Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [Note update at the end]
A short post. I came into my obsession with the climate by a side door. Back around the turn of the century, I read that the global average surface temperature was in danger of going through the roof because of increasing CO2.
But when I got to thinking about it, that seemed unlikely. What made it seem unlikely were the estimates at the time, which were that the global average surface temperature over the entire 20th century had increased by 0.6°C, which is the same as 0.6 kelvins (K).
Now, I’ve done a reasonable amount of work with heat engines. So I knew that if you want to analyze a heat engine, you need to do your calculations in the Kelvin temperature scale. You can’t use either Celsius or Fahrenheit. All of the thermal equations require that you use Kelvin (abbreviated “K”).
So I got to thinking … the earth is at an average temperature of something like 288K.
… so a change of 0.6K over a century is a 0.2% change in temperature.
The earth’s global average temperature has only undergone two tenths of one percent change in a hundred years. I had to scratch my head about that one.
So I first ventured into the climate science arena, not following mainstream scientists looking to find out why the temperature was changing so much, but instead looking to find out why it was changing so little.
I first thought it might be a result of the thermal mass … but then I realized that both the ocean and the land undergo far larger temperature swings on an hourly, daily, monthly, and annual basis. In addition, the temperature is not set by thermal mass, as the temperature is far above the temperature that would be expected purely on the basis of the earth’s thermal mass and distance from the sun.
The unavoidable conclusion for me was that some natural thermoregulatory processes were going on that kept the average temperature within that narrow range, a 0.2% change over a century.
So I was looking for some long-term, slow processes that kept the planetary temperature so stable over a century or more. I wasn’t interested in quick-acting processes. I wanted something that worked over long time spans. I followed lots of wrong trails until one day when I was sitting on the beach. I was living in Fiji at the time (hey, the waves won’t surf themselves), and each day there is much the same.
In the morning, it’s usually cooler and clear. As the day warms up, at some point usually around 11 AM an entire field of cumulus clouds quickly covers the entire sky. This cools the day by reflecting the solar energy back into space. And if the day continues to warm, some of the cumulus turn into cumulonimbus, aka thunderstorms. These further cool the day in a variety of ways, from an increased reflection of solar energy to increased evaporation, cold rain and wind, and other cooling mechanisms including a natural refrigeration cycle.
And what I saw sitting on the beach was that these phenomena are what keep the tropics from overheating every day … and more to the point, because they thermoregulate the temperature daily, they also regulate it weekly, annually, centennially, and millennially.
So I wrote up my hypothesis and got it published in Energy and Environment under the title “THE THUNDERSTORM THERMOSTAT HYPOTHESIS: HOW CLOUDS AND THUNDERSTORMS CONTROL THE EARTH’S TEMPERATURE“, and kept studying the climate.
Since then I’ve uncovered and published a variety of evidence that clouds, thunderstorms, and other emergent climate phenomena keep the temperature from getting too warm or too cold. I’ve also shown that these phenomena mostly occur at sub-model-grid scales, so they are not included in the climate models.
Which brings me to today. I had the honor of being included in an email discussion of some climate issues with some very smart folks with far more education and publications than I have, and some comments got me to thinking about how much solar energy is absorbed at the earth’s surface. This absorbed solar energy is the source of all of the heating of the planet (except for a few tenths of a watt per square meter of geothermal energy). So I dug into the numbers a bit, and this is what I discovered.
Figure 1 (And Only). Percentage of top-of-atmosphere (TOA) incoming solar radiation that is absorbed by the surface, divided by hemisphere and by winter and summer.
The interesting part is that in both hemispheres, as a percentage of the available solar energy at the TOA, in the summer when it is warmer, the surface absorbs less solar energy … and in the winter when it is colder, the surface absorbs more solar energy.
And this is exactly what we’d expect in a thermoregulated system that is generally in a steady-state condition (remember, 0.2% change per century). The system responds to changing conditions by opposing the change and acting to restore the status quo ante. Le Chatelier had something to say on the subject, as I recall …
Told you it was a short post.
[UPDATE] In a comment below, Wim Rost pointed out an interesting additional insight. Per CERES, the northern hemisphere is about 2.3°C warmer than the southern hemisphere. And just as with the winter/summer split, in both winter and summer the warmer northern hemisphere is absorbing a smaller percentage of available solar energy than the cooler southern hemisphere.
Is this thermoregulation at work once again? Hard to tell. It may just be from different land/water amounts, but it’s interesting nonetheless … always more to learn.
And here in our home in the redwood forest, with a tiny triangle of the Pacific Ocean visible through a gap in the far hills, we were blessed by first one bobcat, and then a couple of days later a couple of bobcats wandering through our forest clearing. On the first visit, I captured a passable shot using my iPhone shooting through one side of my binoculars.
By the second visit I had gotten my real camera’s battery charged, and captured this photo …
The raw strength in their walk, the intensity in their gaze … what an inspiration! And the best part?
They remind me that at the end of the day, world politics or online disputes or campus protests or even this post, while important in one sense, also don’t matter that much because the earth abides.
And that, dear friends, is why I live in the forest and not in the city …
My best to everyone,
w.
PS: As usual, when you comment, please quote the exact words you are discussing. And if you want to prove me wrong, here’s exactly how to do it.
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0.2% is BS
Clever mathematical BS
An increase from perhaps 14 degrees C. to perhaps 15 degrees C. in the past 48 years is a rise of 7%
Am average temperature rise of 7% best represents the warming that people notice and feel.
When I feel the much warmer winter in Michigan (record warm winter this year) and record low snowfall too, it is not from a completely undetectable 0.2% rise of the temperature.
Does warming lead to more clouds?
I’d like to hope so, but the estimates claim less cloudiness. The percentage of cloudiness is a very rough estimate so the claim of 7% less could be a measurement error.
“the summer when it is warmer, the surface absorbs less solar energy … and in the winter when it is colder, the surface absorbs more solar energy.”
Solar panels generally produce about 40-60% less energy during the months of December and January than they do during the months of July and August. If solar panels produce more energy in the summer, them there must be more solar energy reaching the ground in the summer .. when daylight hours are longer and there is no snow to reflect sunlight. The Arctic also has less sea ice in the summer – that’s another good sun reflector.
Much of the Arctic is overlain by snow and sea ice, the latter covering much of the Arctic Ocean. Fresh snow and snow-covered sea ice may have an albedo higher than 80%, meaning that more than 80% of the suns energy striking the surface is reflected back to space.
You might like to explain that to Monsieur Carnot.
Richard, you say:
Let me suggest that you read any thermo textbook before doing further damage to your reputation.
Consider that according to you, an increase from 0.1°C to 1°C is an increase of one thousand percent … and that’s just one example of why you can’t use anything but kelvin for such calculations.
Sorry, but that’s the wrong question. The correct question is “what effect does temperature have, not on clouds, but on the surface cloud radiative effect?”. You might profitably take a look at my post entitled Observational and theoretical evidence that cloud feedback decreases global warming.
Finally, you quote me and reply:
I fear that you’ve quoted me out of context. I said (emphasis mine):
I did not say there’s less solar energy absorbed by the surface in the summer. I said that as a percentage of the available solar energy at the TOA there’s less solar energy absorbed by the surface in the summer.
My best to you,
w.
You give mr Green too much respect as he is a vindictive and frequently abusive poster who is too stupid to know or examine the boundaries of his own ignorance and calls other people who present reasonable arguments ‘nutters’ and ‘BS’. In other words: your average asshole on a war path..
And you claim I am vindictive and abusive with a comment that is vindictive and abusive.
Your comment also contains no science and no attempt to refute any science claim I made in any post here, or on any other thread. I will have to assume you agree with all science relate statements I wrote.
Only science free insults here
Nice job.
You have insulted me, personally, for me to agree.
You were comparing a temperature statistic with another temperature statistic and claiming K degrees must be used. That is false. I have read a thermodynamics textbook in my thermodynamics class on the way to my BS degree. I recall mothing in that book about a global average temperature statistics.
“Observational and theoretical evidence that cloud feedback decreases global warming.”
The rough estimates of the percentage of cloudiness says there was a decline of cloudiness in recent decades. How could such a decline DECREASE global warming during the day?
The amount of solar energy that heats the ground / oceans is important. Changes in that amount are important. The percentage of TOA TSI that is absorbed in winters and summers is not a useful statistic that leads to any important conclusions about climate change.
Sorry dude but any thing dealing with thermodynamic heat and temperature uses Kelvin or Rankine scales.
Also, a Global Average Temperature usually refers to an average anomaly which is a rate of change in temperature and not a temperature. Climate science has conveniently dropped the time dimension from the GAT in order to propagandize the numbers. Anomalies should be stated as ΔT/month or ΔT/year. However, constantly referring to it as a temperature keeps people from asking what temperature that is based on. The usual quoted 14 or 15°C is pretty cold and takes away from the boiling propaganda.
A great paper and a top-quality comments section. Your conclusions certainly fit in the ‘does it make sense department’.
Now here is the challenge. If we widen the argument from what happens on a daily, monthly, yearly, millenium etc basis to what happens over 10s of thousands of years we come to the dilemma of what caused the ice ages both the little ones like the Maunder Minimum and the last major event that started some 35,000 years ago. Added to that dilemma is the fact that the glaciers never covered the high latitudes in their entirety. For example, Alaska was ice-free and New York was covered in upwards of 3 km of ice (they say). Huge contradictions
The other odd thing is that the global temperature changes to affect glacier advance and retreat are relatively minor. Perhaps lurking in your statistical armoury lies a clue or two.
Willis,
looking at the century scale there does not appear to be any evidence of your negative feedback mechanisms. According to Berkley Earth the world is currently about 1.5 degrees warmer than it was in 1900 and there has a roughly steady increase during that period with every 20 period being warmer than the previous one. Now 1.5 degrees is still less than a 1% temperature increase so are you claiming that the feedbacks keep the earth’s temperature constant to within +/- 1% or some other figure? Just how much would the temperature have to rise before you would admit that the feedbacks aren’t working?
And over a longer time period any such feedbacks fail to stop the earth entering or leaving an ice age so again where is the evidence in the temperature record for these feedbacks?
The various negative feedback mechanisms are part of the overall temperature balance system of the Earth. Mainly through H2o. It regulates. If the Earth did not have negative feedback systems we would have runaway energy/heat. I suggest you study Milankovic cycles if you talk longer time periods.
It is a thermal engine. Oceans and clouds are the primary factors that provide stability.
Climate feedbacks are net positive, not negative.
Devices with net positive feedbacks either grow to destruction or are a perpetual motion machine.
Why hasn’t the Earth destructed by now? It certainly isn’t a perpetual motion machine.
A good question. Net positive feedback doesn’t necessarily lead to instability, although it can (eg, Venus). Here’s good explainer: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/97/5/bams-d-14-00022.1.xml
You missed the entire article and only looked at the abstract apparently.
From the article: ” The system then stabilizes and reaches a new equilibrium.”
A stable system is reached meaning the part of the system with positive feedback has saturated – i.e. it is no longer driving the system. Thus net feedback becomes zero.
You spoke of climate feedbacks being NET positive. With a NET FEEDBACK that is continually positive you *will* have instability and runaway. Even on Venus today there is no NET positive feedback any longer.
Wrong. You misquoted the abstract of the paper:
“Stabilization can be achieved whether the amplitude of the positive feedback declines (e.g., “saturation” of the feedback) or remains constant. “
Again, you display your ignorance of feedback. Positive feedback causes an increase in output which causes an increase in the positive feedback, and around the rosey we go until there is no more power that can be extracted from the supply of energy.
And, yes you can limit the feedback with something like a zener diode. However, that also means that CO2 is saturated which you probably won’t admit to since it would ruin your CO2 driven CAGW, or, there is another process just like what Willis has described that operates to maintain a relatively stable temperature regime.
You’re so ignorant of science it boggles the mind. Don’t you ever get tired of pretending?
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/m
I have neither the time or desire to analyze this in its entirety. However I will point out this section.
This study refutes this view. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4250165/
As an EE I am familiar with feedback in systems. I have dealt with HF and above amplifiers that oscillate at spurious frequencies due to parasitic inductances and capacitances. Thank goodness for spectrum analyzers.
One of the key giveaways to this is an amplifier that draws more power than it should. Positive feedback always requires more power from the power supply as the positive feedback causes the output to grow. Where does this power originate in the earths climate system? On the other hand, negative feedbacks stabilize a system by opposing increased output.
The paper you referenced does not deal with the need of added power either. It simply uses a counterweight as a negative feedback that grows larger than the positive feedback. It doesn’t deal with the extra power required to run and maintain the positive feedback in this “system” and it’s origin.
Thanks, Izaak, always good to hear from you.
If there were no clouds and thunderstorms, the tropics would be unlivable almost every single day. So clearly, they work and are a major player.
Can these and other emergent phenomena hold the temperature of the planet perfectly level? Obviously not. However, that is the direction that all of the emergent phenomena push the planet—they warm it when it is colder and cool it when it is warmer.
Best regards,
w.
Willis, another excellent article, thank you.
To raise the temperature of Earth by 1°C requires about 3.7 watts per square metre of radiation, according to Stefan-Boltzmann. But this assumes everything else stays the same, which it doesn’t. We are told the extra warmth will increase rainfall by between 6 and 7 percent. But to rain down it has to have evaporated first. Current estimates of latent heat transfer are around 80 watts per square metre, so a 6.5% increase would cool the planet by over 5 watts per square metre. What am I missing?
I think you meant 5.4 Watts for IR emission from a 1 degree warmer surface by SB…so implying guess what for evaporation cooling ???
I’m sorry I mentioned SB. My understand is that it is generally accepted that an extra 3W/m2 will raise the surface temperature by 1 degree Centigrade, all other things being equal.
But if you look at energy transfer within the atmosphere, it is also believed that evaporation results in about 80W/m2 of cooling. If we have extra evaporation this will increase these losses by about 5W/m2. And it is likely thermals (convection) will also increase, but I’ve not seen any numbers for this.
You’re not wrong to mention it…..TOA 240 watts of escaping IR …sunlight x(1- aveAlbedo) ….surface at 288C average = 390 watts leaving the ground….Ratio of 390/240 = 1.625 …so 3 at TOA is 5 at Surface to a reasonable accuracy. Trouble is that CO2 IR emission mostly warms the surface close to the surface while radiating more to outer space higher up….clouds moderate Earth’s albedo between .13 of the moon and .7 of Venus and clouds certainly aren’t located at TOA….cloud reflectivity and quantity varies….there are so many 10 watt potential inconsistencies that finding 3 or 5 watts for 1 degree just causes CliSci warriors to start polishing their armour…
One really needs to read up on the Stefan-Boltzmann theory. There is a lot to it that is never applied in the climate conversation. It is a useful tool in engineering, but it is not completely applied correctly in climate models.
Too many folks involved do not understand that SB is for an instant in time with black bodies. There is more than just emissivity involved and it requires an analysis of gradients over time to determine what occurs. Using “averages” of radiation is a back-of-the-envelope look at things and is not scientific by any stretch of the imagination.
There is no way to tell if the “average” occurred at one single point in time or was equal in each period being analyzed or anything in-between. Using averages is the sign of a mathematician or statistician that has no in depth training in the physical sciences and how physical processes work.
As a heat transfer design engineer, I occasionally was given the assignment of figuring out why someone else’s design had failed. If the failure was heat related it was usually because someone had failed to do their SB calcs properly, (that radiation from surroundings that CliSci’s like to call back-radiation, plus emissivities of H2O, CO2, beam lengths and view factors too)….were too near a metallurgical limit….and had calculated some temperature using T^4 is if the surface was radiating to outer space instead of hot exhaust gases or a nearby hot surface.…so in service something would end up a lot hotter than they had calculated. Our computer programs weren’t too smart and you had to know what type into the correct column in the data file. The knowledge that you were going to be there on the “start-up” generally made one check things thoroughly.
Moist air, and I know that you know this, is lighter than dry air due to its increase in the amount of both Hydrogen and oxygen (H2O), both lighter than nitrogen. Convection is not a stand alone in the transport of heat to higher, colder, and drier altitudes. Thanks for the post.
“The earth’s global average temperature has only undergone two tenths of one percent change in a hundred years” WE
0.2% in K degrees
3% in F degrees
7% in C degrees
Why is 0.2% “right”,
while 3% and 7% are “wrong”?
“If you want to analyze a heat engine, you need to do your calculations in the Kelvin temperature scale” WE.
There is no heat engine being analyzed. No two temperatures are being compared. A temperature statistic is being compared with another temperature statistic. The number used to describe the change should represent the effect of the change on humans. 0.2% does not reflect that effect on humans.
“The interesting part is that in both hemispheres, as a percentage of the available solar energy at the TOA, in the summer when it is warmer, the surface absorbs less solar energy” WE
Interesting?
Why?
More like irrelevant, when discussing the causes and effects of a changing climate.
“I’ve uncovered and published a variety of evidence that clouds, thunderstorms, and other emergent climate phenomena keep the temperature from getting too warm or too cold.” WE
Based on estimates of the climate throughout Earth’s history, that claim is false. Most of the time, most of our planet was too cold or too hot for humans. Think of greenhouse ages and icehouse ages, with the exception of interglacials.
Earth has often been much warmer than it is now. One of the warmest times was during the geologic period known as the Neoproterozoic, between 600 and 800 million years ago. Conditions were also frequently sweltering between 500 million and 250 million years ago
The estimated temperature changes in the charts below are not fairly described as being small changes in K. degrees:
Mr. Greene says:”Most of the time, most of our planet was too cold or too hot for humans.”
Lucy is about 3 million years old so we were able to live through your top graph. You are correct about the “too hot” claim as the first probably billion years it was too hot. But since there were no humans around does that count? Then there is that snowball earth thing, but still no humans around.
How make pronouncements that cover when humans were actually around.
Even with only the homo sapiens in consideration, that would be 200,000 to 300,000 years.
That does not diminish your point.
0.2%, 3%, 7% what’s the difference? They all would be 0.2% if referenced to absolute zero.
Bigger badder numbers are used for alarmism, not accuracy.
Richard Greene says:
I give up, Richard. I can explain this stuff to you, but I cannot understand it for you.
As to your claim that:
The first proto-human ancestor, Lucy, lived about 3 million years ago. The first modern humans emerged about 300,000 years ago. Since Lucy, we’ve had about 30 glaciations (ice ages), and humans just kept chugging along …
In addition, the rest of life on earth went through the ice ages with few problems. Mammals have been around for a couple hundred million years without it being “too hot or too cold” for them. Why should humans be different?
You also say:
The climate system is a giant heat engine that is constantly converting solar energy into the mechanical motion of the atmosphere and ocean. To quote Reis and Bejan:
Regards,
w.
Love the last quote.
Part of the northern and southern hemisphere differences are due to the different distance from the Sun at Aphelion and Perihelion. Mean distances 152,097,701 km and 147,098,074 km. Difference of 4,999,627, or about 3%. I found some more numbers. At Aphelion a square meter of Earth directly facing the Sun will get 1323 Watts while at Perihelion it will get 1414 Watts, a 6.88% difference. Almost 7% less Solar energy hitting Earth when it’s farthest away from the Sun.
That is NOT negligible when it’s 6.88% of 44 quadrillion! But anywhere one looks for this information, that difference is always waved away as unimportant.
Another factor driving the difference between North and South is the ratio of water to land surface area. The current orbital arrangement moderates Northern Winters to be warmer and Northern Summers to be cooler due to Northern Winter happening at Perihelion. 6.88% more energy spread over the whole Sun facing side.
So what about the South? Shouldn’t it roast even more in Summer and freeze harder in Winter? The much larger area of seawater does the moderating, absorbing the extra energy in Summer and releasing it in Winter.
The greatly different geology of the Arctic and Antarctic also have roles to play. At the current tilt of Earth’s axis, Antarctica fits almost exactly within the Antarctic Circle, with little poking out beyond it. The continent’s winter temperature is only moderated by air convection, plus a bit from water along the coast. In contrast the Arctic gets whatever winter heat it does via both air and water convection, mostly from the North Atlantic current flowing up from equatorial latitudes.
What I’d like to see is someone do the math to calculate the effects of that 6.88% difference in total solar insolation. Then figure out what the effects would be in 12,886 years when the orbital positions of the solstices will be opposite what they are now.
Another interesting scenario would be what the climate effects will be in 6,443 years and 19,329 years when the equinoxes are at Aphelion and Perihelion and the solstices are at the co-vertexes where the equinoxes are now.
If you’re going to invoke orbital mechanics and climate, it’s best to include ALL of the numbers.
Indeed. It is very, em..convenient to take a set of limited variables and extrapolate a generalisation from it. But we all do it one time or another..
The earth’s orbit varies over the long term from circle to ellipse. The mean orbital radius also changes over time.
The earth does not orbit the sun. It orbits the center of gravity of the solar system. The eccentricity is caused by the planetary alignment, primarily.
All of this plays in, along with solar cycles, shifts in solar magnetic fields, cosmic rays, and a number of other minimized or ignored celestial factors. The moon creates tides. Moving water has kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is thermal.
Greg, I fear you’ve missed my point. Here it is again (emphasis mine):
So to your point, yes, I have included the variations in solar input due to the changing earth-sun distance. However, I’m not looking at the absolute value of how much energy is absorbed at the surface.
I’m looking at what percentage of available TOA solar energy is absorbed at the surface. So your claims about variations in available TOA solar energy, while true, make no difference to my calculations.
Best to you,
w.
I must say that my entry into the world of ‘climate change’ had nothing to do with carbon dioxide, more to do with why seasonal snowfall patterns in the European Alps changed between the 1970s and the 1980s.
This of course was self-interest – I enjoyed ski-ing, as a student, the times I could ski were either Chirstmas/New Year or Easter and so a screw-up in the pre-Christmas snowfall patterns wasn’t conducive to good conditions for an early season trip. As a student, I rarely had the money to pay for two trips a year….(though I did manage it occasionally getting radically reduced offers two days before departure).
I didn’t have any links to the concept of the ‘Great Pacific Shift’ (why would that affect European weather, after all?), nor the AMO, back in the early 1980s. Those were ideas in the lofty parts of academia that I was not linked to (I was a biochemistry student).
But it had one valuable effect on me: it showed that ‘expert opinion’ on when snow was supposed to fall was significantly imperfect…especially when you started reading ‘although recent seasons have not conformed to the pattern…….’
My skis were not immune to rocks just because an ‘expert’ prognosticated that significant snowfalls should come from late November onwards. They were exposed to rocks if the early season snows failed or they were followed by rainfall, washing it all away.
Another thing you learn in the mountains over several years is to tap into ‘weather rhythms’…I didn’t have rigorous scientific equations, but I did seem to be able, from about 1989 to 1997, to predict weather patterns with significant accuracy for mountain/ski-ing purposes. I called it my ‘inner mountain goat’.
It was only as the 1990s progressed that I started to learn more about climatology, including ENSO patterns, and how it applied to European mountain weather. I learned about those who had looked for repeating cycles in weather and how they linked to certain tangible economic phenomena.
I experienced incredibly cold/snowy winters (by UK standards) and incredibly wet/mild ones. All in the 1980s. It taught me that natural variability of weather in the UK was really pretty high.
I’d also experienced the unusual phenomenon of snowfall on July 15th 1981 down to the Alpine valleys, which didn’t do Austrian sheep farmers any good whatsoever, I can tell you.
If you experience a variety of extreme weather without the MSM telling you what to think, you learn, naturally, that weather is very variable and extreme weather comes in many, many forms. I’ve experienced once-in-a-century summer drought in the UK, winter temperatures 15-20C below the average at night, hurricanes, not to mention exceptional rainfall totals. And nobody told me to panic about any of them…..
It must be very hard these days to simply experience weather without being told what to think as a GenZ kid. Those kids don’t have the context of 1950-2000 weather against which to compare their life’s experience to date. They are the most amenable to influence, because their experienced dataset is much smaller than their parents’ and grand-parents’.
GenZ need educating about not trusting the media, not trusting social media and not trusting doctors and scientists uncritically.
Sadly, their teachers in the main told them not to think, they told them what to think instead.
I wonder how long it will take to reverse that educational mistake of the early 21st century?
There is one more thing to look at. Geothermal heats the ocean’s water from below and it takes a long time for it to be radiated into space. So if geothermal activity increases globally over a time period due to who knows what, the water accumulates heat during that period.
When it finally gets to the surface, it warms the atmosphere along with increasing the water vapor content which increases global air temperatures. It’s a slow process that can play out over decades and when geothermal slows down the thermal inertia continues to keep the water warmer until the excess is finally sent into space.
So while TSI heating/dissipation is immediate, there is also the giant heat sink that covers 70% of the planet either pumping excess heat from inside the planet upping the base temperature or lowering it over a much longer time scale. We are currently in an increasing undersea geothermal activity regime and the temps are going up. The big question is what causes geothermal to increase or decrease? The poles are moving and may be in line to actually flip so is it magnetic? The electrical/magnetic interaction between our planet and the Sun has an influence somehow. That certainly has more bearing the CO2.
Geothermal heat is a minor factor in the warming of the oceans. Far greater is the warming due to the trapping of IR by atmospheric greenhouse gases, which return a portion of IR trying to leave earth, back to earth and the oceans. The effect is about equal to 4-1/2 Hiroshima size nuclear explosions per second, 24/7 continuously for the last 50 years.
CO2 does not create energy. Basic thermodynamics.
CO2 does not “thermalize” IR. Basic quantum mechanics.
There is a small amount of momentum transferred due to EM waves. Photons have no rest mass, but energy in motion has momentum. This affects all molecules over the full spectrum.
CO2 makes the atmosphere “opaque” at some segments of the spectrum. This is due to scattering. Again, basic quantum mechanics. A IR quantum raising an electron to a higher energy state, when per quantum probabilities decays and emits that energy quantum the phono goes which way? In any direction for the approximate sphere. Scattering. Engineers working with EOIR sensors know this.
” A IR quantum raising an electron to a higher energy state”
Doesn’t happen, ‘basic quantum mechanics’, it excites vibrational modes.
In the case of CO2 it’s a bending mode.
While emitting that photon is a possibility the emission time is long compared with the mean time between collisions at atmospheric pressure (0.1nsec) and a lot of the excited molecules lose energy via collisional deactivation. Consequently CO2 can ‘thermalise’ IR.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Vibrational-modes-of-CO2-a-triatomic-linear-molecule-and-their-IR-Raman-activities_fig3_320780724
Thanks Willis. We are overrun by folks studying their navels. Absolute temperature rules. We have bobcats on our farms in Kansas. Always a joy to see them. The son of my childhood scoutmaster raises Buffalo on the farm next door. Take care, Mason
This article seems like something a massage therapist would write.
Warren, if you wish to show that I’m wrong, a childish attack on one of the many, many jobs I’ve held just marks you as an amateur. That’s called an “Ad Hominem” attack, meaning attacking the man rather than his ideas.
Either my ideas are right or wrong, regardless of my previous jobs, education, certificates, height, or hair color. And as to my qualifications … I have none. Read about it here.
Once you’ve digested my curious history, here is a quick course in how to show that Willis is wrong … please read it and we can discuss issues instead of people. At present, you’re way down near the bottom of the pyramid.
Regards,
w.
Was I inaccurate in stating that you have certificate in Massage therapy from California?
Nope. You were just an ignorant coward to use that as an ad hominem argument, a known logical fallacy, instead of dealing with the scientific claims that I made.
w.
I didn’t see any valid scientific claims from you.
From your responses, I’m not sure you are even in high school. You obviously have not learned the proper way to present your side of an argument in a proper manner.
In all of the forensics debate competitions I have judged, one, just one ad hominem makes you the loser.
You should take some high school training in forensic debate.
Warren,
Why the gratuitous insults? Does it make you feel superior? It sure does not contribute to the discussion.
Not an insult. Eschenbach is indeed a certified Massage Therapist in California.
However, he’s been given the privilege of writing articles about climate science that many will take as valid. If WUWT had any concern at all about the reliability of the science they post, they wouldn’t publish his nonsense.
Once again, since Warren cannot or won’t attempt to falsify my scientific claims, he wants to focus on one of the dozens of jobs I’ve held in my life.
Warren, I’m also a certified scuba diver (Openwater I, Openwater II, and Rescue). I have a Coast Guard License to take people out in small boats. I have a Ham Radio License (H44WE).
And NONE of these have anything to do with my scientific claims. Either they are true or they are not, and I keep waiting for you to grow a pair and attempt to falsify them instead of attacking me personally.
It’s been a long wait …
w.
You make absurd claims about the science, but even take the trouble to earn an undergraduate degree. And then you have the nerve to claim that the nonsense you feed the reader is Science.
If academics is so important to the correctness of an assertion, why do you publish nothing here. You must have the proper bona fides that enables you to judge other peoples work.
I suspect you are still living at home and sponging off your parents. You sound like a personality challenged person that just can’t admit you don’t know enough to adequately assess science on your own.
Children should be seen but not heard!
Doing climate science that advances the state of knowledge requires a combination of traditional scientific disciplines — physics, chemistry, geology, spectroscopy, and/or thermodynamics. From your posts, it seems likely you’ve never been educated in any of these disciplines.
Those aren’t just ‘bona fides’. They are essential disciplines that must be used to determine what data is needed, and how to analyze the data you take. All you’ve done is regurgitate talking points you’ve read on Denier blogs like WUWT.
stop trolling!
It’s obvious from your ad hominem that you don’t even know what the education requirements for an engineer are! Example for an EE: physics to understand how semiconductors work (i.e. quantum mechanics); chemistry to understand how materials work as insulators, conductors,etc.; spectroscopy: to understand how to analyze the composition of materials used; thermodynamics: to understand how materials interact and what cooling/heating is needed for a design. Geology – not so much.
You have yet to provide any actual references supporting your assertions. You haven’t offered up any technical support for your assertions, only the argumentative fallacy of False Appeal to Authority (e.g. “scientists say”). You don’t even know what the educational requirements for an engineer are!
get lost!
I have a Masters Degree in Engineering from a top US university and spent most of my career as a VP of Engineering for a Fortune 500 Company. I’ve given you thoughtful advice. You should take it.
Whoopee. So your degree and business position make you infallible right? And, they give you permission to throw around ad hominem attacks freely, right?
The folks here have a variety of backgrounds and know what they are talking about whether you know it or even appreciate it. One recommendation. Always have data and references at hand to prove a point.
I don’t know about others, but I see you reject the findings of scientists who have dedicated many years of their lives to study the scientific disciplines at University , and gone on to dedicate their careers to research, submitting their results for publication in peer reviewed scientific journals.
You want to take a shortcut by not bothering to put in the years of study and hard work needed to become a competent researcher, but then refuse to accept the work of real scientists. That’s classic Dunning Kruger syndrome.
ROFL! That’s how science works! Rejection of the findings of other scientists! What do you think Galileo did? Einstein?
Go away troll. You have absolutely nothing to offer.
Just can’t layoff the ad hominem attacks can you. You have no idea of the hours I’ve spent over the last 10 years studying the issues.
Tell you what, you have a Msters in Engineering and are/been CEO of Engineering. You must be an expert in measurements and measurement uncertainty. As a CEO you must be an expert in the legal requirements for reporting measurements truthfully and accurately.
Here is a link to an image from the NIST Uncertainty Machine for a CRN station in Manhattan, KS. The input data was the daily Tmax data for March, 2004 as provided by NOAA. As you can see the application provides a Monte Carlo analysis and what would be expected from a Gaussian distribution.
https://ibb.co/wSxWKHX
If you examine the output, you will see the uncertainty “u(y)” is ±5.79°C for the Gaussian and a standard deviation of ±5.69°C for the Monte Carlo evaluation.
Q1 – Do you believe NIST is correct in their evaluation of uncertainty when using the experimental standard deviation as the uncertainty and that it characterizes the variation and dispersion of measurements that surround the mean the mean of the data?
Q2 – Do you believe, as some here espouse, that NIST is wrong and that the experimental standard deviation of the mean is the appropriate value to use in describing the uncertainty ascribed to the mean in monthly averages?
Q3 – Seeing that Tₘₒₙₜₕ_ₐᵥₑᵣₐ𝓰ₑ is a random variable with ~30 values and that Tᵦₐₛₑₗᵢₙₑ_ₐᵥₑᵣₐ𝓰ₑ is a random variable with ~30 values does the variance of both disappear when you subtract the two random variables? If not, what is the variance of the subsequent value (temperature anomaly) and what is it’s uncertainty?
Q4 – When averaging the anomalies for a global delta in temperature, should the uncertainty of Q3 in those values be propagated as normal uncertainty in measurements using relative values as in Measurement Uncertainty A Reintroduction by Possolo and Meija, “Volume of Storage Tank” that uses relative values to calculate total uncertainty? If not, what method would you use to obtain the correct uncertainty.
I posted my credentials because you claimed I didn’t know anything about engineering.
One recommendation for you: If you decide to make a claim that contradicts the body of science in the scientific literature, you’d better have some humility and reconsider.
You have no idea what I’ve studied nor the depth to which I have researched climate science use of data. I am far from the only person who has criticized the massaging of data and the ignorance of measurement uncertainty in climate science. As an engineer I would have expected you to be more sceptical and less convinced by the claims of “settled science” and the “97% consensus”. Apparently you are part of the crowd that believes CO2 will kill us thru CAGW neither of which has any physical proof.
Every lab class I ever took, and subsequently in my career, I accepted the fact that averaging measurements cannot increase what you know beyond what was measured. That is what first made me suspicious of climate science claims. How many lab classes did you have where your professor allowed you to add decimal digits beyond what was measured thru averaging several measurements? As head of engineering did you allow people under you to portray their measurements to a higher precision than what was measured?
You ignored the questions I asked you in my prior post. Why? Every engineer must deal with measurements uncertainty. It is part of the job we do.
I’ll list them again.
Q1 – Do you believe NIST is correct in their evaluation of uncertainty when using the experimental standard deviation as the uncertainty and that it characterizes the variation and dispersion of measurements that surround the mean the mean of the data?
Q2 – Do you believe, as some here espouse, that NIST is wrong and that the experimental standard deviation of the mean is the appropriate value to use in describing the uncertainty ascribed to the mean in monthly averages?
Q3 – Seeing that Tₘₒₙₜₕ_ₐᵥₑᵣₐ𝓰ₑ is a random variable with ~30 values and that Tᵦₐₛₑₗᵢₙₑ_ₐᵥₑᵣₐ𝓰ₑ is a random variable with ~30 values does the variance of both disappear when you subtract the two random variables? If not, what is the variance of the subsequent value (temperature anomaly) and what is it’s uncertainty?
Q4 – When averaging the anomalies for a global delta in temperature, should the uncertainty of Q3 in those values be propagated as normal uncertainty in measurements using relative values as in Measurement Uncertainty A Reintroduction by Possolo and Meija, “Volume of Storage Tank” that uses relative values to calculate total uncertainty? If not, what method would you use to obtain the correct uncertainty.
you don’t really expect an answer, do you?
I trust NIST, NASA, the National Academy of Sciences, the IPCC Assessments. But not you because you don’t have the intellectual cojones to publish your “discoveries of fundamental errors in the scientific literature” , in a peer reviewed scientific journal.
Really?
Do you trust their Uncertainty Machine?
https://ibb.co/wSxWKHX
Where does that uncertainty go when calculating an anomaly?
Where does the uncertainty from NIST TN 1900 Example 2 go when calculating an anomaly.
If you trust NIST, you need to explain how NOAA and climate scientists manage to truck along ignoring our nations preeminent experts in measurements?
These are not just my ruminations when falling asleep. My assessments are not my own, they are made from researching available information from experts. Too bad you can not say the same!
Your failure to publish your criticisms of NIST, NOAA, or any of the published scientific research in a reputable journal tells me you have nothing competent to say.
The only thoughful advice you’ve given is “scientists say” and “go read something but I don’t know exactly what”.
Argumentative fallacies from top to bottom.
My guess is that you don’t even know what the variance is of your Tmax temp where you live for the past week. Without that you have no idea what the accuracy of the mean of those temps is. Just like climate science who never do anything with the variance of their data either!
Hi Willis,
on a similar time frame to yourself I stumbled upon Svensmark’s Cloud Mystery as introduction to potential thermoregulation alternatives. Zharkova’s recent work on background solar magnetic fields – which appears to influence the meandering terrestrial magnetic field – links into Svensmark’s work. Zharkova’s prediction of modern grand minimum underway should theoretically increase cloud cover to the point of temperatures possibly returning to Maunder minimum cold in the northern hemisphere. I note that her earlier paper was retracted from publication, but the model remains worthy of note.
I’ve lived in both the tropics (NT Australia) and the northern hemisphere (Lake Geneva). Leaving Europe in 2017 as I noted the weather in our region getting colder (2003 was the last stinking hot heatwave, 2013 an abnormally cold winter), my return to the NT was accompanied by remarks from family that the early noughties had seen some stinking hot monsoonal seasons with little rain relief. However, since 2017 I have noted some good to exceptional monsoon seasons with all regional dams and aquifers sated each season (heavy monsoons also kills the electronics in older cars; that was an expensive exercise 🙂
The flatlining of solar activity moving forward is something I await with both awe and trepidation; never did I think to live through such momentous climate change. I can thank the lobbyists for pointing me in the right direction. https://solargsm.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Zharkova_solar-activity_chapter.pdf
Svensmarks work has been thoroughly debunked — it’s nonsense.
G’Day Willis,
“… always more to learn”
Something my dad repeated in the 1940/50’s:
“The more I learn the more I realize how little I know:”