Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach (@WEschenbach on X, my personal blog is here.)
Well, I had some further insights and questions about the issue of sunshine hours that I discussed in my last post, but as is far too common on my planet, along the way I got seriously side-tractored, all the way over to the question of the atmospheric window.
And what is the atmospheric window when it’s at home? It’s the portion of the emitted thermal radiation in a range generally taken to be 8µm to 12µm. The curiosity of this “window” is that thermal radiation in this range mostly goes directly to space.
Figure 1 shows the atmospheric window. This is from MODTRAN Infrared Light In The Atmosphere, an online calculator of how much radiation makes it to space and how much is absorbed in the atmosphere
Figure 1. The “atmospheric window” is the area between the vertical red dotted lines at 8 microns (µm) and 12 microns. The amount of thermal radiation that would be making it to space at a given temperature is shown by the smooth colored lines. The solid blue line shows how much actually makes it to space under the given conditions (tropical atmosphere, no rain or clouds). You can see that the major absorption by “greenhouse” gases occurs in the region centered at 15 microns.
So … how much of the upwelling radiation goes directly out to space? Well, some research showed that, to my surprise, the CERES dataset has both clear-sky and all-sky values for the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) upwelling longwave in the atmospheric window of 8-12 microns.
My interest in this was to see how the amount of upwelling radiation that avoids the greenhouse gases has varied over time. Figure 2 shows those changes.
Figure 2. Changes in the radiation loss through the atmospheric window, 2000 – 2024. Seasonal variations have been removed to highlight the trend.
Having seen that, my next question was, how does this relate to the increase in upwelling surface radiation that accompanies the increase in temperature over that same period? Figure 3 shows that relationship.
Figure 3. Scatterplot, loss through the atmospheric window versus changes in the surface upwelling longwave. Seasonal variations have not been removed in either variable, to show the variation in the loss over a wider temperature range.
What this says is that as the surface warms, a steady 20% of the increase in upwelling surface radiation goes out through the atmospheric window, and 80% is absorbed in the atmosphere.
So, how does all of this relate to the question of the sunshine hours? Well, I was using the sunshine hours as some kind of proxy for the albedo. Inter alia, I wanted to see what the relationship was between the available solar radiation (the amount of radiation making it past the albedo) and surface absorbed radiation. And to my great surprise, I found the following:
Figure 4. Anomalies, downwelling solar at the top of the atmosphere and at the surface.
As I pointed out in my previous post, we’re getting more available solar radiation at the top of the atmosphere, and we’re also getting more sunshine hours … but what surprised me was, over the last quarter century there’s been no increase in solar radiation at the surface.
Obviously, the difference is due to increased absorption of solar radiation in the atmosphere … and that meant that I needed to look at the changes in atmospheric absorption and what that means to various other climate parameters.
Finally, to close the circle, that is why I had to find out how much surface upwelling longwave was not absorbed in the atmosphere. To understand the radiation dynamics of the atmosphere, I need to understand all of the sources of radiation absorbed by the atmosphere … which will be the subject of my next post. Assuming, of course, that I learn something about the subject between now and then.
Late night here in the forest, with the moon peeking above the horizon of this most awesome of planets. Next, I’ll go outside, walk around a bit, and revel in the tree-filtered moonlight … best of life to each one of you.
w.
Yeah, I’ve Said It Before: When you comment, please quote the exact words you are discussing, so your subject is crystal clear.
They need to discontinue daylight savings time.
IMO W/m^2 was chosen to toggle between it & S-B temperature. Can’t do wo proper application of emissivity.
Proper units would be BTU/Eng h or kJ/metric h.
What makes you think that emissivity is not being applied?
w.
Of the 333 W/m2 from GHG typically shown on energy balance charts how much is from CO2 and what emissivity is applied to that 333 number?
Here, fig 1, column B, 3rd down, not quite what you want but a valuable reference and includes other gases…
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2012GL051409
Emissivity is more for surfaces…for a gas doesn’t mean much useful, basically without knowing how many molecules the photons propagate through, so density, distance, and band width under consideration…
From the cited article:
‘We have found that on global average under clear-sky conditions the OLR is reduced due to O2 by 0.11 Wm−2 and due to N2 by 0.17 Wm−2.’
This is so indicative of ‘climate science’ – publish an article emphasizing an absolutely miniscule reduction in OLR due to collisions of O2 and N2 with GHG species, while suppressing / ignoring the fact that these same collisions convert nearly all of the thermal radiation absorbed by GHGs to sensible heat within 10 – 20 meters of the Earth’s surface.
This process, I might add, not only warms the air near the surface, but also drives the convective transport of heat to the upper atmosphere, where subsequent collisions excite GHGs that can then radiate this energy spontaneously to space.
Therein lies the real mechanism behind the so-called ‘GHE’, as opposed to the phenomenological physics that attributes the bulk of energy transport through the troposphere to radiative transport.
“This is so indicative of ‘climate science’ – publish an article emphasizing an absolutely miniscule reduction in OLR due to collisions of O2 and N2 with GHG species, while suppressing / ignoring the fact that these same collisions convert nearly all of the thermal radiation absorbed by GHGs to sensible heat within 10 – 20 meters of the Earth’s surface.”
Oh? Please cite any scientific reports in a reliable scientific journal that says what you claim they say.(Hint: they don’t)
‘Oh? Please cite any scientific reports in a reliable scientific journal that says what you claim they say.’
Here’s one specifically related to CO2:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0301010494003246
The fact that you aren’t aware that non-radiative deactivation plays a significant role in tropospheric convection basically makes the point that this knowledge has largely been suppressed.
This paper doesn’t make the false claim that you said.
Oh, by the way, Warren, how do you even measure reductions in OLR on the order of 0.11 or 0.17 W/m^2? I don’t think even the guys that Clauser routinely beats up on EEI would suggest that such ‘precision’ is anywhere near possible.
Why don;t you run that by one of the thousands of scientists who routinely measure it?
Measure it? Who? Where? With What?
Have you tried reading the work of those scientists in order to find out?
I don’t think that information is suppressed….It’s rather obvious that the molecules collide with each other until they are at a bulk temperature in accordance with the kinetic theory of gases as taught in physics classes at every level. The topic is about how a few water and CO2 molecules get a bump from some IR photons BEFORE they start distributing the energy to their neighboring O2 and N2…which are very very low absorbers, basically transparent, according to the numbers….
‘Emissivity is more for surfaces…for a gas doesn’t mean much useful, basically without knowing how many molecules the photons propagate through, so density, distance, and band width under consideration…’
Conflating the radiative properties of condensed matter with those of gases, and then treating the troposphere as a series of slabs that spontaneously absorb and emit ‘photons’ in accordance with Kirchoff’s Law, while effectively ignoring the role of convective heat transport, is basically where climate science goes off the rails.
You started by asking the emissivity involved in the 333 “back radiation number” and now have branched to saying climate scientists are conflating gases and solid slabs. Sounds like you believe what you want to believe.
People keep on mentioning CO2, as if it is important.
It is only important, because the IPCC says so, based on its own science.
It is only important, because moneyed elites saw an opportunity to have long-term, lucrative, no-risk tax shelters.
Here is some sanity
According to John Clauser, 2022 Nobel Physics Price recipient:
“Atmospheric CO2 and methane have negligible effect on the climate. The policies government have been implementing are totally unnecessary and should be eliminated. That includes the 110 or so temperature prediction graphs.
The dominant process is “the cloud-sunlight-reflexivity thermostat” mechanism. Clouds are bright white, reflect 90% of the sunlight back into space, are the most crucial aspect of the climate system. Oceans are 70% of the Earth surface. The Pacific Ocean alone is 50%. The average cloud cover for the Earth is 67%; about 50% over land and 75% over oceans.”
CO2, just 0.042% in the atmosphere, is a weak absorber of a small fraction of the available, absorbable, low-energy IR photons.
CO2 has near-zero influence on world surface temperatures.
CO2 is a life-giving molecule. Greater CO2 ppm in atmosphere is an essential ingredient to:
1) increase green flora and fauna, reduce desert areas, such as the Sahara, and
2) increase crop yields to better feed 8 billion people.
Net Zero by any date is an expensive plant/crop destruction pact
Clauser doesn’t research or a publish anything about this in scientific journals. He’s a fraud.
How do you get a Nobel being a fraud?
There must be hundreds of Nobel recipients.
Please name any additional frauds among them. Please provide evidence.
Clauser is exposing climate alarm as scientific fraud. The pseudoscientists he is calling out don’t stand a chance against his expertise as a physicist.
There are thousands of climate scientists, many of whom are physicists, that know fair more than Clauser, who doesn’t even publish his nonsense as a scientific paper in scientific journals because he knows his rants are piled higher and deeper.
Ah, you are what? You do not have to be a climate scientist to have your facts right. Calling names is a loser’s argument.
I am a biochemist and have a good science filter. Realism is paramount. Anthropogenic global warming is not only a (political/power) scam, is created on paper by fraud, and is also not happening as we enter a Grand Solar Minimum.
The fraud is strong with the climate alarmists.
I would love to see a discussion that includes the water cycle and the huge transport of energy to altitude and release by condensation. Discussions of only radiation are very limited as the water cycle does not involve the albedo or upward IR.
No, you don’t have to be climate scientist to get facts rights. And your post is a good example. The atmospheric greenhouse effect on the planets climate was discovered in the 19th century. It’s as well proven as the fact that the earth orbits the sun. And AGW is established scientific fact. As a biochemist, you should know as much about the facts of AGW as kids in sixth grade science know today, but apparently you don’t.
‘No, you don’t have to be climate scientist to get facts rights. And your post is a good example. The atmospheric greenhouse effect on the planets climate was discovered in the 19th century.’
That would be the phenomenological physics of the ‘atmospheric greenhouse effect’:
“Physicists, you know, I attended many conferences where there were physicists. And to them, radiative transfer is something really inconsequential, very simplistic, it’s fake, and, uh, they don’t trust us a single bit.
And this is a huge gap, so they’re arrogant and we behave like ostriches, there are no problems, as long as we don’t talk to each other. Unlike Freeman Dyson, he is this contrarian. But look, this guy developed quantum electrodynamics, so he’s a top notch physicist. He knows how physics works and how nature works to the best of our collective knowledge.
Now this guy questions what we do in climate modeling and in radiative transfer modeling, simply because it is so indirectly based, or maybe not based at all, on fundamental physics. To convince them that we know what we’re talking about, we have to use their language, because our language is archaic. It is 250 years old, and it was archaic even when it was developed.”
you believe anything you read or watch, apparently, as long as it’s not science.
Without the huge evaporation/condensation energy transport from the tropics, much of the higher latitudes of northern hemisphere would be uninhabitable. The same with the southern hemisphere.
CO2 and Methane play very minor roles.
At future COPs, they should be discussing the ways of restoring tropical rainforests, and set restoration targets.
Of course CO2 plays a minor role in the internal exchange of heat from one region of earth to another. But as discovered in the 19th century, and known by every sixth grader who’s taken earth science, it’s the primary reason our planet is 60F warmer than it would have been without GHGs, because CO2 and other atmospheric greenhouse gases restrict the flow of infrared thermal radiation attempting to leave earth. And it’s the 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration since 1750 that’s primarily responsible for the current warming of the climate.
‘And it’s the 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration since 1750 that’s primarily responsible for the current warming of the climate.’
There’s no evidence in either the carbonate rock or ice core records that variations in CO2 concentration have ever driven the Earth’s temperature. Hopefully, someone will pass this along to the elementary education majors teaching our sixth graders.
Are you also member of the Flat Earth Society, Frank? That’s an absurd claim.
The only flat earther seems to be you. Dinosaurs thrived when CO2 in the atmosphere was much higher than today – yet the earth didn’t burn up from higher temperatures. In fact, the biosphere thrived as proven by the amount of flora and fauna needed to support top tier sizable dinosaurs. Proof positive that higher CO2 levels is beneficial rather than dangerous.
Of course it has a minor part. The sun does the major work of increasing heat over the earth. The spin of the earth also induces winds that help, probably more that CO2, move heat from one location to another. Lastly, you never mention water vapor which carries much more heat aloft that CO2.
Your mention of CO2 places it the most important GHG. That is a false and propaganda type message. Water vapor is 1000 times larger than CO2 and carries more heat that CO2.
No, i didn’t say CO2 is the most important GHG. In fact, as you say, water vapor is the largest factor in maintaining earths temperature about 60F warmer than it would be without any GHGs. CO2 is the second most significant factor, followed by methane, then N2O. However, since water vapor condenses out, it’s presence in the atmosphere does not increase (except slightly as the planet warms, the atmospheric humidity level can rise according to Clausius-Clapeyron). However, as mankind burns fossil fuels, and the atmospheric concentration of CO2 rises, the GHE increases, causing the temperature-elevating effect of GHGs to also increase.
Would it be better for life on Earth if we had been getting colder over the last 150 years?
It would be best if we weren’t facing increased storms, rising seas, increased wildfires and drought, increasing insurance rates, and tropical diseases moving north due to a rapidly heating climate.
Good thing we’re not facing any of those. Well, except the insurance industry using alarmist misunderstandings as an excuse to increase rates …
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/
w.
Your statements are consistent – consistently wrong, Willis. The IPCc assessments conclude the world is seeing now, and facing in the future, ever increasing impacts as I cited them, and furthermore explain the physics phenomena behind those impacts. And the insurance industry, unlike you, actually accept science.
You are joking! If what you say is true, why are we spending untold dollars on computers, research, and modeling. They work has been done and explained by the IPCC. You can’t have it both ways, one, to say we have already done all that is needed, and two, that we don’t know enough to create a functional relationship that considers all the variables. It is either one or the other.
While science can be quite certain of certain basics, additional research into more details is conducted to enhance human understanding– just as in all scientific fields.
Basic research is fine, but money spent on just any old subject may not be the best use of taxpayers money. Taxpayers expect their money to be spent wisely.
The government must prioritize spending appropriately. Your arguments and assertions fail to show that you understand this. Instead of making generalized assertions, try using some targeted language that shows you have the intellect to construct specific arguments.
I hardly trust you — a Science Denier — to make such judgements.
So I don’t get to vote on who I feel will prioritize the correct scientific research. Elites like you get to decide what is best for the world. Why would I expect anything different from you.
No you don’t. The Scientists — who know best about research needs — get to decide. You just get to pay.
Spoken like a true communist!
Yes, we Marxists are always out to get you— and you are very easy to con-
The IPCC doesn’t predict increased storms, wildfires or droughts. The long term projections it made where any increases happen were only true using RCP8.5 and that’s been withdrawn.
Yes it does. Right here https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/chapter/chapter-14/
Where? No it doesn’t, as per my specific quote below
Another experimentally unproven assertion.
Another experimentally unproven assertion. If CO2 is one-thousandths as capable as CO2, CO2 could double and still be only two-thousandths as capable as water vapor. A fly on an elephants butt.
Show some math and studies that definitively prove what you are asserting.
The fact that CO2 is the second most significant factor is established mainstream Science. Which confirms you haven’t been trained in the sciences and don’t read any science, otherwise you would have known. Now I know better who/what I’m dealing with.
It should be easy for someone of your education to find an attribution study that ranks, CO2, H2O, convection, conduction, ocean currents, wind currents, etc. in terms of heat transport in the earth’s atmosphere. Show us the study(s) you are basing your assertion on.
“The fact that CO2 is the second most significant factor is established mainstream Science.”
Here we go again – the Bandwagon Fallacy.
Don’t you have anything to offer besides argumentative fallacies?
If UV radiation varies on different sides of the sun.
Do UV radiation variations affect the temperature of the Earth?
Is there a relationship between the Carrington rotation number and the temperature of the Earth?
Are there any correlations between these variables?
Will IR radiation match better than UV radiation in the graph?
Does the temperature increase if the Earth’s reflectivity decreases?
Or does the Earth’s temperature decrease if the Earth’s reflectivity decreases?
Solar radiation varies at Perihelion and Aphelion.
If Albedo changes depending on the intensity of solar radiation, this should be noticeable at Perihelion and Aphelion.
Perihelion January 4 2025
TSI at Perihelion: 1.412 W/m^2 (Earth distance).
Aphelion July 3 2025
TSI at Perihelion: 1.321 W/m^2 (Earth distance).
Note of concern: Figs. 2 & 3, vertical axes, would seem to refer to the same dataset, but span a different range (a factor of 4X or 6X). Is this a labeling-error, or some real distinction that I’ve failed to detect? — RLW
Good question, Robert. Figure 2 has had the seasonal variations removed, and Figure 3 has not had them removed. I’ve added text in the head post to clarify this.
w.
Perfect, thanks. (Those darn ‘seasonal variations’-be-gone.)
“over the last quarter century there’s been no increase in solar radiation at the surface.”
Having trouble understanding how this could be? The cloud reduction the last 25 years has been well documented. How could the atmosphere absorb more when no clouds are there to impede the direct line to the surface. It’s way hotter in direct sunlight than under a cloud. Could the oceans be absorbing all the excess?
Good question. The atmosphere absorbs sunlight in several ways. Aerosols (smoke, dust, sulfates, black carbon) absorb sunlight, as well as water vapor, ozone, cloud droplets, sea spray, and ice crystals. Also, CO₂ and O₂ absorb a small amount in specific UV/visible/near-infrared bands.
w.
The specific question was how a reduction in clouds could result in no increase in solar radiation at the surface? My experience is that it’s far hotter in direct sunlight than under clouds.. Numerous studies have shown significant increases in W/m^2 at the surface due to the cloud reduction over the modern warm period. Could the CERES data be calibrated to get this result so the sun can be disregarded?
That is basically my question also. The only mechanism that supports this is that something in the atmosphere is absorbing ALL of the increase occurring due to a reduction in clouds. What would that mechanism be, and how does it work?
The increase in Ocean heat content I believe directly refutes that solar radiation at the surface hasn’t increased. GHG’s couldn’t have caused that much.
I am not an expert in this but I remember Andy May indicating that CERIES is calibrated in some form or fashion using OHC. If so, I wonder if this results in a normalized figure for surface insolation.
The increasing GHE has indeed caused the oceans to absorb heat energy — at the rate of 3-1/2 Hiroshima sized nuclear explosions per second, 24/7, continuously for the last 50 years.
Downwelling IR can only penetrate a few microns into the ocean skin and probably contributes more to evaporation than absorption. The atmosphere hasn’t warmed enough to heat the oceans through conduction to the degree they have warmed. The reduction in clouds did that because SW energy can penetrate to depth.
There are no scientific papers you can point to that support such obvious nonsense.
There are plenty of scientific papers that support the existence of confirmation bias in true believers however.
Yes, there are many papers written about the delusions of climate deniers and how they believe in tooth fairies without supporting facts.
I agree.
The way I’m seeing this is that the radiation in the 8-12um range isn’t impacted by water whether that’s in vapour or droplets. But I wonder if I’m missing the entire point of what Willis is saying here.
“No increase in solar radiation at the surface” is mutually exclusive in my book to the calculated increase at the surface in W/m^2 a couple dozen studies have shown from the cloud reduction during the modern warm period. I’m trying to understand how his CERES data conflicts with all 16 studies I looked at which showed an increase? Am I missing something? Highly respect Willis!
One question we might ask is how the reduction in clouds was determined.
Was it a derived result because we dont (and really cant) have good enough actual measurements of global cloud cover?
Because Willis’ result puts the whole idea of reduced cloud cover into question. I’m going to go and read some of those papers now…
Hopefully Willis will see this.
Just to confirm, where did the “surface downwelling solar radiation” data come from? Is that CERES data?
Replying to myself. No matter, I should have looked literally one post down….
“Is that CERES data?”
Yes, That’s what Willis’s chart was from.
“One question we might ask is how the reduction in clouds was determined.”
Most all of them used the CERES cloud data which is why I’m confused about what Willis presented.
Well having considered Ceppi et al, 2025 – Emerging low-cloud feedback and adjustment in global satellite observations
I’d now say
Can the observed decline in low-cloud reflectivity over 2003–2024 be explained using the cloud-feedback and cloud-adjustment mechanisms that climate models already contain?
Without too much regard to what actually happened to the SW energy itself.
Fig 4 is playing the silly “anomalies” game. The GAT thermometer-readers pretend to read 0.01K differences in a base of ~300K, and Fig 4 pretends to measure 2 w/m2 in a base of ~300 w/m2!
How was the ‘surface downwelling solar radiation’ curve derived?
The atmospheric window from Modtran is just for the ‘tropical atmosphere’, whereas the longwave and absorbed solar curves are for the whole earth. Is that an appropriate comparison? What would it look like if you used just tropical longwave and ASR?
The surface downwelling solar radiation’ is from the CERES dataset “surf_sw_down_all”. Details of the derivation are at
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/ATBD/pdf/r2_2/ceres-atbd2.2-s4.6.1.pdf
w.
I went and read the complete nasa.gov section on atmospheric solar absorption, to see where you might be going based on Figure 4.
Per NASA, there are three main atmospheric solar absorbers—each for a different set of wavelengths. (Incoming solar is about 50% IR, 44%visible, and 6%UV, varying a bit over the solar cycle.) Stratospheric ozone absorbs UV. After the Montreal Protocol, that has stabilized so maybe no surface change. Troposphere aerosols absorb visible light. Those have on average gone down (except places like India and China) thanks to better emission controls. (Another reason cloudiness has diminished a bit, as aerosols are cloud nucleators.) So that should have increased surface insolation for about 44%—but didn’t. The atmospheric absorber for the incoming IR ‘half’ of insolation is water vapor. Over the past 25 years global specific humidity has risen at a fairly steady rate per decade (0.1g/kg). So this could explain figure 4.
Google AI says this increase in specific humidity is because of global warming, but that AI assertion does not square with application of the Clausius-Clapeyron equation to estimated GAST change—if my quick application is correct.
Looking forward to your next ‘solution’ post.
Clausius Clapeyron says that specific humidity is a function of temperature. The world is warming, and humidity is rising, according to the equation — and at a measured rate of about 7% per decade.
And that’s a good thing. Warming is better than mile-thick glaciers.
The alternative to a world warming dangerously fast is not ‘Mile deep glaciers’ but rather a world with slow natural climatic change.
And you think humans can control either? Dream on.
Since humans are causing unnatural rapid warming of the planet by burning fossil fuels and releasing 40 billion tonnes of CO2 annually, we can gradually replace those fossil fuels with solar, wind, and nuclear energy sources and return to slow natural climatic change.
LOL!
Just want to make sure I am getting this right: Figure 4: the top graph in black is the difference between incoming and outgoing at TOA. The bottom red chart is sunlight reaching the surface. Because you are only looking at a limited range of wavelengths this isn’t total radiation, just an interesting part of it. TOA shows that reflection is declining because incoming presumably doesn’t change much. This would presumably be caused by cloud cover reducing(?is it?), by declining northern ice, and maybe land use or vegetation changes (maybe the increased leaf cover reduces reflection?). The surface chart suggests that cloud cover is not the major factor because that would show up there. It’s a shame that the data doesn’t go back further.
Question: how can CERES see radiation at the surface where there are clouds in the way? Or is it just an “under clear sky measure? In which case what i said about clouds is all wrong, because the entire difference between the two charts could come from declining cloud cover. But is cloud cover still declining?
See my comment above.
Regards,
w.
No, the top graph (Figure 1) is absorption of upwelling thermal infrared by wavelength measured at the TOA.
The bottom red line is downwelling solar radiation at the surface.
Neither of them involve the surface albedo.
w.
If one looks at the outgoing LW spectrum plotted against wave number (see attached), there’s nothing ‘going on’ in the atmospheric window interval between 825 and 975 inverse cm. Just wondering what the big ‘notch’ at ~ 9 microns represents in the MODTRAN output shown in Fig. 1.
825 to 975 cm-1 is 10.3 to 12.1 microns. The notch at 9 microns is ozone.
w.
I’m a bit confused. If you’re looking at the part of the radiation that is not impacted by water vapour and clouds, wouldn’t you expect that to be true?
Or is your surprise over the idea that aerosols (which ought to impact) don’t appear to have changed over that period?
Not understanding this. I’m looking at sunshine at TOA vs sunshine at the surface.
w.
OK, so if I’m now understanding…
Figures 1 through 3 establish that the 8-12um radiation is behaving as expected (ie. not unexpectedly changing relative to the observed warming at the surface)
But figure 4 is back to total solar irradiance and the claim is that as recorded by CERES, total downwelling solar irradiance energy as seen at TOA is increasing but not as recorded by CERES, at the surface.
So the energy is being absorbed into the atmosphere directly.
If that’s the argument, then it puts into question the idea albedo changes via cloud changes have caused warming.
But I still could be missing the meaning of your argument!
Insolation is normally assumed to not warm the atmosphere. That a little handwaveium but lets start there. From that assumption, the surface is what warms the atmosphere after itself being warmed by insolation.
That basically means that for the atmospheric temperature to be rising, more energy is being sent to the atmosphere from the surface. That requires that the radiation reaching the surface must also be increasing.
Either I missed something or somethings funky about the data.
Nope. Insolation absolutely warms the atmosphere.
w.
I do understand that. That is why I called many warmists assumption handwaveium.
But for the surface absorption to remain the same, therefore warming the atmosphere the same, then the atmosphere must be warming due to absorbing more insolation before it reaches the surface.
And, not only would the atmosphere be absorbing more insolation, but it would also have to be absorbing ALL of the increase in energy. While that is certainly possible, what mechanism would be causing it?
RickWill has shown farther down in the thread that water vapor is increasing. That would normally require more absorption of insolation by the surface. But again, what mechanism would cause ALL of any increase in insolation to be absorbed by water vapor. That would require some change in attribution.
if you apply the first law of thermodynamics to earths system, A) does earths system’s energy content increase, decrease, or stay the same if the rate of thermal radiation leaving earth is equal to the rate of insulation entering earth’s system? And B ) if the rate of thermal radiation leaving earths system is reduced to less than that of insolation entering earths system, does earths temperature increase decrease, or stay the same? And C) if earth is warming due to scenario ‘B’ , what might be the cause of the reduction in the rate of thermal radiation leaving earths system?
D) if the measurement uncertainty of the incoming and outgoing radiation is greater than the difference of the two stated values do you actually know if the biosphere is gaining or losing heat?
but it isnt’t. Far from it.
Bullshite! Measurement uncertainty increases as you include more different things in the analysis and it increases over time. You can’t even “balance” incoming and outgoing radiation since they occur over different time frames at different intensities.
Trying to tie instantaneous CERES incoming measurements to CERES outgoing measurements is doomed to fail. The surface of the earth is *NOT* a Black Body. It is not an isothermal body. Not all of its heat loss is via radiation. The transiting media (i.e. the atmosphere) is not homogenous, the path loss over time is not consistent even for a single point on the surface let alone the entire surface. Yet CERES does not offer a method to tie path loss for each sample to the radiance being measured – a major contributor to the measurement uncertainty of the measurements. In other words, the uncertainty that the outgoing radiance measured by the satellite is the actual value at the point of origin is high.
Can *YOU* give us a measurement uncertainty budget that meets ISO standards for measurement of incoming and outgoing radiance? Can *YOU* give us a measurement uncertainty budget that meets ISO standards for the conversion from radiance to temperature?
If you can’t then you are just echoing the typical climate science meme that “all measurement uncertainty is random, Gaussian, and cancels”.
Back to my original question on the 1st Law. Can you answer?
“ if the rate of thermal radiation leaving earths system is reduced to less than that of insolation entering earths system”
Your question is physically meaningless. It has nothing to do with the 1st law. The operative word in your question is “rate”. The rate, i.e. the radiative flux, entering the system will *NEVER* equal the rate, i.e. the radiative flux, leaving the system.
Yet the HEAT entering and leaving the system CAN be equal. It’s because the entry occurs over approximately 12 hours and the exit happens over 24 hours overlapping the incoming 12 hours. The rate-out does not have to balance with the rate-in.
All you’ve done here is prove to everyone that you don’t really know what you are talking about.
Tell us EXACTLY when you think the maximum rate of heat leaving the system, i.e. the radiative rate, is the highest!
And then give us a measurement uncertainty budget that meets ISO requirements. If you can’t do that then you can’t claim to KNOW exactly what is happening!
The “rate-out doesn’t have to balance (equal) the rate in”. Of course that’s correct. And what happens to the internal energy of the system in question if the rates aren’t equal?
The rates can be totally different. Rates are a time function. You’ve not addressed the time part at all.
The energy input to the earth happens over approximately 12 hours. The energy emitted by the earth happens over 24 hours.
If the rates were equal then the earth would lose twice as much energy in 24 hours as it takes in over 24 hours. It would be a frozen ball.
Even this is an approximation because the rate of energy exchange is not a constant over time, it is an exponential. To be accurate the exponential profile of the energy-in would need to be integrated to determine the actual amount of joules (energy) injected into the system and the exponential profile of the energy-out would need to be integrated to determine the actual amount of joules emitted from the system.
One more time: Energy is Joules. Energy is *not* Joules/sec.
“The energy input to the earth happens very 12 hours”. You mean when it’s dark outside, it’s because the sun shuts off?
From here we have
So in a simple sense, the amount of energy the atmosphere directly absorbs is equivalent to the amount of SW energy the ocean absorbs in the first few cm. Note that typically all of the SW energy is absorbed within 200m.
The first scenario is that a fraction of the infrared thermal radiation flow trying to leave earth is returned to earth, warming it; that action is performed by all greenhouse gases–CO2, N2O, methane, HFCs, sf6, and water vapor– whose molecules are excited by the IR, and then kinetically warm adjacent molecules in the air.
in the 2nd scenario, the warming of the oceans takes place entirely by convection and conduction of heat from the air to the oceans.
Note that atmospheric GHG molecules that are excited by IR leaving earth give up their energy kinetically — by collision with adjacent molecules — rather than emitting a photon of IR, because the time constants for collision are far shorter than for remission of a photon.
Your very first sentence has an incorrect assertion. A cold body CANNOT warm a hotter body. Warming means raising its temperature. That simply doesn’t happen regardless of what you think.
You continually treat heat transfer using state equations results as a basis to your claim. Heat transfer is a dynamic process and requires gradients to describe it. A cold body may reduce the time varying part of the gradient, but it cannot reverse it. In essence, it may slow the rate of cooling of the hot body, but it will not become the hot body.
If you examine the gradient as equilibrium is approached, you will find that it is asymptotic as it approaches equilibrium. That is, it takes longer and longer to reach an equilibrium temperature. Why? Because it cools at a slower and slower rate as the cool body approaches equilibrium from the other direction.
Your use of a simple state equation is not scientific. Write a heat transfer equation using a gradient and then find the 1st differential and graph it. That will tell you what occurs using time as a variable.
The consequence of some IR being returned to earth instead of being allowed to exit earth’s system is that the rate of thermal radiation leaving earth is less than the rate of solar thermal radiation entering earth’s system. By the First Law, the internal energy of earth’s system must increase if the outgoing rate of energy flow is less than the incoming rate.
It has already been pointed out to you that rates don’t determine energy in and energy out. Energy in and out must be determined over a time period capable of capturing the entire system’s value of joules.
W/m² is a rate, not an absolute value. 100 W/m² over 12 hours is equivalent to 50 W/m² over 24 hours. The rates don’t tell you anything.
100 * 12 * 60 * 60 = 4,320,000 joules
50 * 24 * 60 * 60 = 4.320,000 joules
Funny how that works. Note how 100 W/m² ≠ 50 W/m²
You keep confirming you haven’t been trained in even the most basic of scientific concepts.
Ad hominem’s is all you got? Shame on you. If you are in a position to judge, then you should be able to address the simple math and how it is incorrect.
Bet you can’t!
Your exposition on rates is contradicted by anything learned in freshman physics or thermodynamics. Clearly you’ve had no exposure to either since you don’t seem to comprehend the First Law
“Clearly you’ve had no exposure to either since you don’t seem to comprehend the First Law”
And clearly you have no ability to delve deeply into how processes work.
I gave you 8th grade dimensional analyzed equations. Yet you can not decompose them in order to refute them.
Ad hominem attacks are the last resort of a failed argument!
The 1st Law is conservation of energy. Energy-in = Energy-out.
Energy-in and Energy-out can take several forms – but they are all measured in Joules, not Joules/sec.
As Jim pointed out, your dimensional analysis is totally incorrect. Your statement of “ By the First Law, the internal energy of earth’s system must increase if the outgoing rate of energy flow is less than the incoming rate.” conflates Energy in Joules with the rate of energy transfer. I’ve highlighted the two conflicting assertions in your assertion.
Internal energy is not a flow, it is an amount – measured in Joules. The “rate of energy flow” is not an amount, it is a rate which must be multiplied by time in order to determine an amount.
It’s no different than if you said “miles” is the same as “miles/hour”.
Do you know about first derivatives?
make a point.
my point: you don’t understand either the 1st Law or first derivatives. Which explains why you can’t even understand the basics of atmospheric physics.
ROTFLMAO! Do you know what my degree is in? How about what math I have studied. If not you are just making stuff up to deflect from answering the tough questions.
What is the point you are making about first derivatives?
You dont have a clue to the point you’re not even addressing the issue and are off on an irrelevant, incorrect tangent.
The comment was roughly quantifying the sun’s SW radiation absorption on its way down toward the surface. And how atmospheric absorption of that SW can be ballparked to the atmospheric water vapour equivalent compared to the ocean depth absorption.
The precipitable water in the atmosphere is rising quite fast due to increasing maximum daily average solar forcing in the tropics – 10N is rising the fastest but 10S also still increasing. I created a plot across latitudes of the increased energy in the atmosphere through the CERES era due to increase in TPW.
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A plot of TPW will show identical changes across latitudes.
Water vapor is the dominant SW absorber so you should find latitudinal changes in absorbed solar correspond with latitudinal changes in TPW.
The peaks in TPW mid latitudes is due to increased advection due to higher heat content in the atmosphere. So more heat is being transported from the tropics.
Make this graph at Perihelion and Aphelion.
Is there any difference between the two graphs at Perihelion and Aphelion?
Willis, I’m interested in why you chose 8-12 instead of 8-14 microns that is often used elsewhere.
I used 8-12 because a) it’s often used, and b) it’s what the CERES dataset covers.
Regards,
w.
Both Fig 2 & 3 are about 65 watts. So is that “clear sky” or “all sky”. At 65, it’s a lot higher than most energy balance diagrams which usually are 40 watts.
i wrote this in a comment here a few days back
“about 80% of the photons in the 8 to 14 micron atmospheric window get all the way to outer space in a cloudless sky, but that’s only about 1/3 of the EMR of -65 to +85 C surfaces…at a 15 microns plus, they are absorbed in the first few meters….so 80% of 1/3 of the photons x 1/3 open sky x emission at 15C results in .8 X 1/3 x1/3 x 390 =35 watts to outer space directly…about what most heat budget Sankey diagrams show….” which I think is approximately correct. So any ideas come to mind on the discrepancy, between CERES and Budget diagrams….my 35 watts is strictly armchair arithmetic and memories of decade-old spreadsheet calcs.
That’s all sky. Clear sky is higher, about 79 W/m2. As to why that disagrees with say the Kiehl/Trenberth budget … no clue. In the climate I always have more questions than answers.
w.
5 days worth of coffees later, I think I realized the possible answer. The Trenberth-type diagrams and my quick calc are about how much gets from the surface directly through the atmospheric window (by transparency if you will)….whereas CERES is looking down at the window and sees 8-12 micron IR emitted from atmospheric sources, GHG’s aerosols, and cloud tops at their lapse rate temps, not just ground level ones.
The fundamental calculations for the temperature of a gray , ie: flat spectrum body around our obit are given in FORTH.CoSy at CoSy.com/y26/NL202603.html#278.7+-2.3 .
I’ll add these equations to the vocabulary at https://cosy.com/4thCoSy/Code/CoSy/math.f and https://cosy.com/4thCoSy/Physics/general.f
I’ll convert the computations for a colored ball from legacy K when anyone expresses interest . I have never seen a computation of our radiative equilibrium from an asserted planetary averaged ` Schwarzschild color spectrum .
Interesting post, especially figure 3. Is it possible to distinguish between short wave and long wave downwelling radiation hitting the surface?
I would expect that increased absorption of longwave could explain that total solar hitting the ground has not increased.
/Jan
Meant «Is it possible…» not « it is»
[FIXED. I hate typos and simple errors. w.]
Roughly, about 40–45% of sunlight at the surface is in the visible band, and about 45–55% is in the infrared, with the small remainder (roughly 5–10%) in the ultraviolet.
However, all of this is accounted for in the CERES energy flows.
w.
I am, as usual, a bit late to this discussion, but I’ll offer a couple of comments for what they are worth.
First, while radiance at top of atmosphere can be measured with reasonable accuracy, figuring out how this relates to radiant intensity, or even irradiance, at the surface is an indirect and d ifficult problem. A discussion about this problem always involves the terms, “theory”, “approximation”, “estimation” and “parameteriztion”, leading to the following questions. How complete or applicable is the theory? What is involved in the approximations and estimations? How well do the parametrizations describe the physics of the issue?
While Figure 4 has a vertical scale of only a couple of
, the accuracy of the parameterization is quoted as 
. I don’t know if this “accuracy” is one standard deviation of uncertainty or it is more, but the point is that the individual measurements in red in Figure 4 might not be significant. On the other hand, the obvious rise in the smoothed version of the measured (black) curve which involves mainly instrumental uncertainty might be significant because it involves many independent measurments.
Reanalysis shows that near surface humidity is rising — not following the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, but an absolute humidity increasing linearly with time. I would suppose that this necessarily implies an increase in water vapor dimer and trimer concentration which would increase SW absorption in the 0.2 to 5 um wavelenth range under clear and cloudy skies. It would cause increased visible haze near the surface in the visible portion of the spectrum, and perhaps much greater haze in the near IR.
I await the next installment.
Thanks, TYS. The details of how the surface radiation budget are calculated are in the document
Estimate of Shortwave Surface Radiation Budget From CERES
The document states that the datasets contain a “true random error” of ±4.1 W/m2 for each gridcell of ~ 62,500 sq. km. This equates to a global error on the order of ±0.1 – .05 W/m2.
w.
The document indcates something a little bit different,.
The SD “standard difference” is 4.1 + (24.2/N). That indicates that the standard difference is greater than 4.1 W/m².
Figure 3 shows anywhere from 28 t0 8.1 W/m² RMSE depending on the number of measuring devices per cell of size 280 km x 280 km.
Figure 2 shows large relative percents of 5.9% for clear sky and 18.2% for all sky.
Lastly, I would like to see the math you used to decrease cell error from f ±4.1 W/m² to over the entire globe ±0.1 – .05 W/m². Errors and uncertainty combine, generally by RSS.
It stems from confusing measurement uncertainty with sampling error. Sampling error decreases with the size of the sampling distribution. Measurement uncertainty associated with combining different samples into one data set ADDS.
Probably also. I went to the Li paper 1993a in the list of references and began some research there. One thing to keep in mind is that the uncertainty in TOA measurements is not included but must be another contributor to uncertainty.
It’s probably the mistaken notion that these measurements, despite their being in very different places, are independent measurements of one probability distribution (IID). Although that would lead to a somewhat smaller standard error of mean.
And ignoring the fact that what is being measured is an intensive property – meaning you cannot add those property values together to form a larger system which can be statistically analyzed.
I decided to start some research using the Li 1993a reference in the reference you provided above. I am a bit surprised that this estimation technique is 30 years old. I guess this means the research community has decided on its correctness.
Nonetheless, what I had to say about dimers and trimers doesn’t really depend on the ultimate uncertainty of estimating surface SW balance from TOA mesurements. It is a factor that is in constant evolution.
Willis, you stated, just prior to presenting your Figure 2:
I don’t understand why that would come as a “surprise”. If I examine your Figure 2’s blue-line curve fit (assumed to a least-squares linear fit to the data set from 2000–2024), then the total increase in atmospheric window radiation flux (W/m^2) over this interval is about 65.6/65.2 = 1.006.
Since thermal radiation (i.e. LWIR) scales as absolute T^4, and if, for simplicity, I just assume an average absolute temperature of global Earth of 15 deg-C for year 2000, then all other things being equal the predicted global temperature increase for that increase in radiation flux would be ((15+273)*(1.006^0.25))-(15+273) = 0.43 deg-C.
Now, UAH satellite data shows there to be a long term trend of GLAT of +0.16 deg-C/decade over an interval much longer than that 2000-2024 (ref: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/06/03/uah-v6-1-global-temperature-update-for-may-2026-0-53-deg-c/ ). So, 2.4 decades * 0.16 deg-C/decade = 0.38 deg-C.
Bottom line: 0.43 deg-C measured increase versus theoretically estimated increase of 0.38 deg-C . . . close enough agreement for me to not be “surprised”, especially considering that not all things are NOT equal between year 2000 and year 2024 (such as changing annual average cloud coverage and changing Earth albedo due to scientifically-acknowledged Earth “greening” over the last 30 or more years).
Thanks, TYS. You say:
I don’t understand why that would come as a “surprise”. If I examine your Figure 2’s blue-line curve fit (assumed to a least-squares linear fit to the data set from 2000–2024), then the total increase in atmospheric window radiation flux (W/m^2) over this interval is about 65.6/65.2 = 1.006.
The surprise was not the values. It was that the CERES data has values for the atmospheric window. Despite years of working with the CERES data, I didn’t realize they had those values as a separate dataset.
Sorry for the confusion,
w.
OK, I now understand. Thanks for the clarification!