Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Abstract: Using the CERES satellite data, it is shown that over the last ~ quarter century, the increase in greenhouse gases has had no detectable effect on the global average surface temperature. On the contrary, the overall increase in available solar energy after albedo reflections is shown to be sufficient to explain the warming. In support of this, variations in available solar energy are shown to agree quite well with the variations in the observed temperature. Go figure.
I got to thinking again about how to measure the efficiency of the very poorly-named “greenhouse effect”, which has absolutely nothing to do with actual greenhouses like the one shown above. Here’s an overview of some of the major energy flows of the climate system.
Figure 1. Monthly surface upwelling longwave (thermal) radiation, along with solar radiation at different altitudes. Equivalent temperatures are calculated using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. Seasonal variations removed.
The red line shows the 24/7/365 global average solar radiation that strikes the planet, 340 watts per square meter (W/m2) of planetary surface area. However, part of that radiation is reflected back out to space.
The orange line shows the 241 W/m2 of solar radiation remaining after clouds, aerosols, and the surface reflect some of the sunlight back to space. Other than a tiny contribution from the geothermal heat, this is the total energy entering the climate system. It’s all we’ve got.
Then aerosols, water vapor, and clouds absorb some of the remaining solar radiation before it hits the ground. The yellow line shows how much of the solar radiation is actually absorbed by the surface itself. At only 164 W/m2, it’s less than half of the solar radiation striking the top of the atmosphere.
Before moving on to further questions, please take a moment to look at Figure 1 and contemplate the surprising stability of the overall system. The clouds, ice, plants, and snow that determine the albedo are constantly changing on an hourly, daily, and monthly basis. Despite that, Figure 1 shows that the amount of energy entering the system (orange line) and the amount reaching the surface (yellow line) barely change from year to year.
Coincidence? You be the judge. But I digress …
Here’s the perplexitude. All solids and most gases are constantly absorbing and emitting longwave radiation. The amount of radiation emitted depends on the temperature, so this is sometimes called “thermal radiation”. And on average, because of its temperature, the surface of the earth is emitting almost 400 W/m2 of upwelling longwave thermal radiation. See the blue line at the top in Figure 1.
That’s the puzzle. Less than half of the 400 W/m2 energy flux that the surface is emitting comes from the sun. Where is the rest coming from?
The answer is that some of the upwelling longwave energy from the surface is absorbed in the atmosphere by clouds, aerosols, water vapor, and what are called “greenhouse gases” or “GHGs”.
At the same time, these clouds, aerosols, water vapor, and greenhouse gases are constantly radiating the energy flux they are absorbing from both the downwelling solar radiation and the upwelling longwave (thermal) radiation. Of course, it’s emitted in the form of longwave (thermal) radiation.
Since the atmospheric thermal radiation is emitted in all directions, about half of it proceeds to space and the other part goes downwards and is absorbed by the surface. And that downwelling thermal radiation is the source of the extra energy that allows the surface to radiate more than just what it gets from the sun. For further information on this question of the so-called “greenhouse effect”, let me recommend my post below.
Looking at Figure 1 reveals that we can measure the overall efficiency of this “greenhouse” system by calculating how much radiation the surface emits for each W/m2 it receives from the sun. Overall, the system receives about 240 W/m2 of energy flux from the sun, and just under 400 W/m2 is emitted by the surface. So the general answer is that the surface emits about 1.65 times the total energy flux that the planetary climate system receives from the sun (solar radiation after albedo reflections).
What I have just calculated, the amount of surface energy flux emitted per 1 W/m2 of incoming solar energy flux, is a measure of the overall efficiency of the greenhouse system. It measures how well the so-called “greenhouse effect” is able to convert solar energy into surface warming. I’ll return to this discussion of greenhouse efficiency in a moment.
Now, the blue line in Figure 1 above shows that over the period of record, the surface upwelling thermal radiation has increased slightly, by about 0.9%. That is because the surface temperature has increased. Here’s a closeup of the change starting in 2000.
Figure 2. A closeup of the surface upwelling longwave radiation shown in Figure 1 above (blue line in Figure 1). As in Figure 1, temperatures are calculated using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. Seasonal variations removed.
The obvious question is whether this increase in the surface temperature is the result of increasing “greenhouse gases”, which are CO2, methane, water vapor, nitrous oxide, halogenated gases, and other minor greenhouse gases. According to the IPCC and the canonical theory, the increasing greenhouse gases are indeed what is causing the surface warming shown in Figure 2 above.
Now, if the increase in those GHGs is what has been driving the increase in surface temperature (and surface thermal radiation), that would show up as an increase in the efficiency of the greenhouse system. More greenhouse gases would absorb more upwelling thermal energy flux from the surface, leading to more downwelling energy flux. This would make the surface warmer for the same amount of incoming solar energy flux. That change would be reflected as an increase in the greenhouse efficiency as calculated above.
But as Figure 3 below shows, there’s been no observable change in greenhouse efficiency in the last quarter century.
Figure 3. Greenhouse efficiency, a dimensionless number calculated as the thermal energy flux emitted by the surface (in W/m2) divided by the solar energy flux entering the system (solar radiation minus albedo reflections). This measures how efficient the system is at converting incoming solar energy into increased surface temperature.
I must confess, I was surprised by this graph. I’d expected the efficiency to have risen somewhat due to the increase in greenhouse gases. But there’s no significant trend.
This is an important finding. Despite increasing GHGs, there has been no corresponding increase in greenhouse efficiency since the turn of the century. This means that whatever is driving the temperature increase shown in Fig. 2, it’s not increasing GHGs.
Note that I’m not saying that the GHGs don’t increase the downwelling longwave radiation. They do. They absorb more upwelling radiation and thus perforce, they increase the downwelling radiation. I’m saying that the increase in downwelling radiation is NOT showing up as an increase in surface temperature. If it were, we’d see it in the efficiency calculations shown above.
My next question was, is it possible that this greenhouse efficiency measurement is too crude to detect the expected change in efficiency from increased GHGs? To determine if this is the case, I looked at the change in efficiency that we’d expect to see from the increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases over the period. Figure 4 below shows the trend of the expected change in efficiency from increased GHGs (orange line).
Figure 4. As in Figure 3, but with the addition of the trend of the increased efficiency expected from the increase in the well-mixed greenhouse gases (orange line). Per the IPCC, the total effect of all greenhouse gases (GHGs) combined is about twice the effect of the CO2 alone. So in Fig. 4, the increase in total GHG radiation is calculated as twice the increase in CO2 radiation. See the end notes for the full calculations.
If the increase in surface radiation were the result of increased greenhouse efficiency from the increased well-mixed GHGs, it would show up in Figure 4 above as the efficiency increasing with a trend as shown by the orange trend line. So the greenhouse efficiency measurement is quite sensitive enough to detect the theoretical increase due to increased GHGs.
But in the event, since the year 2000 there’s been no such increase in greenhouse efficiency. There’s no such trend.
So … what’s going on here? That’s really two related questions.
The first question is, where is the extra energy for the known surface warming coming from? Clearly, it’s not coming from the increased GHGs, or we’d have seen an increase in greenhouse efficiency.
The second question is, what has happened to the increased downwelling thermal radiation from the atmosphere? We know that the increased GHGs are causing increased downwelling radiative flux because we can measure it from satellites … but it’s not causing increased surface temperature. We know that energy can’t be created or destroyed … so what’s happening to it?
Regarding the first question, the extra energy must be coming from the sun. Aside from the GHGs, it’s the only other game in town. To demonstrate that the sun is totally sufficient to explain the rise in the planet’s surface temperature/thermal radiation, Figure 5 below is a graph comparing the surface upwelling thermal radiation to the solar input radiation times the average greenhouse efficiency (~1.652).
Figure 5. Surface upwelling longwave (thermal) radiation in red. Black and black/white lines show the solar input radiation (TOA solar minus albedo reflection) times the average greenhouse efficiency (1.652).
Note how closely the variations in the output (surface radiation) correspond to the variations in the input (the amount of solar energy flux entering the system). Both show the same rise-level-rise-level-rise pattern, in the same amounts and at the same times. This shows that the changes in surface temperature are exactly what we’d expect from the change in solar input, given the average efficiency of the system as a whole.
In other words, a greenhouse gas explanation is not needed and is indeed superfluous over this period—given the known greenhouse efficiency, the surface temperature is responding to the change in solar input exactly as expected … while in the background, Occam quietly hones his razor …
Regarding the second question, which was … hang on, what was it? … oh, ok, it was, what has happened to the increased downwelling thermal radiation from the atmosphere, since we know it’s not warming the surface?
Let me refer folks to my post below entitled “The Details Are In The Devil”. It discusses the problem of relating changes in downwelling radiation to changes in temperature in an actively governed system, which is a large part of the answer to the second question.
Another part of the answer to the second question is in the following post:
There are more answers to the second question. There’s advection. There’s sensible heat loss from the surface. There’s Nino/Nina-driven transport of warm water to the poles to speed up energy loss to space. Then there are the giant natural refrigerators we call “thunderstorms” cooling the surface in a myriad of ways …
… but that’s enough for now. Further affiant sayeth naught.
Here, after a foggy week, it’s a bluebird day. I can see the sunlight on the ocean six miles (ten km) from my house, my grandkids are laughing in the next room, what’s not to like?
Best of life to all,
w.
The Usual: When you comment please quote the exact words you are discussing. I can defend my words. I can’t defend your interpretation of my words.
The Math: First, the required trigger warning.
Then, the data. It’s a small (20 kb) .csv file in my public dropbox here.
Next, the math.
The variables are:
coshort—the monthly atmospheric CO2 levels for the period analyzed
surf_lw_up_all_mon—monthly surface longwave up, all-sky conditions (not just clear skies)
toa_avail_all_mon—monthly available solar radiation after albedo reflections
themult—monthly efficiency factor as calculated in Fig. 3, surface thermal radiation divided by available solar radiation
coforce—monthly total GHG forcing in W/m2
theco—GHG forcing expressed as a change in greenhouse efficiency
The functions are:
log2—logarithm base 2
first—first value of a series
mean—average value
getfitted—returns the linear fit (regression line or trend line) of a variable as a series of values
Comments are whatever follows the hashmark “#” on a line.
The calculations in R computer language are:
> coforce = log2(coshort / first(coshort)) * 3.7 * 2 # monthly total GHG forcing over the period> theco = (coforce + mean(surf_lw_up_all_mon)) / mean(toa_avail_all_mon) # monthly GHG forcing expressed as a change in greenhouse efficiency> theco = theco - first(theco) + first(getfitted(themult)) # adjust it to start at the start of the red fitted linear regression line in Fig. 4.Discover more from Watts Up With That?
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THE DATA: Sun – not Man – is what caused, and causes, ‘global warming’
by okulaer, 2018
WHAT WE SEE, WHAT THE OBSERVATIONAL DATA UNEQUIVOCALLY TELLS US, IS THE FOLLOWING:
– The ASR (the solar heat input) increases significantly (starting in 1988-89).
– Temperatures (troposphere, surface, ocean) start rising as a response.
– The OLR (Earth’s heat loss to space) increases as a direct radiative effect of (mainly) – the (tropospheric) temperature rise.
In short: +ASR → +T → +OLR;
………….. root cause → primary effect → secondary effect / negative feedback.
This is what we actually SEE, folks! This is what the DATA is actually telling us! Forget about all kinds of theoretical considerations and people’s mere opinions! Science isn’t about the words of “experts”. Science isn’t about pondering and hypothesizing your way to enlightenment. Science is about OBSERVING your way to knowledge. You observe the world to know the world.
If you claim that ‘global warming’ since 1977 is because of us, the result of an “anthropogenically enhanced GHE”, you do not know the world. It’s that simple. All you have then is your opinion. Because there are no observations from the real Earth system that bear out your claim.
‘Global warming’ since 1977 was NOT (!!) caused by human .CO2 emissions. It was caused by the Sun.
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-sun-not-man-is-what-caused-and-causes-global-warming/#more-5363
Okulær (Kristian)
A Quaternary geologist
https://okulaer.wordpress.com/about/
100%
The ASR (the solar heat input) increases significantly (starting in 1988-89).
Yep.
I’ve explained why there’s been no increase in greenhouse effect for several years now. I wonder if anyone will start listening to me now?
Very good work putting numbers to my science.
Very erudite discussion but missing the essential point as recently clarified by Ed Millband. It has nothing to do with global temperatures but everything to do with global power (in the political not energy sense).
There is a clear and present danger (sic) to Western civilisation from groups intent on change for ideological reasons and the use of fear as a weapon is as old as the hills ( or as old as fossil fuels)
Arguments based on science are fruitless, it is pure politics.
Various UN officials over the years have said that it is not about the environment but rather to change the world’s economy and derived from that, form the One World Order.
Willis, you had a nice graph about this (ASR vs temperature) posted on your currently suspended X-account (hopefully soon reinstated). Could you perhaps add it to your post here. Thanks.
Maybe it is/was the Figure 5 of this post I’m recalling.
The solar cycle might be of interest to some:
Solar Cycle Progression | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center
It continues well above forecast, to peak sometime mid-year (2025).
Multiple planets in close alignment in recent times, too.
Hi Willis
Whilst I agree with your outcome, I think that the “downwelling energy” statement you made must be incorrect. There is a huge thermal gradient across the depth of the atmosphere, which we may measure in principle, but this depends on the definition of “atmosphere, the actual air pressure”. The problem I have with all the explanations offered is that thermal movement from a cold body (CO2) to the surface is not permitted by the second law of thermodynamics. A calculation of the temperature of a CO2 molecule at say -40C absorbing sufficient energy to raise it’s temperature to above that of the surface is extremely unlikely, but of course any absorbed energy can be lost to space at essentially absolute zero. The assumption that molecules can radiate energy in all directions, whatever the temperature of those around is, must be false. This is easily shown by experiment with a cavity and a source of radiant energy of various temperatures. Energy only moves from hot to cold, following the rules of entropy. Your down radiation number needs a mechanism which does not fly in the face of physics, and I suggest that it is due to air circulation carrying heat upwards and out of the atmosphere. A quick tweek of the energy allocations and the theory is probably correct, energy is lost due to radiation and air circulation, keeping the average temperature constant as we observe.
Thanks, Real. You say:
“The problem I have with all the explanations offered is that thermal movement from a cold body (CO2) to the surface is not permitted by the second law of thermodynamics.”
Please read my post “Can A Cold Object Warm A Hot Object“, wherein I discuss this question at length.
w.
Willis,
You wrote “Which means that if I am absorbing radiation from you, then you are absorbing radiation from me.” More nonsense. Next thing you’ll be saying that a teaspoon of water can be heated by subjecting it to the concentrated energy from a million tons of ice radiating 300 W/m2!
You refuse to accept that all matter above absolute zero continuously emits IR. Go on, claim you never said such a thing, and that you agree with me! Did you take lessons in how to fool yourself, or does it come naturally?
Are you really reduced to appealing to the authority of bizarrely hallucinating AI computer programs?
“You refuse to accept that all matter above absolute zero continuously emits IR.”
Quite rightly as Willis has correctly stated that is not true for gases!
Phil,
Appealing to the authority of an ignoramus like Willis might not be your best option.
You might consider why gases remain gaseous, and have temperature. Air temperature for example – measurable by infrared satellite instrumentation across the vacuum of space. Yes, radio waves are infrared by definition.
Are you really boasting about being as dim as Willis?
I’m not appealing to authority I’m supporting Willis’s correct understanding of the science! Gases can have translational, vibrational and electronic energy. In the case of Argon at room temperature it only has translational energy since it doesn’t have vibrational and rotational energy levels, only electronic which can not be thermally excited at such low temperatures.
And where do you imagine this translational energy comes from? Do you accept that the average velocity of the argon atoms in a sample of gas is directly proportional to absolute temperature?
This is all getting pretty silly. You might be silly enough to believe that the argon atoms behave like perfectly elastic balls, colliding with each other, and conserving energy within a fixed gas volume.
Are you that silly?
That’s exactly what happens, Argon gas in a container gains translational energy via collisions with the walls of the container and transfers it through the volume by collisions between the gas molecules.
Phil,
Oh well, all those physicists who talk about the heat death of the universe (maximum entropy, temperature very close to absolute zero), must be dreaming.
According to you, argon will remain gaseous. Not losing energy, just perfectly elastic atoms bouncing off each other. Did you have to study hard to reach your level of intellectual brilliance, or does it come naturally?
Just wondering.
The real problem is the conflation of radiation. EM is radiation. Thermal energy transfer is heat via kinetic interaction of molecules. Heat flows hot to cold. Radiation is not constrained by thermodynamics primarily because it is not thermal energy.
I find it very elegant. It analyses input and output without any hypotheses regarding models or cloud cover or anything else. Just measured data from satellites. It also gives a clear result,
that the effect of CO2 has been negligible regarding temperatures for the past 24 years, and that for the observed effects, variations of input, and reflected solar radiation correlate well with the data, and are enough to explain it. Hopefully it can get published in some impactful scientific peer-reviewed journal so that it gets some traction.
“I find it very elegant. It analyses input and output without any hypotheses regarding models or cloud cover or anything else. Just measured data from satellites….”
Ah, that’s an illusion, I’m afraid. Satellites cannot measure downwelling radiation inside the atmosphere from where they are located outside it, because the radiation is travelling away from them. Therefore, the Ceres ‘data’ for downwelling IR has to be a product of calculation, not direct measurement.
Willis,
It seems what you need is some papers in which researchers experimentally demonstrate increased greenhouse efficiency due to increased GHG levels.
This seems like a pretty straightforward high school level experiment.
Most of those are Cv experiments.
climate4you.com has charts on global cloud cover showing that there has been a few percent decline in recent decades. Enough to change surface temperature?
And why is cloud cover decreasing?
Cloud reductions have been covered here more than once and even occurred before the CERES satellites went into operation. All of the warming in the last 30 years is likely due to this change.
There are many good correlations. Whether they turn out to be the real cause is unknown currently.
1995-97 – AMO phase change.
2014-16 – PDO phase change and Bardarbunga volcano.
2022-xx – Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption.
The MetOffice data https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-and-regional-series suggests that most of the warming since 1910 can be ascribed to increased sunshine.
Willis, I find your thermo-regulatory theory very compelling but I do have one question. Why are we seeing this slow drift in temperature if the temperature is being regulated? In this work, why is does the long wave radiative forcing seem to get regulated but the short wave radiative forcing does not?
Good question, Peter. See my post “Slow Drift In Thermoregulated Emergent Systems”
Regards,
w.
A very interesting hypothesis. Well thought out and well presented.
One nit.
Kirchhoff’s Law.
The EM quantity radiated has to be decreased by convection and phase change energies. So the 400 w/m^2 will be somewhat less. It only changes the calculated efficiency number, not the concept.
A different nit for a different time is the use of the flat earth model used to calculate solar irradiance in W/m^2. That discussion is for a different time.
Also, as a suggestion, you may wish to mull over the thermal mass of the ocean and land and how those might augment your idea. From sunrise to noon, the surface increasingly warms, in part due to spherical geometries and in part due to minor decreases in the distance to the sun. Some of that energy radiates and some is stored. After noon, the solar irradiance of the surface decreases, similar but reverse of the morning hours. Convection and radiation change. At night, the ground/water gives up the remaining energy stored during the day.
Still, a good read.
“the surface of the earth is emitting almost 400 W/m2 of upwelling longwave thermal radiation”
It isn’t. The actual number is between 0 and 100 W/m^2, as measured by pyrgeometers. The average is about 50 W/m^2.
“That’s the puzzle.”
No, the puzzle is why anyone would listen to someone who doesn’t know what “radiation” means, rambling on about it and getting essentially everything wrong.
It is definitely emitting at around 400 W.m-2. This is what the CERES instrument packages onboard several satellites are measuring. This amount is the approximate radiant exitance given a temperature of approximately 290 K from the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
The whole planet, as measured from the temperature of outer space on a satellite, yes. The surface, which is what Willis said, no it isn’t.
The planet is not emitting at 400 W.m-2 from the perspective of outer space it is emitting at around 240 W.m-2 as CERES shows. It is the surface that is emitting at around 400 W.m-2.
There is no instrumentation in existence which can measure the entire spectrum of energy emitted by the Earth’s surface, atmosphere and hydrosphere.
Pointless, anyway – the stuff of dreams. The Earth, a big blob of very hot rock, is cooling slowly and inexorably. According to real scientists using physical laws backed by measurements.
If you choose to believe the fantasies of self appointed “climate scientists”, that’s your choice. Good luck with your decision.
A great part of that stability, in terms of equivalent temperatures, arises from (a) the enormous heat capacity of Earth’s oceans, and (b) the latent heats of melting/freezing and evaporation/condensation in hydrological cycles at Earth’s surface and in its troposphere. A dynamic system can be more dependent on internal inertias (capacities) than it is on the net balance/imbalance of “forcing functions”, such as radiation exchanges.
“A dynamic system can be more dependent on internal inertias (capacities) than it is on the net balance/imbalance of “forcing functions”, such as radiation exchanges.”
Meaningless pseudo scientific gibberish. Well done. Willis would be proud.
“All solids and most gases are constantly absorbing and emitting longwave radiation. “
Err, no. All gases emit radiation. You can’t name any that don’t, can you?
Sloppy.
Err, yes. Monatomic gases such as argon and zenon neither absorb nor emit longwave radiation.
w.
Err, no. Even monatomic gases, because they are matter with a temperature above absolute zero, emit thermal radiation in accordance with the Stefan-Boltzmann law of radiation power versus absolute temperature.
As with other gases, thermal radiation from monatomic gases occurs in discrete emission bands, not as a continuous spectrum. And because the temperatures of ALL gases in the Earth’s troposphere and stratosphere range from about 210 to 320 K, the peak of their thermal emission spectrums, as well as most (i.e., more than 95%) of the emitted radiation spectrum power occurs in the spectral range of about 4 to 40 microns, most of which is considered LWIR.
It is true that monatomic gases do not absorb LWIR coming off Earth’s surface or from polyatomic gases and clouds in the atmosphere, but the reason they are able to continuously radiate thermal energy is that they continuously receive energy via molecular collisions from other LWIR-energized gases in the atmosphere (ref: statistical mechanics’ equipartition theorem for a mixture of gases). In most of the atmosphere, atomic and molecular collisions occur about 10^9 to 10^6 times faster than the average time constant for spontaneous emission of a IR photon.
Oh, stop. You’re just repeating what you learned in grade school. Here’s ChatGPT on the subject, any decent text will tell you the same. :
===
===
Best regards,
w.
Since you showed me yours, I’ll show you mine (see attachment, where Google’s AI clearly states in its first sentence “Yes, monatomic gases do radiate thermal energy.”)
Thank goodness, otherwise radiation physicists would have to put a large asterisk and footnote regarding a notable exception to the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
BTW, I have a hard time reconciling your comments “Oh, stop. You’re just repeating what you learned in grade school.” with your valediction “Best regards”. I see no option other than to honor the former.
Bye.
P.S. Many, many people have noted and commented on the failings—including hallucinations—of ChatGPT.
Thanks, TYS. Here’s Grok on the subject:
“Monatomic gases like argon do not absorb or emit thermal longwave infrared (IR) radiation under normal conditions. This is because monatomic gases have no vibrational or rotational energy modes that can interact with IR radiation; they only have translational energy modes.
Thermal longwave IR radiation typically involves changes in the vibrational and rotational states of molecules, which monatomic gases lack. Therefore, gases like argon, helium, and neon do not participate in the absorption or emission of thermal IR radiation through these mechanisms. Their interaction with radiation is mostly limited to changes in electron energy levels, which you’ve specified are not of interest here.”
===
And here’s Claude, another AI
===
“Monatomic gases like argon do not absorb or emit significant amounts of thermal longwave infrared (IR) radiation.
Thermal radiation absorption and emission is primarily determined by a molecule’s ability to change its dipole moment, which requires at least two atoms. Since monatomic gases like argon only have a single atom, they lack the necessary molecular structure to interact with thermal IR radiation.
In contrast, polyatomic molecules like carbon dioxide and water vapor can absorb and emit thermal IR radiation as their molecular bonds and vibrations change the dipole moment. This makes them important greenhouse gases.
So in summary, while monatomic gases may absorb or emit radiation due to electron transitions, they do not meaningfully interact with thermal longwave IR radiation specifically.”
===
Here’s perplexity, another AI …
===
Monatomic gases like argon do not significantly absorb or emit thermal longwave radiation. This is because:
1. Monatomic gases lack the molecular structure necessary for vibrational and rotational energy transitions that are responsible for absorbing and emitting thermal longwave radiation[4][6].
2. The most common gases in air, including monatomic gases like argon, have a negligible ability to absorb or emit longwave thermal radiation[5].
3. The greenhouse effect, which involves the absorption and emission of thermal longwave radiation, is primarily due to polyatomic molecules such as H2O, CO2, CH4, and O3[4][7].
4. The ability of air to absorb and emit longwave radiation is determined by the concentration of trace gases like water vapor and carbon dioxide, not by monatomic gases[5].
While isolated atoms can emit and absorb specific discrete wavelengths due to electronic transitions, this is not the same as thermal longwave radiation absorption or emission[1]. Thermal longwave radiation involves vibrational and rotational energy states, which monatomic gases do not possess.
Citations:
[1] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/763136/thermal-radiation-can-monatomic-gases-and-single-atom-substances-emit-radiation
[2] https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/emf9101.pdf
[3] https://www.hec.usace.army.mil/confluence/hmsdocs/hmstrm/meteorology/longwave-radiation/longwave-radiation-basic-concepts
[4] https://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dargan/587/587_2.pdf
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outgoing_longwave_radiation
[6] https://www.britannica.com/science/atmosphere/Radiation
[7] https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/mguidry/Unnamed_Site_2/Chapter%202/Chapter2B2.html
[8] https://skepticalscience.com/does-greenhouse-effect-exist-intermediate.htm
===
Finally, I asked Google AI. The problem seems to be the question you’re asking. With AIs, you have to be very careful with your question. In all cases, I asked:
Do monatomic gases like argon absorb or emit thermal longwave radiation? I’m not interested in absorption/emission due to changed electron level, just thermal longwave radiation.
Here’s the Google AI answer:
===
No, monatomic gases like argon do not significantly absorb or emit thermal longwave radiation; they are considered transparent to this type of radiation due to their simple structure, meaning they essentially let thermal infrared radiation pass through without interaction.
Key points about monatomic gases and thermal radiation:
===
Since all five AIs agree, you might consider the possibility that you’re wrong …
Best to you and yours,
w.
A follow-up is necessary to explain how Google’s AI statement can differ so much from ChatGPT, as evidenced by the above exchange of comments . . . the reader can determine which one is more correct in the real world based on the following facts:
— Based on Maxwell’s equations for classical electromagnetic theory, the “usual” claim is that only a molecule having a dipole moment (permanent or induced) will radiate photons in the IR/LWIR spectrum as a result of excess-energy excitation of rotational or vibrational modes (stretching or bending/rocking; symmetrical or asymmetrical). This is basic physics arising from the fact that EM waves are generated by acceleration of a charged (here, dipole possessing) particle.
— However, this “usual” claim is based on the idealistic assumption of a molecule (with or without dipole moment) moving independently and linearly in space . . . that is, freely translating while having either none or one or more simultaneous molecular vibrations mode(s).
— In the real world, and considering the full ranges of atmospheric temperatures and pressures, ALL constituent molecules and atoms in the atmosphere will be undergoing collisions with other atmospheric molecules (and the few atmospheric atoms of inert gases), including IR-inactive gases such as N2 and O2, at a rate in excess of once every microsecond.
— The Key: for every collision (and it doesn’t have to be a head-on one), the momentum exchange causes both involved molecules and/or atoms to briefly have a distorted electron cloud (hence, induced dipole moment) and a resulting brief period of nucleus-electron cloud vibration and overall change in direction (i.e., acceleration) of such. It therefore follows, per Maxwell’s equations and particularly the Larmor formula under those laws, that there will be a brief period of radiation of EM energy. Due to the relatively low energy involved with such ambient-temperature-driven collisions (less than 0.2 eV), that radiated energy typically falls in LWIR or lower frequency part of the EM spectrum.
— Monatomic gases such as helium, argon, neon and xenon will experience the same brief moments of electron cloud charge distortion and acceleration resulting from collisions with other atmospheric molecules/atoms as will the IR-active gases such a water vapor, CO2 and methane.
If the above facts were not true, one would be at a loss to explain, for instance, why interstellar helium is today found to be at an equilibrium temperature close to that of the cosmic background temperature instead of a temperature of about 1 billion K from when it was formed about 3 minutes after the Big Bang!
Any claim that “For a gas to absorb or emit thermal IR, its molecules must have a changing dipole moment during vibration.” is a half-truth if it doesn’t consider what happens during collisions with other particles.
TYS, you ask:
Intrigued by your question, I could only come up with transitions from stronger (ionizing) radiation, collisions with cooler objects, and PV=NRT (expansion). So I asked perplexity your question in your words.
ME (actually you):
perplexity: (emphasis mine)
====
Interesting times we live in …
w.
Willis,
You wrote (or quoted) –
“While helium cannot directly emit or absorb longwave infrared radiation due to its simple atomic structure”
Complete garbage. It is very hard to keep helium liquid – it keeps absorbing photons from anything with a temperature above 4.15 K or so.
Are you really as ignorant as you seem, or just pretending?
Helium emits photons, with wavelengths dependent on absolute temperature. Excitation spectra are a completely different phenomenon if you find you can’t defend what you wrote. You really are a simple wee soul, aren’t you?
Errr . . . thermal energy can be transferred by three completely separate physical processes: radiation, conduction and convection.
Considering liquid helium contained in a typical vacuum-insulated dewar, the transferred thermal energy due to the absorption of IR photons from the surface of the enclosing container is nearly insignificant because that surface is only a few degrees—maybe 5 to 10—Kelvin above absolute zero . . . the liquid helium itself being at its normal boiling point of about 4 K since it is kept only slightly above atmospheric pressure to minimize dewar structural mass.
So, the main sources of heating liquid helium in a dewar are thermal conduction at the wall-liquid interface and thermal conduction and convection across the GHe ullage volume that exists on top of the contained liquid.
Now, you were saying something about ignorance?
Unfortunately, repeating “lies for children and climate scientists” doesn’t turn them into fact.
Banging on about “thermal energy” without being able to say what it is, makes you look as ignorant as the average “climate scientist”. “Thermal conduction”? Are you talking about the emission and absorption of photons by electrons, or some fantasy process involving phlogiston or similar?
All matter above absolute zero emits infrared radiation. You can’t stop it. You can’t heat water using the infrared radiation from ice at 300 W/m2, no matter how much you concentrate that radiation.
However, you can make water very hot indeed by concentrating 300 W/m2 of infrared emitted by a low emissivity container containing boiling water.
You really don’t understand basic physical laws, do you? Don’t be ashamed – many PhD holders are similarly clueless.
The same old nonsense, try reading some Physical Chemistry texts!
Awww, to what “nonsense” are you referring? Can’t actually say, can you? Questions, questions! Pity you have no answers – people might think you are completely ignorant, and blustering to cover your ignorance.
“All matter above absolute zero emits infrared radiation.”
That nonsense, which I have referred to several times in this comments section. That is not true for gases, as I said read a Physical Chemistry text. The one who is blustering is you while continuing to make the same false statement!
Bears mention:
Correct Willis, I explained this somewhere else in this thread.
Willis,
In a sample of air at 20 C, containing about 0.94% of argon, what is the temperature of the argon? If it is not emitting any photons, it must be at 0 K, by definition. But it’s not – it’s 20 C, just like the oxygen, nitrogen, water vapour, radon, the suspended aerosols and all the rest.
Learn some physics – or keep digging. Your choice. I’ll keep laughing at your stubborn ignorance.
You are ignoring or are not aware that argon atoms—indeed, all atoms and molecules in the atmosphere (“air”)—are being continuously driven toward the average temperature of the local surrounding volume of air (say that within 1 m radius) due to rapid collisions with other atmospheric atoms and molecules, some of which are momentarily absorbing energy from LWIR photons. In those collisions, there is an exchange of mechanical energy (translational and vibrational) which drives a given atom’s or molecule’s temperature up/down towards the statistical average per the Boltzmann principle of equipartition of energy in a continuum mixture of different gases.
Maybe you should stop laughing in deference to learning.
You’re dreaming. Here’s Feynman explaining every physical process in the universe, with the exception of gravity, and nuclear processes.
Talk of “collisions”, “Boltzmann principles”, “LWIR”, and all the rest, are just waffle by people who don’t want to contemplate reality at a lowish level.
If you want to dispute Feynman’s opinions (bearing in mind that the theory of quantum mechanics is the most rigorously tested theory in the history of mankind), feel free to do so.
I might feel inclined to laugh at your feeble attempts, if your intellectual prowess does not rise above its present level.
It’s you who needs to learn some physics instead of spouting this claptrap!
Phil,
In other words, you accept that my facts are correct – but you don’t like it one little bit.
Oh dear, if you truly believe physical laws and reality are “claptrap”, good for you!
What “claptrap” in particular concerns you? Or are you just appearing to be an idiotic whinger for no good reason at all?
“It is true that monatomic gases do not absorb LWIR coming off Earth’s surface or from polyatomic gases and clouds in the atmosphere, “
No it’s not. Put some liquefied monoatomic gas on the surface at night. Watch it boil away as it absorbs infrared emitted by anything hotter than the liquefied gas.
Reality is not your friend, obviously.
“on the surface”
Ummm, conduction?
Presumably, you are implying some disagreement without actually stating what it is. You probably can’t explain what you mean by “conduction” in any way that makes scientific sense.
There are many “explanations” on the internet, most of which are superficially convincing to the ignorant, but fail when examined in detail. Which do you fancy?
Hmmmm . . .
— “liquefied monatomic gas” . . . an oxymoron if I ever saw one
— “watch it boil away” . . . so, we’re talking about the liquid phase absorbing LWIR, not the gas phase, right?
— “as it absorbs infrared emitted by” . . . what about heat transferred into that liquid by conduction or convection? . . . or are you just proposing the (ahem!) unreality of these not existing in your scenario?
Please note that in my comment that you referenced I only mentioned gases and clouds, saying nothing about the ability of monatomic liquids to absorb LWIR photons.
Oh well, if you don’t believe argon can be liquified by allowing it to radiate energy to a colder environment, that’s your choice.
No, argon is matter – whether solid, liquid or gaseous. If you don’t believe that gaseous argon is hotter than liquid argon, good for you!
Convection and conduction are merely descriptive terms used to describe physical phenomena in practical terms. They do not describe the mechanism, just a gross observation.
Go on, tell me that you can’t raise argon in a sample of air to a temperature of say 500 C by smartly compressing it! You won’t believe me, but argon by itself can be heated by compression, exposing it to something hotter, friction, or in other ways.
All matter above absolute zero emits IR. All matter can absorb IR. Belief in reality is optional for sane people. You?
You don’t know about phase diagrams of substances, do you?
It is a scientific fact that gaseous argon can exist at equilibrium conditions of, say, 5 psia and -160 C wheres liquid argon can exist at equilibrium conditions of, say, 45 psia and -130 C. Care to state which of the two is hotter?
LMAO (that is, joing with you this one time!)
OK, I assumed you would understand the concept of standard pressure. My bad – I should have stated something like IUPAC standard pressure.
I obviously overestimated your mental acuity. Sorry.
“Even monatomic gases, because they are matter with a temperature above absolute zero, emit thermal radiation in accordance with the Stefan-Boltzmann law of radiation power versus absolute temperature.”
No they don’t, look it up in any textbook on Physical Chemistry of Spectroscopy!
Phil,
You are confused, and don’t understand that spectroscopy is the study of the interaction between light and matter.
Don’t blame me for your ignorance – CO2 is matter, and both absorbs and emits infrared radiation. That’s why you can measure its temperature – even remotely, with a suitably calibrated IR thermometer. Across a vacuum, even.
You might be thinking about the emission spectra of excited atoms, or you might just be in a dream world – I have no way of knowing.
CO2 is not a monatomic gas! Monatomic gases at room temperature do not absorb and emit IR radiation. As I said read a textbook on Physical Chemistry or Spectroscopy.
Wrong, Phil.
Ahhhh, yes, spectroscopy! . . . that field of applied science that conclusively proves that an un-ionized monatomic gas (in this case neutral helium) in a natural environment—i.e., one where it is subject to frequent collisions and energy/momentum exchanges with other surrounding atoms or molecules—does both absorb and emit IR photons.
This falsifies the claims of many that neither IR absorption nor IR emission is possible since a monatomic gas does not possess a dipole moment.
And I care little if “textbooks on spectroscopy” care to include this fact, or choose to ignore it. The applied science (and reality) goes on nonetheless.
First, the screen grab explaining that helium has IR absorption and that fact is being used today by scientists:
And now, the screen grab explaining that helium has IR emission and that fact is being used today by scientists:
You apparently missed the point that the emissions were the result of “transitions between highly excited energy levels”, which doesn’t happen in Helium at room temperature!
You obviously missed—more likely, just do not understand—that the statement in the screen grab on observed IR emissions from neutral helium is due to excited energy levels within the un-ionized electron cloud, a feature which is NOT reflected in the temperature of the helium atom under consideration since it is not one of the “degrees of freedom” of the helium atom, each degree of freedom accounting for (1/2)kT.
This is basic physics of atom/molecule energy versus sensible temperature.
Rydberg states of helium can occur in interstellar helium gas clouds at temperatures close to the background temperature of the universe (i.e., around 4-5 K), as well as at higher temperatures such as at “room temperature” on Earth, around 295 K.
You really do need to understand the difference between an atom’s electron cloud quantum states and the sensible temperature of that atom at any given moment in time.
Go on, then. Go into a darkened room contains a gas at STP with your favourite spectrometer, (no sneaky light sources allowed) and tell me what gas the room is filled with!
Feel free to explain the difference between an atom’s electron cloud quantum states and the sensible temperature of that atom at any given moment in time. You can use IUPAC standard temperature if you like.
Should be easy for a clever chap like yourself. How hard could it be?
Only joking. If the room is filled with any number of gases, you’ll die without uttering a sound. You won’t even have time to say “electron cloud quantum states”, in all likelihood.
Willis, boasting about your ignorance is understandable, but self defeating.
You wrote –
“Err, yes. Monatomic gases such as argon and zenon neither absorb nor emit longwave radiation.”
in WillisWorld this may be true. In the real world, all matter above absolute zero emits infrared radiation. Gaseous argon and xenon (not “zenon”, but I make allowance for your ignorance) are above absolute zero – otherwise they would be solid.
Go on, defend your statement “Err, yes. Monatomic gases such as argon and zenon neither absorb nor emit longwave radiation.”
Maybe you’ll believe this “Matter is the scientific catch-all word for stuff—anything that has mass and takes up space. Matter is made of microscopic particles called atoms. Atoms are made of even smaller, or subatomic, particles known as protons, neutrons, and electrons. Atoms can combine to form molecules.
Solids, liquids, and gases are all forms of matter. Planets, stars, nebulae, and galaxies are all made of matter. Rocks, water, air, dust bunnies, giraffes, viruses, spinach, coffee cups, and cowboy boots are all made of matter.”, followed by “Matter gives off light. Every object emits, or gives off, light of one sort or another simply because of its temperature. Glowing objects like stars, galaxies, light bulbs, and lava are all sources of visible light. Cooler objects like planets, dust grains, rocks, trees, animals, and icebergs don’t glow in visible light, but they do emit significant amounts of infrared light. Matter can also give off very specific colors of light depending on what it is made of and how it is interacting with other forms of matter and energy.”
Simple enough for a dummy to grasp. I assume that the Webb Telescope site is sufficiently authoritative for you? You could always appeal to your own authority if you don’t like reality. You lose, anyway. I’m right, you’re delusional.
From Willis –
“Since the atmospheric thermal radiation is emitted in all directions, about half of it proceeds to space and the other part goes downwards and is absorbed by the surface. And that downwelling thermal radiation is the source of the extra energy that allows the surface to radiate more than just what it gets from the sun.”
Complete garbage! If the surface is hotter than the atmosphere, the surface absorbs no radiation from the atmosphere. Even if the atmosphere is hotter than the surface (low level night time inversion, for example), the surface still cools. Quantity as well as quality is necessary.
Your fantasy physics doesn’t work outside WillisWorld.
Simply wrong. The Stefan-Boltzmann law of thermal radiation is only dependent on the absolute temperature of the radiating matter . . . it has NO DEPENDENCE WHATSOEVER on what that object is radiating to, be it another object or deep space.
Many people get very confused—to the extent of “running off the rails”—by conflating the net energy transfer between two or more objects with the calculation of the energy being radiated (and absorbed) by each object in a multi-object scenario.
So, yes, a colder object can transfer heat to a hotter object, at least temporarily . . . it’s just that the colder object is simultaneously receiving more heat than it is radiating.
Similarly, a hotter object can and will absorb radiation emitted by a colder object (as long as its radiation absorptivity is greater than zero, but that is the case for all real matter).
“So, yes, a colder object can transfer heat to a hotter object, at least temporarily . . . it’s just that the colder object is simultaneously receiving more heat than it is radiating.”
No it can’t – except in the fantasies of yourself and Willis.
Your statement is meaningless, unless you are claiming that a colder object can radiate energy without falling in temperature – which is ridiculous. You see, if a colder object transfers energy to a hotter, increasing the hotter’s temperature, then the colder’s temperature must fall. The result would be that all of the colder body’s energy would transfer to the hotter, and the colder would rapidly drop to absolute zero.
Or maybe you really meant to say that you don’t really know how to say what you are trying to say? You really have no clue, do you? Here’s a “thought experiment” for you. Totally surround a teaspoon of liquid water with as much ice furiously radiating 300 W/m2 as your imagination can supply.
How hot will the water get? Only joking, the water will freeze, of course. What happens to all the 300 W/m2 photons emitted by the ice? They must go somewhere, surely. Try asking Willis – don’t be surprised if he says he is too busy pointing and laughing. He’s obviously as confused and ignorant as you (unless either of you can demonstrate otherwise in any objective fashion).
He who laughs last, laughs best (that will be me).
“Your statement is meaningless, unless you are claiming that a colder object can radiate energy without falling in temperature – which is ridiculous. You see, if a colder object transfers energy to a hotter, increasing the hotter’s temperature, then the colder’s temperature must fall. The result would be that all of the colder body’s energy would transfer to the hotter, and the colder would rapidly drop to absolute zero.”
+100
You too?
An object that is colder than another object can indeed radiate energy without falling in temperature as long as it is receiving the same or a greater amount of power than it is radiating at any given moment.
Case in point: the Earth (to TOA) is obviously colder than the Sun, yet it is radiating energy across 4 pi steradians, including its field-of-view of the Sun’s disk . . . however, since exiting the last glacial interval Earth on whole is clearly currently warming up.
You see (or, ahem, you don’t see) that the relatively cold Earth is simply currently receiving more energy from the Sun than it is radiating to all of space, including back toward the Sun. Of course, that situation could not persist for infinite time, but that wasn’t part of the discussion, was it?
Despite all the above, you are completely free to keep on laughing throughout your life, such as it is.
In fact the real question is whether something can radiate if there isn’t something to receive that radiation. From the perspective of the photon the transaction is instantaneous.
Do photons ask questions?
Along the lines of: if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound, eh?
You wrote –
“Do photons ask questions?”
That’s a completely stupid statement, isn’t it? Go on, pretend you were only joking, or trying to be sarcastic, or something.
I’ll laugh in advance, to save some time.
Without “asking a question” outright, how would any given photon-about-to-radiated know whether or not there was “something to receive that (photon) radiation”. Maybe said photon instead has ESP, or perhaps infinite knowledge of the state of the universe? /sarc
To the extent there is stupidity in this conversation thread, it is directly traceable back to real bob boder’s posed question: “In fact the real question is whether something can radiate if there isn’t something to receive that radiation.”
I offer logic in my posts, whereas you seem to focus on laughter. Please do carry on as that fact itself is humorous.
You wrote –
“Without “asking a question” outright, how would any given photon-about-to-radiated know whether or not there was “something to receive that (photon) radiation”.”
All matter above absolute zero radiates energy in the form of photons. You cannot stop it. Radiated photons may or may not be “received” by matter. The photons radiated from the Earth’s surface to outer space may interact with matter at some time in the future, or may simply proceed at their only speed (the speed of light) for an infinite length of time (assuming that the universe is infinite, of course).
in addition, photons are not baryons, and therefore not subject to the exclusion principle. This means that any given space can be occupied by an infinite number of photons, without interacting with each other.
I assume you will disbelieve me on principle, so I am probably wasting my time. I don’t mind – others may subject my comments to intense scrutiny, and decide that I am portraying fact – as bizarre as those facts may appear.
All pretty irrelevant – you might well believe in a non-existent GHE created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, for all I know. Certainly, followers of the Pastafarian religion don’t pretend the FSM has any scientific basis, unlike GHE believers. Are you a Pastafarian by any chance?
Real bob, you wrote –
“In fact the real question is whether something can radiate if there isn’t something to receive that radiation. “
Don’t be silly. All matter above absolute zero constantly radiates infrared. Light, of varying wavelengths. You may have noticed the phenomenon of transparency. The light from a red rose passes though air, clear glass, your cornea and vitreous humour without significant attenuation. The rose just emits light – it neither knows nor cares whether you are looking at it.
You obviously have no clue about physics. You are probably silly enough to believe that the Earth is heating up – in spite of losing energy at rate of about 44 TW. You see, all the heat of the day flees to space at night – never to be seen again.
if you don’t believe that, give me a good laugh by telling me what happens to the photons emitted by a chunk of ice submerged in water. A GHE supporter might claim that the soup absorbs the photons and gets hotter! How stupid would that be?
What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? Can’t say? Won’t say?
Simple question – maybe you can find the answer on the internet! How hard can it be?
You wrote – “An object that is colder than another object can indeed radiate energy without falling in temperature as long as it is receiving the same or a greater amount of power than it is radiating at any given moment”. Oh I see, if an object is heated enough, its temperature won’t fall! You just discovered this, did you?
Sorry, I already knew that.
You wrote –
“You see (or, ahem, you don’t see) that the relatively cold Earth is simply currently receiving more energy from the Sun than it is radiating to all of space, including back toward the Sun.” Really? After four and a half billion years of demonstrated cooling, the Earth is now receiving more energy from the Sun than it is radiating?
Is this due to the Eschenbach Miracle Steel Greenhouse Energy Multiplier, or something you invented yourself? Or maybe the laws of the universe have magically changed, and after four and a half billion years of cooling (while the GHE slumbered on), the prayers of the faithful have unleashed the GHE – to boil, grill, toast and fry us for our sins!
Only joking, you probably aren’t intelligent enough to recognise sarcasm. You certainly don’t understand physics.
Your problem, not mine.
Uhhhh . . . have you ever heard of Ice Ages on Earth, and how long ago the first one happened, and the fact that Earth warms up naturally following an Ice Age, just like it does following shorter-term glacial intervals?
This, of course, is a rhetorical question and there is no need for you to respond, especially since you are off laughing so much.
Uuuuuh, yes, I have heard of Ice Ages on Earth. So have you. You can’t actually describe an Ice Age, though, can you? Was the Earth covered in ice totally? Did this include the 70% or more of the surface covered by ocean?
The Earth does not magically cool down and heat up, and neither you nor any of your ilk can even suggest why an Earth sized blob of very hot rock, with a core temperature around 5500 K, a long way from the Sun would cool, then get hotter, then cool, then get hotter . . .
Maybe celestial beings were involved? CO2 powered Chariots of the Gods, perhaps?
Don’t worry, I can type and laugh at the same time – although I have to correct a few typos from time to time.
Why am I not surprised by that phrasing?
BTW,
Hah! . . . no magic needed . . . the best scientific explanation for that process has been available since more than 100 years ago . . . it is know as Milankovitch cycles and they concern long term cycles in Earth’s orbital ephemeris with respect to the Sun.
Look it up on any good Web search engine . . . you just might learn something.
Even when the Sun is closest to the Earth, Milankovitch cycles notwithstanding, its output is insufficient to prevent the Earth from cooling, let alone increase its temperature.
Overall heating requires energy input sufficient to overcome the Earth’s natural cooling process (currently losing net energy at a rate of some 44 TW – plus more to result in planetary heating. Not possible, given the Sun’s output and the distance between the Sun and the Earth.
I should point out that during the night, the Earth’s surface rids itself of all the heat of the day, as Baron Fourier wrote over 100 years ago.
Look it up on any good Web search engine . . . you just might learn something.
Net Radiation Loss RateIf an hot object is radiating energy to its cooler surroundings the net radiation heat loss rate can be expressed as
The net radiative heat transfer between a hot object and a cold object as indicated above is the difference between the heat radiated from the hot to the cold minus the heat radiated from the cold to the hot. Reduce the temperature of the cold object and the temperature of the hot object will drop until equilibrium is reached.
Phil,
Presumably you are trying to say something else apart that a hot object can raise the temperature of a cooler one, while itself cooling, until both are at the same temperature.
What is it that you can’t bring yourself to say? You can’t force a hotter object to gain energy from a colder one, of course. That would be really silly – you might as well try and convince someone that you could use the considerable heat energy contained in every particle of ice on Earth to raise the temperature of a drop of water!
Even you are not that insane, are you?
Willis,
You made a claim to your own “authority” – People Living in Glass Planets.
A complete farrago of unphysical nonsense, of course. If you want to look like a fool, please feel free to defend your contention that two spheres of different radii have the same surface area. You don’t know what I am talking about, do you?
Ignoring the inverse square law won’t make it go away. You really believe that physical laws can be ignored at will, apparently.
Maybe you should stick to patronising arrogance, and leave physical reality to the grown-ups.
chortle.
Michael, if you wish to attack my ideas, you need to attack my ideas. Your childish petty ad-hominem attacks on me are a joke.
Read the post below, and come back when you understand it.
Best regards,
w.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1765552712626975193.html
Willis, you are completely impervious to any form of instruction, because you don’t have the brains. I’ve tried, as have many others. All we get back is name-calling and “Pass!”. So “attacking your ideas” isn’t going to do you any good whatsoever. Not that it hasn’t been done many times.
“Childish petty ad-hominem”? Really? Did you call me and your other physics teachers any of these names? “pond scum” “pig” “horse” “ankle biter”
His article People Living in Glass Planets isn’t wrong. Considering you claim the SB law does not predict the radiant exitance (W.m-2) of a body at temperature T, that the law is itself a hallucination, and that energy (j) and power (W) are not related via E = P*t I don’t think you’re in a position to instruct Willis. And besides accusing someone of having no brains isn’t a great way to instruct them anyway.
“the SB law does not predict the radiant exitance (W.m-2) of a body at temperature T”
It doesn’t.
“the law is itself a hallucination”
If you leave out the cold body, yes it is.
“energy (j) and power (W) are not related via E = P*t”
They are, but you are going at it backwards. Energy comes first, then an energy gradient, then power.
Have you done that experiment I asked you to do yet? The one that shows you are hallucinating?
Clearly, Steve, either you didn’t read my post or you didn’t understand it. Go back, read it again, and we can hold a rational discussion. Here it is again.
w.
No, Willis, you are not smart enough to engage in a rational discussion. Many of us have tried, all have failed, and it’s not our fault.
Here are some of the things actual scientists (and healthy adults) never do, because they don’t have to:
Get back to me when you finally decide to discuss the science and give up on the endless personal insults. My post below shows how you can prove me wrong. Ad hominem attacks and falsely accusing me of lying won’t do it.
Until then, please go bother someone else.
w.
“Until then, please go bother someone else.” How masterful is that? Why should he take any notice of someone as pompous and scientifically illiterate as yourself?
Especially someone (you) who wrote –
“Finally, please, don’t bother with the bottom levels of the pyramid, name-calling, ad hominems, and the like. I’ll just point and laugh.” Point and laugh? Oooooh, how scary! Willis is threatening to point and laugh!
Go on, then – what will happen to me after all this pointing and laughing? Nothing at all? You are a bit full of yourself, aren’t you?
Good for a laugh, at least.
Willis, I tried to discuss the science with you. Many times. As I said above, all I got back was lies, nonsense, arrogance, ego, and “Pass!” Quite a lot of “Pass!” Why don’t you get back to us when you know your physics? Because you don’t. And there is no need for an arrogant “How to Prove Willis Wrong” article. It’s the same as how to prove everyone else wrong – in this case, by studying a physics textbook.
Willis,
In your silly “People living in glass planets”, you have a planetary surface at -18 C, radiating energy to a shell a finite distance away, and raising the shell’s temperature to -18 C. Impossible. There will be a temperature gradient between the surface and the shell, whether you like it or not. The shell cannot possibly be the same temperature as the object warming it if the two are not in contact.
As I said, merely assuming that the laws of physics can be discarded if inconvenient just makes you look stupid and arrogant.
Come on, then. Defend what you wrote. You have a sphere with a greater surface area emitting the same number of W/m2, in other words, more total energy than it receives from the sphere which it surrounds.
A miracle indeed! The Eschenbach Perpetual Energy Generating Device! Maybe you could follow up by insisting that adding CO2 to the atmosphere “warms the planet”! Pardon me while I point and laugh.
His patronising ignorant arrogance really is off the charts, isn’t it? I have honestly never seen the like. Well, he’s only a fisherman, after all, and not one of the brighter ones either. I would go further and describe him as one of two things, after many years of trying to teach him physics – besides the shorthand “idiot” that most people go with:
1) A badly trained Large (Small?) Language Model (garbage in, garbage out)
2) A hypocritical, lying, arrogant, egotistical, psychopathic, narcissistic, ignorant charlatan
All of that is of course solidly backed up by what he’s written here and elsewhere over the years, in case any moderators are listening and want to give me a hard time. I have the receipts.
(I think my favourite brain-dead thing he said was when he told us that the only way he can tell the difference between true statements and false ones is by laughing at them. Followed closely by “I can’t believe climate scientists would lie to me, it’s just common sense” [lightly paraphrased]. These are the attitudes of a 6-year-old, and certainly not of a scientist of any description.)
First, Steve, your claimed quote of my words, “I can’t believe climate scientists would lie to me, it’s just common sense”, is a damn made-up lie, which you’ve attempted to conceal by calling it “lightly paraphrased”.
Nor did I say “the only way [I] can tell the difference between true statements and false ones is by laughing at them”. That’s another damned lie.
Second, you haven’t shown a single claim of mine in this entire post to be incorrect. All you’ve done is hurl endless insults, as though that’s how scientific debates are conducted and scientific claims are falsified.
But hey, you and Michael Flynn agree, so there’s that …
w.
No, Willis, I’m not lying. Here you go:
The “common sense” quote: “Finally, no, that’s not an appeal to authority. It’s an appeal to common sense”, from here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/12/25/being-disagreeable-at-christmas/#comment-3657707
The “laugh test” quote: you can see 14 examples with this query: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awattsupwiththat.com+willis+eschenbach+%22laugh+test%22
But the specific one I was referring to was this one:”doesn’t pass the laugh test.” from the same comment as above.
One of us is definitely a damned liar, but it’s not me.
stevekj
Reply to
Willis Eschenbach
January 24, 2025 11:17 am
That is NOT WHAT YOU SAID ABOVE. You lied when you claimed I’d said ““I can’t believe climate scientists would lie to me, it’s just common sense”.
Here’s the full quote of what I said regarding your … curious … claims about pyrgeometers. I’ll let folks decide for themselves.
I stand by that.
You continue:
Your false claim above was that I said “the only way [I] can tell the difference between true statements and false ones is by laughing at them”.
I said no such thing, and none of your links show me saying the ONLY way I tell truth from falsity is laughter.
To the contrary, I use every method and tool I have at hand to differentiate between truth and falsity, whether theoretical, empirical, practical, or other.
As you can see in my quoted words above, I do use the “laugh test”. I also use the “smell test”, the “common sense” test, and the “Mark 1 eyeball test” at various times, as appropriate.
And yes, I’m aware that none of those tests are probative … here’s a story about that.
Back before the Civil War, some unscrupulous people selling milk would simply add water to it to make more money. And it wasn’t easy for a purchaser to prove that water had been added to the milk.
Regarding this practice, in 1850 Henry David Thoreau wrote:
If you claim that the milk isn’t watered after I find a trout in the milk, that’s a claim that I’d say doesn’t pass the laugh test …
Best to you and yours, and could you PLEASE address the issues? For example, where are the logical faults or errors in my post? That’s what the science is about, not my many acknowledged failings …
w.
Willis,
You wrote –
“Finally, no, that’s not an appeal to authority. It’s an appeal to common sense, which sadly is the least common of the senses these days.”
Ah, I see. “Common sense” is it? Determined by your good self, no doubt. Here’s another view of common sense-
“Common sense as it’s currently understood and commonly used is significantly worse: it is an anti-intellectual memetic weapon deployed to deaden reason and defeat conversation and inquiry.” That would be you in action?
Richard Feynman said “Quantum mechanics describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And yet it fully agrees with experiment.” I agree.
You stick with your “common sense”. I prefer the scientific method – common sense be damned if experiment shows otherwise.
“doesn’t pass the laugh test.”
That’s still stupid, Willis, and anyone who says that is an idiot – and nothing approaching a “scientist”. There is no way around it. No actual scientist has a “laugh test”. If they did, they would keep it very quietly to themselves, and not trumpet their arrogant nonsense in public like you do. Because that’s not how science works, and every actual scientist knows that.
Thanks for posting the whole context, it’s pretty verbose so I shortened it. But the end result is the same. I made a true claim (the “conspiracy” part was your own invention, my correct and scientifically verifiable claim is just that they’re all telling falsehoods, or “lying” depending on how you want to interpret the semantics of that word and their internal intentions vs simple incompetence), and you couldn’t contradict it with anything other than the “Willis Eschenbach Laugh Test”. ™ (patent pending)
“I use every method and tool I have at hand to differentiate between truth and falsity”
What methods and tools would those be? You’ve never explained any of them to us, and you couldn’t bring any of them to bear in this case, could you? None of them successfully taught you how to do physics properly, nor how to avoid lying about it, therefore, obviously, none of them are any better than the “laugh test” – by definition. So if the “laugh test” isn’t your only tool, the rest are even worse, which isn’t an improvement over what I said before. But sure, I’ll put it that way if it makes you feel better: “The most reliable tool Willis has for differentiating between true and false statements is his ‘laugh test’.” And it was certainly the only tool you could think of for defending this particular claim, wasn’t it? You know, the claim that you’ve staked your entire fake physics career on? All those nonsensical radiation articles over the years? And all the insults to the rest of us? So how, exactly, was I wrong to put it this way, when it comes right down to it?
“I stand by that.”
Good for you. You’re still an idiot.
Please explain to us, Willis, exactly how your “laugh test” works. Can the rest of us use it too, or do we have to phone you up whenever we have an idea, to see whether it passes your “laugh test”? Would the things that pass your “laugh test” today still have passed it 50 years ago? Or tomorrow?
“where are the logical faults or errors in my post?”
I told you twice already (just in this article, and at least hundreds of times before that in previous equally nonsensical articles, and no I’m definitely not exaggerating), this is probably the biggest: “the surface of the earth is emitting almost 400 W/m2 of upwelling longwave thermal radiation” Then it just gets sillier after that, as one would expect.
You know what doesn’t pass the “laugh test”, Willis? That claim, that’s what. What are you going to do if my “laugh test” gives a different answer than yours does? It looks like you’re going to be kind of stuck.
More importantly and reliably, though, of course, the claim also doesn’t pass any actual tests, such as scientific measurements. That’s what I prefer to rely on, myself. Because science is no laughing matter. Nor is it a question of “common sense” in any way. But no one would expect a fisherman to know that, would they?
No, Willis, physics is not in your wheelhouse. It’s not even on the same boat. I would go so far as to say it’s not even on the same ocean. Why don’t you stick to fishing, and leave physics to the physicists who are smart enough to understand it? All of them will tell you the same thing – you’re an idiot and you’re in way over your head. Many have done so, and you ignored all of them. Who behaves like that, other than a child, an idiot, or a charlatan?
“Second, you haven’t shown a single claim of mine in this entire post to be incorrect”
That’s a lie too. Because I already told you this one is: “the surface of the earth is emitting almost 400 W/m2 of upwelling longwave thermal radiation”
It’s not cool to make up your own quotes and falsely attribute them to someone else. Anyway, you need to tread lightly defending Michael Flynn. If it is the same commenter who got banned on Dr. Spencer’s blog you’re going to end up defending some ideas by proxy that are so absurd they defy credulity.
If Michael got banned from Dr. Spencer’s blog, that’s not the “win” you think it is. Dr. Spencer doesn’t know his radiation physics any better than you do, i.e. not at all.
I’m not making things up. Willis actually said those things. You can quibble with my paraphrases, but not the intent or the words he used. They’re right there in black and white.
“ideas by proxy that are so absurd they defy credulity”
Like the idea that you can turn temperature directly into power with a misunderstood equation, you mean?
Like the idea that the Moon does not rotate on its own axis. It was among the most absurd multi-year debates on Dr. Spencer’s blog. I naively tried to convince him otherwise. He dug his heels in harder. I don’t know if it is the same commenter or not, but the writing style and arrogance ticks the box.
BTW…I standby the Stefan-Boltzmann law which says unequivocally and indisputably that if you want a surface to emit at a higher power you can do so by increasing its temperature.
Yes, or by increasing its emissivity. Emitted radiation power is not necessarily related to temperature, but you obviously don’t accept Wien’s Displacement Law.
Ice can emit 300 W/m2 – and so can a container of boiling water. That’s why climate clowns waffle about “power” and “flux”. They point blank refuse to accept the reality that a colder atmosphere cannot raise the temperature of a hotter surface.
Your turn. Maybe you can whine about arrogance, and avoid having to face reality. Good luck.
“I standby the Stefan-Boltzmann law which says unequivocally and indisputably that if you want a surface to emit”
How would you know? You told us you’re not a physicist. You’re just guessing, and you guessed wrong. Surfaces do not “emit power”. No law says that. It’s physically and grammatically invalid.
Because I can raise a value to the 4th power and multiple it by a constant and a surface area.
The Stefan-Boltzmann law says that. P = AεσT^4.
bdgwx,
You don’t realise how much ignorance you are demonstrating – just like Willis.
Here’s your chance to demonstrate some of that ignorance –
if a surface is emitting 300 W/m2, what is its temperature?
Go on, without any further information, show how dumb you are – use any formula you like!
Can’t be answered without knowing the emissivity “epsilon” of the surface. If you know the emissivity, it’s
T = (300 / (σ * ε))^(1/4)
where T is the temperature in Kelvin, sigma σ is the SB constant, 5.67E-8, and epsilon ε is the emissivity.
For a global whole-earth emissivity of 0.975, a surface radiating at 300 W/m2 would have a temperature of ~ -1.7°C.
Regards,
w.
It is T = (300/εσ)^(1/4).
So the answer is whatever you want it be, is it?
At least you acknowledge that W/m2 can represent any temperature you want it to.
Clever, very clever? Or deceptive and stupid, maybe.
“Because I can raise a value to the 4th power and multiple it by a constant and a surface area.”
You can do that mathematically, yes, but you have no idea what the result means physically, nor when this equation can be applied. Why do you think ChatGPT told you that you can’t do this?
And why don’t you do those two actual experiments I mentioned?
The easier one is to take the “radiant heat transfer equation”, and set the cold temperature to 0 K. What does the resulting equation look like?
Here’s another example of how stupid it is to take a formula and apply it without having any idea what it means.
Chemical Formula: C3H8 + 5O2 -> 3CO2 + 4H2O
So all I have to do is put some propane and some oxygen together, and I’ll get CO2 and water. Right? Of course not. Something’s missing from this plan, isn’t it? Besides intelligence?
That example has nothing to do with the Stefan-Boltzmann Law.
Do you have difficulty maintaining comprehension for than a few words?
Here’s the full sentence (I typed it very slowly to ensure you could read it all) –
“Here’s another example of how stupid it is to take a formula and apply it without having any idea what it means.”
No mention of Stefan-Boltzmann, which you admit is useless when trying to convert W/m2 into temperature, anyway. An example would be the Trenberth – Fasullo “energy budget”, showing 78 W/m2 absorbed by the atmosphere, and 187 W/m2 emitted by the atmosphere. Hopefully, you might agree that this tells you precisely nothing about atmospheric temperature.
As a matter of fact, the net W/m2 would appear to be -109 W/m2. I agree – about as stupid as adding temperatures and claiming that the answer is meaningful.
Assume that the Earth’s surface was originally as low as 2300 K (NOAA figure), and is now say 288 K. The temperature varied smoothly between those values as the Earth cooled. If your use of the SB equation does not produce the infinite number of discrete temperature values involved, it is wrong. If it does (agreeing with reality), then it is completely useless!
Tell me again, what is the relevance of the SB equation to the non-existent GHE. None at all? All just a silly effort to convince others that you are a credible source of information?
Colour me unconvinced. Others can form their own opinions.
No, it’s an example of how stupid it is to read the S-B law as a mathematics equation with no clue to its physics application.
Better check on that word “unequivocally” . . . if I raise the temperature an emitting object from, say, 300 K to 315 K (a factor of 1.05) yet simultaneously decrease its surface emissivity from (in this case), say 0.80 to a value below 0.66, then it will actually radiate less power than it did previously at the lower temperature.
Hint: 0.80/0.66 = 1.05^4
Even Willis and you seem to agree with me that bdgwx is more ignorant than you. Yes, it’s true – pretending that W/m2 has any meaning by itself is the sort of idiotic self delusion characteristic of “climate scientists”.
You might be surprised to believe that Willis used W/m2 in several of his deceptive attempts to justify the existence of the non-existent GHE. You might be even more surprised to learn that Willis refused to believe that a body at some finite distance from an emitter with a fixed temperature of 255 K, surrounded by an environment of 0 K, would have a temperature less than 255 K, and more than 0 K.
If this comes as no surprise, then you are obviously as ignorant as Willis.
At least you both acknowledge that W/m2 is not necessarily related to absolute temperature. Are you smart enough to realise that adding and subtracting W/m2 is even sillier than adding and subtracting temperatures? Mind you, GHE believers are capable of ignoring reality in several directions at once.
Have you accepted that argon is matter, after all, and absorbs and emits infrared radiation – or is that much to take in?
I standby what I said. I’ll say it again…if you want a surface to emit at a higher power you can do so by increasing its temperature. So yes that is unequivocal and indisputable. Just because you can increase/decrease power by increasing/decreasing emissivity in no way changes the fact that you can increase power by increasing temperature. The Stefan-Boltzmann law is not some “hallucination” that stevekj, Michael Flynn, you or anyone else can ignore because you don’t like what it says.
“…if you want a surface to emit at a higher power you can do so by increasing its temperature.”
And of course you can’t quote me disagreeing, can you?
You can’t even quote me saying that the Stefan-Boltzmann Law is invalid, let alone some “hallucination”. You just make stuff up – God alone knows why. Do you suffer from delusions at all?
You don’t seem firmly attached to reality.
None of us are ignoring what the S-B law says. We are pointing out that you are only looking at half of it. That half, by itself, is indeed a hallucination, because it encourages you to hallucinate nonexistent power.
Can you answer my question? Please show us what the “radiant heat transfer equation” looks like when the cold object temperature is set to 0 K.
Well, having observed both of you in action, and concluding that both of you share the same debating style of repeating false claims over and over until the opponent gives up and goes away, I can easily believe that you spent multiple years arguing about the Moon’s rotation.
Meanwhile, after trying to convince Michael that he’s effectively misinterpreting both Wien’s law and the S-B law, I think you’re right that he’s not actually any brighter than you are. He happens to know his physics slightly better than you do, in that he knows better than to try to convert temperature directly into power. But there are still large gaps in his knowledge, and he’s way too arrogant to try to fix them. He’d rather just repeat irrelevant distractions and insult people than try to learn anything. Much like you do, in fact. And Willis. And davidmhoffer.
Michael, it’s called “providing further arguments, logic, and evidence”, regardless of who wrote it.
And you whining that I wrote it means NOTHING!!! Either you can show that it’s wrong or you can’t, and so far all you’ve done is throw around accusations.
w.
PS—You claiming that I said that two spheres of different radii have the same surface area” is the
very reason I ask folks to QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU ARE DISCUSSING. I never said what you falsely claim I said, that’s your misinterpretation.
Willis,
You wrote “And you whining that I wrote it means NOTHING!!! Either you can show that it’s wrong or you can’t, and so far all you’ve done is throw around accusations.”
Is this from the same person who shouts “QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU ARE DISCUSSING”? What are these “accusations” you refer to?
Can’t quite say?
Oh well, you might recollect one of your sillier essays to do with a “Steel greenhouse”, along the lines of a sphere surrounded by another sphere of different radius. You state that the inner sphere emits a certain flux per unit area, and that the outer sphere emits precisely the same flux per unit area, miraculously raising the temperature of the inner sphere. Complete crap, however you jiggle, wriggle, and generally whine about being “misquoted”.
No matter how much you SHOUT and complain, the outer sphere has a greater area due to its greater radius. The radiation from the inner sphere is therefore spread over a greater area, resulting, quite rightly, in the outer sphere having a lower temperature than the inner sphere. Wrap as many shells around the Earth as you like – it will cool regardless.
Now, Willis, you need to face a simple fact – if the Earth’s surface was originally molten, it is no longer so – it has cooled. You can’t even explain why, can you? Not without demolishing your silly GHE fantasy!
Adding CO2 to air won’t make it hotter. Removing CO2 from air won’t make it colder.
Bad luck.
Willis,
Here’s you –
“Let me be clear about what I am saying about models. I’m not saying that we can’t model the climate. I think we can, although it won’t be easy. But we have to model it the way it really is.”
You’re not really saying anything at all, are you? Just more fantasy. Modelling the climate “the way it really is”? Pity that you can’t or won’t say what the “climate” “really is”, isn’t it?
That way, you can’t be pinned down to anything definite, can you? Clever move, Willis.
Hi Willis.
I’ve been noodling a response for days. In fact I’ve been thinking of a (semi-related) problem in my head for days and your post came just at the right time to at least mostly ‘scratch that itch’. I won’t go in to the exact nature of that itch, I’ll just say ‘Thank you’.
In regards to your post. My current thinking goes along these lines.
First we note that your Figure 5 isn’t just ‘Solar Input’ its the ‘Albedo adjusted Solar Input’ and as such you seem to have confirmed that the increased outgoing radiation is simply due to changes in Albedo and nothing to do with the “Infrared Absorption and Emission effect” (or IAE effect).
Secondly you say “We know that the increased GHGs are causing increased downwelling radiative flux because we can measure it from satellites”…My observation is that ‘no, we cannot directly MEASURE the downwelling radiation (which is going down) by a satellite in space(up)”. The downwelling radiation is calculated by measuring other quantities (incoming solar, outgoing radiation and a host of others). I’m not trying to claim the method of calculation is invalid I have no reason to suggest that since I haven’t looked at it in detail. But if ‘Albedo adjusted Solar Input’ is one of the variables in that calculation and it fully explains the increase in outgoing radiation (according to your calculations above) it seems at least reasonable to propose that there is no ‘measurable increase in downwelling radiation due to increased CO2′. Until or unless someone directly measures the downwelling radiation (not via a proxy of Temperature from scattered and horribly sited thermometers and ‘translating’ that) we have only supposition (suggestive as it may be).
Furthermore, if a commentor below is correct and I quote “In other words, during CERES the increasing greenhouse effect was insignificant”. So, you seem to have confirmed what the CERES team already apparently noted.
With that said it may be observed that this statement doesn’t link the ‘no increase in greenhouse effect’ to ‘no increase in downwelling radiation’ so the CERES team may be publishing data indicating there is an increase in downwelling radiation even though again your calculations would propose there is no need for one or not at least any ‘measurable effect’ of one.
Thirdly you say “Note that I’m not saying that the GHGs don’t increase the downwelling longwave radiation. They do.”..But the IAE effect is not a ‘law of nature’, it is not like conservation of energy and in the earth’s dynamical system there is no a-priori reason to believe that injecting a minuscule extra quantity of CO2 must increase the downwelling radiation (at least to a measurable amount).
“BUT! They MEASURED it and commentors below say Loeb tied the change in Albedo to the GHE so it IS the increase in the GHE that is driving the change in OLR”…(Willis you didn’t say this, I’m just using this as a quote for effect, putting it in the ‘mouths’ of some readers)
And finally we come to my question or observation…given Willis’ calculation, and assuming its correct, ‘Why would an increase in DWLR from increased CO2 only and always preferentially select for modifying the Albedo?”. Infrared radiation is fungible, the earth system has no way to know where it came from, what caused an increase (or didn’t) which part of the system emitted it etc. So if the earth system can’t know where the IR came from “why is it using the supposed increased downwelling radiation only for modifying the Albedo?” surely SOME of it should simply be bouncing around (even ‘thermalizing’ for convection) and eventually ‘escaping’ and thus should have changed Willis’ “Greenhouse efficiency” calculation…O, and anyone saying ‘feedback’, why THIS feedback only?
Note Willis this is not the same thing as asking ‘Where did the extra downwelling radiation go?’ as you are assuming it exists to begin with and you also assume ‘it preferentially goes somewhere that all other fungible IR is not going’ e.g. if there is an increase and if this IR behaves exactly the same as all other IR in the earth system some of it must ‘bounce around and escape to increase the OLWR’. But you’ve demonstrated no measurable increase/change in the OLWR due to a supposed increase in DWLR.
You invoked Occam’s razor Willis…so let’s use it…the simplest answer explaining the current facts, incorporating your new one is that “there is no measurable increase in DWLR due to the miniscule increase in CO2”.
To be complete, I do not CARE why the planet seems to be warming. I’m from Canada, I fear cold FAR more than heat. And I LOVE CO2, one of the ‘gases of life’, without it we wouldn’t exist. So if CO2 is causing some or all the additional warming, great, lets keep going. I’m simply making an observation, it may be entirely invalid. Feel free to explain why.
As to warming, it’s due to additional heat. Otherwise cooling (as for example the last four and a half billion years) occurs.
Some people obviously associate the heat from a fire with the CO2 being produced by the combustion process. 100% correlation, right? Or wrong?
Sorry Michael but I’m unclear what your point is. I’m aware that ‘warming’ is due to ‘increased heat’ (increased energy).
As to a fire, at least in burning firewood in a campfire the production of CO2 isn’t a ‘correlation’ its a ‘causation’ (e.g. production of CO2 from burning wood is a ‘given’), but measuring CO2 doesn’t imply I know there’s a campfire burning somewhere. If you are saying that some people believe the heat from a fire is due to the CO2, I’m not sure what to say…people believe crazy things…
My point is that some people think there is a GHE (which cannot actually be described in any useful way), which apparently involves CO2 producing, trapping, or storing heat, resulting in global warming, climate change, floods, droughts, earthquakes and predictions of imminent doom – although none of the climate clowns can actually commit themselves to anything specific.
Campfires produce heat and CO2. It seems obvious to me that CO2 is a by product of the combustion process, not a cause of heat. Some ignorant people even believe nonsense papers like “Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature”, which contains such gems as “Without the radiative forcing supplied by CO2 and the other noncondensing greenhouse gases, the terrestrial greenhouse would collapse, plunging the global climate into an icebound Earth state.”
Ridiculous, isn’t it? CO2 creating heat? Nobody is actually stupid enough to claim such silliness (apart from various self styled “climate scientists” who write pseudo-scientific papers, but these sneaky individuals imply that reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will cause the planet to cool!
The planet has managed to cool quite nicely over the last four and a half billion years without the approval or otherwise of various groups of climate nutters. No GHE – nobody can even describe this mythical concept.
“Campfires produce heat and CO2. It seems obvious to me that CO2 is a by product of the combustion process, not a cause of heat.”
Yep, CO2 is a by-product of combustion, not a fuel or cause. The fuel is typically a hydrocarbon and the oxidizer is O2. It is breakdown (oxidation) of the hydrocarbon that releases heat.
Climate science: “THE SKY IS BURNING!”
The claim that CO2 increases are reducing albedo is circular logic and completely idiotic. From what I can tell, it’s based on some models which show a reduction in clouds out in the future based on a warmer planet. Notice, the warming comes first.
There is no science which predicts a direct reduction in albedo from increases in CO2. So, we can ignore anyone pushing that nonsense.
“So, we can ignore anyone pushing that nonsense.”
From what I’ve read on WUWT I agree and was ultimately the point of my question. It seems ludicrous to believe that ‘new’ CO2 (the increase) would somehow behave differently to ‘old’ CO2 (the existing stuff that would still be supposedly absorbing & emitting IR) or are they saying all CO2 in the atmosphere always behaves to only affect the albedo?
That’s some magical molecule, even more incredible than I thought it already was!
I suspect the reason models show a cloud loss is related to the tropical hot spot. Since there’s no hot spot, there’s no reason to believe there would be any cloud losses either.
I wasn’t really referencing models, just Willis’ analysis with measured observations.
I consider the models no better than toys or Doom sims from the ’80s in representing reality. Some day if I ever have the time and finances I want to do a ‘literature search’ to find & reject all papers whose conclusions are driven or supported by ‘models’. I suspect that the remaining papers on climate science providing any useful content could fit in a small box.
Willis, you have abandoned reason, and quote Perplexity.
Here’s me seeking information –
“CO2 levels were higher in the past, but the planet cooled anyway, is that it?
The answer –
“Yes, that’s correct. CO2 levels have varied significantly throughout Earth’s history, and there have been periods when CO2 concentrations were much higher than today, yet the planet still experienced overall cooling.”
Gee. Higher CO2 levels resulted in cooling anyway. So much for chatbots – do you really want to appeal to AI? Even when it agrees with me?
That’s a flawed conclusion, perhaps revealing your confirmation bias. Assuming your quoted conversation actually took place with Perplexity (or any other AI bot), its “answer” was only: ” . . . there have been periods when CO2 concentrations were much higher than today, yet the planet still experienced overall cooling.”
A careful (and objective) read of that statement does not imply any relationship between CO2 and Earth’s historic temperatures.
The problem is you have not calculated the “increased greenhouse efficiency from the increased well-mixed GHGs”, rather the efficiency of the greenhouse, which includes the greenhouse effect of clouds.
The LW portion of CRE has decreased more than 1 W/m2. LW down clear sky has increased 6 watts, not 5. Add 1 W/m2 increase in LW up over the period and you get your desired efficiency increase.
Thanks for confirming the well known physics.
Earlier, Toldyouso wrote –
“A careful (and objective) read of that statement does not imply any relationship between CO2 and Earth’s historic temperatures.” after I pointed out that depending on the answers provided by so-called AI can be fraught with difficulty.
Presumably, Toldyouso implies that because there is no relationship between CO2 and Earth’s historic (prior to now), “global warming” is due to “something”, but he can’t quite put his finger on what that “something” might be.
He doesn’t seem prepared to commit himself to anything which can be objectively scrutinised.
Well, your post fails as being even a half truth. I specifically pointed out in a previous comment that current global warming is due to Earth as a whole receiving more net power from the Sun than it is emitting to the universe.
Logically, it follows that global cooling happens at those times that Earth receives less power from the Sun than it is emitting to the universe.
I was, am, and will remain committed to that explanation that I have “fingered” for and to you.
“specifically pointed out in a previous comment that current global warming is due to Earth as a whole receiving more net power from the Sun than it is emitting to the universe.”
You are in denial of reality. The Earth loses energy – currently at a rate of about 44 TW, based on measurements by real scientists. According to Harvard, Yale, Geological Society of America, and even Wikipedia agrees! That results, by definition, in a phenomenon known as “cooling” – more energy radiated than absorbed.
Of course, you remain committed to your fantasy, referring to it as an “explanation”. I leave it to you to research the present rate of cooling in K/yr – you would steadfastly refuse to believe me if I told you, I fear.
You might even refuse to accept that anthropogenic heat affects thermometers on or near the surface, let alone remote sensors borne by satellites. You might be better served removing your “finger” from whichever orifice it presently occupies, and use it to turn over some pages, or even search the internet for some grains of truth amongst the garbage.
i wish you luck – with your current mindset, you’ll need it.
You choose to ignore the scientific data from UAH satellites (establishing a positive global warming trend for the last 40 or so years) at your own peril.
You are confused. Thermometers respond to increased anthropogenic heat production by indicating higher temperatures.
Feel free to ignore basic physics.
Michael Flynn (or whatever your real name is),
I have tried to be patient and “cut you some slack”, but your incessant flow of irrational, ad hominem attacks on so many WUWT commenters, including myself, has become intolerable for me.
I combine that observation with your obvious and repeatedly-demonstrated lack of basic science knowledge and unwillingness to learn to finally arrive at the conclusion that further discourse between us is pointless for me and would not be of any benefit to you.
Goodbye.
There would be absolutely no point for you responding to this final comment to you.
You wrote –
“There would be absolutely no point for you responding to this final comment to you.”
Thanks for your concern, but I might disagree with your unsubstantiated assertion. I understand your inability to tolerate reality, but I don’t share it.
In fact, I find your attempts to promote the GHE fantasy quite humorous. I don’t blame you for scuttling off.