Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
What got me into investigating climate science a quarter-century ago? The astounding stability of the Earth’s global surface mean temperature (GMST). For example, since the year 1900, a century and a quarter, the Earth’s temperature has gone up by 0.46 ± 0.07 percent.
I’ll say it again. In a century and a quarter the Earth has warmed by less than half a percent
The Earth’s climate system is a curious thing. It is a giant solar-driven heat engine. A heat engine is a device that turns heat into mechanical motion. In the case of the climate, the mechanical motion is the endless, ceaseless motion of the ocean and the atmosphere. Like all heat engines, the climate heat engine is heated at the hot end, and then the heat is transferred to the cold end and leaves the engine.
So I started out to discover why the temperature is so stable. Yes, I know that from our tiny human perspective it seems unstable, but for a heat engine, the temperature varying by less than half a percent over a century and a quarter is very stable. And here’s what I found out.
Like all flow systems far from equilibrium, the climate is ruled by the Constructal Law, one of the most under-appreciated discoveries of modern thermodynamics. The Constructal Law governs the evolution of flow systems.
And as the Constructal Law requires, the climate heat engine is constantly evolving to maximize the flow. The Constructal Law is a sort of Ten Commandments for anything that flows—rivers, blood, traffic, and, yes, the climate itself. The basic idea?
Everything that moves is constantly evolving and morphing to make movement easier. Life, it turns out, is just one big game of “How can I get from here to there with the least amount of fuss?” The Constructal Law is why river deltas look like the branches of a tree, which in turn look like the alveoli in our lungs. They are all controlled by the Constructal Law.
From a Constructal Law point of view, the climate is not a fragile, teetering system on the verge of collapse, but a gigantic, heat-hauling Rube Goldberg machine.
The sun pours energy onto the tropics, the poles are the cold end of the heat engine, and the atmosphere and oceans get busy shuttling all that heat from the equator towards the poles, where it escapes to space far more easily than at the tropics. Here’s a map of what areas lose or gain energy by this flow.
Figure 1. Average of flow of heat which is constantly being exported from the tropics to the poles, March 2000 to February 2024.
According to Bejan, the climate doesn’t maximize temperature, or CO₂, or even the number of climate conferences in Paris.
No, what it’s really maximizing—relentlessly, remorselessly, every minute of every day—is the flow of heat from where it’s hot to where it’s not.
Picture the earth as a planetary HVAC system, always rearranging its ductwork to get the job done faster. The Hadley cells, the jet streams, the ocean currents—none of these are accidents or the result of a committee meeting. They’re the system’s way of morphing itself to maximize that poleward heat flow. The boundaries between the warm and cold zones, the size of the tropical belt, the speed of the trade winds—Bejan’s math predicts them all and the numbers line up with the real world.
And here’s the kicker: when you let the system optimize for maximum heat transport, a bunch of other things fall into place. The average surface temperature, the temperature difference between the equator and the poles, the total amount of heat getting shunted north and south—Bejan’s model nails them all, without the need for fudge factors, hand-waving, or appeals to the climate gods.
How do I know that? I know because I created and ran what I believe is the first actual real-world based exemplar of Bejan’s theoretical climate model on my computer and saw how successful it was. The whole process is described in the post below.
So what’s the grand takeaway?
The climate isn’t a delicate flower, always on the verge of wilting. It’s a brawny, self-organizing, heat-moving machine, always rearranging its own plumbing to maximize the flow from hot to cold. It doesn’t care about our politics, our models, or our carbon taxes. It just wants to get the job done, and it’ll keep morphing until it does.
In short: if you want to understand the climate, stop thinking about balance, and start thinking about flow in a constructally-ruled world. The Earth’s climate is a heat engine with a mission, and it’s not going to let a little thing like equilibrium get in its way.
My best wishes to all,
w.
Of Course … when you comment, I politely ask that you quote the exact words you are discussing. Makes things clear.
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A variable speed for convective overturning of atmospheric mass is all one needs.
curiou, why the down votes for what makes sense?
Great post, Willis.
“…stop thinking about balance, and start thinking about flow…”
Exactly. The concept of a single number for “Earth’s Energy Imbalance” (EEI) is a misdirection. How many milliwatts per square meter are we talking about now? Is it over 1,000 yet? 🙂
By chance I came across a “Commentary” on the AGU website just yesterday (direct link) on this very subject.
NB (1) : My understanding is that a “Commentary” will have passed an AGU “editorial peer-review” process, but this is (probably ???) a “watered down” version of the process a full “Paper” would be subjected to.
NB (2) : Willis has a saying along the line of “a paper’s quality is inversely proportional to the number of authors.
The list of authors and affiliates takes up the entire first page of the four page “Commentary” (the “References” section only takes up half of page 4).
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From page 2 of the “Commentary” :
NB : They do not appear to notice that they have effectively said :
“All previous climate models were wrong … by a factor of two …”
I have attached a screenshot of “Figure 1” to the end of this post. Note their EEI value, from the CERES satellite dataset (!), in 2024 …
In the same paragraph on page 2 :
Look again at the 2024 value in their “Figure 1”, and how it compares to their “starting point” of 2020 …
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To be fair, the authors do include the notion of “uncertainty” in the following paragraph on page 3 :
I “predict” that the media reporting of Mauritsen et al will draw “much attention” to the second option for future EEI in the last sentence of that paragraph, rather than contemplating the possibility of the first one being borne out in “coming years”.
I’m just coming back to this post to say thank you for pointing out this reference.
Of course Earth’s climate is even more complex than captured organizational structures created by by 2-D single phase fluid flows. And this heat engine is buffered by a huge heat storage capacity in the deep oceans that averages a balmy 4º-5ºC. And incompressible liquid water at 4ºC is not the heat monster of a compressible vapor, where entropy can plays its games. Deep oceans are where excess heat goes to die before being slowly bled off into the polar ocean upwellings.
Further, water isn’t just single phase. It exists in 3 phase states in our climate to act as further degrees of freedom for energy flows in the system via latent heat transfers the model Willis describes does not capture.
The latent heat transfers in the big super-computer GCMs are just parameterized (fudge factors) to get the output the modelers need in terms of past and future precipitation and atmospheric temperatures.
Water (liquid in oceans/rivers/lakes, gaseous vapor, micron-sized water droplets in clouds, to ice crystals) is the reason computer models are utterly hopeless to captures all this complexity of heat flows from the microscopic water droplet physics to the macroscopic mesoscale weather systems.
You beat me to it. Well done.
One other detail concerning my favorite molecule, H2O. It has a dipole moment at the molecular level and therefore reacts to electron magnetic field. CO2 does not. Just as a point of interest, the H2O dipole moment is key to what makes a microwave oven cook food.
In it’s ground state CO2 is linear but three of its vibrational excited states do have dipoles.
Excellent work, Willis.
Now convert your model into a GCM equivalent and start pitting it against the existing GCMs, so that we can see whether it is more accurate.
The best way to confront the existing idiocy is to prove them wrong by their own modeling game.
”Modeling Climate” is a fool’s errand. The tools don’t exist.
Tom, I have an entire post linked to in the head post regarding the Constructal model of the climate that I built. It very accurately models the major features of the climate system. So at least one too exists …
w.
Willis, as usual you are very much on the right track with this approach to improve the scientific understanding climate / weather, which is always evolving, on many different timescales; and not only with this post but nearly all your posts.
I hope many other scientists also recognize the importance of this approach as the only valid approach.
in comparison to the “mainstream” equilibrium approach, it is as if you are all three on Newton’s Laws vs almost all other “climate scientists” are playing only with Newton’s First Law, with humans being the only thing that ever “kicks” their imaginary “climate equilibrium”, plus a very carefully selected volcanoes.
I’m confused about the units in your “.46 plus or minus .07 percent” remark. It would seem like you meant to say, .46 degrees plus or minus .07 percent.But later on in the article, you mentioned one half of one percent temp change.So hopefully you can clarify. Great article, by the way
I think w refers here to the Kelvin scale.
I believe Willis was referring to ~1/2 per cent change in absolute temperature, i.e. Kelvin or Rankine scale.
Greg, in examining the thermodynamics of heat engines, we perforce must use the Kelvin scale. Changes in operating states are describable as a percentage change in kelvins.
w.
So just picking a number twenty seven degrees centigrade equals 300° Kelvin, 1/2 of 1% of that. Is 1.5 degrees K. Ok.
Hi Willis,
Although I agree that Kelvin is scientifically correct, does it give us an accurate standard? The lowest temperature on earth is above 180K so that 180 degrees just increases the denominator for the precent without being tied to reality. Of course the next question is what do we use? I got nuttin’.
Just a nit.
Thanks for the post, Willis.
Run a black body or gray body calculation, T^4. Kelvin is significant.
OH heck, deleted it for being stupid.
One place where increasing temperature difference doesn’t increase heat flow is in the transition between nucleate boiling and film boiling. Having said that, I don’t think that applies to any significant heat transfer mechanism in the earth’s climate system.
A paradigm that makes sense, but somewhat in tension with Willis’s work on thunderstorm convection of heat in the tropics.
Heat does flow from hotter to colder, and thus from the equator toward the poles. But outer space is the coldest site in the Earth climate system (or heat engine), so heat flows equator to poles, but also from surface to atmosphere to space—-from everywhere on Earth via a mix of radiation and convection.
The thunderstorm as a heat engine may be the variable, negative feedback process that keeps the tropical oceans from overheating as much as variability in ocean currents and jet streams. And then there’s cloud cover.
No tension, k. Thunderstorms along the ITCZ greatly accelerate the circulation of the atmosphere, thus increasing the equator to polar flow. In general that’s what all the emergent phenomena do. Dust devils, the La Nina Pump, thunderstorms, all speed up the flow from hot to cold.
w.
Thank you for adding the third dimension to WE’s Earth. It would help if he referred to “energy” instead of “heat” consistently, which puts proper stress on the action of the water cycle.
It might also be more descriptive if he acknowledged that even the tropics loses energy to space for half of each day. The rotating Earth carries daytime accumulated energy into the dark.
Further complexity in a process that completely overwhelms minor additions to CO2.
“It might also be more descriptive if he acknowledged that even the tropics loses energy to space for half of each day.”
The tropics lose heat *all* day. It just happens that the heat loss is less than heat input during periods of the day. The *net* heat direction is inward when temperature is rising. The rest of the day the net heat direction is outward or equilibrium. The net direction is inward less than 50% of the day, more than 50% of the day the net direction is outward or equilibrium.
Very true.
There is an infinitesimally small period of “energy balance” twice a day – when maximum and minimum temperatures occur.
About as meaningful as a broken mechanical watch, which is absolutely accurate – twice a day.
Heat cannot flow to space. All heat flow occurs in the atmosphere, via a myriad of energy transport and conversion mechanisms. That is what the ERA5 reanalysis that David Dibbell discusses is all about.
Radiation is energy, but it is not heat.
The radiation that escapes to space is not “transferred upward” through the atmosphere. It is created “on the spot” via collisional excitation of an IR active molecule before it is emitted and escapes to space.
I don’t quite agree with your statement. Both energy and heat are measured in joules. While heat is typically measured as a change in energy, i.e. movement of energy from hot to cold, it is still energy. Radiation of energy to space is energy moving from one place to another. If that isn’t a transport of heat via transiting energy then the sun couldn’t “warm” the earth.
All heat is energy, but all energy is not heat. Sensible heat is the lowest form of energy, and work is required to convert it into a different form.
Radiation is electromagnetic energy. The “heat” is the result of electromagnetic energy being absorbed by matter, elevating molecules to excited states. The excited states can re-emit the radiation which would result in no heat being created, or they can dissipate their energy via thermalization which increases the kinetic energy of neighboring molecules, which is heat by definition.
In the case of CO2 or H2O for example, the absorption of radiation elevates the rotovibrational state of the molecule. The radiation energy is converted to rotovibrational energy, which is also not heat. The absorption does not change the temperature of the gas.
if another molecule collides with the excited molecule, some or all of the rotovibrational energy of the excited molecule can be transferred to the collision partner. The excited molecule is left in a lower state, and the kinetic energy of the collision partner is increased. The increase in kinetic energy is sensible heat, which we can measure as an increase in temperature.
Higher in the atmosphere the opposite process can occur. A collision with a molecule of sufficient energy can elevate an IR active (aka “greenhouse gas”) molecule to an excited state. The collisions are inelastic, meaning work is performed reducing the total kinetic energy of the system. If the molecule excited by the collision emits the radiation to space, there is additional energy loss because that excited state cannot “recycle” the excitation energy back into kinetic energy via a de-exciting collision.
This is how the atmosphere is heated near the surface and cooled in the upper atmosphere. It is a “just in time” collisional process that constantly creates and annihilates excited states in IR active molecules.
This is not the process that is described or modeled by radiative transfer theory.
Gotta be careful with definitions here. You are differentiating effect, not cause.
If two objects at the same temperature exist in a vacuum they are still transporting heat between each other via EM waves even with no temperature change. It’s just that heat in = heat out for each.
I suspect what you are getting at is the difference between Potential Energy and Kinetic Energy. An EM wave that is not interacting with anything, e.g. in a vacuum, has Potential Energy. An EM wave that is interacting with something is exchanging Kinetic Energy. Latent heat vs sensible heat.
No. Heat is the flow of thermal energy. EM is not thermal energy.
You have fallen into the trap. The climatologist want people the conflate heat with IR. It serves their ends as it leads to the CO2 nonsense,.
Bone up on EM fields and waves, skin effect in radar or optical depth in liquids and gases.
Hint, a wire in a varying EM field has a current induced. I^@ur momisugly x R is Watts.
‘You have fallen into the trap.’
Bingo #1. There are a lot of traps, mainly because we’re all guilty of not being absolutely clear with the terminology. As you infer, many conflate the very different meanings for thermal energy and thermal radiation.
‘The climatologist want people the conflate heat with IR.’
Bingo #2. Yes, but at a more basic level, they want people to conflate the thermal radiative properties of objects, i.e., condensed matter, with the distinctly non-thermal radiative properties of IR-active gases, i.e., non-condensed matter.
The main significance of #2 is that it ‘justifies’ treating the atmosphere as a quasi-black body to which Kirchoff’s Law can then be applied, which coupled with ignoring the impact of the near total deactivation of excited GHGs near the surface via thermalization, means that radiative transfer, not convection, is the primary means for modeling the transfer of thermal energy from the surface to space.
And the inevitable upshot of assuming that radiative energy transfer is applicable to the troposphere, is that any radiative ‘forcing’, e.g., CO2 emissions, must result in warming.
Radiation is one of the three methods of heat transfer. The other two are conduction and convection. You can’t transfer what you don’t have.
I don’t conflate heat with IR. Microwaves can heat water. Microwaves are not IR but they are an EM wave. Lasers can heat steel. Lasers are light, not IR, but they are an EM wave. IR is actually a misnomer. I learned it as IR *LIGHT*. It’s not visible to the human eye but bat sonar is not usually able to be heard by the human ear while it is still classified as sound.
“No. Heat is the flow of thermal energy. EM is not thermal energy.”
Give me a break. The term “thermal” is like the term “blue”. Both are descriptors of convenience. There is no physical difference in how a “red” EM wave works than in how a “blue” EM wave works. There is no difference between thermal energy measured in joules and other energy measured in joules. EM waves transport “joules”. Look at the factors in W/m^2. A watt is a JOULE/sec. If the EM wave was not transporting “joules” then there would be no way for it to generate “joules” of energy in an intercepting media like a metal rod. The only difference is in the means of propagation. So called “thermal” energy propagates via the random motion of particles and an EM wave propagates via an EM wavefront. But both propagate *energy*.
Nope. Radiation is not heat, as I described.
Your example is a red herring of sorts, and a common misconception. Mishchenko discusses this in his longer paper referring to it as the “polydirectional flow of radiation.” This is not allowed by either Maxwell’s equations or QED. Electromagnetic radiation is a field, and at any point in the field at a given frequency there can only be electromagnetic energy flow in a single direction. FYI, there does not exist an instrument that can measure this. Some would call it a Poynting Meter, to measure the Poynting vector. In the case you described, the superposition of the two fields results in a zero field between the two.
This confusion arises typically because of conflation of “radiance” with “radiative energy flow” of the belief that photons are directed packets of “light energy” which they are not. There is no wave function for the position of a photon. You can also read Mishchenko’s section on “photonic confusion” and Willis Lamb’s paper “Anti-Photon” to clarify this ubiquitous misunderstanding.
Electromagnetic radiation does not have potential energy, it has electromagnetic energy. The concept of potential energy applies to matter upon which work was performed to move it against the force of a field, like picking up a rock. It has potential energy until you release it and the energy is converted to kinetic energy as it falls to the ground.
Your last statements indicate further confusion. In the case of the photoelectric effect, excess electromagnetic energy can result in kinetic energy of the ejected electron, but much of the energy is expended in releasing it from its ground state which would be potential energy. Latent heat and sensible heat are distinct forms of energy unto themselves.
I’ll repeat, you can’t transfer what you don’t carry. The use of the term “thermal” is a misdirection of its own. “Thermal” is a description like “blue”. In fact, in my forge it is common to actually use “color” to describe the temperature of material, from dark rad to bright white. Thermal energy *IS* energy, pure and plain. Energy is measured in joules. Thermal energy is measured in joules. There is a misconception that “thermal” energy traveling into a medium is different than the energy propagating in an EM wave that transferred that energy to the medium. The energy from a propane torch causing the temperature of a metal rod to rise is no different from the energy propagated from the torch to the rod via an EM wave. The “form” of that energy may be different, an EM wave (PE) vs molecular vibration (KE), but it is at base the same energy. The only real difference between energy classed as heat and EM energy is the means of propagation. Heat energy spreads through the random motion of particles (diffusion) and EM waves propagate as a continuous electric and magnetic field (wavefront). But both are still energy measured in joules.
Methinks you are looking for areas of disagreement to criticize me on. But what we are both saying is just about the same.
I have no intrinsic interest in pursuing disagreement for the purpose of criticism. There are formalisms in science, some related to language, that enable clear communication of concepts. When these formalisms are not followed, it creates confusion. Unfortunately, not even all who have been properly trained in physics follow this, and for the layman it becomes a mashup of terminology that creates many misconceptions.
To begin, I suggest you watch this brief talk by Feynman on the nature of light.
https://youtu.be/FjHJ7FmV0M4?si=ahs7edHdbXjX3QR-
If you have watched it, you should appreciate, and perhaps understand that there is one electromagnetic field that is the superposition of all the electromagnetic fields in the universe. We can talk about local subsets of that field, but the concept that there is an overlying field is important.
Getting to your points:
You have correctly written the equation of the Poynting vector in its simplest form. It is explicitly a function of position and time. Poynting’s Theorem states that the divergence of the Poynting vector is equal to the time rate of change of energy in a volume. It is implicit when dealing with electromagnetic energy that this also needs to be summed or integrated over all frequencies. Wikipedia has a reasonably good discussion of Poynting’s Theorem here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poynting%27s_theorem. While in most cases it is reasonable to consider that it represents a local instantaneous radiative energy flow, that may not always apply as discussed by Mishchenko. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140012672/downloads/20140012672.pdf. It is not possible to measure the Poynting vector. In order to do so, one must instantaneously at a point measure and sum the energy flow from all possible directions simultaneously. Such an instrument does not exist. If I take your argument to the point of absurdity, my 92 kg body mass has a potential energy of about 8.3X10^26 joules according to E=mc^2. There is a formalism around naming energy “types” in science. You can read a pretty good summary that Perplexity provided here: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/3b39ef9f-361b-407a-a9f5-7d8344c32275I’ll partially concede this point.In my mind I was considering the case of thermal equilibrium in which case my argument would be correct. In a non-thermal equilibrium case, the bodies would be cooling and the field at any point would be the vector sum of the fields eminating from the individual bodies at that point. You did mention two bodies “at equilibrium” later in your comment. If the two bodies were in thermal equilibrium at the same temperature, they would be in an environment where there is an external field that is maintaining the equilibrium. In that case, there would be no energy flow. That is the definition of equilibrium. Electromagnetic waves are only spherical when emitted by a point source. One can argue at the molecular level that all emitters are point sources. This is important in some scenarios, but as a practical matter in the far field limit most of what we experience can be approximated as plane waves. There is radiance defined by Planck and there is radiance as applied in radiative transfer models, specifically the climate models that are based on Schwarzschild’s “radiative equilibrium. I discussed this in an earlier comment. Planck’s definition was conceptual and is useful as a concept. One can make your argument in an idealized case. In Schwarzschild’s model of the Sun’s photosphere, using ad hoc differential blobs of space that emit according to the Stefan-Boltzmann relation and follow Kirchhoff’s law was not an unreasonable approximation at the time. The photosphere is much less dense than the Earth’s atmosphere, the exchange of radiation is dominated by emission and absorption, and the process is spherically symmetric and time invariant so it can be approximated by a one-dimensional plane parallel model. The real atmosphere of the Earth has none of these attributes. The “radiance” in these models is purely a mathematical construct and does not represent the real atmospheric processes at work. I will elaborate on this in another comment in response an effort to school me regarding energy conservation and MODTRAN.
To be continued….
“If you have watched it, you should appreciate, and perhaps understand that there is one electromagnetic field that is the superposition of all the electromagnetic fields in the universe.”
So what? This statement recognizes that there are *MULTIPLE* EM fields that combine to produce a net product. Which means that the EM field emitted by the Earth based on its temperature DOES exist. And it carries energy – energy which is potentially (PE) converted to heat when it interacts with particles.
“We can talk about local subsets of that field, but the concept that there is an overlying field is important. “
Important for what? Determining the net product? Multiple different “subsets” can produce the same net product. Therefore it is important to analyze the subsets on their own. The path taken to the net product *is* important to know in order to know how you reached the net state. That is what is termed a stateful process. (1 -1) and (2-2) give the same net product, 0 (zero), but represent different paths to the net product.
“While in most cases it is reasonable to consider that it represents a local instantaneous radiative energy flow, that may not always apply as discussed by Mishchenko”
Again, so what? “may not always apply” is not the same as “never applies”.
“In that case, there would be no energy flow.”
No “NET” energy flow. That doesn’t mean that there are not component energy flows resulting in a net of 0 (zero).
“The real atmosphere of the Earth has none of these attributes. “
Again, so what? You are speaking of how the internal heat flow happens. That is *not* the same thing as analyzing the energy flow across the boundary of a closed system. The earth and its atmosphere are inside the boundary of a closed system. The entry and exit of energy across the boundary of that closed system must be zero or the system will eventually reach the boundary condition of a frozen ball or a molten ball.
Let me make some important points:
Respectfully, your explanation here is an example of pettifogging, it’s too much attention to internal details when the important piece is merely the balance of heat-in and heat-out at the boundary of a closed system over time. What happens to the heat-in after it crosses the boundary and what happens internally to get the heat-out to the boundary isn’t important to the net balance at the boundary itself. It’s important to know the internals to establish the state of the internal system over time but that’s a different discussion.
Here are corrected links to the Perplexity summary of energy types and the Wikipedia links to Poynting’s theorem. Somehow the “approval” process corrupted the formatting of the post, rendering the links unusable.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/3b39ef9f-361b-407a-a9f5-7d8344c32275
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poynting's_theorem
I am not quibbling with you. Energy is continuously being transformed in the atmospheric system. That is what manifests in our perception as weather/climate.
For the purposes of this discussion, the Earth system is a closed system with respect to matter (though there is a small flux of cosmic matter), but it is an OPEN system with respect to energy. This concept of “internal processes” which is promoted by Howard Hayden in his presentations is a red herring. It is necessary to believe in the “greenhouse effect.” There is no well-defined boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and the cold vacuum of space. There is no way “GHG” can impede the radiation of energy to space. In fact, they are the only facilitators of it. It is the focus on absorption that leads to the madness.
The concept of basing the models on the S-B emissions of the Earth’s surface is also a red herring. That is not to say that the surface does not emit according to the S-B law, but except for part of the “Atmospheric Window” (some of it is absorbed by water vapor), the emissions from most of the surface are absorbed within the first 10 meters above the surface, mostly by water vapor and a small fraction by CO2. This is commonly understood. Almost all of the radiation within the atmosphere from the surface to the mesopause is generated by collisions. The primary emitter of radiation to space is emitted by water vapor from the mid troposphere to the tropopause. There is additional local emission of water vapor in the neighborhood of clouds which does not appear in the “clear sky” spectra and accounts for much of the “missing heat” attributed to the do-called GHE. Ozone emits a bit in the stratosphere, and CO2 is not in emission until near the mesopause, represented by the tiny peak at 667/cm in the satellite spectrum the bottom of the “notch” in the spectrum from 14-16 μm wavelength. The primary emission layer is the tropopause, not the surface.
The above is not “radiative transfer” as defined in the discipline of radiative transfer theory.
As long as you persist in your misinterpretation of the various energy types (as described in the Perplexity link above), we are not speaking a common language and we won’t be able to have a constructive discussion.
Tom, you state…
“If the two bodies were in thermal equilibrium at the same temperature, they would be in an environment where there is an external field that is maintaining the equilibrium. In that case, there would be no energy flow.”
Should you not state …no NET energy flow”? Saying “no energy flow” without “net” implies that all energy exchanges stop, which is incorrect. Microscopic energy transfers persist, but they are equal in both directions, maintaining equilibrium.
Combining all EM radiation into a universal EM wave is pretty esoteric. I won’t attempt to refute it.
However the piece parts contributed from far flung sources or miniscule intensity sources become very small and can be ignored.
I know the Earth and Mercury exchange energy, yet how many orders of magnitude below the Sun’s intensity are being discussed? It is immaterial!
An interesting comment, and I understand your perspective. The concept you describe is an example of polydirectional energy flow of radiation energy which is not allowed in the context of either Maxwell’s equations or Quantum Electrodynamics as asserted by Mishchenko.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140012672/downloads/20140012672.pdf
This misconception arises from the perception of electromagnetic radiation being interpreted as “light rays” or “photons as packets of radiation energy”.
In the example described, the bodies do not “exchange” energy with each other. The bodies are immersed in an electromagnetic which they are in equilibrium with. It is a constant field that transports no energy. That is the definition of equilibrium.
The concept of a field that transports no energy is difficult for many to understand. This is explained in detail by Mishchenko in the paper linked above.
The field generated by collisions in the Earth’s atmosphere is also a field that transports no energy. The energy is released to space (approximately) when the rate of spontaneous emission is greater than the rate of non-radiative deactivation. The actual energy transport through the atmosphere is via bulk convection of sensible heat upwards, not radiation. The surface radiation is not “propagated” through the atmosphere.
This is not “radiative transfer” which (as applied in “climate science”) is a phenomenological model based on “packets of radiance” that absorb and emit according to Kirchhoff’s law and emit an energy spectrum according to the S-B relationship. Neither of these applies to a dense gaseous atmosohere…they are laws that apply to bodies of condensed matter.
In a field that transports no energy, one can immerse a spectrometer and in the case here it would detect a Planck spectrum consistent with the equilibrium temperature of the system. It will detect the same spectrum irrespective of the direction to which it is pointed. It is a “wavefront filter”, not an energy meter. The vector sum of the wavefronts measured from all possible directions, will be zero. No energy flow, equilibrium.
The misunderstanding of the nature of the radiation in the atmosphere and the misinterpretation of what is being measured are at the heart of this conundrum.
Part 2
(should be #5) Yes, that is the residual energy left over after it received sufficient energy to escape its ground state. That energy, now potential energy, will be emitted as radiation when it inevitably it returns to the state from which it was ejected. (And #6) Latent heat and sensible heat are nothing like PE and KE. They are heat energy. When water freezes or condenses, it releases latent heat as sensible heat. When it evaporates or melts, it absorbs sensible heat and converts it to latent heat. It might be difficult to wrap your head around that, but it is one of the properties of water that make it perhaps the most remarkable molecule in the universe. It is also the lynchpin of climate regulation. Regarding your final paragraph, Electromagnetic energy, not heat, is transported by radiation. In almost all cases, the interaction of radiation with matter results absorption that creates molecular motion, heat.
“Thermal” is only ambiguous/general if you are not familiar with its meaning in various aspects of physics. Here is another Perplexity conversation to clarify: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/467e80ee-bd1c-4d7b-b6d6-9f47f0e70db3
I am not offering this to criticize. I am trying to clarify concepts and provide information in the hope that with a better understanding of these concepts there can be less confusion and more constructive conversation. It is my impression that most in this forum and others do not have the background to understand these subtleties of technical discourse, and even some who do are casual about it. Definitions and language are important.
Apparently the enumeration of my points in the responses to this comment were lost in the “approval” process. My apologies for the poor readability.
Heat transfer can happen by convection, conduction and radiation. Pretty basic.
‘Pretty basic
Yes, but the point was that atmospheric energy in the form of heat can’t be transferred to space until it is converted to radiation via the thermally excited emission of GHGs.
This always is interesting to me. Then compared to a planet with an eqally dense atmopherem but no GHG effect, how would that atmosohere cool? Only through surface radiation? Does this cooling effect counter the warming effect?
Absent atmospheric gases that can absorb in any of the frequencies emitted by the planet’s surface, the thermal radiation from the surface so emitted will go to directly to space. The atmosphere itself would likely attain some isothermal equilibrium temperature due to conduction and convection of sensible heat at/from the surface. At least that’s what I understand from reading van Wijngaarden and Happer.
Radiation is not a direct heat transfer. It is a direct energy transfer.
But radiated energy can, and does, as the surface cools. If you say that this surface cooling is the result of the surface losing heat, then yes, heat does flow to space.
As Fourier pointed out, the Earth loses all the heat it receives from the Sun to outer space, plus a little interior heat.
Playing semantic games with definitions won’t fool Nature, but it certainly fools the ignorant and gullible. The Earth has cooled for four and a half billion years. It continues to do so, Fourier’s “internal heat” being about 44 TW currently.
That’s reality as far as I know.
Your ‘reality’ maybe but it’s not true!
Phil, so you say. Have you been speaking to God? Did he believe you?
Maybe you could hurl yourself to the floor, and have a tantrum. That might convince someone more ignorant and gullible than yourself.
It seems a bit odd to be using percentages here.
Using linear regression from 1900 to the latest month in NOAA, I get +1.24 degrees C warming.
NOAA estimates that global average temperature for the period 1901-2000 was ~13.9C. Obviously, given the warming over the course of the period since 1900, that figure is higher than it would have been c. 1900. Even so, as a rough estimate using that higher figure, the +1.24C warming since 1900 is closer to a +9.0% increase in global temperature than it is to +0.46%.
Unless you are using the absolute temperature scale (Kelvin) to get your figure of 0.46%, where zero C equals 273.5K? In which case, on the Kelvin scale, an increase of +0.46% in human body temperature, for example, would result in quite a nasty fever!
And a snake’s body temperature could easily vary by more than 10C within hours, no worse for wear.
Just s well we’re not snakes.
Piss off Rusty. A 5°C rise would still be beneficial to human flourishing. This pitiful little warming is trivial if slightly beneficial.
Give it up, this nonsense is not going to bring about the communism that you pine after.
So only human flourishing matters and not flora, fauna, or the ecosystems they depend on. Sure, enjoy your ‘utopia’.
I’m sure countries that rely on ecotourism will have some thoughts about that too.
Do you think all those things you name would be better off if it had been getting colder these last 150 years?
Alright, please tell us the optimal temperature for maximum benefit to all flora and fauna except humans, and how you arrived at the estimate.
A global temperature rise of 5C wouldn’t necessarily be harmful if it unfolded slowly over thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years.
I’m not sure what the optimal temperature range is for most plants and animals, but what matters most isn’t the total amount of warming. It is how quickly it happens.
Over the past 50 years, the Earth has already warmed by about 1.5C. At the current pace, it’s likely that we will surpass 5C of warming before the end of this century. You don’t need models to infer that. Just data and physics.
That’s an extremely rapid change. One that plants and animals would struggle to adapt to.
[SNIPPED—Ad hominem comments are a known logical fallacy, and are unpleasant as well. w. ]
I’ll keep that in mind for your comments.
Be my guest.
w.
Thanks for the invitation, but I’ll have to decline in this instance.
Lol. Compared to what?
That is the most ridiculous, inane argument in the history of the universe.
What was the speed of change during these periods?
Source?
Click the picture. Change to the other page. There you will find the link.
Janet, you say:
“Over the past 50 years, the Earth has already warmed by about 1.5C. At the current pace, it’s likely that we will surpass 5C of warming before the end of this century. You don’t need models to infer that. Just data and physics.”
First, over the past 50 years we’ve only warmed by about 1°C, not 1.5°C (Berkeley Earth data)
Second, IF (and it’s a big if) warming were to continue at that rate, by the end of the century we’d be about 1.5°C warmer, not 5°C as you incorrectly claim.
However, regarding your second claim, I am reminded of Mark Twain saying:
Regards,
w.
Second, IF (and it’s a big if) warming were to continue at that rate, by the end of the century we’d be about 1.5°C warmer, not 5°C as you incorrectly claim.
Why is that a big ‘if’? What reason is there to believe warming won’t continue? And 2.5C of warming in under two centuries is still highly unusual.
Also, keep in mind that the warming rate isn’t likely to stay constant. Tamino recently submitted a paper that builds on the framework of Foster & Rahmstorf, 2011. After accounting for noise, the adjusted data shows a noticeable acceleration in global warming beginning roughly a decade ago.
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2025/06/08/picking-up-speed/
Whoa, back up, Ms. J. You made two huge math errors in your previous post. You miscalculated the warming over the last 50 years, and then you compounded that by miscalculating how much that warming would amount to in the next 75 years.
Now you want to pretend that never happened.
Come back when you grow a spine, admit you don’t know what you’re doing, and we can pick it up from there.
Oh, yeah. Depending on Tamino is a surefire way to go wrong … here’s the 50-year trailing acceleration.
As you can see, it’s nowhere near as childishly simple as Tamino claims.
w.
“Tamino recently submitted a paper that builds on the framework of Foster & Rahmstorf, 2011.”
🤡🤡🤡🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤡🤡🤡
That is very amusing!
Extrapolation is so dangerous.
And the oceans will start to boil in a few thousand years? Don’t be silly – the future cannot be predicted by dissecting the past.
Accept reality – no GHE. You can’t even provide a consistent and unambiguous description of this fabled effect, can you?
Plants and animals struggle to adapt EVERY SINGLE DAY. Speed of external change only accelerates the adaptation rate. Your view seems to be that extinction of species is somehow bad – it isn’t. It’s adaptation and evolution. Extinction of *some* species is not extinction of all species. A 5C change will not cause of the extinction of all plants and animals. You’ll just see different animals and plants in different places. Like armadillos moving into Kansas, they aren’t going extinct, they are just expanding their normal range of habitat.
Exactly how quickly does the diurnal temperature change? If something can survive that, I suspect your “how quickly it happens” is pretty much a nothing burger.
So the change between night lows and daytime highs is something “animals would struggle to adapt to?” Do those changes amount to more or less than 1.5C or even 5C in 24 hours?
I got in my car. 114 F. I drove an hour, 45 miles. 79 F.
I lived.
I got in my car. 82 F. I drove an hour. 45 miles. 101 F.\
I lived.
Not enough information. What direction were you traveling? What was the name of the conductor? Etc.
“So the change between night lows and daytime highs is something “animals would struggle to adapt to?” Do those changes amount to more or less than 1.5C or even 5C in 24 hours?”
You forgot to mention the 4 seasons.
The temps close to the Equator and Poles might not vary much from season to season, but they do for the rest of World. Every year.
You are correct. I was going after the low hanging fruit.
Go into a standard greenhouse. Let them turn on the heat. The plants love it.
“Go into a standard greenhouse. Let them turn on the heat. The plants love it.”
The plants love it more, and tolerate heat better, when the CO₂ level is cranked up well over 1,000 ppm.
More like 1500 to 2000 ppm, which humans can breathe without difficulty.
Estimates are each time we exhale the outgoing air is 10,000 to 20,000 ppm CO2.
Clyde, take your pick:
Still suffering from climate-model-itis, are you Janet?
The main symptom is delusional fears.
Don’t need models. Just data and physics.
Well that’s me speechless….
What data? How much have hardiness zones in the US moved over the past 100 years?
Answer, not at all.
Significantly, the last update was in 2023, previous in 2012.
The Climate Syndicate lives and dies by models.
Humans are fauna.
And indigenous to the earth as well.
Point, set, and match.
As an item of note, humans are more vulnerable to weather extremes than most other mammals. Of course we invented clothing to circumvent that risk.
“I’m sure countries that rely on ecotourism”
“Ecotourism is contradictory”
Cruise ships to disturb walruses in the Arctic?
Or disturb penguins in Antarctica?
Or perhaps to visit the jungles that were cut down for oil palms?
Perhaps to Germany to see the destruction of a 1,000 year old forest?
Or off the coast of New England to see whales, dolphins and porpoises killed by sonic detonations?
Or to visit California’s missing sardines?
Or to watch ecotourists wearing synthetic clothing, shoes while consuming an outsize share of fossil fuels as they tour along?
A 5% rise on the absolute temperature scale would result in an increase in global average temperature of around +14.0, doubling current global average surface temperatures. Beneficial?
Do not conflate temperature change of 5 C with 5 % change.
Really?
Not even the early Holocene had temperature increase anywhere near that.
You know, the warmth that melted mile high glaciers and all ice in the Arctic?
When the tree lines start moving towards the poles again, let us know…
5 C is 5% of the 0 to 100 centigrade range. Worthless comparison.
Try to get the units right.
Not improving, are you..
The maths isn’t that hard, Mike. Give it a try.
It’s not the maths I’m concerned with. It’s your strange thoughts.
What I think is strange is using a percentage, based on the absolute temperature scale (where zero degrees Celsius is 273.15 Kelvin), to obfuscate, whether deliberately or otherwise, the significance of a +1.4C rise in global average surface temperature in little over a century.
I mean, if you went to your doctor with a fever and a body temperature of 38.4C, would you expect the doctor to dismiss your concerns because your temperature is ‘only’ +0.46% higher than ‘normal’ on the Kelvin temperature scale?
“Come back when it’s 1% higher than normal!” (that equates to ~40.0C, which is hyperthermia, and you’d already be hospitalised, or dead).
Mr. Nail: When you compare apples and oranges, you seem to think “color” is the primary factor?
Your comments demonstrate what happens when a bs meter just quits on you.
TFN – since the total thermal energy is related to the absolute temperature, it makes sense that using percentages of Kelvin temperatures gives percentage differences in energy.
You can if you wish also use those percentage variations to see that a humans temperature regulation is normally much better, varying by a few tenths of a degree during the day unless ill.
For the Earth, the actual solar energy input varies by several percent as our distance from the Sun varies both during the year and over years as both the Sun and Earth orbit around the barycentre of the solar system. The variation of the average temperature (in percentage of absolute temperature) is far less than the variation of input energy. This itself is an indication that the weather systems introduce a lot of negative feedback to stabilise the system.
Since the GCMs clearly have positive feedback built in, and if you don’t get the initial conditions set just right then the model “blows up” and predicts either an iceball world or a severe hothouse, this inherent stability of the real world is important, and should tell you that the GCMs cannot be correct.
It also means that the change in world temperature will be less than the change in energy input would imply if the temperature depended linearly on input energy. That is critical when it comes to the reflected energy from “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere. The alarmists say that this energy delta is multiplied by more water vapour being produced, but reality has a negative feedback and so the real change in temperature is less than that calculated from the power delta. Thus the calculated temperature delta per doubling of CO2 using radiative calculations (Happer, Coe, etc.) is around 1.0°C per doubling. In reality it will be less than this because of the negative feedback.
The constructal model clearly has negative feedback built in, so is closer to reality. Maybe Willis will figure out the correct number for “climate sensitivity per doubling of CO2” using this model, just because he can. I’d figure somewhere 0.2-0.5°C per doubling overall. However, in practical terms we don’t have a lot of control over atmospheric CO2 anyway, since it’s in equilibrium with what’s dissolved in the ocean and there’s about 50 times as much CO2 in the ocean. Thus it’s really not going to make a lot of difference whether we stop burning stuff for fuel or not. As regards climate, mostly we’re along for the ride and need to adapt to what happens. Some things we have a bit of effect, such as irrigation or not of large areas, or emissions or not of aerosols like oxides of Sulphur or Nitrogen. Still dwarfed by natural processes, though.
Adding.
We take all the CO2 out of the atmosphere? What happens. The oceans replace it. Partial pressure at play.
TFN, calculations involving heat engines have to, must, are required to use Kelvin. It’s not optional.
w.
It does indicate a fever, just not nasty.
Nice, Willis! “Climate science” is thermodynamics, just like everything else.
I was young 50 years ago when I sat in Adrian Bejan’s thermodynamics class at University of Colorado, Boulder. My best memory was when he compared a cross-flow heat exchanger to stork legs. Warm blood flowing down as cold blood from the water flowed up to be reheated. I will never forget that example of how storks keep their feet warm. Thanks Mr. Bejan
Never had the pleasure to knowingly cross paths with Adrian Bejan.
My worst memory in Boulder was after experiencing a short intense downpour at the Hilton Harvest House on a summer Friday afternoon, returning to my car parked on Taft between Folsom and 28th to find it in the middle of a flash flood.
We were all young when we sat in thermodynamics class, regardless of the school or who taught the course. I wish I had retained my texts and class notes, there was some real wisdom therein.
Frank, I agree about the wisdom. But I kept my notes and texts for years and rarely (if ever) actually read them. Don’t beat yourself up!
Thank you for this post Willis—-this old earth has been around for more than a few human life times, and I suspect that the “climate” has always been changing–some times hotter, and sometimes colder.. The thought that this one puny species could have any significant effect is only human hubris and arrogance. Mother nature rules
Chatgpt: Carnot efficiency:
η = 1 − 255 / 300 = 0.15, or 15%
This is the maximum theoretical efficiency of Earth’s surface heat engine transporting energy from equator to poles.
Were only it was that simple.
Thanks Willis. Constructal Law. The law of minimum energy in sedimentation, mineralization, erosion and all geologic processes. As I learned in the 70’s and 80’s. I would think anyone exposed to specific cases would get at least a vague idea that this is how the universe works. Taking it to earth climate and realizing it as a fundamental reality and the basis of temperature stability – thanks again.
Anyone would think that this planet’s climates are governed by nature as a “coupled, non-linear chaotic system”.
What’s up with that?
One of my favorite quotes from the IPCC reports:
The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system,
and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states
is not possible.
IPCC TAR Chapter 14 Page 771 pdf3
The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system,
and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states
is not possible.
Please turn to the next chapter to read our predictions!
I know, we will call them estimations as a workaround.
Very nice Willis, this makes sense.
‘Picture the earth as a planetary HVAC system, always rearranging its ductwork to get the job done faster. The Hadley cells, the jet streams, the ocean currents…’
All good. All we need to do now as ‘skeptics’ is to come to grips with the idea that the application of radiative transfer models to the lower troposphere is inconsistent with the above, as well as the concept of emergent phenomena.
Hi Willis. It recently came to my attention that you live in the Russian River area of Sonoma county. I lived in Forestville and Santa Rosa for 18 years and wonder what discussions might have ensued had our paths crossed. I would disagree with your invocation of the Constructal Law, which as I understand it is intended to describe the evolution of physical objects. I don’t disagree with the spirit of your intent, however.
Welcome to reality, but this is not a new paradigm. That the Earth’s atmosphere is driven by convection is something physicists and meteorologists understood for decades before “absorption obsession” became the rage and the misapplication of radiative transfer theory was adopted to try and explain it.
The so-called “greenhouse gases” are the energy conduits of the heat engine. At the surface, they absorb the surface IR and convert it to sensible heat via collisional de-excitation. This, combined with the conductive heat transfer from the surface drives convection. The third source of sensible heat is the condensation of water vapor as altitude increases in the troposphere, reducing the lapse rate. This cannot be modeled by radiative transfer theory as Manabe learned “the hard way”. The atmospheric temperature profile must be provided as a boundary condition in order for the “radiative equilibrium” calculation to follow the lapse rate.
Throughout the atmosphere, from the surface to the mesopause, the kinetic energy of air molecules generates its own radiation field via the collisional excitation of IR active molecular species. Radiation escapes to space when the spontaneous emission rate exceeds the collisional de-excitation rate. The IR active molecules are bidirectional energy converters. This is not the process described by radiative transfer theory.
Schwarzschild understood and stated explicitly that his “radiative equilibrium” could not be applied to a convecting atmosphere as I explained in my comment here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/22/open-thread-149/#comment-4085884
Trying to describe the dynamics of the Earth’s atmosphere via Schwarzschild’s “radiative equilibrium” is akin to claiming one can describe the internal motion of paraffin in a lava lamp using the heat equation. There is no equilibrium in the Earth’s atmosphere.
The tragedy of errors that is the “greenhouse effect” is the outcome of a chain of misconceptions regarding the interpretation of radiative transfer theory which as applied in climate science is a phenomenological, heuristic discipline with its roots in photometry. It is based on the concept of “radiance”, which is a mathematical construct that has no physical meaning except as the solution to the scalar radiative transfer equation.
In order to understand this, one must study the history and evolution of radiative transfer theory, now readily available in Curtis Mobley’s book “A Short History of Radiative Transfer Theory.” To understand in greater detail, one must read and understand Michael Mishchenko’s summary papers:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140012672/downloads/20140012672.pdf
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/acp/article/1531/1/11/922276/125-years-of-radiative-transfer-Enduring-triumphs
A critical example of a misconception is the confusion of “radiance” and “radiation.” Upwelling and downwelling “radiance” do not imply upwelling and downwelling “radiation.” In fact, as Mishchenko explains, there is no “polydirectional flow” of radiation. Radiance is what is detected by a radiometer (a spectrometer being one case) which has a very limited field of view. It does not measure an energy flow. Mishchenko further explains how a radiometer can fail to detect a signal when there is an energy flow along its axis, and that it can detect a signal when there is no energy flow along the direction of its axis. This is why one can point an IR spectrometer in any direction in the troposphere, up, down, or sideways, and detect a spectrum. The energy transport is via convection. The radiation field produced by collisional excitation is a zero sum game until the conditions for emission to space are met.
Running out of space so I’ll stop here. One cannot understand the dynamics of the atmosphere in the context of radiative transfer theory and the “greenhouse effect.” I keep trying to find something correct in the narrative we’re being fed, but I’m not sure there’s anything there.
Tom, you say:
Say what? The Constructal Law applies to all flow systems that are far from equilibrium. Are you denying that the climate is such a system? Have you read the climate papers by Bejan I listed in my post about my climate model linked to in the head post? Did you even read my post about my model?
Because Bejan discovered the Constructal Law, and he thinks it applies to the climate …
You claim that the idea that the climate needs to be analyzed in the context of the Constructal Law is “not a new paradigm”?
Great. Perhaps, other than the four papers by Bejan or Bejan and Reis doing that type of analysis, you could provide us with say half a dozen scientific papers doing such an analysis. I can’t find a single one, so it seems unlikely that this is “not a new paradigm”.
I have no idea what this means. The heat engine’s conduits of energy polewards are the atmosphere and the ocean.
My instantiation of the Constructal climate model has none of those things and yet it gives a very accurate description of the climate system.
As for the rest of your comment, it’s long on claims, short on explanations and data, and near as I can tell has nothing to do with the subject of this post, which is the application of the Constructal Law to the climate.
Thanks for your contribution,
w.
So you say, Willis, but you don’t actually define this “climate system” anywhere at all. Worse, you include reference to some “greenhouse effect”, which does not exist.
No “climate model” has any better predictive ability than a smart 12 year old with a pencil and straightedge.
I’m glad to see that you make no claims whatsoever about the utility of your “climate model”.
Once again demonstrating your lack of basic English comprehension / reading “skills” to all and sundry (Willis being part of the former, I am included in the latter).
The third paragraph of the ATL article, a “Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach” …
He then goes on to describe a highly simplified model of what I will label “the (Earth) climate system’s equivalent heat engine” with a “hot end” consisting of an equatorial latitude band and two “cold ends” consisting of the (North + South) polar caps.
Now it is perfectly OK for you to disagree with that definition of “the Earth’s climate system”, but it is incorrect to boldly assert that “you don’t actually define this ‘climate system’ anywhere at all“.
You’re welcome, Willis.
Anyone can write a few papers and posit a new “physical law.” There is plenty of controversy around the so called “Constructal Law” of Bejan. Creating a new word to describe it adds to the intrigue. There are far more meaningless “peer reviewed scientific papers” than meaningful ones. I was a peer reviewer for a short time in the 1980/90s, but not a popular one as my rejection rate was apparently too high.
Here’s a link to a brief conversation I had with GROK about Bejan’s “Constructal Law”. I invite you and all to read it:
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_52ad27b2-8a18-4154-8d91-70ab108dc429
Since this is our first interaction, I’ll share that my academic training is in theoretical physics though I chose a career path that could be described as applied/engineering physics as I found the academic/theoretical out of touch with reality. I’m the son of an engineer and realized in graduate school that I prefer reality.
At the beginning of your article you indicated that you began “investigating climate science a quarter century ago.” Given that, I was a bit surprised by your comment, “I have no idea what that means.” to my reference to greenhouse gases as energy conduits. You can find a detailed explanation of this in my reply to a comment by Tim Gorman upstream in this thread:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/30/towards-a-new-climate-paradigm/#comment-4088444
The concept of the Earth’s atmosphere as a heat engine is not new, and is apropos.
As you state, the fuel (input energy) of the engine is solar radiation. This heats the surface which adds heat to the atmosphere via conduction, radiation, and latent heat. The exhaust (output energy) is radiation to space generated by collisional excitation of IR active molecules in the upper atmosphere as explained in the comment linked above. These molecular interactions as described are not controversial. They have been measured and much has been written about them.
The input and output of the heat engine are driven my these microphysical processes which are ignored in models which try to explain climate via phenomological heuristic radiative transfer theory.
This is because the neither the mathematical tools nor the computing power exist to model atmospheric dynamics where convection is present in scales from mms to kms and energy conversion abounds. Parameterization, which converts dependent variables that cannot be calculated into independent variables cannot produce a model with predictive power. Your “Constructural” model while simpler relies on albedo which is a dependent variable and the greenhouse effect which does not exist.
Climate is not difficult to understand, but with the tools at our disposal it is impossible to model. Understanding why the Earth is not an ice ball is easily explained. Energy in the form of radiation arrived at the speed of light. The warm surface heats the atmosphere. The energy is transported away from the atmosphere at the speed of convection, on the order of 9 orders of magnitude slower. I tried to explain this to Anthony almost three years ago, but he has since decided it’s a “red herring.”
This simple concept coupled with our geometric orientation relative to the sun explains diurnal, seasonal, and latitudinal variations in temperature. Our human experience should make this obvious. Understanding and modeling are different. A model is needed to calculate details and predict. Without understanding, a model cannot predict and often will obfuscate the truth.
Water in the atmosphere and lithosphere through its phase changes and ability to store and release latent heat drives weather, moderates the climate, and is responsible for almost all of the radiation released to space.
CO2 and the carbon cycle in conjunction with water provide the basis for life. I suppose that’s one claim I am in agreement with. CO2 plays no role in controlling temperature. That concept comes from the “absorption obsession” which discounts the true role of IR active gases which is to release excess energy to space.
Thanks for reading.
Tom, you say:
“Anyone can write a few papers and posit a new “physical law.”
“Anyone”??? Dr. Bejan is hardly “anyone”. He is among the top 0.01% of most-cited and impactful scientists globally for his work on the Constructal Law.
Dr.Adrian Bejan has received numerous prestigious honors and awards in recognition of his groundbreaking contributions to thermodynamics, heat transfer, and the development of the Constructal Law. His accolades include:
• ASME Medal (2024): The highest honor from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, awarded for “unprecedented creativity, breadth, and permanent impact on engineering; for developments in the new science of energy, motion, form, and evolution; and for building bridges to design in biological, geophysical, and sociological systems”.
• Benjamin Franklin Medal (2018): Conferred by the Franklin Institute for his pioneering interdisciplinary contributions in thermodynamics, convection heat transfer, and constructal theory.
• Humboldt Research Award (2019): Awarded by the Humboldt Foundation for lifetime achievement and pioneering contributions to modern thermodynamics and the Constructal Law.
• Knight of the French Order of Academic Palms (2020): Recognition by the French government for academic excellence.
• TÜBA International Academy Prize (2019): Awarded by the Turkish Academy of Sciences for creative works combining thermodynamics and heat transfer, and for developing Constructal Theory.
• IAGE Lifetime Achievement Award (2021): For revolutionary contributions to thermal sciences and the development of the Constructal Law.
• Nautilus Book Award (2023, Silver) for “Time and Beauty”: Recognizing his ability to communicate complex scientific ideas to a broad audience.
• Kimberly-Clark Distinguished Lectureship Award (2023): From the International Society of Porous Media.
• Ralph Coats Roe Medal (2017): For outstanding contributions to public understanding of engineering.
• Max Jakob Memorial Award (1999): For highly imaginative and inspiring ideas in thermal science and design.
• Honorary Member of ASME (2011): For distinguished service and contributions to mechanical engineering.
• Worcester Reed Warner Medal (1996): For originality and impact on thermodynamics and heat transfer.
• Membership in multiple national academies: Including the Academy of Europe, and the national academies of Mexico, Turkey, Romania, and Moldova.
• 18 honorary doctorates from universities in 11 countries.
• Other notable awards: Luikov Medal (2006), Donald Q. Kern Award (2008), Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award (1988), James Harry Potter Gold Medal (1990), Heat Transfer Memorial Award (1994), Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award (2001), Edward F. Obert Award (2004).
In addition to these, Dr. Bejan has been recognized for his excellence in teaching and research at Duke University.
And you describe him as “anyone”?
Funny how YOU don’t have a single one of those awards, but somehow you know SO much more than he does …
w.
And your claim about “a few papers” is a joke. Note that this is not an exhaustive list, just a few of the papers, reviews, and books he has authored.
Dr.Adrian Bejan has authored a substantial body of work on the Constructal Law, spanning foundational papers, comprehensive reviews, and interdisciplinary applications. While a complete list of every paper is extensive, the following are some of his most significant and representative publications and books specifically focused on the Constructal Law, as supported by the search results:
Key Papers and Reviews
• “The constructal law of design and evolution in nature”(2010, *Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B*): A widely cited review outlining the foundation and implications of the Constructal Law in natural and engineered systems [1].
• “The Constructal unification of biological and geophysical design”(*Physics of Life Reviews*, 2009): A review discussing how the Constructal Law unifies the design principles of biological and geophysical systems [2].
• “Evolution in Thermodynamics”(*Applied Physics Reviews*, 2017): Explores the relationship between thermodynamics and the Constructal Law [2].
• “The principle underlying all evolution, biological, geophysical, social and technological”(*Philosophical Transactions A*, 2023): Addresses the universality of the Constructal Law across various domains [2].
• “Evolution and irreversibility: Two distinct phenomena and their distinct laws of nature”(*Physics of Life Reviews*, 2024): Differentiates between evolution and irreversibility, clarifying the unique role of the Constructal Law [2].
• “Boundary layers from constructal law”(*International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer*, 2020): Applies the Constructal Law to boundary layer theory [3].
• “Entropy generation minimization, exergy analysis, and the constructal law”(*Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering*, 2013): Discusses the Constructal Law in the context of entropy and exergy [3].
• “Constructal design of pedestrian evacuation from an area”(*Journal of Applied Physics*, 2013): Applies the Constructal Law to human movement and evacuation scenarios [3].
• “Technology Evolution, from the Constructal Law”(2013): Explores technological evolution through the lens of the Constructal Law [3].
Books
• “Shape and Structure, from Engineering to Nature”(2000): Early comprehensive treatment of the Constructal Law in engineering and nature [2].
• “Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organizations”(2012): A popular science book explaining the Constructal Law’s role across disciplines [2] [3].
• “The Physics of Life”(2016): Discusses the Constructal Law as it applies to living systems [2].
• “Time and Beauty”(2022): Connects the Constructal Law with perception and aesthetics [2].
• “Design with Constructal Theory”(2008): A textbook on applying the Constructal Law in engineering design [2].
Other Notable Papers
• “Constructal distribution of multi-layer insulation”(*International Journal of Energy Research*, 2013): Examines insulation design using the Constructal Law [3].
• “Constructal flow orientation in conjugate cooling channels with internal heat generation”(*International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer*, 2013): Applies the law to cooling technologies [3].
General Impact
Dr. Bejan’s work on the Constructal Law is cited in thousands of articles, with applications ranging from biology and geophysics to engineering, management, and psychology [4] [1]. His foundational 1996 paper is recognized as the origin of the Constructal Law concept [1].
For acomprehensive bibliography, consult Dr. Bejan’s faculty profile at Duke University or bibliographic databases, as the above selection highlights only the most central and influential works [3].
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2871904/
[2] https://mems.duke.edu/impact/research/energy/bejan-constructal-law/
[3] https://mems.duke.edu/people/adrian-bejan/
[4] https://www.scirp.org/jouRNAl/paperinformation?paperid=110006
[5] https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/208/9/1677/9374/The-constructal-law-of-organization-in-nature-tree
Willis, responding to your two posts listing references and awards:
Clearly you are a fan, and perhaps Dr. Bejan is the most famous scientist I had never heard of until I read your article. You have certainly made an impression.
That being said, I find the concept interesting but not particularly compelling except in perhaps a metaphysical context. It seems to me yet another “model” looking for an audience. Who knows, I may be proven wrong and this could be the ultimate solution to the climate conundrum.
I will give you credit for the longest appeal to authority I have ever received.
If you disagree with any of my statements it would be more constructive to be a bit more specific.
Thanks, Tom. Whether you find the concept “interesting but not particularly compelling” is meaningless. He’s one of the most cited living scientists, so most folks don’t share your view.
Next, it was NOT an “appeal to authority”. You described him as some “anyone” who has “written a few papers”. I was disabusing you of that huge misconception.
Finally you say:
I have no clue what you are is referring to, which is why I said at the top:
Regards,
w.
Tom, you say:
I read that, and I still don’t understand how greenhouse gases are “energy conduits” for the conduction of heat from the equator to the poles, which is the subject of this post.
w.
I did not say that IR active gases are energy conduits for conduction. At the surface, they convert radiation into sensible heat which contributes to CONVECTION. In the upper atmosphere, they convert sensible heat (the kinetic energy of molecules) back into radiation to be released to space and cool the atmosphere. Try not to conflate convection and conduction. They are quite different.
Pass. Come back without snark about convection and conduction. I’m in no mystery about them and I haven’t conflated them.
w.
Not snark. You made the same error in your 11:50 post that I’ve not yet responded to.
Next, you say:
“Climate is not difficult to understand, but with the tools at our disposal it is impossible to model.”
I built a real version of Bejan’s Constructal model of the climate and it worked extremely well. It’s linked to in the head post. Given that undeniable fact, I have no idea what you are on about.
w.
I’m happy for you that you are pleased with your model. Yes, I did look at it. It is a simple phenomenological model that attempts to explain one thing, the flow of heat from the equator to the poles. It is not based on fundamental physical principles. Albedo is not an independent variable, it is a climate outcome. The so-called greenhouse effect cannot exist in an open atmosphere.
You are “happy for me that I am pleased with my model”?? Seriously?
Come back when you can discuss the science without childish snark. Not interested in the slightest.
And if you think all the model does is “attempt to explain, one thing the flow of heat from the equator to the poles”, and that it is “not based on fundamental physical principles”, there’s no point in further discussion with you in any case.
That level of misunderstanding is beyond my ability to assist with.
Have a great life, now go insult someone else,
w.
I also don’t understand this claim:
“Energy in the form of radiation arrived at the speed of light. The warm surface heats the atmosphere. The energy is transported away from the atmosphere at the speed of convection, on the order of 9 orders of magnitude slower.”
The atmosphere both gains and loses energy via radiation. Since the surface in general is warmer than the atmosphere, it loses very little by conduction.
w.
That one is on me. One typo….”arrived” should be “arrives.” One brain fart….”away from the atmosphere” should be “away from the surface”. Alternatively, it could be “through the atmosphere”.
Perhaps it makes more sense in that context. The point is that while radiation provides the input to the engine at the surface, and radiation is the “exhaust” in the upper atmosphere that provides cooling, the transport of the energy is via convection. The speed of bulk this air movement is about 9 orders of magnitude slower than the speed of light, the rate at which energy arrives from the sun.
If the energy through the atmosphere was via radiation, the temperature of the air would not change. As Heinz Hug stated, “There is no law of conservation of radiation energy.”
Don’t know who Heinz Hug is but he’s wrong.
w.
===
Heinz Hug’s statement, “There is no law of conservation of radiation energy,” is incorrect when interpreted in the context of fundamental physics. The law of conservation of energy—which is a foundational principle in physics—applies to all forms of energy, including radiation energy(such as electromagnetic radiation) [1] [2] [3].
Key points:
• Conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant over time; energy can change forms (e.g., from kinetic to radiation) but cannot be created or destroyed [1] [2] [3].
• Radiation energy is just one form of energy. When matter emits or absorbs radiation (such as photons), the energy involved in these processes is always accounted for in the total energy balance of the system [4] [5] [6].
• For example, in radioactive decay or atomic transitions, the energy released as radiation is balanced by a corresponding change in the internal energy (mass or excitation state) of the emitting particle or atom, ensuring that total energy is conserved [4] [5] [6].
• The conservation of energy is rigorously supported by Noether’s theorem, which ties conservation laws to symmetries in the laws of physics—specifically, time-translation symmetry leads to energy conservation [3].
Possible sources of confusion:
• There is no *separate* or *unique* law called the “conservation of radiation energy” because radiation is simply one form of energy among many; the general law of conservation of energy covers all forms, including radiation [2] [3].
• Some discussions (e.g., regarding Kirchhoff’s law of thermal radiation) address the equilibrium between emission and absorption of radiation, but these are distinct from the universal law of energy conservation [7] [8]. Even when Kirchhoff’s law is violated in engineered systems, the total energy is still conserved; only the relationship between emission and absorption at specific wavelengths or angles is altered [8].
• In non-equilibrium situations, the *balance* between absorption and emission of radiation can vary, but the total energy (including all forms: thermal, kinetic, radiation, etc.) remains conserved [7] [5].
Conclusion:
The conservation of energy is a universal law that includes radiation energy. There is no physical process—radiative or otherwise—where energy is not conserved. Therefore, the claim that “there is no law of conservation of radiation energy” is not correct in the context of established physics [1] [2] [3].
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/energy-can-neither-be-created-nor-destroyed/
[2] https://www.eoht.info/page/Conservation%20of%20energy
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy
[4] https://www.tutorchase.com/answers/ib/physics/how-is-energy-conserved-in-radioactive-decay-processes
[5] https://web1.eng.famu.fsu.edu/~dommelen/quantum/style_a/consem.html
[6] https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.60.064009
[7] http://www.john-daly.com/forcing/hug-barrett.htm
[8] https://www.psu.edu/news/engineering/story/rewriting-scientific-law-unlock-potential-energy-sensing-and-more
[9] https://www.academia.edu/91882426/Response_to_Terigi_Ciccones_Revised_Why_cant_CO2_and_Greenhouse_effects_cause_global_Warming_
Also, you say:
“The point is that while radiation provides the input to the engine at the surface, and radiation is the “exhaust” in the upper atmosphere that provides cooling, the transport of the energy is via convection. The speed of bulk this air movement is about 9 orders of magnitude slower than the speed of light, the rate at which energy arrives from the sun.”
For that to be true, the only layers of the atmosphere either absorbing or radiating energy would be the topmost and bottommost, with zero radiation being either emitted or absorbed by the layers in between. Not happening.
In fact, both absorption and radiation are occurring at ALL layers of the atmosphere. Don’t believe me? Play around with MODTRAN, set the sensor height to various altitudes, and look at both upwelling and downwelling radiation.
Best regards,
w.
‘In fact, both absorption and radiation are occurring at ALL layers of the atmosphere. Don’t believe me? Play around with MODTRAN, set the sensor height to various altitudes, and look at both upwelling and downwelling radiation.’
And what does MODTRAN ‘say’ about collisions of IR-active gases with the overwhelming majority of atmospheric gases that aren’t IR-active? How about the HITRAN database? Any realistic atmospheric mixtures therein, or did Heinz Hug just decide he needed to duplicate existing data?
Hi Willis,
My apologies for the late reply, I had a busy holiday weekend. I hope that yours was enjoyable.
You said:
“For that to be true, the only layers of the atmosphere either absorbing or radiating energy would be the topmost and bottommost, with zero radiation being either emitted or absorbed by the layers in between. Not happening.”
We’ve had some lively banter to be sure. In a quite positive way, I was somewhat gobsmacked by this comment. You have come to a conclusion that that I have tried to lead many to, but their mindset would not allow them to even consider anything outside the prevalent narrative/paradigm. Sincerely, I could see that you are capable of thinking “outside the box”, but this was quite unexpected.
What you described in the quote above, while lacking some of the details, is exactly what is happening. Once you see it, you cannot “unsee” it.
A couple of new comments to others in the thread might be helpful.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/30/towards-a-new-climate-paradigm/#comment-4089880
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/06/30/towards-a-new-climate-paradigm/#comment-4089884
I’ll also share these with you. I had quite an exchange with Kevin Kilty in one of his Energy Balance threads, and explained the atmospheric dynamics in more detail:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/02/24/earths-energy-imbalance-part-ii/#comment-4042059
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/02/24/earths-energy-imbalance-part-ii/#comment-4042060
The two comments above are meant to be together, but they are separated in the thread stream so it’s easier to use the link above to get the complete story. There is further discussion between myself and Kevin in the thread if you choose to follow.
Instead of MODTRAN, I use NASA’s online planetary spectrum generator which has quite an array of options. Have you ever looked at the emission spectrum of Water vapor only, setting CO2 and the other GHGs to zero? You might find it interesting. Many other cases that can be looked at, all explained by the atmospheric dynamics as I describe them, no GHE or radiative forcing required.
‘Heinz Hug’s statement, “There is no law of conservation of radiation energy,” is incorrect when interpreted in the context of fundamental physics.’
Would you disagree if he had said ‘kinetic energy’ instead of ‘radiation energy’, or is there just a problem with his not specifically spelling out the concept of energy conservation?
Because if we really want to tighten up some of the sloppier concepts in ‘climate science’, maybe we should start with the premise that a photon of energy absorbed by a CO2 molecule at sea level isn’t ‘conserved’ until it is belatedly emitted by a CO2 molecule at the ‘effective emission layer’, which is likely what Hug meant by his statement.
“ One cannot understand the dynamics of the atmosphere in the context of radiative transfer theory”
Heat transfer is a stateful functional process that is time dependent. All I ever see for “radiative balance” analysis of the biosphere is static, trying to add up flows at a single instance in time. The operative word in your sentence is “dynamic”. There is a reason why “Statics” and “Dynamics” are separate subjects (two parts of the same course) in university.
Slight correction:
“trying to add up estimated flows at a single instance in time.”
That is, most of the inputs, reinputs, exits, illustrated in their static sup/down calculations depend entirely upon assumption and gross estimates.
assumption, gross estimates, and averages of things that can’t be averaged (intensive properties).
“I keep trying to find something correct in the narrative we’re being fed, but I’m not sure there’s anything there.”
I have yet to find anything correct in that narrative either, Tom, and I’ve been studying physics all my life…
I built my first Van de Graaff generator when I was twelve. When my sister wouldn’t let me watch Star Trek because she wanted to watch I Love Lucy, I’d turn it on in my bedroom and it would fill the screen with static. 😎
Haha you were meaner to your sister than I was to mine! Well played though! I set up a laser alarm system in my house using some mirrors and a laser that I borrowed from Dad’s physics lab at the university. It worked quite well! In those days the lasers weren’t little pen-sized devices, they were the size of a shoe box, but with careful arrangement of half-silvered mirrors I only needed the one to cover the entire interior of the house 🙂
Impressive! And very cool.
Not true, unfortunately. At night, the surface radiates (yes, really) away all the heat of the day, plus a little interior heat, to space. Regardless of where the night occurs, or how long or short it is.
Now, the intensity of radiation from the surface is proportional to the fourth power of the absolute temperature. In other words, the tropics lose heat at night at a faster rate than the poles, being hotter.
It’s just wrong to say that heat moves from the tropics to the poles. Heat moves from warmer to colder in a straight line, and space at a nominal 4K is far colder than either the tropics or the poles. The notion of heat moving around a sphere’s surface is enticing, but physically incorrect.
Sorry Willis, but the Earth as a whole is cooling very slowly – around 1 to 4 millionths of a Kelvin per annum. Stable and unchanging in by human standards.
It’s a little more complicated than you state. The atmosphere is like a ductwork infrastructure. It has boundaries. You can move hot/cold air around in the ductwork inside those boundaries regardless of the conditions external to the ductwork. The external conditions at the boundary does modulate the inner flow of the ductwork (i.e. via heat loss/gain) but it doesn’t keep the ductwork from moving hot air to cold locations or vice versa.
The earth loses heat to space all day, 24 hours per day. It loses more heat than it gains for more than 50% of the day. That never seems to get recognized in climate science. Heat gain is greater than heat loss for most of the globe only when temperature is going up, about 9-10 hours of the day during the summer (6am to 3pm) and less than that in winter (depends on latitude). As you point out, the heat loss is dependent on temperature. The heat loss is greater at Tmax than it is at Tmin. Both convection and radiation are typically greater at Tmax than at Tmin (weather fronts can impact this).
“It loses more heat than it gains for more than 50% of the day.” Does the sun shut off for half a day? My education – backed up by travel and real time TV news – indicated the sun was always shining. The same amount of radiation hit the Earth from the Sun every day (with very minor variation). Admittedly, the Western Hemisphere only sees sun 50% of the day, as does the Eastern Hemisphere, just 180 degrees out of phase. So, what you said is true of a hemisphere, but not of the Earth.
Energy transfer is a vector product depending on the angle of incidence. As the sun travels across the sky, it’s angle with a point on the surface is a sine wave. Thus the energy transfer at that point on the surface is modulated by the sin(θ), minimum when the sun is at the horizon (θ=0) and maximum when the sun is directly overhead (θ=π/2). The latitude of the point also modulates the energy in value as the cos(latitude), maximum at the equator (latitude = 0) and zero at the poles (latitude = π/2). The earth, however, radiates continuously outwards dependent on its temperature. That temperature is an exponential decay.
When energy in is greater than energy out the temperature goes up. When the temperature is stagnant then they are equal. When the temperature is falling then energy out is greater than energy in. The temperature goes up (i.e. it heats up) for only part of the day, less than 50%. The rest of the time it is cooling, the temperature is either at equilibrium or is decreasing.
The amount of in/out heat in the system at any point on the surface can be estimated by the integral of the temperature profile, a sine wave during part of the day and an exponential decay the rest of the day.
This is a *very* simplified description. There are lots of factors at play as to what happens in detail. But if you plot the daily temperature profile over a period of days it is amazing at how well it *does* present a sinusoidal profile for a period of time and an exponential decay for a period of time with lots of superimposed “noise’. The daily mid-range temperature used by climate science as an “average” temperature simply doesn’t recognize this relationship at all.
This isn’t true. Radiative energy from a volume that Planck calls dτ (large enough to assume a macro treatment) is the same in all directions. That is, an ever expanding sphere that is only based on the volumes temperature. What it radiates toward does not change the amount it radiates at any point in time.
Jim, I should have said “radiation”, I admit. Yes, gravity bends light (radiation), as does the interface between media of different refractive indices. And yes, heat is what may be perceived as a result of the interaction between light and matter, in my view.
Unfortunately, definitions of heat are a bit woolly –
which doesn’t quite accord with –
so please excuse me if I refer to “heat” as “radiation” for convenience.
I should have been clearer. My point is that images taken from satellites using different light wavelengths – infrared, visible light, etc., – demonstrate graphically that many frequencies of light pass through the atmosphere to space in “straight” lines, with little attenuation.
Somewhat more complicated than the simplistic minds of “climate scientists” would like to believe.
Absolutely correct. Sorry if anyone thought I was saying anything different.
in the history of radiative transfer theory it’s easy to lose track of who said what. Planck was responsible for the modern definitions of radiance and irradiance. The items in quotes are from “A Short History of Radiative Transfer Theory” by Curtis Mobley.
Regarding radiance and irradiance, from page 15 of Planck’s book, “The radiance is defined in the context of the energy that passes through a surface element dσ in time dt in a solid angle dΩ centered on directions (θ,φ). Planck calls K the “specific intensity” (spezifiche Intensität) or “brightness” (Helligkeit). The element of solid angle dΩ is called the “opening angle” (Öffnungswinkel) of a cone. He then defines the plane irradiance (the Gesamstralung or “total radiation”) passing through a surface for an arbitrary radiance distribution. Finally, in Eq. (7), he shows that the total radiation is πK if the radiance K is the same in all directions.”
In the first paragraph of his book Planck states,
“All heat rays which at a given instant pass through the same point of the medium are perfectly independent of one another, and in order to specify completely the state of the radiation the intensity of radiation must be known in all the directions, infinite in number, which pass through the point in question; for this purpose two opposite directions must be considered as distinct, because the radiation in one of them is quite independent of the radiation in the other.”
That is to say, in order to measure the radiative energy flow through a point and know its magnitude and direction, one must simultaneously measure the intensity from all possible directions around that point.
Finally, getting to the point of your comment regarding the radiation emanating from a differential volume element, that was a concept from Shuster who wrote the first two-stream (referring to “upwelling” and “downwelling” radiance) differential (as opposed to integral) version of the radiative transfer equation that was adopted and adapted by Schwarzschild to develop his model of “radiative equilibrium.” Both were trying to understand properties of scattering and/or energy transport in stars.
It is important to understand that these “volume elements” in radiative transfer theory are “ad hoc” entities that by definition follow Kirchhoff’s law and emit (on a spectral line basis) according to the Stefan Boltzmann Law. In his book Mobley explains and documents why this is a phenomenological, heuristic model that is not based on fundamental physical principles. The quantity it calculates, radiance, is a mathematical construct that can only be used to describe energy flow in limited scenarios. More detailed explanations can be found in the work of Mishchenko, links in my earlier comment.
Mishchenko, sadly now deceased but when an employee at NASA-GISS stated, “It is likely that in many cases the measurement with a WCR must be modeled with a more sophisticated tool than the RTE, which implies that the use of WCRs in quantifying the energy budget of the Earth’s climate system can be problematic and requires a detailed first-principle analysis.”
“radiance, is a mathematical construct”
“not based on fundamental physical principles”
Indeed, I have noted that people who throw words like “radiance” (and “irradiance”) around like so much verbal confetti are invariably unable to define fundamental physics concepts such as “energy”, “work”, and “power”. Hmmm…
In any case, thanks for the informative brief history of where these non-physical concepts came from!
Try. I’m betting neither you not anybody else can do it. And if it can’t be done, it’s just so much pseudoscientific bafflegab.
As Feynman said –
Show your experiment if you can.
It’s not about doing an experiment.
Knowing what you can’t measure is often more important than knowing what you can measure.
Michael, you say:
Every year, the earth’s surface temperature goes up and then back down again from ~ 13°C to ~ 17°C and back to ~ 13°C.
If what you say were true, that could not possibly be happening. But it is.
In addition, over the last 100 years or so, the earth’s temperature has increased slightly. Again, if what you say were true, that would not be happening.
w.
Willis, you are dreaming. The Earth does not magically get hotter and colder. The Earth is cooling – losing 44 TW or so. You say
A couple of things –
The surface temperature of the Earth is not a proxy for the heat content of the Earth, which is more than 90% glowing matter. The temperature of the exposed surface varies from at least 1000 C (magma from the interior), to -90 C or so.
Anybody who claims to be able to measure the “average surface temperature” is either pulling your leg, or delusional. 70% of the surface is covered by ocean, with completely unknown heat input from mid-ocean ridges and thermal vents, and so-called “surface temperatures” used by “climate scientists” are wishful thinking, based on the temperature of thermometers in air, not at the surface.
I note that you haven’t challenged the truth of what I wrote, but rather expressed your religious belief that it couldn’t be true, based on some unsupported opinion you hold.
No Willis, opinions, appeals to the authority of yourself or others, can’t overturn facts. My statement is correct, and supported by four and a half billion years of history, as well as current knowledge of physical laws.
I welcome correction if I have provided misinformation. Correction based on fact, rather than opinion or religious belief.
Willis, don’t be silly.
Try providing a few facts, if you are disagreeing with something I said.
That’s complete and utter nonsense. Nobody has measured the Earth’s “surface temperature”, but many ignorant and gullible people are convinced otherwise. In fact, 70% of the surface is covered by ocean, and “climate scientists” discard actual surface temperatures in favour of air temperatures.
So no, Willis, the Earth does not heat up and cool down all by itself, while its environment remains relatively constant. That’s about as likely as your cup of coffee getting hotter and colder – while your surroundings remain the same!
Appeals to your own or anybody else’s authority, without verifiable factual basis, won’t overcome physical laws as presently understood.
Your belief in a GHE is religious, not scientific. Your religion is yours, and I don’t challenge your beliefs. I accept reality, and leave religion to people like you.
There was a study done in 2021 comparing actual soil temperatures on a global basis with the usual air temperature. They differ markedly. Primarily because most air temperatures are measured in clear areas with no vegetation and because of the difference in conduction and convection from different surface types. Soil temps in cold and dry areas are usually warmer than the air temp and soil temps in humid, wet areas are typically cooler than the air temp.
If I can find the study again I’ll post a link to it.
It’s just one more piece of garbage from climate science. The sad thing is that soil temp data is pretty widely available because of its impact on agriculture. Yet climate science ignores it as far as I can tell. I can’t find where climate models have any input at all for soil temps.
Willis,
Thanks for this. I always enjoy reading your posts, usually because they prompt additional reading/learning.
The examples mentioned in the post (branching of trees, river and circulatory systems) reminded me of the little I’ve read of fractal geometry, and prompts my question: Is fractal geometry simply the mathematical description of how nature conforms to Constructal Law?
Who knew? Heat transfers from hot to cold?
Using a wayback machine, we can return to the early 1800’s and read about Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier.
I have said for a long, long time, that equilibrium in the earth’s various energy transfer systems is never achieved for any measureable length of time.
This is the best explanation I have seen.
FYI, the clouds are the governor of the heat engine(s).
The oceans are a massive heat sink/source. A battery if you want it in simple terms.
And, anyone using the word feedback in this flow system does not know what the word feedback means in engineering control systems. Flow systems fall into engineering control systems.
No heat engines at all. A big blob of more than 99% glowing rocky material, a long way from the sun, has been slowly cooling for four and a half billion years.
Am I wrong?
During earths history, where the hot glowing mass called earth has been orbiting the sun, that mass has been slowly cooling for several billion years yes. You assert this several times a thread, and so what? What is the relevance to climate on human lifetime scales. Has not the atmosphere mean T cooled and warmed many time over this history.
It is true that I think “Only two things can change the energy content in a system in a radiative balance, either a change in input, or a change in the residence time of energy within the system. (defined here as earth’s land, oceans and atmosphere.) And it is true the oceans contain about 1000 time the energy of the atmosphere.
Also, cogent to residence time is geo thermal heat flow, ( part of the input) and that heat flow has a very long residence time (up to a thousand years) in the Earth’s oceans, so it may well be cogent to know how much geo thermal is in earth’s oceans, and how that flow varies over decades centuries and millennial. Do you know these answers? Do you consider that to be a primary case of atmospheric climate change over recent decades or the somewhat known history of the ice ages and interglacials?
If I were to give a one sentance summary of an aspect of Willis post, it is that as energy is added to Earth’s atmosphere, the residence time of said energy reduces as said energy movement acclerates, counteracting or reducing any increased residence time of the GHE. I guess you do not accept the diagram in Willis post showing net losses and gains, or that disparate atmospheric rotations move energy poleward.
By the way, research suggests….
Thus, oceans likely receive 80–90% of global geothermal flux (3.5–4.0 × 10^13 W), higher than the 70% proportional share, due to thinner crust and active regions.
Implications for Energy Residence Time
In prior discussions, oceanic residence time for heat (especially SW solar) is centuries to millennia, and geothermal heat, with slow mixing, may linger similarly. For geothermal:
so it is perhaps not trivial, especially considering keeping the oceans liquid.
I’d just point out that AI merely regurgitates what is on the internet.
Here is AI in action –
Based on facts, and supported by AI. Took a couple of minutes <g>.
While AI does a bit more then that, neither AI or MManns deep flaws are cogent to what I said about your assertions (mostly questions) which you aparently have no interest in clarifying.
What do you need clarified? Maybe you could provide a few facts if you don’t agree with my assertions, rather than grumbling about nothing in particular.
If you have a religious belief in the GHE, that’s your choice, but it has no scientific basis.
Well my comment had at lease 4 ? marks,respectfully asked, so that is a reasonable place to start. I did not say I disagreed. Regarding the geothermal heat you mention…
What is the relevance to climate on human lifetime scales? Has not the atmosphere mean T cooled and warmed many time over this history?
“Only two things can change the energy content in a system in a radiative balance, either a change in input, or a change in the residence time of energy within the system. (defined here as earth’s land, oceans and atmosphere.) Agree or disagree?
And it is true the oceans contain about 1000 time the energy of the atmosphere.
Also, cogent to residence time is geo thermal heat flow, ( part of the input) and that heat flow has a very long residence time (up to a thousand years) in the Earth’s oceans, so it may well be cogent to know how much geo thermal is in earth’s oceans, and how that flow varies over decades centuries and millennial. Do you know these answers? Do you consider that to be a primary cause of atmospheric climate change over recent decades or the somewhat known history of the ice ages and interglacials?
If I were to give a one sentance summary of an aspect of Willis post, it is that as energy is added to Earth’s atmosphere, (additional GHG) the residence time of said energy reduces as said energy movement acclerates, counteracting or reducing any increased residence time of the GHE. I guess you do not accept the diagram in Willis post showing net losses and gains, or that disparate atmospheric rotations move energy poleward?
Perspective.
Sind the mid 19th century, the Global Average Temperature (whatever that really is) has risen 0.5% but the atmospheric CO2 concentration has risten 50%. Approximately and based on commonly used numbers. CO2 therefore has risen 100 times faster than temperature.
I never thought of it that way. Thank you!
yes, yet we know that CO2 is a very small percentage of total atmospheric matter. However we are fairly certain that the first 100 years of that increase was not related to CO2. (Not looking for a CO2 GHE debate.)
WE, thanks for the reminder about your previous post on your constructal model. I had forgotten about it. Certainly looks solid.
And your previous constructal model derivation of an ECS ~1.1C is the first ‘convincing’ one I have seen below the EBM observational estimates around ~1.7C. Not sure how those can be reconciled, because yours is below the observational uncertain bounds around 1.7 estimated by Lewis and Curry in their second paper, tweaking their EBM in response to five critiques of their first paper. INM CM5 (the only CMIP6 without a spurious tropical troposphere hotspot) gives 1.8, well within the EBM uncertainty range.
Which only proves yet again that ‘climate science’ isn’t settled, but there is no cause for alarm.
Thanks, Rud. Here’s Lewis and Curry:
So the Constructal estimate of 1.11 K is above the lower end of the 90% CI of their estimates, but not outside them.
Best regards as always,
w.
FYI, here’s 400 and 800 ppm UChicago Modtran keeping TOA constant, Clear Sky, Tropics. Double CO2 results in 1.21 C warming. Same PPMs at Midlatitude winter result in .82 C warming
A highly illuminating article!
Thank you Willis for more original thinking!