Guest Post By Willis Eschenbach
Among my other sins, I have made money as an accountant for several businesses and non-profits plus two of my own businesses, as a tax preparer, and as the Chief Financial Officer for a company with $40 million in annual sales. So I often think in terms of things like Return On Investment (ROI) and Energy Return On Investment (EROI). From that excellent source:
Energy Return on Investment (EROI) is a ratio for describing a measure of energy produced in relation to the energy used to create it. For instance the ratio would illustrate how much energy is used to locate, extract, deliver, and refine crude oil relative to how much useable energy is created.
Today I realized I could create a similar ratio to analyze the climate, a ratio which I’ve called “WROI” for “Watts Return On Investment”. It is defined as the value at the surface of the earth of:
Downwelling thermal radiation from the atmosphere divided by upwelling thermal radiation from the surface
Conceptually, it works like this. Depending on its temperature, at each location the surface emits a certain amount of upwelling thermal radiation. That’s the investment, measured in watts per square meter of surface. (W/m2)
Some percentage of that upwelling thermal radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, and some percentage of that returns to the surface as downwelling thermal radiation. That’s the return, again in W/m2.
And Watts Return On Investment (WROI) is the ratio of those two. It’s the downwelling thermal radiation as a percentage of the upwelling surface thermal radiation.
And why is this of interest?
Well, the CO2 roolz temperature theory says that as CO2 increases, the amount of downwelling thermal radiation should increase worldwide due to the increased absorption of upwelling surface thermal radiation.
And more to the point, I realized that depending on its size, that change might be visible in the WROI data.
Here’s the funny part. At the time this morning when I was contemplating this, I was taking a break from riding my bike on a trail a ways from home.
There’s a bench at that spot where I sit and toss my thoughts around. It was there that I came up with the idea of the WROI.
As you might imagine, I was excited to flesh out this concept and learn what the data actually showed, would the CO2 change be visible, where would the WROI be greatest and smallest … and of course, no computer in sight. Grrr.
Frustrating, but it meant that I had time to think about what the CO2 roolz temperature theory would predict. It would predict that the WROI should increase over time, due to the increase in the percentage of upwelling longwave radiation absorbed by the increasing atmospheric CO2.
I also thought that the WROI might be larger in the northern hemisphere since atmospheric CO2 concentrations are higher in the north.
And better yet, I could calculate how much the WROI should increase due to the increase in CO2.
Buoyed by all that, I got back on my bike and kept riding. Clearly, I’m back home now. So here’s the log of some of my initial wanderings in the WROI data.
I took a look at the change in the WROI over time in the CERES satellite dataset. Remember that the CO2 roolz temperature theory predicts an increase in WROI over that period.
To that graphic of the WROI time series, I added a line showing the size and timing of the increase in WROI that is predicted by the increase in atmospheric CO2. (Red line in Figure 1 below, calculation details in a footnote.) Here is the result.
Figure 1. Percentage of upwelling surface radiation that is radiated back to the surface.
Dang-a-lang, sez I … that is a most interesting graph.
It shows that whatever has caused the temperature increase over the last two decades … it’s clearly not due to an increase in the amount of surface upwelling thermal radiation that is absorbed by atmospheric CO2.
Anyhow, that was my morning. I’m going for a walk now. There’s more to discuss in the WROI data, but that’s for another day.
My very best to all, including climate skeptics, heretics like me, and mainline folks,
w.
Yeah, you’ve heard it before: When you comment please quote the exact words you are referring to. I can only defend my words, not what you think my words said.
TRIGGER WARNING: MATH AHEAD!
To calculate the predicted percentage change in the WROI due to CO2 takes a few steps.
First I converted the time series of the CO2 change in ppmv to W/m2 of predicted forcing.
Forcing Anomaly (W/m2) = log2( CO2 time series / (first of CO2 time series) )*3.7 W/m2 per doubling of CO2
Then I converted that CO2 forcing anomaly time series to percentage units by dividing it by the same thing I used to create the WROI, which was the CERES time series of the upwelling thermal radiation from the surface. That gives me the CO2 forcing anomaly in the same percentage units as the WROI.
Finally, I added that CO2 forcing anomaly percentage time series to the starting point of the CEEMD smooth of the WROI time series. That gave me the red line in Figure 1, the percentage increase predicted by the increase in atmospheric CO2.
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Come now Willis, you know full well that the response will be: feedbacks!
Magical feedbacks will explain everything if you just (sorts through GCM models) look at this model! Or that model! That’s why we have so many of them…
Having so many different models puts a major dent into AGW theory. All of them are parameter tuned to best hindcast 30 years (a written CMIP requirement, and required submission 1). The IPCC pretends they are all good, because they only show the 30 year hindcast anomalies. In real temperature terms, however, the model ‘best hindcasts’ differ by about +/-3C (CMIP4, 5). In a IPCC world where 1.5C is supposedly catastrophic. Judith Curry first made this observation several years ago.
Rud
The anomalies record the temperature change at locations.
The anomalies tell us where the energy adsorption when released back into the atmosphere is going.
People see this as a temperature rise,
It is not necessarily so.
The mere fact that the largest storage of energy is mobile, the ocean.
Is anyone analysing why the temperature changed? Wind direction, speed etc, what are they finding out in various locations.
Martin
Rud,
If the ‘real temperature’ hind casts differ by +/- 3C, why wouldn’t the hind cast anomalies differ by a similar amount? Or have I missed something?
Never mind, the hind cast anomalies are calculated intra-model, hence small, while inter-model temperature comparisons are much higher.
They should! Climate science just throws it away. Anomalies should inherit the uncertainty of the values used to calculate it. The average of the model outputs is “x ±3” and that is a random variable..
Anomalies are calculated by subtracting the average from individual values (IV). Assume the individual values have negligble uncertainty, i.e., y±0.01. The value of “y” is also a random variable..
When adding or subtracting random variables, the variances add. You end up with ±3.
Well, original thinking isn’t going to get you anywhere. Especially, if you choose to discount the magic molecule.
For a general primer on the narrative see the BBC, Met Office etc…
Human activities are causing world temperatures to rise, with more intense heatwaves and rising sea-levels among the consequences.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24021772
Ever wondered why the children are messed up?
Hi Willis.
I can’t rationally explain this, but quite often when i read your latest inquisitive expeditions into the entrails of science, I’m fondly reminded of a character from my childhood who was similarly enthused by investigating and explaining how things work –
do you remember Gyro Gearloose?
Of course!
w.
Trenberth’s heat diagram above looks like the one where he added the 0.9w/m² to show an imbalance. Here’s a LINK that surmises how that might have come about.
That’s my own energy balance diagram, created because Trenberth’s doesn’t balance …
w.
Are you saying Trenberth’s unbalanced? 😉
I love your essays Willis. Even if lately , faced with all those calculations, I have stopped trying to verify by myself , just like Calvin on the sled. I’ve become too old for that sort of thing . I prefer to admire your photos your texts and your charts, and have a great time with them and say :
¡ Fabuloso, Estupendo Bravo !
Mil gracias, bonita.
w.
Owing to cloud opaque mask, the surface influence of CO2 need only apply to clear sky. The ratio provided approximates the surface transmitted flux to space (inversely) – the variability of which is overwhelmingly dominated by cloud cover. The WROI should act as a proxy for relative cloud cover change, not CO2.
Thermal transfer between items is proportional to the temperature difference between those items, so as the cooler item heats (or as the hotter item cools) thermal transfer declines.
Its easy to start a model of the whole system with easily provable equations but once the enormity of modeling the entire rotating, mixed gas, variably energized atmosphere with phase-changing water becomes evident… that’s a life’s work.
… a life’s work that professors have been assigning to a succession of mixed-quality grad students for several decades. No wonder why the diagram stalls.
‘but once the enormity of modeling the entire rotating, mixed gas, variably energized atmosphere with phase-changing water becomes evident… that’s a life’s work.’
But the life’s work that you suggest neglects half of the problem.
Given that:
then any attempt to model the atmosphere without coupling it to an equally complex model of the oceans would be fatally flawed from the outset.
Yes, agreed. The simple model spirals into complexity that can’t be put into one infographic with informative detail.
Which has ALWAYS been the only important thing anyone needs to know when discussing atmospheric temperature. But alarmists usually either deny it or say their guesses are more solid than others. They assume they are right. To which you can counter: ‘give me proof of the assumptions’. Then they give you an equation. Then you counter: sorry but no, your calculations are based on assumptions you cannot proof. You cannot proof your assumptions by the outcome of your equations.
And so on..
An equally complex model based on 25 km grids.
“Energy Return on Investment (EROI) is a ratio for describing a measure of energy produced in relation to the energy used to create it.”
The problem with this investment is that the two IR radiatives fluxes are not energy transfer.
The IR radiative energy transfer between the surface and the atmosphere is the difference between :
This radiative energy transfer is upward and the Earth Energy budget shows that it’s annual mean value is 339 – 321 = 18 W/m².
The energy produced is 0 W/m² (there can’t be an energy transfer from a colder object to a warmer one).
Thus the annual mean WROI is also 0.
Even if adding CO2 increases the downward flux, it may only decrease your annual investment but the WROI will remain steadily fixed at 0.
I’m afraid you may have been scammed 🙂
The WROI is a dimensionless ratio. It is not measured in W/m2. And it is not a measure of “energy produced”.
I’m afraid you haven’t understood what I’ve done.
Regards,
w.
Read my post correctly : my WROI is obviously dimensionless and yes : you are not calculating an energy ratio but a flux ratio which has nothing to do with energy.
I’m afraid you haven’t understood what I’ve done.
It’s true. I’m calculating a flux ratio. Not sure what your point is.
w.
A simple experiment :
Now warm one of the two objects to 200°C and repeat the experiment :
Have a good day.
Be careful here.
Energy is the ability to do work.
Heat is the net transfer of energy.
Cooler objects can and do transfer energy to warmer objects. It’s just that warmer objects transfer more energy to cooler objects so the net flow of energy, which we usually call heat, is from the warmer object to the cooler object.
UWIR is an energy transfer.
DWIR is an energy transfer.
They just aren’t heat transfers by themselves. The heat transfer if only considering radiation is computed as UWIR – DWIR.
Don’t sugar coat it! Tells us how you really feel. 🙂
First of all, Mr. Willis does not seem to know what the CO2 forcing (of indeed some 3.7W/m2) is based on in “climate science”. It is of course not “back radiation” at the surface. Rather is based on the idea of opposing “fluxes” at the tropopause. It is an odd idea on its own right, but that is another story.
Anyhow, Myrrhe et al 1997 provides this CO2 forcing chart..
That is quite something to reflect on, if one is indeed interested into what “climate science” is about. As the chart shows those “fluxes” sharply drop towards the surface. And indeed if you double CO2, “back radiation” per se would only increase by about 2W/m2, not 3.7W/m2.
For anyone interested in “climate science” and its actual issues..
https://greenhousedefect.com/unboxing-the-black-box
I will readily believe that “back radiation” increased less than surface emissions. But any “climate scientist” would say this is because..
a) a reduction in aerosols and
b) a reduction in low clouds because of less aerosols.
And so this conclusion seems a bit off..
The citation is evidence of smart people attacking the problem with science 27 years ago and today’s models are still what they are. Maybe AI can solve it. AI had better give the answer that its programmer wants to hear.
“AI” has trouble answering simple questions with known answers. I wouldn’t trust them to guess my weight, much less anything important.
I agree. AI is highly suspect. AI needs to be fact-checked.
it’s rare to see a post that so illogical that it disproves its very self,
“But any “climate scientist” would say this is because..
a) a reduction in aerosols and
b) a reduction in low clouds because of less aerosols.”
And so this conclusion seems a bit off..
We can all see the failure of logic here, right?
Hypothesis A is that an increase in the amount of surface upwelling thermal radiation that is absorbed by atmospheric CO2 is not the cause of he temperature increase over the last two decades.
Hypothesis B is that an increase in the amount of surface upwelling thermal radiation that is absorbed by atmospheric CO2 is not the cause of he temperature increase over the last two decades.
Both hypotheses support the conclusion. They indicate that the conclusion is not “a bit off”. Rather they indicate that the conclusion is explicable in multiple ways.
No
Neither
Thx for outlining your “intellect”.
It is pretty simple. Just like CO2, aerosols and clouds both add to the optical thickness of the atmosphere and thus increase “back radiation” at given temperatures. As opposed to CO2 however, the latter two are supposed to cool. If that was so, their reduction would yield a) relatively less “back radiation” and b) warming. That is exactly what Mr. Willis things to have “discovered”. Ignoring this obvious explanation he believes to have falsified something..
So it is just poor logic in anyway.
Your logic seems to go in circles. It assumes back radiation (by Co2). Then you fit the numbers to proof it. Climate science in a nutshell..
Clouds are the big returner of IR to the surface and the effects of either water vapor or CO2 are not additive to that. Those effects should be measured in a clear sky. Your analysis tends to confirm the relative effects of these processes. Because long term averages are a mixture of measured values it becomes more likely that CO2 has little or no effect on surface temperature as the time period increases.
It’s now clear to me that all satellite sensor data is wrong. It just won’t agree with the settled physical science and the models that incorporate those physical laws.
CERES system assimilates the surface monitoring network to derive their surface flux magnitudes. Surface downward LW is a function of 2m temperature and humidity.
Surface downward LW tends to increase as a proportion of surface skin temperature when the transmitted flux decreases. The closure of the radiative cooling window is compensated by sensible heat flux as the surface is inhibited from cooling radiatively to space. This decreases the relative temperature difference between surface skin and the air adjacent.
Willis, the problem is that back radiation isn’t really a thing. CO2 excited by a photon in almost all cases passes on the energy through collision. Few if any photons get reemitted by CO2. In the first 30 feet all radiation in the CO2 absorption window gets thermalized. You might enjoy this video from Tom Nelson’s podcasts. Tom Shula and Markus Ott : The “Missing Link” in the Greenhouse Effect | Tom Nelson Pod #232 (youtube.com)
Yinglin Tian et al describe in an easy to understand way how the quantity known as surface downwelling IR is simply related to the atmospheric heat storage near the surface i.e. 2m air temperature. https://esd.copernicus.org/articles/14/1363/2023/
Funny how heat, which is the flow of thermal energy, is so often conflated with IR, which is electromagnetic energy.
you keep saying this but semantics is irrelevant to the point here.
Disagree.
please clarify. it’s possible we’re in agreement. The terms responsible for variations in the observable surface LW down are air temperature and humidity.
Nelson, you say “Willis, the problem is that back radiation isn’t really a thing.”
Downwelling thermal radiation is regularly measured every day all over the planet, both by scientists using their own instruments and by automated instruments.
To blithely claim it “isn’t a thing” doesn’t begin to pass the laugh test.
w.
So what proportion of photons absorbed by CO2 are reradiated? The answer is almost none. What is being measured isn’t IR reemitted from CO2 molecules. This is where you are wrong. Back radiation from CO2 isn’t a thing, and yes it passes the laugh test. I’m curious what proportion of radiation absorbed by CO2 you think gets reradiated. You seem to suggest that all photons absorbed by CO2 get reradiated. You seem to believe that Photons are conserved quantities. They are not. .
Nelson, I have no clue what you think is going on.
Photons are absorbed by CO2, which warms them. This warmth is rapidly distributed to the surrounding molecules in the atmosphere.
In addition, CO2 (like all substances except monatomic gases) is constantly emitting thermal IR based on its temperature. This radiation goes in all directions, with ~ half directed down toward the surface and ~ half going upwards toward space. The part of the IR reaching the surface is often called by a somewhat misleading term, “back radiation”.
NOTHING is “re-radiated”. The absorption of IR and the radiation of IR are separate phenomena.
As to what I “seem to believe” and “seem to suggest”, that’s the voices in your head. That’s why I ask people to quote what I said. I can’t defend what you think I’m “suggesting”.
w.
That is true for radiators near the surface. However, the proportion that potentially escapes to space increases with altitude, albeit with a longer path length that allows more absorption, although the thinner the atmosphere gets, the less the absorption. So, half directed downward is a lower-bound, and not a constant.
That’s the reason I said “~ half” and not “half”.
However, the difference isn’t large. At 7 km altitude, around the effective CO2 emission altitude, there’s only about 2% more going up than at the surface.
Best regards,
w.
2%?
So you are saying 51% & 49% (at a 7km average)?
Nope. At 7000 meters, to be more accurate, it’s 2.6% compared with the surface, so it’s 52.6% and 47.4%.
The function is:
horizondip=function(h) rad2deg(sqrt(2*h/earthradm))
where “h” is the height in meters and earthradm is earth’s radius in meters.
w.
“However, the difference isn’t large. At 7 km altitude, around the effective CO2 emission altitude, there’s only about
2%5% more going up than at the surface.”Don, it’s not 5% COMPARED TO THE SURFACE.
You are conflating going up minus going down at altitude, with comparing up at altitude with going up at the surface.
w.
Based on the ‘disc simplification modeling’, I think its about 44% at 10 km.
(but there is more to it than simple geometry)
I would have to find the study, but N2 and O2 do radiate. Otherwise, one must make the assumption that some things do not radiate based on their temperature. To emit, a substance must also absorb energy. This is accomplished via collisions. The emissivity may be low enough to make the assumption that its radiation is negligible.
Nelson, based on your other post I think there may be some confusion here. While it may be that true that CO2 will thermalize excess energy via collision faster than it will emit it via spontaneous emission of a photon that does not mean that CO2 does not emit radiation. All it would mean is that CO2 molecules are very efficient in dispersing excess energy through the bulk. And as the bulk rises in temperature so too do the CO2 molecules since they are part of the bulk. They then emit more photons. Remember, just because CO2 molecules may collide more often than they emit does not mean that they cannot emit and that their emission rate cannot increase.
The author’s claim the ratio is 50,000 to 1. That would mean only .002% of the IR absorbed makes it back to the surface. That could never have any noticeable effect when doubled.
In orders of magnitude, there are 10^23 molecules in a mole of CO2. So that means 10^19 of them are radiating. That’s a lot of molecules.
That is correct, and they are radiating in random directions. Because the energy from the absorption of the original surface photon was thermalized and the energy converted into sensible heat in the gas pool
of the atmosphere, these photons do not result in any energy transport. They will also be absorbed by IR active molecules and thermalized again. With the rate of spontaneous emission reduced by 4 orders of magnitude or more, any photons that are reabsorbed by the earth’s surface will only represent a tiny fraction of the upwelling energy flux from the surface and not effect the temperature of the surface in any significant way.
That being said, these photons are about and with a significant mean free path they will be detected. With an instrument such as AERI, a spectrum over a limited range of frequencies can be observed. As expected, most of the emission detected is in the broad H2O rotational band that overlaps with the primary CO2 band at 667/cm. There you will see absorption of the water emissions by CO2, and depending on altitude there may be the typically tiny CO2 emission peak. I’m traveling now, but I’ll try to locate an example link and I’ll post it if I find it.
The assumption has been that these emissions are from atmospheric downwelling emissions but they are actually thermally excited emissions from collisions. This process competes with thermalization and at altitude dominates which returns the energy to space via radiation.
I am still trying to get more information on how AERI and pyrometers are calibrated. There are details that I’ve not found online and I have inquiries in with some instrument manufacturers. The magnitude of predicted DWIR from radiative transfer versus thermally excited emission are very different in magnitude and if the assumption is radiative transfer is the possibility it could effect the calibration.
it is clear that these instruments are detecting radiation and flux densities are reported based on the assumption of the GHE. It is not yet clear to me that the reported magnitudes are correct.
Just remember: Co2 vibrational modes 1, Water Vapour 3. These interact close to the surface where the thermalisation takes place. Going up to higher altitudes (considering the lapse rate) there are both fewer molecules and its colder so less interaction. In order for Co2 to RADIATE back to Earth’s surface from higher altitudes where water vapour is not the big elephant we need to introduce a magic element to make it so, which is..?
You are suffering from a back radiation overdose, Nelson.
Nelson is quoting a paper which claims that CO2 cannot radiate energy (upward or downward) due to the constant contact with other molecules low in the atmosphere. Radiation only occurs higher where the atmosphere is thin. The paper accepts that CO2 can still absorb energy. In my mind this violates Kirchhoff’s Law which the authors’ claim is not valid for gases.
When I pointed out that IR has been measured at the surface they claimed it was from other gases and/or not in the correct frequency bands. I think the authors are wrong.
Maybe WUWT should review the paper.
How is the downwelling radiation measured?
Pyrgeometers, like the Eppley PIR:
http://www.eppleylab.com/instrument-list/precision-infared-radiometer/
Pyrgeometers use thermopiles and thermistor which both measure temperature to calculate IR but don’t actually measure IR?
Nelson, you say:
“Few if any photons get reemitted by CO2. In the first 30 feet all radiation in the CO2 absorption window gets thermalized.”
If little gets re-emitted, and all that energy is absorbed by the atmosphere … where does all the energy go?
w.
Easy answer. The excited CO2 molecules collide mostly with N2 and O2, causing a transfer of energy. CO2 returns to its ground state. In effect radiative energy is transformed into kinetic energy. Conservation of energy holds. The increased motion of N2 and O2 creates convective forces, which means locally the gas molecules gain buoyance and rise. When the half life of an excited CO2 molecule to reradiate is something less than .5 seconds and in that time the CO2 molecule collides a few billion times, its no wonder that CO2 reradiating at the surface just isn’t a thing. You can laugh all you want but this is the physics.
Easy answer. The excited CO2 molecules collide mostly with N2 and O2, causing a transfer of energy. CO2 returns to its ground state. In effect radiative energy is transformed into kinetic energy. Conservation of energy holds. The increased motion of N2 and O2 creates convective forces, which means locally the gas molecules gain buoyance and rise. When the half life of an excited CO2 molecule to reradiate is something less than .5 seconds and in that time the CO2 molecule collides a few billion times, its no wonder that CO2 reradiating at the surface just isn’t a thing. You can laugh all you want but this is the physics.
??
This business of keeping track of the front radiation and the back radiation is not the best way to think of this.
Heat is transfered by (1) convection, (2) conduction and (3) radiation. In the atmosphere, all three processes are going on all the time, but heat transfer in the lower atmosphere is dominated by convection.
Heat is coming in from the Sun, and the fraction that is absorbed somewhere–ground, lower atmosphere, upper atmosphere–can be given a number, the albedo. This heat has to be balanced by heat transferred to space, and the only way this can happen is by radiation.
In the Sun, the heat generated by nuclear fusion in the core needs to balance what the Sun radiates into space. According to current astrophysical models, the core is predominantly radiative, but as the energy generated by fusion works its way to the surface, the Sun switches to convective heat transfer. This roiling of hot gas in the presence of a magnetic field is what causes sun spots and coronal mass ejections and so on.
Ultimately, the Sun’s energy output is conveyed radiatively into space because that is the only way to transfer energy into the vacuum of space. The Sun being a blob of gas doesn’t have a hard boundary, but the level in the Sun’s outer layers where the density is low enough that radiation can take over from convection is the photosphere. It is at the temperature which radiates the entirety of the Sun’s fusion-produced energy, which is what we call the surface temperature of the Sun. The layer having this temperature radiating all this energy is not a hard boundary, but what we see as the blazing surface of the Sun is this photospheric gas layer.
This is the old thing that in the absence of the atmosphere and its greenhouse gases, the surface of the Earth would radiate back to space all of the energy received from the Sun acting on the albedo, and the Earth would be much colder than it is where the atmosphere acts as a greenhouse blanket.
But whither the greenhouse blanket? The lower portion of the atmosphere is largely opaque to thermal radiation (water vapor!) and energy is transferred predominantly by convection, that is, until somewhere in the atmosphere, the air gets thin enough and dry enough to transfer energy into space radiatively. This Earth’s photospheric layer (to emission of long-wave radiation) is at the same temperature as the Earth’s surface in the absence of an atmosphere, and the surface of the Earth is warmer by way of the wet (or dry) adiabatic lapse rate. Compression heating rules!
I explained this a few years ago to some guy from the Pediatric Medicine Department of the Medical School who was taking up time of the Faculty Senate on the occasion of the Keeling Curve crossing 400 PPM CO2 that the University Endowment should be divested of anything to do with fossil fuel. I further explained that the way CO2 raises temperature at the surface is not this front and back radiation accounting but rather that CO2 raises, a little bit, the atmospheric layer from which the Earth radiates all the heat it receives from the Sun back into space.
The U, by the way, formed a committee to look into this, they decided to keep the endowment the way it was, but I think the decision was made on the basis of wanting the endowment investments to return money to the U rather than on any science.
Pediatric Professor with a hipster pony tail looked at me and then chimed in, “Is your expertise in Atmospheric Science.” Look, argument by authority! (No, it is in Electrical Engineering, but my crazy ideas about atmospheric heat transfer and CO2 are not original to me, I cribbed them from Richard Lindzen. If you or anyone else on this thread is going to call me crazy, first confirm or deny that this description is what Richard Lindzen has been saying since forever to support his claim that increased atmospheric CO2 has a mild effect on surface temperature.)
I am also a fruit grower, and this Spring I was on pins and needles when the atmosphere received a shot of dry air from Canada, the wind died down, the clouds cleared, long wave radiation from the ground started radiating upward, and I feared my crop getting destroyed (the guy from Extension assured me that I wasn’t going to lose my apple blossoms because it didn’t get below freezing for long enough for the state of blossom development that night, and my crop made it).
The point of this is that the Lindzen convective/radiative model is just that, a model, and conditions in the Earth’s atmosphere are not as structured and hence cut-and-dried as what the astrophysics people work with in modeling the Sun. But still, a person is going to drive themselves crazy explaining the atmospheric greenhouse effect in term of radiative processes.
There is that thermalized fantasy again. Another good scientific term hijacked and repurposed to fit the narrative.
thermalize: verb: “attain or cause to attain thermal equilibrium with the environment.”
IR excites valence electrons. The net change in molecular momentum is zero.
The IR energy is held for some 80 psec, which is orders of magnitude faster than the delta time between collisions.
IR does not convert to kinetic energy in a valence band.
What does get “thermalized” is thermal energy versus the specific heat of the molecules. CO2 has a Cv slightly less than air, so 1 joule will cause a mol of air to increase in temperature (aka kinetic energy) by a bit more than mol of air without CO2.
Back radiation is a real thing. Back radiation is all EM radiation with a vector towards the source, the sun. Back radiation is another good scientific term hijacked and repurposed to fit the narrative.
Funny how a 5 km column of air can have W/m^2 energy transfer. Seems it would be enormous if true.
Funny how the EM energy reflected by the ground is neither reflected nor absorbed in any quantity by the air.
I believe some of the CO2 absorption of IR ends up as translational motion. Otherwise, there would be no temperature rise. That translational energy can be transferred to other molecules via collision thereby raising their temperature.
If we step back from the complex atmosphere and look at the simple experiments of CO2 in a closed transparent container being exposed to IR from outside the container (one would presume at IR frequencies abundant and common in the atmosphere, but none-the less …) does the temperature inside the container not rise to an extent consistent with theoretical calculations based on the IR energy being supplied?
No.
The interactions of IR on the container can not be eliminated in the experiment.
The question is does “back radiation” increase the temperature of the radiator generating the IR. No one disagrees that CO2 can intercept IR and warm. The key is, does it warm the emitter to be warmer than the sun via back radiation.
The ground heats the air. That thermal energy does affect the CO2 and all other molecules.
What does affect the translational motion of CO2 is the EM wave front. Energy in motion has a mass equivalence. Therefore some of the EM, including all wavelengths has a minor effect on molecular motion, but that is not the same as absorption.
According to the authors Nelson is quoting, IR is held in the molecular bonds and it takes 0.46 seconds for reradiation. This means the energy is passed on to other molecules via collisions. The link was provided.
Well, the physics using quantum mechanics says otherwise.
I have no idea how you come up with the 80psec.
Non-radiative deactivation (the more descriptive term than thermalization) of the 667/cm vibration mode in CO2 has been studied going back at least as far Connemayer et al in the 1970s. More recently Siddles et all measured not only CO2 but also CH4 and N2O.
The average lifetime of the excited state of the 667/cm band in CO2 is about .65 sec. So perhaps 2 photon emissions/sec. The non-radiative deactivation rate is over 100,000/ sec.
Nelson,
I’m afraid that Tom Shula remains hopelessly confused about basic aspects of the underlying physical processes.
While it is true that a CO2 molecule excited by an absorbed IR photon is much more likely to transfer this added energy via collision with another gas molecule than it is by immediately emitting a photon, Tom – and you – miss the next part.
With each gas molecule colliding with other gas molecules billions of times per second, some of those collisions will put CO2 molecules in an excited state. And some of those excited CO2 molecules will emit an IR photon before another collision relaxes them. Half of these emitted IR photons are directed downward.
The higher the temperature, the more collisions and the more IR photons emitted.
As Willis says, this downward IR flux is easily measurable, both as to its intensity and its spectrum. Yes, it is “really a thing”.
I pointed this out to the Tom Shula and he claimed I was wrong. I think his view would also mean CO2 could not absorb IR low in the atmosphere for the same reasons he claims CO2 cannot emit IR.
I argued with Tom Shula on last year’s presentation for Tom Nelson, and got nowhere. He added a host of new errors in this year’s presentation. I’ve been too busy to take those on.
He should have the technical chops to understand the underlying physics, but apparently not!
How is the downwelling radiation measured and where?
David,
There are multiple types of sensors that can detect IR radiation. Point them upwards and you can measure downward IR radiation.
You can do some interesting measurements with something as simple as a kitchen IR thermometer. Here’s one fascinating paper:
“Measuring Total Column Water Vaport by Pointing an Infrared Thermometer at the Sky”
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/92/10/2011bams3215_1.xml
Here’s an interesting blog post:
“Direct Evidence of Earth’s Greenhouse Effect”
https://www.drroyspencer.com/page/84/?ref=akagunduz.com
More seriously, a pyrgeometer pointed upwards measures the magnitude of downward IR radiation.
Even more seriously, a spectroradiometer pointed upwards measures the magnitude and frequency spectrum of downward IR radiation.
Pyrgeometers pointed upwards measure negative downward IR power, Ed. CERES tells us that the average surface downward IR power is -53 W/m^2.
Spectroradiometers are cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures in order to measure positive power coming from the (now warmer) atmosphere.
Exactly how much of the -53 is from near IR absorbed by CI2
I don’t know where you’re going with that question, Jim, especially since CI2 is not a molecule I’m familiar with. A carbon with two iodines attached? That seems chemically unlikely. Also, I’m not sure whether it’s actually a question, since there is no question mark. But we already know that you have a great deal of difficulty distinguishing between questions and statements, with or without question marks, don’t you? (<– that one was a question)
While we’re here, though, have you figured out what “work” means yet? And are you going to apologize for contradicting yourself and then lying about it, and then insulting me while I was teaching that to you? Or is that all just standard operating procedure for Engineers?
1) Obviously, he meant CO2. It’s called a “typo”, steve. Get over it.
2) Obviously, it’s a question. The wording makes it obvious. Yes, there’s no question mark. So what?
3) Obviously, you think being all snarky makes you look wise and clever. I’m here to tell you it makes you look childish and vindictive.
Why all the aggro? Did someone piss in your oatmeal or something?
w.
No, Willis, it’s not “aggro”. I am pointing out Jim’s mental failings, so that he can correct them and become a better human being.
Of course I know it was a typo. That’s not the point.
When I previously tried to correct his errors about what “net work” means, and why it is a nonsensical phrase, he first contradicted himself, then lied about it, then insulted me, then continually claimed that my questions were statements and vice versa. You missed all of that, presumably. No worries, just stay out of discussions that don’t concern you. I have another discussion that does concern you and your ignorant lies, and you completely ignored that, didn’t you?
steve, discussions with you are no fun. I have no time for folks like you who think that endless personal attacks are how adults discuss scientific questions. Your latest claim, that what I say are “ignorant lies”, is over the top.
I’m an honest man. I’ve been wrong far too many times, but I don’t lie. So you can stuff that nasty false accusation as far up the distal end of your esophagus as you can reach.
I’m done. I’m done playing your childish games. I’ll leave you to play with yourself.
Best of life to you,
w.
Willis, your claim that you do not lie is simply false. I pointed out just two of your lies. Here they are again:
“I can defend my words” followed by “I am not going to define radiation” is a lie consisting of two contradictory statements taken together.
“You changed your mind” (directed to me) when I asked you to define radiation for me was a lie. I did not change my mind in the slightest.
Indeed, every one of your claims about radiant power is false, and although this was clearly simple ignorance the first time, you have been given innumerable opportunities to stop lying about the topic over the years. You continued to lie, instead. Making false statements in the face of known contradictory theoretical and experimental evidence counts as lying in my book. I could have left this chalked up to “honest” impervious ignorance, but you aren’t being honest about any of my (or anyone else’s) attempts to teach you the correct physics, so I’m not calling it that any more. Now it’s simply mendacious lies.
“I am an honest man” or “I don’t lie” when combined with the above lies then makes yet another lie. “Thou doth protesteth too much”, as they say. If you really were honest, you wouldn’t need to keep insisting that you were, would you? Your integrity would simply be obvious to one and all. But it isn’t.
No, Willis, you are indisputably a confirmed, repetitive liar. There are no two ways about it. These lies are written down forever in black and white on the Internet. You cannot gaslight us or deny them. They are permanently attached to you now.
Steve, it seems you are hard of reading, so let me repeat my previous message to you:
And of course, as if you’d deliberately set out to prove me right, your response to that was yet more personal attacks.
Piss off.
If that’s still not clear, I’m happy to repeat it again.
w.
Fascinating, Willis. I’m not allowed to point out that you are lying because that would be a “personal attack”, by definition. Well, that’s extremely convenient for you, isn’t it? A brillant defensive strategy, I must say.
Let me try it a different way, then:
“Willis made multiple false statements, as described above, repeatedly, but this observed behaviour should not be taken as having anything to do with his character.” Better?
I’ll repeat this until you finally realize that your endless personal attacks have burned the bridge with me …
================
Steve, it seems you are hard of reading, so let me repeat my previous message to you:
And of course, as if you’d deliberately set out to prove me right, your response to that was yet more personal attacks.
Piss off.
If that’s still not clear, I’m happy to repeat it again.
w.
=====
And here I am, repeating it again.
Piss off.
w.
You’re a hoot, Willis. You can’t defend your lies, of course, because that would require more lies, so all you’ve got is “Waah, please stop pointing out that I am a liar” ? What are you, 6? This forum is for adults. If you don’t like people pointing out that you are a liar, then either (a) stop lying, or (b) go hang out where that sort of thing is at least tolerated, if not actively encouraged. I recommend Skeptical Science, or The Conversation.
Steve, as I’ve said, dealing with you is a drag. Reminds me of the old joke.
“What’s the difference between a mouse running a maze, and a college student running a maze?
…
The mouse stops running if you take the cheese out.”
That’s me. There’s no cheese in any discussion with you. Instead, you’re an endless fountain spewing insults, personal attacks, and ad hominems.
Said it before, I’ll say it again.
Piss off. Not interested. You’re welcome to continue playing the game, but you’re playing with yourself.
w.
It’s interesting, Willis, that no one is allowed to point out your lies, because that is considered a [baseless, obviously] “personal attack”.
But if you get it into your head that you think someone else is lying, perhaps when all they are doing is legitimately trying to make sense of the confused mess in your head following yet more of your lies, then it is perfectly acceptable to call them “pond scum”. That’s obviously not a “personal attack”, because Willis said it. Right?
(It is also clearly not a “personal attack” when Willis calls people “pigs”, “horses”, or “mice”. But only when Willis does it, because Willis is an “honest man”, or something.)
Not only an ignorant liar, but a despicable hypocrite with the maturity of a 6-year-old, too.
No, this discussion is not about cheese. It’s about physics. But for a fisherman, it can be hard to tell the difference, for sure.
Hey, it’s not true that there is no “cheese” in this discussion, either. We got you to correctly define three, count ’em, THREE basic physics concepts, which is a huge milestone, even though getting that out of you was harder than pulling teeth. The main one missing now is “radiation”. (Well, there are a few other important ones too, but let’s do “radiation” next anyway.) What do you think “radiation” means, Willis?
You are conflating the posited mechanism in radiative transfer theory with the competition between non radiative deactivation and thermally excited emission in the atmosphere. Most thermally excited IR active molecules will the be thermalized again. This continues until thermally excited emission becomes dominant in the upper atmosphere where the energy returns to space by radiation.
“I’m afraid that Tom Shula remains hopelessly confused about basic aspects of the underlying physical processes.”
if ad hominem attacks are the best you can do, that’s up to you.
if you want to criticize the work, make an effort to understand it first. To do that, you have to at least read it. Man up.
Ed’s grasp of theoretical physics is shaky at best, Tom. You shouldn’t ask too much from him – he is an engineer. They don’t study theoretical physics. At best, they briefly study dumbed-down “engineering fizix”, which isn’t too many grades above “climate fizix”, if any. It is quite funny that he thinks you are the hopelessly confused one, that is for sure.
Tom,
Last year, I discussed with you at length after your “Pirani Gauge” presentation for Tom Nelson. I have now reviewed that discussion, and I stand by all my claims there. In that presentation, you were mistakenly comparing the NET heat transfer from radiative exchange with a very low emissivity (~0.05) sensor with the GROSS radiative output from a very high emissivity (~0.95) earth surface. I still maintain that this comparison was fundamentally in error.
In your more recent presentation, my issue is different. I agree with the start of your argument, that a CO2 molecule excited by absorbing a photon is far more likely to give up that energy by collision with another molecule than it is by emitting a photon, thus “thermalizing”. (This is completely in line with “establishment” climate science, by the way.)
But I don’t agree with your follow-on. Subsequent collisions will continually convert CO2 molecules back into the excited state. While in each individual case, it is much more likely to become de-excited by collision than by photon emission, there are so many of these instances that there will be significant numbers of emissions, in all directions.
The higher the temperature, the higher the molecular velocities, so the more excited CO2 molecules that have a chance of emitting. As the altitude increases, the temperature decreases, and so do the CO2 emissions. So in this complex cauldron, there is a resulting upward radiative power flow, and it is significant.
This radiative power flow at any height in the atmosphere can be, and has been measured. Overwhelmingly, the upward radiative flux is somewhat greater than the downward, at all altitudes. It does not simply happen at TOA.
In your analysis, you emphasize the upward convective power flow. The standard analysis acknowledges that this exists. But upward convection cannot be happening over more than half of the surface. What about the areas where it is not occurring?
Ed, what do you think “NET heat” means? What do you think “heat” means in the first place?
Here’s a hint for you, which your engineering thermodynamics professor probably forgot to teach you, or perhaps he simply didn’t have time, since, if your curriculum was anything like your fellow undereducated engineer Jim Gorman’s, you only got about 9 hours of thermodynamics lectures, and it was the dumbed-down 1-day engineering overview of the topic, to boot. (And in his case, he obviously slept through at least half of it, and therefore he still doesn’t know, any better than you do, what “work” means, or “heat” for that matter.)
Anyway, the hint is: if your cutesy dumbed-down engineering diagrams disagree with fundamental principles of theoretical physics, such as the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, it’s not the theory that’s wrong.
Now you should probably go away unless you want to make an even bigger fool of yourself than you already have. This discussion is for scientists, not engineers. Stay in your lane.
Ooh look! My favorite Poynting Vector fanboy has finally shown up! The one who insists that because it is possible to compute an abstract quantity, that anything that goes into computing that is no longer real. That common engineering analysis, such as the concept of radiative exchange, even though he acknowledges it gets the correct answer, is completely wrong.
So let’s look at what some physicists say!
Rudolf Clausius, DIE MECHANISCHE WÄRMETHEORIE, 1887 (English translation):
”What further regards heat radiation as happening in the usual manner, it is known that not only the warm body radiates heat to the cold one but that the cold body radiates to the warm one as well, however the total result of this simultaneous double heat exchange is, as can be viewed as evidence based on experience, that the cold body always experiences an increase in heat at the expense of the warmer one.”
Max Planck, “The Theory of Heat Radiation”, 1911 (English translation):
Chapter 1 General Introduction, Page 1
“Generally speaking, radiation is a far more complicated phenomenon than conduction of heat. The reason for this is that the state of the radiation at a given instant and at a given point of the medium cannot be represented, as can the flow of heat by conduction, by a single vector (that is, a single directed quantity). All heat rays which at a given instant pass through the same point of the medium are perfectly independent of one another, and in order to specify completely the state of the radiation the intensity of radiation must be known in all the directions, infinite in number, which pass through the point in question; for this purpose two opposite directions must be considered as distinct, because the radiation in one of them is quite independent of the radiation in the other.”
That’s funny — two of the most prominent theoretical physicists of the last 200 years, making the same mistakes as us dumb engineers in thinking there is “radiative exchange” in heat transfer! Who’da thunk it?!
And yes, the use of “NET heat” is a redundancy (but not incorrect). I used the term to emphasize Tom’s confusion between individual radiative power fluxes and the resulting heat transfer, which is indeed net of these.
You have no idea of my formal education in these topics — it is FAR more extensive than you allude to.
Oh, and if you think that radiative exchange violates the 2nd LoT, you are no better than the numerous idiots with no technical background at all who frequent these posts.
You remind me of some kids in my high school science classes who loved to talk about advanced and arcane science topics, but couldn’t even get the basics right. I was very glad to leave them behind when I went to top universities.
If you want to know who is making a fool of himself here, I suggest you look in a mirror…
“compute an abstract quantity,”
What the rest of us call “measuring a concrete quantity”
” that anything [fictional] that goes into computing that is no longer real”
Correct.
Planck’s definition of “heat ray” is no longer used, that idea is 100 years out of date. Try to keep up. What is the modern definition of “heat”, Ed?
“Tom’s confusion between individual radiative power fluxes and the resulting heat transfer, which is indeed net of these.”
That’s not Tom’s confusion, that’s yours. Radiant power flux is unidirectional and is identical to radiant heat (energy transfer). That is the definition.
You continually make assertions with no evidence at all. Not a good way to win an argument.
Planck used “heat rays” to end up deriving the theory of quanta using statistical calculations. Maybe you should read Planck’s PART—III ENTROPY AND PROBABILITY from his Theory of Heat Radiation.
Planck’s work is still relevant today. Everytime you look at an image of the Earth’s radiation curve, there are temperature curves showing temperature. Do you know what they are called?
Here is an entry from:
https://phys.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Astronomy__Cosmology/Stellar_Atmospheres_(Tatum)/02%3A_Blackbody_Radiation/2.05%3A_Planck's_Equation
From: https://www.britannica.com/science/quantum-mechanics-physics
The quantity of Planck’s constant was the result of his “heat ray” research. His research and conclusions about the energy spectrum at various temperatures still stand today. If you haven’t learned about his research and findings, your education is sorely lacking.
Give us some proof that his work involving “heat rays” is no longer taught.
“Planck’s definition of “heat ray” is no longer used, that idea is 100 years out of date. Try to keep up.”
It’s an argumentative fallacy known as Argument by Dismissal. Don’t need to refute anything, just dismiss it all. Commonly used among religious zealots.
The cross product of two field vectors is not an “abstract quantity”? LMFAO!
You say, “Try to keep up.” Coming from someone who refuses to acknowledge the applicability of quantum mechanics to this field (as you argued to me in a recent exchange), when this has been the major advance since those quotes, that is really rich! (BTW, those quotes were AFTER Maxwell’s field theories, and the authors were fully cognizant of them.
Because, of course, the idea that there are photons (carrying energy) emitted by vibrating molecules even when moving toward a hotter object is in direct contradiction to your arguments.
You ask what the modern definition of heat is. I prefer this one from chemist Peter Atkins:
“In everyday language, heat is both a noun and a verb. Heat flows, we heat. In thermodynamics, heat is not an entity or even a form of energy; heat is a mode of transfer of energy. It is not a form of energy, or a fluid of some kind, or anything of any kind. Heat is the transfer of energy by virtue of a temperature difference. Heat is the name of a process, not the name of an entity.”
Directly contradicts your assertion that radiant power flux is … identical to radiant heat!
Ed, you wrote “heat is a mode of transfer of energy”. This is correct. This is the modern definition of “heat” that I was after.
Now if “heat” is defined as the “transfer of energy”, that brings up two follow-up questions: what do you think “transfer” means, and then, what is “net heat”?
No answer, Ed? Did you get stuck with my last question? It’s an important one, but easy enough to answer. Here it is again: what do you think “transfer” means? Specifically, “transfer of energy” in this case – but of course it’s exactly the same meaning as transferring apples or gallons of water. Any ideas? To make it a bit more concrete, if you have one object containing 10 J of energy, say object A, and now you transfer 1 J to another object, say object B, which itself starts off with 5 J of energy, then how many Joules do objects A and B end up with?
I am not sure how you concluded that defining “heat” as the “transfer of energy” contradicts my assertion that radiant “power flux” (that’s a bit redundant, you don’t really need both of those words together) is also “radiant heat”, i.e. “heat”, i.e. “transfer of energy”, with of course the clarification that “power” is a rate and “heat” is a process. (Power (rate of process taking place) is, of course, not, strictly speaking, identical to the process itself, but it’s easy enough to convert them, it’s just a matter of adding a time factor, which I hope is not confusing anyone here. We can get into that if we need to.) It doesn’t look like a contradiction to me. But first, we’d better make sure we know what “transfer” means, and probably what “energy” means, too, while we’re at it. What have you got for me?
Again you display your ignorance of university curricula. 3 hours of credit in a course is 3 hours of lecture per week and 6 hours per week of study outside of class. Over a semester of 18 weeks, that is 162 hours spent in study for 3 hours of credit. For 9 hours of credit, that is three classes of 3 credit hours each per semester. That means 9 credit hours is 3 • 162 = 476 hours of study dedicated to thermodynamics. That doesn’t begin to count the hours in physics, chemistry, and electrical that were spent in thermodynamic applications.
How can anyone who has been to college in any area of study make this mistake? It is obvious you have never been to college or university, ever! Even basket weaving courses have this requirement.
Who is going to believe anything you have to say after showing your ignorance of college classes!
Jim and Ed, the focus on credentials and degrees is 100% a meaningless ad hominem attack.
Please stop this unpleasant nonsense and get back to the scientific discussion.
Here’s how you do that. Read it, then come back and get on track. Right now you are WAY down near the bottom of the pyramid.
w.
Willis, I understand what you are asking. Let me ask for your indulgence with setting “stevekj” straight about what it takes to learn about designing and running a high pressure steam power plant.
His denigration of my degree by implying I only have one days worth of lecture on thermodynamics is a personal affront.
I will take your suggestion and BTW I copied your triangle several months ago .
Jim, let go of it. You’ll never be able to “set stevekj straight”, and he won’t be able to “set you straight”. It will just be ad hominems forever.
Regards,
w.
“Ad hominems”, Mr. “I refuse to engage in pig wrestling” Eschenbach? Really?
Heh “set me straight”? Let’s see, we have:
1) A lying fisherman/cowboy who can’t define “radiation”, and
2) A lying Electrical Engineer who can’t define “work”,
and now the two of you are going to “set me straight”? You two couldn’t straighten a paper clip with a map and a book of instructions. Good luck! What are you going to “set me straight” about first? I can hardly wait!
No, I am not the one who started with the “ad hominems”. Willis called me a pig, and a horse, and pond scum, and Jim called me a clown, when I was trying to teach both of you how to do physics properly. Are either of you going to apologize?
So you are the physics guru who knows more than anyone else! Be happy in your breadth knowledge. Just don’t expect others to necessarily believe in your interpretations. Using references and derivations is what makes science. Perhaps you could show some of those to bolster your assertions.
Wonderful, Jim, you had 476 hours of study and you still don’t know what “work” means? How many of those hours did you sleep through, if I may ask? They can be quite tedious and sleep-inducing, I know very well, but I still learned what “work” means despite all that. I also learned how not to contradict myself and lie. Why didn’t you?
Ad Hominem #1
Ad Hominem #2
Ad Hominem #3
Can you ever address the argument directly? Perhaps a start would be quoting what I said. Then present evidence that refutes it.
You are still at the bottom of the hierarchy with a long way to go up!
No, Jim, I am not the one who contradicted myself, lied about it, and then insulted my physics teacher. That was you, remember? What do you think “work” means? Does it depend on the expenditure of energy, or not?
Show what you expect first. So far you have not made any significant assertion nor supported it with any math or resource.
I expect you to define the concept of “work”, Jim, with math/and or resources, since you have spent 476 hours studying this topic. That is my expectation. Let’s pretend I don’t know what it means, and I am asking you to teach it to me. Can you fulfill this expectation?
Nice attempt. Since you are the one with correct knowledge and are able to correct those of us who do not know the correct answer, let’s skip the intermediate steps and you show us the math and resources that support your math.
See, two can play your game!
That’s a good try, Jim, for an Engineer, anyway, but “math and resources” aren’t going to do you any good if you don’t know what the fundamental concepts mean. (They also aren’t going to do you any good if your “resources” don’t support your claims, which none of your previous resources did). Theoretical physics doesn’t start with math and “resources” to support the math. It starts with axioms, definitions, rules of inference, and theories, like any other logical hard science, but not like Engineering (which is all about math and formulas, as you keep saying, while the underlying concepts are more or less irrelevant, which we can see since you can’t define them for us).
Therefore, what do you think “work” means? Does it require the expenditure of energy, or not? Remember, you already contradicted yourself on this point, and then lied about it, and then insulted me. What else have you got?
No, there is absolutely no point in my telling you what I think “work” means, because you can just ignore me, as you should, since who am I but some guy on the Internet, trying to teach you physics. You need to look it up yourself, using a resource you consider authoritative (other than me!) – pick any one you like – and then tell me what you find. That is how the most effective teaching works, and is the only way for a lesson to stick in the student’s mind, in my experience. I could tell you which of your two previous contradictory claims about the definition of “work” was correct, which is something I actually already did at least once, but that’s not enough for you to have grasped the concept, apparently.
If, on the other hand, you think you are better at teaching physics than I am, please point me to one of your students, and I will conduct a quick exam to see how good you were as a teacher. I would also accept the results of an exam of your student conducted by any physics professor of your choice. Or, alternatively, describe your teaching methods so I can compare them against mine. In that case, please also provide a reference to a professional teaching manual so I can see whether you are just making stuff up again.
I am not playing games. I am trying to teach you physics. The fact that you can’t tell the difference does not reflect well on your intelligence.
Nice article which I will save for my forum.
Meanwhile you have a bad link at the Where is the Climate Emergency? post you made 3 years ago that you are updating on occasion.
The link should go directly the NASA website anyway
Thanks, Tommy, fixed.
w.
I’m trying to puzzle through the implications of this piece, so this is mostly thinking out loud, but radiative forcing is TOA imbalance – I’m not sure you are comparing apples to apples by plotting your ratio composed with TOA imbalance against your ratio composed with downwelling radiation at the surface.
Thanks, AlanJ. Per CERES, the trend in downwelling thermal radiation at the surface is 1.9 times the trend in the TOA imbalance.
So I’m underestimating the theoretical effect of the increase in CO2, which makes my point even stronger.
w.
The trend in TOA imbalance doesn’t just reflect CO2 forcing, though, it’s the net imbalance, which responds to the instantaneous CO2 forcing and a multitude of time-varying feedbacks. I’m not sure that this helps you at all, you’re still comparing apples to oranges.
If everything not at absolute zero radiates electromagnetic energy, all molecules and all monatomic gases must surely contribute to the radiation to space, though perhaps at different intensities.
Yes, but changing the concentration of non-absorbing gases has no effect on outgoing IR.
Why do you limit it to IR? How about near IR? How about microwave? Any radiation other than what is considered traditional IR subtracts from what what is available for traditional IR.
Because the earth emission peaks in the IR, so the IR active gases drive the planetary greenhouse effect.
I’m sorry, but this is a common fallacy. ALMOST everything emits thermal radiation. The exception is monatomic gases, which neither absorb nor emit thermal radiation.
w.
“which neither absorb nor emit thermal radiation.”
The operative words here are “thermal radiation.”. But even monoatomic gases do cool. They do so by transferring energy via collision. Even ideal monoatomic gases have a molar heat capacity. If they couldn’t cool then they would gradually get hotter and hotter.
We must be pulling different parameters.
I get +0.71 W.m-2.decade-1 for EEI.
I get +0.93 W.m-2.decade-1 for DWIR.
I get +1.18 W.m-2.decade-1 for UWIR.
I get -0.00026 %.decade-1 for DWIR/UWIR
I’m using parameters labeled “TOA Net Flux – All-Sky (W m-2)”, “Surface Longwave Flux Down – All-Sky (W m-2)”, and “Surface Longwave Flux Up – All-Sky (W m-2)” respectively and exactly as they appear in the files.
I’ve been using EBAF4.1 because of the reported errors with 4.2. I just checked and they say they’ve fixed the errors. So I’m downloading 4.2 as we speak.
w.
Just so it’s clear. I’m using this link. Under Surface Fluxes I select Longwave Flux Down and Up for All Sky. Then I click Global Mean. Then I click Visualize Data. It will display the graphs. If you click on a graph the button Show Data as ASCII File appears which you can click on to download the data file.
I tried that, but I only get data for a single month … are you clicking on all 288 of those graphs to get the full data?
Also, I’m only using the period Mar 2000 – Feb 2024, although CERES offers one more month of data.
w.
That’s odd. When I click “Show Data as ASCII File” I get a file with one line per month from 2000/03 to 2024/02.
And yes. CERES is current up to 2024/03. However, I’ve noticed the ASCII files seem to be lagged by 1 month.
I just downloaded the latest version (EBAF4.2 Level 3b), and I get different numbers using the same parameters.
I get +0.48 W.m-2.decade-1 for EEI.
I get +1.14 W.m-2.decade-1 for DWIR.
I get +1.43 W.m-2.decade-1 for UWIR.
I get -0.0026 %.decade-1 for DWIR/UWIR. This is curious because it’s 10x your value … maybe your value is for one year rather than a decade?
w.
I redownloaded the data. I still get +0.71, +0.93, and +1.18 W.m-2.decade-1 for EEI, DWIR, and UWIR respectively. I just did a =@linest(A1:A289) * 120 in Excel for each of those.
You are correct about DWIR/UWIR though. I have a typo. The raw value in straight ratio form is -0.00026 decade-1 (not %.decade-1 as I originally typed). When multiplying by 100 to get % it becomes -0.026 %.decade-1.
Just one nit in an otherwise fascinating study.
Thermal radiation is not IR.
The bogy man for CO2 is IR and conversely. Bogus? Of course. But the “settled science” cannot be wrong. Just ask them.
Sparta, you say:
Sorry, not true. Thermal radiation from anything at earthlike temperatures is indeed infrared. From the web:
w.
Not to mention, if this were not true military night vision googles would not work spotting the enemy at about 98.6F —but they do!
spotted through the window, specifically from condensed matter surfaces.
Night vision or thermal? Not the same thing.
Human skin emits IR.
Human bodies also release thermal energy.
Electromagnetic radiation is also emitted from materials in frequencies outside the IR range. The frequency/wavelength of the emitted ER depends on the temperature for all substances. Is “the heat of the material” something different than its temperature?
Thermal radiation is a hijacked term repurposed to support the narrative.
The origin is old. Back before physics was understood they used the terms sensible heat and thermal radiation.
It is true that thermal energy has the same 1/r^2 property as EM but thermal energy and EM energy are different. Just ask Eunice Newton Foot.
Article says:”Downwelling thermal radiation…”
“Thermal radiation is that electromagnetic radiation emitted by a body as a result of its temperature.” Quote from Heat Transfer book.
Gases in the atmosphere don’t generally emit based on temperature. Also as CO2 is taking the blame what emissivity would be assigned. If CO2 has zero emissivity then there division into zero.
The IR-active gases in the atmosphere – H2O, CO2, N2O, CH4, etc. – certainly do emit based on temperature. This has been verified countless times in controlled laboratory experiments.
The monatomic and diatomic molecules in the atmosphere – N2, O2, and Ar – do not have any absorption/emission bands in the IR spectrum, so do not emit “thermal radiation” at earth temperatures.
Yet the fact that they do radiate means they are cooling the earth. Just because the frequency is not “IR” doesn’t mean they aren’t emitting energy gained from collisions.
Oxygen has a very deep absorption line at 760 nm.
But there is no thermal radiation from earth’s surface with wavelength shorter than 4 um (4000 nm), so this is not relevant.
No! They have NO emission bands in the far infrared (~4 – 100 um) range that could potentially be activated by earth temperatures. So they do not transfer thermal energy to space.
No one said they were excited by far IR. Simple conduction can transfer energy that can be radiated later. You are close to saying that N2 and O2 can not participate in the warming of the atmosphere from surface IR. Do they warm from near IR or visible SW?
If they are not excited by far IR absorption, they do not radiate in the far IR. Since the far IR band comprises all of the earth surface’s thermal radiation, they cannot radiate to space. Only the earth’s surface and IR-absorbent gases can do that.
Can they be energized by collisions? That is, through conduction? Please explain how N2 & CO2 can warm! You seem stuck on IR radiation. Are there other ways?
They (N2 and O2) can ONLY be warmed by collisions with other molecules, whether of the surface or other gas molecules.
They can ONLY be cooled by collisions with other molecules, whether of the surface or other gas molecules. They cannot cool by radiating energy to space.
So there are substances that do not radiate based on their temperature. Sounds like N2 &O2 would be great insulating gasses in multiplane windows.
If they do not emit in the far infrared relevant to earth ambient temperatures, they do not absorb in this far infrared band. That is, they would be completely transparent to the far IR from inside the house.
At significantly higher temperatures than earth ambient, they do have emission/absorption bands, and so “radiate based on their temperature.” But that is not relevant here.
So you DO believe that only IR absorption can cause IR emission.
So you DO believe that not all things radiate based on temperature.
So you DO believe that collisions can not raise the temperature of atoms and molecules to radiation temperatures.
I never claimed any of that, and none of that follows from what I did claim.
I would request that you provide references for your first statement.
Going back to my first undergraduate heat transfer text, its equations for radiation from a gas are of the form:
eg(Tg)*sigma*Tg^4
where eg(Tg) is the emissivity of the gas as a function of the temperature of the gas, the fraction of the perfect blackbody radiator.
Because gases are not broad-spectrum (“graybody”) radiators like most solid and liquid bodies are, the text acknowledges that the calculation of eg is very difficult.
But I believe you are incorrect in your latest presentation that gases are not temperature-related radiators.
Tom,
I suggest you read “A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation” by Grant Petty. It goes into a great deal of detail on the radiative properties of gases. Chapter 8 is particularly relevant.
You believe that is true in this universe?
Too many folks forget that there’s “near IR” AND “far IR”. Both are “thermal radiation”. They are both EM radiation but just not visible at normal atmospheric temperatures.
WE, your Fig 1 reminds me of a famous saying attributed to Albert Einstein:
”In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.”
Nice post. You get a lot of good mileage out of CERES.
Dang, I always attributed that saying to Yogi Berra.
Doing sums can be fun, and this article got me thinking.
There was a joke doing the rounds some time ago that we would eventually be taxed for breathing.
(And the way the new Labour government in the UK is going I wouldn’t put anything past them!)
So doing a little calculation based on annual amount of CO2 breathed out per person times the UK carbon dioxide tax times 70 million people, it would amount to approximately £500 million.
For the world population of 8 billion it would be £57 trillion.
Let’s hope the politicians don’t get any ideas.
You let the cat out of the bag!
Let us hope they do and they then receive the proper reward for their actions.
Does this restate the idea of “feedbacks?”
Not in the roolz are the mixed effects of water vapor in various states, concentrations, and altitudes, nor is circulation transfer mentioned.
Agreed. I was waiting for that. All this talk about downwelling Co2 radiation makes the elephant really sad..
Willis, I feel a bit uncomfortable with your balancing watts per square meter–a unit of power per unit of area.
Energy does not change in interactions, but there is no similar restriction on power.
It can be shown via the 1LOT that as long as the spatial and temporal domain of the W.m-2 values are the same then these values are conserved so the balancing of watts per square meter is not an issue in this particular case. But yeah, generally speaking W.m-2 values are not a conserved quantity. This, however, is a special case. If I have misunderstood your concern I apologize in advance.
Willis, assuming “thermal” is synonymous with longwave this is what I get when I use WROI = DWIR / UWIR. Obviously we must be using different EBAF parameters. I used EBAF Level 3b surface.
Also, your red line is effectively the radiative force divided by UWIR. But this is an odd comparison because radiative force is the TOA energy imbalance perturbation; not the longwave up perturbation. I believe the concept you need to be comparing is radiative response; not radiative force. Radiative response is the effect of the radiative force required to provide TOA balance. For example using an ECS of 3 C for 2xCO2 the surface radiative response is expected to be about sblaw(292 K) – sblaw(289 K) = 16 W.m-2 given a radiative force of 3.7 W.m-2. The mid troposphere is expected to respond with about the same temperature increase as the surface. But, given that the mid troposphere is colder we expect a lower radiative response since sblaw(T+3) – sblaw(T) < 16 W.m-2 when T < 289 K. This means the expectation is for the red line to be slanted downward. This obviously depends on the expectation of both the surface and mid-troposphere temperature responses.
There is still problem though. As you can see above the plot of DWIR / UWIR is mostly flat. This could be the result of the EEI increasing. The hypothesis being that the red line should slope more and more downward as the EEI declines.
I freely admit that I may be misunderstanding the goal of your analysis.
I’ve downloaded the 4.2 data. “EEI” is in the CERES datasets as “toa_net_all”. However, it looks nothing like what you show. No idea why. Yours looks like it might be smoothed with a boxcar filter.
Best regards,
w.
I’m just doing a 12m moving average on it to remove the annual cycle.
Harold the Organic Chemist Says:
ATTN: Willis and Everyone!
RE: CO2 Nonsense!
At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is 427 ppm by volume. This is
only 0.839 grams of CO2 per cubic meter of air at STP. A one cubic meter has 1.29
kilograms of air.
On sunny day at 21 deg. C and 70% RH, the concentration of water vapor is 17,780 ppm by
volume. This is 14.3 grams of water vapor per cubic meter of air. A one cubic meter has 1.20 kilograms of air. In this warm air there is only 0.780 grams of CO2. For these weather
conditions, water vapor is about 98% of the greenhouse effect.
Water is by far the major greenhouse gas and CO2 is a trace greenhouse gas. The claim by
the IPCC that CO2 causes “global warming and is the “control knob” for “climate change” is
a lie. Since 1988, the UN, the UNFCCC, the IPCC, and coterie of unscrupulous scientists
have perpetrating the greatest scientific fraud in recent human history. The UN’s objective
is the transfer of a large amount of funds from fines of the rich countries (i.e., the big polluters)
to all the poor countries to help them cope with “global warming” and “climate change”. At
the recent COP28 conference the rich countries have promised many more funds to the
poor countries.
This fraud by the UN can not go in forever.
Question – Is geothermal not measurable or too low to include? Considering that Antarctic ice may be affected by geothermal emissions, I wonder if it is part of the budget. But I think it could be ignored?
It is about 0.1 W.m-2. If I remember correctly about 90% of that is radiothermal dissipation and the other 10% is tidal dissipation. Anyway, yeah, it’s low enough that we can usually ignore it.
According to wikipedia lunar tidal friction dissipation is 3.6e12 W. That is 3.6e12 W / 510e12 m^2 = 0.007 W.m-2 or about 0.01 W.m-1. That means radiothermal is 99% and lunar is 1%. Sorry about that.
In 2024, my 27th year of climate and energy reading, I have noticed an alarming new trend.
Conservatives are becoming Mammade CO2 Emissions Do Nothing Nutters.
This change is unprecedented and disturbing.
Now Willie E. appears to have jpined those Nutters, apparently claiming no greenhouse effect warming since 1975.
It seems that during the period of one short bike ride, Willie E, thinks he has come up with a theory that refutes almost 100% of actual scientists since 1896.
That is a possibility but with an extremely low probability.
The There Is No AGW Nutters who comment here will love his article.
If Willie E. is actually claiming manmade CO2 emissions were not one cause of the post-1975 warming, then his science is VERY likely to be wrong.
Did you read my comment I just posted? There is too little CO2 in air to cause “global warming.”
A possible cause of the recent slight global warming is cleaner air.
I try to ignore ignorant comments
No you don’t..
That is because when RG starts to introduce the word ‘nutters’ in his posts he activates a part of his brain that has no oxygen and he gets stuck there..
Richard, I want you to read the following VERY CAREFULLY, and think about what it means.
You finished?
OK, now quote whatever you think I said about 1975.
I’ll wait …
w.
Willie E. has evaded a reply to my comment in the spirit of a Secret Service Director talking but never answering a single question in Congress.
How clever.
Your article implied that manmade CO2 emissions were not a cause of post-1975 warming.
Either that is what you implied, or I have misinterpreted your article.
Either way, you have evaded my comment like a coward rather than like a scientist d his work
I revise my estimate that there is a very low probability your theory is right, and almost all scientists since 1896 are wrong … to a zero probability your theory is right.
Now I have now given you a second excuse to evade my comment:
(1) I did not quote you,
and
(2) I was mean to you
Richard, you say:
Choice (B).
Since I neither said nor implied a damn thing about post-1975 temperatures, there was nothing to “evade”. As I said in the head post and again just above, I cannot defend what you mistakenly think my words said.
And enough with the childish namecalling. Are you 10 years old?
w.
More sanity from thou, Willis. God, I miss Calvin and Hobbes!!