In September 2023, Princeton University’s Emeritus Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, William Happer, spoke to an audience in Brisbane, Australia about the crusade against carbon dioxide and integrity in climate science.
Professor Happer is one of the world’s leading scientists and climate realists, having made extensive contributions to the debate about climate science. He has played a vital role in ensuring there is integrity in climate science and the community is exposed to information and arguments that many major institutions in our society seek to silence or censor.
The Institute of Public Affairs was proud to host Professor Happer on a tour around Australian where he spoke to audiences in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
To learn more about the IPA’s research visit www.ipa.org.au
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The sad part of this is the myopic focus on CO2. As if it was an important consideration in Earth’s energy balance.
The sun provides close to an average of 340W/m^2 of EMR at the top of the atmosphere. If you start with CO2 you simply dismiss all of that energy and how it gets thermalised and moved about in the climate system.
Anyone interested in understanding the climate would start with the 340W/m^2 and go from there. The notion that clouds are not dependent on atmospheric and surface conditions is so stupid it defies description – moronic, imbecilic,
The CO2 demonisers have control of the debate if you start with CO2.
A simple question – why is the sky ever cloud free? Why isn’t the atmosphere over the entire surface saturated with permanent cloud cover where it is being cooled by radiation to space. It has had billions of years to reach equilibrium but has only reached equilibrium during snowball conditions almost a billion years ago. And it is not diurnal influence now because daily temperature change over oceans is negligible and days were the same when it was a snowball.
The sky becomes cloud free where air is falling and warming adiabatically. The air temperature goes above the dew point at the height of the cloud which then evaporates. That is why high pressure cells are mostly cloud free.
Convection creates both cloudy regions and cloud free regions due to adiabatic cooling in the ascent and warming in the descent.
The atmosphere needs to partition to create clear sky. If there is no partition then it remains well mixed and the air will reach equilibrium with the surface; reaching 100% humidity from surface to cloud. The cloud eventually descends to the surface and a snowball results. That has happened in the distant past when the sun was not as intense as now.
The unique feature of the present atmosphere is ability to partition into a dehumidifying zone over a well mixed zone to produce convective instability. This is the primary heat engine that drives atmospheric and near surface ocean circulations. Convective potential is ubiquitous across the tropical oceans and forested tropical land. If the atmosphere did not partition, there would be no convective potential and Earth would be a snowball.
With the present atmospheric mass, sustained saturated conditions only occur if the surface is cooler than 15C; the threshold for convective instability.
It is simpler than that.
Any density variations in the horizontal plane will result in convective overturning.
No radiative gases required.
Just an unevenly heated sphere is all you need.
Inevitable for any planet illuminated by a point source of light.
‘No radiative gases required.’
No radiative gases => no water vapor => no liquid water => no clouds. Just visible light and infrared radiation passing through an optically transparent and isothermal atmosphere, regardless of differences in surface albedo, and therefore heating.
Except that the atmosphere can never become isothermal if convective overturning is present due to conversion of KE to PE with height.
Such overturning can never be prevented because there will always be density differences in the horizontal plane.
That is a mistake made even by Roy Spencer who wrongly asserts that an atmosphere with no radiative gases would become isothermal.
That could never happen but it is a common error by climate scientists to assume it could.
‘That is a mistake made even by Roy Spencer who wrongly asserts that an atmosphere with no radiative gases would become isothermal.’
Well, you can add Happer et al your list. Maybe you can explain how an atmosphere that can’t absorb radiatively active gases, and therefore can’t thermalize the vast bulk of non-radiatively active gases, can convect.
The surface temperature in the oceans has very little temperature variation over daily cycles. So there is little to no temperature variation over vast regions of the horizontal plane, much greater than the vertical extent of the troposphere.
Convective overturning does not occur above the level of free convection until there is convective instability that depends on radiative cooling above the LFC.
Convective instability does not depend on radiative cooling higher up. That cooling arises from the lapse rate gradient with height which is in turn caused by the conversion of KE to P E as parcels of air inevitably rise into a lower density higher volume area.
Even the tiniest density variation in the horizontal plane results in convective overturning. Due to uneven insolation around a sphere there are always large variations regardless of the diurnal cycle.
The only reason there is a limit of free convection is the ozone induced lapse rate reversal at the tropopause. Without such a reversal convection would continue to top of atmosphere. Even above the tropopause there is separate such overturning in the Brewer Dobson circulation of the stratosphere.
Great presentation! I must watch it again to take notes… several key points worth thinking about.
I wish Prof Happer had revealed what value of CO2 generated heating he actually came up with in his preliminary 1980’s study…
This video presentation is worthy passing along.
Here’s an image from one of his earlier presentations:
This is the link for that presentation:
https://www.independent.org/issues/article.asp?id=13458&omhide=true
Frank, thanks for the chart and the link.
When the surface emits 394 W/m² without being colder while receiving only 240 W/m² from the Sun, it must as well receive 154 W/m² from somewhere else. That ‘somewhere else’ would then be colder if it was not for the GHGs in the atmosphere – so the 154 W/m² comes from the atmosphere warming the surface. How does the energy transfer from the atmosphere to the surface work?
Descending air (half the atmosphere at any given moment) converts potential energy to kinetic energy and imparts it to the surface.
That process is missing from the Trenberth and all other diagrams so they have to insert the incorrect notion of warming from back radiation instead.
Back radiation just distorts the lapse rate slope set by gravity so that the speed of convection changes. Faster convection leads to faster delivery of heat back to the surface beneath falling air so that heat then radiates to space from the surface a bit sooner.
Net effect zero but a tiny change in the convective overturning system.
Would never be able to discern it against natural variability.
Now *this* makes sense! The idea of back radiation warming the earth never made much sense to me. That back radiation came from the earth to begin and cooled the earth. The back radiation couldn’t do more than return a portion of the original radiation thus it couldn’t warm the earth back to where it started. That realization along with the realization that nighttime cooling is an exponential decay is missing from the “radiation budget”. If the earth warmed to a higher level during the day then the initial rate of radiation at night would go UP to match. It would radiate *more* over time than it did at a previously cooler start thus driving the temperature back down at a higher rate. This also seems to be missing from the “radiation budget”
This isn’t to say there is no impact at all. Observables such as longer growing seasons and greening of the earth lead to the conclusion that something is happening. Just as you say, however, can it be measured against natural variability?
With the many ‘normal’ air molecules around the GHG molecules near the surface, all photone energy picked up by the GHGs is transferred to the ‘normal’ air molecules by collisions, thus the GHGs will have the same temperature as the ‘normal’ air molecules. No re-emission of photones occurs down there.
I wouldn’t say “no re-emission”. Certainly very little.
A quote from William Happer
IT IS MUCH MORE LIKELY (ON THE ORDER OF A BILLION TIMES MORE LIKELY) TO HEAT THE SURROUNDING AIR MOLECULES WITH THE ENERGY IT ACQUIRED FROM THE ABSORBED PHOTON, THAN TO RERADIATE A PHOTON AT THE SAME OR SOME DIFFERENT FREQUENCY
And since some of that surrounding air is water vapor what does water vapor do with the energy received?
probably same as CO2 does.
Probably so, as far as radiation goes. But what else happens to the water vapor?
H2O has the ability to condense, so it will condense under the right conditions, otherwise not, then functioning as all other types of GHGs.
No. WV has a Cp over 4 so it stores the energy it becomes latent heat. CO2 can’t do that.
In the narrow case of re-emitting a recently received photon, yes, but at emissions peaks CO2 gas is subject to emitting according to the planck equation just the same as if it was a black body. By Happer’s own paper, this is about 3 watts per an additional 400 ppm CO2 which is about 1%, much greater than 1 part in a billion.
Good info here.
https://geoexpro.com/recent-advances-in-climate-change-research-part-xi-how-earths-ir-photons-are-transferred-in-the-atmosphere-in-the-presence-of-co₂/
According to the Le Chatelier’s principle, the surface will increase its emission to balance the incoming and the outgoing amount of energy, when more GHG is added to the atmosphere.
When more energy is retained, the surface will warm up until it is able to achieve that balance. If 3.9 W/m² more is retained in the atmosphere, the surface will emit 3.9 W/m² more, thus 0.71°C warmer.
Doubling CO2 would increase the GHG effect with 3.9 W/m²
Tim, this thought experiment was useful to me….stand facing a blank wall that is 20 C. Let’s say your face is 32 C, being cooler than your body temp of 37 C by a bit of convection and evaporation….At 32 C, your face is radiating 490 watts per sq. meter….the wall at 20 C is radiating back to your face 418 watts per square meter (of your face area to be pedantic, also pretending emissivity is 1 instead of .97 or thereabouts).
Your metabolism only supplies 490-418= 72 watts per square meter to keep your face at 32 C. Your body need not supply 490 watts, the other 418 is already supplied to your face by the surroundings.
Think about it for a while and the light will come on about “back radiation” on an atmospheric energy balance Trenberth Sankey-type diagram being necessary for radiative electromagnetic energy to match the real physics of the SB equation, while the amount of “heat” we humans need to contemplate is only the fore-minus-back radiation…in the case of your face and the wall, only 72 watts….not 490….the back radiation being 418 in our thought experiment.
Your body has to supply the heat to radiate at 490 otherwise the wall would have nothing to radiate back. The wall is not a heat source.
If your body is radiating 490 joules/sec (i.e. a watt) because of its internal energy level then it will continue to radiate at 490 joules/sec. *THAT* is what S-B says. To only radiate at 72 joules/sec your face would have to cool, not warm.
So according to your thought experiment if the wall was at 32 C your body could could produce 0 watts and you would still be alive.
Anything coming from the atmosphere as far as radiation is concerned is not “heat”. Please use the word correctly. Only the sun supplies heat.
The surface, on global average, only receives about 170 watts (per sq. meter of Earth’s surface) from the Sun, loses approx 22 by sensible heat conduction and convection, approx 78 by evaporation of H2O, and 70 by radiation of heat to the colder “sky”, where “sky” consists of the view from ground level of cold outer space filtered through cold CO2 and H2O gases in our transparent, mostly Nitrogen, atmosphere, and also cloud bottoms around freezing that block the view of outer space.
”Back radiation” is just the negative portion of the SB equation that properly accounts for radiative heat transfer between warm “surface” and colder “sky” … Q=K (Tground^4 – Tsky^4) or approximation thereof, with the back radiation being the -Tskt^4 part.
courtesy of Willis
According to Happer the surface emits 394 W/m² because it has the temperature 15.6C., Where does it all come from? 154 W/m² from the GHGs – but the rest, if the Sun only delivers 170 W/m²? 70 W/m² is missing.
Radiative heat transfer depends on a temperature difference so please provide a temperature for your Tground and Tsky.
I was interested in Adaptive optics and questioned chatgpt
Did they write him out of the subject
what about happer
ChatGPT
It seems there might be a typo or a misunderstanding in your question. “Happer” does not appear to be related to the topic of wavefront measurement or adaptive optics. If you meant to ask about something else or have a specific question in mind, please provide more context or clarify your query, and I’ll be happy to assist you further.
will happer princeton laser adaptive optics
ChatGPT
I see you are referring to “Happer,” which likely pertains to William Happer, a physicist known for his work in various fields, including optics, spectroscopy, and atomic physics. However, he is not particularly associated with the development or implementation of laser adaptive optics at Princeton University.
Princeton University, like many other academic institutions, has been involved in research related to adaptive optics, but the specific researchers and projects associated with adaptive optics can vary over time. If you have a specific question about adaptive optics research at Princeton University or any other related topic, please provide additional details or context, and I will do my best to provide you with the information you are looking for.
Most of Dr. Happer’s DoD wok was and still is classified.
Happily the debate is no longer scientific, it’s political and here in the UK and Europe when politics meets money, politics always loses.
We are just beginning to feel the financial pain here but it’s likely to get much worse, very soon and when that happens those that don’t understand science (the vast majority of the public) will be screaming to have NetZero dropped altogether.
Only two years ago the GWPF published a newsletter which aggregated the MSM articles highlighting the insanity of NetZero and it was slim pickings. Today the newsletter is crammed full of MSM articles opposing NetZero, renewables, energy costs, panicking politicians etc. and these are reputable outlets like the Telegraph, Daily Mail, Bild (in Germany) Bloomberg and many others.
It might not feel like it but we are winning.
This is a great presentation. If it has a weakness, though, it may be the shallowness of the discussion of feedback. Dr. Happer spends only two minutes on the subject (around the 24 minute mark) and simply dismisses the concept of positive feedback by reference to Le Chatelier. I think reference to the Le Chatelier principle is a very strong point. But, honestly, there is more to the feedback discussion than that and to give a presentation designed to show that CO2 won’t warm the earth much and simply dismiss the largest part of the alarmist narrative in two minutes, without discussion of water vapour and clouds, seems to me to weaken the presentation. I am a big fan of Dr. Happer. I just wish he had done more on the issue of feedbacks.
Since “feedbacks” are subject to much dispute and questionable data, plus is supremely nit-picky boring stuff, it is probably better to avoid attempting to discuss them in any detail for a single 45 minute presentation. A semester course would be required.
i have watched this video twice. in my opinion it is the perfect blend of hard science, common sense and rational thinking, with an emphasis on human nature. human nature being that there has been, is now and always will be those that will deceive their fellow man for the soul purpose to rule and control. the reference to galileo and the refusal of his persecutors to look into the telescope speaks volumes to what is happening today.
mr. happer is is getting a bit long in the tooth. if there is any man with a dedication to science, facts and data that deserves immorality, it is mr. happer.
i hope he lives forever.
joex
You mean immortality…..immorality is what Desmogblog claims of skeptics….
yes , thanks for catching my error. i will try to edit.
Does the IR radiation from earth into space match the IR radiation from the sun in frequencies? Is earth’s radiation a mirror image of the sun’s incoming frequencies but just a lesser amount? I thought the GHE claim was that the atmosphere allowed X amount of energy during the day to pass thru the atmosphere but during the night a higher percentage of IR is blocked due to frequency difference…thus acting somewhat like a one-way valve? There is no “greenhouse” and no blanket effect.
Sun, almost a point source to Earth, is much hotter. Both radiate with these intensities.Huge difference in entropies of both sources.
The earth radiates all 24 hours of the day. The only difference is the incoming energy from the sun goes away at night.
When the sun goes down, the radiation from the earth is an exponential decay. The slope of the initial decay is based on the temperature reached during the day. The higher the temperature the higher the rate at which the earth radiates at sunset. The higher the temperature, the higher the rate at which earth radiates – even during the day.
If CO2 slows down heat loss then it will slow it down just as much during the day as at night. That means Tmax should be going up at the same rate as Tmin but that doesn’t appear to be the case. We can see Tmin going up in the form of lengthening growing seasons. Tmax? Not so much. If CO2 was slowing down cooling during the day then we should be seeing record Tmax temps being set everywhere on the globe every day. But we aren’t.
Wouldn’t be a good idea to get the people who champion a variety of sensible ideas here at WUWT to be placed in a hotel suite for a long weekend. Each party presenting to the others. Hopefully, assuming they all survive the clash of ideas, a way forward may appear.
Perhaps this could be crowd funded, hotels and travel?
I’ll start the list of proposed names. This is not exclusive or exhausted:
Willis,
Rickwill,
Stephen Wilde,
Rud Istvan
Pat Frank,
I have kept the list short because some people will have their own favorites.
I have included Pat Frank due to his statistical prowess.
[story tip]
The crusade against Co2 is a crusade against carbon based life.