Researchers have supposedly solved a long-standing atmospheric puzzle: How rising carbon dioxide cools the stratosphere even as it warms Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere.
Even as temperatures rise on Earth’s surface and in the lower atmosphere, the planet’s upper atmosphere has cooled dramatically. This paradoxical pattern is a well-known sign of humanity’s climate impacts—but until now, the underlying physics has remained a mystery.
In a new study, researchers from Columbia University describe the phenomenon’s mechanics, illuminating how it is largely determined by the way carbon dioxide (CO2) interacts with different wavelengths of light.
“It explains a phenomenon that’s a fingerprint of climate change, has been known to occur for decades, and has not been understood,” says Robert Pincus, a research professor of ocean and climate physics at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which is part of the Columbia Climate School, and co-author of the study published in Nature Geoscience.
In the lower atmosphere, CO2 molecules trap heat that would otherwise escape into space. Higher in the atmosphere, though, the dynamics change. In the stratosphere—the atmospheric layer that extends from about 11km to 50 km above Earth’s surface—CO2 molecules function almost like a radiator, absorbing infrared energy from below and emitting some of that energy into space. When more CO2 is added, the stratosphere radiates heat away more efficiently and it cools.
This was predicted in the 1960s by climatologist Syukuro Manabe’s Nobel Prize-winning models of Earth’s climate and CO2-induced global warming. The stratosphere has cooled by roughly 2 degrees Celsius since the mid-1980s. That’s estimated to be more than 10 times the amount of cooling that would have occurred in the absence of human-caused CO2 emissions.
However, though the basic principles of stratospheric cooling are understood, the specifics have remained cloudy. “The existing theory was incredibly insightful, but at the moment we lack a quantitative theory for CO2-induced stratospheric cooling,” says Sean Cohen, a postdoctoral research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which is part of the Columbia Climate School, and the study’s lead author.
Cohen, Pincus, and Lorenzo Polvani, a geophysicist in Columbia Engineering’s Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, developed their theory through an iterative method of identifying the key processes involved in stratospheric cooling, assigning mathematical values to them, comparing the results of their pen-and-paper models to comprehensive simulations and real-world data, tweaking their equations and repeating. Over several months they deduced the equations that best fit.
The researchers arrived at a central factor: how CO2 molecules interact with light, and in particular infrared—also known as longwave—light. Not every infrared wavelength passes through them in the same way. Some wavelengths contribute to cooling more than others, and the team determined that wavelengths in a certain “Goldilocks zone” are especially efficient. As CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, that zone expands.
“It’s those changes in efficiency that are going to ultimately be what’s driving stratospheric cooling,” says Cohen.
The researchers also quantified the roles played by ozone and water vapor. These are implicated in similar processes as CO2—they too can trap heat in the lower atmosphere but contribute to cooling in the stratosphere by radiating heat—but turn out to have little influence compared with CO2.
The researchers’ equations fit with three well-described phenomena: How stratospheric cooling varies by altitude, with the least cooling occurring at its lowest level and the most at its highest level; how each doubling of CO2 translates to a cooling of 8 degrees Celsius at the stratopause, or the stratosphere’s upper reaches; and how a cooler stratosphere lets less infrared energy escape to space, increasing CO2’s heat-trapping effect. In other words: CO2 makes the stratosphere better at radiating, which cools it—but because it becomes colder, the Earth system ends up losing less heat to space overall, strengthening warming below.
“Here’s this process that we’ve known about for 50-plus years, and we had a pretty decent qualitative understanding of how it worked. However, we didn’t understand the details of what actually drove that process mechanistically,” says Cohen.
Cohen and Pincus say the implications of the work are less about adding one more piece of evidence to support global warming—that reality is already clear—than developing a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in stratospheric cooling. “This is really telling us what is essential,” says Pincus, and it can inform future research on the process. The findings may also help scientists studying conditions outside of Earth.
“Maybe we can better understand what’s going on in the stratospheres of other planets in our solar system or exoplanets,” says Cohen.
What a load of cobblers.
Yup cherry cobbler…
There’s a lot of room for cherry picking in the satellite record back to the 80’s…..
see the known problems bit…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-024-03147-w
Well oil beef hooked!
Is there NOTHING that the CO2 “Magic Molecule” can’t be the Universal Control Knob ™ for?
It cannot repair my frayed shoelace. 🙂
Excellent word play, I’m gonna use that when golfing…
The woke students at Columbia must be gloating.
However, the earth does not have enough fossil fuel left over to double CO2, so all this scare-mongering “theorizing” is based on bull manure.
We are having more ice at the North pole and more polar bears. Go figure!
Natural factors, El Chichón eruption (1982) and Mt Pinatubo eruption (1991) were far more significant.
http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/uahratpacstratosphere.png
The stratosphere has a positive temperature gradient… where to they measure the temperature ??
As the atmosphere warms from natural solar influence, the tropopause will increase in altitude…
… that means that measuring the stratosphere at a set altitude will have a cooling trend.
Nothing to do with CO2.
Yes!
I used to post much longer series showing that after every significant eruption there would be an upward spike then a plunge to a lower level than it was before the rapid warm up.
CO2 has NOTHING to do with it.
Any paper that states that CO2 ‘traps’ heat is not worth reading, at all. Why? Because CO2 radiates CONTINUOUSLY as long as it is above 0 Kelvin. That means it loses energy constantly. That means it COOLS constantly, (inappropriate term for a molecule, but if the paper says CO2 can TRAP heat, I can say it LOSES heat.) It is all the INERT gases that trap heat. They can’t radiate it away. Inert molecules can ONLY lose heat energy through collisions.
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/02/25/carbon-dioxide-cause-global-warming/
LOL..
CO2 DOES NOT TRAP HEAT.
The Earth’s is NOT an enclosed glass bottle.
Everything is your link is basically a highlight reel of the ANTI-SCIENCE behind the CO2 warming scam.
David Dibble has consistently shown WITH ACTUAL DATA that the bulk movement of energy is several magnitude larger than any possible theoretical CO2 effect.
CO2 is nothing but the equivalent of a flea bite on an elephants posterior.
Thanks for mentioning this. About this particular new study, I held off commenting until a few minutes ago. Please see my “two cents” farther below.
Nothing “traps heat.”
The concise definition of heat is the FLOW of thermal energy.
If one can “trap” a flow, it is no longer a flow.
The Trans-Reality Alarmist lexicon will argue the point using common/social language context derived definitions. After all, everyone knows what heat is, right?
Down the rabbit hole he goes again.
One can find anything to support any position on any topic by searching the internet.
Of course if it is on the internet, it is true. It says so on the internet. As such two contradictory statements are both true if posted on the internet.
But any gas that emits IR must also absorb IR. So, how much of each?… what is the balance between absorption and emission? The answer is GHGs absorb IR basically independent of temperature, but their emission of IR is strongly dependent upon temperature. For this reason, every layer of the troposphere is almost always in a state of IR radiative imbalance… the lower troposphere absorbs much more IR than it emits, while the upper troposphere emits much more IR than it absorbs The difference is made up by convective heat transport.
Wrong. If you could ‘see’ the radiation from CO2, it would look like a flashlight. It is ALWAYS radiating if above absolute zero. A photon can have any of three results with a collision with CO2 or any other greenhouse gas. It can be deflected, it can be reflected, and it can be absorbed. Those are the only choices – it has nothing whatsoever to do with temperature, given that it is above zero K.
Except a photon is a mathematical construct, not a real particle.
The photon is the nickname given to the quantum of energy needed to elevate a valence/covalent electron to a higher quantum state or the energy emitted when the electron decays to is lower quantum state.
An EM wave can be deflected, reflected, or absorbed.
Fresnel diffraction does happen at the atom/molecule level.
(Think of an ocean wave and a pier pillar).
A photon is a particle, but it has some wavelike properties. When you look at a light, you are absorbing photons. Heat lamps emit photons and can warm you. Infrared cameras show virtually everything on earth because everything emits photons. Photons are emitted from earth and can hit the sun.
Yes . . . and as attributed to renowned physicist Richard Feynman “NOBODY understands the double slit experiment”, which is used to demonstrate the wave-particle duality of light.
The double slit is a temporal illusion of Special Relativity. We perceive the superposition and diffraction pattern to be simultaneously local but SR tells us they are not. This leads to paradoxes such as which slit, retrocausality, and the quantum eraser.
WTF?
“temporal illusion” . . . really?
“Retrocausality” . . . really?
“Quantum eraser” . . . really?
Thanks for the humor, but this suggestion: go troll elsewhere. You are WAY over your hear here at WUWT.
Errrrr . . . typo in last sentence . . . “You are WAY over your head here at WUWT.”
They never applied Fresnel diffraction equations to the problem.
A photon, which?
Each “photon” has a unique energy based on it’s frequency.
Since the continuous electromagnetic spectrum has an infinity of frequencies, how do we designate one photon from another?
Photon as a particle was fabricated as part of the proof that CO2 can “trap heat.”
By the way, one cannot create a sine wave with particles of all the same energy. If photons are particles, you cell phone, am and fm radio, and satellite to ground communications would not work.
Photon has zero rest mass and zero volume.
Photon is a defined quantum of energy.
Saying a photon is a particle is like saying 1 inch of string means the inch is string.
Your diatribe about emitting photons is so far off course you will fall off the edge of the earth.
Dr. Spencer is correct. The radiant exitance of CO2 is dependent on its temperature. The warmer it is the more it radiates. This is one of the reasons that many CO2 NDIRs have both an active and a reference channel. The reference channel is used to subtract out the background thermal noise. Another method they employ is pulsing the IR light instead of leaving it on continuously. When on the thermopile registers the signal + thermal noise. When off the thermopile only registers the thermal noise. You can then subtract the off state from the on state to isolate the signal.
I agree that the radiation rate is proportional to its temperature. I don’t agree that CO2 traps heat, which is what I originally stated.
Of course it traps heat. The word “trap” here is in reference to the 1LOT ΔE = Ein – Eout in which ΔEin > ΔEout resulting in ΔE > 0. It is the heat (net flow of energy) that is getting retained or “trapped” within the system thus increasing E.
This is actually how NDIRs work as well at least at a macroscopic level anyway. The more CO2 in the cuvette the more heat that is trapped on the lamp side and less heat that is perceived by the thermopile on the other end as a result.
In past conversations I’ve found that many people agree with the concept behind how the word “trap” is used here. Their grievance is mainly with the world choice itself. If this describes your position then fair enough. Just propose another word (as long as it is reasonable) to describe the concept of ΔE > 0 when ΔEin > ΔEout and I’ll happily use it instead of “trap” in my discourse with you. However, my opinion on the matter is that “trap” is not only a reasonable choice, but is arguably the best choice for describing the concept.
‘This is actually how NDIRs work as well at least at a macroscopic level anyway.’
Hopefully, you’re not postulating that your new toy says anything about directional energy flow in an electromagnetic field?
First…I didn’t invent them. As such I cannot make claim of ownership.
Second…they aren’t new. They’ve been around since at least the 1950s.
Anyway, NDIRs work by sensing the net energy flow difference between the lamp and thermopile. The higher the mixing ratio of the target gas species the less energy makes it through the cuvette to the other side.
I’m not sure what you mean exactly when you say electromagnetic field. Which EM field are talking about? What does it have to do with NDIR?
So, on the one hand, we’re frequently told by the ‘atmosphere acts like a black body’ crowd that ‘good absorbers of IR are good emitters of IR’, hence we shouldn’t really expect to see much difference in emissions between a cuvette filled with CO2 or N2, right?
Or, we could take into account that some of the IR absorbed by CO2 in the cuvette is converted into sensible heat by collisions with other molecules, which is then lost to the environment, presuming the cuvette doesn’t heat up ad infinitum. Which one of these mechanisms do you think your toy relies upon to ‘detect’ CO2 levels in, say, an air duct?
But we do see a difference. And its expected. That’s because the absorption of radiation is primarily on the lamp side while the emission is equally distributed to both ends.
Yeah, some of the energy is thermalized in the cuvette. The point is still the same. It is energy that couldn’t escape to the other end of the cuvette.
Oh…and just a reminder…it’s still not my toy. Again, I didn’t invent them. People far wiser than I get credit for that.
‘That’s because the absorption of radiation is primarily on the lamp side while the emission is equally distributed to both ends.’
Sorry, you’ve lost me on this. Perhaps you can provide a diagram and a description of how your NDIR works. In the meantime, here’s a previous WUWT article for your perusal on another instrument, a Pirani gauge, that raises some serious questions re. radiative energy transfer through the troposphere.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/04/18/a-novel-perspective-on-the-greenhouse-effect/
I already explained how a NDIR works. Diagrams of their operation can be easily acquired with a google search. But its so simple you don’t need a diagram. There is a cuvette with a lamp on one end and thermopile on the other end. The IR radiation is beamed from the lamp toward the thermopile. The gas within the cuvette blocks some of the radiation originating the lamp from making it to the thermopile.
A Pirani gauge, being specifically designed to minimize radiation, has no relevance to this discussion or to the discussion of how radiation is transported through the atmosphere.
Of course it does not. IR is not heat and is not thermal. Kinetic motion is not IR, but KE does relate to temperature.
Heat is not energy.
Kirchhoff’s Law states energy cannot be trapped.
Use of common/social language with context derived definitions is not science. The Trans-Reality Alarmist lexicon is rife with such.
I am surprised that you are involved in this and do not understand the fundamental physics.
Thermopiles do not detect IR. They operate on thermal energy.
Adding CCO2 to a column affects the specific heat of the gasses within the column. This means the thermal resistance changes and the temperature changes based on the specific heat and the energy input.
So yes, more thermal energy is absorbed on the lamp side and less is applied to the thermopile. There is an increase in the thermal gradient from input to output.
Note: Not “trapped heat” but rather absorbed thermal energy.
Science requires language precision for effective communications.
So while it is arguable the best choice outside of scientific discussions, it is not the best choice within.
Patently False. IR is a mechanism by which heat flows.
Patently False. Kirchhoff’s Law does not contradict the 1LOT. And the 1LOT indisputably and unequivocally says ΔE > 0 when Ein > Eout.
Patently False. Thermopiles respond to the amount of radiation (including IR) they are exposed to.
False. IR is not thermal.
Different forms of energy.
Energy cannot be trapped.
Thermopiles do respond to energy, only just thermal.
Wrong on all points.
IR is nothing more that an EM wave, just like AM or FM or your microwave. An EM wave is not hot, its wavelength can be determined by knowing the temperature of the emitter, but that is not the only way to generate EM waves at any given wavelength. LED’s create wavelengths similar to the sun. Are they as hot as the sun? Have you ever heard of an oscillator? Planck certainly knew about them when he developed the quanta theory that turned into photons.
But it doesn’t say what phenomenon is used to generate Eout. Work is expended when hot air rises (CO2 right along with it) and temperature decreases based on the lapse rate. That means a molecule may emit at a lower temperature than what it absorbed at.
So Ein can leave as Eout_IR + Eout_work+ other. You have the same blind spot as other climate scientists, The surface of the earth STORES energy that is not radiated. The oceans can store heat for decades and centuries if not millennia. You can’t just make a general statement that Ein -> Eout without analyzing all the different effects.
Did a quick search on thermopiles. Here is what I got.
Key Characteristics
It doesn’t “trap” the energy. It may store it for a period of time until emission, but that is not trapping it. Trap has the connotation of falling into a trap and remaining there which denies emission ever occurs.
Given that “trap” means ΔE > 0 when Ein > Eout are you challenging that ΔE > 0 or Ein > Eout or a combination of both are not possible? Or is this just another knee-jerk nuh-uh comment because you cannot ever be caught agreeing with something I said?
If I let 10 people enter a room, but only allow 4 people to exit then I think any reasonable person would be okay with me saying “I trapped 6 people in the room.” Likewise if I let 10 joules of energy into a system, but only allow 4 joules to exit then I think any reasonable person would be with saying “I trapped 5 joules in the system.”
Is “trap” the only word we can use to express this concept? No. Is it a reasonable choice? Sure.
If you are going to do science, then do science not propaganda.
Molecules who absorb energy store that energy until emission. Your analogy about keeping people in a room is flawed. Molecules are free to emit the stored energy at any random time. Your analogy would be more correct if you said people could easily leave at random times from a closed room by simply opening the door. CO2 has a mean time to emission but that doesn’t mean some emissions don’t occur at shorter or longer times.
Trap is a device or enclosure designed to catch and retain animals. Note the word retain. Energy is not restrained, it is free to be emitted at some random time.
Would you say that your grievance boils down to you not liking the word choice?
What word would you prefer giving to the concept ΔE > 0 when Ein > Eout to facilitate discussions and communication with a layperson?
Doh…I just noticed this stupid typo. 10 j – 4 j = 6 j.
“ describe the concept of ΔE > 0 when ΔEin > ΔEout and I’ll happily use it instead of “trap” in my discourse with you.”
Conduction and convection are major processes that prevent “trapping” of heat in the atmosphere. How does that work in your closed environment of your instruement?
It doesn’t work. Neither conduction nor convection prevent ΔE > 0 when ΔEin > ΔEout since there is no medium by which either can work at TOA at least no in any significant amount.
You miss the point. The atmosphere has conduction and convection. Trying to equate the operation of a measuring device which has no conduction or convection to how the atmosphere works is a lost cause. They are *NOT* equivalent.
The warmer it is the more it radiates.
======
Ah, but what does it radiate more of? Photons or energy or both?
Both. Photons are carriers of energy. E = hc/λ
The word “exitance” specifically refers to radiation from a surface area (see https://www.dictionary.com/browse/exitance ).
Since gases do not have a defined surface area, that sentence is meaningless.
Sure, I’ll accept that in the context you refer. But understand that the context I’m speaking within is not about a handful of molecules in isolation, but a well-mixed layer seen from a sufficient distance that it can be treated has having a surface area in which a radiant exitance can be identified not unlike the 14 W.m-2 emission from Jupiter or the 240 W.m-2 emission from Earth.
Please define the actual altitude at which that “well-mixed layer” of any planet’s atmosphere—as it exponentially decreases in pressure to space vacuum—has it’s, um, surface . . . you know, looking from a distance, that is.
There isn’t any specific altitude. The fact that you’re asking for a specific altitude tells me there is disconnect between the context I am actually considering and the context you think I am considering. Maybe that disconnect is my fault and I’m not articulating well enough. So let me try a different path. Consider a radiation flux in units of W.m-2. The surface I’m speaking of is whatever the m2 part happens to refer to. It could be something more concrete like the interface between the ocean and atmosphere. Or it could be more abstract like an arbitrary point within the atmosphere. The point is that if I can measure a radiation flux in W.m-2 then I’m observing a phenomenon as it relates to whatever surface the m2 refers to. What context are you thinking of?
“Dr. Spencer is correct.”
He’s not. Because he doesn’t know what a Watt is, any more than you do.
“The radiant exitance of CO2 is dependent on its temperature.”
Unmeasurable fiction, nothing else. You aren’t going to get anywhere trying to peddle that nonsense here.
…says the guy who challenges the 1LOT and SB law.
SSB is not a law. It is based on the theory using an ideal model.
You really need some refresher courses in physics.
Ok…dually noted. You blatantly reject both the law of conservation of mass and law of conservation of energy so why not include the SB law too eh?
“says the guy who challenges the 1LOT and SB law.”
When did I do that?
Here, here, and here.
Nobody argues that the radiation flux is based on temperature. The issue is what does it absorb at any given temperature and then subsequently emit and then what does it emit.
jshotsky said “it has nothing whatsoever to do with temperature”
It can also be refracted. It is, after all, an electromagnetic wave.
Let me reiterate what Sparta has said. The fundamental form of a photon is a part of an EM wave. Yes, in certain experiments it can be demonstrated that sometimes the wave can appear to contain particles, the dual wave/particle principle. However, you must show how a particle, or photon, has energy varying by wavelength. In other words, how does a particle have E and H components varying at a given wavelength?
Answer: You fail to understand the wave-particle duality of “light” (that is all EM “radiation”) means EXACTLY THAT: that at any time, under any circumstances, a quantum of light can display BOTH particle and wave behaviour.
You cannot apply black body to individual molecules or atoms.
Whatever IR is absorbed (valence/covalence) is emitted and it is independent of temperature.
“Whatever IR is absorbed (valence/covalence) is emitted and it is independent of temperature.”
So you are saying that a hot gas is not in a more excited state than a cold one ??
And that it would not make more collisions with it’s surrounding gas molecules at a higher intensity than it’s cold version.
Thus it would not be able to pass on it’s energy at a greater rate ??
This is what Roy said ….
“The answer is GHGs absorb IR basically independent of temperature, but their emission of IR is strongly dependent upon temperature. For this reason, every layer of the troposphere is almost always in a state of IR radiative imbalance“
Higher temperature means greater collisions …. the reason why there is an atmospheric laspse rate – less molecules aloft, so lower pressure and therefor colder.
That is the path LWIR at CO2 wavelengths travels during it’s journey from surface to space.
“a state of IR radiative imbalance”
I have corrected you too many times and you continue to spout this pseudoscience.
Correct. More specifically, the properties of ‘black body radiation’ do not apply to atmospheric gases.
”the lower troposphere absorbs much more IR than it emits” ? How can that be ? If a CO2 molecule emits immediately the radiation it absorbed how can the lower troposphere absorbs much more IR than it emits? What battery is accumulating this energy ? Plant life, the oceans, asphalt and rocks ?
When water vapor is very cold (e.g., at high altitudes or in cold climates, around (200-270K), it remains a powerful greenhouse gas that emits infrared (IR) radiation. It radiates strongly around 6-7 microns, effectively “glowing” in this band even when cold.
CO2 is a rare gas and a weak emitter at any temperature without the water vapor feedback conjecture.
“But any gas that emits IR must also absorb IR.”
What do you think “IR” is, Dr. Spencer? And what do you think “emits IR” means?
From post:”…their emission of IR is strongly dependent upon temperature.”
Please post a chart of the emissions of CO2 against temperature between 10 C and 100 C.
Something doesn’t fit here. Molecules absorb EM energy based on wavelength and structure. E = hc/λ, that is a base quanta or photon energy that energize rotation or vibrations. Emission occurs at practically the same energy (wavelength) unless energy is lost in a heat transfer by collision or some other form, think lapse rate/cooling to a lower temperature.
The wavelength that a molecule absorbs is related to the temperature of the emitter. Therefore, the absorption is not “independent” of the temperature of the emitter. The emitter must have the correct temperature to emit at that wavelength.
Now a molecule at 300K may not rise in temperature as much as one at 250K but it would seem that the absorption/emission should be fairly equal (baring heat loss) at a given temperature.
Maye I am misunderstanding what you are trying to say occurs.
Using “climate models” by Manabe and Wetherald …… OOPS !!
Mathematical artefacts from using a “not-of-this-planet” atmosphere model.
Roy Clark is a physical chemist.
And what, pray tell, composes the atmosphere?
I see two problems with this article. Firstly, the theory of CAGW claims Earth warms because rising CO2 reduces energy loss to space so energy in > energy out. But we have been measuring energy loss to space (outgoing longwave radiation or OLR) since he start of the satellite era and it is steadily rising not falling directly conflicting with the core tenant of the CAGW thesis. Secondly, we can tell exactly where there CO2 radiation is coming from by the emission temperature (CO2 concentration is high enough to make it emit like a black body at the central emission wavelength). It is only the last 1-2 absorbance that can radiate to space, any emission from below that is reabsorbed by the CO2 above. This shows that emission to space from the two side bands comes from low down in the stratosphere – near the tropopause and is by far the greatest fraction of all CO2 emission to space. Because the absorptivity of the central wavelength peak is much stronger than the two side lobes the emission at this wavelength comes from a region where CO2 concentration is lower ie: higher in the stratosphere. But from the emission temperature it is clearly well below the stratopause. According to this experimental observation there is no significant CO2 at the stratopause. What there is,is ozone which emits strongly at 10 microns. Maybe its time to look at the contribution of ozone.
“directly conflicting with the core tenant of the CAGW thesis”
A common error – that is not a tenet of AGW. Heat fluxes are governed by something simpler – conservation of energy. Heat flux out = heat flux in, minus any that was diverted to warming the oceans. AGW says that GHGs place a resistance in the path of outgoing flux, and so a larger temperature difference is required to get it through – hence surface warming. The flux need not change.
Here is a plot (from here) of TOA imbalance vs measured heat uptake by the ocean. They match pretty well. The fluctuations are mostly ENSO plus seasonal – the gradient represents the underlying warming of the ocean.
So the increase in absorbed solar radiation is causing the Earth to warm up a bit..
Hardly surprising !
If you click on the chart, it will expand and become clear. Click on the “X” in the circle to return to Comments.
Nick
BS, there would by necessity be a lag between the 2. You have just provided more proof that the warming is not related to GHGs.
Hi Nick; I understand what you are getting at but I cannot agree. Your point boils down to claiming that the surface warms while the upper atmosphere cools so maybe the energy of the entire system is not changing (Temperature is a measure of internal energy) instead the distribution within the system is changing ie: the surface is getting warmer and the upper atmosphere cooler. Sounds plausible initially but remember the thermal mass of the surface is HUGE while the thermal mass of the upper atmosphere by comparison is tiny so the the upper atmosphere would have to cool hugely more than the surface is warming for overall energy of the system to remain unchanged. 2C of cooling for the stratosphere would amount to a tiny fraction of a degree for the surface. Then lets not forget OLR is steadily rising it is not stable.
You say according to AGW, GHG’s place a resistance in the path of outgoing flux. I disagree with that explanation. What GHG’s do is block surface radiation at the absorption wavelengths from escaping to space and they replace it with radiation at those wavelengths from the last 1-2 abs of the GHG atmospheric column. Since the upper atmosphere is colder than the surface, overall emission is reduced and thus GHG’s do indeed reduce thermal emission to space. Remember that at present the abs of the total atmospheric column of CO2 at the Q branch is around 3000 abs and over the P and R branches its around 1000 abs. So emission to space at the central Q branch comes from the top 1/3000 of the CO2 gas column. IF CO2 was well mixed that would be a region where the total gas pressure was 100/3000 KPa or about 33 pascal and emission over the far more significant P and R branches would be coming from a region where the atmospheric pressure was 100 Pa. That would be at about 56 km for the Q branch and about 48 km for the P and R branches. Except its clearly not. The emission intensity as seen from space over the P and R branches translates to a temperature of around -56C corresponding to the tropopause where the pressure is around 10 KPa. Emission intensity over the Q branch indicates a higher temperature, slightly higher in the stratosphere. The stratopause temperature by comparison is around 0C. This suggests CO2 is not well mixed but pools in the lower stratosphere. That means it does not impact the stratopause, it impacts the tropopause. In fact it more or less defines the tropopause. Remember that the tropopause is colder than the regions both below and above. The only way this can occur is if the tropopause is losing energy to somewhere even colder and the only place colder is space. The only way the tropopause can lose energy to space is by radiation and since the tropopause is entirely gaseous that energy loss has to be coming by radiation from a gas to space. More or less the definition of a GHG. The stratopause is heated from above by ozone absorbing the UV component of sunlight which is why there is a temperature inversion throughout the stratosphere.
Thermal emission to space?
Thermal energy transfers require matter. Space is empty.
The energy loss to space is electromagnetic.
CO2 is not well mixed. NASA has mapped it.
CO2 measurements in urban areas are higher (~ 10 ppm) than rural areas.
Conflating electromagnetics with thermodynamics is a common pitfall.
Much of what you posted is accurate, UV for example.
Sparta, energy can be transferred by conduction, convection and radiation which is commonly termed thermal emission because it is energy emitted by the object. The first 2 require matter in the transfer process the third does not. In the case of energy transfer to space there is no matter so only radiation is possible and yes that is electromagnetic in nature. Thermal emission is another way of describing electromagnetic emission.
” Heat flux out = heat flux ”
I’d put it this fact in terms of the Divergence Theorem:
Gasses never act as a black body. A black body requires a surface.
Water has a unique phenomenon, surface adhesion, that creates a surface equivalent, very thin.
Agreed. The contribution of ozone is almost entirely ignored. Ozone has molecular properties that, like water, cause the molecule to interact with the electric field of the EM field.
Agreed. The CAGW conjecture is false.
CO2 does not alter the amount of EM emitted to space. It is akin to a bucket brigade. The added CO2 does not significantly slow down the EM emissions.
There are a ton of bogus conjectures that are intended to villainize CO2 and those are published and accepted without critical review.
The original climate research was to gain understanding of the climate, both natural and anthropogenic. That was changed to demonstrate how CO2 causes global warming and that has been going on too long.
Sparta you are wrong! A black body is defined as something that has an emissivity of 1. The second law of thermodynamics requires that emissivity at a given wavelength is always identical to the absorptivity at that wavelength. A layer of gas that absorbs 90% of the energy incident on it (at the specific wavelength of interest) is defined as having an absorbance of 1. At an absorbance of 2 it absorbs 99% of the incident energy. At absorbance 3 it absorbs 99.9% and so on, its a logarithmic relationship. That means at abs 1 the emissivity is 0.9 at abs 2 it is 0.99 which is a good engineering approximation to a black body. The top 2 abs of the CO2 gas column radiates as essentially black body. The vertical column of CO2 in our atmosphere has an absorbance of 3000 at the peak of the Q branch and over 1000 at the peaks of the much broader P and R branches.
Your point about a “bucket brigade” is also questionable. CO2 does indeed block surface emission in the 15 micron region from escaping to space. In fact, because CO2 is such a strong absorber virtually all the 15 micron emission from the surface is absorbed in the first 10 meters of the atmosphere. Throughout the gas column, CO2 is absorbing and re-radiating em energy at 15 microns which in turn is re-absorbed by other CO2 molecules. It is only the emission from the last 1 – 2 abs of the CO2 gas column which can escape to space. The emission to space at 15 microns reflects the temperature of the last 1-2 abs of the CO2 gas column. That is at the tropopause which is colder than the surface so the 15 micron radiation to space is significantly lower than the emission from Earths surface.
This is a common perception but it is false. The reason it is false is because CO2 is a well mixed gas in a gravitational field. That means at every higher altitude of the atmosphere there is less CO2. Think in layers. CO2 in a higher layer cannot absorb all the emissions from just the layer below it let alone even lower layers.
The result is some of the emissions from every layer of the atmosphere are not absorbed and make it all the way into space.
Exactly. And furthermore with each layer higher up it emits less because it is at a lower temperature.
True throughout the troposphere. And, as CO2 increases both it’s ability to absorb and emit energy increases equally which keep the flow of energy constant across the main spectral bands.
However, at the edges of the main bands you do get a little more energy getting absorbed which is then countered by a reduction in energy absorbed across the water vapor bands.
This is why Miskolczi found a constant opacity (1948-2008) and Willis found a constant greenhouse efficiency (2000-2024). The net effect of increasing CO2 is slightly more evaporation (rain).
It’s one of the myths that never dies.
[Manabe & Wetherald 1967] actually hypothesized that OLR would increase due to GHG induced warming as a result of a positive shortwave feedback. It wasn’t until decades later that they’re prediction proved to be correct.
[Donohoe et al. 2014] provide a brief summary of why this happens.
[Loeb et al. 2021] provide observational evidence of the effect using CERES.
You do realize, of course, that all of your references are circular in that they rely on radiative transfer models to verify the phenomenological physics of radiative transfer theory upon which the models are based?
First…that’s not true.
Second…one of the motivating factors of science is the development of models. So your insinuation that models are necessarily bad isn’t gong to resonate with this curmudgeonly commenter and others who advocate for understanding through the scientific method.
Anyway, that has nothing to do with my point. My point is that mh made a false statement about what science says about the matter. It’s okay be critical of predictions and explanations that others posit. It’s not okay to create a strawman and falsely attribute it to someone else.
Science says nothing about the matter.
Individuals speak.
Models are useful tools for understanding.
The motivating factors of science is the development of models?
What bunk.
I have no problem with models. What I have a problem with are climate models that presume an incorrect mechanism for an effect, e.g., upward energy transfer through the troposphere, that unscrupulous persons (hopefully not you) can use to their political advantage.
Here’s a somewhat less loaded example. We can all probably agree that the use of ‘risk neutral’ valuation is very useful in the area of finance. But having said that, we should also probably agree that it would be unethical for an investment advisor to have, say, your grandmother short a bunch of options on volatile tech stocks, rather than invest her life savings in T-bills.
bdgwx, the complexity of a problem often is critically influenced by how one chooses to look at the problem. In this case consider, if Earth is warming it is gaining energy, where does that energy come from? AGW claims energy input from the sun is constant but the presence of GHG’s reduces energy loss to space. Hence Earth retains more of the incoming solar energy and hence warms. But energy loss to space termed outgoing longwave radiation or OLR has been measured now since about 1980 and it is going steadily up not down so it cant be causing Earth to retain more energy. If Manabe et al claim CO2 raises OLR then they are in effect saying the core claim of the AGW theory is wrong. Maybe that is exactly what they are saying. If they claim AGW is non the less correct they had better be also to explain where the additional energy is coming from and how CO2 is responsible
Correct.
Not so fast. If Earth is retaining energy and nothing else changes then and only then will OLR decrease. However, in the real world other things do change. One of them is Earth’s albedo. It is getting lower. This causes Ein to increase. And because Ein increases then Eout must be higher than it was originally for a new equilibrium to be achieved.
[Donohoe et al. 2014] provides a graphic that makes it easier to understand what happens.
bdgwx; Ahh now we come down to it. What ever warming is occurring is NOT due to decreasing energy loss to space as claimed by the AGW theory. Its caused by Ein increasing due to a falling albedo. The prime candidate would have to be clouds since they have the largest impact on albedo. Guess what, cloudiness is also measured by NASA and it is decreasing. The rate of decrease correlates very well with increases in Ein. So how does rising CO2 cause cloud cover to decrease or is CO2 maybe not the culprit (maybe Svensmark is right?). When someone wedded to a thesis keeps changing the rationale/mechanism but keeps the conclusions the same its a clear flag that the whole thesis is without merit. I have seen it so many times before.
How do you know that?
What is causing albedo to decrease?
Yeah I know. I’m the one that posted the citation to [Loeb et al. 2021].
The hypothesis is that warming/cooling from any factor will cause cloud cover to decrease/increase. [Donohoe et al. 2014] summarizes it pretty well.
This doesn’t make any sense. My understanding is that CO2 doesn’t trap heat rather it slows down its escape from the troposphere, heat rises, heat moves to cold, the temperature of the lower stratosphere is minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the upper stratosphere is minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit primarily due to ozone’s interaction with energy from the sun. If the heat/energy isn’t trapped and the temperature of the lower stratosphere is minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit it would seem to me that the extra heat has been handled.
Actual measurements show that any slight increase in absorption in the CO2 band is more than compensated by an increase in radiation out through the adjacent bands.
CO2 does not trap or slow anything !
Classic bnice confabulation.
”Actual measurements show that any slight increase in absorption in the CO2 band is more than compensated by an increase in radiation out through the adjacent bands.”
Well of course !
That is the signature of CO2 increase induced warming.
If the radiating surface warms then the emitted radiation will increase at all wavelengths.
It warms because the CO2 intercepted band forces it which in turn allows more of the other outgoing LWIR to do the cooling.
That is what that graph shows.
Thanks for making it clear.
With the graph that is.
And not the words you wrote.
How to misapply black body ideal model class 101.
The Earth is a solid not a gas.
And therefor SB applies.
“AI Overview
Yes, the Stefan-Boltzmann relation is highly applicable and fundamental to calculating the Earth’s longwave radiation emission to space. [1, 2, 3]
It is used in climatology to model the energy budget at the top of the atmosphere, where Earth radiates infrared (longwave) energy back to space, determined by its effective emission temperature.”
Try saying why it’s “misapplied” Mr Sparta.
You seem to refute the universally accepted fact that a hotter body radiates at all frequencies at a greater intensity than a colder body.
(Body in this case being the Earth’s surface).
‘The Earth is a solid not a gas. And therefor[e] SB applies.’
Yes, but the Earth’s atmosphere is mainly composed of gases, not solids, hence S-B does not apply to the atmosphere.
Thank you Frank. Saved me some keystrokes.
The Earth is a close enough approximation to a blackbody that it’s rectification effect is only about 6 W.m-2. [Trenberth et al. 2009] Contrast this with the Moon which is a poor blackbody emitter and thus has a rectification effect of 210 W.m-2. [Williams et al. 2017]
The point is that although Earth isn’t a true blackbody (nothing ever is) it is still close enough that the SB law can be applied without introduce too much error.
Clarification 1: The earth’s surface.
Clarification 2: Net, not rectification effect. Sheesh.
I have no problem approximating the radiative properties of the Earth, or any other form of condensed matter, to those of a black body. The issue, i.e., the phenomenological physics, arrises when these properties are attributed to the Earth’s atmosphere, which is composed mostly of gases, i.e., non-condensed matter.
Bob, keep in mind that upper atmosphere temperatures are based mostly on molecular density. That temperature does not dictate the kinetic energy of single molecules.
Otherwise, yes.
It definitely traps heat. The word “trap” here is in reference to the 1st law of thermodynamics ΔE = Ein – Eout in which ΔEin > ΔEout resulting in ΔE > 0. And the word choice makes intuitive sense because CO2 allows more units of energy to enter the system than it allows to leave. So those units of energy are retained or “trapped” within the system.
‘…CO2 allows more units of energy to enter the system than it allows to leave.’
You might want to give this some thought.
I have and I standby what I said.
Then you, and Antonio Guterres of ‘global boiling’ fame, have something in common.
We both accept the law of conservation of energy?
Thermodynamics and EM are different and should not be conflated.
I’m not sure what you think is being conflated. Regardless radiation must comply with the laws of thermodynamics too.
Wrong.
EM does not have to comply with the laws of thermodynamics.
EM complies with Maxwell’s equations.
You’ve blatantly reject the law of conservation of mass so it only makes since for you to blatantly reject the law of conservation of energy as well. At least your consistent.
Exactly, the temperature profile of the Stratosphere is inverted, and we know thermodynamics dictates that heat radiates from a warm source to a cool source. So, we have a boundary condition at the Lower Stratosphere / Tropopause layer that is potentially absorbing heat from the layer above and the layer below. Point is, anyone that thinks a back of the Napkin time series can explain the physics at play at this bubble point, is being naive at best, but for sure ignorant of the mechanisms at play.
Once again, the magic molecule changes it’s physical behavior based on where it resides. In the ocean, it causes increased acidity. In the lower atmosphere, it traps heat by reflecting downward. A little higher, it releases heat by radiating upward. It is truly a wonder of modern physics.
Traps heat by reflecting downward??? Dude, when a photon is emitted (not reemitted) it would look like a flashbulb, not a ‘direction’. It is an omnidirectional ‘flash’. Some is earth directed, some is space directed. Lasers are designed to focus the radiation in one direction. Without that, they are flashbulbs.
Correct. EM emissions are spherical. Some accounting for the atoms of the molecules is addressed with Fresnel Diffraction.
Photons are math constructs and do not physically exist.
Fun fact. Photonic energy E = hf (E=energy, h=Planck’s constant, f=frequency). If photons were actual particles, there would be an infinite number of different photons and we would have real fun naming them. EM is an infinite spectrum even within the bounds of ultraviolet to microwave.
Fun fact. Radio (AM, FM, etc.) is EM. If photons were particles, radio would not work, as the sinewaves involved could not be generated or transmitted.
No, photons are emitted in a single random direction, when a large number of photons are emitted from a source it averages out over a sphere.
Wrong.
A “photon” is a quantum of electromagnetic energy.
EM always exits as a sphere.
Case in point: The EM from the sun and 1/r^2 for power density.
No, you’re wrong, that is not how it works!
Yep.
Its modern-day accomplishments outdo anything it has previously be able to do for millions of years previously, even when its presence in the atmosphere was ~ > 10,000 ppm, a long way from today’s piss-weak ~450 ppm.
(Mind you, it make everything grow like topsy at those high concentrations, probably human brains as well 🙂
Maybe human brains, but not those of the Trans-Reality Alarmists.
“A little higher, it releases heat by radiating upward. It is truly a wonder of modern physics.”
No – just physics.
Not modern – been known since Arrhenius’ day.
And of course it releases heat upward as that is the path to the window it seeks.
You know, the 2 LoT. Heat flowing from warm to cold.
Try thinking of it in a 3D world.
Like it does actually exist at all levels of the atmosphere, and just where affects how it transfers LWIR to space.
Same with any GHG including H2O. Not just CO2.
The fact that it involves a pathway that goes from surface temps to Stratospheric temps and has the property of being less efficient radiating at lower temps is the clue. The Stratosphere being the final window to space, which is at 3K.
Arrhenius was disproved way back then.
You conflate thermal energy with EM energy once again.
“You conflate thermal energy with EM energy once again.”
Thermal energy is LWIR thermalisied within a molecule.
In our atmosphere’s case, via absorption of said LW photon or via a collision of a more thermally excited molecule, whether that be O2, N2, CO2 etc.
Additionally could explain “Arrhenius was disproved way back then.”
Maybe in the loft circles of WUWT – but that is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Thermalized: A well defined scientific term that has been hijacked and redefined.
You have bought into the scam hook, line, and sinker.
From the article: “However, though the basic principles of stratospheric cooling are understood, the specifics have remained cloudy. “The existing theory was incredibly insightful, but at the moment we lack a quantitative theory for CO2-induced stratospheric cooling,” says Sean Cohen, a postdoctoral research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which is part of the Columbia Climate School, and the study’s lead author.”
So, a little more work needs to be done.
Columbia is renown for their BS.
This reads like BS. “When more CO2 is added, the stratosphere radiates heat away more efficiently and it cools.”. If you feed a cooler stratosphere into a model whose only variable is CO2, then the model is incapable of finding any cause for the coolness other than CO2. So you tweak and tweak until you get the required result, but you have to studiously avoid any kind of reasonableness test if you want to publish. No problem, though, your reviewers are all in the same boat.
Spot on.
Manabe and Strickler (1964) demonstrated this effect even with their less-thorough understanding of the IR emission/absorption characteristics of various gases, and all climate models with a stratosphere produce it. It’s no mystery. I don’t understand what they have done that is fundamentally new. In fact, without convection, the upper troposphere would also undergo massive cooling due to this effect. This has all been well understood for over 60 years.
Agreed. This effect has been known since at least the 1960s. The only thing new here is perhaps a refined understanding the precise microphysical processes in play. But at a macrophysical level this has been known and well understood for a long time.
‘The only thing new here is perhaps a refined understanding [of] the precise microphysical processes in play.’
Actually, there’s nothing new here except, per Thomas Kuhn, the continued effort of so-called climate scientists to support an existing paradigm, specifically in this case that CO2 is an existentially harmful trace gas rather than a key requirement for all life on Earth.
A particularly good previous example of such science was the futile attempt to validate the mid-tropospheric hot spot exhibited by most GCMs by ignoring the direct temperature measurements from radiosondes in favor of temperatures indirectly modeled on the basis of wind shear.
‘This has all been well understood for over 60 years.’
But what’s been ignored / suppressed for over 60 years is that convection accounts for most of the energy transported through the troposphere.
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Shula_Ott_Collaboration_Rev_5_Multipart_For_Wuwt_16jul2024.pdf
Spot on, with latent heat playing a not so minor role.
Agreed. As always, a big problem with trying to cut through the simple radiation explains everything narrative is that some ‘not so minor’ concepts have to be left out for the sake of brevity.
Has this ever been observed outside of the climate model space?
Nope.
You know it’s sad when you consider someone a voice of authority on a subject, and then you realize that they are not to be trusted on data interpretation, but brilliant at acquisition and processing.
Roy, what does not add up for me is this: “CO2 molecules function almost like a radiator, absorbing infrared energy from below and emitting some of that energy into space. When more CO2 is added, the stratosphere radiates heat away more efficiently and it cools.”. If you add more CO2, then more upward radiation is trapped and re-radiated, so the stratospheric temperature would increase not decrease. It doesn’t seem possible for an increase in radiation to come with a lower temperature, even if there is more mass from the extra CO2. Or am I wrong?
‘In the lower atmosphere, CO2 molecules trap heat that would otherwise escape into space. Higher in the atmosphere, though, the dynamics change. In the stratosphere—the atmospheric layer that extends from about 11km to 50 km above Earth’s surface—CO2 molecules function almost like a radiator, absorbing infrared energy from below and emitting some of that energy into space. When more CO2 is added, the stratosphere radiates heat away more efficiently and it cools.’
These guys are hopeless. For one thing, CO2 doesn’t spontaneously emit to space below the top of the Mesosphere, i.e., ~84 km above the Earth’s surface. Just another example of how climate ‘scientists’ continue to tweak the phenomenological physics of radiative transfer theory in a futile attempt to maintain their narrative that CO2 is the ‘control knob’ of the Earth’s climate system.
Higher in the atmosphere, CO2 molecules function almost like a radiator, absorbing infrared energy from below and emitting some of that energy into space.
I love this elementary explanation. Instead of letting the infrared energy simply pass through, the evil CO2 absorbs it, and then emits some of it into space. Absolutely devilish. Please, no mathematical formulas.
How many CO2 molecules per mol in the upper atmosphere?
Yes, IR energy simply passes through. What little is absorbed is emitted in picoseconds to nanoseconds.
Unless, of course, one devises a math model that determines it takes half a second, which is nonsense.
“Yes, IR energy simply passes through. What little is absorbed is emitted in picoseconds to nanoseconds.”
No, the radiative lifetime of vibrationally excited CO2 molecule (010 state) is of the order of tenths of seconds. Redistribution of the vibrational energy by collisions with neighboring molecules is of the order of 10 microsecs in air at atmospheric pressure and temperature so it is the dominant mode of deactivation under those conditions.
Ah. So now the bogus concept of vibration is brought up again.
No the fact of how the light interacts with molecules is brought up, electronic, vibrational and rotational energy levels!
See for example: https://www.chem.purdue.edu/jmol/vibs/co2.html
Gemini says:
This study attempts to provide a neat mathematical bridge for a phenomenon predicted by Syukuro Manabe’s models in the 1960s. However, by tweaking equations until they fit pre-existing assumptions, minimizing the profound impacts of ozone and solar UV variability, and relying on a paradoxical thermodynamic explanation, the authors have not solved a mystery. Instead, they have merely manufactured a complex mathematical justification to keep the politically expedient “CO2 control knob” theory alive and guilt trip humans.
Did Gemini really say that? Gemini sounds like a skeptic.
Wow. Gemini. I am impressed.
Your final sentence:
“. . . political expedient . . . guilt trip humans.”
Methinks you have added something that Gemini, in fact, NEVER stated.
Harold The Organic Chemist Says:
CO2 Does Not Cause Warming Of Air!
Shown in the chart (See below) is a plot of the annual mean temperature in Adelaide from 1857 to 1999. In 1857 the concentration of CO2 in air was ca. 280 ppmv (0.55 g CO2/cu. m. of air),and by 1999 it had increased to ca. 368 ppmv (0.72 g CO2/cu. m.) but there was no increase in air temperature in this port city. Instead there was a slight cooling. In 1857 Tav was 17.2° C, and by 1999 it had declined to 16.7° C. Darwin had a similar cooling. Note how little CO2 there is in the air.
To obtain recent Adelaide temperature data, I went to:
https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/cities/adelaide/average-temperature-by-year.
The Thi and Tlo temperature data from 1887 to 2025 was displayed in a long table. The computed Tav was 17.4° C. Since temperature measurement accuracy is +/- 0.1° C., it is concluded that there has been no warming of air in Adelaide for 168 years. This empirical data falsifies the claim by the IPCC that CO2 cause global warming. In 2025 the concentration of CO2 in was 427 ppm (0.84 g CO2/cu. m. of air).
The chart was taken from the late John L. Daly’s website:
“Still Waiting For Greenhouse” available at http://www.john-daly.com. From home page, go to end click on “Station Temperature Data”. On the “World Map” click on “Australia”. There is displayed a list of weather stations. Click on “Adelaide”. John Daly found over 200 weather stations that showed no warming up to 2002.
On May 1, I posted the above comment on Gavin’s website “RealClimate”, and the Real Climateers attacked me like a pack of
African hyenas. They called me a troll and a fool, and said I did not know what is was talking about. I shrugged off this vicious attack.
I ask everyone: Is my comment about CO2 not causing warming of air correct?
NB: If you click on the chart, it will become expand and become clear. Click on the “X” in the circle to contract the chart and return to Comments.
They need to collaborate with these guys to determine if and where there is cooling and heating…since one blindfolded person is feeling the trunk and the other the tail of the same elephant…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-28222-x
As they say in the N. of England:-
Ee by goom but an elephant’s room.
With a tail at t’front and a tail at t’back,
Ye don’t know which end te feed it at.
It comes as a surprise to me, this simple, self-evident mechanism was a “yet to be solved long-standing atmospheric puzzle”..?!
“Some wavelengths contribute to cooling more than others, and the team determined that wavelengths in a certain “Goldilocks zone” are especially efficient” – they found CO2 has an absorption band? Not so new!
“In the stratosphere.. CO2 molecules function almost like a radiator, absorbing infrared energy from below and emitting some of that energy into space. When more CO2 is added, the stratosphere radiates heat away more efficiently and it cools.”
Ouch! As CO2 increases the optical thickness of the stratosphere, it emits AND absorbs more IR. If one believes it was warmed by absorbing more terrestrial IR from below, while emitting more into space, then why would it cool? Should that not be zero-sum game? The problem is already evident in the terminology, calling it “infrared energy”. It is just infrared radiation. What they fail to comprehend is, though with more CO2 the stratosphere absorbs more IR from below, it also emits more IR downward – and that is the zero sum game.
CO2 cools the stratosphere because it emits IR into space, but absorbs no (or barely) SW-solar radiation. Add something that does absorb SW-solar, and the stratosphere warms..
I did not purchase the paper, so who knows, there may be something in it that explains or supports it.
The first statement of the abstract makes this work highly suspicious:
“The cooling of the stratosphere in response to increasing carbon dioxide concentration is a fingerprint of human effects on climate.”
That sounds like a presupposed conclusion to which the paper will dutifully create some mathematics.
Yep, and as that noted philosopher Billy Preston sang “will it go round in circles?”
Human-caused climate change in a nutshell. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide causes global warming/cooling. It follows therefore, that anthropogenic carbon dioxide causes warming/cooling.
Earth is cooler w atmos/water vapor/30% albedo not warmer.
Ubiquitous GHE balance graphics don’t + violate GAAP & LoT.
Kinetic heat transfer processes of contiguous atmos molecules render “extra” GHE energy from a BB surface impossible.
GHE = bogus & CAGW = scam.
“GHE = bogus & CAGW = scam.”
Agreed. You are on the right track. Increased surface temperature does increase thermal energy transfer (conduction, convection, latent) and those have to be removed FIRST before estimating EM emissions. I find it plausible that EM emissions will go up, but with a delta an order of magnitude (or smaller) less that the CAGW claims.
As I have pointed out, and thank you for omitting them this time, those GHE energy imbalance graphics are of a flat earth.
We’ve been through this before Nicholas….without an atmosphere or clouds, the Albedo of the Earth would be about .13 like the moon…1360/4 x .87=296 watts in and out.
And 296 watts = 269 Kelvin by S-B or about 4 degrees below freezing.
Since Earth actually averages about 16 C down here where we live….well, obviously there is a greenhouse effect if we want to call it that….making the planet warmer because it has an atmosphere….
Not going to get into your goofy claims of 2nd Law violation nor Generally Accepted Accounting Principles today….better things to do on my coffee break…
1360/4 ? Only in the flat earth model.
Planet is an oblate spheroid with mountains and other geological features that increases the surface area.
Spherical shape means that average is not uniformly distributed.
In addition, optical depth of the atmosphere relative to solar nadir is much deeper at the poles than the equator.
Toss in the earth tilt and things get even more interesting.
Put the earth on an eccentric parabolic orbit and more variations come into play.
The have the sun orbit the barycenter.
Oh, and don’t leave out the moon.
And, the sun is not constant.
Greenhouses work because they are environmental control systems that limit dispersion of warm air. The earth is not a closed system. A greenhouse is.
We need to stop using the Trans-Reality Alarmist lexicon.
There is no greenhouse effect. The molecules under discussion are not greenhouse gases.
Of course increasing CO2 and humidity in a greenhouse means the terms apply in that specific system.
Oh my! I missed so much ! /s
But it’s close enough to the point for practical purposes……
As the upper tropical troposphere is where this heat as supposed to be sourcing (according to the IPCC), there is a big problem. This region is -17 deg C and the surface 15 deg C. The upper tropical troposphere simply CANNOT warm the surface, being colder than the surface. Thermodynamically impossible. Any IR radiation from the upper troposphere will be reflected (rejected) by the surface as the energy levels for -17 deg C are already full.
For that matter, CO2 has three IR absorption bands, equivalent to -80, 400, and 800 deg C blackbody radiation. The later two are not used anywhere on Earth as CO2 never naturally becomes this how and thus not used in the troposphere. The first (-80 deg C) is colder than everything on the planet and thus rejected by everything. In fact, CO2 works 24/7 at cooling the planet by sending -80 deg C IR out to space. Physicists have not been able to get CO2 to warm anything and discovered that it is the world’s best refrigerant, being abundant, cheap, stable, and nontoxic. It is now being used as the primary refrigerantt in new ice rinks and Mercedes car A/C units. Basically, this paper has the science completely wrong, particularly as it is based on models.
Furthermore, CO2 in the upper tropical troposphere is just not abundant enough to have the effect claimed. It’s just a nonstarter, like using a picket fence with slats one foot apart to corral mice.
Chuck; I am getting sick of hearing the argument that a colder surface cannot warm a warmer surface based on the 2nd law of thermodynamics. You are misinterpreting the 2nd law, it does NOT say a colder surface cannot pass energy to a warmer surface. What is says is NET heat flow is always from warmer to colder. That word NET is crucial.
Surfaces above absolute zero radiate heat in all directions. If some of that strikes a warmer surface it will be absorbed and will warm the warmer surface. Photons and surfaces are not intelligent, they cannot selectively absorb of not absorb based just on their temperature. HOWEVER, the warmer surface because it is warmer will radiate more energy than the colder surface so the warmer surface will pass more heat to the colder surface than it absorbs from the colder surface hence NET heat flow is always from warmer to colder. So how is this relevant? If you have a warm surface interacting with a very cold region (eg outer space) it receives very little energy from that very cold region. If you now replace that very cold region with a not quite so cold region the warm surface receives more energy than it would from the very cold region. Still less than it radiates itself but the difference is reduced. SO COMPARED TO THE SITUATION WITH THE WARM REGION RADIATING TO THE VERY COLD REGION the warm region net loses less heat when it faces the not quite so cold region and therefore ends up warmer than before. In relative terms one could consider it has been warmed.
There is a nuance that needs attention.
The nuance is the word “warm.” As the hot surface transfers energy to the cold surface, the hot surface cools and the cold surface warms. What little energy from cold to hot occurs only offsets a minor amount of hot surface cooling and cold surface warming. That does not mean, in a conventional sense the cold surface is warming the hot, as the convention is warming raises the temperature above what was before the transfer process began.
A colder surface can indeed pass energy, with the net being in accordance to the second law. Kinetic energy is not unidirectional.
The problem with this is it treats thermal energy and EM as equal.
Yes. CO2 cannot “trap heat” nor can it create energy.
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed nor “trapped.”
But it can and is transferred.
Which is what GHGs do.
Wrong.
“For that matter, CO2 has three IR absorption bands, equivalent to -80, 400, and 800 deg C blackbody radiation. The later two are not used anywhere on Earth as CO2 never naturally becomes this how and thus not used in the troposphere. The first (-80 deg C) is colder than everything on the planet and thus rejected by everything.”
There is no such equivalence, it’s a misunderstanding of Wien’s Displacement law.
Well, you would need stratospheric cooling for that would you not?……
https://www2.acom.ucar.edu/slide/bams-releases-state-climate-report-2020
“Figure 2.9 (Bill Randel). Monthly global stratospheric temperature anomalies from the lower to upper stratosphere (bottom to top), showing long-term cooling related to increasing greenhouse gases and ozone depletion, along with effects of episodic volcanic eruptions and the 11-year solar cycle. Middle and upper stratosphere data are from the Stratospheric Sounding Unit (SSU), representing thick-layer averages centered near 30, 38 and 45 km (SSU1, SSU2 and SSU3, respectively). Lower stratosphere temperatures (TLS) are ~13-22 layer averages from satellite microwave measurements. Each time series has been normalized to zero for the period 1995-2005, and curves are offset for clarity.”
What has caused the stabilization since the mid 1990’s, Banton?
I prefer the science in the Lindzen Happer paper of 7th. June 2025.
The study is paywalled. My paraphrase of the abstract: “We found a way to make you keep talking about the “forcing” from incremental CO2!”
Stratospheric cooling! Human fingerprints are all over it! It could be more powerful than we thought!
Stow it.
Incremental CO2 has no more than an imperceptible influence on the climate system through its IR properties, in the proper context of dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PDJP3F3rteoP99lR53YKp2fzuaza7Niz?usp=drive_link
And for that matter, what is the magnitude of the reported 2K stratospheric cooling over, say, 40 years? It is -0.000006K per hour. What are some typical values of idealized compression heating and expansion cooling processes at, say, the 300 hPa level in the upper troposphere? More like +/- 8K per hour.
This is explained here, showing that Simpson and Brunt knew what they were talking about in 1938 when they questioned Callendar’s attribution of surface warming to rising concentrations of CO2. I know it’s a bit long, but it’s worth the time to understand their insights and the modern modeling that demonstrates the point.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/03/15/open-thread-181/#comment-4174555
Thank you for your patience on this matter.
CO2 has a minor effect in that it alters the specific heat of air.
Minor to the point of being trivial.
The specific heat altering by CO2 is trivial. But it’s the IR absorption that is the topic we are concerned with, maybe not you though.
“illuminating how it is largely determined by the way carbon dioxide (CO2) interacts with different wavelengths of light.” So, light is causing the climate catastrophe! Shut out the LIGHT!!!!!!! Turn those damned switches off when you leave a room!!!! Save the climate!!!!!!
Ok, problem solved, where is my grant money?
Over the time period used, we know there’s been a measured reduction in reflected solar energy by NASA satellites. We also know stratospheric ozone interacts with solar energy which is why it is warmer than the upper troposphere. With less total solar energy to interact with, it would warm less, aka cooling. Occam’s razor seems to apply.
Of course, this would have nothing to do with the GHE and is therefore ignored by these fake scientists.
PS. the energy flow through the atmosphere caused by CO2 is a constant independent of CO2 concentration. This is a result of Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation.
Spot on.
IR is not heat.
Heat cannot be “trapped.”
Heat is not energy, it is the flow of thermal energy.
When I see that word salad dressed from the Trans-Reality Alarmist lexicon, I move to something readable.
Of course heat can be trapped. In this context “trapped” is in reference to the 1LOT ΔE = Ein – Eout in which ΔEin > ΔEout resulting in ΔE > 0. And since heat is the net flow of energy it is those units of energy that are getting retained or trapped within the system. Afterall, if there is no heat then there is nothing to get trapped so describing heat as being trapped is not only appropriate, but arguably the best way to describe it.
No. I will not engage in this debate further.
You keep posting this and I keep countering.
Heat is a flow.
Careful, next he will accuse you of “egregious math errors” and put you into his database.
And I’ll keep posting it because the 1st law of thermodynamics is an infallible and unassailable law of physics and has never been shown to be wrong. It is indisputably the case that when Ein > Eout then ΔE > 0 whether or you agree with it or not.
No offense. But duh. When Ein > Eout then there had to be a net flow of energy (heat) into the system. That’s what the 1LOT says. And if the symbology triggers you here I’m more than happy to use the older U, Q, and W symbology. It’s the exact same result though.
No offense but your limited understanding leads you down dark rabbit holes.
Funny that bdgwx’s “limited understanding” and consequent descent into a “dark rabbit-hole” is the same understanding as Roy Spencer’s and that that you will find in text books in your local library.
Neither you, nor bdgwx, nor Dr. Spencer can tell us what a Watt is. The textbook can, though. Why not look one up? It might do you some good.
Funny twist…I have told you what a watt is.
So you did. I apologize for claiming that you couldn’t. (I will stand by my claim that neither Anthony nor Dr. Spencer can define these terms correctly, though, until they do)
Here is what you wrote: “Power is the rate at which work is performed (or energy is transferred) and is expressed in units of watts (W) with SI units of joules (j) per second (s).”
That is a correct definition. Note that there is no “net” or “gross” anywhere in there. So, like I said, you are hallucinating every time you write those words next to “power” or “work”.
I’d be willing to bet Anthony Banton and Roy Spencer know what a watt is and would agree with me. Oh, and despite your challenges power is still related to energy via E = P * t.
And for the record, when I say “net” I’m referring to Ein – Eout. Similarly in this context “gross” would be Ein + Eout. Reasonably competent readers would have understood that based on the context in my post above.
So when you tell me that there is no “gross flow of energy” you can probably imagine why I think it is bullshit. If you cannot imagine it then I’ll lay it out for you in no uncertain terms. All bodies in the real world are continuously sending and receiving flows of energy.
“I’d be willing to bet Anthony Banton and Roy Spencer know what a watt is”
They don’t. And you keep contradicting yourself, so I’m going to assert that you don’t either, despite having produced a correct definition – without apparently being able to understand what it means.
““net” I’m referring to Ein – Eout”
No, that can’t be right, because you told us that “power is the rate at which work is performed”. Where is the work?
“in this context “gross” would be Ein + Eout.”
No, that can’t be right either, because I still don’t see any work.
“So when you tell me that there is no “gross flow of energy” you can probably imagine why I think it is bullshit”
You can’t define it, though. Nor, of course, measure it. So which one is the “bullshit”?
“All bodies in the real world are continuously sending and receiving flows of energy.”
No they aren’t. How do you plan to relate “flow of energy” to “work”? Objects are not continuously “doing work” regardless of their environment. That’s not how physics works. The Second Law has something to say about your claim, and it says it’s false. Or, in other words, bullshit.
“net flow of energy”
You’re hallucinating, as usual. Because there is no “gross flow of energy”. Sit down.
You don’t think energy flows at all and I’m the one hallucinating?
“You don’t think energy flows at all”
That isn’t what I said, is it? Yes, you are hallucinating. And now lying, to boot.
You said “Because there is no “gross flow of energy”.
Correct. And you said that I said (or thought) “You don’t think energy flows at all”. Do those two sentences look the same to you? Read them more carefully. There’s a key difference. See if you can spot it.
I think they are functionally equivalent. You obviously don’t. Now is the time to clarify what you mean by “gross” if not Ein + Eout.
“I think they are functionally equivalent”
Because you can just throw in an arbitrary adjective and hope no one notices?
“clarify what you mean by “gross””
I don’t mean anything by it. It’s your nonsense word. (I don’t think there’s anything left to be gained by continuing in this particular thread, might as well just stick to the one above…)
Ok, well, I guess I don’t have any other choice but to think that when you said “no gross flow of energy” you literally meant no flow of energy gross or otherwise. I do think you should reconsider your position on the matter since all bodies in the real world are both at least absorbing and emitting radiation. And many of those are participating in convection and conduction exchanges.
“when you said “no gross flow of energy” you literally meant no flow of energy gross or otherwise”
No, that’s not the same thing – unless you think the word “gross” means literally nothing at all. Along with the word “net”, of course. Because that’s the only way you can insert those words into a sentence and pretend it still means the same as before.
“you should reconsider your position on the matter”
Why? I’m not the one who’s hallucinating, or pretending that words literally mean nothing.
“all bodies in the real world are both at least absorbing and emitting radiation”
The truth of that claim depends entirely on what you mean by “absorbing” and “emitting” – and by “radiation” of course. Since “radiation” is a form of energy, which is defined as the capacity to do work, all bodies (above absolute 0) emit the capacity to do work. That is true. And that is what we can measure. (That’s how you can tell it’s true, and not a hallucination)
Lead-in sentence to the fourth normal text paragraph of the above article:
“In the lower atmosphere, CO2 molecules trap heat that would otherwise escape into space.”
There are many (unintended and debatable) implications in the use of the phrase “trap heat” in that sentence, and I wish that Anthony has instead used the phrase “intercept radiation”.
As Prof. William Happer and others have extensively documented, within the first 5 or so km of altitude from Earth’s surface CO2 experiences collisions with other atmospheric molecules (predominantly N2 and O2) at rates that are on the order of millions to billions of times faster than the range of CO2’s major photon-relaxation time constants (on the order of 0.001 to 1 second).
During such molecule-molecule collisions, the excess LWIR energy that has been absorbed by “LWIR-active” atmospheric molecules (aka greenhouse gases, predominately water vapor, CO2 and methane) is almost instantaneously transferred and distributed into the major degrees of freedom of the “non-LWIR-active gas” molecules N2 and O2: three degrees of translation (with about 3/5 of the energy transferred during collision increasing a x-y-z vector velocity of the lower-energy molecule) and the remaining approximate 2/5 of the transferred energy going into the primary rotational (angular momentum) degrees of freedom of the diatomic molecules).
Again, this process runs to its asymptotic limit within approximately the first 5 km of altitude, still deep in the troposphere . . . LWIR off Earth’s surface has a statistical range of distance with repeated scattering before it is fully absorbed by a greenhouse gas molecule, with the chance of absorption of the excess energy itself being determined by the statistics of quantum mechanics, so any given LWIR photon may not be directly absorbed by the first lower-energy IR-active molecule it encounters.
Bottom line: there is no “trapping” of heat by CO2 molecules for more than, at most, about a microsecond . . . it is all atmospheric molecules at the top of the stratosphere that are radiating LWIR-originated thermal energy into the stratosphere and thereby into deep space, not just CO2, because all those molecules have temperatures above absolute zero. (And yes, there is a relatively small “atmospheric window” for a certain range of LWIR frequencies of surface radiation to pass directly through the atmosphere directly to space.)
Note that the statement “. . . at the moment we lack a quantitative theory for CO2-induced stratospheric cooling,” by Sean Cohen, as given in the above article nevertheless appears to be valid despite the above considerations. Maybe it’s just not CO2-induced after all?
Ooops . . . this correction needed in my “Bottom line” paragraph above:
“. . . it is all atmospheric molecules at the top of the troposphere that are radiating LWIR-originated thermal energy into the stratosphere and thereby into deep space . . .”