Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In my previous posts, yclept “Greenhouse Efficiency” and “The Multiplier”, I described a metric I’d developed to look at how successful the very poorly named “greenhouse effect” was at warming the surface. The metric was the upwelling surface longwave radiation (in watts per square meter, W/m2) divided by the solar power actually absorbed by the system (solar minus albedo reflections).
And of course, since radiation emitted by an object can be used to determine the temperature, this metric also measures how efficiently the incoming sunshine is converted to surface temperature.
Here’s how that metric has changed over time, as discussed in my two previous posts.
Figure 1. Greenhouse multiplier. The multiplier is calculated as upwelling longwave surface radiation divided by incoming solar radiation (after albedo reflections). A multiplier of 2 would mean that the surface would be radiating two W/m2 of energy for each one W/m2 of solar energy actually entering the system. This shows that the greenhouse has increased the incoming solar radiation by about two-thirds, as measured at the surface.
I got to thinking about that, and after a while I realized that that doesn’t tell the whole story. I realized that the answer was distorted because I hadn’t included advection.
Advection is the horizontal transport of heat. Generally, it’s in the form of moving ocean and atmosphere. It generally flows, as you might expect, from warm to cold—from the equator to the poles. Here’s a map showing the average transport, both export (red) and import (blue) of power.
Figure 2. Advection (horizontal transport) of power from the tropics to the poles.
The issue with not including advection comes up especially in the polar regions. There, a large amount of the power input is from advection, and little is from sunlight. So it looks as thought the power in the sunlight is highly multiplied, but it’s not—the extra power is from advected atmosphere and ocean.
Since I wanted a measure of the total watts out divided by watts in, the true multiplier, I had to include the advected energy. Since the net energy advected is about zero, I didn’t expect it would change the overall average multiplier by much. But I did expect it to be more accurate on a gridcell-by-gridcell basis since it was no longer missing the advected energy.
And indeed, this was the result. Figure 3 shows the earlier calculations as in Figure 1 (blue), plus the calculation including the advected energy (red).
Figure 3. A comparison of the two metrics, which either include (red) or omit (blue) the advection.
Now, there are some interesting things about this figure.
First, as I’d hoped, regarding the standard deviation (SD) of the detrended results, it is smaller when we include the advected power. This means they cluster more tightly around the trend line. The SD of the original method (blue) is 0.0040, and of the method including advection (red), it’s 0.0026.
Including the advection also corrects the problems at the poles which import copious power, and the problems at the tropics, which export the same.
Figure 4. Average multiplier, both with (red) and without (blue) the advection. Average CERES data, Mar 2000 to Feb 2021
I love the surprises of science. The surprise in this one for me was that once we’ve included the effects of advection, the multiplier is pretty much equal from the North Pole down to the north tip of Antarctica.
Next, a small digression. Ramanathan pointed out that we can measure the poorly-named “greenhouse effect” directly. It is the amount of upwelling longwave power absorbed by the clouds, aerosols, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Note that the power absorbed ends up back at the earth’s surface.
The size of the “greenhouse effect” is measured as the upwelling longwave at the surface minus the upwelling longwave at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). The difference between the two is the “greenhouse effect”, in watts per square meter.
Here’s the most surprising oddity. It turns out that when we include advection in our surface power changes, the new multiplier is exactly equal to one plus the greenhouse effect (measured as above) divided by available solar energy. Math in the footnotes.
And this lets us understand what is happening in Figure 2. The blue trend is the change in surface upwelling per unit of incoming energy. This is measured above in W/m2, but it can be converted using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to the surface temperature. That multiplier has been decreasing.
The red trend is the trend of the change in total surface power, not just the radiation but the advection as well, per unit of incoming energy. That multiplier has been increasing as we’d expect given increasing levels of CO2.
And that is very interesting. It shows that overall, increasing greenhouse gases increase the amount of downwelling radiation per unit of incoming solar power. And in fact, they are increasing at the rate expected from the increasing concentration of CO2. But that’s not what is expected overall.
Figure 6. Changes in the efficiency of the “greenhouse effect”, as measured by the multiplier.
The first reason that the increase is less than expected is that there are other greenhouse gases besides CO2 (methane, N20, chlorofluorocarbons). So with those other gases, the increase in greenhouse efficiency as measured by the multiplier should have been more than it actually has been.
There is also the purported positive cloud feedback and the water vapor feedback. Like the effect of other greenhouse gases, these should also have increased the multiplier.
So it appears that there are unknown countervailing forces preventing a larger increase in greenhouse efficiency despite increases in a variety of greenhouse gases. However, the net of all of these is a slight increase in greenhouse efficiency.
But curiously, this is counterbalanced by a reduction (per unit of incoming solar power) in the amount of increase in surface temperatures, along with a corresponding increase in the advection.
And the net result of the two is that in Figure 2 the multiplier shown by the blue line (how efficiently the system multiplies the incoming energy into surface temperature) is trending down, despite the increasing efficiency of the “greenhouse effect” due to increasing GHGs as shown by the red line.
“Simple physics”?
I don’t think so.
w.
MATH: Here are the equations showing that
surface upwelling + advection / available solar
is equal to
one plus the greenhouse effect (as defined by Ramanathan) / available solar.
Where:
- SOLAR = TOA incoming solar power
- SWtoa = Upwelling (reflected) shortwave measured at the top of the atmosphere
- LWtoa = Upwelling (emitted) longwave measured at the top of the atmosphere
- LWsurfup = Upwelling longwave at the surface
Advection is measured as the amount of solar power (shortwave) entering the gridcell (SOLAR) minus the amount of radiated power leaving the gridcell to space (SWtoa + LWtoa). The difference must be advected, except for a very small fraction that raises or lowers the surface temperature and can be neglected at this level of analysis.
My Usual Note: When you comment PLEASE quote the exact words you’re discussing. I can defend my own ideas. I can’t defend someone else’s random claim about what they think I said.
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“upwelling surface longwave radiation” – as measured at the orbit. I would omit the word “surface”.
I find myself pondering at all this photonic and cosmic energy penetrating deep into our relativity whether anyone has considered deflection from refraction as a thermal input. With light’s infinite energy-to-mass ratio how many thousands or tens of thousands of years of endurance is being consumed in reaching the surface of the Earth then leaving again? Considering due to quantum effects we literally can only detect 49.99~% of the photons coming in but they ALL interact with the atmosphere what kind of result are we looking at in calculating the margin of error of these models?
Is all the upwelling longwave actually upwelling longwave?
The solar wind incidence directly at the silhouette of the planet adds about 24W/M^2 across that plane that has nothing to do with induction or electron saturation.
We’ve only recently discovered that the chemical signals “of life” from Venus are literally proton collision with its constituent atmosphere… imagine how infantile the “model” linear progressions currently used in “settled science” are…
“The solar wind incidence directly at the silhouette of the planet adds about 24W/M^2 across that plane that has nothing to do with induction or electron saturation.”
Interesting. Do you have a reference? What is the residence time”
( How long does said energy stay within earth’s land, oceans and atmosphere.) How much does said energy input vary?
yclept
noun
Forms of the preterit and past participle of clepe.
I went to the dictionary, and it brushed me off.
yclept, adj., archaic or joc., called ( by the name of ), [Old English gecelopod , past participle of cleopan “call”, from Germanic]
Concise Oxford Dictionary Ninth Edition.
Its fun to use words with which nobody is familiar. “Niggardly” immediately comes to mind.
I inferred from its use in the sentence , yclept roughly equalled ‘called’
yclept — “by the name of”
Thank God it’s six letters long – which means
I won’t ever see it the daily wordle puzzle.
Didn’t you know that?
yclept
[ɪˈklɛpt]
ADJECTIVE
archaic
“archaic” ? I use it all the time ROTFLMAO.
Nicely done, WE.
Your last figure is most interesting. It implies that over the observational period net there were no positive feedbacks as the climate models presume. I have three thoughts about that new fact:
The figure’s three points together completely undercut not just CAGW, but any assertion of AGW eventually causing a future problem based on models.
A new and independent way to arrive at this conclusion than prior observational EBM studies getting an ECS about 1.6-1.7C, also showing AGW will not eventually cause a problem based on Schellnhuber’s arbitrary 2C threshold.
Schellnhuber’s arbitrary 2C threshold was of course plucked from where the sun don’t shine. Just like the economic models which used to say warming would be net beneficial until mid-century. Funny how that doesn’t get mentioned much.
That they then arbitrarily reduced it to 1.5C is indicative that they knew 2C was unlikely to be reached anytime soon, if ever (and much of that warming happened before CO2 could be blamed.)
“As for tipping points, any or all of those flagged in the new
research could happen at some point below 1.5C, so we may have
crossed one or more already– only time will tell.”
Bill McGuire added the cherry on top!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/09/12/the-guardian-downgrades-the-1-5c-global-warming-limit/
and the existing warming — even that since 1979, when we launched satellites because of fears the glaciers were returning — is now A CRISIS
If cloud feedback is something negative then there would have been warmer days after 911 when the planes were grounded.
And there were.
So, I would suggest that uncertainty over the sign of the cloud feedback springs from non-empirical sources.
sort of… there’s the particulate carbon to consider
If LWIR is converted to cloud feedback ( See Willis’s diagram, (2.) “Extra energy evaporates a molecule of water” and consider that said GHE down-welling LWIR is 100 percent absorbed at the very surface “skin layer” where evaporation takes effect, and yes, a negative feedback is likely.
At “Climate Audit they have long talked about the need for an “engineering” type discussion of GHG dynamics. I think Willis is getting closer to that goal.
It takes a lot of energy to accelerate the hydrological cycle.
Yes it does, so in figure 5 what is the ‘with advection’ trend between 2000 and 2015 and the trend from 2016 to date, which visually looks to be negative.
It is obvious that a “step change” took place when the 2015/16 El Nino occurred.
Where is the explanation of how GHGs, especially the continuous increase in CO2 can cause a “step change” in the amount of energy in the system.
How can an overall trend be legitimate when step changes are occurring without an explanation of how the items being trended caused the step change. The El Nino energy was not stored in the GHGs it was stored in the Oceans.
Greenhouse liquid?
yes, that was my argument against DWLWIR warming the surface skin — at least some of that additional energy has to go into phase-transitioning additional water, although I am generally open to the idea that warming the cold top of a blanket can also warm the person under the blanket
Rud says “The WVF must logically be something net positive since water vapor is a potent green house gas and there is more humidity with rising surface temperature.”
Unless you’re defining WVF to only include radiative properties then this logic is flawed. Water vapour transports energy of latent heat of evaporation through the atmosphere to be radiated and that’s a negative feedback to surface warming. It’s not obvious which is the larger effect over time.
well, remember, according to Monckton the IPCC has been assuming that all the feedbacks magically appeared after 1850, and had no effect on the original reference temperature
this seems to lend some weight to that argument
“So it appears that there are unknown countervailing forces preventing a larger increase in greenhouse efficiency despite increases in a variety of greenhouse gases.”
Yeah the null hypothesis is wrong. The “greenhouse” multiplier being flat across latitudes despite vastly different concentrations of “greenhouse” gases is yet more solid evidence of that.
Vastly different ?? From memory it’s about 6ppmv more in Alert than it is in Antarctica. 6 in 400 is not vastly different.
Water vapor differs hugely from the poles to the equator.
One very interesting result is the LOWESS smooth of greenhouse-efficiency follows the PDO index very closely. I suspect a trend of the PDO index would also show a rise. Could it be your data is thus affected by the timing of PDO changes? If so, the slight rise will disappear as the PDO becomes more negative.
PDO phases are generally described as a change in the locations of pressure systems which would likely affect advection.
We are currently in a solidly negative -PDO regime which is a big factor in the long lived La Nina.
https://psl.noaa.gov/pdo/
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/88653/#88659
The PDO index appears to be directly influenced by ENSO. Makes it difficult to use. It will generally be negative during La Nina events. Not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg.
However, whichever is the driver, the result appears to be similar. The greenhouse efficiency value moves up and down as the PDO index moves up and down.
Certainly a curiosity. It may mean that advection is increased or decreased. This could be affecting the results Willis is seeing.
it’s almost like it got warmer in the 1940s, and then colder in the 1970s, and then warmer in 1998
you know, like the graphs used to say back before 1999
An often ignored aspect of CO2 radiation in the atmosphere is the latitudinal changes. With more CO2 you have more energy moving in all directions. This should move more energy from warmer (tropics) to colder (poles).
Since it takes less energy to warm colder objects, the same amount of energy spread across the planet more evenly will raise the average temperature. If you want to calculate a more accurate greenhouse-efficiency, you would need to factor in this difference.
Nice, you are thinking, good points.
Yes, and we already know most warming is at night, and beneficial; less frost damage.
It takes a lot of energy to accelerate the hydological cycle, and that decreases energy residence time, and assuming steady state input all T change is a result of energy residence time.
Since it takes less energy to warm colder objects,
=======
No. The specific heat of water is constant. It takes 1 calorie to heat 1 gram of water 1 C regardless of water temp.
True, but the greenhouse effect occurs in the atmosphere. Not talking water here. I should have been more precise.
The specific heat of air is still somewhat flat. That determines how much energy is required to heat a specidic amount of air thru a specific amount of temperature.
The SB equation deals with power. It telks us it takes less power to warm cold objects than hot objects but it does not tell us the equilibrium time.
It is this equilibrium time that determines how much energy is required to change temoerature for a given radiated power change..
So if we have a container of 1kg of water sitting on a table and we add 1 kcalorie of constant heat flux to it, it will never stop getting hotter?
Ferd, you’ve left the radiation from the water out of your calculation. Eventually it will reach a temperature where radiative heat loss out = heat in, and it won’t warm at all.
In other words … no, it’s only constant IF you prevent the water from cooling. But that’s almost never the situation in the real world.
w.
My definition is straight from any physics text.
You are confusing energy and power. It takes less power to warm cold object. Not less energy.
Willis is always confusing energy and power. Ask him what units he thinks should be used to measure radiation (a form of energy, as he explained)… he can’t answer that question without shooting himself in one foot or the other, so instead he will just call you a pig and claim that he refrains from engaging in pig wrestling as a matter of principle. (The fact that he can’t tell the difference between physics and pig wrestling probably goes a long way towards explaining the atrocious state of his physics knowledge.)
Willis wouldn’t pig wrestle with me because I asked him for evidence for the warming effects of downwelling longwave radiation or back radiation.
It was solved by me being, still being, moderated.
Nice try. I invoked the First Rule of Pig Wrestling with you, viz:
“Never wrestle with a pig. You just get dirty and the pig likes it.”
Pass.
w.
Yup. He’s quite a character. As a physicist, he makes a good fisherman. Maybe he should just stick to the fishing!
Willis is confusing science with sophistry.
The difference between power and energy is equilibrium time.
Energy = power x time
When you increase the radiated power warming an object, it will start to warm. As it warms it will radiate increasing power until it reaches equilibrium and incoming and outgoing radiation match..
The difference between the incomming and outgoing radiated power integrated over the equilibrium time tells you how much energy it took to raise the temperature.
All other energy is accounted for in the incoming and outgoing radiation, so the difference must be the actual energy required to warm the object.
So the residence time of the energy flowing to the object receiving it?
A black hill, and a snow covered hill receive the same input, yet the residence time of the input is longer in the black hill.
Now that will really mess things up!
Energy is measured in Joules, power is measured in Watts. An energy flow of one joule per second is a power of 1 Watt.
Lets look at this properly in the atmosphere, the power arriving from the sun is measured in watts per sq metre, and changes continuously depending on the angle of the sun and the Earths rotation. The temperature on the surface depends on how many joules are absorbed, and the the temperature rise is given by the specific heat of what is being heated.
Now lets look at the CO2 and water in the atmosphere. What happens to each as 1 joule of energy is added (at a frequency where they are actually absorbing, this is not specifically long or short wave it is exactly defined). Each will increase in temperature by some quantity, and then its molecules being excited will attempt to loose this energy to something colder, to resume the ground state depending on their nominal temperature (loosely speaking the temperature of everything around them). This ocours in all directions, not specifically up or down. Note this cannot be something hotter, and if nothing is colder the temperature will not change. This is why we say “heat rises”, the effect being convection.
Any heat on the surface will heat the atmosphere layer next to it, and convection will take over, moving the heat to the top of the atmosphere. This of course is exactly why “Greenhouses” work, they prevent the convection of heat from the surface upwards, and trap much of it.
The confusion we see above and very commonly is that radiation is seen as a mechanism which heat is transferred around the atmosphere, and some small amount is, but one cannot simply take some “energy” and assume that this can be transferred by any mechanism without the temperature difference being in the right direction. Heat energy always moves from hot to cold in all circumstances, it is simply attempting to unify the energy per unit volume to the same value.
Greenhouse proponents always fail to see this, they think that the wavelength controls the flow in some magic way, and that the heat energy can flow in any temperature direction. Imagine I could make heat move from cold to hot without doing any work (expending even more energy). To some very small extent I can in a heat pump, but the limits and power input required are very fully defined by thermodynamics, and depend on the Carnot cycle of pressure and temperature. Rising atmospheric heat actually suffers cooling due to falling pressure, but that is far too complex for “warming” modellers.
Sorry for the long post but we must get the basics right first, it is all in any good thermodynamics text book.
Flux means flow. Heat flux is W/m2, not calories ( which is energy ).
Exactly.
Willis is such a darling, isn’t he?
Energy? Flux? What’s the difference?
Where I live, we just call it heaty stuff.
Thanks for repeating
which I choose to take as acknowledgement of one of my pet peeves.
I had not considered advection as a factor before now, so thanks for that as well.
Wondering now if “unknown countervailing forces” to “positive cloud feedback and the water vapor feedback” may be partly in the effects of topology and water/air density with convection, and hinted at in your other hydrologic cycle observations. Wind and ocean current would seem to increase the diffusion of energy, and evaporation/precipitation events should decrease surface heating.
Speaking of evaporation,,,, Interesting to see the possible effect of Hunga Tunga…
https://electroverse.co/greenlands-record-gains-major-stratospheric-cooling-event-over-southern-hemisphere/
Scroll past the Greenland information
I have no idea if the rather small trends shown indicate an efficiency of the greenhouse, or is some component in the uncertainties in all of the other factors involved over time?
Excuse me
“So it appears that there are unknown countervailing forces preventing a larger increase in greenhouse efficiency despite increases in a variety of greenhouse gases.”
Simple physics – I dont think so either. The Le Châtelier Principle (LCP) predicts what you have found. It is your countervailing force. LCP is well known to chemists and particularly to Chemical Engineers who manipulate it to produce higher quality chemical products at lower cost.
Simply stated, in any interacting system of multiple components (e.g. concentrations of chemicals in solution, different phases of a component, P, T and V, say, in equilibrium), a change in any one of the components induces changes in the other components in such a way as to resist shifting away from this equilibrium. A change caused by this perturbation of the system is therefore much smaller than expected!
I want to note here that it should be self evident that my example system doesn’t have to be in equilibrium for this resistance to be invoked. Chemists tend to include equilibrium in the statement of the principle because in chemistry they are much preoccupied with chemical equilibrium. In the more dynamic general statement of LCP, the system may be heading for equilibrium and perturbing the system, say, by raising T 10° causes the system to head for a new equilibrium – the one it would have had if you had waited for equilibrium before raising T 10°. I offer this note because climateers use “equilibrium” to argue LCP isn’t applicable to climate which isn’t in equilibrium.
Climate has dozens and dozens more components than my example and and can martial even greater resistance to changes. Add more CO2 to the atmosphere and we find that half of it has disappeared when we measure it. Simply heat the atmosphere and it expands which lowers its temperature somewhat. Some of the lost carbon dioxide has been sequestered in plants. Moreover, since photosynthesis is an endothermic reaction, the Greening removes heat from the atmosphere…..
Willis, calculate the countervailing force at play and you can make an LCP coeff = the difference between Expected and Actual ÷ by Expected. When T- anomaly forecasts made for 2005(?) turned out to give values 300% too high, I suggested an LCP coefficient of 0.33 needed to be incorporated into the models of the “physics”.
Le Chalier’s principle pertains to chemical systems. It would be interesting to formulate an argument that it also pertains to mechanical systems. I don’t know that it does.
I expect the Chatelier Principle of equilibrium is a special case of the principle of least action, which can be applied to any system.
Negative feedback’s do, without doubt, tend to dominate.
the principle of least action, which can be applied to any system.
======
Very interesting point. The energy in and out of the climate system is a fixed “constant” solar energy.
For any increase in CO2 of all possible paths the climate might take, it must take the one requiring the least change. This goes back to some really fundamental physics.
So the question is, is an increase in global surface temperatures the least effort path?
That seems highly unlikely. The least effort would be just as likely to increase clouds or increasecwinds or all sorts of other changes.
pertains to mechanical systems
™≥======!
Any dynamic system with negatice feedback follows Le Chalier’s principle.
Any dynamic system with positive feedback quickly destroys itselt and is no longer available or latches at the limits and is no longer dynamic.
A dynamic system with no feedback hurts my head. I see a unicorn.
Willis
I’d be curious as to why the black/white line has that finger up into central Australia in Figure 2
The response of land to sunlight is different to water. Basically land responds twice as fast and twice the temperature range as water for the same solar input because the water stores much more heat than the land:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNhG4gM4gmzW9MS07d
Then deep convection plays a role in the transport of energy from ocean to land. Trees and other land biomass are really important in this process because land that retains water behaves differently to dry land. Dry land heats very quickly and become mid level divergent zones so get little water from oceans. The Sahara is the best example but also central Australia. The Amazon is a good example of land that has retained water through its abundant biomass.
“ because the water stores much more heat than the land:”
Greenhouse Liquid??
I think it’s the Ceres data telling Albanese his climate pledge is madness
Dear Willis, figure 2 tells SH gets 1,7 W/m2 more heat via advection than NH. How does this relate to your other analysis called ‘A balancing act’? I mean, is advection been taken into account in that analysis as well, or does it not play a role?
For me, the most interesting thing is that it’s another example of very large numbers being subtracted from each other and the consequent number being very small. It also as a consequence shows that the analysis is likely to be solid.
The net of 0.8W/M2 is also potentially wrong given there must be errors and being such a small residual the flux of energy in or out may be still unknown.
Very good analysis, are there measurement errors that we can calculate?
One can tell that it is climatology being discussed because there are no uncertainties associated with any of the numbers used.
This is why climate phiisics is nonsense. The atmosphere does not have more energy at the bottom than the top. If there was no atmospheric absorption on the way in then the best it can be is the same bottom and top.
So what you have come up with now is that your last post was wrong. That is what I pointed out. Now you believe you are right – nope still wrong.
Your figure 2 should give you a clue. It shows land responds differently to sunlight than water. What happen if sunlight worked differently on land than water and the amount of sunlight over each surface was changing:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNhG4gM4gmzW9MS07d
In a nutshell, away from the tropics, the land temperature response to sunlight is twice and in half the time.
This is how solar intensity has/will change in April at 30N from 1000 years ago to the next 1000 years from J2000:
-1.000 405.746351
-0.900 406.156246
-0.800 406.568410
-0.700 406.982423
-0.600 407.397883
-0.500 407.814408
-0.400 408.231635
-0.300 408.649215
-0.200 409.066813
-0.100 409.484100
0.000 409.900750
0.100 410.318143
0.200 410.734184
0.300 411.148357
0.400 411.560133
0.500 411.968970
0.600 412.374329
0.700 412.775676
0.800 413.172498
0.900 413.564305
1.000 413.950642
These are not trivial changes and time constants for oceans are of this order.
This table was generated here:
http://vo.imcce.fr/insola/earth/online/earth/online/index.php
We know the Southern Ocean has declining solar intensity and the surface is cooling as a result. So to prove to yourself that your theoretical CO2 forcing is BS, you should do the calculation for each grid on the globe. Or just pick a few points across the globe to see how each “CO2 forcing” is varying over time.
Given that CO2 is well mixed, you should have the same result across the globe irrespective of latitude or surface composition.
You have shown the multiplier for different latitudes but you have not shown the change at different latitudes over time. And you have not separated land and water responses.
The CO2 forcing is supposed to be constant across the globe. Any long term downward temperature trend dispels the notion that CO2 is a player in the energy balance.
This multiplier factor can be obtained differently using the IR absorbtion factor X bv greenhouse gas and the part of IR re emetted to Space K :
multiplier = 1 / ( 1-X + K*X ). Where X = 0.9 and K = 0.56 , which could be adjusted …
Dear Willis, Very nice analysis. I just used your CERES data published here recently (many thanks) to make the plot for both hemispheres, all- and clear sky as well. I didn’t use the deseasoned CERES data, but the moving annual total of the quotient GE/AS in your formula. The slope of 1.2*10^(-4) for the global fits indeed perfectly the 3.7 W/m2 2xCO2 forcing over the 2001-2021period, but the slopes for the NH and SH with 3.4 and -0.7 (10^(-4) units) respectively, don’t. For the clear sky situation, I find 3.3., 4.7 and 2.4 (10^(-4) units) for Global, NH and SH, respectively. So, I am wondering if that global all sky slope is coupled to CO2, or that is just a coincidence, or the variations I calculated, are simply within the bandwdith of uncertainties in the CERES data.
I think your observation is somehow related to some plots I made a couple of days ago from the sum of Sensible + Latent Heat vs the absorbed solar radiation from the same data. SH+LH is taken as (the balance of) the net radiation at the surface, just forgetting the less than 1 W/m2 absorbed by the oceans (see attachment). Although I expected somewhat close to this outcome, I was anyhow puzzled by the almost perfect slope of 1 over the entire range of the year, that shows that almost every extra watt/m2 of solar input dissipates through SH+LH, and not through net LW-radiation. That can only be true for a very stabilized climate system where the evaporation of water is the control mechanism. Any thoughts from your side?
You have shown that CO2 is selective in what it warms, cools or doesn’t change. Or maybe that the idea that CO2 does anything is wrong and it is just orbital mechanics shifting the solar intensity predominantly from water in the SH to relatively more land in the NH.
Yep. Ja.
I subscribe to that idea.
Click on my name.
I meant the idea that CO2 could be doing something wrong. It does not. Its warming properties are nullified by its cooling properties. It is our dung in the air, so to speak, as it makes the earth greener and the plants more drought resistant.
The first is not quite correct, the second is. Power absorbed by the atmosphere is only partially returned to the surface. Insulator, not reflector.
Power leaves the surface. It does not make it to space. It’s far too much power to be warming the atmosphere, which has a very small thermal mass …
So where is it going?
w.
Sigh… SOME of the power is returned to the surface.
An energy packet (a “quantum”) is emitted from a surface molecule, in the form of a long wave photon.
That photon travels some distance – it may be absorbed by a molecule in the atmosphere – or it may actually just go “past” all of the atmosphere and go into space. (Obviously, the more molecules that can absorb it along the path, the more likely it will be absorbed. If we had a pure helium atmosphere, we’d lose every bit of solar heating every twenty four hours.)
Now, that absorbing atmospheric molecule will eventually get rid of the energy that it has absorbed, going back to the lowest energy state it can. Very near to the surface, that can happen through kinetic transfer with another molecule, and a very good chance that it will be a molecule of the surface. Thus starting the whole thing over again. But, higher up, there is either kinetic transfer to another atmospheric molecule – or, in many cases, the “absorber” simply emits another long wave photon. That photon could go straight up, straight down, or anything in between. (A kinetic transfer could also move the energy up, down, or anywhere, for that matter. Only slightly more likely downwards to a higher density.)
That molecule, the pass receiver, will do the same thing. That quantum, either through direct escape, or through transfers through multiple molecules, does eventually escape into space. Guaranteed. Actually, Vegas odds rule, since there is a somewhat higher chance that the energy emitted (whether through kinetics or radiation) will NOT be on a path that intersects the surface. The Earth is a spheroid.
The problem with the first assertion should be obvious. “It is the amount of upwelling longwave power absorbed by the clouds, aerosols, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Note that the power absorbed ends up back at the earth’s surface.” No, the power absorbed will, guarandamnteed, EVENTUALLY go into space as longwave radiation. Just SLOWER than if there were no absorption.
This is why the second assertion IS correct. The upwelling longwave radiation at TOA is the sum of energy that directly escapes from the surface PLUS the energy that has been transferred between one or more atmospheric molecules before it reaches TOA. The “greenhouse” effect only slows that escape, sufficiently so that the surface only loses a few degrees at night by upwelling before its energy is replenished by the Sun. (On average, of course. A humid equatorial location might not lose a measurable amount over night at all, some nights – while a polar desert will lose an enormous amount, especially during the “long dark.”)
Sorry for the long-windedness (though only slightly). You pushed my “Pedant Button.” An unqualified assertion, lacking even a “most” or “majority of” qualification, is saying “all.” At least in the English as she be precisely spoke.
Where is it going? Wind power.
Not all of the energy in the atmosphere is in the form of heat. The atmosphere has enormous wind power.
It’s interesting to note that the wind power density is much lower in the tropics than it is in the Northern Hemisphere, which in turn is lower than in the Southern Hemisphere.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/overlay=wind_power_density/orthographic=-153.85,0.57,422/loc=73.005,-49.697
I’ve always likened the atmosphere to a thermal capacitor, but it is more like a thermal capacitor and flywheel all in one.
Willis writes “Power leaves the surface. It does not make it to space.”
Some of it obviously makes it to space. Radiation is both up and down and the radiation at the effective radiating level of the atmosphere tends to escape to space (by definition)
Its well known that CO2 is the molecule responsible for radiating much of the energy to space from higher in the atmosphere.
Willis writes “So where is it going?”
Specifically, it is leaving the atmosphere, radiating to space at the same rate shortwave radiation is entering it.
Willis,
Thanks for all of your work, especially for us non-scientist types
Please explain: “radiating two W/m2 of energy for each one W/m2 of solar energy actually entering the system.”
How does one become two?
My understanding (admittedly poor) is (from Wiki and my bold):
In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be conserved over time.[1] This law, first proposed and tested by Émilie du Châtelet,[2][3] means that energy can neither be created nor destroyed;
John, take a look at my post called “The Steel Greenhouse“. It explains why and how the poorly named “greenhouse effect” works.
w.
“The Steel Greenhouse“.
The Steel Greenhouse is a perfect example of junk science.
It’s been debunked so many time it should get an award.
FLoT broken.
SLoT broken.
Doesn’t get any better.
This is the fool who thinks that Joe Postma “debunked” the steel greenhouse …
Protip. If anyone claims to have “debunked” something, they’re lying to you.
w.
And here is that very debunking.
https://climateofsophistry.com/2013/03/08/the-fraud-of-the-aghe-part-11-quantum-mechanics-the-sheer-stupidity-of-ghe-science-on-wuwt/
Enjoy Willis being debunked by a real scientist. Joe takes The Steel Greenhouse apart, line by line.
It’s so embarrassing.
Mods – are you going to do something about Willis calling me a fool? Thought not.
Here’s the best bit.
Willis adds the shell around the sphere and then states “The inwards radiation warms the surface of the planet, until it is radiating at 470 W/m2“. He didn’t show how this happens, he didn’t explain why, and he didn’t do any math to support it – he just arbitrarily doubled the output radiation and hence the temperature (according to the Stefan-Boltzmann Law) of the planet. He just did it, arbitrarily.
Let’s look at his following statement where conservation of energy and equilibrium applies after he’s arbitrarily doubled the output from the interior: “The shell is receiving 470 W/m2 from the planet, and it is radiating the same amount, half inwards back to the planet [235 W/m2] and half outwards to outer space [235 W/m2]”. This is his condition of equilibrium. But wait a minute, the planet was intrinsically radiating 235 W/m2 at the start; if this was striking the shell, then his conservation of energy and equilibrium condition should have been that the shell emits half of this outward and half inward, i.e. 117.5 W/m2 either direction. However, what he actually did was just say that the shell emits twice as much energy as it receives, i.e. a full 235 W/m2 either way, so that the interior shell now has double the energy output. So, Willis just arbitrarily doubled the amount of energy available, so that he could add half of it back to the original 235 W/m2 in order to double it. Just arbitrarily doubled out of nowhere. Just made up bullshit.
And then what is strange, is that Willis stops this energy doubling process for no reason! If at the beginning, a 235 W/m2 output comes back to double itself to 470 W/m2, increasing its own temperature, then why doesn’t the 470 W/m2 output double again from itself coming back to increase itself yet again? Why should this process stop if the same conditions which caused this to occur in the first place still exist?
Looks pretty dodgy to me. 🙂
“And then what is strange, is that Willis stops this energy doubling process for no reason! If at the beginning, a 235 W/m2 output comes back to double itself to 470 W/m2, increasing its own temperature, then why doesn’t the 470 W/m2 output double again from itself coming back to increase itself yet again? Why should this process stop if the same conditions which caused this to occur in the first place still exist? “
This is the part that has always eluded me as well. Back radiation can only replace heat that has already been lost. It can’t add since there is nothing on fire in the atmosphere to create heat.
Willis was taken apart all those years ago by astrophysicist Joseph Postma but Willis is in denial that he is a sophist.
No matter how many shells you add the energy cannot increase and the FLoT cannot be broken while breaking the SLoT.
I compare WE to a zealot.
The reason that the 470 W/m2 doesn’t “double again” is that if it were to do so, the entire system would be emitting more power to space than is coming from the nuclear core, the only source of power in the system.
And when that happens, the system must cool.
I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you. I make you the same offer I made leitmotif. You tell us the radiation from the shell and the sphere at steady-state.
Bear in mind in your math that
• at steady-state the outside of the shell has to radiate 235 W/m2 to space
• the shell has twice the surface area of the sphere, and
• at steady-state the sphere and the shell both must receive as much power as they radiate …
So do let us know what you claim the final radiation levels will be when the system reaches the steady-state condition, so that we can properly discuss your claims.
Like they say … time to put your money where your math is … or something like that.
w.
The fact that YOU can’t understand it, or Joe Postma can’t understand it, means nothing to the rest of us who do understand it, leitmotif.
Here’s the graphic again showing the conditions both with and without the shell.
Please point out which part of it is wrong, and show your math.
Bear in mind in your math that
• at steady-state the outside of the shell has to radiate 235 W/m2 to space
• the shell has twice the surface area of the sphere, and
• at steady-state the sphere and the shell both must receive as much power as they radiate …
So do let us know what you claim the final radiation levels will be when the system reaches the steady-state condition, so that we can properly discuss your claims.
w.
PS—Yes, the inner surface area of the shell is larger than the surface of the sphere … by a whacking third of a percent in the case of the earth. If it were drawn to scale above, you couldn’t see the space between the sphere and the shell.
So as is typical in “first-cut” analyses of this type, I’ve ignored this meaningless difference. You’re free to include it if you wish, it makes no significant change to the results.
The fact that Joe Postma is either too biased or too foolish to understand what I wrote is not “debunking”. In fact, if someone claims to have “debunked” something, I point and laugh—all that means is someone’s evidence is so poor that they have to try to bias the analysis by calling my work “bunk”.
w.
Willis, do you think commenters should get modified for disagreeing with you?
leitmotif September 22, 2022 2:39 pm
You think that the issue is that you disagree with me?
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA! Aren’t you cute! That’s not the issue at all.
The issue is that your endless attempts to make each and every single thread about you and your incorrect theories is sick AF. The web is a big place, and out there are threads discussing your exact issues.
But despite the existence of places where your theories are on topic, you always insist on discussing your peculiar ideas on every one of my threads, no matter what the topic of my thread might be.
The issue is not whether you and I agree. The issue is that the kind of thread-bombing you specialize in is the act of an uncaring impolite jerk. Me, I’d ban you for repeated violation of two parts of the Blog Policy, viz:
You routinely violate both of these, even when I’ve politely asked you to refrain.
If I ran the zoo, you and a couple of others would have been banned for endless violations of those policies, but CTM and Anthony have let you continue to babble … probably the better plan, that way everyone can see your lunacy and thus they are free to point at you and laugh.
w.
Simple way to look at it is as energy being recycled – not created.
Surface absorbs 1 W/m2 of energy from the Sun. Emits that 1 W/m2 of energy. Atmosphere absorbs that 1 W/m2 of energy. Emits that 1 W/m2 of energy back to the surface. Surface emits that 1 W/m2 again. Now, it has emitted 2 W/m2 of energy total, but no energy has been created (or destroyed), just passed back and forth like two people playing catch.
(More complicated than this, of course. The “multiplier” is actually the limit value of a diminishing continued fraction. Some of the energy escapes to space on every “throw.” See my semi-rant at Willis above…)
Thank you, you describe what is effectively a ‘Standing Wave’
= something that looks big and energetic yet no energy is flowing in either direction….
e.g. Revisit your school playground..
2 girls facing each other and swinging a long rope between them.
Someone, you, near the middle, skipping that rope as it revolves.
Face one of the girls and you see the rope rotating, seemingly a ‘wave of energy’ coming straight at you.
Aw wow you think. lots of energy coming from girl#1
Turn to face the other girl, you see the same thing but coming from the opposite direction =
Aw wow, look at all that energy coming from girl#2
In which case, why do the girls at each end of the rope stand there, all nonchalant, like nothing is happening. Why does all that energy have no effect upon them. Or, how much energy/work are they putting into that rope?
They are nonchalant because no energy is flowing from one girl to the other.
Now where did the energy, you so clearly see, go?
As it happens and a little while ago, some intelligent peeps asked that exact same question, name of Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) and Rudolf Clausius (1822–1888)
Because despite Willis’ repeated exhortations that he understands and obeys the 2nd Law, whenever he does say that, his very next words entirely trash it.
And from this distance, within this medium, it’s impossible to sort it out.
Willis himself repeatedly slams the door.
Start here to get your head around Entropy (and the 2nd Law)
https://fs.blog/entropy/
Even then, it’s not easy as one of the figures there demonstrates (screenshot as attached)
Because in that figure you may see on the left a block of ice and on the right a cloud of steam.
Yet bizarrely, the cloud of steam has less Entropy (is more ‘ordered’) than the block of ice.
Now where did the energy go? How do you get that message across?
It’s not easy. What is easy though in these modern times and this modern media, is just to close your mind, your eyes & ears and float on in your own Magical World. To slam down/cancel the conversation.
OK:
Entropy and the 2nd Law determine absolutely that heat energy only flows from hot to cold. Only. There is No Net Flow. None. Only Goes In One Direction. Ever. Always.
Next:
Radiation is NOT a variation on Conduction or Convection
The 2nd Law is not an amendment to, nor is it conditional upon, the 1st Law.
Both laws apply independently and absolutely, at all places, at all times and at all temperatures.
So:
Due to the well observed Lapse Rate, there is Only One Thing In The Entire Sky that can inject energy (cause a temp rise) in the Earth’s actual surface.
There is only one thing anywhere in the sky hotter than the surface and that one thing is The Sun.
Nothing else can add heat energy to what the surface itself already contains.
Do Not Confuse The Surface with the place thermometers are typically put.
Else otherwise and based on this perfect junk haha science
The GHGE is itself, The Biggest Denial Of Science there could ever be.
(I’ve just figured it. Earth will, due to Entropy, Rest In Eternal Peace and so will everything onboard.
Is the Green House Gas Effect some crazy and unhinged attempt at reversing time or especially, to make ourselves immortal.
Considering the hubris endlessly demonstrated around here and ‘most everywhere, I’d not be the least bit surprised)
None of the prior laws of physics apply in climate phiisics. These people write their own laws so the atmosphere can do wonderful things like create energy from nothing.
They have this concept of photons zipping about in all directions completely oblivious to the electromagnetic field the energy transfer occurs and Einsteins space time continuum.
They sort of get some idea about the gravity field interacting such that remote matter communicates in the space time continuum but deny that happens with the electromagnetic field.
John accept the physics and chemistry first law statement. Energy can neither be created or destroyed.
The Steel Greenhouse has proved you wrong time after time, mkelly.
I know for a fact because I was in that Steel Greenhouse for 10 years. The shell kept getting closer and closer to me, as the hypothesis was adjusted, so that in the end my nose was touching the shell.
I don’t really want to talk about it. 🙁
“… so that in the end my nose was touching the shell.”
Well, that explains it.
I have been a long time wondering how it (your nose) got so bent out of shape.
I hear they are doing amazing things with rhinoplasty these days…
How does one become two?
By employing BS science like The Steel Greenhouse. See my comment below where I show evidence of debunking The Steel Greenhouse.
It explains everything.
All well and good, but the Earth has cooled since its creation. Nothing at all managed to stop it.
Continuous sunlight, atmosphere, CO2, radiogenic heat – cumulative effect zero.
No GHE. No warming, apart from more than seven billion humans producing and using energy about as fast as they can, all of which eventually flees the Earth to space.
Thermometers respond to this ephemeral increased heat, as they were designed to do.
No mystery at all.
Willis My compliments on your breakthrough.
Re: “Including the advection also corrects the problems at the poles which import copious outpower, and the problems at the tropics, which export the same.”
I am used to hearing about solar radiation downwards to the tropics and long wave radiation outwards from the poles. So I needed to rethink about your net flows and advection. May I suggest clarifying by expanding your discussion of both advection (and radiation.) E.g.
“Including the advection also corrects the problems of net energy flows in at the north and south poles which import copious net power from the tropics by horizontal advection (while outwardly radiating longwave radiation). It also corrects problems at the tropics, which export that copius net power by horizontal advection north and south (while receiving inward solar radiation).”
Willis Your Standard Deviation (SD) of 0.0026 divided by a mean of about 1.67 gives a remarkable 0.16% relative standard deviation for your new metric at a given year. It will be interesting to see how much variations in clouds with incoming solar radiation and cosmic flux, and the solar cycle will vary that small slope shown (versus the variation from the Medieval Warm Period to Little Ice Age back to the Modern Warm Period. (vis Lüning, S. and Lengsfeld, P., 2022. How Reliable Are Global Temperature Reconstructions of the Common Era?. Earth, 3(1), pp.401-408. Earth | Free Full-Text | How Reliable Are Global Temperature Reconstructions of the Common Era? | HTML (mdpi.com))
“PLEASE quote the exact words you’re discussing”
I am very happy you include this with all your comments.
You are correct in that people who do not wish to think when they engage change from the ( obvious) argument at hand to the one that they think they can win instead.
Difficult to do as it reduces the economy of words when the correct argument is being used.
I particularly like the advection concept as it helps explain why the night side of the earth stays warm when the sun seems to have gone.
“Advection is the horizontal transport of heat. Generally, it’s in the form of moving ocean and atmosphere.”
I use a different concept of the infra red radiating horizontally (adverting) from the warm side to the poles and the cold side, but whatever).
Your model does explain why more heat or energy, continues to go to space from the colder regions , even though not directly irradiated and even though the net energy flux in and out is zero.
I take exception to the comment on your first graph that the incoming solar radiation can be increased (or decreased) by GHG by about 2/3 as measured at the surface.
The GHG do not turn up the amount of solar radiation produced by the sun.
I would prefer you to add that the amount of radiation received at the earths surface is 2/3 greater than the directly received incoming solar radiation.
It is quibbling but correct thermodynamically and also allows a clearer concept of the forces at work.
“Figure 1. Greenhouse multiplier. The multiplier is calculated as upwelling longwave surface radiation divided by incoming solar radiation (after albedo reflections). This shows that the greenhouse has increased the incoming solar radiation by about two-thirds, as measured at the surface.”
“A tiny bit of extra energy delta q enters the system”
OK.
You are trying to find a relationship between the amount of energy measured as emitted from the earth surface and the amount of energy that reaches the earths surface from the sun.
A quandary as the amount estimated to reach the surface directly is a lot less than what the earth seems to be emitting in return.
The explanation is that the earth is covered in an atmospheric layer of GHG of increasing concentration such that the layer closest to the earths nominal surface is in constant balance with the surface hence the amount of energy going into the earth’s surface is almost double.
Half is the incoming solar energy, half is the IR which was emitted to the lowest GHG layer and is in balance with both the layer above it ands the earths surface with an energy concentration dictated by the GHG volume and concentration.
Why is the multiplier only 2/3 instead off 100%?
The horizontal loss is going laterally to the poles and other side of the earth so a true schematic would have to have a grid with some energy being lost laterally .
How much?
1/3.
Easy to say but is it correct?
@Willis
About 50 years ago I received Training on the B&W Once Through Steam Generators (OTSG) used at the B&W Nuclear Power Plants. These steam generators provided more than ten degrees of super heat to the steam they generated. This was caused by the fact that the feedwater was sprayed on the bare steam generator tubes. The tubes in the SG went from the bottom to the top, rather than in a U type shape as in the majority of the other SGs. Thus more than a third of the tubes were out of the water and exposed in a that allowed the FW to be sprayed on the tubes helping to transfer more heat to the steam. The one thing I remember was that these effect depended upon the concept of Constant Enthalpy – a thermodynamic quantity equivalent to the total heat content of a system. It is equal to the internal energy of the system plus the product of pressure and volume. It has been more 50 years since I have read my thermodynamic books (or seen them)m but the process you are explaining seem exactly the same. I see very little difference.
Constructive Criticism accepted.
This is why saunas are hotter after you throw water on the stove or rocks.
Willis: “there are other greenhouse gases besides CO2 (methane, N20, chlorofluorocarbons). So with those other gases, the increase in greenhouse efficiency as measured by the multiplier should have been more than it actually has been.”
WR: Main greenhouse gas water vapor (H2O) can be added. Water vapor absorbs [part of] solar energy during its transport through the atmosphere to the surface and, like clouds, diminishes the quantity of solar energy that reaches the surface. Both factors (water vapor and clouds) resulting from evaporation (as stimulated by surface temperatures) diminish direct surface warming by solar. Solar is the principal energy source.
In fact, extra downwelling radiation coincides with less solar reaching the surface. Water vapor and related processes are actively reducing solar while enhancing downwelling radiation. The whole is well-balancing surface temperatures.
A higher surface temperature enhances evaporation, convection, and the formation of clouds (all H2O) and so the quantity of downwelling radiation is enhanced. But at the same time H2O is diminishing the primary source of surface energy as soon as surface temperatures (for whatever reason) rise. The fact that downwelling longwave radiation rises is interesting, but because downwelling radiation is not a primary source for surface energy, this is ‘but an interesting fact’. Not a reason to change our society’s energy system, because already less solar will reach the surface.
Hot Early Greenhouse Earth did not permit any solar to reach the surface (by high water vapor, high CO2, and by a thick layer of clouds). A cooling Earth started permitting solar to reach the surface, effectively diminishing and finally even ending surface cooling. It is solar energy that keeps the surface, warm, while atmospheric H2O cools and regulates the quantity of solar that may reach the surface. In turn, surface temperatures regulate the quantity of atmospheric water vapor. It is this system that sets and stabilizes surface temperatures at the actual level.
Willis, there are more people living on the 0 meridian than on the 180 meridian, please add Atlantic centered maps to your posts so that Africa and Europe are not split in half or poorly readable.
But the interesting stuff is happening in the Pacific.
I don’t live in the Pacific
Excellent writing. Have these very graspable concepts been published in any peer-reviewed forum?
Good luck finding peers to Mr. Eschenbach to review his work. How many current climate scientists are able or even willing to do his level or type of research. It would be career suicide.
His strength lies in his independence of the climate cabal. Also, judging by the intellectual level of the comments, his research is being extensively reviewed. Finally, the ultimate peer, Nature, always has the final say.
Don’t forget WE is also wrong.