becomes greater than Eout. For a greenhouse the “trap” arises primarily as a result of impeding convection. For a polyatomic gas species the “trap” arises primarily as a result of impeding radiation. The term “greenhouse gas” comes not from the comparison of heat transfer mechanisms in play, but the comparison of the end result with Ein > Eout. Anything that causes a system to take on more energy/heat (Ein > Eout) is said to “trap” the energy/heat.
At equilibrium:
E_in [=] SW radiation absorbed by atmosphere and surface
E_out [=] LW emitted to space
E_surface [=] LW emitted by surface
GHE [=] E_surface – E-out, which is >> 0, but
E_in = E_out
That is a good topic to discuss as well. The Earth could be in a steady-state with Ein (ASR) equal to Eout (OLR) such that no “trap” of energy is occurring while simultaneously exhibiting the greenhouse effect (GHE) at the surface.
For those that don’t know In academic literature the GHE is usually defined as the difference between the global mean upwelling longwave surface flux and upwelling longwave TOA flux or GHE = UWIR_sfc – UWIR_toa [Schmidt et al. 2010]. This value is GHE = 155 W/m2 or alternately in terms of temperature is 33 K.
In terms of energy and for one orbital period the values are Ein = 3.9e24 j, Eout = 3.9e24 j, and Eghe = 2.5e24 j. Or in terms of fluxes that is Fin = 240 W/m2, Fout = 240 W/m2, and Fghe = 155 W/m2. Note that Eghe > 0 (or Fghe > 0) simultaneously with Ein = Eout (or Fin = Fout).
‘The Earth could be in a steady-state with Ein (ASR) equal to Eout (OLR) such that no “trap” of energy is occurring while simultaneously exhibiting the greenhouse effect (GHE) at the surface.’
That’s my take, and I think that’s the point of Jim Steele’s article / video. At some point there has to be a common basis or agreed ‘point of reference’, otherwise the arguments from both sides devolve down to hand waving.
For me, I accept that there is a significant GHE on Earth, probably dating back to at least the time when oceans first formed on earth. Which means that those who would drastically alter civilization by preventing the use of fossil fuels need to provide some commensurately serious evidence of harm that is also consistent with such a ‘point of reference’.
models all use the physics with molecules impeding the transmission of infrared radiation. Impeding transmission or delayed cooling evokes a very different understanding than trapped heat that suggests no escape as the medias illustrations so often do.. Period!
Yes and No “Anything that causes a system to take on more energy/heat” is said to be trapped. Systems take on more heat when input happens at a faster rate than output. Temperatures may appear to rise temporarily as minimum temperatures do when the rate of output slows or is impeded, but that is not adding heat to the system,
As this article states, the only time using the word trapped should honestly be used should be when looking at ocean heat is being trapped for several years during La NIna or 100s to thousands of years overall. In comparison, by calling CO2’s absorption and release of heat in less than a thousandth of a second as trapped, should worry everyone that whoever uses this word has a dishonest agenda.
Terminology is important.
“warming” means ΔT > 0 whereas “cooling” means ΔT < 0. Increasing the abundance of a polyatomic gas species in the atmosphere causes “warming” (ΔT > 0) at the surface because Q > 0 and because ΔT = Q/(m*c). It does NOT result in “cooling” delayed or otherwise. The only way it can cause “cooling” is if its abundance decreased.
Also, when the output rate slows and assuming the prior state was Q = 0 (Ein = Eout) then heat necessarily turns positive (Q > 0). And by the 1LOT we know that ΔU = Q – W. On a first principle basis we can assume work W (mechanical energy) within the climate system is 0. What that means is that when the output rate slows (Q > 0) energy is being added to the climate system (ΔU > 0). Energy will continue to add up in the climate system until the temperature increases enough to cause heat to go neutral (Q = 0).
And again…”trapped” just means ΔU > 0. For the ocean this can occur certainly be the case with a La Nina. But it can also occur due to many other factors as well. Anything that causes an imbalance (Ein > Eout) within the ocean body results in heat getting trapped (ΔU > 0). Increased solar radiation, increased GHGs, decreased aerosols, decreased albedo, etc. are examples of factors that can result in ΔU > 0 or heat getting trapped, retained, gained, accumulated, etc.
‘Terminology is important.’
I guess so. I thought we (you, me, Jim and “Schmidt et al’ had all agreed that E_in (aka ASR) = E_out (aka OLR), hence no ‘trapping’.
I do agree with that. Similarly when Ein > Eout there is trapping. Anyway, my comment about terminology above is with the use of the word “cooling”. I’m not sure how Jim was using the word exactly but the feeling I got was that it was something other than ΔT < 0. My best guess that his use of “cooling” was more akin to ΔEout < 0 but I want to be careful about making presumption like that. Only Jim can clarify.
bdgwx says
“Terminology is important.
“warming” means ΔT > 0 whereas “cooling” means ΔT < 0.”
and
“the use of the word “cooling”. I’m not sure how Jim was using the word exactly”
Wow not sure what is meant by cooling?? Really??
Cooling is simply the loss of heat and warming the gain. I
It is not accurate to simple mindedly argue “cooling” means ΔT < 0.” ΔT is a moving target.
The issue is not what cooling means, but what is the context. Word smithing is just obfuscating BS. The issue is cooling relative to what time frame or at what rate is something cooling relative to what rate it is warming.
Over a 24 hour period, warming dominates during the day. Although solar heating peaks at noon, the earth continues to warm for another 2 hours or so because the rate of warming still exceeds the rate of cooling despite less solar heating. ΔT > 0 but cooling is still happening.
The earth can experience a slower cooling rate, so that it is erroneously argued the earth is warming because despite cooling, the minimum temperature is slightly warmer than the day before when the sun began arming the earth
I’m not sure what you mean by “Impeding transmission or delayed cooling evokes a very different understanding than trapped heat“.
That effectively destroys the arguments from those who claim CO₂’s ‘Specific Heat Capacity’ as a major component of calculating atmospheric warming.
Jim, amongst articles on WUWT, your selection of graphics is undisputedly the tops.
Thanks so much!
The truth is there is no such thing as a greenhouse gas or even a radiative greenhouse effect in the atmosphere or in an actual greenhouse.
The atmospheric temperature increase toward Earth’s surface is caused by gravitational compression of our massive gaseous atmosphere.
Dynamic compression denotes work being done on a fluid within a defined control volume, which can create temperature changes in accordance with the ideal (and non-ideal) gas laws.
When there is a static pressure gradient with height , as in Earth’s atmosphere, no work is being done by “gravitational compression”. Rather, the processes of convection within the standard atmosphere’s lapse rate and variation of pressure with altitude can cause either heating or cooling of movement of atmospheric columns of gas (such as nitrogen or water vapor).
There is NO temperature increase that is caused by “gravitational compression of the atmosphere” because such simple does not exist within the atmosphere at static equilibrium conditions.
Jim Steele has discussed an awful lot of things here, but one thing he made no mention of is the CO2 effective radiating altitude. As other commenters have noted, this is perhaps the most significant particular with regard to CO2 warming effect.
The omission of any discussion of this crucial detail is like discussing reasons why a car won’t start, and focusing intensely on things like the spark plugs, the battery, the ignition system, the engine belts and hoses, but ignoring the fact that the gas tank is empty.
You failed to discuss what the “CO2 effective radiating altitude” is, and why it is important.