Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
If aliens in spaceships saw our world, they wouldn’t name it “Earth”.
They’d name it “Water” because that’s what makes up more than 70% of the surface. And it’s also what controls the climate.
A couple days ago I stumbled across something I’d been trying to find for a while, a longer-term gridded global rainfall dataset. I finally located one at the Copernicus website. It runs from 1979 to December 2021. Here’s the global average rainfall from that site.
Figure 1. Annual average rainfall, 1979-2021
This shows some interesting aspects. The endless rainstorms of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) are seen as the blue band above the Equator. The Pacific Warm Pool is marked by the blue blob of heavy rain north of Australia.
A short digression. The current central paradigm of mainstream climate science is that the change in global temperature is a lagged linear function of the change in total downwelling solar and longwave (thermal) radiation. In other words, forcing (which in the climate world generally means changes in downwelling radiation, hey, don’t blame me, I didn’t invent the term) rules temperature, and everything else averages out.
I hold a different view. I hold that a variety of emergent climate phenomena act in various ways, places, and times to thermoregulate the climate. One of the strongest of these phenomena is the daily emergence of tropical thunderstorms. When ocean temperatures exceed some local limit, thunderstorms form, rain falls, and the surface is cooled. As a result, in the current generally warming climate, we should expect an increase in tropical thunderstorms.
To investigate this prediction, I took a look at the rainfall trends. Figure 2 shows those, in millimeters per decade. Blue is getting wetter, and red is drying.
Figure 2. Rainfall trends, 1° latitude x 1° longitude gridcells.
As my theory would predict, the warming is leading to increased rainfall over the Pacific Warm Pool and around the Intertropical Convergence Zone.
However, the reason that I was looking for the rainfall dataset was not for the rain per se. It was because the rain is a measure of the evaporative cooling of the surface. The global average rainfall is about one meter per year. It takes ~ 80 watts per square meter (W/m2) of radiation over a one year period to evaporate one meter of seawater. In addition, there’s a cooling of another ~ 2.5 W/m2 due to the cold rain falling on the surface.
This means that globally, rainfall directly cools the surface by ~ 82 W/m2.
What I didn’t know until I got the Copernicus rainfall dataset was how that cooling is distributed around the planet. Here’s a view of that. Of course, it looks like Figure 1, only with different units.
Figure 3. Average ongoing cooling from rainfall, 1979-2021
The cooling is centered over the Pacific Warm Pool in the western Pacific. This is the warmest open ocean area. It’s well known that the average temperature of the Pacific Warm Pool never gets warmer than about ~ 30°C … and clearly, the 250+ W/m2 cooling of the warm pool due to rain is among the reasons.
Now, I wanted this information because it is a main part of the effect of clouds on temperature. The other main part is the separate and independent effect of the clouds on total radiation hitting the surface. Clouds warm some parts of the planet and cool others, by a combination of cooling by reflecting sunshine and warming by increased downwelling longwave radiation. Overall, these changes in radiation due to clouds cool the planet by about ~ 20 W/m2. Here’s how that is distributed around the planet.
Figure 3. Average ongoing cooling and warming from the cloud radiative effect, 2000-2023
Note the spatial similarity between the surface cloud radiative effect and the cooling due to the rainfall. No surprise there.
Note also the system’s efficiency—the clouds’ cooling effects (rainfall + radiation) are focused on the warmest areas. And this is true at both the local and the global scale—thunderstorms form preferentially over local surface hot spots. This gives the most cooling for the smallest effort.
Adding these two different cloud effects together gives us a measure of most of the effect of clouds on the surface temperature. I say “most of” because there are some other cooling effects. These include:
- Snow, sleet, hail, and graupel. Since these are frozen, there’s additional surface cooling from the melting of the ice.
- Clear dry descending air around thunderstorms. Because most of the water as well as most of the aerosols have been stripped out of the air by rainfall, there’s far less water vapor and aerosols to absorb radiation leaving the surface. This allows for greater surface radiation making it to space, cooling the surface.
- A cold wind from the condensation level of the atmosphere is entrained by the falling rain and hits the surface vertically. This wind then spreads out when it hits the surface, cooling a much larger surface area around each rain cloud.
Setting those other cooling effects aside for the moment, here’s the distribution of total cloud cooling (radiative plus rainfall) around the planet.
Figure 4. Full effect of clouds on the surface temperature
Note that rather than the ~ -20 W/m2 cooling from just the radiative effects of the clouds, the true effect of the clouds is about 100 W/m2, and there are large areas where the cooling exceeds -300 W/m2.
Next, we can take a look at the relationship between total cloud cooling (radiative plus rainfall) and surface temperature. This is clearest over the 70% of the surface that is water. Here’s that relationship.
Figure 5. Scatterplot, total cloud cooling (rainfall plus radiation) versus sea surface temperature. Each blue dot is a 1° latitude by 1° longitude area of the ocean surface.
This is exactly the shape we’d expect to see in a thermoregulatory system. As the sea surface temperature increases, the total cloud cooling reduces … but only up to about 26°C. Above that, the cloud cooling increases very rapidly, quickly becoming around -300 to -400 W/m2 of cooling as the sea surface temperature gets up close to ~ 30°C.
Now, the yellow line in Figure 5 shows the slope of the cloud cooling/temperature relationship, which is how much the cloud cooling changes for every 1°C of surface warming. And over at the right of Figure 5, that slope is ~ -100 to ~ -150 W/m2 of increased cooling for every 1°C of surface warming.
In closing, let me note that since 1950, CO2 has theoretically increased downwelling radiation by something on the order of 1.4 W/m2 … and that would be totally undone by a mere 1.4% increase in cloud cooling. In that context, bear in mind that global cloud cooling changes by up to 9% from one month to the next, and we never even notice …
[CODA] The important thing about cloud cooling is that it is temperature-controlled. It has nothing to do with forcing. When tropical sea surface temperatures go above about 26°C, it rains, regardless of the forcing. Period. See below.
Figure 6. Pacific equatorial rainfall, 5° north to 5° south.
My regards to all, and remember—rather than cursing the storm, learn to dance in the rain …
w.
As Always: Please quote the exact words you are discussing. It avoids endless arguments. And me, I’m going to be in town today when this publishes, so play fair, no eye gouging, and may the best wo/man win …
Just a small but key factoid from my WIP book that offers a measurement based empirical model of the Earth energy balance system, because the average SST is determined by whatever it needs to be to balance radiation in with radiation out. But don’t tell modellers in their fairy tale VR land, they have NO idea how the whole system works, because they’re paid to ignore the larger holistic reality and prove CO2 from combustion causes runaway warming. Not really, but that’s what they’re paid to say. We can hunt them down when the truth finally dawns on Joe Public…..
The largest single negative feedback to any anomaly in the radiative energy balance is caused by the SST response that changes the current total of 86.4W/m^2 of latent heat transferred from the oceans to condense and form clouds and water droplets in theTropshere, raised up by the 18.4W/m^2 of convective heat transfer that varies little (with absolute temperature?) but does the heavy lifting work for the water vapour. The adiabatic convective equilibrium of the Lapse rate that Maxwell described about 160 years ago(as dominant). The condensation releases the latent heat as creates LWIR that is lost to space, as is the other radiation leaving the surface directly to through the atmosphere, scattered or not. So the heat flux is rebalanced,also aided by other negative g feedbacks, but this is the biggest response wise, per deg change.
HERE IS THE THING, that nobody mentions, when debating the theoretical amplification of AGW perturbation to the energy balance by GHE from the extra water vapour that must result froma warming perturbation ….. the MUCH LARGER negative feedback of the evaporative cooling by water vapour and subsequent radiative loss to space increases by 7% per degree K (in the average range of SST temperature and RHI that applies). nb: It doesn’t go back down in the rain FFS,a nonsense asserted to me by people who I thought understood Thermodynamics 101. EVEN NASA understands this, its part of the 240W/M m^2 in their energy balance diagram. It’s just the muddlers are too stupid to even break that simple energy balance down for themselves.
So the NEGATIVE feedback to 1 deg of change in STT from latent heat of evaporation, radiated to space from the troposphere, is 6W/m^2 per deg K. That’s absolutely clear and must happen, give or take a few % of 6W/m^2. But nobody says. I wonder why not? It’s right there in the NASA energy balance for anyone numerate to see, and add to the negative feedback of 3.3W/m^2 per deg K of the Stefan Boltzmann effect.
So that’s 9.3W/m^2 negative feedback, without any negative cloud feedback.
NB: Per NASA, of the 240W/m^2 of solar energy absorbed by the whole Earth energy balance system, 163 reach the surface, 77 are absorbed in the atmosphere. Of the 163 re-radiated from the surface, mostly from the ocean which has evapoartion to add to radiation, 86.4 is evaporative latent heat, 18.4 the convective transport and 57.9 is radiated direct from the surface as LWIR, of this 41 is. passes directly to space and 17.9 is scaterred by GHE, 2/3 of that by water vapour and 1/3 CO2. Roughly. Check it out. Yoi can ignore the lossles scattering, whch has no net effect on the rngy transfer, except indirectly by the frequency related additional atmospheric insulation effect it creates.
AS Willis started out, the 71% Oceans control the climate on Earth, with evaporative and radiative cooling, and also with 67% Clouds as above. Which maintain energy equilibrium in space.
What is controlled is not temperature, it’s the energy equilibrium in space, which is imposed by nature at whatever SST that needs it to be to vary the radiation loss to space and hence maintain the energy balance, at whatever energy level that is, in response to either external or internal perturbations to the whole Earth system.
Attributing all temperature change to the much smaller atmospheric effects of AGW, made up in models, created to pre-determined political agenda that exclude the dominant controls by presumption – so they can attribute all change to their chosen cause, is not even a clever lie, in the self evident truth of the natural feedbacks. Sadly most people are too stupid to understand or too lazy to check the facts on the physics they were taught at school, so repeat the lie from authority.
ALSO, With 99% of Earth’s surface heat capacity and >96% of all the stored surface energy in the oceans, the land has sod all to do with global climate Why do people bother talking about weather on land as if it represents global climate? It obviously can’t, pre High School Physics says NO. Melting ice in water and putting hot solids in beakers of water. Remember thermal capacity?
Weather on land is an infantile distraction from the realities of oceanic global climate over 30 years. Used to find extremes that affect a tiny area where people live, or nobody lives so no one can check, to scare the ignorant. IMO E&OE
This is a massive problem even at the university level. Professors teach what they have learned, but many don’t have the time, money, or knowledge to investigate the intricacies involved so they dont know if what they learned and are repeating is correct. I even questioned a professor about parasitic oscillations in a circuit being discussed and was told they weren’t a problem even though I knew they were from personal experience.
It makes so-called “experts” ability to control a pseudo-science unproven phenomena almost sacrosanct. People just write down what they are told and it becomes truth.
“Professors teach what they have learned…” I had a physics professor that used the same book in our class he had been taught 14 or 15 years earlier. He flunked me on a midterm even after I proved in class that his cherished book was wrong.
Professors aren’t what they used to be. Happened with the monetisation of academe and its take over by “professional management”, which made it a servant of power and money, not an institution of excellence in questioning, research and discovery. Much like organised religion, in fact.
Most “Professors” now are simple lecturers with an over inflated title, craft instructors. If they can’t do it from first principles, they are unworthy of the title. Many are incapable of original scientific thought. Just craft teachers/instructors. On the facts.
You got it. I had four professors I really trusted. Two actually did commercial design, one on the Alaska pipeline, the other in antenna design for the military. The other two worked at Bell Labs in semi-conductor research.
They knew what they were talking about from practical experiences. Most of the others were academia only.
Comment says:”Remember thermal capacity?”
I do and have mentioned it several times.
Congratulations Willis. Very good paper. You’re finally getting to the nub of the matter.
I would like to make 3 comments to extend your analysis.
Firstly, I would like to discuss the mechanism of the evaporative (cloud) cooling feedback that you provide in Figure 5, 100 – 150 W/m2 of additional cooling per degree C of additional temperature above 26 C.
This level of feedback far surpasses what could be expected if it was due uniquely to the vapor pressure of water. The vapor pressure of water doubles for every 10 C, so if this effect was only due to the vapor pressure of water, we would expect that this feedback would be of the order of 10 W/M2-C.
The order of magnitude higher feedback is due to the secondary affects of additional water vapor in the air. Water vapor is 40% less dense than dry air. When evaporation rates become sufficiently high, the density differences caused by the additional water vapor begin to cause winds to increase. When winds increase, the mass transfer coefficient increases proportionally causing additional evaporation in a self-reinforcing feedback loop. If the winds increase enough to cause waves with broken surfaces, then the surface area for evaporation increases dramatically, with a proportional dramatic increase in evaporation rates.
It is these secondary effects of additional water vapor in the air that are the cause of the very high evaporative cooling feedback rates that you present in Figure 5. The important thing to note is that these secondary effects are mechanical in nature.
Great insight
Nature, like magician, does what is needed to keep the temp to 30 C
Comment 2:
I would now like to discuss how the high evaporative cooling feed back rates from Figure 5 affect ENSO.
According to the earth’s energy budget, the average solar energy incident upon the earth is about 340 W/m2, and the average evaporative cooling is about 85 W/m2. However in the tropics, due to geometry, the solar energy incident upon the earth will be П/2 times this value or about 540 W/M2, and the evaporative cooling required to balance the heat input would need to be somewhere between 150 and 250 W/m2.
According to Figure 5, at 25 C, evaporative cooling is about 80 W/m2 (neglecting the 20 W/m2 from cloud reflection). While at 30 C evaporative cooling is close to 500 W/m2 C. Thus tropical ocean surface temperatures of 25 C are inherently unstable because there is not enough evaporative cooling, while tropical ocean surface temperatures of 30 C are inherently unstable because there is too much surface cooling.
It is no coincidence that Nino34 temperatures oscillate in precisely this temperature range, 24C to 29C. This shows that ENSO is an oscillation between two inherently unstable conditions, when the temperature is at the lower end, there is too little cooling to balance the energy input, while at the upper end of the temperature range there is too much cooling.
According to Figure 5, at the average Nino34 temperature, about 27 C, the system would have the right amount of cooling, about 200 W/m2. But it attains this average by oscillating between the two extremes. And the reason for this oscillation is, as I discussed in my first comment, due to the hysteresis in the system caused by the fact that the the mechanism for transferring from a low to a high cooling state is primarily mechanical, requiring to put into motion a tremendous mass of air and sea.
Thus ENSO is, in essence, an oscillation between two unstable states in which temperature equilibrium is rarely achieved due to the tremendous hysteresis of the system. The typical ENSO cycle time of 3.5 to 4 years reflects this hysteresis
Is this published anywhere you are aware of?
Comment 3
A third comment that I would like to make is about the tremendous power of evaporative cooling, as you show in Figure 5, some 100 – 150 W/M2-C. Evaporative cooling from the tropics, and particularly ENSO, truly regulates the earth’s climate as a whole.
Yet, in spite of this tremendous power, it is still possible to see the imprint of the solar cycle on ENSO. And that reflects only the effect of the solar cycle on the tropics.
The effect of solar activity in extra-tropical oceans on ENSO will only be seen once the extra energy, stored in the oceans, is transferred to the tropical Pacific on via ocean currents, a process that can take decades. And indeed, we can see variations in decadal averages of Nino34 of up to 0.6 C from the lows of the 1890s to the highs of the 1990s, which, according to Figure 5, would reflect decadal changes in evaporative cooling in the Nino34 area of more than 50 W/m2.
It appears to me that, in today’s climate science, the effect of solar activity on the earth’s climate is vastly underappreciated.
rather than cursing the storm, learn to dance in the rain …
Yep
“downwelling solar and longwave (thermal) radiation”
Now that we have established conclusively that radiation is energy, why would you write “CO2 has theoretically increased downwelling radiation by something on the order of 1.4 W/m^2” ? You told us that energy is the capacity to do work, therefore radiation is also the capacity to do work, and we measure that in Joules, not Watts. Right?
Steve, this “1.4 W/m2” is a continuous flux, not a quantity.
As such, it has an implied time variable, so over any given time period we can calculate the quantity, which is indeed measured in joules.
Glad I could help,
w.
Willis, if you are talking about “flux”, which you are using as a synonym for “power”, then you shouldn’t write the word “radiation”, because that is a form of “energy”, as you told us yourself. And you know very well that energy and power are separate concepts. Are you choosing your words carefully, or sloppily?
You also know very well that a colder atmosphere cannot perform work, and therefore develop power (or “flux”), onto the warmer surface. Never has, never will.
Joule –> SI base units –> 1 kg⋅m²⋅s⁻²
Watt –> SI base units –> 1 kg⋅m²⋅s⁻³
Notice the difference? In other words, the work done by Joules is not time related. Joules expended to move an object is the same whether it takes 1 second or 1 hour.
Watts is a different measurement. It measures energy over a period of time. Specifically, with a flux (potential energy) passing through a given area in a specific time this description of W/m² is appropriate.
Any physicists here? Energy is the capacity to do work and also a measure of work done, Work/energy is also a measure of efficiency.
Watts are a rate of doing work, in our case the amount of radiative energy passing through a given area in a given time. So multiply by time and you get total energy that has passed per unit area, power integrated WRT time is energy.
Power can also be used to specify the capacity to do work, or the level of power a source is capable of generating, even if it is not all used. Unlike here where 10,000 hp is used for a short period on water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpy4cJzTqr8
Joules are units of energy, Watts are units of power, the rate work is being done at,
As Jim point out above, Joules per sec are Watts
And a Watt second is a Joule. Vit. And power and energy can take many forms. Mechanical, radiative, convective, conductive. The only energy that can propagate in a vacuum is radiative.
To clarify and perhaps confuse, You could also say what the power of the Sun in Watts was was if you took a 4 pi measurement of its total flux, which should be the same total at any radius in a vacuum, while the watts per square meter, the flux or radiative density, would diminish with distance per the inverse square law, because its spread out over a larger area, determined by 4 pi r^2.
I use a mountain lake as way to describe the capacity of energy to do work when describing stored gravitational potential energy which can do no work and contrasting it with the feeder and exit streams, which have kinetic energy which is available to do work. Similarly the up and down welling radiation does no work on the atmosphere in the GHE, and its absorption and re emissions is lossless scattering thatdoes not heat anything, because it is molecular binding energy at quantum level, gained and lost over and over, no direct effect on the atmosphere, but it DOES reduce the energy lost to space at GHE frequencies, because it causes it to be emitted higher where its colder, even though the radiation leaving the surface and being scattered is the same as that which leaves for space in the troposphere, less radiation is finally emitted at the GHE frequencies, and the Earth surface has to raise its SST to make up for it and maintain the energy balance, hence ALL the radiation losses to space are increased. Simples!
So radiation has the units of power, it is not energy.
AND Radiation may not deliver any energy to things it passes through. For instance as regards Solar visible light and many LWIR frequencies in the atmosphere. They do not heat the atmosphere. There is no easy way to know what the effect of a radiative anomaly in the atmosphere will be in terms of heat energy and hence temperature effect..
PS Except , to confuse things utterly…..
Do not confuse this with energy in Radiation physics, where the energy of “radiation” is really determined by the frequency, which is multiplied by Planks constant to give you “energy” that exists in a photon of radiation at the equivalent frequency, E=hF, which can be in Joules, or electron Volts, eV, which are a MUCH smaller unit, but note these have the units of a single atomic or nuclear charge times Volts, QV = iTV, which are the dimensions of energy, Watt seconds, not Watts. Confused? You will be!
As above, the effect of ionising radiation will depend on its frequency and what it is passing through. A high energy photon will go straight through you without noticing, low energy will interact strongly with matter, including soft tissue, counter intuitive but a fact.
And you can have much larger energy units, like TWh, for example, which are
3,600 secs x 10^12 Watts = 3,600 x10^12 Joules. A lot.
There are plenty of physicists here, Brian, but none of them have said this:
“So radiation has the units of power, it is not energy.”
Where did you get your definition of “radiation” from? I have never seen that one. All the definitions I have seen define EM radiation as energy. Including Willis, even though he’s not smart enough to realize it. And we know that energy is the capacity to do work, as you said, but that is not the same as actual work. You can tell that radiation is fundamentally an energy phenomenon because a photon has a characteristic energy associated with it. But it does not have a characteristic and intrinsic power. That is nonsense. Power is only developed when energy performs work, which can only happen across an entropy gradient (and of course only in one direction across that gradient). Just like your mountain lake analogy, which is my favourite one as well. Radiation corresponds to the water, not to the flow rate.
Sorry to disappoint you but EM waves do carry power. At a fundamental basis, an EM wave is made up of some number of quanta (photons). The number of quanta (photons) determines the power contained in the wave.
Example. Do you think a continuous wave from a 500 watt radio station has fewer quanta (photons) than one from a 50,000 watt radio station? How about at any frequency?
Quanta (photons) have no mass and are unable to perform traditional “work” as you are insisting. Read this for a good explanation.
https://profoundphysics.com/if-photons-have-no-mass-how-can-they-have-momentum/
You’ll find that quanta (photons) are able to transfer momentum to electrons. There are other rules and laws that pertain to the division of energy in an atom.
You have not delved deep enough into EM waves. I suggest you read about Maxwell’s equations and Planck’s Heat Radiation book and how Maxwell’s theories were used in it to derive some of Planck’s conclusions.
Jim, EM waves will only develop power (transfer energy at a given rate) from a higher-energy source to a lower-energy target. Like any other form of power, that occurs when energy performs work. That requires energy to be expended, although you have no clue about this part, obviously.
EM waves do not develop power (perform work) simply by existing. No form of energy does. Energy (including radiation) exists without necessarily doing work, but you haven’t grasped that yet, have you? Your self-contradictions and lies indicate that you are extremely confused about this point.
Jim, I am not the one who contradicted himself (and then lied about it) trying to determine whether “work” required the expenditure of energy or not. That was you, remember? Have you figured out the correct answer yet?
You said “flux (potential energy)” but Willis is using that word to mean “power”. Power and energy are very different.
There is no downwelling radiant power coming from the atmosphere. That is a fiction.
Cut out the ad hominem’s and do some research.
Here is a link to a libretext page on vector calculus. Any EE worth his salt has taken this so that Maxwell’s equations can be manipulated for EM radiation, transmission lines, and antennas.
https://math.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Calculus/Calculus_(OpenStax)/16%3A_Vector_Calculus
You don’t appear to have an appreciation for the complexity of EM radiation and its interactions in the world. There is more to consider than traditional Newtonian definition of work and power.
Ad hominems, Jim? I’m not the one who insulted you by telling you you needed to go back to school. That was you, remember? Nor was I the one who contradicted myself and then lied about it. That was also you. I don’t think you’re in any position to be lecturing me about vector calculus, which isn’t the issue. Nor about any other aspect of physics, for that matter.
Does work require the expenditure of energy (“the capacity to do work”), or not? Please show the source for your answer.
Oh, and sorry to split my response into two parts, but what do you mean by “more to consider than traditional Newtonian definitions of work and power”? Are you using non-Newtonian definitions? Can you explain them to me, please? I’ve never heard of them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, of course.
Unless you have new definitions for me, I don’t think you get to just handwave away the standard definitions of work and power by claiming “but radiation is complicated!” It certainly is, but like every other form of energy in the universe, it has to follow the laws of thermodynamics. Have you ever observed radiant energy NOT following the (Newtonian) laws of thermodynamics? Can you show me your experiment?
You obviously didn’t read the link I gave you. Radiation has no mass. That is why it travels at the speed of light. Without mass it can not exert force to create traditional work.
You are missing several points, Jim. And none of them have to do with vector calculus. So there is no point sending me yet another link to an irrelevant text.
1) Who, besides you, claims that EM radiation is somehow exempt from Newtonian thermodynamics?
2) What is non-Newtonian thermodynamics?
3) In Newtonian thermodynamics, does “work” require the expenditure of energy, or not?
Once you have answered #3, we can move on to trying to come up with a definition for “net work”, which no one has yet presented to me, but you seem to think is a real thing.
To your last irrelevant point, which is also wrong, EM radiation does exert mechanical force. (Not a lot, though.) Do you know what “radiation pressure” means?
Have you ever written a correct statement about thermodynamics? Because pretty much everything I’ve seen from you so far is either wrong, irrelevant, or self-contradictory. Are you trying to tie Willis for the most number of wrong statements?
Work:
W = F•D
Force:
F = M•A
From:
https://profoundphysics.com/if-photons-have-no-mass-how-can-they-have-momentum/
Why don’t you stop creating strawmen arguments and deal with some real physics. Some references showing what you are espousing would help you make a cogent argument.
I’m not the one creating strawman arguments, Jim. We aren’t talking about photon mass right now. Nor vector calculus.
Does work require the expenditure of energy, or not? Please stick to the central point. It’s a simple yes-or-no question.
That’s a straw man argument.
Show some references that explain the math behind your assertions.
I have shown you the math that force requires mass and that work requires force. I have shown you that photons have no mass, therefore no work can be done by a photon.
If you had read the article, you would see that photons have momentum, and that momentum can be absorbed at the quantum level.
Show some math and references that illustrate your assertions. Einstein said something about “If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.” Well, here is your chance to show where your understanding comes from.
I am not making strawman arguments, Jim. I asked you a simple question, and you refuse to answer. Instead you wander off into the weeds of vector calculus and photon mass. Does work require the expenditure of energy, or not? It is a simple well-defined yes-or-no question. It is not a “strawman argument” on my part, because I am not arguing either “for” or “against” it. I am merely asking a question. Can you answer it? Once and for all? If you believe the question is ill-defined, then just say so, and please explain why. (And then explain why you have answered both “yes” and “no” in the past, and subsequently lied that you had ever said “yes”.) Note that there are no photons in my question, nor vectors, so neither of those things had better appear in your answer. They are both irrelevant.
(As an aside, you are completely wrong that force requires mass, as I told you before, because photons absolutely do exert mechanical force, and yet they have no rest mass, as you said. But that’s not the question I’m asking you, so it is irrelevant for now that you are wrong about that.)
Yes you are. Instead of providing proof of your assertion, you are asking someone else to do so. As I asked, provide references of your own that confirms your assertions. I’ll repeat the equations.
Work: (work = force • distance)
W = F•D
Force: (force = mass • acceleration)
F = M•A
Why don’t you refute these equations?
You didn’t read this did you? If you had, you would not claim that photons exert mechanical force.
https://profoundphysics.com/if-photons-have-no-mass-how-can-they-have-momentum/
Here is another article describing the mass of a photon.
https://profoundphysics.com/why-do-photons-have-no-mass-simple-proof/
If you understood physics as well as you think, you could supply some references supporting your assertion that photons have mass. Good luck finding that supporting documentation.
As I originally stated, photons do have momentum that can be transferred, but not mass.
No, Jim, I never asserted that photons have mass. You are lying about that.
I also never said that I plan to dispute that F=ma or that Work = force * distance. Those are standard physics equations.
Instead, you have once again failed to answer my question: does work require the expenditure of energy, or not? I am not asking you to provide “proof of an assertion”, I am simply asking you to explain what you think “work” means, in English. This is not a difficult concept. Well, for most physicists, anyway. Indeed you already explained it once, and then contradicted yourself, so I guess it is difficult for you…
I did say that despite having no rest mass, photons nevertheless do exert force. Nothing in the article you sent me contradicts this, of course. Read up on “radiation pressure”, e.g. here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_pressure , with the relevant quote being at the top: “Radiation pressure (also known as light pressure) is mechanical pressure exerted upon a surface due to the exchange of momentum between the object and the electromagnetic field.” Pressure, of course, is just force per unit area. Hence you can see that light exerts a force, contrary to your statement. This force isn’t just imaginary – it has been measured. (It’s not very large, of course, compared to other forces we are familiar with.) So your claim that force “requires” mass isn’t really correct, is it?
Nevertheless, none of that is related to the main issue you have failed to address. Does work require the expenditure of energy, or not? You aren’t going to get anywhere as a physicist if you can’t answer this question. Every other physicist can answer it. Lots of web sites will answer it for you, too. You posted a quote from one of those sites before (and then of course lied that you didn’t). If you need help, just look one of them up again. I can send you the one you used before, if you are stuck.
Instead, you have once again failed to answer my question: does work require the expenditure of energy, or not?
First show YOUR MATH and YOUR REFERENCES that prove what you are asserting. That is not my job.
You are creating strawmen and attempting to argue from authority. More specifically, “ipse dixit”. Merriam Webster says, “an assertion made but not proved”.
I have shown my proofs and resources to you. You have failed to show any except for your “I said it so it must be true”. Not going to play that game with you again.
Show proof of your assertions, or bugger off!
Jim, I am not making any assertions. I am trying to teach you physics. To that end, please tell me what you think the relationship between “work” and “energy” is, because until you get this right, you will not understand anything else about physics either. Remember, you did get this right in the past, once, then you changed your mind and got it wrong, and then lied about having gotten it right at all, which turned out to have been apparently only by accident. So I am trying to teach you the correct principles. Can you answer the question, or not? Every other physicist can answer it in his sleep, with his hands tied behind his back. What have you got? Besides irrelevant nonsense about photons and vectors?
None of the “proofs” and “resources” you showed me have anything to do with this question, except the one where you accidentally got the right answer, in the other thread. So I don’t know why you are showing them to me here.
And there is no point in me telling you the correct answer, because you won’t learn anything that way. Every teacher of any subject knows this.
ROTFLMAO! “I am trying to teach” BY ASSERTION!
Dude, I am a EE. I have 12 hours of calculus physics, 6 hours of quantum based semi-conductor theory, 9 hours of thermodynamics, and numerous hours of study on electromagnetic wave analysis.
If you want to “teach“, do so from references and with some math rather than using an argumentative fallacy of “ipse dixit”.
“I am a EE”
Ah, I think I see the first problem.
“9 hours of [engineering] thermodynamics”
And, there’s the second.
Jim, you spent one day studying this topic, in a course aimed at engineers, and now you’re ready to lecture the rest of us? You’re hilarious! How many hours do you think your physics professor spent studying before he was ready to lecture you? I’m willing to bet it was closer to 9 hundred hours, if not 9 thousand. And he was studying the theoretical physics, too (I hope!), not the engineering-level dumbed-down abbreviated version that you got.
For an EE, you are doing an awfully good impression of a half-stoned 15-year-old with a room-temperature IQ, ADHD, a short temper, and a vector calculus fixation. To be fair, I know several other EEs who are about like that too.
This explains why you keep asking for formulas, though. You can learn formulas in 9 hours, sure. But what do any of the words mean? Well, that’s what the other 891 hours that you skipped are for…
I am not teaching by assertion, I am teaching by asking questions. Such as this one: Do you believe that work requires the expenditure of energy, or not? Even an EE should be able to answer this. Maybe you should ask some of your smarter EE friends, if it’s too difficult for you. What did your thermodynamics teacher say about it? Think back and try to remember. Of course, since he was teaching engineers, he probably glossed right over it. He only had 9 hours at his disposal, after all, and there were quite a few formulas that needed to be covered. You can’t really blame him, I suppose.
I will say that for a teenager with an elementary-school grasp of physics, the chain of reasoning I think you are trying to assert might make some kind of half-baked sense, but tell me if I’m misinterpreting your confused rubbish:
Your apparent chain of “reasoning”, as interpreted by me:
1) Work is defined as force times distance (with no energy required to be expended, in Jim’s world)
2) (Net) Force is defined as mass times acceleration
3) Photons have zero “rest” mass (I added the “rest” qualifier myself)
4) Therefore photons cannot apply force
5) Therefore photons cannot do work
6) Therefore (from #2), “net work” is a thing, somehow
If that is indeed what you are “thinking”, you got #1 partly right, but you are totally wrong about the lack of a requirement for energy. You even said so yourself. #2 is of course the standard definition. #3 is also standard, at least with my addition. However, mysteriously enough, #4 and #5 do not follow from (your incorrect version of) #1, #2, and #3. And #6 is just absolute nonsense and does not follow from #2 or from anything else. Physics is weird, isn’t it? It’s going to take more than 9 hours and a room-temperature IQ to figure that out, though. Better get busy!
In addition to getting most of that wrong, you should probably apologize for your various outright lies, detailed below, before you try to say anything else about physics or engineering and expect to be taken seriously:
1) Your claim that you never wrote that work involves the expenditure of energy
2) Your claim that I claimed that photons have mass
3) Your claim that I am teaching by assertion (do you know what “assertion” means? Hint: if it has a question mark at the end, it’s probably not an assertion – even a third grader should be able to tell you that)
And having completely misunderstood thermodynamics, you should probably apologize for insulting my intelligence by claiming that I am the clown who needs to go back to school. 9 hours? Hahahahahaha!
You’ve never been to college, have you? If you had you would know what 3 hours of study in a semester means. IT DOES NOT MEAN ONE DAY OF STUDY. LOL! (try 100+ hours of study per semester for a 3 hour class)
Your tirade just keeps on giving. I don’t suppose you have any idea what a degreed engineer takes for classes do you? Do you reckon they might be the same classes your “theoretical physicist” takes?
You obviously read none of the articles I referenced or more likely didn’t understand them. Photons have NO mass because they travel at the speed of light, the same speed that all EM waves that carry photons travel at. End of story. Otherwise, EM waves would have to carry mass that would slow them down, and the more photons in an EM wave, the slower it would go. I’ll bet you can find a reference that tells you that, right?
Photons do have momentum. That momentum can be absorbed by an atom raising its energy level. That is how an EM wave can excite the antenna on your phone and become a signal calling you. That is what does work, not the photon.
But obviously you have sufficient education to know all this, but you must have forgotten it somewhere along the way. /s
You are a troll just looking like a clown.
Jim, you wrote
“photons have no mass, therefore no work can be done by a photon.”
(The conclusion is false, of course, but presumably based on the combination of work = force * distance and net force = mass * acceleration; let me know if you are using some other illogical reasoning to make this bogus conclusion)
Then you wrote
“Photons do have momentum”
That is correct. But where does the momentum come from, Jim, since photons have no mass? Isn’t momentum defined as mass times velocity? Where’s your MATH?
And you still haven’t answered my first question (not assertion). It is this one: Does work require the expenditure of energy, or not? <– there’s the question mark that indicates that this was a question, not an assertion.
Steve
That is not quite right. There is “downwelling radiant energy” in the LWIR spectrum, because we measure it. But it is part of the “lake” of 4pi scattered energy, energy not available to do work, created by LWIR and GHGs on its way from the surface to space, as I described above. THis is effectively a separate thing, energy wise, from the actual net flux of LWIR from surface that leaves the Troposphere. As with the feed and exit streams from a lake, only they can do work. The lake is a well of potential energy that created the system we now vary.
POINT: GHE scattering re radiates absorbed LWIR in all directions and is all-welling.
To separate the “downwelling” from all the other wellings is authentic climate science gibberish. Downwelling is worse than meaningless because it is self evidently designed to deceive. It’s matched by “upwelling” created by the same effect and sideways welling, etc.. Which way do you well? It’s all the same to me.
Another way… Greenhouse gas excitation and relaxation happen in all directions randomly, 4pi, its upwelling as much as downwelling, and the net radiation leaving earth is only affected by it because it has to leave for space at a higher altitude, so is reduced by the S-B effect, after fighting its way through the GHE scattering, following the temperature gradient to space. As I have already explained above.
There are perfectly good ways of describing this using existing physics, as I hope I just did, but most climate modellers appear not to understand the physical systems they claim to model, as evidenced by their overtly false presumptions and the gibberish language they invented to describe their pseudo science. It’s basically religious science with all its own Catechism BS, that you can’t understand and makes no sense, but must believe what they say it means, because they are the self created “authority”.
Pseudo science writ large. Not physics. Better to express what happens using the known laws and language of physics. If you cannot, and make up your own to cover for it, it’s probably wrong.
It’s science Jim, but not as we know it. As for the units…..
You appear to still be confusing Watts per unit area with Power, when it is overtly Power density/flux density. Neither power nor energy, units wise.
What Willis describes in in fact radiation density. Power would be the total flux integrated over a particular area. Or even the total power of a source measured over 4pi radians. LIke the whole solar surface at any radius from it.
It appears you also confuse the same Watts per unit area with total watt secs, which are the units of energy.
Energy in this context is the total power delivered to a given object, integrated over time.
Power, as stated earlier is the rate of doing work, or delivering solar EMR enrgy, and watts per square metre are the rate that energy can be transferred per unit area. Which does not have the units of energy either.
Power density obviously determines how much time it takes for a particular area to receive a given amount of energy. AND……
Radiative power does not imply heating of a particular gas in the atmosphere. Radiation can pass through an ideal gas without heating or exciting it at all – ideal gasses like O2, N2, etc.
An ideal gas is one that does not have several binding energy states it can adopt so cannot absorb energy that way.
So radiation is not directly connected with heat or temperature.
e.g Water vapour or CO2 have several states they can get excited to by incident LWIR, and then relax to lose an identical amount of energy as radiation. No direct heating of any significance occurs in GHE scattering, but the GHGs still still react strongly with LWIR from the surface at the particular greenhouse frequencies.
Heating is the result of vibrational molecular energy. I am not sure how that energy transfer works. I could research but have not time now.
As regards wave/particle duality…..
It’s useful to remember that a wave of a particular frequency also behaves as a photon with mass. It’s energy is e = hf, Planks constant times frequency,
The energy of any photon, measured in Joules, not eV, converts directly to mass, via E=mc^2 Joules. 1.6×10^12 more if its eV units.
Photons have momentum when radiative waves are considered as photons, where p=h/Wavelenth, or p=hf/c. From memory, but trust and verify.
So a wave can be treated as a particle of quantised mass.
A high energy Gamma Ray, above1MeV, can become mass in pair production absorption, forming an electron and positron spontaneously in the presence of other matter to cause such a thing to happen. Lead would do? Cosmic ray photons can create whole showers of particles from 140MeV.
Other examples include the mass loss between the input and output molecules during chemical combustion. The “exothermic energy” beloved of chemists.
“most climate modellers appear not to understand the physical systems”
That is definitely true!
I don’t think I disagree with anything else you wrote, but you haven’t answered where you got your earlier definition of radiation as power (and not energy) from. I’ve never seen that definition in any authoritative physics source (climate scientists of course don’t count). The climate scientists make this mistake all the time, but I do try to carefully keep my energy and my power separate, myself.
(The distinction between power and power density isn’t really the issue here, I don’t think – they are different, of course, and naturally I also know that power integrated over time adds up to work being completed, and therefore energy transferred/expended)
Willis, great find and analysis!
what would the increase in corresponding ocean surface temperature be and how does it compare to the measured increase?
A neat graph would be to show what that 1.4% looks like in terms of cloud changes.
Willis
Excellent article showing how water vapor distributes energy, heat, temperature, clouds around the globe.
As described above, it seems to me that variable hydrology (evaporation, convection, condensation) has everything to do with the temperature of the “Globe” and CO2 is just an “onlooker” The enthalpy of evaporation, condensation, solidification, fusion, liquefaction releasing/absorbing quadrillions – quintillions of Jules of energy as these rivers of water move around the Globe and are completely ignored in the “FAKE” Climate Models.
Hi Willis, as I pointed out in your last thread the function you astutely fitted to climate models is not a lag. It is an exponentially weight integral. So the lag is phase change. It also has low pass filter (smoothing) characteristics.
Your formula is a recursive filter implementation of an exponentially decaying integration.
It also models a linear negative feedback : ie the more the deviation from steady state the stronger the corrective feedback will be.
It is basically like the model of cooling of a pot of hot water. First it cools quickly, then less so.
This in no way counters your observation but it useful to understand physics of what you found. Although an integral introduces a lag, it is a frequency dependent lag: a phase change.
There would not be much physical justification for a simple fixed lag but it is equally damning if all the gargantuan climate models are doing is modelling a pot of water cooling.
Averaging reduces resolution, if you are refering to a “running mean” this is about the crappiest low-pass filter known to man yet the favourite of climate activist “scientists”. Not only will it move peaks, it will readily invert peaks and troughs.
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/triple-running-mean-filters/
The green line is 5y running mean, the blue line is triple-RM which approximates to a gaussian filter. The peaks are inverted through almost the entire dataset. The two are so perfectly inverted it ends up looking like a strand of DNA !
Not in climate science! Averaging both increases resolution by 2 to 3 orders of magnitude but also cancels every bit of measurement uncertainty!
There is only one reason to use temps as the input and output, so it can be shown to be corelated to CO2.
Lots of stations record humidity but using enthalpy is too complicated for climate science!
Quite. The control system is the best analogy, and its real science and engineering we both know, not made up in models, everything in there for real. An empirical system, not a theoretical one, which I am struggling to describe using real engineering and physics, entirely separated from the deceits and misleading language of climate science, a pseudo science that doesn’t clear the bar as provable, deterministic, science with precise theories it can prove by observation. Rather the total opposite is true.
So I am ignoring all their misleading terminology and preferring regular physics terminology at a level any one with high school physics can grasp and judge. Would you read it for me when the draft is in some finalish shape, please?
I worked in research at IC London for while, on a ship sized pilot chemical plant control with many interesting non linear stochastic and unstable processes, so we share some formation. We tried PRBS analysis to determine response to perturbations, in 1972. It appears GCMs are wildly partial and ignore or understate the magnitude of negative feedbacks available to the natural system. They also create a wholly unnecessary liturgy of unnecessary pseudo physics vocabulary to conceal their deceits, which suggest energy transfer mechanisms which phsyics knows cannot happen, or mis-interpret what does happen, to mislead as regards cause and effect.
I start by denying their presumptions and starting afresh, using a simple empirical model of the measured data and basic physics of how things are likely to change. I suggest such an empirical approach is all that is required to understand the system balance and how it is maintained. If the model used fully comprehends the real holistic Earth energy system of dominant inputs and outputs, outside the noise within the atmosphere, the fundamental controls are clear.
No models are required, so their purpose was always to deceive people as to real cause and effect of the slightly changing Earth climate, which is also, and very clearly, similar to the small cyclic change throughout the Holocene to date, over nearly 100 data sets now. Accepting their evidence and subtracting natural background from the total measurement leaves almost no change to account for, because that is exactly what the net negative feedback delivers, a rebalance of any so called “forcing” in a fraction of a degree of SST.
So accepting and arguing their false presumptions is the first step of the deceit, when the reality is simple and clearly described by the the facts and physics climatology already had. Forcing is a deceitful term, because it’s a perturbation to the system which is nullified by the control adjustment to ST that results, its effect on the system is finite and does not persist.
In our case, at the macro level, planet earth’s oceanic surface acts as a strong integral control and the total feedbacks from evaporation, S-B radiation and clouds are more than adequate to re balance the much smaller radiative perturbations from human activity in a fraction of a degree, and this rebalances their “forcing”, which has no further effect on overall system energy balance, What changes to maintain energy balance are the multiple effects of SST change. It is also very clear from past change that this feedback must be of the order of 10W/m^2 per deg k SST, simply by calculating the level of insolation change in the larger changes of the past, in particular the last 1Ma of ice age cycles where insolation varies by over 100W/m^2 during a year with the Laskar eccentricity, precessional and obliquity controlled insolation change.
Balance throughout is seen in the ice core record, the Arctic is unstable during the glacial phase, probably because its a pond of mostly shallow ocean so can turn from absorptive ocean to ice sheet albedo within a small range of temperature, so its sometimes positively fed back and non linear during the glacial 80Ka. But the main oceans have all the reserves of heat energy we need, albeit 2/3 in the SH. Deep Southern ocean keeps Antarctic climate steady – but still cold.
So we don’t need to do anything, because nature maintains a tight energy balance, at whatever average SST that requires. Has done for at least 500Ma. Still is. No sustained imbalance in the net energy flux exchange with space is possible, because the natural negative feedback easily balances any perturbations to the system, internal or external.
And it’s not thermostatic, nor isenthalpic, it’s a balance of energy flux in and out, whatever that word is, at whatever temperature that requires.
AND, as ever when politicians decide how science works, they’re wildly wrong. “It’s behind you”.
The real threat to human civilisation from climate change is preparing to get through the next 80,000 years of the next glacial phase of the ice age cycle, 8 degree colder on average, to the next interglacial. Enjoy the dying embers of the Holocene.
Well the “forcing” (stupid term) is radiative power flux, so temperature is the time integral of the “forcing”. Not really “nothing to do with”.
Again this gets back to the need to see you simple replacement of climate models as an exponentially weight average. It is the time integral of “forcing” with a linear negative feedback applied.
This is not inconsistent with you self-regulation hypothesis: the storms are the negative f/b.
Thanks for the post. Always good have the data.
Quite. It’s the radiative perturbation to the energy balance that creates the temperature rise that makes the water vapour that cools the surface and makes the clouds, and makes the surface radiate more. Simples. Three negative feedbacks for the price of one perturbation, or forcing. A stupid word.
Willis,
Can you produce this as document that can be downloaded from somewhere. And referenced. It is a very useful way of looking at things with detailed evidence.
I am doing my effort as a Book with less complexity but obvious empirical engineering rigour, so more people can get the big picture about what goes in and what comes out, which must always be in balance in space. The actual control. There is no thermostat, there is an energy stat.
The complecity, of course, i comes from how the transfer within the system is shaken all about in the atmosphere, between the surface and Tropopause, mainly by the evaporative oceans which deliver the largest and most sensitive/responsive and largest feedback per deg of SST. And you can add cloud albedo to the latent heat transfer that create them, as you describe.
There are really only a few simple controlling concepts to be conveyed here, in plain engineering speak. That is our challenge, and which will be my main objective. Probably needing several re writes.
And I have avoided all the distorted and deceitful languags of climate pseud science, to prefer basic scientific language. I try to avoid the liars language. Because it was designed to confuse and distract from the climate ology reality we knew before their religious science was invented.
I would like to refer to your work as regards the energy in clouds, and its variabiity. MASSIVE.
BTW, not that it changes your point I disagree with your statement regarding downwelling forcing increasing on its own as the claimed cause of climate change. Not what I have read or seen presented. And hence it may distract from the important realites you describe.
THUS: The energy balance with space is what is maintined, so actual LWIR leaving matches Solar EMR absorbed (I ignored albedo of clouds there, of course it also matters). BUT the GHE change due to CO2 simply increases the scattered radiation BOTH UP AND DOWN at the CO2 GHE frequency, it “wells” all over the place, 4pi wards.
That means less of that CO2 GHE scattering frequency eventually escapes from the troposphere to space, because Stefan Boltzmann temperature effect, etc.. Which is the real warming effect of GHE. Its transparent insulator with zero heat capacity. The stored energy in the excited GHGs is not available to heat the atmosphere, it is lost as radiative energy to space, nor is the molecular binding energy of water vapour that is latent heat. I suggest.
Neither heat or cool the planetary system directly, the evaporative latent heat transfer cools it, the GHE scattering warms it, both through indirect consequences.
The warming from GHEs is because SSTs must increase naturally, at the mainly ocean surface, to increase radiative losses to space that rebalance the whole Earth energy system, from the two main radiative negative feedbacks, evaporation & S-B radiation, PLUS cloud albedo can be added here as significant, that reduces the amount of solar energy absorbed by the whole earth system, so the net cloud effect, if net negative feedback when the warming effect at night is considered, means less LWIR loss is required to rebalance the system – hence a smaller SST change for the evaporative and S-B cooling response .
That is the control system language I will try to stick to, because its simple and requires no Latin Bible to confuse ordinary folk with some grasp of engineering realities by making the simple complicated, an changing the meanings when it suits the priests.
The results of all this are plainly seen in MODTRAN, once you grasp what is going on in full. The OLR energy is beneath the 260 K line because of GHE and above it through the radiation coming direct from the surface at 288 K, etc..
AGAIN, and as I understand the science, the GHE has no direct warming effect in this, it is lossless quantum scattering by excitation and relaxation of molecular binding modes in CO2. Per the generally accepted description. Probably
PS Have you read Peter Ridd’s paper on tropical storm energy? It may be of interest, you may have included it in your thoughts already. It certainly explains what is dominant in Earths thermal energy balance and what is not.
https://climatechangethefacts.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/CCTF-fact-sheet-12-Tropical-Convection-Cooling-the-Atmosphere-V1-2.pdf
Brin, see my link above
Willis, If this was about the pdf version of this you did for ANO, I snarfed it already, thanks 🙂
Just as a general credit to JC Maxwell, he got the massive energy flows associated with water and water vapour on Earth’s surface at the end of the 19th Century, not the small effect of CO2, but the dominant energy transfers created by adiabatic convection of evaporating oceans, and he pointed this out qualitatively to Thompson/Lord Kelvin, a less able man who nevertheless had ideas. But they could debate them back then, when real science was still done.
Still wrong.
