For a physically valid assessment of the concern over emissions of CO2 and other IR-active non-condensing trace gases, let’s look at the “warming” claims by the numbers. The ERA5 reanalysis quantifies the total energy state of the circulating atmosphere. This involves water vapor, making the highly variable latent energy component important to this assessment.
There are four plots here using hourly parameters from ERA5 for all hours of 2022 at latitude 45N at all longitudes. Each value is a point on the plot.
The first plot is the “vertical integral of total energy,” expressed as Watt-hours per square meter, by longitude. There are 8760 hourly values at each longitude position. The scale of the vertical axis is from 500,000 to 800,000 Wh/m^2 to show the full range of values.
The second plot gives the hourly change in the “vertical integral of total energy.” There are 8759 values at each longitude position. The vertical axis is expressed as Watt-hours per hour per square meter, which simplifies to W/m^2. The scale goes from -10,000 to +10,000 W/m^2 to capture most of the values.
The third plot gives the latent energy in the total column of the atmosphere, expressed as Watt-hours per square meter. This value comes from subtracting the “vertical integral of potential + internal energy” from the “vertical integral of potential + internal + latent energy” for each instance. There are 8760 hourly values at each longitude position. The scale of the vertical axis goes from zero to 60,000 Watt-hours per square meter. Most of the values are less than 45,000 Wh/m^2.
The fourth plot gives the hourly change of latent energy. There are 8759 values at each longitude position. The vertical axis is expressed in Watt-hours per hour per square meter, which simplifies to W/m^2. The scale goes from -10,000 to +10,000 W/m^2 to capture most of the values.
Discussion – what are we being told from the “climate consensus” position?
THE CLAIM is that a ~700 mW/m^2 top-of-atmosphere radiative imbalance (the EEI “Earth’s Energy Imbalance”) has been discerned. It has been attributed to rising concentrations of CO2, and is claimed to be exerting a perceptible warming influence on the energy state of the atmosphere (and thereby on the underlying land and oceans) by suppressing the final longwave emission out the top. That claim of detection and attribution is not justified by the numbers, considering the massive atmosphere’s dynamically variable total energy state.
And THE CLAIM, in effect, is that the water cycle is not capable of self-adjusting to the minor ~4 W/m^2 “warming” tendency for the future 2XCO2 case. This is not justified by the numbers, considering the atmosphere’s highly variable latent energy state. The water cycle operates from the surface to the top of the troposphere – with all of the variable evaporation, condensation, precipitation, freezing, and melting; with all of the radiative ramifications of cloud formation and dissipation; and with all of the horizontal transport and vertical overturning of weather systems.
There. The conclusion of this assessment is that there is no valid physical reason for concern. The claimed influence on the energy state of the climate system is negligible, by the numbers. It cannot be isolated from within the range of power intensity values (W/m^2) of hourly change in total energy, or latent energy, for positive attribution of cause-and-effect.
Thank you for your patience with this old-school engineer and his low-budget laptop computer.
P.S. Look, please don’t get me wrong here. I am NOT dismissing the IR absorption and emission properties of CO2 and the other IR-active trace gases. I am NOT ignoring the computed radiative “warming” tendency (think MODTRAN, RRTM, etc.) as concentrations in the atmosphere rise. Some challenge the assumptions in those computations. They may have a good point. But in any case, judging by the numbers, it makes no sense to expect a perceptible influence of incremental CO2 on the time- and location-integrated longwave emission to space out the top of the water-bearing and vapor-energized atmosphere; on trends of any climate variable; or on the frequency or intensity of any category of weather event.
David, I agree with Fourier that all the energy received from the Sun is lost to space, plus a little internal energy. No GHE.
After four and a half billion years of continuous sunlight, the surface has markedly cooled. Winter is generally colder than summer – in spite of all the summer sunlight. Even six months of continuous sunlight in polar regions doesn’t seem to result in the relatively few inhabitants expiring from heatstroke. No GHE.
Add to that the fact that nobody has managed to make a thermometer hotter by adding CO2 to air, and I feel quite justified in dismissing GHE believers as either fools or frauds. No GHE.
Time will tell, but I can’t be bothered wasting a good worry on the miniscule chance that I might be wrong.
MF
What definition of GHE are you using ? It is an easily shown and proven that our planet is warmer at the surface with water vapor in the atmosphere than without…and that CO2 contributes some additional effect to that of water vapor.
It does not matter one bit one way or the other.
The Greenhouse concept is just one simple and tiny mechanism co-existing with a vast number of other systems of energy exchange and transport in an extremely complex system.
It is variable at very low CO2 concentrations and a saturated effect at current and any higher levels. The variations in atmospheric water vapour is significant, and its significance is in being a dependent variable in many processes, it is NOT a prime mover.
Runaway “Greenhouse” is the primal lie, the original deception, the initial source of the scam. The imbalance between energy entry to the earth system and energy shedding by the earth system is very dynamic at the day/night level, the 4 seasons level, the 22 year solar magnetic periodic cycling level.
That is historic, that is observable, that is the real time and on the ground and through our lifetimes reality.
Why, even measurement of the temperature on the ground as the shadow of a solar eclipse passes over a spot on the ground shows several centigrade degrees of cooling until the shadow passes away!
There is no rigorous definition or description of the GHE which accords with reality – otherwise I’m sure you would have provided it to put me in my place! You are implying that more than “definition” exists – why is more than one necessary? Does it change from day to day?
It is an easily shown and proven that our planet is warmer at the surface with water vapor in the atmosphere than without . . .
Complete nonsense. The hottest places on Earth, like the Lut Desert or Death Valley are characterised by less water vapour, not more!
Maybe you were unaware of this. An extreme example is the Moon, where, after the same exposure time, the temperature may reach 127C, far beyond any terrestrial surface temperature. No water vapour at all.
Flynn doesn’t understand meteorology …. or more likely doesn’t want to else it would destroy his world-view.
And it’s not as though this hasn’t been explained to him – I did that very thing years ago.
Deserts are deserts because they lie beneath the convergence zones of jet streams. Ie sinking air ( latitudes 30deg north and 30 deg south ).
Said sinking air warms ( and so dries) adiabatically and forms a “heat dome” which puts a lid on surface convection, and hence surface heat builds up with no avenue to escape aloft.
No, I described why deserts are HOT – the fact that the RH of the air is reduced in the process is a non-sequitur.
I repeat, they are hot because they lie under latitudes 30deg N/S and have resident anticyclones with subsiding air that caps surface convection below the subsidence inversion, and does not allow it to be convected aloft.
As I said, if you’d care to grok … that process is independent of WV (as a GHG)
Contrary to to the implication that it is needed care of Flynn who said,
”The hottest places on Earth, like the Lut Desert or Death Valley are characterised by less water vapour, not more!”
I know he has used this argument before to (in his mind) debunk the GHE.
Hmmm, yes the moon has no greenhouse effect, no water vapor, and warms up in the hot sun for 29 days at a time, then gets really cold for another 29 days resulting in a fairly meaningless but mathematical average of about -20 C….which is much removed from planet Earth where the greenhouse effect keeps us, on average, much warmer at +15C on average….at the same distance from the sun….
Unfortunately for GHE supporters, it takes slightly less time for the Moon’s surface normal to the Sun to reach its maximum temperature, compared with a similar situation on Earth. Feel free to examine the Diviner data if you don’t believe me (and I’m sure you don’t).
There is no “greenhouse effect” causing “warming” on the Earth. The presence of an atmosphere compresses the diurnal range, suppressing extremes.
Even the AI used by Google agrees that the Earths surface has cooled to its present temperature from the molten state.
Excellent question. Given that GHGs play an important role in each, do you think a predominantly ‘radiative’ or a ‘convective’ mechanism better explains why the troposphere is warmer at the Earth’s surface than it is at the tropopause?
You are a brave fellow willing to wander into this minefield … I thought it would be easy to find a good definition that would put this argument to rest, but it turns out like so much on the internet there is a poor definition that others repeat. The bad examples all start like this ….
The greenhouse effect is the natural process where gases in Earth’s atmosphere …
This is bad because it focuses on gasses in the atmosphere rather than on something directly measurable — like the LWIR downward flux that can be so intense near sea level in a moist climate that one scarcely notices much temperature difference between day and night. Measure it directly with a pyrgeometer.
The origin of this bad definition appears to be NASA, which doesn’t surprise me at all.
‘I thought it would be easy to find a good definition that would put this argument to rest, but it turns out like so much on the internet there is a poor definition that others repeat.’
Andy May agrees with you:
“The phrase “greenhouse effect,” often abbreviated as “GHE,” is very ambiguous. It applies to Earth’s surface temperature, and has never been observed or measured, only modeled. To make matters worse, it has numerous possible components, and the relative contributions of the possible components are unknown.”
For my part, I’d appreciate it if you could flesh statement out a bit:
‘LWIR downward flux that can be so intense near sea level in a moist climate that one scarcely notices much temperature difference between day and night. Measure it directly with a pyrgeometer.’
“The origin of this bad definition appears to be NASA, which doesn’t surprise me at all.”
I find it interesting that NASA as an institution – in the same web article from January, 2009 – described BOTH the static “greenhouse gas” sense of what one might expect surface temperature to do, AND the importance of the fluid transport of absorbed energy in the ocean and atmosphere circulations from the tropics to the poles and from low altitude to high, along with an emphasis on the fourth-power dependence of longwave emission on temperature. No sense of crisis.
At the time I wrote that essay, I had not yet come to fully appreciate the concept of dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation, which you know I have been posting about for the last couple of years.
I am VERY CURIOUS about the future of NASA on the “climate” topic. I see great value in Earth observation satellite missions, especially in support of weather prediction. But hopefully the “climate” communication (misdirection!) mission is over now. We’ll see what happens.
BTW, what the pyrgeometer instruments are measuring and responding to is indeed a real thing, and should not be dismissed by skeptics of climate alarm, in my view.
‘BTW, what the pyrgeometer instruments are measuring and responding to is indeed a real thing, and should not be dismissed by skeptics of climate alarm, in my view.’
David, with all due respect, questioning what these instruments actually measure, i.e. directional energy flow or spectral radiance, is duly warranted. To be blunt, the former minimizes the importance of what you refer to as ‘motion’ with respect to energy transport within the troposphere. Fortunately, some physicists have been willing to push back against this. Per Michael Mishchenko:
“The RTE [radiative transfer equation] was introduced 125 years ago by Eugene von Lommel, while the heuristic concept of radiance was definitively formulated in 1906 by Max Planck. Subsequently, they were supplemented by the seemingly obvious concept of a directional radiometer [DR]. Since then, measurements with WCRs [well-collimated radiometers)]and calculations based on the RTE have been at the very heart of the disciplines of atmospheric radiation, remote sensing, astrophysics, heat energy transfer, and biomedical optics. Yet from the fundamental-physics perspective, both the discipline of DR and the RTT [radiative transfer theory] have been based on phenomenological notions many of which turned out to be profound misconceptions. It has been demonstrated that contrary to the widespread belief, a WCR does not, in general, measure the flow of electromagnetic energy along its axis, while the radiance cannot be interpreted as quantifying the amounts of electromagnetic energy transported simultaneously in various directions.”
And, finally, the next time someone tells you that they’ve affirmed the radiative GHE with their handheld IR device, show them this:
Thanks for your reply, Frank.
About pyrgeometers, which utilize a hemispherical field of view, I would agree that the use of W/m^2 units in plots of “upwelling” and “downwelling” IR as in Surfrad is somewhat problematic. My sense is that the instruments do not actually measure a rate of “flow” of energy. Lots more to think about, but in any case my point was that the instrument is responding to a real thing in the wide-band infrared. At present, my best description would be that a pyrgeometer is measuring the strength of the IR source, using a hemispherical field of view, to estimate what the W/m^2 power intensity of energy flow would be if nothing were in the way. I admit I probably have a lot to learn on this topic.
All the best to you.
Hi Kevin…I am guilty of using very colloquial terminology….where the “greenhouse effect” is simply that the plants growing in the soil are warmer than they would otherwise be…simply because the air around them is warmer…..
Even six months of continuous sunlight in polar regions doesn’t seem to result in the relatively few inhabitants expiring from heatstroke. No GHE.
That is basically because the absorption of insolation is based on the cosine of the angle of incidence of insolation. Cos(66) ≈ 0.4. And it gets smaller and smaller pretty fast as you move toward a pole.
All very interesting. I had a longish discussion with grok. Before time ran out it told me that ceres measurements were 340 in and 100 + 240 out. Eventually it refined those to these figures.
Incoming solar: ≈ 340.0 to 340.2 W m⁻²
Reflected shortwave: ≈ 97 to 99 W m⁻²
Outgoing longwave: ≈ 238 to 240 W m⁻²
I didn’t get around to two issues.
How in the heck it decided on 100 as a representation for the range 97 to 99.How the total of these centres on a range of anything other than +3.1 inbound when it kept telling me the total was +4.3 inbound.For my next topic I might ask what the figures were 100 years before the satellites started measuring and how those figures are known. Ditto for 100,000 years and 1,000,000 years ago.
Why do I think it is time to drive a large truck through the gaps in the settled science?
“3) TOA flux adjustments
Despite recent improvements in satellite instrument calibration and the algorithms used to determine CERES TOA radiative fluxes, a sizable imbalance persists in the average global net radiation at the TOA from CERES satellite observations. With no adjustments to CERES SW and LW all-sky TOA fluxes, the net imbalance for July 2005–June 2015 is approximately 4.3 W m−2, much larger than expected. As in previous versions of EBAF, we use the objective constrainment algorithm described in Loeb et al. (2009) to adjust SW and LW TOA fluxes within their ranges of uncertainty to remove the inconsistency between average global net TOA flux and heat storage in the earth–atmosphere system, as determined primarily from ocean heat content anomaly (OHCA) data. In the current version, the global annual mean values are adjusted such that the July 2005–June 2015 mean net TOA flux is 0.71 ± 0.10 W m−2, …”
That paper is still referenced here. https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/data/documentation/
So my point is that the official CERES program documents describe how the numbers were generated for the EBAF product. It’s not a mystery that these figures are not “measured” per se.
“These metrics are presented as direct ‘observational’ constraints on planetary energy flows, with uncertainties quantified primarily through statistical sampling error”
Sampling error is *NOT* measurement uncertainty.
“Essex et al. (2007) demonstrate that these principles coupled with basic mathematics reveal fundamental limitations in applying intensive properties like temperature to non-equilibrium systems such as the global ocean, where averaging destroys physical meaning and produces computtional artifacts rather than real physical quantities (as detailed in Section 1.2).”
Which applies to the global average temperature as well.
“The CERES Energy Balanced and Filled (EBAF) product addresses the large absolute uncertain-ties in raw TOA fluxes by applying a “one-time global adjustment” to shortwave and longwave components within their individual uncertainty ranges.”
Just like they do with clouds. And then no uncertainty interval is propagated onto the adjustment value used and is, therefore, not propagated forward into subsequent calculations.
“Consequently, the small EEI (~0.7 W m⁻² in IPCC AR6 Figure 7.2) and its narrow uncertainty (± 0.2 W m⁻²) are purely artifacts of circular tuning:”
typical climate science meme: “all measurement uncertainty is random, Gaussian, and cancels” leaving only the sampling uncertainty which can be made vanishingly small by using a lot of data while ignoring the uncertainty of the data.
“Thus, Tinterpolated is a statistical artifact, not an actual thermodynamic state of anything.”
It’s how you get a lot of data that supposedly reduces sampling uncertainty. Each of those interpolated values should have an associated measurement uncertainty – but climate science just ignores that fact since the resulting measurement uncertainty of the average would become so large! Homogenization and infilling only serves to spread measurement uncertainty around over the entire data system. Which applies to the global average temperature as well as OHC.
“CERES TOA annual mean uncertainties for global net flux are on the order of ± 4 W m⁻²”
Trying to identify a difference of 4W/m^2 with certainty when the measurement uncertainty is at least +/- 4W/m^2 is a losing battle.
————
I haven’t had the time to read and analyze the entire paper. But a first quick read doesn’t identify any major problems with the logic and math. I suspect climate science will just do as usual: ignore the paper totally. So will the mainstream media!
It can be. With enough supposedly identically manufactured instruments plus enough repeated measurements a person can perform a reasonable gage R&R study to decide how much variation in measurements arise from the various influences such as instruments, operators, and variation in the underlying physical quantity.
In the case of satellites this isn’t possible because satellites possess unique instruments which are not an ensemble and the performance of which should be verified by building an uncertainty budget. It’s akin to trying to determine the uncertainty of a single measurement.
a reasonable gage R&R study to decide how much variation in measurements arise from the various influences
You are correct and NIST covers that pretty well for gauge studies. 2.4. Gauge R & R studies This section has a lot of information about uncertainty. It covers some areas that the GUM does not deal with.
For atmospheric temperatures, that just isn’t the case now and won’t be for quite some time. Even CRN stations carry a ±0.3C accuracy from NOAA and that doesn’t cover all the influence quantities that is needed. ASOS have a ±1.0C accuracy.
It’s akin to trying to determine the uncertainty of a single measurement.
Uncertainty budget! When was the last time you saw one of these in a climate paper or by the warmests at this site? They wouldn’t know how to propagate it if you told them item by item.
No. Sampling error is associated with the accuracy of calculating the statistical descriptor known as the mean. It is a statistical descriptor itself, describing how well the estimated mean determined from sampling matches the actual population mean.
Measurement uncertainty is associated with the measurements themselves, not with the calculation of a statistical descriptor of the population.
Measurement uncertainty does not tell you how well the estimated mean from sampling matches the population mean.
“ With enough supposedly identically manufactured instruments plus enough repeated measurements a person can perform a reasonable gage R&R study to decide how much variation in measurements arise from the various influences such as instruments, operators, and variation in the underlying physical quantity.”
“variation in measurements” is measurement uncertainty, not sampling error.
“enough repeated measurements” is sampling error, not measurement uncertainty.
If you assume a Gaussian distribution of measurements, then the sampling error tells you how well the mean of the sample means approaches the mean of the population, i..e how “good” the mean is as a “best estimate” of the value of the measurand.
You are basically describing a Type A experimental measurement process. The standard deviation of the measurements defines the interval of values that can be reasonably assigned to the value of the measurand. The mean of that distribution is just a “best estimate”. That doesn’t make it a “true value”. The “true value” can be assumed to lie somewhere within the interval.
The sampling error tells you how “good” of an estimate the calculated mean is. The measurement uncertainty tells you the interval in which the “true value” is expected to exist.
Not the same.
“In the case of satellites this isn’t possible because satellites possess unique instruments which are not an ensemble and the performance of which should be verified by building an uncertainty budget. It’s akin to trying to determine the uncertainty of a single measurement.”
Sort of. A Type B measurement uncertainty is typically used for single measurements. The GUM basically says that a Type A and a Type B measurement uncertainty are equivalent if done properly. Even an ensemble of repeatable measurements can suffer systematic effects which can’t be identified with statistical analysis. So even a Type A evaluation should have an uncertainty budget identifying possible systematic effects if nothing else. Even a micrometer calibrated between repeatable measurements can suffer from systematic effects caused by differing gear lash at different points. It may be small but whether it is significant depends on just how accurate the measurements need to be to meet requirements.
Thanks David. The adjustments you refer to are beyond my understanding. In my own simple understanding what satellites measure is what they measure. They need calibration but they don’t need adjustment to better fit other measurements, especially dodgy ones like those deriving from ocean heat. Never mind. I’ll plod on.
These are not constant heat rates. Solar constant is a constant. Area of a sphere is 4 times the area of a circle is a constant. Sunlight striking the surface varies from 0 to over 1000 from day to night, pole to equator, cloud cover, etc. 340 is the solar constant /4 assuming what goes out must equal what comes in…averaged over a suitably long time frame.
340 is the solar constant /4 assuming what goes out must equal what comes in…averaged over a suitably long time frame.
You can’t average it that way. As you pointed out 1000 strikes the earth from day to night. 340 will not give you the same temperature as 1000 in. T^4 is not linear.
This is absolutely incorrect. It ignores the fact that insolation is a plane wave with equal intensity at all points and that absorption at the surface is based on the angle of incidence between the earth and the plane wave.
340 W/m² average means every point on the earth receives that value from the poles to the equator 24 hours a day. Does that sound reasonable?
It is not correct. The “πr²” term is only half of the surface area. Here is a picture of a frame used to capture shape of a surface. Imagine it being big enough to go over a large beach ball and that it has billions of small nails. Each nail represents a point on the EM plane wave that intersects the earth.
Will every nail intersect every point on the beach ball or only half of them?
For a math explanation. The first formula you show is:
F(θ, φ, t) = S₀ · max(0, cos Z(θ, φ, t)
Now think of any set of cos Z(θ, φ, t) that skips half the points on the surface. The surface area at any time “t” is 2πr².
Remember, the TOA is curved just like the earth. It doesn’t matter if you are discussing TOA or the surface of the earth.
Why do people use πr². Because the envision TOA as a flat face derived from a cross-section of the earth perpendicular to the EM plane wave. But, as I said above, TOA is not flat, it is curved and the plane wave flows over it just like nail board.
Here is a picture that might help.
Instead of just a few rays, think billions all parallel and all having an intensity of 1360 W/m². Just like that nail board passing over the beach ball. That make the formula with cos Z(θ, φ, t) work properly for the entire suface area at any time t.
A flat earth vs a round earth.
The solar radiation that irradiates the surface is the same.
What is the difference between solar radiation at the zenith and the outer edges?
What is the difference whether the solar radiation hits a flat surface or an angled surface when the solar radiation energy is the same?
Solar radiation at the zenith travels the shortest path through the atmosphere to reach the earth’s surface.
Solar radiation at the outer edges travels a significantly longer distance through the atmosphere to reach the earth’s surface.
The Earth absorbs significantly more solar radiation when the sun is at the zenith (directly overhead) than at the outer edges or terminator where the sun is low on the horizon. At the zenith, a sunbeam travels through the shortest possible path of atmosphere, concentrating energy over a small area.
Near the edges, low-angle rays spread energy over a wider space and travel through a thick atmospheric layer, which scatters and reflects much of the radiation before it can be absorbed.
Zenith vs. Edge Absorption Factors
Path Length: When the sun is high at the zenith, sunlight passes through a minimal thickness of air.
At the outer edges, the slanted path through the atmosphere is much longer, increasing scattering and reflection.
Energy Concentration: Vertical overhead rays deliver maximum energy per unit area. Slanted rays at the edges spread the identical amount of light over a much larger surface, reducing intensity.
While the surface absorbs the most energy at the zenith, the atmosphere behaves conversely.
At the outer edges, sunlight strikes at a very low, slanted angle, forcing the light rays to travel through a much thicker path of air. This extended path length provides vastly more atmospheric matter to interact with, leading to greater total absorption by gases and aerosols before the light can ever reach the surface.
Atmospheric Absorption Factors
Path Length (Air Mass): Sunlight at the zenith passes vertically through the minimum amount of air (1 Air Mass).
At the outer edges, the slanted path length increases exponentially, passing through many times more atmospheric mass.
Molecular Interaction: A longer path through the air increases the probability of photons colliding with atmospheric gases H2O, CO2, O3 and aerosols, leading to higher total energy capture by the air.
Attenuation Effects: This extreme absorption and scattering at the edges is the precise reason why the sun appears significantly dimmer and shifts to a deep red color during sunrise and sunset.
Near the edges, low-angle rays spread energy over a wider space and travel through a thick atmospheric layer, which scatters and reflects much of the radiation before it can be absorbed.
This isn’t true and a common misconception. It assumes that the insolation is from a point source. Here is a page from a textbook, Practical Meteorology, Dr. Ronald Stull. It is available free at https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/books/Practical_Meteorology/
Chapter 2 has lots of information.
Look at the image closely. It shows a ray hitting the earth at a latitude of 60°. You should note that the value of insolation is 1361 at that latitude. It is not reduced by spreading over a larger area. It is like nail in the nail frame I mentioned. They are all the same because the distance we are from the sun ends up looking like a flat plane wave.
I will also include this image that may give you an idea of the difference between a plane wave and point source.
See how the point source “spreads” the intensity over larger and larger areas. Then look at the plane wave. The intensity is constant.
I should explain that the sun’s radiation IS a sphere also. It does spread the intensity over larger and larger areas. However, at the distance the earth is from the sun the spherical surface has gotten so large that the earth subtends a very small area of the surface which makes it a plane wave for all intents and purposes. Otherwise, you would need to use something like 1361 + 1×10⁻²⁰ to describe the difference at various points on the earth. Lots of decimal zeroes in that.
You need to calculate or measure the number of watts reaching the Earth’s surface to get the correct answer.
At the Earth’s surface, the number of W/m^2 depends on whether you are looking at the global daily/annual average across the entire planet or the maximum peak intensity at a specific location on a clear day:
1. Global Annual Average (The Earth’s Energy Budget)
When averaged across the entire spinning sphere of the Earth over a full year (day and night, equator to poles), the incoming Top of Atmosphere (TOA) solar constant of 1361 W/m^2 is divided by 4 due to the geometry of a sphere 1361/4 approx 340 W/m^2.
– 185 W/m^2 actually downwells and hits the Earth’s surface.
– 161 W/m^2 is directly absorbed by the Earth’s surface (after subtracting about 24 W/m^2 that gets reflected back into space by bright surfaces like ice and deserts).
2. Peak Local Intensity (Clear Sky at Solar Noon)
If you are measuring the maximum possible sunlight hitting a flat surface directly perpendicular to the sun’s rays on a cloudless day at sea level:
– 1000 to 1050 W/m^2 reaches the surface.
– The remaining 300 to 360 W/m^2 from the original TOA value is lost due to atmospheric scattering and absorption by gases, dust, and ozone.
The vertical height from the Earth’s surface to the top of the atmosphere (TOA) at the zenith (straight up, or a zenith angle of 0°) is not a single fixed physical boundary, but is conventionally set at an altitude of 100 km (the Kármán line) or modeled at 80 km to 100 km for radiation and climate studies.
1. At a 30° Zenith Angle (30° off straight up)If the angle is relative to the vertical line pointing straight up, the path is relatively short because you are looking mostly upward.
Flat-Earth Approximation: 100km cos(30°) = 115.5 km
Spherical Earth Correction: Accounting for the curvature of the Earth cuts the path slightly shorter to 115.2 km.
Air Mass: The relative path length (Air Mass) is approximately 1.15.
2. At a 30° Elevation Angle (30° above the horizon)
If the angle is measured up from the ground/horizon, the line of sight cuts sideways through the atmosphere, drastically increasing the distance. This corresponds to a 60° zenith angle.
Flat-Earth Approximation: 100 km cos(60°) = 200.0 km
Spherical Earth Correction: The curved shell of the atmosphere reduces this actual distance to 195.6 km.
Air Mass: The relative path length is approximately 2.00.
Item 1: Again, this assumption results in the poles and the equator getting the same insolation. It is an incorrect 3d interpretation, i.e. no ice at the poles.
Item 2: Once again, this is based on the earth being a flat plane. I.e. the poles get the same amount of absorbed insolation as the equator AND the sun’s insolation being from a point source rather than a plane wave.
At any single point on the surface of the earth the sun travels a sinusoidal path. From 0deg at sunrise to pi/2 at noon, to pi at sunset. The angle of incidence of the sun’s rays is determined by the altitude of the sun and by the latitude.
This is a simplified example. It does not account for any tilting of the earth or the actual shape of the earth. But it is a far better 3D representation than trying to turn the earth into a flat plane where the angle of incidence is always 0deg.
“The solar radiation that irradiates the surface is the same.”
Doesn’t matter. The amount of that irradiation that gets absorbed is just the part normal to the surface.
Did you ever do the inclined plane experiment in high school or university? If so, how did you separate the friction force from the accelerative force on the block you place on the inclined plane?
“The Earth absorbs significantly more solar radiation when the sun is at the zenith”
But the AMOUNT that gets absorbed is based on the angle of incidence. The angle of incidence is different at latitude 45deg then it is at 0deg. The shape of the absorbed curve is sinusoidal for both but the magnitudes are different.
At the outer edges, the slanted path through the atmosphere is much longer, increasing scattering and reflection.
This only changes the magnitude of the flux vector at the point it intercepts the surface. It doesn’t change the fact that the amount absorbed only depends on the normal component of the vector.
“Energy Concentration: Vertical overhead rays deliver maximum energy per unit area.”
Again, this only affects the magnitude of the vector. It is the direction of the vector that determines the amount of that vector that gets absorbed.
The math is F · n, bolding indicate a vector quantity.
F · n = |F| |n| cos(θ), where |n| is the normal unit vector with a magnitude of 1 and θ is the angle between the flux vector and the normal vector.
Vertical, overhead rays have a θ value of cos(0) = 1.
But the sun is only vertical and overhead along the path of the sun – known as the Sun’s diurnal path, sometimes simplified to the “equator” as if the earth has no tilt, i.e. latitude 0.0000.
Again, the amount absorbed is based on the magnitude of the flux vector at the surface boundary crossed with the normal vector. All you are doing is saying that the flux vector F has a magnitude that is a function of latitude.
Call that latitude function sin(lat). The angle of incidence is also a function of sin(lat).
So F_absorbed is a function of the altitude of the sun during the day as well as the latitude.
Total joules absorbed is a surface integral, a double integral
|F| ∫∫ [2cos(θ)] sin(lat) dθ dlat, with θ and lat from 0 to pi/2.
The factor of 2cos(θ) comes from the total integral being from sunrise to noon (0 to pi/2) and from noon to pi, (pi/2 to pi).
This is the only 3D representation that makes sense. Trying to make the earth into a flat surface intersected by a plane wave results in the same insolation at the poles as at the center (i.e. the equator). That means you would have no ice at the poles if you have no ice at the equator.
Having less absorbed heat at the poles than at the equator requires the use of the angle of incidence between a spherical surface and a plane wave.
Solar radiation is not less at the outer edges of the Earth.
Solar radiation has the same strength at the outer edges of the Earth.
The atmospheric air mass is 40 times more at a 90 degree angle than at a 0 degree angle.
The atmosphere absorbs 40 times more solar radiation at the outer edges of the Earth than at the zenith.
This means that solar radiation at the Earth’s surface is significantly less at a 90 degree angle than at a 0 degree angle because the atmosphere absorbs more solar radiation at the outer edges of the Earth.
The solar radiation that the atmosphere absorbs must be included.
When the sun is at the zenith (0-degree zenith angle, directly overhead), the atmosphere blocks about 20% to 25% of incoming solar radiation, letting roughly 75% to 80% reach the ground.
When the sun is at a 90-degree angle (at the horizon), the path through the air is about 38 to 40 times as thick due to Earth’s curvature, meaning almost all direct beam radiation is scattered or absorbed.
Atmospheric Path Length (Air Mass)Zenith (0°): Relative air mass is 1.0 (the shortest possible vertical path through the air).
Horizon (90°): Relative air mass reaches roughly 38 to 40 (modeled via the Kasten and Young formula accounting for Earth’s round shape).
Radiation EffectsAt Zenith: Direct sunlight experiences minimal scattering, keeping solar intensity high.
At 90 Degrees: The extreme thickness of the atmosphere causes massive Rayleigh scattering and absorption (filtering out nearly all direct light and leaving only a faint, diffused glow).
“Solar radiation is not less at the outer edges of the Earth.”
But the angle of incidence is! The Divergence Theorem for flux says only the normal component of the flux can cross the boundary of the receiving surface and be absorbed.
“The atmospheric air mass is 40 times more at a 90 degree angle than at a 0 degree angle.”
So what? This only determines the magnitude of the flux vector that impinges on the surface of the earth. It is still only the normal component of the flux vector that gets absorbed by the surface.
F_absorbed is a function of F · n = |F| |n| cos(θ)
You are just saying that |F| goes down as it passes through the atmosphere. That doesn’t affect the amount of F that gets absorbed at the Earth’s surface, the amount of F that gets absorbed depends on θ.
“This means that solar radiation at the Earth’s surface is significantly less at a 90 degree angle than at a 0 degree angle because the atmosphere absorbs more solar radiation at the outer edges of the Earth.”
Again, so what? The impinging flux at the poles is *not* zero, it is F_pole. And the amount absorbed at the pole is F_pole · n. Nothing else makes physical 3D sense according to the Divergence Theorem.
“The solar radiation that the atmosphere absorbs must be included.”
F at the surface of the earth is a complex function. F(r(t), P(t),I_sun(t)) where r(t) is the distance from the sun, P(t) is path loss, and I_sun(t). There are probably other components I am forgetting right now. Each of these components is a function of its own since the orbital mechanics changes the distance between the sun and the earth over time, path loss is dependent on things like clouds that are themselves time functions, and on the variability of the sun’s emissions over time.
Good luck trying to write the absolute functional relationship among all these components. For a first approximation that matches physical 3D reality you can assume that the path loss is zero, you’ll still get the result that the poles absorb less than at the equator. It’s a big reason why they are colder than the equator.
“When the sun is at the zenith (0-degree zenith angle, directly overhead), the atmosphere blocks about 20% to 25% of incoming solar radiation, letting roughly 75% to 80% reach the ground.”
This is an average. What is the variance of the absorption factor? Do you have any idea? E.g. the poles have less contaminants in the atmosphere than over New York state and therefore the absorption factor will be different. And that is just the spatial component of the functional relationship. The contaminants in the air over New York state and over the poles change from sunrise to sunset.
You are just saying that F_absorbed = F(I,θ) – f( P(θ) ) where P is the path loss function.
What is f( P(θ) )? It’s not a constant. If you parameterize it into a constant then all you do is change 1360 to something less. What would you change it to?
“The solar radiation that irradiates the surface is the same.”
The angle of incidence at a point on the surface from a plane wave flux vector changes for a round earth as you move the point.
The angle of incidence at a point on the surface from a plane wave flux vector does not change for a flat earth.
The amount of heat absorbed depends on the angle of incidence.
If the angle of incidence changes as you move the point being examined then the amount of heat absorbed changes also.
If the angle of incidence is constant as you move the point being examined then the amount of heat absorbed is also constant.
The fact that at any point in time the poles absorb less heat from the sun than the equator absorbs legislates that the earth be considered as being round and not flat.
“Could it be that the poles absorb less heat because the mass of the atmosphere is 40 times more at a 90 degree angle?”
That is a contributing factor. Good luck writing the functional relationship for that since at any point in time and space the path loss through the atmosphere is different since its composition is a complex function of many components that can change quickly.
The point is that even if the atmosphere contributed zero loss the poles would absorb less from the insolation because of the angle of incidence. You *can* write that functional relationship since all of its components are well known, e.g. oblate spheroid, angle of tilt, etc.
The sun’s insolation doesn’t strike the base of the rhomboid at 90deg for most of the day.
Again, give us the functional relationship that determines the path loss along the rhomboid. Climate science can’t do it, it just assumes a bunch of constants like for cloud coverage.
Stop thinking “sphere”. Think “point” on the sphere.
Stop thinking of the sun as a point source, it isn’t at our distance from the sun.
The sun’s insolation wavefront is flat enough at the earth to be considered as a plane wave.
That means the flux vector has a constant direction in 3D space.
Grasp a softball in your hand and hold it out straight out from your body. The direction of the flux vector from the sun is down your arm. Does that direction impact the softball at the same angle everywhere?
You’ve been given images that explain this. Do they not make sense to you?
See the attached image. Do those arrows of the plane wave impact the curved surface of the sphere at different angles?
“Do you mean that the sun hits the sphere at different angles during the day?”
No, the earth turns. A point on the earth moves as the earth turns. The plane wave strikes that point at a different angle at sunrise and sunset then it does at noon.
The transfer across the surface of the earth from the insolation flux changes as the angle changes. It is the transfer at each point that determines the thermodynamic effects. The earth is not a homogeneous, isothermal black body. That changing angle and non-homogeneity results in different absorption amounts over the surface. It is the effect at each point that determines the temperature at that point.
Now things get complicated. Temperature is an intensive property, you can’t average temperature over an area even though climate science thinks you can. Intensive properties do not represent a physically meaningful field. The average, therefore, does not represent a physically meaningful value. Think of holding two rocks in your hand, one at 60F and the other at 70F. You do not have a temperature of 130F in your hand. The temperatures do *not* add physically which would be required for calculating a physical average. If they don’t add physically then their mean is also non-physical.
So trying to calculate the total absorption of the sun’s insolation by the earth and then relate it to an average temperature is fool’s gold.
You can perform a mathematical operation to calculate an average value but it only exists in statistical world and not in the real world.
Do you mean that the sun hits the sphere at different angles during the day?
Yes at any given point, the angle of the sunlight varies throughout the day. Here is an image from the insolation measured by my weather station. There are a multitude of images on the internet that show this.
As you can see, it follows a sine function. There is another angle that determines the value of insolation, I call it the effective latitude. Notice the time lag from insolation to atmospheric temperature.
Here is another image of the textbook I referenced earlier. It has a little more info. Notice all the angles that are necessary to actually account for how much insolation is absorbed.
The variations in the readings from your weather station are due to the fact that the thickness/density of the atmosphere varies during the day depending on the angle of the sun.
At the equator, the sun rises at 6:00 AM and sets at 6:00 PM.
If the atmosphere changes the angle of the sunlight, the sun rises earlier and sets later.
It is stationary, just like all weather stations.
It measures based on a hemispherical (180°) lens.
Here is another image available on the internet just to validate what I’ve shown.
The solar radiation curve from sunrise to noon doesn’t look the same as from noon to sunset?
The morning curve doesn’t look like it has as many hours as the afternoon curve.
The diagram above shows the variation in the solar intensity at the equator, at an equinox when the Sun is directly overhead at midday. The time axis uses the solar time i.e. the Sun rises at 0600, is at its highest at 1200 and sets at 1800. A cloudless day is assumed.
I think you can measure solar radiation scatters before sunrise or block direct solar radiation and block scatters with a tube.
Measuring scattered solar radiation before sunrise involves capturing diffuse twilight sky radiance using specialized optical instruments. Key tools include pyranometers, diffusometers, and spectroradiometers.
Measurement of Direct radiance, Global Horizontal Irradiance and Diffuse Horizontal Irradiance Using an In-line Diffuser.
“”The solar radiation curve from sunrise to noon doesn’t look the same as from noon to sunset?””
The earth isn’t a sphere, and high clouds reflect insolation and varies throughout the day. Plus as you say, atmospheric scattering and absorption can change.
The sun meter must be placed in a level position. If the sun meter is not placed in a level position, it may cause the morning curve to not be the same as the afternoon curve.
The sun meter must be placed high for a clear view of the horizon.
Global Horizontal Irradiance (GHI): To measure the total incoming solar radiation from the whole sky on a flat surface, the sensor must be perfectly level using its built-in bubble level.
Standard Weather Tracking: Meteorological stations require a level meter so data is flat, consistent, and comparable across different days and locations.
“ If the sun meter is not placed in a level position, it may cause the morning curve to not be the same as the afternoon curve.”
Even if it is placed in a level position the morning curve may not be the same as the afternoon curve.
As the temperature goes up so does evaporation, i.e. water vapor in the atmosphere. Path loss is not the same for morning and afternoon because of changing water vapor.
*NO* sun meter is going to show a perfect curve. No matter how well placed it is. The bios sphere is a dynamic system, non-linear and chaotic.
That is why it has a built-in level bubble. It is at 2m height. That may limit the values at sunrise and sunset, but those values are at 1 W/m² which are minimal. Like 0.1%.
TOA is 1361 at all points that see the sun. The path length from TOA to the surface varies making albedo differences because of absorption and scattering.
You are talking long term averages…answer…probably yes…but over shorter terms…just look at the temp anomalies shown by UAH, Dr. Roy Spencer…these variations are mostly caused by cloud cover variation of weather fronts moving across continents and oceans changing the ratio of absorbed to reflected sunlight over continent sized areas.
The distance to the sun only impacts the 1/r^2 value of the flux. It is distant enough to assume it is a plane wave at both points.
So unless the reflection coefficient of the earth is different at different points in time, the percentage of the sun’s insolation that gets reflected remains the same at both points in the orbit. If the magnitude of the flux vector changes due to the inverse square law the absolute value reflected will be different but the ratio should be the same if the reflection coefficient is the same.
Re. your PS, there is no need to strike such a conciliatory pose with the radiative transfer theory (RTT) crowd. The ample evidence you continually provide here clearly indicates that the troposphere is highly convective. This means that the spontaneous absorbtion and emission of ‘photons’ in accordance with Kirchoff’s Law that is necessary to validate the application of RTT to energy transport therein does not occur.
Thanks for your reply, Frank. “…there is no need to strike such a conciliatory pose…”
It’s not really meant as conciliatory, but pre-emptive.
It is plain in any case for all to grasp that energy transport to high altitude, for final emission to space as longwave radiation, is not uniquely dependent on continuous radiative transfer originating at the surface.
I appreciate that you have paid close attention to that whole issue in recent times.
Be well.
I never find anyone mentioning the thermodynamic aspect of the so called “radiative transfer”. Every transformation of energy must be subject to the entropic increase, Where is this taken into account in the consideration of the so called back-transfer?
Or, is it irrelevant?
At the molecular level, all the gases are involved in the black-body spread of radiation as well as the molecule specific absorption/emission wavelengths.
Surely little planet earth shares in the heat death of the universe which is happening all the time everywhere.
Thank you for your reply.
I prompted Grok to summarize how the production of entropy is involved. Here is the final response.
“The climate system absorbs incoming shortwave solar radiation primarily at Earth’s surface, which then drives atmospheric motions and the water cycle through evaporation, latent-heat transport, and condensation. These processes of circulation and phase change redistribute energy vertically and horizontally. Some of the processes can be regarded as reversible in an idealized sense, yet irreversibilities are necessarily involved in the real system. This allows energy to reach altitudes and latitudes from which it can be efficiently emitted as longwave radiation to space. In converting low-entropy solar energy into higher-entropy longwave radiation returned to space, the entire system produces entropy that sustains the continuous dissipation required for planetary energy balance.”
Very good! I like the ‘elevator version’. Do you suppose that Grok could stay on message if one asked it to expand a bit on the role of GHGs and their collisions with non-IR active species with respect to ‘driving atmospheric motions’, or if it would then just revert to regurgitating the canonical heat trapping narrative?
There isn’t any “planetary energy balance”. The Earth has cooled, and continues to do so. You might hav3 noticed that the surface is no longer molten.
Any AI will agree, if you keep pointing out the facts.
Eventually the AI will issue grovelling apologies and promise to do better next time – and of course, it doesn’t, just regurgitating the same misinformation again.
Not just the surface is no longer molten. While volcanic eruptions are pretty constant over time, even millennia, the strength of the eruptions today is smaller than millennia (say 200,000 year) ago. That likely represents some kind of a cooling internally in the earth producing less pressure.
But we’ll probably have to go through another glacial/inter-glacial cycle to confirm this.
Phillip…
Radiative transfer is
q = ε σ (Th^4 – Tc^4) Ah
The back transfer is the -Tc⁴ part of that expression. It is not imaginary but it exists in conjunction of the view from a warmer body, and Tc is usually just the temperature of the surroundings of a warm object in most applications. Heat flow is always from warmer to cooler.
Change in entropy is the integral of dQrev/T….so for a given natural flow of Q, the T will be going downhill and the integral dQrev/T will be increasing.
You ask where the entropic increase is taken into account in “back transfer”. As you can see it is fundamental to the difference between fore and back which is net q.
“You ask where the entropic increase is taken into account in “back transfer”. As you can see it is fundamental to the difference between fore and back which is net q”
q = εσ (Th^4 – Tc^4)
is the net radiative flux.
Since the atmosphere and the earth have different emissivity’s the formula is a little more complicated.
q = σ (Th^4 – Tc^4) * 1/ ( (1/εh) + (1/εc) -1)
entropy is:
dS = dq/Tc – dq/Th
If Th > Tc then dq/Tc > dq/Th
and dS is positive and entropy increases. The Th surface loses heat and the Tc surface gains heat.
If Th < Tc then q becomes negative (Th^4 < Tc^4)
dS = -dq/Tc – (-dq/Th)
If Th < Tc then 1/Tc < 1/Th
and the positive term is greater than the negative term and dS remains positive. The heat flow is always from hotter (Tc) to colder (Th) when Tc > Th.
heat flow is always from hotter to colder so entropy change, dS, is always positive.
If the earth is warmer than the atmosphere then the “back” radiation never turns the entropy negative, which would be necessary for Th to go up due to the back radiation.
Since the atmosphere and the earth have different emissivity’s the formula is a little more complicated.”
The fundamental problem is that gases, such as exist in Earth’s atmosphere, DO NOT have definable emissivity values. This is because emissivity depends on a defined surface , and gases instead absorb and emit thermal energy selectively depending on density/concentration, path length and specific wavelengths,and considering that one gas’ emission/absorption bands can be overlapped by another gas’ emission/absorption bands.
In the case of thermal radiation, it is NOT TRUE that heat (energy) always flows for hotter to colder. Heat flows out from any continuum of matter with a temperature above absolute zero, without that matter having any “knowledge” or consideration of their being external matter that is colder or hotter than it is. Period.
“In the case of thermal radiation, it is NOT TRUE that heat (energy) always flows for hotter to colder. Heat flows out from any continuum of matter with a temperature above absolute zero, without that matter having any “knowledge” or consideration of their being external matter that is colder or hotter than it is. Period.”
Heat and energy are *not* the same thing in thermodynamics. “Heat” is a transfer of energy caused by a temperature difference. Heat is not something a system has, it is a “thing” that crosses the boundary of a system.
Heat is not a state function but is a transfer function. It is a path dependent function.
Energy *is* something a system can have. It can take several forms, e.g. kinetic, potential, etc. It is a state function, not a transfer function for heat.
*HEAT* always flows from hotter to colder.
Energy can flow from colder to hotter but heat can not.
Heat is a flux. Energy is content.
Since heat is a flux vector, only the component normal to a surface transfers heat. Energy is not a flux vector, it is a content.
q = εσ(Th^4 – Tc^4) is a net “heat” flux, not a description of the transfer of energy.
I will admit that my professors teaching engineering thermodynamics in the 60’s didn’t do a very good job of explaining this, often conflating heat with energy.
It wasn’t until much later that I figured out that energy content is not a path dependent variable and that heat *is* a path dependent variable.
A change in energy content is typically shown as dE, a content function. A change in heat is typically shown as ẟQ to differentiate it as being a path dependent transfer.
∫dU from A to B is U(B) – U(A). The integral is not path dependent, just content dependent, i.e. a state variable.
∫ẟQ from A to B is not just Q(B) – Q(A). The integral is path dependent and describes a transfer variable, i.e. a flux not a state.
Hint for you: look up latent heat of fusion and latent heat of vaporization. I do believe you might discover that these are NOT “flux vectors” and are instead intrinsic properties of most matter.
5 out of 10 for the first half….zero after your Th<Tc statement…and yes “it’s a little more complicated”…and “much more complicated” than your emissivity adjustment as well, view factors and all…figuring out the “entropy change of back radiation” is an error…you need to use your first formula for “q”….
Well yes, WV serves as a neg. feedback. More precisely the latent heat WV “does”, or the lapse rate feedback respectively. The problem is, no one understood this right, especially not some Lindzen or Spencer.
We see this in EVERY data set. OLR reacts strongly to changes in Ts. In the interannual proxy is typically well above 5W/m2, showing a strong negative feedback, is this is way larger than the planck response.
However, people do not see that, because they do not unterstand how to do regressions. Once one gets this right, it becomes super-obvious..
Sorry, David, I hit a serious speed bump in this statement in your second paragraph:
“Please see at this link that ‘Total atmospheric energy is made up of internal, potential, kinetic and latent energy’.”
without this statement being subsequently challenged.
FWIW, at any given instant, about half the spherical surface of the Earth is having an average of about 340 joules/sec/m^2 * 0.7 = 238 joules/sec/m^2 of sunlight passing through the atmosphere to reach Earth’s surface.
Working out the numbers and considering the speed of light through just the stratosphere and troposphere (average depth of about 50 km), this amounts to some 1e^13 joules of solar EM spectrumenergy existing in the “atmosphere” at any instant in time.
That relatively enormous amount of energy is going to end up somewhere, with an untold number of consequences.
At night, the heat in the atmosphere that has been built up during the day disappears.
When the sun rises in the morning, the temperature of the atmosphere rises by a constant number of degrees for each hour that passes during the day.
Solar radiation during the day is the reason that the temperature rises constantly for each hour that passes.
That is why it is not hottest at 12:00 in the middle of the day, but in the evening when the sun sets.
During daylight hours, the surface of Earth also radiates LWIR into the atmosphere and into space (through the “atmospheric window”).
As for
“Solar radiation during the day is the reason that the temperature rises constantly for each hour that passes.”
That obviously ignores things such as atmospheric temperature decreases during daylight hours due to increasing cloud coverage, rainstorms, cold fronts, and snowstorms and icestorms.
Are these statements true:
If the Earth’s temperature increases, evaporation from the oceans increases, causing more clouds.
If the Earth’s temperature decreases, evaporation from the oceans decreases, causing fewer clouds.
Tmax typically does not occur at sunset, it occurs earlier, typically mid-afternoon. Tmax occurs when the heat input equals heat output – and the earth does output heat even during the day. Once the sun is past zenith, heat input goes down letting the cooling rate of the earth catch up. Once that happens the temperature goes down. Tmax basically occurs when insolation and T^4 heat loss are equal.
If Tmax occurs at mid-afternoon, the Earth will lose thermal radiation after this time in this time zone for the rest of the day. The Earth loses thermal radiation during most of the day.
A graph over a day showing incoming TOA varies during the day shows that solar radiation is not equally strong over the Earth’s surface.
The selected true hourly TOA Earth TOA (a) OSR flux and (b) OLR flux data and the temporal interpolations to derive the 1-min true OSR and OLR fluxes of a location on Earth (20 • E, 30 • S). The true hourly data comes from the CERES SYN dataset of March 2019.
“ the Earth will lose thermal radiation after this time in this time zone for the rest of the day.”
I’m not sure what you mean by this. It doesn’t “lose” anything. As the sun travels across the sky the angle of incidence to a point on the surface changes. It goes from 0 at sunrise to Imax at noon and back to zero at sunset.
“shows that solar radiation is not equally strong over the Earth’s surface.”
It doesn’t vary just by time of day but also by latitude. Both work to determine the 3D vector angle of incidence. Only the normal component of the insolation vector gets absorbed.
I thought that when the temperature drops, the earth loses heat.
When the temperature rises, the earth gains heat.
When temperature changes are measured over a day.
But the temperature doesn’t drop all the time. It goes up some of the time. It loses heat *all* the time but that doesn’t mean that heat input can’t be greater than heat loss part of the time.
What needs to be looked at is joules-in vs joules-out over time, not temperature.
It is possible to convert temperature variations to joules and compare with solar radiation.
It is not possible to convert atmospheric temperature directly solar radiation. There are two bodies, the oceans and land, that are intermediaries in the process. It goes “solar -> ocean/land -> atmosphere”. Both ocean and land store heat that is not radiated to the atmosphere. That has to be included in any analysis.
Is it possible to calculate the time it takes for ocean/land -> atmosphere to lose the stored energy if no solar radiation is supplied?
Then the energy supplied by solar radiation for each day can be calculated.
The difference between lost and supplied energy shows whether the Earth is losing energy or gaining energy.
Is it possible to calculate the time it takes for ocean/land -> atmosphere to lose the stored energy if no solar radiation is supplied?
I am working on that for land. It is a difficult task because there is little data on soil temperatures at varying depths beyond hourly measurements at USCRN stations. Oceans can store heat for years, decades, and some say centuries. But again, we don’t have good measurements that can isolate the changes.
“It is possible to convert temperature variations to joules and compare with solar radiation.”
Actually it isn’t. Latent heat doesn’t show up in temperature. But it *is* energy content in joules. So adding latent heat adds joules but you can’t convert it to temperature.
From a thermodynamic concept, joules is a state property, heat is a transfer property.
Joules can be transferred from cold to hot and hot to cold. Heat can only be transferred from hot to cold.
Content is a straight addition, it is a state variable. Heat transfer is path dependent, it is not a straight addition.
While energy and heat both use the same dimension of “joules”, they are not the same. Energy is a quantity, heat is a flux.
Think of it this way: The earth is T_hot and the atmosphere is T_cold. The earth can transfer joules of energy to the atmosphere and the atmosphere can transfer joules of energy to the earth. BUT, from a thermodynamic point of view, the earth can transfer heat to the atmosphere but the atmosphere can’t transfer heat to the earth. Since the flux emitted by the two are temperature dependent the flux from the earth will always be greater than the flux from the atmosphere — i.e. so heat transfer will always be from the earth to the atmosphere.
It’s why q = εσ (Th^4 – Tc^4) is always positive. (or perhaps zero at equilibrium, i..e Th = Tc). This is a heat transfer equation.
Think of it this way, TYS. Let’s use the full central value of TSI of 1361 W/m^2. Same as 1361 Joules/(sec-m^2). The speed of light is 300,000 km per second. So it takes 300,000 km to “contain” those 1361 Joules coming toward a 1 m^2 receiver. 50 km of that 300,000 km would “contain” 50/300000*1361=0.227 J. So 0.227 Joules are “contained” at any instant within the 50 km deep by 1 m^2 volume occupied by a column of the atmosphere. This is the same as 0.227 Watt-seconds/m^2 or 0.000063 Watt-hours/m^2.
My post was about values of total energy in the 100,000’s of Watt-hours/m^2 and latent energy in the 10,000’s of Watt-hours/m^2 and hourly changes of both of these quantities in the 1000’s of Watt-hours/m^2.
TYS, you’ve earned a new name. I will call you Shirley. “This is the same as 0.227 Watt-seconds/m^2 or 0.000063817 Watt-hours/m^2.” Shirley you can’t be serious. That is all for now. Class dismissed.
Class dismissed, OK . . . but this is your homework (beyond recognizing that there are 3600 seconds in one hour):
Point out the logic error in these sequential statements “So 0.227 Joules are “contained” at any instant within the 50 km deep by 1 m^2 volume occupied by a column of the atmosphere. This is the same as 0.227 Watt-seconds/m^2 or 0.000063 Watt-hours/m^2”
Hint for you: when something is happening on a continuous basis, it does not vary with the time interval over which it is evaluated.
Dear Shirley, as you apparently are still present in after-class detention,
Please go to Google to straighten out your unit conversion problem by entering, “Convert 0.227 Watt-seconds per square meter to Watt-hours per square meter”. That is the issue here.
Best to you. 🙂
Someone doesn’t understand dimensional analysis. They also don’t understand that an “instant” is not a second, an instant is where a state value derives from. The next “instant” can have a different value.
0.227 Joules/sec/m^2 * 3600 seconds/hr = 817.2 Joules/hr/m^2, which does NOT equal 0.000063 Watt-hours/m^2.
Because “Joules per hour” is a measure of power (energy over time) and a “watt-hour” is a measure of total energy, the conversion depends on a specific timeframe.
Now, you were saying something about understanding dimensional analysis?
Very little solar radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere. Most is either reflected back to space or absorbed by the surface. The radiation energy associated with atmospheric energy density is that radiation which is generated in the atmosphere via collisions and is in local equilibrium with the kinetic energy of the air molecules. This radiation accounts for ~10E-4 of the total overall atmospheric energy.
“Very little solar radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere.”
So you say, without citing a reference for such an assertion.
However, “About 23 percent of incoming solar energy is absorbed in the atmosphere by water vapor, dust, and ozone . . .“, according to NASA Science (see https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/climate-and-earths-energy-budget/ ). The hemisphere of Earth illuminated by the Sun has an areal average about 680 W/m^2 of incoming power flux.
Please define your quantitative bound for “very little”.
‘“About 23 percent of incoming solar energy is absorbed in the atmosphere by water vapor, dust, and ozone . . .“, according to NASA Science’
I wonder how much of that 23% is UV absorbed by ozone, which I presume occurs in the stratosphere. Unfortunately, my browser’s search assistant seems incapable of coming up with a specific percentage:
‘The ozone layer absorbs a significant portion of incoming solar radiation, particularly ultraviolet (UV) light, but the exact percentage of total incoming solar radiation absorbed by the ozone layer is not specified.’
Seems odd, given that not too long ago the crisis de jure was over the appearance of the so-called ozone hole. Do you have a number?
“I wonder how much of that 23% is UV absorbed by ozone, which I presume occurs in the stratosphere . . . Do you have a number?”
I first put this question to Google’s AI bot:
“What percent of incoming solar radiation is in the UV spectrum?”
and in less than one second got this reply:
“Approximately 5% to 7% of incoming solar radiation at the top of Earth’s atmosphere is in the ultraviolet (UV) spectrum. This percentage drops to about 3% to 5% by the time sunlight reaches the Earth’s surface due to atmospheric absorption.”
Next I put this question to Google’s AI bot:
“What percent of incoming solar UV radiation is absorbed in Earth’s atmosphere?”
and in less than one second got this reply:
Earth’s atmosphere absorbs approximately 95 to 99 percent of incoming solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation, primarily handled by the stratospheric ozone layer, oxygen, and water vapor.
Breakdown by UV Wavelength — UVC (100–280 nm):100% absorbed (completely blocked by oxygen and ozone). — UVB (280–320 nm):90% to 99% absorbed (mostly filtered by the ozone layer, allowing only a tiny fraction to reach the ground). — UVA (320–400 nm):Very little absorption (mostly passes through the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface).
(Note: as you might observe from the above, Google’s AI bot gives inconsistent answers to separate questions . . . CAVEAT EMPTOR.)
Maybe it’s time to upgrade your browser search engine?
Let’s see, we have 23% of incoming solar is absorbed by the atmosphere [per NASA], of which 2% is UV [5% to 7% vs 3% to 5% per Google AI]. What comprises the remaining 21%?
You need to understand that not all of that 23% of incoming solar radiation that is absorbed is in the UV spectrum; there is a significant amount of solar radiation in the visible to far infrared (LWIR), even to RF portion of the EM spectrum, that is also absorbed in the atmosphere.
‘You need to understand that not all of that 23% of incoming solar radiation that is absorbed is in the UV spectrum…’
My arithmetic came up with about 2% for UV (see above). My question was what comprises the remaining 21%. Does NASA provide any detail on this, or are we just supposed to take their word for it, a la their modeled, but never measured, back radiation.
According to Feynman, all physical processes in the universe (with the exception of nuclear interactions and gravity) can be explained using the following –
An electron goes from place to place.
A photon goes from place to place.
An electron absorbs or emits a photon.
The interaction between light and matter is radiative by definition – an electron absorbs or emits a photon.
A control volume—remember those from old-school engineering? . . . I certainly do—drawn around Earth and not including the Sun will show that the overall thermodynamics of Earth’s energy balance is governed only by radiative heat transfer into/out of that control volume.
No kidding, TYS. There is no suggestion in my post or replies, or anyone else’s reply, that the Earth as a total system receives and rejects energy by any other means than radiation.
Sheesh.
Be well.
Well, you do reference and then go on the expound upon this statement “Total atmospheric energy is made up of internal, potential, kinetic and latent energy.”
I don’t see any reference to incoming EM radiation energy from the Sun or to outgoing LWIR radiation energy from Earth . . . you know, considering Earth as a “total system”.
But, hey, no use in beating a dead horse. I’m outa here!
No need to “expound” at all. In my post, I linked to the ERA5 parameter definition that included that statement. That’s how ERA5 handles it. Sunshine and longwave emission are not ignored in the model, obviously. “I’m outa here!” Nice. See ya!
You forgot to include time in your example. There is no requirement that the input over a given time period equals the output over that same time period.
This is a good point, noting the huge energy storage capacity, for example, represented in the latent energy within the atmosphere. Not to mention the oceans.
No, first, I did not give “an example”, I gave an observation and associated calculation; and second, my reference to the total amount of solar EM energy present in the atmosphere at any instant presumed that readers would understand that was a continuous process because a hemisphere of the Earth is always in sunlight.
Specifying a time interval is not necessary for processes that are continuous in the temporal domain.
Your are correct that there is no “requirement” that Earth’s radiative output equals Earth’s radiative input over any given time period . . . but the imbalance between the two is the central issue to debating Earth being in an overall warming trend versus being in an overall cooling trend.
Furthermore, many scientists have duly noted the fact that Earth’s surface temperature has remained remarkably stable over the last 10,000 years, fluctuating by no more than about 1°C, thereby giving strong evidence that Earth has a thermoregulatory mechanism that is little understood by the majority of “climate scientists”.
“Specifying a time interval is not necessary for processes that are continuous in the temporal domain.”
You seem to be conflating “continuous” with “constant”. Processes that are “continuous in the temporal domain” can certainty be something other than constant. The path of the sun on the surface of the earth is a continuous process but it’s impact on the surface is not a constant.
“You are correct that there is no “requirement” that Earth’s radiative output equals Earth’s radiative input over any given time period . . . but the imbalance between the two is the central issue to debating Earth being in an overall warming trend versus being in an overall cooling trend.”
The imbalance of importance is *NOT* the radiative flux. The imbalance of importance is the difference between joules-in and joules-out of the system. The radiative flux at any point in space and time will *NEVER* balance. The earth is at a different temperature than the sun, the flux values will never be equal.
The earth gains joules over a 12 hour period but it loses joules over 24 hours. There better be an imbalance in the radiative flux in and out! If there isn’t such an imbalance the earth would be either an ice ball or a molten ball today.
“The imbalance of importance is *NOT* the radiative flux. The imbalance of importance is the difference between joules-in and joules-out of the system.”
Say what?
How does “joules-in” versus “joules out” of the Earth system vary if not by the balance of radiative flux transfer of power???
“If there isn’t such an imbalance the earth would be either an ice ball or a molten ball today.”
Say what?
You dismiss the option where there is essentially a near-balance, such as exists on Earth right now, and where there is cycling between warm (interglacial) and cold (glacial) conditions.
Since the flux-in and flux-out occurs over different time frames you can’t compare them. The energy in the system is based on the energy content, not the rate at which the energy is injected or removed. Joules of energy is the measure of content, not joules/sec of flux.
“How does “joules-in” versus “joules out” of the Earth system vary if not by the balance of radiative flux transfer of power???”
Again, radiative flux is a RATE. Joules of energy is CONTENT. Rates don’t have to balance. X joules/sec-m^2 over 12 hours can be balanced by Y joules/sec-m^2 over 24 hours where X ≠ Y. Y = X/2 will cause a balance in energy content over 24 hours.
“Say what?”
If X joules/sec-m^2 over 12 hours inward vs X/2 joules/sec-m^2 ourward don’t result in a content balance of joules then the earth will eventually wind up with 0 joules of energy content at some point and become a frozen ball OR it will wind up with a continually growing energy content that will eventually result in a molten ball.
“You dismiss the option where there is essentially a near-balance, such as exists on Earth right now, and where there is cycling between warm (interglacial) and cold (glacial) conditions.”
I don’t dismiss the possibility that the earth is gaining energy. But because of measurement uncertainty in the flux values, it is also likely that the earth is losing energy overall.
I have yet to see where in climate science anyone has been able to calculate energy gain and energy loss with enough accuracy to be able to definitely say which is happening, especially when it must be done over at least centuries of time, your interglacial and glacial periods.
Nyquist doesn’t just specify that sampling rates must be fast enough to identify high frequency signal components, it also specifies that observation intervals must be long enough to identify low frequency signal components. At least two low frequency cycles must be observed. For glacial and interglacial components that is a LONG time interval for which measurements must be available.
The sampling measurements must also be of sufficient accuracy and resolution to identify differences in measurement values. We don’t even sample ocean heat content with sufficient resolution to tell what differences exist over short time intervals *today*, let alone millennia in the past.
How does “joules-in” versus “joules out” of the Earth system vary if not by the balance of radiative flux transfer of power???
Think about what you are saying here. If the flux in equals the flux out, can there be any temperature change? Would nights be the same temperature as the day?
For temperature to change, there must be an imbalance between joules absorbed and joules emitted.
Think of it this way. I shine a 100 kw laser at a metal ball for a second and it glows white hot. Does it cool down to the original temperature in the next second? If not, then the fluxes don’t balance and never will. What does balance? Joules in and joules out. Just the times vary, not the energy.
Furthermore, many scientists have duly noted the fact that Earth’s surface temperature has remained remarkably stable over the last 10,000 years, fluctuating by no more than about 1°C
Show us a reference for the 1°C quote. Even then, what is the variance? ±4°C?
“For 10,000 years leading up to the 20th century, our climate was remarkably stable. The Earth’s average temperature never changed by more than about 1° C, and only in slow, steady shifts over thousands of years.”
—https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-do-we-know-what-earths-climate-was-millions-years-ago
Lovelock was a hero and inspirational to me. I first met him in the 80’s, as my boss and he were good friends. He came to Colorado a couple of times and I got to share some time with him. I was able to attend his 100th birthday in Exeter in 2019.
He was a genius inventor. He would admit when he was wrong. He let theory guide but experiment decide. He also enjoyed life, would walk every day and smiled and laughed to the end even as his flame flickered.
strativarius
July 26, 2026 3:28 am
Meanwhile in 6th form college…
Britain’s homes weren’t built to cope with this. The country’s historically mild climate allowed developers to build houses without insulation.
So, Sadistic Khan has a heat plan for London
London’s heat-ready plan puts forward a collective response based on sensible measures that should serve as a roadmap for other cities, such as retrofitting homes with shutters, installing air conditioning in schools and other public buildings, planting more trees for shade, and providing more swimming spots where people can take a dip.
No air conditioning for those homes he says cannot cope. Save yourself the expense of shutters and close the curtains instead. As for places to swim…
New analysis reveals that 76% of the publicly accessible water space lost in the past 15 years has disappeared since 2020, highlighting the escalating crisis facing the sector. With increasing financial pressures, ageing facilities and rising operational costs, many more pools and leisure centres are at risk of closure, leaving communities without vital spaces for physical activity and social connection.
There isn’t any money, he knows it and we know it. There will not be any increase in swimming spots where people can take a dip
Last week’s Open Thread raised concerns regarding local thermodynamic equilibrium models. Consider a one-dimensional ‘gedankenexperiment’ with boundary temperatures 300K and 100K and a steady-state energy flux of 100 W. Carnot’s Equation tells us 2/3 will be dissipated or available for potential work. At some intermediate point there will be a temperature of 200K. Suppose we now imagine our system as two tandem Carnot cells, 300K > 200K and 200K > 100K. The first will dissipate 1/3 of the flux, the second ½, totaling 5/6 > 2/3. Uh-oh! Suppose one now models the system into 200 tandem 1K Carnot layers. Might this represent local thermodynamic equilibrium for a laminar atmospheric model? My spreadsheet says 164W is being dissipated!
The explanation for this paradox is that only Helmholtz free energy can be dissipated. While the total energy flux remains 100W throughout, its free energy component is steadily decreasing as energy flows from 300K to 100K. A 300K Boltzmann equilibrium distribution might be assumed at the source, but how is it changing as a steady-state energy flux flows between boundaries???
I have a vague memory from undergrad ChE thermodynamics that a Carnot cycle is reversible. I’m pretty sure this cannot be said about the process wherein a warm parcel of gas in the troposphere lifts and expands.
Your spreadsheet is wrong – probably infected with a GHE virus!
Derg
July 26, 2026 6:11 am
Poor Germans, riddled with nut zero nonsense and now the left’s 2 sacred cows are not getting along.
DipChip
July 26, 2026 6:38 am
Wind Energy is not clean energy; the energy in exceeds the energy generated over its life time. All the energy required to build and maintain its generating capacity is supplied by other means.
First consider the energy required to manufacture all the heavy equipment and material used to mine and process all the materials required for the manufacture, distributing, transporting and maintaining the generators and the additional grid network required to maintain efficiency. Therefore all the energy generated is less than the fossil fuel and other sources of energy used to produce it. So every watt of energy produced by wind is less than the other sources mainly fossil fuels that are wasted on wind generation.
That is why the CO2 curve from Mona Loa keeps rising at a slight exponential rate in spite of all the increases in clean energy generation. Forget all this nonsense about energy storage and emergency backup needs. Batteries are great for all hand held tools and solar charging for remote equipment needs. We need some papers presented listing all the energy needs required to measure the efficiency of wing energy.
excellent comment. what you did not directly mention is the many coal and gas generators that sit at warm or hot standby producing little to no energy waiting for the call to ramp up to meet demand when wind and solar go flat. its like leaving you car idling in the driveway over night because you may travel somewhere tomorrow. wast of resource gets no worse that this.
Marty
July 26, 2026 6:50 am
I find it amazing that so many people have so much faith in the efficacy of government. My experience has been that governments at all levels are costly, inefficient, plagued by favoritism and political bias, and mostly uncaring. Just try to get advice from the IRS or try visiting a social security office to discuss an issue, or a hundred other examples. Almost no one in government bureaucracy seems to work very hard or to care. (I know there are exceptions and some government workers honestly try to do a good job. But they are outnumbered by the ones just seeking a safe easy salary.)
Admittedly there are things that only the government can do, like for example national defense, and other things that it is most efficient to be handled by government. But government has gone way beyond those few things.
We’ve never had more socialists. Yet it seems that at best government regulation and control leads to stagnation and eventual decline, and at worst it leads to mass poverty and millions of deaths.
As Henry David Thoreau said in the first line in “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” – “That government is best which governs least.”
The more youthful you are…the more you believe someone higher up will look after you…your parents as a kid, your teachers as a school kid, for some their God,…maybe at university you find you can fail, the prof puts responsibility on you for performance….but you also find you will be graded “on the curve” and the sports scholarship folks get many hours to do the 2 hour exams and all semester to turn in those weekly assignments, them being “more equal” than you….then you go out to work and find a big tax burden on your paycheck…and after facing potential unemployment and business failure a time or two, you find out you are pretty much on your own, by the time middle age hits, you are very skeptical of how much the gov’t “wants to do for everyone” and realize a politicians game is actually as a simple vote garnering strategy aimed at the inexperienced…
Over the past year I have waged a snail mail campaign since WUWT is about the only web site I’m not banned or cancelled.
Estimating from boxes of 50 count envelopes, reams of paper, ink cartridges and sheets of both domestic and global forever stamps 750+.
We all know that out of those hundreds there would be dozens if not scores of enraged, foaming at the mouth retorts.
Actual number of replies: one big fat ZERO!
That zero is only possible if my snail mail is not delivered, opened or read.
The USPS considers it its obligation to prevent the mails from nefarious purposes, i.e. misinformation.
Did they simply dead letter? Or shred?
Shall we test it?
What’s your snail mail?
I suggest recipients of said mail are versed enough to know that outer space is -270 C…not warm as you claim….GHE exists not doesn’t as you claim….your boiling kettle experiment ignores radiation from the surroundings…which is the “back radiation” you claim doesn’t exist, their checks of energy budget diagrams show that they balance which you claim they don’t, by invoking “generally agreed accounting principles” instead of “conservation of energy between ground-troposphere-outerspace”…so they put “reply letter to NS” on the same priority as “reply letter to last week’s Pottery Barn advert”.
Remove the Earth’s atmosphere or even just the GHGs and the Earth becomes much like the Moon, no water vapor or clouds, no ice or snow, no oceans, no vegetation, no 30% albedo becoming a barren rock ball, hot^3 (400 K) on the lit side, cold^3 (100 K) on the dark. At Earth’s distance from the Sun space is hot (394 K) not cold (5 K).
That’s NOT what the RGHE theory says.
EVIDENCE:
RGHE theory says “288 K (15 C) w – 255 K (-18 C) w/o = a 33 C colder ice ball Earth.” 255 K assumes w/o case keeps 30% albedo, an assumption akin to criminal fraud. Nobody agrees 288 K is GMST plus it was 15 C in 1896. 288 K is a physical surface measurement. 255 K is a S-B equilibrium calculation at ToA. Apples and potatoes.
Nikolov “Airless Celestial Bodies”
Kramm “Moon as test bed for Earth”
UCLA Diviner lunar mission data
JWST solar shield (391.7 K)
Sky Lab golden awning
ISS HVAC design for lit side of 250 F. (ISS web site)
Astronaut backpack life support w/ AC and cool water tubing underwear. (Space Discovery Center)
If “back” radiation, i.e. heat flowing from a cooler system to a warmer system without added work were real there would be refrigerators without power cords. I have not seen any. You? The cooling by the surroundings is due to the kinetic processes as demonstrated by experiment.
TFK_bams09 does not balance & creates energy out of thin air.
“Why am I so censored ?”
Cuz you are so incorrect that it isn’t worth considering. I comment to keep newbies from falling for your nonsense…
Richard M
July 26, 2026 7:59 am
The next ~60 year cycle cool phase transition may already have started. Where will that lead?
Several rare events have shown up this year. The Atlantic “cold blob” has gotten colder. Greenland is having its coldest summer on record. An Atlantic Nina has appeared. Record cold in Antarctica. Of course, we are also seeing a strong El Nino building which will temporarily raise the global temperature.
As all of these events work their way through the global climate, where will we be in 2027?
I suspect one other important event is occurring under the radar. The next phase of the ~60 year cycle is starting. This is the cool phase and it is due. In my opinion, this cycle is driven by variations in deep Arctic ocean temperature which then drives sea ice melting/growth.
We’ve been in the sea ice melting phase for the past ~30 years. This has allowed the Arctic Ocean to cool. This cooling will now lead to growth in sea ice.
As the sea ice expands we will see an expansion of cold air in the Arctic. This will push the polar jet stream further south which also leads to increased clouds (the jet stream covers a larger area). This will cool adjacent northern hemisphere regions. The global temperature will drop.
It won’t happen immediately. It took a decade to melt the majority of Arctic sea ice. It will happen over time and be difficult for climate alarmists to explain.
this is something i have wanted to post here for some time. i know i will get hammered but no guts no glory. question: how do we know the reported ppmv of co2 measured at mona loa (or from other facilities) is the true amount?
is it lower that 430ppm?
is it higher?
is it lower but reported as higher?
mona loa is assumed to be the gold standard facility.
my research shows that Mona loa is run by noaa and another institution,
scripps institution of oceanography. i will let someone else comment whether any bias is present.
Joe, I suggest that a more appropriate question would be “what is the optimum CO2 level in the atmosphere??” Apparently it has been all over the place with highs in the geologic history as much as 10 times what Mona reports for today. Another good question is just what is the optimum global average temperature–if there even is such a thing.
those are very good questions. in fact, i and others have asked those very questions to certain parties on this forum. no answers given. some people in my small social circle will respond with, i don’t know but lower than they are now to both.
now what do you do?.
engage and try to help this poor soul?
nah. let them live in ignorance.
“can you imagine the scramble to re-adjust all the climate models?”
How about if CO2 is not well-mixed in the atmosphere and a complex function of time, geography, terrain, wind speed, humidity, etc would be needed to to describe the 3D variance of the CO2 concentration.
How would the climate models handle this? How would the function even be determined. Think clouds are hard to characterize? Try CO2.
“Samplings from other localities at different times would no doubt present different readings.”
Not according to climate science. CO2 is well-mixed in the atmosphere – meaning it is the same everywhere. Just one more garbage assumption by climate science.
(note: it is one of the reasons why climate science says their models can’t predict regional climate – because all regions are assumed to be the same when it comes to CO2 when they really aren’t the same)
How about time of day in 24 hour cycle? How about specific locations?
In a forest, it is lower in brightest time of a sunny day and highest before dawn on a day in a time of very cloudy conditions making it dull.
One prominent lecturer takes his CO2 meter to his venues and when indoors often gets readings over 1000 ppm.
Joe: I’m a little late with this. But for what it’s worth, the Keeling CO2 measurement program involved, and still involves, regular measurements at a number of sites covering a latitude range from the Arctic to the Antarctic. You can find details at their web site https://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/. The measurements do show that CO2 like O2,N2, and Ar and unlike H2O is well mixed in the atmosphere. (Well, the lower atmosphere anyway).
Not only is there little meaning in the “true” amount but also there is no meaning in talking about the “normal” amount and the idea of “optimal” is really stretching the limits of misunderstanding.
andersm0
July 26, 2026 8:50 am
I bristle a bit when anyone politely addresses the alarmist media publications as ‘got it wrong’ on the climate change file. IMO, they got nothing wrong. They made a conscious choice to promote the politically popular and far more lucrative climate panic agenda. They’re not stupid but they are self-serving and notably without moral compunction.
Simon
July 26, 2026 1:05 pm
How is it we have found ourselves in a place where during a golf tournament (the British Open… won by a Kiwi incidently) a competitor, (Bryson DeChambeau) who broke the rules by “inadvertently improved his intended backswing”, thinks it is ok to threaten to ring the president of the US to help him beat the officials? I mean come on, it’s not like Trump has a history of leaning on officials in sporting events to gain advantage for his buddies/team. Oh wait…..
And then we hear that those fine pillars of society the Tate brothers have also asked Trump to intervene in their arrest and deportation.
You seem to have this fetish for golden showers. I’m not sure why. But hey, your life, your business. I’ve certainly never mentioned them with regard to Trump. I am way more concerned he protects paedophiles than who may or may not piss on him.
Lol. The UK is an energy basket case and Germany is right behind them. Neither can endure on one-week in winter under a blocking high pressure system. That is very common in Europe during El Ninos. When that happens neither country can keep the lights – or heat – on, given their present position, and it’s enough to topple all of them into recessions.
A large, stagnant, high-pressure cold system—known meteorologically as a blocking high—triggers a phenomena called a “Dunkelflaute” (dark wind lull). If this settles over the continent this winter, the combination of extreme demand and vanished renewable generation will force an aggressive bidding war for global natural gas, with the UK and Germany positioned exactly at the center of the crisis.
During a record-breaking “Super El Niño,” winter atmospheric blocking highs over Europe are historically very common, but they are typically back-loaded into the second half of winter (January through February)during the coldest months of the year.
The UK can only store roughly 2 to 3 days’ worth of its winter gas consumption. In contrast, continental European nations typically maintain weeks or months of storage buffers. The UK relies entirely on a continuous, uninterrupted “just-in-time” supply chain of gas pipes from Norway and incoming global LNG ships.
If the wind stops blowing across the North Sea, the UK’s massive wind fleet drops to zero, forcing its power grid to immediately burn natural gas to keep electricity flowing. With no storage buffer to draw from, British utilities will be forced to panic-buy prompt physical gas on the international spot market at any cost to prevent immediate rolling blackouts, exposing the UK economy to extreme, uncapped price volatility.
Prior to the geopolitical restructuring of European energy, Germany relied on massive, continuous baseloads of cheap Russian pipeline gas to fuel its heavy industrial manufacturing complex and residential district heating
Because Germany is entering this winter with its cavernous underground storage sites depleted well below historical norms, a prolonged, windless deep freeze means those shallow reserves will empty at a terrifyingly fast trajectory. Unlike the UK, Germany cannot simply “import its way out” of a prompt crunch because its coastline regasification terminals are already operating at maximum layout capacity.
When a Dunkelflaute hits both nations simultaneously, the traditional European solidarity agreements break down into a raw financial bidding war. The UK will be frantically bidding up the National Balancing Point (NBP) to pull gas away from Europe, while Germany will be bidding up Dutch TTF to hoard whatever molecules remain on the continent.
This internal European panic will instantly spill over into the Pacific basin, forcing global spot prices upward as both nations attempt to aggressively outbid wealthier East Asian utilities for flexible global LNG shipments
This is the real world, MUR, and renewables don’t, won’t, and can’t overcome real world conditions. If you look at the TTF and JKM spreads, you will see that both Europe and Asia are panicking over insufficient natural gas supplies.
Actually, article says problem is ash falling into equipment of the major transmission line from NE BC to SW BC. (NE BC has huge power dams.)
Much fire in the southern end of the Caribou region north of the Fraser-Thompson canyons.
Years ago I overnighted in Clinton BC, there was fire near the town, in the motel were firefighters from the city I live in on Vancouver Island. Like other municipal departments they’d sent a truck and people to help by protecting buildings, which is their expertise.
This summer Clinton itself is under direct threat.
Rational Keith
July 26, 2026 5:54 pm
More push, job opening in something called ‘Planet Priority:
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Location is in southwest Saskatchewan, which is probably dry farming territory (in the Palliser Diamond area of AB, MT, and SK – noteworthy for Durham wheat which is favoured for making pasta).
“….estimating soil combustion is challenging because researchers rely on indirect indicators, such as moisture conditions, rather than direct observations of what’s burning underground.”
With the usual claim that forest fires are becoming larger and hotter.
But fire seasons vary due weather (drought patterns including snow in mountains, temperature, and ‘dry lightning’), with losses varying by location because of proximity to settlements.
This year is bad in the Fraser-Thompson canyon and lower Caribou areas of BC, and in northwest Ontario. TheMouthT rants about smoke from Canada but there are fires in the US including a bad season in Oregon.
For a physically valid assessment of the concern over emissions of CO2 and other IR-active non-condensing trace gases, let’s look at the “warming” claims by the numbers. The ERA5 reanalysis quantifies the total energy state of the circulating atmosphere. This involves water vapor, making the highly variable latent energy component important to this assessment.
Please see at this link that “Total atmospheric energy is made up of internal, potential, kinetic and latent energy.”
https://codes.ecmwf.int/grib/param-db/162061
There are four plots here using hourly parameters from ERA5 for all hours of 2022 at latitude 45N at all longitudes. Each value is a point on the plot.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1X7V58xrYeIYM7EgtyHPck7FqAiaXAWtG?usp=drive_link
The first plot is the “vertical integral of total energy,” expressed as Watt-hours per square meter, by longitude. There are 8760 hourly values at each longitude position. The scale of the vertical axis is from 500,000 to 800,000 Wh/m^2 to show the full range of values.
The second plot gives the hourly change in the “vertical integral of total energy.” There are 8759 values at each longitude position. The vertical axis is expressed as Watt-hours per hour per square meter, which simplifies to W/m^2. The scale goes from -10,000 to +10,000 W/m^2 to capture most of the values.
The third plot gives the latent energy in the total column of the atmosphere, expressed as Watt-hours per square meter. This value comes from subtracting the “vertical integral of potential + internal energy” from the “vertical integral of potential + internal + latent energy” for each instance. There are 8760 hourly values at each longitude position. The scale of the vertical axis goes from zero to 60,000 Watt-hours per square meter. Most of the values are less than 45,000 Wh/m^2.
The fourth plot gives the hourly change of latent energy. There are 8759 values at each longitude position. The vertical axis is expressed in Watt-hours per hour per square meter, which simplifies to W/m^2. The scale goes from -10,000 to +10,000 W/m^2 to capture most of the values.
Discussion – what are we being told from the “climate consensus” position?
THE CLAIM is that a ~700 mW/m^2 top-of-atmosphere radiative imbalance (the EEI “Earth’s Energy Imbalance”) has been discerned. It has been attributed to rising concentrations of CO2, and is claimed to be exerting a perceptible warming influence on the energy state of the atmosphere (and thereby on the underlying land and oceans) by suppressing the final longwave emission out the top. That claim of detection and attribution is not justified by the numbers, considering the massive atmosphere’s dynamically variable total energy state.
And THE CLAIM, in effect, is that the water cycle is not capable of self-adjusting to the minor ~4 W/m^2 “warming” tendency for the future 2XCO2 case. This is not justified by the numbers, considering the atmosphere’s highly variable latent energy state. The water cycle operates from the surface to the top of the troposphere – with all of the variable evaporation, condensation, precipitation, freezing, and melting; with all of the radiative ramifications of cloud formation and dissipation; and with all of the horizontal transport and vertical overturning of weather systems.
There. The conclusion of this assessment is that there is no valid physical reason for concern. The claimed influence on the energy state of the climate system is negligible, by the numbers. It cannot be isolated from within the range of power intensity values (W/m^2) of hourly change in total energy, or latent energy, for positive attribution of cause-and-effect.
Thank you for your patience with this old-school engineer and his low-budget laptop computer.
P.S. Look, please don’t get me wrong here. I am NOT dismissing the IR absorption and emission properties of CO2 and the other IR-active trace gases. I am NOT ignoring the computed radiative “warming” tendency (think MODTRAN, RRTM, etc.) as concentrations in the atmosphere rise. Some challenge the assumptions in those computations. They may have a good point. But in any case, judging by the numbers, it makes no sense to expect a perceptible influence of incremental CO2 on the time- and location-integrated longwave emission to space out the top of the water-bearing and vapor-energized atmosphere; on trends of any climate variable; or on the frequency or intensity of any category of weather event.
David, I agree with Fourier that all the energy received from the Sun is lost to space, plus a little internal energy. No GHE.
After four and a half billion years of continuous sunlight, the surface has markedly cooled. Winter is generally colder than summer – in spite of all the summer sunlight. Even six months of continuous sunlight in polar regions doesn’t seem to result in the relatively few inhabitants expiring from heatstroke. No GHE.
Add to that the fact that nobody has managed to make a thermometer hotter by adding CO2 to air, and I feel quite justified in dismissing GHE believers as either fools or frauds. No GHE.
Time will tell, but I can’t be bothered wasting a good worry on the miniscule chance that I might be wrong.
MF
What definition of GHE are you using ? It is an easily shown and proven that our planet is warmer at the surface with water vapor in the atmosphere than without…and that CO2 contributes some additional effect to that of water vapor.
It does not matter one bit one way or the other.
The Greenhouse concept is just one simple and tiny mechanism co-existing with a vast number of other systems of energy exchange and transport in an extremely complex system.
It is variable at very low CO2 concentrations and a saturated effect at current and any higher levels. The variations in atmospheric water vapour is significant, and its significance is in being a dependent variable in many processes, it is NOT a prime mover.
Runaway “Greenhouse” is the primal lie, the original deception, the initial source of the scam. The imbalance between energy entry to the earth system and energy shedding by the earth system is very dynamic at the day/night level, the 4 seasons level, the 22 year solar magnetic periodic cycling level.
That is historic, that is observable, that is the real time and on the ground and through our lifetimes reality.
Why, even measurement of the temperature on the ground as the shadow of a solar eclipse passes over a spot on the ground shows several centigrade degrees of cooling until the shadow passes away!
There is no rigorous definition or description of the GHE which accords with reality – otherwise I’m sure you would have provided it to put me in my place! You are implying that more than “definition” exists – why is more than one necessary? Does it change from day to day?
Complete nonsense. The hottest places on Earth, like the Lut Desert or Death Valley are characterised by less water vapour, not more!
Maybe you were unaware of this. An extreme example is the Moon, where, after the same exposure time, the temperature may reach 127C, far beyond any terrestrial surface temperature. No water vapour at all.
No GHE.
“Complete nonsense. The hottest places on Earth, like the Lut Desert or Death Valley are characterised by less water vapour, not more!”
But…But….But – Averages!
Flynn doesn’t understand meteorology …. or more likely doesn’t want to else it would destroy his world-view.
And it’s not as though this hasn’t been explained to him – I did that very thing years ago.
Deserts are deserts because they lie beneath the convergence zones of jet streams. Ie sinking air ( latitudes 30deg north and 30 deg south ).
Said sinking air warms ( and so dries) adiabatically and forms a “heat dome” which puts a lid on surface convection, and hence surface heat builds up with no avenue to escape aloft.
Your reply is a non sequitur. You are describing why there is less water vapor while the issue is the temperature with less water vapor.
No, I described why deserts are HOT – the fact that the RH of the air is reduced in the process is a non-sequitur.
I repeat, they are hot because they lie under latitudes 30deg N/S and have resident anticyclones with subsiding air that caps surface convection below the subsidence inversion, and does not allow it to be convected aloft.
As I said, if you’d care to grok … that process is independent of WV (as a GHG)
Contrary to to the implication that it is needed care of Flynn who said,
”The hottest places on Earth, like the Lut Desert or Death Valley are characterised by less water vapour, not more!”
I know he has used this argument before to (in his mind) debunk the GHE.
It’s not an “argument” to “debunk” anything. It’s a statement of fact.
As is the statement that you cannot provide an unambiguous and rigorous description of the GHE.
Feel free to try to prove me wrong. Good luck with that.
The average “climate scientist” is indeed dim or just ignorant or gullible – on average, of course.
The others are simply frauds.
Hmmm, yes the moon has no greenhouse effect, no water vapor, and warms up in the hot sun for 29 days at a time, then gets really cold for another 29 days resulting in a fairly meaningless but mathematical average of about -20 C….which is much removed from planet Earth where the greenhouse effect keeps us, on average, much warmer at +15C on average….at the same distance from the sun….
Ah, “averages”.
Unfortunately for GHE supporters, it takes slightly less time for the Moon’s surface normal to the Sun to reach its maximum temperature, compared with a similar situation on Earth. Feel free to examine the Diviner data if you don’t believe me (and I’m sure you don’t).
There is no “greenhouse effect” causing “warming” on the Earth. The presence of an atmosphere compresses the diurnal range, suppressing extremes.
Even the AI used by Google agrees that the Earths surface has cooled to its present temperature from the molten state.
You are free to believe otherwise, of course.
‘What definition of GHE are you using?’
Excellent question. Given that GHGs play an important role in each, do you think a predominantly ‘radiative’ or a ‘convective’ mechanism better explains why the troposphere is warmer at the Earth’s surface than it is at the tropopause?
You are a brave fellow willing to wander into this minefield … I thought it would be easy to find a good definition that would put this argument to rest, but it turns out like so much on the internet there is a poor definition that others repeat. The bad examples all start like this ….
This is bad because it focuses on gasses in the atmosphere rather than on something directly measurable — like the LWIR downward flux that can be so intense near sea level in a moist climate that one scarcely notices much temperature difference between day and night. Measure it directly with a pyrgeometer.
The origin of this bad definition appears to be NASA, which doesn’t surprise me at all.
‘I thought it would be easy to find a good definition that would put this argument to rest, but it turns out like so much on the internet there is a poor definition that others repeat.’
Andy May agrees with you:
“The phrase “greenhouse effect,” often abbreviated as “GHE,” is very ambiguous. It applies to Earth’s surface temperature, and has never been observed or measured, only modeled. To make matters worse, it has numerous possible components, and the relative contributions of the possible components are unknown.”
For my part, I’d appreciate it if you could flesh statement out a bit:
‘LWIR downward flux that can be so intense near sea level in a moist climate that one scarcely notices much temperature difference between day and night. Measure it directly with a pyrgeometer.’
“The origin of this bad definition appears to be NASA, which doesn’t surprise me at all.”
I find it interesting that NASA as an institution – in the same web article from January, 2009 – described BOTH the static “greenhouse gas” sense of what one might expect surface temperature to do, AND the importance of the fluid transport of absorbed energy in the ocean and atmosphere circulations from the tropics to the poles and from low altitude to high, along with an emphasis on the fourth-power dependence of longwave emission on temperature. No sense of crisis.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/05/16/wuwt-contest-runner-up-professional-nasa-knew-better-nasa_knew/
At the time I wrote that essay, I had not yet come to fully appreciate the concept of dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation, which you know I have been posting about for the last couple of years.
I am VERY CURIOUS about the future of NASA on the “climate” topic. I see great value in Earth observation satellite missions, especially in support of weather prediction. But hopefully the “climate” communication (misdirection!) mission is over now. We’ll see what happens.
BTW, what the pyrgeometer instruments are measuring and responding to is indeed a real thing, and should not be dismissed by skeptics of climate alarm, in my view.
‘BTW, what the pyrgeometer instruments are measuring and responding to is indeed a real thing, and should not be dismissed by skeptics of climate alarm, in my view.’
David, with all due respect, questioning what these instruments actually measure, i.e. directional energy flow or spectral radiance, is duly warranted. To be blunt, the former minimizes the importance of what you refer to as ‘motion’ with respect to energy transport within the troposphere. Fortunately, some physicists have been willing to push back against this. Per Michael Mishchenko:
“The RTE [radiative transfer equation] was introduced 125 years ago by Eugene von Lommel, while the heuristic concept of radiance was definitively formulated in 1906 by Max Planck. Subsequently, they were supplemented by the seemingly obvious concept of a directional radiometer [DR]. Since then, measurements with WCRs [well-collimated radiometers)]and calculations based on the RTE have been at the very heart of the disciplines of atmospheric radiation, remote sensing, astrophysics, heat energy transfer, and biomedical optics. Yet from the fundamental-physics perspective, both the discipline of DR and the RTT [radiative transfer theory] have been based on phenomenological notions many of which turned out to be profound misconceptions. It has been demonstrated that contrary to the widespread belief, a WCR does not, in general, measure the flow of electromagnetic energy along its axis, while the radiance cannot be interpreted as quantifying the amounts of electromagnetic energy transported simultaneously in various directions.”
And, finally, the next time someone tells you that they’ve affirmed the radiative GHE with their handheld IR device, show them this:
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Can-an-IR-Thermometer-detect-the-GHE3.pdf
Thanks for your reply, Frank.
About pyrgeometers, which utilize a hemispherical field of view, I would agree that the use of W/m^2 units in plots of “upwelling” and “downwelling” IR as in Surfrad is somewhat problematic. My sense is that the instruments do not actually measure a rate of “flow” of energy. Lots more to think about, but in any case my point was that the instrument is responding to a real thing in the wide-band infrared. At present, my best description would be that a pyrgeometer is measuring the strength of the IR source, using a hemispherical field of view, to estimate what the W/m^2 power intensity of energy flow would be if nothing were in the way. I admit I probably have a lot to learn on this topic.
All the best to you.
‘My sense is that the instruments do not actually measure a rate of “flow” of energy.’
Agreed. What they ‘measure’ is the radiance of the air in very close proximity to the instrument.
Hi Kevin…I am guilty of using very colloquial terminology….where the “greenhouse effect” is simply that the plants growing in the soil are warmer than they would otherwise be…simply because the air around them is warmer…..
Well, that’s certainly a novel description of the mythical GHE!
Everything above absolute zero is “warmer than [it] otherwise would be”, by definition.
You’ll need to do better than that.
That is basically because the absorption of insolation is based on the cosine of the angle of incidence of insolation. Cos(66) ≈ 0.4. And it gets smaller and smaller pretty fast as you move toward a pole.
All very interesting. I had a longish discussion with grok. Before time ran out it told me that ceres measurements were 340 in and 100 + 240 out. Eventually it refined those to these figures.
Incoming solar: ≈ 340.0 to 340.2 W m⁻²
Reflected shortwave: ≈ 97 to 99 W m⁻²
Outgoing longwave: ≈ 238 to 240 W m⁻²
I didn’t get around to two issues.
How in the heck it decided on 100 as a representation for the range 97 to 99.How the total of these centres on a range of anything other than +3.1 inbound when it kept telling me the total was +4.3 inbound.For my next topic I might ask what the figures were 100 years before the satellites started measuring and how those figures are known. Ditto for 100,000 years and 1,000,000 years ago.
Why do I think it is time to drive a large truck through the gaps in the settled science?
Thank you for your reply.
About the CERES numbers, it is important to know that the EBAF datasets have been adjusted as described here.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/31/2/jcli-d-17-0208.1.xml
“3) TOA flux adjustments
Despite recent improvements in satellite instrument calibration and the algorithms used to determine CERES TOA radiative fluxes, a sizable imbalance persists in the average global net radiation at the TOA from CERES satellite observations. With no adjustments to CERES SW and LW all-sky TOA fluxes, the net imbalance for July 2005–June 2015 is approximately 4.3 W m−2, much larger than expected. As in previous versions of EBAF, we use the objective constrainment algorithm described in Loeb et al. (2009) to adjust SW and LW TOA fluxes within their ranges of uncertainty to remove the inconsistency between average global net TOA flux and heat storage in the earth–atmosphere system, as determined primarily from ocean heat content anomaly (OHCA) data. In the current version, the global annual mean values are adjusted such that the July 2005–June 2015 mean net TOA flux is 0.71 ± 0.10 W m−2, …”
That paper is still referenced here.
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/data/documentation/
So my point is that the official CERES program documents describe how the numbers were generated for the EBAF product. It’s not a mystery that these figures are not “measured” per se.
“as determined primarily from ocean heat content anomaly (OHCA) data.”
If nothing else, what is the measurement uncertainty in the ocean heat content? That will be inherited by the anomalies.
Thank you for your reply.
Correct. About EEI and OHC uncertainties, see Cohler et al 2026 here.
https://papers.jcohler.com/argo-ohc/
Thank you. I hadn’t seen this before.
Sampling error is *NOT* measurement uncertainty.
Which applies to the global average temperature as well.
Just like they do with clouds. And then no uncertainty interval is propagated onto the adjustment value used and is, therefore, not propagated forward into subsequent calculations.
typical climate science meme: “all measurement uncertainty is random, Gaussian, and cancels” leaving only the sampling uncertainty which can be made vanishingly small by using a lot of data while ignoring the uncertainty of the data.
It’s how you get a lot of data that supposedly reduces sampling uncertainty. Each of those interpolated values should have an associated measurement uncertainty – but climate science just ignores that fact since the resulting measurement uncertainty of the average would become so large! Homogenization and infilling only serves to spread measurement uncertainty around over the entire data system. Which applies to the global average temperature as well as OHC.
Trying to identify a difference of 4W/m^2 with certainty when the measurement uncertainty is at least +/- 4W/m^2 is a losing battle.
————
I haven’t had the time to read and analyze the entire paper. But a first quick read doesn’t identify any major problems with the logic and math. I suspect climate science will just do as usual: ignore the paper totally. So will the mainstream media!
Thank you very much for this link!
It can be. With enough supposedly identically manufactured instruments plus enough repeated measurements a person can perform a reasonable gage R&R study to decide how much variation in measurements arise from the various influences such as instruments, operators, and variation in the underlying physical quantity.
In the case of satellites this isn’t possible because satellites possess unique instruments which are not an ensemble and the performance of which should be verified by building an uncertainty budget. It’s akin to trying to determine the uncertainty of a single measurement.
You are correct and NIST covers that pretty well for gauge studies. 2.4. Gauge R & R studies This section has a lot of information about uncertainty. It covers some areas that the GUM does not deal with.
For atmospheric temperatures, that just isn’t the case now and won’t be for quite some time. Even CRN stations carry a ±0.3C accuracy from NOAA and that doesn’t cover all the influence quantities that is needed. ASOS have a ±1.0C accuracy.
Uncertainty budget! When was the last time you saw one of these in a climate paper or by the warmests at this site? They wouldn’t know how to propagate it if you told them item by item.
No. Sampling error is associated with the accuracy of calculating the statistical descriptor known as the mean. It is a statistical descriptor itself, describing how well the estimated mean determined from sampling matches the actual population mean.
Measurement uncertainty is associated with the measurements themselves, not with the calculation of a statistical descriptor of the population.
Measurement uncertainty does not tell you how well the estimated mean from sampling matches the population mean.
“ With enough supposedly identically manufactured instruments plus enough repeated measurements a person can perform a reasonable gage R&R study to decide how much variation in measurements arise from the various influences such as instruments, operators, and variation in the underlying physical quantity.”
“variation in measurements” is measurement uncertainty, not sampling error.
“enough repeated measurements” is sampling error, not measurement uncertainty.
If you assume a Gaussian distribution of measurements, then the sampling error tells you how well the mean of the sample means approaches the mean of the population, i..e how “good” the mean is as a “best estimate” of the value of the measurand.
You are basically describing a Type A experimental measurement process. The standard deviation of the measurements defines the interval of values that can be reasonably assigned to the value of the measurand. The mean of that distribution is just a “best estimate”. That doesn’t make it a “true value”. The “true value” can be assumed to lie somewhere within the interval.
The sampling error tells you how “good” of an estimate the calculated mean is. The measurement uncertainty tells you the interval in which the “true value” is expected to exist.
Not the same.
Sort of. A Type B measurement uncertainty is typically used for single measurements. The GUM basically says that a Type A and a Type B measurement uncertainty are equivalent if done properly. Even an ensemble of repeatable measurements can suffer systematic effects which can’t be identified with statistical analysis. So even a Type A evaluation should have an uncertainty budget identifying possible systematic effects if nothing else. Even a micrometer calibrated between repeatable measurements can suffer from systematic effects caused by differing gear lash at different points. It may be small but whether it is significant depends on just how accurate the measurements need to be to meet requirements.
Thanks David. The adjustments you refer to are beyond my understanding. In my own simple understanding what satellites measure is what they measure. They need calibration but they don’t need adjustment to better fit other measurements, especially dodgy ones like those deriving from ocean heat. Never mind. I’ll plod on.
Is it this easy to calculate TOA?: TSI/4=TOA
Why is TSI at 1AU still used and not TSI at Earth distance for TOA calculation?
? Huh
Is TOA constant 25% of TSI or can it vary?
These are not constant heat rates. Solar constant is a constant. Area of a sphere is 4 times the area of a circle is a constant. Sunlight striking the surface varies from 0 to over 1000 from day to night, pole to equator, cloud cover, etc. 340 is the solar constant /4 assuming what goes out must equal what comes in…averaged over a suitably long time frame.
Victor, here’s 2008 daily numbers…big variation
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/05/16/wuwt-contest-runner-up-professional-nasa-knew-better-nasa_knew/
You can’t average it that way. As you pointed out 1000 strikes the earth from day to night. 340 will not give you the same temperature as 1000 in. T^4 is not linear.
Incoming solar: ≈ 340.0 to 340.2 W/m²
TOA 340.0*4 = TSI 1360.0 W/m²
TOA 340.2*4 = TSI 1360.8 W/m²
Total Solar Irradiance at Earth distance 20260722.500: 1319.7133 W/m²
1319.7133/4 = TOA 329.928325 W/m²
This is absolutely incorrect. It ignores the fact that insolation is a plane wave with equal intensity at all points and that absorption at the surface is based on the angle of incidence between the earth and the plane wave.
340 W/m² average means every point on the earth receives that value from the poles to the equator 24 hours a day. Does that sound reasonable?
It means no ice at the poles. Actually no ice anywhere – pretty much just a water planet. Wasn’t there a movie about that?
Does this mathematical formula correctly calculate incoming TOA?
It is not correct. The “πr²” term is only half of the surface area. Here is a picture of a frame used to capture shape of a surface. Imagine it being big enough to go over a large beach ball and that it has billions of small nails. Each nail represents a point on the EM plane wave that intersects the earth.
Will every nail intersect every point on the beach ball or only half of them?
For a math explanation. The first formula you show is:
F(θ, φ, t) = S₀ · max(0, cos Z(θ, φ, t)
Now think of any set of cos Z(θ, φ, t) that skips half the points on the surface. The surface area at any time “t” is 2πr².
Remember, the TOA is curved just like the earth. It doesn’t matter if you are discussing TOA or the surface of the earth.
Why do people use πr². Because the envision TOA as a flat face derived from a cross-section of the earth perpendicular to the EM plane wave. But, as I said above, TOA is not flat, it is curved and the plane wave flows over it just like nail board.
Here is a picture that might help.
Instead of just a few rays, think billions all parallel and all having an intensity of 1360 W/m². Just like that nail board passing over the beach ball. That make the formula with cos Z(θ, φ, t) work properly for the entire suface area at any time t.
A flat earth vs a round earth.
The solar radiation that irradiates the surface is the same.
What is the difference between solar radiation at the zenith and the outer edges?
What is the difference whether the solar radiation hits a flat surface or an angled surface when the solar radiation energy is the same?
Solar radiation at the zenith travels the shortest path through the atmosphere to reach the earth’s surface.
Solar radiation at the outer edges travels a significantly longer distance through the atmosphere to reach the earth’s surface.
This isn’t true and a common misconception. It assumes that the insolation is from a point source. Here is a page from a textbook, Practical Meteorology, Dr. Ronald Stull. It is available free at
https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/books/Practical_Meteorology/
Chapter 2 has lots of information.
Look at the image closely. It shows a ray hitting the earth at a latitude of 60°. You should note that the value of insolation is 1361 at that latitude. It is not reduced by spreading over a larger area. It is like nail in the nail frame I mentioned. They are all the same because the distance we are from the sun ends up looking like a flat plane wave.
I will also include this image that may give you an idea of the difference between a plane wave and point source.
See how the point source “spreads” the intensity over larger and larger areas. Then look at the plane wave. The intensity is constant.
I should explain that the sun’s radiation IS a sphere also. It does spread the intensity over larger and larger areas. However, at the distance the earth is from the sun the spherical surface has gotten so large that the earth subtends a very small area of the surface which makes it a plane wave for all intents and purposes. Otherwise, you would need to use something like 1361 + 1×10⁻²⁰ to describe the difference at various points on the earth. Lots of decimal zeroes in that.
You need to calculate or measure the number of watts reaching the Earth’s surface to get the correct answer.
Item 1: Again, this assumption results in the poles and the equator getting the same insolation. It is an incorrect 3d interpretation, i.e. no ice at the poles.
Item 2: Once again, this is based on the earth being a flat plane. I.e. the poles get the same amount of absorbed insolation as the equator AND the sun’s insolation being from a point source rather than a plane wave.
At any single point on the surface of the earth the sun travels a sinusoidal path. From 0deg at sunrise to pi/2 at noon, to pi at sunset. The angle of incidence of the sun’s rays is determined by the altitude of the sun and by the latitude.
This is a simplified example. It does not account for any tilting of the earth or the actual shape of the earth. But it is a far better 3D representation than trying to turn the earth into a flat plane where the angle of incidence is always 0deg.
Doesn’t matter. The amount of that irradiation that gets absorbed is just the part normal to the surface.
Did you ever do the inclined plane experiment in high school or university? If so, how did you separate the friction force from the accelerative force on the block you place on the inclined plane?
But the AMOUNT that gets absorbed is based on the angle of incidence. The angle of incidence is different at latitude 45deg then it is at 0deg. The shape of the absorbed curve is sinusoidal for both but the magnitudes are different.
This only changes the magnitude of the flux vector at the point it intercepts the surface. It doesn’t change the fact that the amount absorbed only depends on the normal component of the vector.
Again, this only affects the magnitude of the vector. It is the direction of the vector that determines the amount of that vector that gets absorbed.
The math is F · n, bolding indicate a vector quantity.
F · n = |F| |n| cos(θ), where |n| is the normal unit vector with a magnitude of 1 and θ is the angle between the flux vector and the normal vector.
Vertical, overhead rays have a θ value of cos(0) = 1.
But the sun is only vertical and overhead along the path of the sun – known as the Sun’s diurnal path, sometimes simplified to the “equator” as if the earth has no tilt, i.e. latitude 0.0000.
Again, the amount absorbed is based on the magnitude of the flux vector at the surface boundary crossed with the normal vector. All you are doing is saying that the flux vector F has a magnitude that is a function of latitude.
Call that latitude function sin(lat). The angle of incidence is also a function of sin(lat).
So F_absorbed is a function of the altitude of the sun during the day as well as the latitude.
Total joules absorbed is a surface integral, a double integral
|F| ∫∫ [2cos(θ)] sin(lat) dθ dlat, with θ and lat from 0 to pi/2.
The factor of 2cos(θ) comes from the total integral being from sunrise to noon (0 to pi/2) and from noon to pi, (pi/2 to pi).
This is the only 3D representation that makes sense. Trying to make the earth into a flat surface intersected by a plane wave results in the same insolation at the poles as at the center (i.e. the equator). That means you would have no ice at the poles if you have no ice at the equator.
Having less absorbed heat at the poles than at the equator requires the use of the angle of incidence between a spherical surface and a plane wave.
Solar radiation is not less at the outer edges of the Earth.
Solar radiation has the same strength at the outer edges of the Earth.
The atmospheric air mass is 40 times more at a 90 degree angle than at a 0 degree angle.
The atmosphere absorbs 40 times more solar radiation at the outer edges of the Earth than at the zenith.
This means that solar radiation at the Earth’s surface is significantly less at a 90 degree angle than at a 0 degree angle because the atmosphere absorbs more solar radiation at the outer edges of the Earth.
The solar radiation that the atmosphere absorbs must be included.
But the angle of incidence is! The Divergence Theorem for flux says only the normal component of the flux can cross the boundary of the receiving surface and be absorbed.
So what? This only determines the magnitude of the flux vector that impinges on the surface of the earth. It is still only the normal component of the flux vector that gets absorbed by the surface.
F_absorbed is a function of F · n = |F| |n| cos(θ)
You are just saying that |F| goes down as it passes through the atmosphere. That doesn’t affect the amount of F that gets absorbed at the Earth’s surface, the amount of F that gets absorbed depends on θ.
Again, so what? The impinging flux at the poles is *not* zero, it is F_pole. And the amount absorbed at the pole is F_pole · n. Nothing else makes physical 3D sense according to the Divergence Theorem.
F at the surface of the earth is a complex function. F(r(t), P(t),I_sun(t)) where r(t) is the distance from the sun, P(t) is path loss, and I_sun(t). There are probably other components I am forgetting right now. Each of these components is a function of its own since the orbital mechanics changes the distance between the sun and the earth over time, path loss is dependent on things like clouds that are themselves time functions, and on the variability of the sun’s emissions over time.
Good luck trying to write the absolute functional relationship among all these components. For a first approximation that matches physical 3D reality you can assume that the path loss is zero, you’ll still get the result that the poles absorb less than at the equator. It’s a big reason why they are colder than the equator.
This is an average. What is the variance of the absorption factor? Do you have any idea? E.g. the poles have less contaminants in the atmosphere than over New York state and therefore the absorption factor will be different. And that is just the spatial component of the functional relationship. The contaminants in the air over New York state and over the poles change from sunrise to sunset.
You are just saying that F_absorbed = F(I,θ) – f( P(θ) ) where P is the path loss function.
What is f( P(θ) )? It’s not a constant. If you parameterize it into a constant then all you do is change 1360 to something less. What would you change it to?
“The solar radiation that irradiates the surface is the same.”
The angle of incidence at a point on the surface from a plane wave flux vector changes for a round earth as you move the point.
The angle of incidence at a point on the surface from a plane wave flux vector does not change for a flat earth.
The amount of heat absorbed depends on the angle of incidence.
If the angle of incidence changes as you move the point being examined then the amount of heat absorbed changes also.
If the angle of incidence is constant as you move the point being examined then the amount of heat absorbed is also constant.
The fact that at any point in time the poles absorb less heat from the sun than the equator absorbs legislates that the earth be considered as being round and not flat.
Could it be that the poles absorb less heat because the mass of the atmosphere is 40 times more at a 90 degree angle?
That is a contributing factor. Good luck writing the functional relationship for that since at any point in time and space the path loss through the atmosphere is different since its composition is a complex function of many components that can change quickly.
The point is that even if the atmosphere contributed zero loss the poles would absorb less from the insolation because of the angle of incidence. You *can* write that functional relationship since all of its components are well known, e.g. oblate spheroid, angle of tilt, etc.
If the sun shines at a 90 degree angle on the Base of the rhombus, how much solar radiation does the surface at the Height receive?
The sun’s insolation doesn’t strike the base of the rhomboid at 90deg for most of the day.
Again, give us the functional relationship that determines the path loss along the rhomboid. Climate science can’t do it, it just assumes a bunch of constants like for cloud coverage.
Good luck.
Compare to a sphere.
At what angle does the sun hit the sphere?
Do you mean that the sun hits the sphere at different angles during the day?
Stop thinking “sphere”. Think “point” on the sphere.
Stop thinking of the sun as a point source, it isn’t at our distance from the sun.
The sun’s insolation wavefront is flat enough at the earth to be considered as a plane wave.
That means the flux vector has a constant direction in 3D space.
Grasp a softball in your hand and hold it out straight out from your body. The direction of the flux vector from the sun is down your arm. Does that direction impact the softball at the same angle everywhere?
You’ve been given images that explain this. Do they not make sense to you?
See the attached image. Do those arrows of the plane wave impact the curved surface of the sphere at different angles?
No, the earth turns. A point on the earth moves as the earth turns. The plane wave strikes that point at a different angle at sunrise and sunset then it does at noon.
The transfer across the surface of the earth from the insolation flux changes as the angle changes. It is the transfer at each point that determines the thermodynamic effects. The earth is not a homogeneous, isothermal black body. That changing angle and non-homogeneity results in different absorption amounts over the surface. It is the effect at each point that determines the temperature at that point.
Now things get complicated. Temperature is an intensive property, you can’t average temperature over an area even though climate science thinks you can. Intensive properties do not represent a physically meaningful field. The average, therefore, does not represent a physically meaningful value. Think of holding two rocks in your hand, one at 60F and the other at 70F. You do not have a temperature of 130F in your hand. The temperatures do *not* add physically which would be required for calculating a physical average. If they don’t add physically then their mean is also non-physical.
So trying to calculate the total absorption of the sun’s insolation by the earth and then relate it to an average temperature is fool’s gold.
You can perform a mathematical operation to calculate an average value but it only exists in statistical world and not in the real world.
Yes at any given point, the angle of the sunlight varies throughout the day. Here is an image from the insolation measured by my weather station. There are a multitude of images on the internet that show this.
As you can see, it follows a sine function. There is another angle that determines the value of insolation, I call it the effective latitude. Notice the time lag from insolation to atmospheric temperature.
Here is another image of the textbook I referenced earlier. It has a little more info. Notice all the angles that are necessary to actually account for how much insolation is absorbed.
The variations in the readings from your weather station are due to the fact that the thickness/density of the atmosphere varies during the day depending on the angle of the sun.
At the equator, the sun rises at 6:00 AM and sets at 6:00 PM.
If the atmosphere changes the angle of the sunlight, the sun rises earlier and sets later.
Does your sun meter’s surface follow the sun or is the sun meter a stationary horizontal flat surface that does not follow the sun?
It is stationary, just like all weather stations.
It measures based on a hemispherical (180°) lens.
Here is another image available on the internet just to validate what I’ve shown.
The solar radiation curve from sunrise to noon doesn’t look the same as from noon to sunset?
The morning curve doesn’t look like it has as many hours as the afternoon curve.
https://explainingscience.org/2019/03/09/solar-energy/
I think you can measure solar radiation scatters before sunrise or block direct solar radiation and block scatters with a tube.
https://spectralevolution.com/application-notes-environment/measurement-of-direct-and-diffuse-irradiance/
“”The solar radiation curve from sunrise to noon doesn’t look the same as from noon to sunset?””
The earth isn’t a sphere, and high clouds reflect insolation and varies throughout the day. Plus as you say, atmospheric scattering and absorption can change.
The sun meter must be placed in a level position. If the sun meter is not placed in a level position, it may cause the morning curve to not be the same as the afternoon curve.
The sun meter must be placed high for a clear view of the horizon.
“ If the sun meter is not placed in a level position, it may cause the morning curve to not be the same as the afternoon curve.”
Even if it is placed in a level position the morning curve may not be the same as the afternoon curve.
As the temperature goes up so does evaporation, i.e. water vapor in the atmosphere. Path loss is not the same for morning and afternoon because of changing water vapor.
*NO* sun meter is going to show a perfect curve. No matter how well placed it is. The bios sphere is a dynamic system, non-linear and chaotic.
That is why it has a built-in level bubble. It is at 2m height. That may limit the values at sunrise and sunset, but those values are at 1 W/m² which are minimal. Like 0.1%.
Do you have a mathematical formula for calculating the correct incoming TOA?
TOA is 1361 at all points that see the sun. The path length from TOA to the surface varies making albedo differences because of absorption and scattering.
TOA = incoming TSI/4 – outgoing reflected solar radiation.
Is the reflected solar radiation the same % at Aphelion and perihelion?
You are talking long term averages…answer…probably yes…but over shorter terms…just look at the temp anomalies shown by UAH, Dr. Roy Spencer…these variations are mostly caused by cloud cover variation of weather fronts moving across continents and oceans changing the ratio of absorbed to reflected sunlight over continent sized areas.
The distance to the sun only impacts the 1/r^2 value of the flux. It is distant enough to assume it is a plane wave at both points.
So unless the reflection coefficient of the earth is different at different points in time, the percentage of the sun’s insolation that gets reflected remains the same at both points in the orbit. If the magnitude of the flux vector changes due to the inverse square law the absolute value reflected will be different but the ratio should be the same if the reflection coefficient is the same.
David,
Re. your PS, there is no need to strike such a conciliatory pose with the radiative transfer theory (RTT) crowd. The ample evidence you continually provide here clearly indicates that the troposphere is highly convective. This means that the spontaneous absorbtion and emission of ‘photons’ in accordance with Kirchoff’s Law that is necessary to validate the application of RTT to energy transport therein does not occur.
Thanks for your reply, Frank.
“…there is no need to strike such a conciliatory pose…”
It’s not really meant as conciliatory, but pre-emptive.
It is plain in any case for all to grasp that energy transport to high altitude, for final emission to space as longwave radiation, is not uniquely dependent on continuous radiative transfer originating at the surface.
I appreciate that you have paid close attention to that whole issue in recent times.
Be well.
I never find anyone mentioning the thermodynamic aspect of the so called “radiative transfer”. Every transformation of energy must be subject to the entropic increase, Where is this taken into account in the consideration of the so called back-transfer?
Or, is it irrelevant?
At the molecular level, all the gases are involved in the black-body spread of radiation as well as the molecule specific absorption/emission wavelengths.
Surely little planet earth shares in the heat death of the universe which is happening all the time everywhere.
Thank you for your reply.
I prompted Grok to summarize how the production of entropy is involved. Here is the final response.
“The climate system absorbs incoming shortwave solar radiation primarily at Earth’s surface, which then drives atmospheric motions and the water cycle through evaporation, latent-heat transport, and condensation. These processes of circulation and phase change redistribute energy vertically and horizontally. Some of the processes can be regarded as reversible in an idealized sense, yet irreversibilities are necessarily involved in the real system. This allows energy to reach altitudes and latitudes from which it can be efficiently emitted as longwave radiation to space. In converting low-entropy solar energy into higher-entropy longwave radiation returned to space, the entire system produces entropy that sustains the continuous dissipation required for planetary energy balance.”
Here is the longer Grok conversation.
https://x.com/i/grok/share/84a880af0e7b49e1adeb6f5bbe778d69
Very good! I like the ‘elevator version’. Do you suppose that Grok could stay on message if one asked it to expand a bit on the role of GHGs and their collisions with non-IR active species with respect to ‘driving atmospheric motions’, or if it would then just revert to regurgitating the canonical heat trapping narrative?
There isn’t any “planetary energy balance”. The Earth has cooled, and continues to do so. You might hav3 noticed that the surface is no longer molten.
Any AI will agree, if you keep pointing out the facts.
Eventually the AI will issue grovelling apologies and promise to do better next time – and of course, it doesn’t, just regurgitating the same misinformation again.
Not just the surface is no longer molten. While volcanic eruptions are pretty constant over time, even millennia, the strength of the eruptions today is smaller than millennia (say 200,000 year) ago. That likely represents some kind of a cooling internally in the earth producing less pressure.
But we’ll probably have to go through another glacial/inter-glacial cycle to confirm this.
Phillip…
Radiative transfer is
q = ε σ (Th^4 – Tc^4) Ah
The back transfer is the -Tc⁴ part of that expression. It is not imaginary but it exists in conjunction of the view from a warmer body, and Tc is usually just the temperature of the surroundings of a warm object in most applications. Heat flow is always from warmer to cooler.
Change in entropy is the integral of dQrev/T….so for a given natural flow of Q, the T will be going downhill and the integral dQrev/T will be increasing.
You ask where the entropic increase is taken into account in “back transfer”. As you can see it is fundamental to the difference between fore and back which is net q.
“You ask where the entropic increase is taken into account in “back transfer”. As you can see it is fundamental to the difference between fore and back which is net q”
q = εσ (Th^4 – Tc^4)
is the net radiative flux.
Since the atmosphere and the earth have different emissivity’s the formula is a little more complicated.
q = σ (Th^4 – Tc^4) * 1/ ( (1/εh) + (1/εc) -1)
entropy is:
dS = dq/Tc – dq/Th
If Th > Tc then dq/Tc > dq/Th
and dS is positive and entropy increases. The Th surface loses heat and the Tc surface gains heat.
If Th < Tc then q becomes negative (Th^4 < Tc^4)
dS = -dq/Tc – (-dq/Th)
If Th < Tc then 1/Tc < 1/Th
and the positive term is greater than the negative term and dS remains positive. The heat flow is always from hotter (Tc) to colder (Th) when Tc > Th.
heat flow is always from hotter to colder so entropy change, dS, is always positive.
If the earth is warmer than the atmosphere then the “back” radiation never turns the entropy negative, which would be necessary for Th to go up due to the back radiation.
The fundamental problem is that gases, such as exist in Earth’s atmosphere, DO NOT have definable emissivity values. This is because emissivity depends on a defined surface , and gases instead absorb and emit thermal energy selectively depending on density/concentration, path length and specific wavelengths,and considering that one gas’ emission/absorption bands can be overlapped by another gas’ emission/absorption bands.
In the case of thermal radiation, it is NOT TRUE that heat (energy) always flows for hotter to colder. Heat flows out from any continuum of matter with a temperature above absolute zero, without that matter having any “knowledge” or consideration of their being external matter that is colder or hotter than it is. Period.
Heat and energy are *not* the same thing in thermodynamics. “Heat” is a transfer of energy caused by a temperature difference. Heat is not something a system has, it is a “thing” that crosses the boundary of a system.
Heat is not a state function but is a transfer function. It is a path dependent function.
Energy *is* something a system can have. It can take several forms, e.g. kinetic, potential, etc. It is a state function, not a transfer function for heat.
*HEAT* always flows from hotter to colder.
Energy can flow from colder to hotter but heat can not.
Heat is a flux. Energy is content.
Since heat is a flux vector, only the component normal to a surface transfers heat. Energy is not a flux vector, it is a content.
q = εσ(Th^4 – Tc^4) is a net “heat” flux, not a description of the transfer of energy.
I will admit that my professors teaching engineering thermodynamics in the 60’s didn’t do a very good job of explaining this, often conflating heat with energy.
It wasn’t until much later that I figured out that energy content is not a path dependent variable and that heat *is* a path dependent variable.
A change in energy content is typically shown as dE, a content function. A change in heat is typically shown as ẟQ to differentiate it as being a path dependent transfer.
∫dU from A to B is U(B) – U(A). The integral is not path dependent, just content dependent, i.e. a state variable.
∫ẟQ from A to B is not just Q(B) – Q(A). The integral is path dependent and describes a transfer variable, i.e. a flux not a state.
Hint for you: look up latent heat of fusion and latent heat of vaporization. I do believe you might discover that these are NOT “flux vectors” and are instead intrinsic properties of most matter.
That is all I need to say.
5 out of 10 for the first half….zero after your Th<Tc statement…and yes “it’s a little more complicated”…and “much more complicated” than your emissivity adjustment as well, view factors and all…figuring out the “entropy change of back radiation” is an error…you need to use your first formula for “q”….
Well yes, WV serves as a neg. feedback. More precisely the latent heat WV “does”, or the lapse rate feedback respectively. The problem is, no one understood this right, especially not some Lindzen or Spencer.
We see this in EVERY data set. OLR reacts strongly to changes in Ts. In the interannual proxy is typically well above 5W/m2, showing a strong negative feedback, is this is way larger than the planck response.
However, people do not see that, because they do not unterstand how to do regressions. Once one gets this right, it becomes super-obvious..
Sorry, David, I hit a serious speed bump in this statement in your second paragraph:
without this statement being subsequently challenged.
FWIW, at any given instant, about half the spherical surface of the Earth is having an average of about 340 joules/sec/m^2 * 0.7 = 238 joules/sec/m^2 of sunlight passing through the atmosphere to reach Earth’s surface.
Working out the numbers and considering the speed of light through just the stratosphere and troposphere (average depth of about 50 km), this amounts to some 1e^13 joules of solar EM spectrum energy existing in the “atmosphere” at any instant in time.
That relatively enormous amount of energy is going to end up somewhere, with an untold number of consequences.
It ends up somewhere for sure.
Radiated back out to space…
At night, the heat in the atmosphere that has been built up during the day disappears.
When the sun rises in the morning, the temperature of the atmosphere rises by a constant number of degrees for each hour that passes during the day.
Solar radiation during the day is the reason that the temperature rises constantly for each hour that passes.
That is why it is not hottest at 12:00 in the middle of the day, but in the evening when the sun sets.
During daylight hours, the surface of Earth also radiates LWIR into the atmosphere and into space (through the “atmospheric window”).
As for
That obviously ignores things such as atmospheric temperature decreases during daylight hours due to increasing cloud coverage, rainstorms, cold fronts, and snowstorms and icestorms.
Are these statements true:
If the Earth’s temperature increases, evaporation from the oceans increases, causing more clouds.
If the Earth’s temperature decreases, evaporation from the oceans decreases, causing fewer clouds.
Tmax typically does not occur at sunset, it occurs earlier, typically mid-afternoon. Tmax occurs when the heat input equals heat output – and the earth does output heat even during the day. Once the sun is past zenith, heat input goes down letting the cooling rate of the earth catch up. Once that happens the temperature goes down. Tmax basically occurs when insolation and T^4 heat loss are equal.
If Tmax occurs at mid-afternoon, the Earth will lose thermal radiation after this time in this time zone for the rest of the day.
The Earth loses thermal radiation during most of the day.
A graph over a day showing incoming TOA varies during the day shows that solar radiation is not equally strong over the Earth’s surface.
“ the Earth will lose thermal radiation after this time in this time zone for the rest of the day.”
I’m not sure what you mean by this. It doesn’t “lose” anything. As the sun travels across the sky the angle of incidence to a point on the surface changes. It goes from 0 at sunrise to Imax at noon and back to zero at sunset.
“shows that solar radiation is not equally strong over the Earth’s surface.”
It doesn’t vary just by time of day but also by latitude. Both work to determine the 3D vector angle of incidence. Only the normal component of the insolation vector gets absorbed.
I thought that when the temperature drops, the earth loses heat.
When the temperature rises, the earth gains heat.
When temperature changes are measured over a day.
But the temperature doesn’t drop all the time. It goes up some of the time. It loses heat *all* the time but that doesn’t mean that heat input can’t be greater than heat loss part of the time.
What needs to be looked at is joules-in vs joules-out over time, not temperature.
It is possible to convert temperature variations to joules and compare with solar radiation.
It is not possible to convert atmospheric temperature directly solar radiation. There are two bodies, the oceans and land, that are intermediaries in the process. It goes “solar -> ocean/land -> atmosphere”. Both ocean and land store heat that is not radiated to the atmosphere. That has to be included in any analysis.
Is it possible to calculate the time it takes for ocean/land -> atmosphere to lose the stored energy if no solar radiation is supplied?
Then the energy supplied by solar radiation for each day can be calculated.
The difference between lost and supplied energy shows whether the Earth is losing energy or gaining energy.
“The difference between lost and supplied energy shows whether the Earth is losing energy or gaining energy.”
Correct.
But energy is not flux. Ask yourself why climate science tries to balance flux instead of joules.
Is it possible to calculate the time it takes for ocean/land -> atmosphere to lose the stored energy if no solar radiation is supplied?
I am working on that for land. It is a difficult task because there is little data on soil temperatures at varying depths beyond hourly measurements at USCRN stations. Oceans can store heat for years, decades, and some say centuries. But again, we don’t have good measurements that can isolate the changes.
“It is possible to convert temperature variations to joules and compare with solar radiation.”
Actually it isn’t. Latent heat doesn’t show up in temperature. But it *is* energy content in joules. So adding latent heat adds joules but you can’t convert it to temperature.
From a thermodynamic concept, joules is a state property, heat is a transfer property.
Joules can be transferred from cold to hot and hot to cold. Heat can only be transferred from hot to cold.
Content is a straight addition, it is a state variable. Heat transfer is path dependent, it is not a straight addition.
While energy and heat both use the same dimension of “joules”, they are not the same. Energy is a quantity, heat is a flux.
Think of it this way: The earth is T_hot and the atmosphere is T_cold. The earth can transfer joules of energy to the atmosphere and the atmosphere can transfer joules of energy to the earth. BUT, from a thermodynamic point of view, the earth can transfer heat to the atmosphere but the atmosphere can’t transfer heat to the earth. Since the flux emitted by the two are temperature dependent the flux from the earth will always be greater than the flux from the atmosphere — i.e. so heat transfer will always be from the earth to the atmosphere.
It’s why q = εσ (Th^4 – Tc^4) is always positive. (or perhaps zero at equilibrium, i..e Th = Tc). This is a heat transfer equation.
Just not possible that some of it goes into warming ocean water or melting ice on Earth’s surface?
Sheesh. FWIW, IDK, maybe you just have TMTOYH.
Be well. 🙂
Oh, it’s OK, I can take a hint when scientific discussion is not welcomed.
But in a sense you’re right, there are many other issues more important to focus on than the energy content of the atmosphere.
Think of it this way, TYS. Let’s use the full central value of TSI of 1361 W/m^2. Same as 1361 Joules/(sec-m^2). The speed of light is 300,000 km per second. So it takes 300,000 km to “contain” those 1361 Joules coming toward a 1 m^2 receiver. 50 km of that 300,000 km would “contain” 50/300000*1361=0.227 J. So 0.227 Joules are “contained” at any instant within the 50 km deep by 1 m^2 volume occupied by a column of the atmosphere. This is the same as 0.227 Watt-seconds/m^2 or 0.000063 Watt-hours/m^2.
My post was about values of total energy in the 100,000’s of Watt-hours/m^2 and latent energy in the 10,000’s of Watt-hours/m^2 and hourly changes of both of these quantities in the 1000’s of Watt-hours/m^2.
There you have it, FWIW.
Be well.
Sorry, there is this mathematical conversion mistake in the last sentence of your first paragraph of your comment (my correction in bold):
“This is the same as 0.227 Watt-seconds/m^2 or
0.000063817 Watt-hours/m^2.”Take care, and you be well too.
TYS, you’ve earned a new name. I will call you Shirley.
“This is the same as 0.227 Watt-seconds/m^2 or
0.000063817 Watt-hours/m^2.”Shirley you can’t be serious.
That is all for now.
Class dismissed.
Class dismissed, OK . . . but this is your homework (beyond recognizing that there are 3600 seconds in one hour):
Point out the logic error in these sequential statements
“So 0.227 Joules are “contained” at any instant within the 50 km deep by 1 m^2 volume occupied by a column of the atmosphere. This is the same as 0.227 Watt-seconds/m^2 or 0.000063 Watt-hours/m^2”
Hint for you: when something is happening on a continuous basis, it does not vary with the time interval over which it is evaluated.
Be super well . . . ta da, “Shirley the Serious”!
Dear Shirley, as you apparently are still present in after-class detention,
Please go to Google to straighten out your unit conversion problem by entering, “Convert 0.227 Watt-seconds per square meter to Watt-hours per square meter”. That is the issue here.
Best to you. 🙂
Someone doesn’t understand dimensional analysis. They also don’t understand that an “instant” is not a second, an instant is where a state value derives from. The next “instant” can have a different value.
0.227 Joules/sec/m^2 * 3600 seconds/hr = 817.2 Joules/hr/m^2, which does NOT equal 0.000063 Watt-hours/m^2.
Because “Joules per hour” is a measure of power (energy over time) and a “watt-hour” is a measure of total energy, the conversion depends on a specific timeframe.
Now, you were saying something about understanding dimensional analysis?
Very little solar radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere. Most is either reflected back to space or absorbed by the surface. The radiation energy associated with atmospheric energy density is that radiation which is generated in the atmosphere via collisions and is in local equilibrium with the kinetic energy of the air molecules. This radiation accounts for ~10E-4 of the total overall atmospheric energy.
So you say, without citing a reference for such an assertion.
However,
“About 23 percent of incoming solar energy is absorbed in the atmosphere by water vapor, dust, and ozone . . .“, according to NASA Science (see https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/climate-and-earths-energy-budget/ ). The hemisphere of Earth illuminated by the Sun has an areal average about 680 W/m^2 of incoming power flux.
Please define your quantitative bound for “very little”.
‘“About 23 percent of incoming solar energy is absorbed in the atmosphere by water vapor, dust, and ozone . . .“, according to NASA Science’
I wonder how much of that 23% is UV absorbed by ozone, which I presume occurs in the stratosphere. Unfortunately, my browser’s search assistant seems incapable of coming up with a specific percentage:
‘The ozone layer absorbs a significant portion of incoming solar radiation, particularly ultraviolet (UV) light, but the exact percentage of total incoming solar radiation absorbed by the ozone layer is not specified.’
Seems odd, given that not too long ago the crisis de jure was over the appearance of the so-called ozone hole. Do you have a number?
I first put this question to Google’s AI bot:
“What percent of incoming solar radiation is in the UV spectrum?”
and in less than one second got this reply:
“Approximately 5% to 7% of incoming solar radiation at the top of Earth’s atmosphere is in the ultraviolet (UV) spectrum. This percentage drops to about 3% to 5% by the time sunlight reaches the Earth’s surface due to atmospheric absorption.”
Next I put this question to Google’s AI bot:
“What percent of incoming solar UV radiation is absorbed in Earth’s atmosphere?”
and in less than one second got this reply:
Earth’s atmosphere absorbs approximately 95 to 99 percent of incoming solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation, primarily handled by the stratospheric ozone layer, oxygen, and water vapor.
Breakdown by UV Wavelength
— UVC (100–280 nm): 100% absorbed (completely blocked by oxygen and ozone).
— UVB (280–320 nm): 90% to 99% absorbed (mostly filtered by the ozone layer, allowing only a tiny fraction to reach the ground).
— UVA (320–400 nm): Very little absorption (mostly passes through the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface).
(Note: as you might observe from the above, Google’s AI bot gives inconsistent answers to separate questions . . . CAVEAT EMPTOR.)
Maybe it’s time to upgrade your browser search engine?
Let’s see, we have 23% of incoming solar is absorbed by the atmosphere [per NASA], of which 2% is UV [5% to 7% vs 3% to 5% per Google AI]. What comprises the remaining 21%?
You need to understand that not all of that 23% of incoming solar radiation that is absorbed is in the UV spectrum; there is a significant amount of solar radiation in the visible to far infrared (LWIR), even to RF portion of the EM spectrum, that is also absorbed in the atmosphere.
‘You need to understand that not all of that 23% of incoming solar radiation that is absorbed is in the UV spectrum…’
My arithmetic came up with about 2% for UV (see above). My question was what comprises the remaining 21%. Does NASA provide any detail on this, or are we just supposed to take their word for it, a la their modeled, but never measured, back radiation.
Sorry, I no longer care to approximate being your lap dog.
Mr Dibbell,
Thank you for reminding us that thermodynamics is NOT restricted to radiative heat transfer. (From another old-school engineer.)
Thanks for your reply. Good to know I’m not alone. 🙂
David, not to be pedantic (g), but . . .
According to Feynman, all physical processes in the universe (with the exception of nuclear interactions and gravity) can be explained using the following –
The interaction between light and matter is radiative by definition – an electron absorbs or emits a photon.
A GHE requires magic.
MF….The GHE is photons moving from place to place
So is every other physical process in the universe. You’ll have to do a bit better than that.
There is no GHE.
20m from a bonfire on a still night, you might not even feel any heat energy…
…. until a waft of breeze blows your way. 🙂
A control volume—remember those from old-school engineering? . . . I certainly do—drawn around Earth and not including the Sun will show that the overall thermodynamics of Earth’s energy balance is governed only by radiative heat transfer into/out of that control volume.
No kidding, TYS. There is no suggestion in my post or replies, or anyone else’s reply, that the Earth as a total system receives and rejects energy by any other means than radiation.
Sheesh.
Be well.
Pig wrestling come to mind?
Well, you do reference and then go on the expound upon this statement
“Total atmospheric energy is made up of internal, potential, kinetic and latent energy.”
I don’t see any reference to incoming EM radiation energy from the Sun or to outgoing LWIR radiation energy from Earth . . . you know, considering Earth as a “total system”.
But, hey, no use in beating a dead horse. I’m outa here!
Stay well.
No need to “expound” at all. In my post, I linked to the ERA5 parameter definition that included that statement. That’s how ERA5 handles it. Sunshine and longwave emission are not ignored in the model, obviously.
“I’m outa here!”
Nice. See ya!
You forgot to include time in your example. There is no requirement that the input over a given time period equals the output over that same time period.
This is a good point, noting the huge energy storage capacity, for example, represented in the latent energy within the atmosphere. Not to mention the oceans.
No, first, I did not give “an example”, I gave an observation and associated calculation; and second, my reference to the total amount of solar EM energy present in the atmosphere at any instant presumed that readers would understand that was a continuous process because a hemisphere of the Earth is always in sunlight.
Specifying a time interval is not necessary for processes that are continuous in the temporal domain.
Your are correct that there is no “requirement” that Earth’s radiative output equals Earth’s radiative input over any given time period . . . but the imbalance between the two is the central issue to debating Earth being in an overall warming trend versus being in an overall cooling trend.
Furthermore, many scientists have duly noted the fact that Earth’s surface temperature has remained remarkably stable over the last 10,000 years, fluctuating by no more than about 1°C, thereby giving strong evidence that Earth has a thermoregulatory mechanism that is little understood by the majority of “climate scientists”.
You seem to be conflating “continuous” with “constant”. Processes that are “continuous in the temporal domain” can certainty be something other than constant. The path of the sun on the surface of the earth is a continuous process but it’s impact on the surface is not a constant.
The imbalance of importance is *NOT* the radiative flux. The imbalance of importance is the difference between joules-in and joules-out of the system. The radiative flux at any point in space and time will *NEVER* balance. The earth is at a different temperature than the sun, the flux values will never be equal.
The earth gains joules over a 12 hour period but it loses joules over 24 hours. There better be an imbalance in the radiative flux in and out! If there isn’t such an imbalance the earth would be either an ice ball or a molten ball today.
Say what?
How does “joules-in” versus “joules out” of the Earth system vary if not by the balance of radiative flux transfer of power???
Say what?
You dismiss the option where there is essentially a near-balance, such as exists on Earth right now, and where there is cycling between warm (interglacial) and cold (glacial) conditions.
Since the flux-in and flux-out occurs over different time frames you can’t compare them. The energy in the system is based on the energy content, not the rate at which the energy is injected or removed. Joules of energy is the measure of content, not joules/sec of flux.
Again, radiative flux is a RATE. Joules of energy is CONTENT. Rates don’t have to balance. X joules/sec-m^2 over 12 hours can be balanced by Y joules/sec-m^2 over 24 hours where X ≠ Y. Y = X/2 will cause a balance in energy content over 24 hours.
“Say what?”
If X joules/sec-m^2 over 12 hours inward vs X/2 joules/sec-m^2 ourward don’t result in a content balance of joules then the earth will eventually wind up with 0 joules of energy content at some point and become a frozen ball OR it will wind up with a continually growing energy content that will eventually result in a molten ball.
I don’t dismiss the possibility that the earth is gaining energy. But because of measurement uncertainty in the flux values, it is also likely that the earth is losing energy overall.
I have yet to see where in climate science anyone has been able to calculate energy gain and energy loss with enough accuracy to be able to definitely say which is happening, especially when it must be done over at least centuries of time, your interglacial and glacial periods.
Nyquist doesn’t just specify that sampling rates must be fast enough to identify high frequency signal components, it also specifies that observation intervals must be long enough to identify low frequency signal components. At least two low frequency cycles must be observed. For glacial and interglacial components that is a LONG time interval for which measurements must be available.
The sampling measurements must also be of sufficient accuracy and resolution to identify differences in measurement values. We don’t even sample ocean heat content with sufficient resolution to tell what differences exist over short time intervals *today*, let alone millennia in the past.
Think about what you are saying here. If the flux in equals the flux out, can there be any temperature change? Would nights be the same temperature as the day?
For temperature to change, there must be an imbalance between joules absorbed and joules emitted.
Think of it this way. I shine a 100 kw laser at a metal ball for a second and it glows white hot. Does it cool down to the original temperature in the next second? If not, then the fluxes don’t balance and never will. What does balance? Joules in and joules out. Just the times vary, not the energy.
Show us a reference for the 1°C quote. Even then, what is the variance? ±4°C?
Simple request, simple answer:
“For 10,000 years leading up to the 20th century, our climate was remarkably stable. The Earth’s average temperature never changed by more than about 1° C, and only in slow, steady shifts over thousands of years.”
—https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-do-we-know-what-earths-climate-was-millions-years-ago
“The Earth’s average temperature”
The operative word is “average”.
Averages hide population variance. What *is* the variance of the population?
It is the variance of the population that is the metric for uncertainty, not the variance of the averages.
The Starmer curse
Sadiq Khan Set to Be Britain’s Best-Paid Politician as He Hints He Will Claim £390-a-Day House of Lords Allowance on Top of His £170k London Mayor Salary
https://dailysceptic.org/2026/07/25/sadiq-khan-set-to-be-britains-best-paid-politician-as-he-hints-he-will-claim-390-a-day-house-of-lords-allowance-on-top-of-his-170k-london-mayor-salary/
Unprintable…
Men with feet of clay.
I’d say he has way more than one negative characteristic. He is a Trojan Horse.
We have them here, as well. ‘Funny’ how our previous forays into the affairs of others in foreign lands often seem to have negative consequences.
https://fee.org/articles/the-conquest-of-the-united-states-by-spain/
Almost 10 years since:
Green Guru James Lovelock reverses belief in ‘global warming’: Now says ‘I’m not sure the whole thing isn’t crazy’
https://www.climatedepot.com/2016/10/01/green-guru-james-lovelock-reverses-belief-in-global-warming-now-says-im-not-sure-the-whole-thing-isnt-crazy/
So, how many more years of Net Zero craziness before reality and economics return?
nice find!
Lovelock was a hero and inspirational to me. I first met him in the 80’s, as my boss and he were good friends. He came to Colorado a couple of times and I got to share some time with him. I was able to attend his 100th birthday in Exeter in 2019.
He was a genius inventor. He would admit when he was wrong. He let theory guide but experiment decide. He also enjoyed life, would walk every day and smiled and laughed to the end even as his flame flickered.
Meanwhile in 6th form college…
Britain’s homes weren’t built to cope with this. The country’s historically mild climate allowed developers to build houses without insulation.
So, Sadistic Khan has a heat plan for London
London’s heat-ready plan puts forward a collective response based on sensible measures that should serve as a roadmap for other cities, such as retrofitting homes with shutters, installing air conditioning in schools and other public buildings, planting more trees for shade, and providing more swimming spots where people can take a dip.
No air conditioning for those homes he says cannot cope. Save yourself the expense of shutters and close the curtains instead. As for places to swim…
Pace of swimming pool closures increasing warn Swim England and ukactive
4 June 2025
New analysis reveals that 76% of the publicly accessible water space lost in the past 15 years has disappeared since 2020, highlighting the escalating crisis facing the sector.
With increasing financial pressures, ageing facilities and rising operational costs, many more pools and leisure centres are at risk of closure, leaving communities without vital spaces for physical activity and social connection.
There isn’t any money, he knows it and we know it. There will not be any increase in swimming spots where people can take a dip
Instead the dips are in control.
Green name calling listed. Fun stuff.
https://www.cfact.org/2026/07/23/end-climate-assessment-propaganda/
Last week’s Open Thread raised concerns regarding local thermodynamic equilibrium models. Consider a one-dimensional ‘gedankenexperiment’ with boundary temperatures 300K and 100K and a steady-state energy flux of 100 W. Carnot’s Equation tells us 2/3 will be dissipated or available for potential work. At some intermediate point there will be a temperature of 200K. Suppose we now imagine our system as two tandem Carnot cells, 300K > 200K and 200K > 100K. The first will dissipate 1/3 of the flux, the second ½, totaling 5/6 > 2/3. Uh-oh! Suppose one now models the system into 200 tandem 1K Carnot layers. Might this represent local thermodynamic equilibrium for a laminar atmospheric model? My spreadsheet says 164W is being dissipated!
The explanation for this paradox is that only Helmholtz free energy can be dissipated. While the total energy flux remains 100W throughout, its free energy component is steadily decreasing as energy flows from 300K to 100K. A 300K Boltzmann equilibrium distribution might be assumed at the source, but how is it changing as a steady-state energy flux flows between boundaries???
I have a vague memory from undergrad ChE thermodynamics that a Carnot cycle is reversible. I’m pretty sure this cannot be said about the process wherein a warm parcel of gas in the troposphere lifts and expands.
and cools or heats – i.e. non-isothermal
Indeed, dS > 0.
Your spreadsheet is wrong – probably infected with a GHE virus!
Poor Germans, riddled with nut zero nonsense and now the left’s 2 sacred cows are not getting along.
Wind Energy is not clean energy; the energy in exceeds the energy generated over its life time. All the energy required to build and maintain its generating capacity is supplied by other means.
First consider the energy required to manufacture all the heavy equipment and material used to mine and process all the materials required for the manufacture, distributing, transporting and maintaining the generators and the additional grid network required to maintain efficiency. Therefore all the energy generated is less than the fossil fuel and other sources of energy used to produce it. So every watt of energy produced by wind is less than the other sources mainly fossil fuels that are wasted on wind generation.
That is why the CO2 curve from Mona Loa keeps rising at a slight exponential rate in spite of all the increases in clean energy generation. Forget all this nonsense about energy storage and emergency backup needs. Batteries are great for all hand held tools and solar charging for remote equipment needs. We need some papers presented listing all the energy needs required to measure the efficiency of wing energy.
excellent comment. what you did not directly mention is the many coal and gas generators that sit at warm or hot standby producing little to no energy waiting for the call to ramp up to meet demand when wind and solar go flat. its like leaving you car idling in the driveway over night because you may travel somewhere tomorrow. wast of resource gets no worse that this.
I find it amazing that so many people have so much faith in the efficacy of government. My experience has been that governments at all levels are costly, inefficient, plagued by favoritism and political bias, and mostly uncaring. Just try to get advice from the IRS or try visiting a social security office to discuss an issue, or a hundred other examples. Almost no one in government bureaucracy seems to work very hard or to care. (I know there are exceptions and some government workers honestly try to do a good job. But they are outnumbered by the ones just seeking a safe easy salary.)
Admittedly there are things that only the government can do, like for example national defense, and other things that it is most efficient to be handled by government. But government has gone way beyond those few things.
We’ve never had more socialists. Yet it seems that at best government regulation and control leads to stagnation and eventual decline, and at worst it leads to mass poverty and millions of deaths.
As Henry David Thoreau said in the first line in “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” – “That government is best which governs least.”
The more youthful you are…the more you believe someone higher up will look after you…your parents as a kid, your teachers as a school kid, for some their God,…maybe at university you find you can fail, the prof puts responsibility on you for performance….but you also find you will be graded “on the curve” and the sports scholarship folks get many hours to do the 2 hour exams and all semester to turn in those weekly assignments, them being “more equal” than you….then you go out to work and find a big tax burden on your paycheck…and after facing potential unemployment and business failure a time or two, you find out you are pretty much on your own, by the time middle age hits, you are very skeptical of how much the gov’t “wants to do for everyone” and realize a politicians game is actually as a simple vote garnering strategy aimed at the inexperienced…
The secrete to good government is to elect, to represent you, the very best people rather than the worst.
By best people I mean educated, intelligent and honest. But above all, so those qualities may come to the fore, independent.
Over the past year I have waged a snail mail campaign since WUWT is about the only web site I’m not banned or cancelled.
Estimating from boxes of 50 count envelopes, reams of paper, ink cartridges and sheets of both domestic and global forever stamps 750+.
We all know that out of those hundreds there would be dozens if not scores of enraged, foaming at the mouth retorts.
Actual number of replies: one big fat ZERO!
That zero is only possible if my snail mail is not delivered, opened or read.
The USPS considers it its obligation to prevent the mails from nefarious purposes, i.e. misinformation.
Did they simply dead letter? Or shred?
Shall we test it?
What’s your snail mail?
I suggest recipients of said mail are versed enough to know that outer space is -270 C…not warm as you claim….GHE exists not doesn’t as you claim….your boiling kettle experiment ignores radiation from the surroundings…which is the “back radiation” you claim doesn’t exist, their checks of energy budget diagrams show that they balance which you claim they don’t, by invoking “generally agreed accounting principles” instead of “conservation of energy between ground-troposphere-outerspace”…so they put “reply letter to NS” on the same priority as “reply letter to last week’s Pottery Barn advert”.
Remove the Earth’s atmosphere or even just the GHGs and the Earth becomes much like the Moon, no water vapor or clouds, no ice or snow, no oceans, no vegetation, no 30% albedo becoming a barren rock ball, hot^3 (400 K) on the lit side, cold^3 (100 K) on the dark. At Earth’s distance from the Sun space is hot (394 K) not cold (5 K).
That’s NOT what the RGHE theory says.
EVIDENCE:
RGHE theory says “288 K (15 C) w – 255 K (-18 C) w/o = a 33 C colder ice ball Earth.” 255 K assumes w/o case keeps 30% albedo, an assumption akin to criminal fraud. Nobody agrees 288 K is GMST plus it was 15 C in 1896. 288 K is a physical surface measurement. 255 K is a S-B equilibrium calculation at ToA. Apples and potatoes.
Nikolov “Airless Celestial Bodies”
Kramm “Moon as test bed for Earth”
UCLA Diviner lunar mission data
JWST solar shield (391.7 K)
Sky Lab golden awning
ISS HVAC design for lit side of 250 F. (ISS web site)
Astronaut backpack life support w/ AC and cool water tubing underwear. (Space Discovery Center)
If “back” radiation, i.e. heat flowing from a cooler system to a warmer system without added work were real there would be refrigerators without power cords. I have not seen any. You? The cooling by the surroundings is due to the kinetic processes as demonstrated by experiment.
TFK_bams09 does not balance & creates energy out of thin air.
If I am so wrong, why am I censored??
“Why am I so censored ?”
Cuz you are so incorrect that it isn’t worth considering. I comment to keep newbies from falling for your nonsense…
The next ~60 year cycle cool phase transition may already have started. Where will that lead?
Several rare events have shown up this year. The Atlantic “cold blob” has gotten colder. Greenland is having its coldest summer on record. An Atlantic Nina has appeared. Record cold in Antarctica. Of course, we are also seeing a strong El Nino building which will temporarily raise the global temperature.
As all of these events work their way through the global climate, where will we be in 2027?
I suspect one other important event is occurring under the radar. The next phase of the ~60 year cycle is starting. This is the cool phase and it is due. In my opinion, this cycle is driven by variations in deep Arctic ocean temperature which then drives sea ice melting/growth.
We’ve been in the sea ice melting phase for the past ~30 years. This has allowed the Arctic Ocean to cool. This cooling will now lead to growth in sea ice.
As the sea ice expands we will see an expansion of cold air in the Arctic. This will push the polar jet stream further south which also leads to increased clouds (the jet stream covers a larger area). This will cool adjacent northern hemisphere regions. The global temperature will drop.
It won’t happen immediately. It took a decade to melt the majority of Arctic sea ice. It will happen over time and be difficult for climate alarmists to explain.
this is something i have wanted to post here for some time. i know i will get hammered but no guts no glory. question: how do we know the reported ppmv of co2 measured at mona loa (or from other facilities) is the true amount?
is it lower that 430ppm?
is it higher?
is it lower but reported as higher?
mona loa is assumed to be the gold standard facility.
my research shows that Mona loa is run by noaa and another institution,
scripps institution of oceanography. i will let someone else comment whether any bias is present.
who is checking there homework.
trust, but verify.
Joe, I suggest that a more appropriate question would be “what is the optimum CO2 level in the atmosphere??” Apparently it has been all over the place with highs in the geologic history as much as 10 times what Mona reports for today. Another good question is just what is the optimum global average temperature–if there even is such a thing.
those are very good questions. in fact, i and others have asked those very questions to certain parties on this forum. no answers given. some people in my small social circle will respond with, i don’t know but lower than they are now to both.
now what do you do?.
engage and try to help this poor soul?
nah. let them live in ignorance.
the juice not worth the squeeze.
Or the optimum O2 level? What about N2? “Should” there be more – or less?
Why, or on the other hand, why not?
I’m ignorant and apathetic – I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’ll let others worry furiously on my behalf.
The reported ppmv of co2 measured at mona loa is –
just the reported p.p.m.v. of CO2 measured at Mona Loa.
Samplings from other localities at different times would no doubt present different readings.
Would these be cited?
Probably not.
i hear ya. can you imagine the ripple effect across the globe if co2 levels were proven to be 50 ppm lower than the stated 430.
or better yet…proven to be 500ppm.
can you imagine the scramble to re-adjust all the climate models?
“can you imagine the scramble to re-adjust all the climate models?”
How about if CO2 is not well-mixed in the atmosphere and a complex function of time, geography, terrain, wind speed, humidity, etc would be needed to to describe the 3D variance of the CO2 concentration.
How would the climate models handle this? How would the function even be determined. Think clouds are hard to characterize? Try CO2.
“Samplings from other localities at different times would no doubt present different readings.”
Not according to climate science. CO2 is well-mixed in the atmosphere – meaning it is the same everywhere. Just one more garbage assumption by climate science.
(note: it is one of the reasons why climate science says their models can’t predict regional climate – because all regions are assumed to be the same when it comes to CO2 when they really aren’t the same)
How about time of day in 24 hour cycle? How about specific locations?
In a forest, it is lower in brightest time of a sunny day and highest before dawn on a day in a time of very cloudy conditions making it dull.
One prominent lecturer takes his CO2 meter to his venues and when indoors often gets readings over 1000 ppm.
There are other monitoring sites around the globe …..
https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=SPO&program=ccgg&type=ts
Joe: I’m a little late with this. But for what it’s worth, the Keeling CO2 measurement program involved, and still involves, regular measurements at a number of sites covering a latitude range from the Arctic to the Antarctic. You can find details at their web site https://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/. The measurements do show that CO2 like O2,N2, and Ar and unlike H2O is well mixed in the atmosphere. (Well, the lower atmosphere anyway).
Not only is there little meaning in the “true” amount but also there is no meaning in talking about the “normal” amount and the idea of “optimal” is really stretching the limits of misunderstanding.
I bristle a bit when anyone politely addresses the alarmist media publications as ‘got it wrong’ on the climate change file. IMO, they got nothing wrong. They made a conscious choice to promote the politically popular and far more lucrative climate panic agenda. They’re not stupid but they are self-serving and notably without moral compunction.
How is it we have found ourselves in a place where during a golf tournament (the British Open… won by a Kiwi incidently) a competitor, (Bryson DeChambeau) who broke the rules by “inadvertently improved his intended backswing”, thinks it is ok to threaten to ring the president of the US to help him beat the officials? I mean come on, it’s not like Trump has a history of leaning on officials in sporting events to gain advantage for his buddies/team. Oh wait…..
And then we hear that those fine pillars of society the Tate brothers have also asked Trump to intervene in their arrest and deportation.
TDS will do that to you. Now tell us all about the illegals who are not voting in elections.
Not surprised you dropped by….. I bet you think the Tate brothers are wonderful people.
Did you ever find that pee pee tape…lol
You crack me up
You seem to have this fetish for golden showers. I’m not sure why. But hey, your life, your business. I’ve certainly never mentioned them with regard to Trump. I am way more concerned he protects paedophiles than who may or may not piss on him.
Tate, Epstein, Giuliani, Putin…quite some illustrious friends he has.
Yep only the classiest friends for the Don.
lol you know you in company of stupid with MUR. Now find that pee pee tape
Oh for goodness sake. It is so funny when someone can’t even write a sentence, then calls others stupid.
It’s you know you “are” in stupid company…..
We agree you are stupid. Now find that pee pee tape
How about a fun video this week
A bit clickbaity title, but still a nice video
USA PANICS as Europe No Longer Needs Its Oil – Solar Becomes EU’s #1 Power Source, FATAL Blow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47hYZmYqtBo
Sadly still got no answer how the US plans to become independend on gasoline.
Lol. The UK is an energy basket case and Germany is right behind them. Neither can endure on one-week in winter under a blocking high pressure system. That is very common in Europe during El Ninos. When that happens neither country can keep the lights – or heat – on, given their present position, and it’s enough to topple all of them into recessions.
A large, stagnant, high-pressure cold system—known meteorologically as a blocking high—triggers a phenomena called a “Dunkelflaute” (dark wind lull). If this settles over the continent this winter, the combination of extreme demand and vanished renewable generation will force an aggressive bidding war for global natural gas, with the UK and Germany positioned exactly at the center of the crisis.
During a record-breaking “Super El Niño,” winter atmospheric blocking highs over Europe are historically very common, but they are typically back-loaded into the second half of winter (January through February)during the coldest months of the year.
The UK can only store roughly 2 to 3 days’ worth of its winter gas consumption. In contrast, continental European nations typically maintain weeks or months of storage buffers. The UK relies entirely on a continuous, uninterrupted “just-in-time” supply chain of gas pipes from Norway and incoming global LNG ships.
If the wind stops blowing across the North Sea, the UK’s massive wind fleet drops to zero, forcing its power grid to immediately burn natural gas to keep electricity flowing. With no storage buffer to draw from, British utilities will be forced to panic-buy prompt physical gas on the international spot market at any cost to prevent immediate rolling blackouts, exposing the UK economy to extreme, uncapped price volatility.
Prior to the geopolitical restructuring of European energy, Germany relied on massive, continuous baseloads of cheap Russian pipeline gas to fuel its heavy industrial manufacturing complex and residential district heating
Because Germany is entering this winter with its cavernous underground storage sites depleted well below historical norms, a prolonged, windless deep freeze means those shallow reserves will empty at a terrifyingly fast trajectory. Unlike the UK, Germany cannot simply “import its way out” of a prompt crunch because its coastline regasification terminals are already operating at maximum layout capacity.
When a Dunkelflaute hits both nations simultaneously, the traditional European solidarity agreements break down into a raw financial bidding war. The UK will be frantically bidding up the National Balancing Point (NBP) to pull gas away from Europe, while Germany will be bidding up Dutch TTF to hoard whatever molecules remain on the continent.
This internal European panic will instantly spill over into the Pacific basin, forcing global spot prices upward as both nations attempt to aggressively outbid wealthier East Asian utilities for flexible global LNG shipments
This is the real world, MUR, and renewables don’t, won’t, and can’t overcome real world conditions. If you look at the TTF and JKM spreads, you will see that both Europe and Asia are panicking over insufficient natural gas supplies.
Unexpected consequences:
B.C. Hydro says ash from wildfires affecting power in Metro Vancouver | Vancouver Sun
Ash from fires in the Fraser Canyon and north of it is drifting into the middle of the Fraser Valley.
The electrical utility is not surprised, but many people will be.
Once again, B.C. government has not properly equipped to fight forest fires – it cheaps.
Actually, article says problem is ash falling into equipment of the major transmission line from NE BC to SW BC. (NE BC has huge power dams.)
Much fire in the southern end of the Caribou region north of the Fraser-Thompson canyons.
Years ago I overnighted in Clinton BC, there was fire near the town, in the motel were firefighters from the city I live in on Vancouver Island. Like other municipal departments they’d sent a truck and people to help by protecting buildings, which is their expertise.
This summer Clinton itself is under direct threat.
More push, job opening in something called ‘Planet Priority:
“You & Billions Of Others Can Shape This Momentum
At Planet Priority, we’re not just assembling a team—we are creating momentum that drives sustainability across the globe at scale, fueled by visionaries, innovators, and protectors of our planet’s future. Our mission is daring: to prioritize our planet and spark transformative change for a sustainable world. We know that achieving this ambitious goal requires the collective strength of passionate individuals globally. That’s why we’re inviting you to answer the call of our only home from every corner of the world to join us.
Roll up your sleeves, dive right in, & witness the incredible impact
you’ll make with your own eyes!
Your dedication and unwavering commitment can ignite a ripple of change that leaves a legacy of sustainability for generations to come. By becoming part of Planet Priority, you’ll step into a role where your actions directly contribute to solving the time’s most pressing environmental challenges; small steps lead to big changes. You’ll gain access to a global community of collaborators, cutting-edge resources, and the support needed to bring your ideas to life.”
Location is in southwest Saskatchewan, which is probably dry farming territory (in the Palliser Diamond area of AB, MT, and SK – noteworthy for Durham wheat which is favoured for making pasta).
Where can I send my life savings to support such a wonderful cause?
Some humour in the pepper response in Your Good Health: What exactly is a protein? – Victoria Times Colonist, about research studies.
Just like some climate research.
:-o)
Carbon emitted from peat and soils after forest fires:
To find the root of Canada’s wildfire emissions, look below the trees: study – Victoria Times Colonist
say some researchers.
“….estimating soil combustion is challenging because researchers rely on indirect indicators, such as moisture conditions, rather than direct observations of what’s burning underground.”
With the usual claim that forest fires are becoming larger and hotter.
But fire seasons vary due weather (drought patterns including snow in mountains, temperature, and ‘dry lightning’), with losses varying by location because of proximity to settlements.
This year is bad in the Fraser-Thompson canyon and lower Caribou areas of BC, and in northwest Ontario. TheMouthT rants about smoke from Canada but there are fires in the US including a bad season in Oregon.
Does he really want to be in NYC in summer? (Tip – infamous for humidity.) Oh wait! noteable fire activity in Florida this year, in part because no hurricanes wetting it down: 2026 Florida wildfires – Wikipedia. US Wildfires Map | Real-Time Fire Tracker 2026
Can the researchers explain the 1911 season in eastern WA-BC area? Major Forest Fires in Washington – HistoryLink.org Archaeological evidence of extensive fires near Victoria BC long ago?
Smoke from fires in OR and WA is drifting north into Canada!
Regarding hurricanes in FL, mechanism is somewhat complex. A factor is blowdown of vegetation which adds fuel when dried.
Low temperature in the tropopause above the South Polar Circle.
