3 Atmospheric Scientists: Greenhouse Effect
Based On ‘Physically Irrelevant Assumptions’
Yet another new scientific paper has been published that questions the current understanding of the Earth’s globally averaged surface temperature and its relation to the theoretical greenhouse effect.
Perhaps the most fundamental equation in climate science is the “thought experiment” that envisions what the temperature of the Earth would be if it had no atmosphere (or greenhouse gases).
Simplistically, the globally averaged surface temperature is assumed to be 288 K. In the “thought experiment”, an imaginary Earth that has no atmosphere (or greenhouse gases to absorb and re-emit the surface heat) would have a temperature of 255 K. The difference between the real and imagined Earth with no atmosphere is 33 K, meaning that the Earth would be much colder (and uninhabitable) without the presence of greenhouse gases. Of that 33 K, it is assumed that CO2 concentrations in range of 200 – 280 ppm (the pre-industrial ranges for the last 800,000 years) contribute 7.2 K (~20%), while water vapor concentrations (ranging between about 1,000 to 40,000 ppm for the globe) contribute 20.6 K to the 33 K greenhouse effect.
“The size of the greenhouse effect is often estimated as being the difference between the actual global surface temperature and the temperature the planet would be without any atmospheric absorption, but with exactly the same planetary albedo, around 33°C. This is more of a “thought experiment” than an observable state, but it is a useful baseline.”
Atmospheric scientists Dr. Gerhard Kramm, Dr. Ralph Dlugi, and Dr. Nicole Mölders have just published a paper in the journal Natural Science that exposes the physical and observational shortcomings of the widely-accepted 288 K – 255 K = 33 K greenhouse effect equation. They conclude that this “though experiment” is “based on physically irrelevant assumptions and its results considerably disagree with observations“.
The scientists offer a new approach to gauging the Earth’s surface temperature(s), and their results are significantly at variance with the 288 K – 255 K = 33 K “thought experiment”. For their calculations, they use observational measurements for the moon — which actually does not have an atmosphere — as their “testbed”. Using moon data would appear to yield more reliable results than an imaginary-world Earth with no atmosphere.
The following is a very abbreviated summary of these scientists’ conclusions about calculating Earth’s mean temperatures.
Kramm et al., 2017
The planetary radiation balance plays a prominent role in quantifying the effect of the terrestrial atmosphere (spuriously called the atmospheric greenhouse effect). Based on this planetary radiation balance, the effective radiation temperature of the Earth in the absence of its atmosphere of Te ≅ 255 K is estimated. This temperature value is subtracted from the globally averaged near-surface temperature of about ⟨Tns⟩ ≅ 288 K resulting in ⟨Tns⟩ − Te ≅ 33 K. This temperature difference commonly serves to quantify the atmospheric effect. The temperature difference is said to be bridged by optically active gaseous gases, namely H2O (20.6 K); CO2 (7.2 K); N2O (1.4 K);CH4 (0.8 K); O3 (2.4 K); NH3+freons+NO2+CCl4+O2+N2NH3+freons+NO2+CCl4+O2+N2 (0.8 K) (e.g. Kondratyev and Moskalenko, 1984).
Since the “thought experiment” of an Earth in the absence of its atmosphere does not allow any rigorous assessment of such results, we considered the Moon as a testbed for the Earth in the absence of its atmosphere. […] Based on our findings, we may conclude that the effective radiation temperature yields flawed results when used for quantifying the so-called atmospheric greenhouse effect. The results of our prediction of the slab (or skin) temperature of the Moon exhibit that drastically different temperature distributions are possible even if the global energy budget is identical. These different temperature distributions yield different globally averaged slab temperatures. […] These [“drastically different temperature distributions” using the same global energy budget parameters, described in detail in the paper] values demonstrate that the power law of Stefan and Boltzmann provides inappropriate results when applied to globally averaged skin temperatures.
It is well known from physics that the mean temperature of a system is the mean of the size-weighted temperatures of its sub-systems. Temperature is an intensive quantity. It is not conserved. On the contrary, energy is an extensive quantity. Energies are additive and governed by a conservation law. Thus, one has to conclude that concept of the effective radiation temperature oversimplifies the physical processes as it ignores the impact of local temperatures on the fluxes in the planetary radiative balance.
Instead of focusing on the technicalities of these authors’ Earth-temperature calculations using moon data, it’s important to call attention to the 5-point critique of the 288 K – 255 K = 33 K greenhouse effect equation outlined in the introduction to the Kramm et al. (2017) paper. The very first criticism listed is, by itself, worth expounding upon in detail. Here it is:
(1) “Only a planetary radiation budget of the Earth in the absence of an atmosphere is considered, i.e., any heat storage in the oceans (if at all existing in such a case) and land masses is neglected.”
This is crucial. Not only is the heating contribution of the water vapor-and-CO2 greenhouse effect viewed as a “thought experiment” because it uses an imaginary world without an atmosphere as its premise, the 288 K – 255 K = 33 K greenhouse effect equation only considers a radiation budget analysis that pertains to atmospheric heating, not ocean heating. This is theoretical negligence, as it is tantamount to claiming that we should measure the temperature of a person’s spit to accurately determine his overall body temperature.
According to the IPCC (citing Levitus et al., 2012), 93% of the Earth’s heat energy resides in the oceans. The atmosphere hosts just 1% of the Earth’s heat energy “trapped” by greenhouse gases. To be physically meaningful, then, the Earth’s energy budget and “mean global temperature” should be calculated by featuring measurements for the thousands-of-meters-deep oceans, and not the atmosphere vs. no-atmosphere conceptualization
Furthermore, it is essential to consider that the heat flux for the Earth’s climate system nearly always goes from ocean to atmosphere, and not the other way around. The atmosphere does not warm the oceans; the oceans warm the atmosphere.
Ellsaesser, 1984 : “…the atmosphere cannot warm until the oceans do“
Murray et al., 2000 : “…net surface heat flux is almost always from ocean to atmosphere“
Minnett et al., 2011 : “…the heat flux is nearly always from the ocean to the atmosphere“
And because the direction of the heat flux is from ocean to atmosphere, for greenhouse gases like water vapor and CO2 to warm the atmosphere by 33 K, they necessarily must heat the oceans by that equivalent first. In other words, for the Earth’s theoretical greenhouse effect to “work”, downwelling longwave infrared radiation (LWIR) from water vapor and CO2 must be fundamental players in heating the Earth’s oceans to depths of thousands of meters.
An unheralded problem with this conceptualization arises: We have no physical measurements from a real-world scientific experiment that identify how much, if at all, parts per million (0.000001) increases (or decreases) in atmospheric CO2 concentrations heat (or cool) water bodies.
Even the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) advocacy blogs RealClimate.org and SkepticalScience.com acknowledge that we have no real-world evidence identifying the extent to which heat changes occur in water bodies when CO2 concentrations are varied in volumes of +/-0.000001 above them. We have to use proxy evidence from clouds instead.
RealClimate.org : “Clearly it is not possible to alter the concentration of greenhouse gases in a controlled experiment at sea to study the response of the skin-layer. Instead we use the natural variations in clouds to modulate the incident infrared radiation at the sea surface.”
SkepticalScience.com : “Obviously, it’s not possible to manipulate the concentration of CO2 in the air to carry out real world experiments, but natural changes in cloud cover provide an opportunity to test the principle [that CO2 heats water].”
And the problem with using clouds as a proxy for CO2 is that even very small (1%) cloud cover variations can quite easily overwhelm and supersede the greenhouse effect associated with changes in CO2 concentrations due to the magnitude and dominance of cloud LWIR forcing.
Ramanathan et al. (1989) : “The greenhouse effect of clouds may be larger than that resulting from a hundredfold increase in the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere.”
RealClimate.org : “Of course the range of net infrared forcing caused by changing cloud conditions (~100 W/m2) is much greater than that caused by increasing levels of greenhouse gases (e.g. doubling pre-industrial CO2 levels will increase the net forcing by ~4 W/m2)”
Using clouds as a proxy for CO2 in assessing how CO2 concentration changes affect water temperatures is therefore not comparing apples to apples in calculating their radiative significance, and thus any experimental results using clouds can not be generalized or assumed to simulate the heating effects of CO2 when varied over water bodies.
So we are left with an equation (288 K – 255 K = 33 K) that (a) is based upon a “thought experiment” using an imaginary world without an atmosphere; (b) claims to measure Earth’s temperatures, but doesn’t consider the temperatures of the Earth’s oceans as its primary parameter; and (c) assumes ppm changes in CO2 concentrations heat or cool water bodies to a measurable degree when raised or lowered even though no physical measurements from a real-world scientific experiment exists to support such a claim.
And this is just point (1) in the Kramm et al. (2017) critique of the 288 K – 255 K = 33 K greenhouse effect equation. Four other criticisms of the “inadequate” equation are also listed below.
As these three atmospheric scientists conclude, the 288 K – 255 K = 33 K equation underlying the theoretical greenhouse effect “lacks adequate physical meaning as do any contributions from optically active gaseous components calculated thereby“.
Pay to publish. Natural Science is published by Scientific Research Publishing, a known predatory journal publisher.
And publishing in that journal automatically makes the science in the article wrong??
Claiming that earth’s atmospheric greenhouse effect is 33 degrees C compared to a totally fictitious and impossible “earth with no atmosphere“ is also totally wrong.
So that is all you got? What a surprise.
I assume that these people behind the journal are vastly more competent that you in matter concerning scientific publishing: http://www.scirp.org/journal/EditorialBoard.aspx?JournalID=69
Poor Pethefin, unable to understand the philosophy of science, looks for authorities to lean on. Argumentum ad auctoritatem certainly does not cut it in science, even if fools like you fall for it.
Poor Jack Dale, who spends a lot of time making irrelevant complaints.
Who cares where it is published in,it is RESEARCH in the paper that matters. So far you have not made a single comment about it.
You got anything better than whining?
“Poor Pethefin, unable to understand the philosophy of science, looks for authorities to lean on. ” – Jack Dale
Says the guy who has to lean on the “authority” of biased pal-reviewed journals that shill for global warming.
“Peer review” is bad enough on a good day.
https://judithcurry.com/2011/11/12/peer-review-is-fed-up/
But when it comes to climate, they are totally out to lunch.
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2016/10/PeerReview.pdf
And so is Jack Dale.
Poor Jack, you still have not realized that the only point with peer review is to filter obviously non-plausible scientific papers from the journals. For that purpose, people with doctoral degrees certainly have a better competence than a trivial “Jack Dale”. It has nothing to do with authority but everything with scientific literacy that you “Jack” so obviously do not have.
Dr. Kramm, Ph.D. in meteorology and author of a graduate level atmospheric physics textbook, has “served as a [peer] reviewer for 15 different meteorological and geophysical journals”.
http://www.aksci.org/instructor_kramm.html
This “predatory journal” defense you continue to employ is non-substantive and logically fallacious.
Kenneth – Check my posting on the FTC versus OMCIS; unless it is still hung up in moderation.
Jack, I couldn’t care any less than I do about the journal that a paper is published in. It’s the contents/substance of the paper itself that matters to me, as it should for anyone who doesn’t employ social-justice-warrior tactics to smear those who disagree with them. As I demonstrated the last time you tried to pull this, a paper recently published in the journal Nature by Michael Mann was shown to be fraught with logical errors and statistical malfeasance. The journal doesn’t determine the “rightness” of a scientific paper. The scientific paper itself is what needs to be critically evaluated. Your tactics are therefore non-scientific.
Do you believe in the 33 K imaginary-world thought experiment, Jack? Assuming you do, explain why you do, and why the critiques of this conceptualization found in this paper published by 3 Ph.D. climate scientists are wrong. That would be substantive. Your SJW “predatory journal” tactics are logically fallacious.
Kenneth – of course you “couldn’t care any less than I do about the journal that a paper is published in.”; as long as it confirms you bias.
If you and Briggs are so confident why you you not publish your response in the comment section of the Mann paper. There is currently only one comment.
You gain nothing by preaching to the choir at “notrickszone.”
What have you gained by incessantly complaining about the scientific journal that 3 Ph.D. atmospheric physicists published their scientific paper in, Jack?
Do you believe in the 288 K – 255 K = 33 K greenhouse effect “thought experiment” of an imaginary world with no atmosphere, as Gavin Schmidt himself calls it? Of course you do. If Gavin agrees, it must be right. So why do you believe in the accuracy of this “thought experiment”, Jack? Defend your beliefs against the 5-point critique offered in the Kramm et al. (2017) paper.
Instead of whining about journals, actually post something substantive. Why do you believe that imaginary-world thought experiments are settled science, Jack?
As usual, my reply is held up.
AS usual,Jack has nothing.
I agree with Kenneth,that the paper itself is what matters,not WHERE it was published. The complaining about WHERE it is published is a waste of time.
You are looking really dumb here,Dale.
Kenneth – I assume you also reject Einstein’s thought experiments as well.
Have I somewhere written which thought experiments I find compelling vs. unlikely? Thought experiments are just that. They’re not readily verifiable using observational evidence. That’s why scientists seek out real-world evidence when possible.
What real-world evidence do you have that the CO2 concentration warms the Earth/oceans by 7.2 K within the 33 K greenhouse effect, as the “consensus” you ascribe to says? Or will you acknowledge that this is a hypothetical conceptualization?
“Kenneth – I assume you also reject Einstein’s thought experiments as well.” – Jack Dale
Einstein’s “thought experiments” were ultimately backed up by extensive experimental verification, which goes on even today. There’s a reason the warmists fear testing alternative theories of global warming, but aren’t afraid to keep putting Einstein to the test.
Keep in mind that Einstein’s thought experiments weren’t always correct. But it wasn’t until experiments were done that confirmation could be had or not. In the case of Gavin Schmidt, his fantasies have no experimental confirmation, and he clearly is no Einstein.
NOTE – Einstein was no fan of “peer review.”
https://theconversation.com/hate-the-peer-review-process-einstein-did-too-27405
And Max Plank, the editor who decided what to publish or not, expressed his editorial philosophy as “To shun much more the reproach of having suppressed strange opinions than that of having been too gentle in evaluating them.” That’s the exact opposite of the grifters in charge today.
Finally, speaking of not understanding the philosophy of science, it’s the warmists who believe that imagination trumps experimentation. Again, the exact opposite of all successful science to date.
Jack Dale. And your point is? Mine would be “So what, it invalidates the science of the paper no more than publishing it in a peer or is that pal reviewed journal
The main point of this paper by Kramm et al. (2017) is that there has been a large error in calculating the strength of the so-called atmospheric “Greenhouse” effect made for the past 40+ years. This conclusion fully agrees with results from our study (Volokin & ReLlez 2014), which Kramm et al cite.
The fact that the atmosphere raises Earth’s global surface temperature by more than 65 K above an equivalent airless environment such as the Moon (Volokin & ReLles estimate this thermal enhancement to be ~90 K) poses a major problem for the Greenhouse theory, because the observed 155 W m-2 absorption of outgoing LW radiation by the atmosphere cannot explain such a huge thermal effect.
Therefore, the heating effect of the atmosphere must include some other mechanism. Nikolov & Zeller (2017) showed empirically what this mechanism is – the total atmospheric pressure, which enhances the energy received from the Sun through force in a process analogous to compression heating. This is a qualitatively different process compared to the one assumed by the GH theory. The consequences of this discovery for climate science are paradigm-altering.
Reference:
Nikolov N, Zeller K (2017) New Insights on the Physical Nature of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect Deduced from an Empirical Planetary Temperature Model. Environ Pollut Climate Change 1: 112. doi:10.4172/2573-458X.1000112
URL: https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/New-Insights-on-the-Physical-Nature-of-the-Atmospheric-Greenhouse-Effect-Deduced-from-an-Empirical-Planetary-Temperature-Model.pdf
Dr. Nikolov:
Now that you are here and are willing to comment (thank you, and I hope you will continue to do so), I would ask you to address the main criticisms of your paper as detailed in the comment sections of past posts here at NoTricksZone that cited your paper (among others) identifying an atmospheric pressure/gravity explanation for “LW forcing” rather than a greenhouse gas effect. The comments are closed for the last two long threads (421 comments and 355 comments respectively), but posting a response in this comment thread would be cogent (considering Kramm et al. cite your paper). Here are the comments of a physics teacher who studied at MIT (Ed Bo):
————————-
Leading Heat Transfer Physicists/Geologists Assert The Impact Of CO2 Emissions On Climate Is ‘Negligible’
https://notrickszone.com/2017/08/10/new-engineering-textbook-asserts-the-impact-of-co2-emissions-on-climate-is-negligible/#comment-1226134
I have not found a single one of the “atmospheric pressure effect” papers that even tries to explain the physical mechanism by which the weight of the atmosphere transfers power to the surface on an ongoing basis.
The earth’s surface emits over 500 W/m2 times the surface area of the earth through radiative, evaporative, and conductive mechanisms. But the earth system absorbs only about 240 W/m2 times the surface area of the earth through radiation from the sun (with less than 0.1 W/m2 from subsurface heating). These numbers are from measurements, known to within a few percent.
No one, not even the most frantic alarmist, thinks the earth is out of energy balance by more than 1 W/m2. So we need another 250 W/m2 or so times the surface area of the earth input to the surface to put it in energy balance.
Where does this come from? The APE people say that it comes from the weight of the atmosphere. But how does this transfer energy on an ongoing basis? The weight of the atmosphere does produce a force on the surface. But high school physics tells us that for a force to transfer energy, it must act over a distance. (Work = Force * Distance)
The pressure of ignited gas in an engine piston transfers energy to the piston head by moving the piston head. No movement, no work done.
—————-
https://notrickszone.com/2017/08/10/new-engineering-textbook-asserts-the-impact-of-co2-emissions-on-climate-is-negligible/#comment-1226151
The only mode of heat transfer the earth/atmosphere has with the rest of the universe is radiative, so only radiative insulation is going to make a difference. A transparent atmosphere (e.g. N2 and O2 alone) cannot be a “thermal blanket” as the earth’s surface will simply allow the thermal radiation from the surface to pass through diretly to space.
—————-
https://notrickszone.com/2017/08/10/new-engineering-textbook-asserts-the-impact-of-co2-emissions-on-climate-is-negligible/#comment-1226195
For the “atmospheric pressure effect” theories to be correct, there would need to be this ongoing power transfer to the surface, which would require ongoing motion (not one-time deflection). This does not occur, so these APE theories cannot be correct.
—————-
Ph.D. Physicist Uses Empirical Data To Assert CO2 Greenhouse Theory A ‘Phantasm’ To Be ‘Neglected’
—————-
https://notrickszone.com/2017/09/04/ph-d-physicist-uses-empirical-data-to-assert-co2-greenhouse-theory-a-phantasm-to-be-neglected/#comment-1229248
You uncritically cite papers that claim that the pressure of the atmosphere alone can provide the missing 250 W/m2 input to the surface, when anyone who understands the basics of first-year physics knows that static pressure can provide no energy transfer at all. You casually throw out the idea that maybe its the thermal capacitance of the atmosphere could do this, again without any underlying physical basis whatsoever.
Each square meter of the earth’s surface emits, averaged over time and area, about 500 watts. Each square meter of the earth (and its atmosphere), again averaged over time and area, absorbs about 240 watts. These numbers are known, through measurements, to within a few percent.
No one, not even the most frantic alarmist, thinks that the earth’s surface is out of balance by more than about 1 W/m2, averaged over time and area. So we have to close a gap of over 250 W/m2 to explain present conditions.
You ask: “why on Earth do you feel entitled to belittle those who also question the extent to which water vapor or CO2 can or do heat the Earth/oceans?”
I question their fundamental capabilities because THERE IS NO OTHER PLAUSIBLE ALTERNATIVE!
I repeat: THERE IS NO OTHER PLAUSIBLE ALTERNATIVE!
And I have looked for alternative explanations at length, and never found one that is remotely plausible.
We can do precision measurements of the magnitude and spectrum of downwelling longwave infrared radiation. The magnitude is sufficient to close the gap of surface power inputs and outputs, and the spectrum of this IR radiation overwhelmingly comes from the absorption/emission bands of H2O and CO2.
Dear Kenneth,
I’ll post a reply to these comments over the weekend …
Excellent. Thank you.
Can anyone tell me how could the oceans have not effect in the temperature difference between an atmosphere and an atmosphere-less planet?
[…] Source: Another New Paper Dismantles The CO2 Greenhouse Effect ‘Thought Experiment’ […]
OMICS scam uncovered.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/08/ftc-charges-academic-journal-publisher-omics-group-deceived
http://retractionwatch.com/2017/03/27/multiple-omics-journals-delisted-major-index-concerns/
https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/06/11/new-sham-journal-OMICS-climate-science-denier-ties-heartland-institute
Oh, Nooooos!
Maybe you should report them to INTERPOL? …or the Lady’s Home Journal? Really, something MUST be done! //s//
Seriously? DeSmogBlog? And you’re complaining about OMICS??? LOLOL
You are trolling here,Dale.
It is clear you have no complaint about the paper itself.
Now run along.
this is indeed an interesting paper, and many of the points discussed, I raised with George White (CO2ISNOTEVIL) on WUWT when he put forward an alternative model assessing Climate Sensitivity. It is well worth looking at that article and the comments. See WUWT: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/20/a-consensus-of-convenience/
I made many observations on a comparison between the Moon and the Earth, for example: This is one area where the analogy between the Earth and the Moon breaks down.
One cannot ignore the substantial difference brought about by the fact that our planet is a water world with most of the energy stored in the oceans.
There are huge problems with DWLWIR and the oceans, and I have been arguing this point with Willis for many many years. On fudamental problem is that the absorption characteristics of LWIR in water is that almost all LWIR is absorbed in just 10 microns. But the position is even worse than that since DWLWIR does not operate perpendicular to the oceans where it would reach a perpendicular depth of 10 microns. But rather DWLWIR is omnidirectional such that the grazing angle varies from 1 deg to 90 deg. This means that almost all DWLWIR is fully absorbed in no more than 6 microns.
Now just stop and consider the implications of this for one moment. According to K&T the average DWLWIR received at the surface 24/7 is some 324 W per m2. All that energy is is being inputted 24/7 and contained in a volume of 1m x 1m x 6/1000000 m = to 0.000006 cu metres, equivalent to 0.000006 grams.
Now bear in mind that it only takes ~4.18 joules to raise 1 gram of water 1 deg C, and we are talking about 0.000006 grams of water. Potentially, there is enough energy to drive evaporation equivalent to over 16 metres of rainfall annually, but we see nothing like that amount of rainfall (perhaps more like 1.5 metres annually).
It is obvious from this that if DWLWIR consists of sensible energy capable of performing sensible, unless the energy absorbed in the top 6 micron layer can be sequestered to depth thereby dissipating and diluting the energy by volume at a rate faster than the energy absorbed in the top 6 micron layer would otherwise drive evaporation, the oceans would have boiled off from the top down long ago.
However, the only known processes are slow mechanical processes such as ocean overturning (which in any event is a diurnal event not operating 24/7) or the action of the wind and swell (which again is slow and all but non existent in condition of BF2 or less when the ocean is like a mill pond). The energy cannot be conducted to depth since the energy flux is upward at the top of the ocean 9the top millimetres are cooler than the layer below).
In contrast consider the position with solar. Due to the wavelength of solar irradiance, almost no solar is absorbed in the top microns or millimetres. Almost all solar is absobed at depth between about 1.5 metres to 10 metres, although some pentrates and is absorbed even at 100 metres. What this means is that solar is effectively absorbed in a volume of water extending to about 8.5 metres (ie., 10m – 1.5m) equivalent to 8.5 cubic metres (or 9.5 tonnes).
According to the K&T energy budget cartoon about 168 W per m2 of solar is received by the surface and this energy is absorbed and contained in a volume of 8.5 tonnes. We are fortunate that solar irradiance is absorbed in this manner since if it were not and was absorbed like LWIR, once again the oceans would have boiled off long ago.
So as to emphasise and compare the position K&T would have us believe that, on average, we have some 324 W per m2 of DWLWIR, which due to its wavelength is fully absorbed in just 0.000006 grams, whereas we have some 169 W per m2 of solar irradiance, which due to its wavelength, is absorbed in some 8.5 tonnes!
Thank you, Richard, for actually writing something that is both on-topic and substantive in this comment thread.
Thank you, Richard, that was very informative
The reasons the oceans have not boiled off is their ability, in combination with air circulation, to distribute heat from low latitudes to high latitudes.
When Drakes Passage opened to enable the circumpolar circulation of the Southern Ocean the Pacific Ocean dropped in temperature and the Atlantic Ocean increased in temperature. The circumpolar circulation distributed heat from west to east because the Pacific has higher proportion of water at lower latitudes than the Atlantic so is a net heat receptor.
An ocean surface at 305K loses about 280W/sq.m through evaporation, conduction and radiation so there is heat build up at low latitudes given that this part of the surface receives and average of about 420W/sq.m. Ocean surface loses about 240W/sq.m at 277K so there heat loss at high latitudes. At a latitude of 34 degrees the heat loss balances the heat gain.
Water bodies at latitudes lower than 34 degrees and at sea level tend to disappear if they are isolated from higher latitudes; Dead Sea for example.
Sea ice insulates the oceans so acts as a thermostatic control on the planet depending on its extent. Even if CO2 caused lower rate of heat loss it will not affect the surface temperature significantly until all the sea ice has disappeared. The sea ice extent has been quite steady over the last 50 years. The total dropped marginally at the end of the 2017 El Nino as that heat that built up since the previous El Nino was discharged from the Southern Ocean.
If there was no ocean and air circulation then the planet would be dry in the low latitudes and ice in the high latitudes. The temperature would vary significantly from day to night.
Quite possibly, the reason the oceans have not boiled off is that temperatures on earth are below the boiling point of water (and have not been since the Hadean Eon).
Er, “have been since the Hadean Eon”.
If there was no water and air circulation the tropical oceans would reach its boiling point until they disappeared then the earth would get hotter in those locations. The moon reaches 123C at its hottest point. If there is more heat in than heat out then the temperature keeps rising until it achieves a balance.
“Quite possibly, the reason the oceans have not boiled off is that”
something to do with the Earth’s magnetosphere – quite possibly.
Seems a useful set of experiments -Gedanken and otherwise- would be to start very basic- Simulated sun, blackbody non rotating, no atmosphere planet, and calculate the temperatures. Add factors (perhaps even in different orders) to see how far one can get where everyone agrees. Repeat as needed to resolve differences- if possible. With this paper it’s hard to argue that the moon is a good starting proxy. Adding atmosphere and water will complicate, but not impossibly so. One can even imagine an actual expt with a large sphere studded with thermocouples, in a vacuum and illuminated… Add atmospheres, diatomic and water, CH4 NH3 CO2…
Another point that illustrates the difficulty in making a direct comparison between the Earth and Moon, is that on Earth the clear sky noon temperatures at the equator are considerably less than the equivalent on the Moon.
This suggests that the atmosphere cools the Earth, but stabilizes its temperature. It prevents the planet from getting as hot, but prevents it from getting so cold.
Whilst most of the energy is stored in the oceans, the atmosphere itself contains considerable thermal mass and thermal inertia. One sees that very clearly when there is high humidity.
I am presently in Spain, on the shores of the Med, and yesterday (on 25th September) it was a cloudless sunny day with a day time high of around 26degC. I happened to look at the weather forecast for 26th Septmeber. At 02:37 hrs (on 26th september) it was said to be 24 degC. Even though it was a cloudless night sky, the temperature had only fallen by 2 degC. I am writing this at 05:00hrs and it is now down to 22 degC, ie., in the last 2.5 hours it has only fallen by a further 2 degC, and only fallen by 4 degC since the highs of the previous day in the early afternoon of 25th September.
Of particular interest, the forecast is for 17 degC at 06:00 hrs, 16 degC at 07:00 and 16 degC 08:00 hrs, 18degC at 09:00 hrs, 20 degC at 10:00 hrs and 22 degC at 11:00 hrs.
The sun up is about 07:45 hrs and it is forecast to be cloudless and sunny. It will take approximately 3 hrs of sun (07:45 to 11:00 hrs) before the temperature is as warm as it is at 05:00 hrs.
Why is there such thermal inertia even though there are no clouds to impede convection or to bathe the ground in lots of wonderful DWLWIR from the underneath of the clouds? The answer is simple, the humidity at 02:37 hrs was 83%, and it is still at 05:00hrs some 73%.
This thermal inertia means that it takes the atmosphere a long time to give up its energy and cool, and then a long time to recharge and warm.
In relative terms, I am not that far away from the deserts of Africa, but they have a very different temperature profile since they have so very little humidity. In the nearby deserts the day quickly warms as the sun gets up, and quickly cools as the sun goes down. However on the shores of the Med, all this sunshine evaporates a lot of water resulting in high humidity, and this creates an atmosphere with far more thermal mass and far more thermal inertia that has to be overcome before temperatures change either up or down.
This is why it is very important to take full account of the fact that we are living on a water world, and the water cycle is dominant.
Richard might want to look at the climate for Lima in Peru. The cold Humboldt currents have a profound effect on the climate in a very soothing manner.
Its far colder than it would be otherwise without the impact of the sea. Lima is particular interesting as there is a high humidity and cloud cover which cools the climate even more.
Lima has little rain and is a temperate desert due to cold ocean water and fog/clouds.
Interesting but nevertheless, all conjecturing on non existent phenomenon is as useless as is the supposition that by somehow man made CO2 is by some sretch of the imagination going to boil the planet nand thank God for the Earth’s molten Fe core and our gloriously spinning orbit, plus that big shiny thing in the sky and oh yeah – water too.
Interesting posting … let’s look at what you (and they wrote):
Ok. And here I thought climate science is based on models and observations and not on a thought experiment to show normal people that there is a temperature gap that is being bridged by the atmosphere. Or put better:
Right? But some people including you seem to think that there is more to this. They even feel that it is necessary to write a whole paper about it.
It’s kind of strange to read papers that are barking at the wrong tree (you linked to a few others before), but it is even stranger when you believe that it’s actually “dismantling the CO2 greenhouse effect thought experiment” (whatever that is).
You quote this from the paper and immediately go to your usual “but the oceans” rhetoric. The “thought experiment” is actually assuming infinite heat storage and the planet is in an equilibrium. That’s why it is just a “useful baseline”.
All your nonsense with CO2 needs to be able to warm the oceans just shows that you still don’t understand how downwelling LW radiation is causing heat content (or storage as you wrote) to increase and decrease when it varies. And you still use those quote as if cloud forcing vs. CO2 forcing where actually 100 W/m² vs. 4 W/m² …
Are you suggesting that a big change by a temporary, sun covering cloud has effects on the heat content, but small changes don’t? You aren’t trying to say that water (or any other surface) can somehow distinguish where the incoming radiation is coming from, are you?
That’s why it is a “useful baseline”, Kenneth. Earth’s relatively fast rotation and high heat capacity enable this kind of generalization … it’s close enough. Of course, it isn’t the whole story. But just out of curiosity … you’ve read the paper Kenneth, do you think that the real and complete radiative greenhouse effect is smaller or bigger than those 33K of the “thought experiment”? In which direction does that “gap” go when you increase the details of the model and consider rotation, surface materials, etc?
The rest of the paper … well, none of those points change the 33K “gap” towards being 0K, do they? They only point out the obvious, like when you quoted from a paper that actually argued against the greenhouse effect because there is no glass roof around Earth, remember that one?
Arguing that Earth’s surface temperature without an atmosphere would be even lower than those 255K does dismantle anything CO2 greenhouse effect related how exactly?
P.S.: You often argue that I and others are impressed by authority, but here you are mentioning credentials and PhDs when someone attacks the way this paper got published. It doesn’t seem to make them smart enough to notice that the “thought experiment” is just a “useful baseline”.
“Arguing that Earth’s surface temperature without an atmosphere would be even lower than those 255K does dismantle anything CO2 greenhouse effect related how exactly?”
Comment from Ned Nikolov, above:
“The main point of this paper by Kramm et al. (2017) is that there has been a large error in calculating the strength of the so-called atmospheric “Greenhouse” effect made for the past 40+ years. This conclusion fully agrees with results from our study (Volokin & ReLlez 2014), which Kramm et al cite.
The fact that the atmosphere raises Earth’s global surface temperature by more than 65 K above an equivalent airless environment such as the Moon (Volokin & ReLles estimate this thermal enhancement to be ~90 K) poses a major problem for the Greenhouse theory, because the observed 155 W m-2 absorption of outgoing LW radiation by the atmosphere cannot explain such a huge thermal effect.”
Continuing the quote:
“Therefore, the heating effect of the atmosphere must include some other mechanism. Nikolov & Zeller (2017) showed empirically what this mechanism is – the total atmospheric pressure, which enhances the energy received from the Sun through force in a process analogous to compression heating.”
Yeah, right … the energy from nothing hypothesis again 😉
The Nikolov/Volokin isn’t aging well … and what does the last part even mean? I guess it is referring to the Trenberth diagram (356 – 169 – 30 W/m²) and that most certainly doesn’t feature an Earth with a 65 K (or 90 K) cooler surface, does it? So where is the problem?
“Yeah, right … the energy from nothing hypothesis again”
I couldn’t agree more, the GHE conjecture does indeed require energy from nothing.
“The Nikolov/Volokin isn’t aging well … and what does the last part even mean?”
It means that there isn’t enough energy available from outgoing LW radiation to explain a >65 K thermal effect. In other words the GHE requires energy from nothing to make it work. Your criticisms of Nikolov and Zeller’s theory (and Allmendinger’s, which I’m guessing you were also referencing) apply equally to the GHE.
It doesn’t. Claiming so makes you part of those who use “not understanding how stuff works” as an argument against it.
How so? How would 1000 W/m² (just as an example) of LW radiation absorbed by the atmosphere better explain a 65K “gap”?
“It doesn’t. Claiming so makes you part of those who use “not understanding how stuff works” as an argument against it.”
Claiming that by stating the GHE requires energy from nothing means I don’t understand how it works makes you part of those who use “you just don’t understand it” as an argument for it.
“How so? How would 1000 W/m² (just as an example) of LW radiation absorbed by the atmosphere better explain a 65K “gap”?”
How not? How wouldn’t 1000 W/m2 (just as an example) of LW radiation absorbed by the atmosphere better explain a 65K “gap”?
Nice try at trolling …
Do you understand the concept of heat content, GW? How does a body of water get warmer and why doesn’t it get warmer indefinitely when you only have a constant energy source? What happens if you add insulation to/around the body of water?
If copying your style and directing it back at you is trolling, that doesn’t say much for you…
In answer to your questions, yes. I do understand the concept of heat content. The body of water gets warmer if it receives more energy than it emits. Once it has reached the temperature at which it is emitting as much as it is receiving, it is said to be at equilibrium and remains at this temperature. If you add insulation to/around the body of water it would not be able to emit as much as it was receiving and would so warm again to another (higher) equilibrium temperature, the point at which it was again emitting as much as it receives.
Now the point of my firing your original questions back at you is that higher radiation fluxes relate to higher temperatures and so it ought to be fairly obvious that a higher flux is better able to explain a 65K (or greater) gap than a lower flux. But please explain why that would not be the case now I have done you the courtesy of answering your questions.
I took an undergraduate debate class (Philosophy) that identified SebastianH’s go-to response (“You’re wrong because you don’t understand the concept”) as a logical fallacy commonly used in debates. I can no longer remember what this particular fallacy was called, but SebastianH employs it incessantly, almost as often as he employs the straw man tactic of making up his opponent’s positions in a disingenuous manner.
Whatever it’s called, claiming that someone is wrong because he doesn’t understand the concept, and if he did understand, he would agree is a logical fallacy. Even if it were true that GW doesn’t understand how heat works, this would not lead to the conclusion that SebastianH must be right.
Apparently, you do.
I don’t think the current equilibrium state depicted in those Trenberth diagrams depends on the starting conditions (whether Earth would be 33K or 65 K or 90K cooler without GHGs). Does it?
The current flux depends on the current temperatures.
“The current flux depends on the current temperatures”
And we’re nicely back to the beginning again, for the merry-go-round to spin once more!
“The point with the Kiehl and Trenberth budget is, it starts with the surface being 288 K. Whatever fluxes are featured in the budget, it all comes back down to a 288 K surface. What their budget absolutely doesn’t explain is HOW the surface got to be 288 K in the first place”
As to your question, I don’t know about “starting conditions” but the incoming and outgoing flux at the TOA of 235 W/m2 (as shown on the budget Yonason linked to) does equate to a blackbody temperature of 255 K. So the K-T budget shows a surface at 288 K with the fluxes associated with that temperature and it shows the whole Earth system (at TOA) receiving and emitting a flux of radiation associated with a temperature of 255 K.
If this completes the picture, the 390 W/m2 equates to a blackbody temperature of 288K, and 390 W/m2 (288 K) – 235 W/m2 (255 K) = 155 W/m2. Enough to potentially explain a difference of 33 K but not a difference of > 65 K. Kramm et al and Nikolov/Zeller among others are arguing that the 235 W/m2 input would not actually raise the surface temperature to 255 K in the first place. Therefore regardless of whichever way you look at the K/T budget there would not be enough LW radiation being absorbed by the atmosphere to account for all the thermal effect which has occurred if these new calculations are correct (even if you assume GHGs do work as insulation in the way you envisage it).
At least that’s the way I understand what Ned Nikolov has said but it would be good to hear from the man himself since it’s quite possible (if not likely!) I’ve got something wrong.
235 W/m² is the amount of radiation from the Sun that is absorbed by the Earth system, therefore that is the amount of radiation that is emitted by the Earth system in an equilibrium state. That’s with the current albedo value. It has nothing to do with the surface temperature that we could measure if no atmosphere (or a transparent one) were in place.
Following your argument you seem to think that it should be 390 W/m² (288 K) – 140 W/m² (223 K) to explain the difference of ~65 K? Where are the remaining 95 W/m² being emitted to that Earth receives from the Sun?
“235 W/m² is the amount of radiation from the Sun that is absorbed by the Earth system, therefore that is the amount of radiation that is emitted by the Earth system in an equilibrium state. That’s with the current albedo value. It has nothing to do with the surface temperature that we could measure if no atmosphere (or a transparent one) were in place.”
Correct.
“Following your argument you seem to think that…”
Incorrect.
This obsession with the K-T energy budget which began from your realisation that Nikolov/Zeller got their 155 W/m2 from it has led you down the garden path.
Begin again.
N/Z cite a LW absorption value by the current atmosphere of 155 W/m2. This is from observations of the system as it currently is. It is observed that the atmosphere absorbs 155 W/m2 of LW radiation. 155 W/m2 equates to a temperature of 33 K. Therefore any thermal effect which has resulted from the back radiation from the atmosphere cannot have exceeded 33 K. So if it is calculated that the difference between the surface temperature of the Earth without an atmosphere and the current surface temperature exceeds 33 K, there is a problem. Agree?
This is from their first (Volokin/ReLlez) paper:
“According to satellite observations, Earth’s atmosphere retains on average 155–158 W m−2 of the upwelling long-wave radiation emitted by the surface (Kiehl and Trenberth 1997; Trenberth et al. 2009; Stephens et al. 2012; Wild et al. 2013). This infrared heat absorption by greenhouse gases a.k.a. long-wave radiative forcing (Kiehl and Trenberth 1997) is presently believed to drive 100% of the near-surface ATE (Peixoto and Oort 1992; Lacis et al. 2010; Pierrehumbert 2010; Schmidt et al. 2010).”
and this is from their second:
“In a recent study Volokin et al. [1] demonstrated that the strength of Earth’s atmospheric Greenhouse Effect (GE) is about 90 K instead of 33 K as presently assumed by most researchers e.g. [2-7]. The new estimate corrected a long-standing mathematical error in the application of the Stefan–Boltzmann (SB) radiation law to a sphere pertaining to Hölder’s inequality between integrals. Since the current greenhouse theory strives to explain GE solely through a retention (trapping) of outgoing long-wavelength (LW) radiation by atmospheric gases [2,5,7- 10], a thermal enhancement of 90 K creates a logical conundrum, since satellite observations constrain the global atmospheric LW absorption to 155–158 W m-2 [11-13]. Such a flux might only explain a surface warming up to 35 K. Hence, more than 60% of Earth’s 90 K atmospheric effect appears to remain inexplicable in the context of the current theory.”
So if you don’t agree, what do you disagree with? If it’s this bit:
“This infrared heat absorption by greenhouse gases a.k.a. long-wave radiative forcing (Kiehl and Trenberth 1997) is presently believed to drive 100% of the near-surface ATE (Peixoto and Oort 1992; Lacis et al. 2010; Pierrehumbert 2010; Schmidt et al. 2010).”
Are you disagreeing with all those citations? Pierrehumbert, Schmidt et al? Are you saying they’re misrepresenting those citations?
You do that, please.
No, it the difference between what is emitted by the whole system (same amount as is absorbed) and what is emitted by the surface.
No, since those 33 K aren’t the what you think they are. Ignore the thought experiment for a moment and just look at the energy budgets. A planet with an incoming amount of radiation X also has to emit X when in equilibrium. That’s where those 255 K / ~235 W/m² are coming from.
I disagree with this part: “Such a flux might only explain a surface warming up to 35 K. Hence, more than 60% of Earth’s 90 K atmospheric effect appears to remain inexplicable in the context of the current theory.”
There is no state where Earth was 90 K cooler and where the current atmosphere has been slabbed onto that version of Earth. It doesn’t need to overcome that much of a difference.
“No, it the difference between what is emitted by the whole system (same amount as is absorbed) and what is emitted by the surface.”
No, it’s what is observed by satellite measurement.
“No, since those 33 K aren’t the what you think they are.”
Yes, they are.
“There is no state where Earth was 90 K cooler and where the current atmosphere has been slabbed onto that version of Earth. It doesn’t need to overcome that much of a difference.”
Yes, there is, and yes it does. Time for you to actually read the first Nikolov/Zeller paper.
“Yes, there is”
Well, not literally, obviously. I mean no, nobody has come along and whacked the current atmosphere onto a 90 K cooler Earth. What I mean is, if their calculations and reasoning are correct, N/Z show that without an atmosphere the Earth’s surface would be 90 K lower than presently. If you disagree you have to explain what exactly it is that they’re saying that you disagree with and why. Not just complain that something that is physically impossible to do (stick the current atmosphere on on a 90 K cooler Earth) hasn’t happened. That might well classify as “unreasonable expectations”.
My God the ridiculous depths that this has sunk to…
That must have been some party the chatbot_SebH went to. He/she/it/whatever is still high, and the brain damage is more palpable than usual.
That’s right, chatbot. They are making it up.
https://ixquick-proxy.com/do/show_picture.pl?l=english&rais=1&oiu=http%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F_nOY5jaKJXHM%2FTDDizFtBw0I%2FAAAAAAAABMI%2FHl_EW6F_-og%2Fs1600%2Fdivine.gif&sp=566bc3d5ef6269c5a761b321e2a91e2d
And do not simply regurgitate the nonsense sums you gave me last time. They are meaningless. If you cannot explain how you can get the earth to radiate 48 watts per sq-meter MORE than it receives from the sun, while it is ALSO expending AN ADDITIONAL 102 watts per sq-meter to warm air by convection and evaporate water, then just shut up!
Incoming radiation = 342 W/sqM
coming off earth = 492 W/sqM
UNEXPLAINED EXCESS = 150 W/sqM
(And NO, you can’t create this out of nowhere, pretending it came from CO2 and include it in “back radiation.” That violates the STRICT law of physics prohibiting creation and destruction of energy.)
According to Kiehl and Trenbreth (1997), the downwelling LW value is 75 W m-2 for water vapor, 30 W m-2 for clouds, and “the second most important greenhouse gas is CO2, which contributes 32 W m−2in agreement with Charnock and Shine (1993) but differing from Kandel’s (1993) estimate of 50 W m−2.” According to Smithusen et al. (2015), the measured LW value for CO2 can be no more than about 15-20 W m-2 for the globe.
So we have a 50 W m-2 modeled estimate for CO2, a 32 W m-2 modeled estimate for CO2, and a 15-20 W m-2 estimate for CO2 from different “measurements”. Which value do you believe in, SebastianH? And why do you believe that your preferred value is the correct one, while the other values are wrong?
Why would I need to “believe” in a value, Kenneth? I can accept that it is difficult to exactly measure the influence of CO2 globally and that multiple estimates exist. However, the 15-20 W/m² value you are eyeballing from this paper’s figure 4 is most likely on the low side. See the content of the paper itself about the creation of this graph and also NASA’s information about what the satellite measures (here is a comparison of the accuracy regarding CO2 ppm measurements using the spectrometer onboard that satellite).
Anyway, let’s assume that there is huge uncertainty about how much of the GHE is directly caused by CO2. How does that contradict the CO2 GHE?
So if the uncertainty in the measurements for the “influence of CO2 globally” ranges somewhere between 20 W m-2 and 50 W m-2 (~30 W m-2), and the total change in CO2 radiative forcing for the last 265 years is claimed to be 1.8 W m-2, why do you believe we should have confidence that we know the effects of CO2 changes on surface temperature if we can’t even measure it with enough precision to have the change be larger than the uncertainty? And why is this enormous uncertainty so unimportant to you? Why do you just believe anyway with all the errors and uncertainty?
Do you think someone measured the CO2 forcing 265 years ago and compared it to today’s value to arrive at a 1.8 W/m² figure? Then I could understand why you think that the uncertainty matters and that we can not trust that 1.8 W/m² figure.
The other problem with the quoted above is that you jump from forcing (1.8 W/m²) to “changes on surface temperature”. Do you know how both relate to each other? What amount of surface temperature change does a forcing of X W/m² cause?
Why do you believe that this is problematic and somehow contradicts everything related to the greenhouse effect theory? Do you think that because it is difficult to estimate the speed of vehicles around you while you are driving, that your speedometer can’t be trusted?
No. The 1.8 W m-2 is entirely modeled result, based on assumptions and presuppositions, not observations. In other words, like the 20-50 W m-2 guessed-at range for CO2 for the globe, we really have nothing but assumptions and presuppositions as to what the effect of CO2 is on temperature.
Who cares, right? Just believe anyway and you’ve reached salvation from being classified as a denier.
It’s interesting that you think that trusting the results of formulas/equations is some kind of belief. Why?
And you still ignore what the uncertainty of some estimate what percentage of the total can be attributed to a single molecule means and how it compares to uncertainty in determining the forcing of a change of that molecule’s concentration …
Because the formulas/equations for the 288 – 255 = 33 K thought experiment are based on suppositions of what an imaginary Earth without an atmosphere’s surface temperature might be.
I meant the 1.8 W/m² value, not the 33K value resulting from a thought experiment.
And please, can you use the comment system like the rest of us and see in what kind of thread you are replying before you write something? You always seem to conflate different topics and that is really irritating (I think that is a side effect of just replying to one comment out of context in the WordPress admin interface). Using the comment system like the rest of us would also prevent your comments from appearing in the middle of a thread before some older comment (your replies can get easily overlooked this way).
The point with the Kiehl and Trenberth budget is, it starts with the surface being 288 K. Whatever fluxes are featured in the budget, it all comes back down to a 288 K surface. What their budget absolutely doesn’t explain is HOW the surface got to be 288 K in the first place. Seb H’s comment:
“I guess it is referring to the Trenberth diagram (356 – 169 – 30 W/m²) and that most certainly doesn’t feature an Earth with a 65 K (or 90 K) cooler surface, does it? So where is the problem?”
Is especially strange in light of this, since if Ned Nikolov’s 155 Wm-2 figure DOES come from the Kiehl and Trenberth budget, it relates to a surface temperature of 288 K. With a surface temperature significantly lower than this, there would be even less energy from LW radiation to “play with”, making the problem worse for Seb H, not better. The question should be “where isn’t the problem?”, if anything.
Basically it comes down to this explanation:
“The energy to make the surface temperature up to 288 K comes from the LW radiation emitted by a surface already at 288 K”
and that’s just fine with Seb H.
Whereas the idea that the energy could come from an atmospheric pressure effect is completely out of the question and ridiculous: energy from nothing!
That’s not how energy budgets and the greenhouse effect works.
Earth didn’t start at 0K, but let’s just assume that. So we have 0 Joules of heat content in the surface/mantle of the planet and the Sun begins to shine on it. Let’s also assume that the current atmosphere could exist in such conditions.
What would happen? Some amount X of Joules per time period would be absorbed by the surface and since there is this LW radiation absorbing atmosphere above the surface and the temperature is at 0 K (meaning 0 W/m² of radiation emitted) not all of those Joules get emitted back to space. The heat content increases. We now have A Joules of energy within the surface/mantle and the temperature rises accordingly. The Sun keeps shining and the surface keeps absorbing more Joules and the temperature keeps increasing until the moment where a balance with the atmosphere is reached and the exact same amount of Joules that get absorbed are also being emitted. That’s the current 288 K level.
This is how things get warmer. You add Joules and stuff heats up until the Joules can’t accumulate anymore since equilibrium was reached.
Static pressure doesn’t change temperature. If it were then that would truly be energy from nothing. The GHE doesn’t have this the laws of physics contradicting problem.
Exactly. The surface at 288 K provides exactly enough energy to warm itself beyond what it receives from the sun, right up to 288 K, by its own emitted radiation which is a result of its own temperature. What could make more sense?
You, if you had understood how the warming of anything works?
Not understanding science (or math for that matter) is not a good argument against something.
Pretending that I don’t understand something (and if only I did understand, I would agree you were right), is not a good argument for something.
I mean I could argue like you, and claim that you don’t understand that this:
“The energy to make the surface temperature up to 288 K comes from the LW radiation emitted by a surface already at 288 K”
is impossible; but that wouldn’t be true, because your response indicated you did realise it was impossible. The trouble was that your lengthy response still ultimately boiled down to saying exactly the same thing. So maybe you do understand my argument, but don’t understand your own. Who knows?
What the hell are you talking about?
It isn’t meant as an argument, GW. But if you’d understand that the Trenberth diagram shows an equilibrium state, we could move on from this silly debate. You could start at 280 K or at 300 K, it doesn’t matter … the end result would be those 288 K when the system reaches equilibrium.
No, it doesn’t.
Here is another “thought experiment” for you. You have a 10 Watt energy source surrounded by a perfect water sphere. The sphere is drifting in space/vacuum with no surrounding objects. The surface of the sphere will lose 10 W to space by emitting radiation. Correct? What happens when you put insulation around that sphere? What will the surface of that insulation emit to space? The same 10 W. But, what happened to the temperature inside? Did it increase? If so, how can that possibly happen? Do you consider this also impossible?
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I am saying that your response indicated you realised this statement:
“The energy to make the surface temperature up to 288 K comes from the LW radiation emitted by a surface already at 288 K”
was impossible; since you quoted this and then went on immediately to say that this was not how energy budgets and the GHE works. Not particularly difficult to follow, surely?
“It isn’t meant as an argument, GW”
OK. Perhaps stop doing it, then?
“But if you’d understand that the Trenberth diagram…”
You’re doing it again! Assuming that I don’t understand something, and if I just did I would agree with you. If it isn’t meant as an argument I don’t see the point in it. Certainly comes across as argumentative.
It’s plain that both here and further up you’re warming up to the big reveal that “CO2 is insulation” and so let’s just cut to the chase: it isn’t. Energy is re-radiated towards the surface by CO2 molecules, true, but also upwards. The atmosphere is warmed by conduction and convection as well as radiation, and CO2 molecules can receive energy from neighbouring N2 and O2 molecules through collision just as they can through radiation. Ultimately energy leaves the Earth system via radiation only. Add more CO2 molecules to the atmosphere and you are opening up more pathways for this energy to leave, just as much as you are closing off pathways for it to leave (via redirecting towards the surface).
The amount of time it takes for a CO2 molecule to emit a photon comes into play here too; where this amount of time is longer than the amount of time it takes between collisions with other molecules (i.e the closer you are towards the ground) then the more likely it is that a CO2 molecule having received a photon through radiation will pass it on via collision with another molecule rather than re-emit.
This was a point made in the Allmendinger paper – that the re-emission of heat following absorption does not just go in one direction – downwards. It goes sideways and upwards too. In other words, much of the heat energy “trapped” by GHGs is lost upon re-radiation anyway. It’s magical thinking (on SebastianH’s part) to believe that the re-radiation only heads in one direction. But that’s a leap he has to make to keep the faith – among several other problematic presuppositions.
GW,
No-one is claiming that this is a true statement, but you implied that I am fine with such a statement and/or that this is how AGW explains the GHE via diagrams like the one from Trenberth, didn’t you? You brought this up, so I intended to correct it.
Insulation re-radiates in all directions, too. Insulation is not a reflector and neither is CO2 and other GHGs.
I am very interested in a source for that claim. That would be true if CO2 were a single insulation layer, like in that steel greenhouse “thought experiment”. But the atmosphere is usually modeled as many layers. Which explains why the LW radiation towards space is on average less than the radiation towards the surface.
Kenneth,
why do you need to make something like this up? When did I claim that radiation from GHGs is uni-directional (towards the surface)?
Oh. I made the wrong assumption, then. So you agree that CO2 absorbs and then re-emits mostly to space (sideways and up) instead of mostly “trapping” heat at the surface like a blanket (downwards)? As GW writes, if you agree that CO2 re-emits to space, then GHGs are mostly just pathways to space rather than heat-escaping-obstructors. Right?
Furthermore, if you agree that GHGs re-radiate to space (sideways and upwards) and not just downwards to the surface, would you also agree that all those Trenberth-esque global W m-2 radiation charts with the LW arrows pointing in only one direction (downward) are both inaccurate and misleading? If not inaccurate and misleading, how would you defend the uni-directional arrows for GHGs in those charts if you don’t agree GHG radiation is uni-directional?
“No-one is claiming that this is a true statement, but you implied that I am fine with such a statement”
Ha ha. No, I knew you wouldn’t be fine with the statement. It shows how ridiculous it really is. The problem is that at the moment you can’t see that no matter how sophisticated your explanation, analogy, or general method for convincing yourself that it works (everyone has a particular way they can make sense of the GHE in their heads, myself included), it actually boils down to that statement. You won’t agree, and this discussion could go on forever, it really could. It won’t though because after a while I won’t be bothered to carry on. When this happens, try not to assume that because I haven’t responded, you must be correct. 😉
“I am very interested in a source for that claim”
What would you need a source for? It is a logical conclusion following on from the premises I wrote:
1) Energy is re-radiated towards the surface by CO2 molecules, true, but also upwards.
2) The atmosphere is warmed by conduction and convection as well as radiation.
3) CO2 molecules can receive energy from neighbouring N2 and O2 molecules through collision just as they can through radiation.
I’m assuming you don’t need a source for 1) to 3)?
Since the atmosphere at varying heights can be warmer for a number of reasons other than radiation (I left out evaporation and condensation, latent heat effects too), and CO2 molecules can radiate this energy out to space, and if they weren’t there (and if no other GHGs were there) there would be no efficient means for that energy to be radiated to space (N2 and O2 can radiate but not very well, they are poor emitters); then if you look at it that way, adding GHGs to the atmosphere is improving the atmosphere’s ability to cool to space (the “opening up more pathways” bit). You are improving the Earth system’s ability to radiate to space, energy which it has attained for reasons other than radiation (N.B yes the atmosphere does warm through radiation too, I’m just trying to get your head out of the “only radiation is important” loop that thinking about the GHE can get your head in).
It’s just the other side of the story to thinking, “well, adding GHGs means radiation will be intercepted and then re-radiated in all directions, including down, which will mean overall that less radiation escapes than would have done otherwise”. That might (or might not, see below) work in a “radiation-only” sense, however energy transferred from the surface via conduction, convection, evaporation/condensation etc, has only one way to get out of the Earth system, and adding GHGs facilitates that. Adding more molecules of CO2 enables that to happen more and more efficiently.
“But the atmosphere is usually modeled as many layers. Which explains why the LW radiation towards space is on average less than the radiation towards the surface”
As written, this is a non-sequitur (you need far more explanation to get from “the atmosphere is usually modelled as many layers” to “therefore more radiation goes down than up”), however, to save you the bother, there’s also the bit I wrote at the end, which you didn’t quote or address, which helps to explain why it’s not as simple as that.
“why do you need to make something like this up? When did I claim that radiation from GHGs is uni-directional (towards the surface)?”
Kenneth, I predicted this exact response from Seb H. I should have said at the time (as no-one will believe me now). I understand why you said what you said. But you have to be so, so careful with every single word you write to these people! Already there are a couple of things in my last reply that I can see Seb might be able to manufacture some point over. Oh well.
CO2 doesn’t re-emit mostly to space (sideways and up). Individual molecules do emit in all directions but a volume of GHGs in the atmosphere acts like many many blankets and is re-emitting more towards the surface. (it can’t emit more than what the planet receives from the Sun – 235 W/m² – in an equilibrium state, yet we can measure a higher amount of downwelling LW radiation)
There are no uni-direction arrows in those diagrams. LW radiation emitted by the atmosphere has arrows in both directions.
@GW:
No, it doesn’t. And here I thought you understand heat content and how it accumulates.
Like this one?
So in equilibrium Earth emits some value X W/m² towards space, the same amount as it receives from the Sun. And you argue now that adding GHGs increases X and therefore decreases Earth’s heat content? No words …
I see. So in very, very primitive terms, we have 4 directions that re-radiation by greenhouse gases can travel: left, right, up, and down. If it travels left, right, or up — and it re-emits in all those directions — then the backradiation from GHGs is not being absorbed by the surface, but is provided a pathway to space. In other words, GHGs don’t function as a blanket in these cases. Only if it (backradiation) travels in one of the (primitively defined) 4 directions — downwards — does it “trap” heat at the surface like a blanket. Since re-radiation from GHGs does travel in all directions, and primitively 3 of the 4 principal directions are to space, then it can be said the re-radiation travels mostly to space. You say this isn’t true, that it is not mostly to space…even though you simultaneously agree that it travels in all directions, which would necessarily mean re-radiation travels mostly to space. But it doesn’t…because…that wouldn’t fit the narrative. And therefore, arrows from GHGs backradiation point downward, and downward only…even though you say this doesn’t happen, because GHGs do emit sideways and upwards too, and not just downwards.
So CO2 molecules emit in all directions, including sideways and up, but then, when clustered in “a volume of GHGs” they rather mysteriously begin re-emitting “more towards the surface” rather than “in all directions”. I think I’ve got it now. It’s the “a volume of GHGs” that “acts like many many blankets” mechanism at work, changing the general direction of the re-emission. Basic physics, this mechanism. Can you cite a source with observational evidence for this phenomenon, or can I assume this is just something you’ve made up?
Wow. Are we just in denial here? Look at the direction for backradiation from greenhouse gases on the lower right. Notice the arrow only points downwards. So is this graph wrong? Or are you denying that the direction is only down for backradiation from GHGs?
Schematic diagram of the global radiation budget in the climate system.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/282393775_fig12_Fig-12-Schematic-diagram-of-the-global-radiation-budget-in-the-climate-system
A single CO2 behaves that way (radiating in all directions). The CO2 or rather all GHGsin the atmosphere as a volume behave differently. You’d know that if you finally tried to understand how the GHE works and how radiative energy transfers work.
Regarding the diagram: notice the 165 W/m2 arrow that point from the atmosphere to space? What do you think that is?
So what is the mechanism that causes a single water vapor molecule to re-emit in all different directions, including up and sideways,
when it is alone, but then switch to only re-emit downwards when situated next to other water vapor molecules? What mechanism causes the direction to change when its alone vs. with other molecules? How far removed from the other water vapor molecules does a single water vapor molecule have to be before it can stop re-emitting in all directions and instead only re-emit downwards? Please support your answer with a scientific citation.
“So in equilibrium Earth emits some value X W/m² towards space, the same amount as it receives from the Sun. And you argue now that adding GHGs increases X and therefore decreases Earth’s heat content”
I have said there are two sides to it. So on balance I would argue it makes no overall difference to X. Funnily enough I argue what I say, and not what you say that I say.
Kenneth, google optical depth and/or use the modtran tool to understand how a volume of gas with varying density behaves in regards to radiation.
GW: you are arguing that the 255K is not the surface temperature of the surface without an atmosphere and that therefore the difference between 288K and 255K radiation is too small. You ignore that those 255K have nothing to do with the temperature the surface would have without an atmosphere. However, it is a good baseline (minimum GHE)
Seb H: You’ve now done what you just accused Kenneth of doing elsewhere…perhaps you meant to post your reply to me somewhere else, but you’ve all of a sudden completely changed tack from what we were arguing in this specific thread. But OK…
For the estimate of 255K for a temperature of the Earth’s surface without an atmosphere, I will quote Ed Bo below:
“Gavin Schmidt’s alternate imaginary earth is one that absorbs as much solar energy as our earth does, has unit (1.0) infrared emissivity, a completely transparent (or no) atmosphere, and has a high enough thermal capacitance and low enough lateral thermal resistance that it has a uniform surface temperature over its entire area. This alternate imaginary earth would have a surface temperature of 255K.”
and
“Holder’s inequality demonstrates that the larger the temperature variation over a surface that radiates power as the 4th power (or really any power greater than 1) of absolute temperature, the lower the mean temperature of the surface (and hence the integrated energy level) will be for a constant power input.
So Schmidt’s alternate imaginary earth with no temperature variation provides an upper limit on the average surface temperature that absorbs as much solar power as the earth does, has unit infrared emissivity, and a transparent (or no) atmosphere.”
As 255 K is an upper limit based on an imaginary Earth with uniform temperature, and due to Holder’s inequality we know that any “true” surface temperature without atmosphere MUST be lower than this (since there are huge temperature variations present across the planet even under current conditions) we know that the “true” value of the thermal enhancement provided by the presence of an atmosphere on Earth MUST be higher than 33 K.
As Nikolov and Zeller point out, there is an observed flux to the atmosphere of only 155 W/m2, which equates to 33K. So even if, as theorised by the current understanding of the GHE, ALL of that energy were to have gone into raising the temperature of the Earth from what it would have been without an atmosphere to what it is now, it could not have provided a thermal enhancement greater than 33 K.
And even if you think that their estimate of approximately 90 K for their total thermal enhancement is too high, for whatever reason, or if you think that factors to do with adding an atmosphere other than pressure, or factors relating to taking the oceans into account, etc, will account for some of the 90 K difference, you’re still left with the inevitable conclusion that there is simply too much thermal enhancement to be accounted for by greenhouse gases alone. So whatever way you look at it the re-calculation of what the surface temperature without an atmosphere would be DOES present a problem to the current understanding of GHE theory.
Yeah, noticed that. It is hard to write comments on a mobile phone on this blog. Sorry.
You write about (or quote) Hölder Inequality like you know what it means and then you come up with this. No, those 155 W/m² don’t equate to 33 K. The difference between 390 W/m² and 235 W/m² is not a difference of 33 K, it is a difference of 155 W/m².
Not really. There exists no Earth with a different albedo and surface composition than the current one that is being thermally enhanced. It is the current version of Earth that has a higher surface temperature than what incoming SW radiation would allow it to have without the GHE. And for that Earth, everything balances out.
No, not really. Every effort in that direction results in imaginary temperatures from an imaginary world. And we assume that the transformation towards the currently observable Earth happened from that imaginary world and the difference is the GHE. But that is only true when we assume that this imaginary world is similar to ours. When you change the albedo, the surface composition, etc you can’t argue anymore that the GHE has a problem because it can’t explain the difference anymore. Is that too hard to understand? (not a native English writer here).
“No, those 155 W/m² don’t equate to 33 K”
http://www.spectralcalc.com/blackbody_calculator/blackbody.php
I guess if you completely ignore every word I’ve said, as you have done, you can stick your fingers in your ears and shout “la la la”.
That’s all your response amounts to.
From my experience, he isn’t ignoring what you wrote. He knows you’re right, isn’t humble enough to admit it, and so he just repeats the same claims, twists your words to claim you’ve written something else, or changes the subject altogether.
“When you change the albedo, the surface composition, etc”
Keep everything absolutely the same, if you like (other than the absence of an atmosphere). Albedo the same as the current Earth, surface composition the same, same ocean currents etc. It will still have a surface temperature lower than 255 K. So there’s still a problem for GHE theory. Why will it still be lower than 255 K? I’ve already explained why. Ed Bo’s own words, that I quoted above, already explained why. This is why I’m saying that at this stage you can only be simply ignoring what is said.
And that seems to be the problem at the moment Kenneth. Not just on blogs but even in the literature! For example one of the first modern papers to challenge the GHE, the Gerlich and Tscheuschner paper. Halpern et al wrote a rebuttal which was effectively for the most part just a huge strawman. G & T wrote back a rebuttal pointing this out, but still to this day the same people just repeat over and over again their same strawman and refuse to ever publically acknowledge their mistake (if it was even a mistake in the first place and not deliberate). Same with the 97% consensus paper by Cook et al. It has been absolutely, comprehensively, refuted in pretty much every single aspect imaginable and yet the journal have closed off any further commenting on it, it will never be retracted by its authors, it will still get cited, and the 97% meme will be endlessly regurgitated.
It is simply a network of people who refuse to admit they’re wrong, and just keep repeating the same lies over and over again in the hope that people will believe it. Every single major climate blog on whatever side of the issue comes with its own little gang of trolls who all seem to think exactly the same thing, always argue in exactly the same ways, and repeat the exact same lies ad nauseam. Their M.O is:
1) Always have the last word.
2) Never admit they’re wrong.
3) Portray themselves as the teacher and you the student.
4) Do whatever they can to undermine confidence in their opponent (their person rather than their argument).
5) Always misrepresent their opponents position.
I can’t see any end for this climate debate. Since integrity seems to have left the building, how can there be? If scientists are at the point now where even when they’re shown to be wrong they just don’t admit it, and come up with increasingly elaborate ways to convince themselves they’re right (or if they know they’re wrong, to convince others that they’re right) then surely that’s just the end of science? The self-correcting, progressive part of it gone. It will just stagnate indefinitely.
“As Nikolov and Zeller point out, there is an observed flux to the atmosphere of only 155 W/m2, which equates to 33K”
To clarify, since the surface temperature is 288 K (390 W/m2) and the Earth as a whole is emitting 235 W/m2 to space (which relates to a blackbody temperature of about 255 K) then the observed flux to the atmosphere of 155 W/m2 equates to approx. 33 K in that context. “Such a flux might only explain a surface warming up to 35 K”, as N-Z put it. I am not suggesting that if you put 33 K into that blackbody calculator I linked to that 155 W/m2 will come out.
Just trying to anticipate the next ridiculous strawman, is all.
GW,
It’s rather you who is ignoring words …
I am not claiming that the average surface temperature without an atmosphere would be lower than 255 K. This is absolutely correct to say. But claiming that a lower than 255 K temperature could not be explained by a greenhouse effect of “155 W/m² which equates 33 K” is just wrong. I tried to explain it to you, but apparently, I am not a proficient enough user of the English language or you really can’t understand it.
One more time then. Earth receives around 342 W/m² of solar radiation. The albedo reduces that to around 235 W/m². Earth has to get rid of that amount of radiation to be at equilibrium. Now let’s say there would be no atmosphere and the albedo would change to the one of the Moon (0.12). So Earth has to get rid of 301 W/m². On a very fast rotating planet where the Sun is shining with equal power on every square meter of the surface this would mean the surface would have an average temperature of around 270 K. But Earth isn’t that kind of a planet and the Moon is even less so.
So far so good. Now how can Earth be cooler than 270 K and still emit 301 W/m²? Any idea? Let’s look at an extreme situation. Half the planet emits 702 W/m² and the other half 0 W/m². The average is still 301 W/m², but now the Earth’s average surface temperature is just 166.8 K.
Was that understandable enough? No “la la la” from your side this time, please …
That came out wrong. There should be an edit function 10 minutes after you post something …
Instead of
I meant to write the opposite. Of course the average surface temperature of the planet would be lower without an atmosphere than 255 K. That 255 K value resulting from the 235 W/m² is for an imaginary planet, but never the less 235 W/m² must leave the planet. And that is possible with lower than 255 K average temperatures. Do you disagree?
Regarding your post “GW 6. October 2017 at 10:53 AM”: it describes the skeptic side very well. It’s kind of funny how people on skeptic blogs seem to think they are on to something – a big conspiracy maybe – when it is really them basing their arguments on misunderstanding after misunderstanding.
“On a very fast rotating planet where the Sun is shining with equal power on every square meter of the surface”
Ooop. There you go, you’ve gone wrong again. Ed Bo’s words once more:
“Holder’s inequality demonstrates that the larger the temperature variation over a surface that radiates power as the 4th power (or really any power greater than 1) of absolute temperature, the lower the mean temperature of the surface (and hence the integrated energy level) will be for a constant power input.
So Schmidt’s alternate imaginary earth with NO TEMPERATURE VARIATION provides an upper limit on the average surface temperature that absorbs as much solar power as the earth does, has unit infrared emissivity, and a transparent (or no) atmosphere.”
It’s very funny to watch you twist and turn. Keep it up!
It’s a mathematical and physical certainty that you’re wrong.
“Of course the average surface temperature of the planet would be lower without an atmosphere than 255 K. That 255 K value resulting from the 235 W/m² is for an imaginary planet, but never the less 235 W/m² must leave the planet. And that is possible with lower than 255 K average temperatures. Do you disagree?”
Why would I disagree when that’s precisely the point I’m making!? The surface temperature of a planet without an atmosphere would be lower than 255 K. The planet as it is has a surface temperature of 288 K. So you definitely have a greater than 33 K difference to explain. There is only enough energy flux to the atmosphere to explain a 33 K difference (via a GHE). Is that clear enough for YOU to understand!?
What are you talking about? I am not disagreeing with what you repeatedly quoted from Ed Bo. Below you write people just disagree and do not misunderstand concepts … I do not concur.
Because you aren’t making the point that you think you are making. You seem to recognize that a certain amount of emittance X W/m² doesn’t correspond 1:1 to a planet wide average temperature, but you fail to see that the difference between 390 W/m² and 235 W/m² is not a difference in temperature by the very same principle. That would only be the case if Earth had the same temperature everywhere on the surface.
Nope. The energy flux that we can observe now is exactly the one that is necessary to arrive at the current state (from however cold an imaginary Earth without radiation absorbing gases would be). That’s why we are observing it know. Your fixation on this 33K value is mind boggling …
“What are you talking about? I am not disagreeing with what you repeatedly quoted from Ed Bo.”
Yeah, I realised that after I’d written the first reply. You threw me by suddenly doing a complete 180 on your position and arguing a point to me that I already agreed with, and had in fact made in the first place, then presenting it back to me as if it was something I was arguing against. These conversations go on so long it gets to the point you automatically assume whatever the person says to you in reply will constitute a disagreement.
“Because you aren’t making the point that you think you are making.”
A ridiculous statement, that presupposes you can read my mind. In what you say next, you’re forgetting that in the case of the 390 W/m2 vs 235 W/m2 (real-life Earth situation), Holder’s inequality won’t apply to the temperature associated with the 235 W/m2 since that flux is the output, and it’s not the surface (it’s the outgoing flux at TOA), and so we can be fairly sure it equates to a blackbody temperature of 255 K. Then the surface temperature of 288 K is known. So unless you’re suggesting that the K-T budget is wrong and that actually the flux shown coming from the surface should be something other than 390 W/m2, you don’t really have a point.
“The energy flux that we can observe now is exactly the one that is necessary to arrive at the current state (from however cold an imaginary Earth without radiation absorbing gases would be).”
Again, a fairly ludicrous statement. You can’t just say “from however cold…”, different amounts of warming require different amounts of energy to induce.
“What are you talking about? I am not disagreeing with what you repeatedly quoted from Ed Bo.”
Sorry if this ends up being a repeat post. I recently wrote a long reply only to see it disappear after pressing “post comment”. Anyway, yes, my first reply to you was a mistake. When dealing with post after post from you continuously disagreeing with every word I said it was somewhat of a surprise to see you suddenly arguing my points back to me as if I hadn’t made them to you in the first place, so I guess I was thrown off there.
“but you fail to see that the difference between 390 W/m² and 235 W/m² is not a difference in temperature by the very same principle.”
Well, Holder’s inequality won’t apply to the 235 W/m2, so we can be fairly sure that this flux equates to a blackbody temperature of 255 K. In other words the temperature of the whole Earth system, as seen from space, would be 255 K. The 288 K temperature is measured. So, unless you’re suggesting the K/T energy budget is wrong to show 390 W/m2 as the flux coming from the surface, then yes that difference between the fluxes does equate to a 33 K temperature difference or thereabouts once the temperatures associated with them are worked out. But generally, no, fluxes aren’t temperatures, they’re fluxes. I’m not suggesting otherwise.
“The energy flux that we can observe now is exactly the one that is necessary to arrive at the current state (from however cold an imaginary Earth without radiation absorbing gases would be).”
Saying “from however cold” is a bit of a silly statement considering different amounts of warming require different amounts of energy to induce.
It doesn’t radiate more than it receives, yonason.
From your linked image:
168 W/m² reach the surface from the Sun. 102 W/m² (thermal and evaporation) + 66 W/m² (radiation) are emitted back to the atmosphere/space. Those 66 W/m² are the net result of the surface emitting radiation at the current average temperature and the atmosphere emitting LW radiation back down to the surface.
And it’s not like GW is writing that this assumes the surface is at 288 K. If it were lower than thermals + evaporation + outgoing radiation would be lower too, but there would still be 168 W/m² absorbed by the surface, increasing heat content and therefore the temperature. The diagram shows the energy budget in an equilibrium state.
It’s not created out of nowhere. If someone would give you money at a faster rate than you could spend it then it would accumulate in your bank account, wouldn’t it? Now, if your ability to spend money were a function of the amount of money in your bank account, there would be some equilibrium state where you would indeed spend as fast as you receive and you would stop getting richer. Has there been money created out of nowhere in this example?
But, because we haven’t measured it (assuming we could then which we can’t, even now), and because our ignorance of what it might be is thereby even greater than it would have been had we been able to measure it then; the now larger uncertainty therefore doesn’t matter, and we can TOTALLY trust a number the warmunistas pulled out of thin air.
You see, Kenneth, it’s totally understandable, …IF one has’t a brain.
It seems that SebH misses the little detail that as 342 W/sqM are shown by the cartoon to be arriving, (107+235)=342 are shown to be concurrently leaving. Everything comimg in then goes out. They show ZERO excess. According to that cartoon THERE IS NO WAY TO ACCUMULATE ANYTHING!!! What they are saying is that you got $100.00 at the bank, and after you brought it home, entered your house and looked into you wallet, it had become $200.00. That isn’t “science.” It’s magic. And that is exactly my criticism of the cartoon, as it is presented.
In fact, in my first post on this, in response to the Trenberth version of that cartoon that YOU first posted, I hinted at how that was the only way you could accumulate energy, by having more coming in than was going out. You completely ignored that then. Now you think you are telling me something I didn’t know??!! You are neither telling me anything new, nor shedding any light on the energy budget, at all. You are blathering ignorantly, and carelessly.
That’s a weird way of saying that you haven’t read to the end of what I wrote. Why do you ignore that the diagram is the equilibrium state? There is no accumulation …
That’s because it shows the energy fluxes in the equilibrium state.
What you are doing is misinterpreting a diagram.
I don’t know if there is any animation of that diagram with arbitrary starting points reaching the shown state, but there really should be, so someone like you can understand what is shown and what is not shown in there. Don’t make up “divine interventions” when everything perfectly adds up.
Great. No accumulation of heat = no warming.
Ok, guys, we’re done here. Last one out turn out the lights and lock up.
Good night.
I’ll make you an animation of that diagram where you can start with any temperature you want and reach that equilibrium state. Why would such a diagram show accumulation and/or warming? The one you linked to doesn’t … the normal Trenberth diagrams have a 0.x W/m² imbalance which means the surface is warming.
“Why would such a diagram show accumulation and/or warming? The one you linked to doesn’t … the normal Trenberth diagrams have a 0.x W/m² imbalance which means the surface is warming.” – SebH
AGAIN – What do you mean, “The one you linked to?!” That IS Trenberth’s cartoon, the one from his paper, …the one you first posted, and to which I have been responding. You keep saying I don’t understand, but you never explain what I don’t understand or why.
Now, you go ahead and make an animation, if you wish, or save yourself the time and explain it in words, if you can.
You don’t understand that the diagram displays an equilibrium state. All arrows balance out, there is no surplus anywhere.
Are those words enough for you?
“Don’t make up “divine interventions” when everything perfectly adds up.” – SebH
LOL – No, everything doesn’t add up. And I’m not the only one who notices.
https://objectivistindividualist.blogspot.com/2017/05/infrared-radiation-from-earths-surface.html
……………………….
It does NOT “add up,” SebH, and never will, because it is a fantasy based on fictitious physics, or “divine intervention,” as you please. I repeat: you cannot have more energy internally than what is supplied from without, as they want us to believe. That is a physical impossibility.
You’re going to have to do a lot better than accusing us of “not understanding” if you want to show others that you do, which you obviously do not.
MY FINAL POST TO THIS THREAD
or….
I’ll let this fellow beat that dead horse one last time.
While he is saying the same as I am, in general, about why the K-T cartoon of Earth’s energy budget is wrong, he also elaborates on the details of why it is so. And from it we can see why, being so, the repeated and tiresome fact-free faith-based assertions of SebH are completely wrong.
“The Settled Science of Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming Violates the Laws of Physics”
https://objectivistindividualist.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-settled-science-of-catastrophic-man.html
Enjoy.
It’s pretty sad that you can’t tell that the person on that objectivistindividualist blog knows little about physics. He/she would likely fail a basic university exam. Why is it so hard for you to understand this diagram and see that everything adds up?
There is no new energy that magically appears.
Do you know how your kitchen oven works? What do you think happens when you strip it of all but one layer of insulation? Do you think the interior will still get as hot a before with the same amount of energy drawn from the grid? So why is the oven getting warmer with more insulation or requires less energy to keep a certain temperature? It is the same principle …
FED UP WITH SEBH
It’s his business. It’s what he does for a living. He’s a PhD materials scientist with his own company. Here’s the website.
http://www.andersonmaterials.com/
And these are the people on the company’s team.
http://www.andersonmaterials.com/our-team-2.html
Are you really that stupid that you can’t bother to check on someone’s qualifications before accusing them of not having any???? Are you so unashamed at telling such bald-faced lies that even a child could see through them????
You never have anything constructive to offer in response to anyone. Insult, slander and logical fallacy are your stock in trade. And your opinions are worthless rubbish.
If you ever comment to anything I write again, I will post this comment of mine in response, so people will know why I’m ignoring you. And that is far better than you deserve!
So if a professor tells you that 1+1 can’t be 2, you believe it?
Oh boy. You can always find qualified people telling nonsense. When someone claims that there is magic additional energy in the Trenberth diagram because the fluxes are higher than what is received from the Sun, then you should be very skeptic about his/her other claims, since that claim demonstrates that basic laws of physics are not well understood.
Using clouds as a proxy for CO2 in assessing how CO2 concentration changes affect water temperatures is therefore not comparing apples to apples in calculating their radiative significance, and thus any experimental results using clouds can not be generalized or assumed to simulate the heating effects of CO2 when varied over water bodies.
Read what I actually wrote carefully, SebastianH. Then respond to words I actually wrote. Responding to your made-up interpretations is pointless.
I don’t know what you’re asking here. None of the 5 points support the 33 K value, no.
The scientists argue that the temperature values (288-255=33) are not supported by evidence from the moon – which doesn’t have an atmosphere.
The argument from authority logical fallacy I am referencing is the one that says if ___ % of scientists agree that something is true, therefore it is true.
I generally shy away from undermining the academic, educational, or experiential credentials of an author.
You have actually written that LW radiation changes from cloud cover changes are different from LW radiation changes from CO2 concentration changes (“not comparing apples to apples”). You could either mean that the difference is the size of the change and that below a certain level of change nothing happens temperature-wise or you could mean that there is another difference that enables (water) surfaces to detect this and not perform the same way as when varying the LW radiation from changing cloud cover.
Am I missing something?
Because the 33K value is a “useful baseline”. Going into more detail does change the value, but not the cause. So what is the point you are trying to make? A smaller than 33K value would mean the GHE isn’t as big as in the “thought experiment”, is that the case? A larger than 33K value means the GHE is even bigger than in the “thought experiment”. What is it?
Of course, it is not. It’s a “useful baseline” for a reason. It’s like measuring the length of a coastline from a map. Use a map with more detail and the distance increases.
However, you can include rotation period and surface materials and you will find that there is no contradiction with the Moon vs. Earth. Get the Moon to rotate fast enough so material properties don’t play a significant role and increase its albedo to the same as Earth’s and you’ll get your 255 K average temperature instead of 197 K.
You should be more skeptic then, Kenneth. Understanding of physics would be helpful to determine what sounds plausible and what not.
No, that’s not what I have actually written.
I actually wrote that because tiny (i.e., 1%) changes in cloud cover are profoundly more powerful than “large” changes in CO2 (i.e., doubling, or 100% changes) in the LW, and because clouds not only alter the LW, they also alter the SW too (more than LW, meaning that SW cloud forcing overwhelms LW forcing), comparing the effects of clouds to the effects of CO2 (which only operates in the LW, not the SW and LW like clouds do) is not comparing apples to apples. I have repeated this many times, and yet you still (purposely) make up your own interpretations/straw man arguments.
Yes. See above.
So calling the make-believe world of an Earth without an atmosphere a “thought experiment” is unacceptable to you, but apparently calling this “thought experiment” a “useful baseline” is much more palatable. I don’t see much difference. We’re still operating within the hypothetical.
You wrote:
I try to find out what you mean by that last part and you come up with this?
Didn’t you read how clouds were used as a proxy do find out what a change in LW radiation does to a body of water? Hint: it was night.
See above. This was about using clouds as proxy since we can’t easily alter the CO2 concentration. It was not about the overall effect of cloud cover changes vs. CO2 forcing. It is an apples to apples comparison unless you think that different quantities of LW radiation have different effects or the surface can somehow distinguish between different sources.
Did I write that? You can call it whatever you want. It should be obvious that you can’t easily strip a planet of its atmosphere and hope that the albedo/surface stays the same. That’s why this is only a baseline. Just as with estimating driving distances with a line of sight value. Good baseline, but streets are rarely following that path, so the distance will increase once you look closer at the actual path.
And that’s why this whole exercise (the paper) is like a dog barking at the wrong tree. It is equal to someone claiming that the greenhouse effect can’t be real, because it doesn’t work like an actual greenhouse.
SebastianH, your disingenuousness is painful to even read. You do not try to find out what I mean. You just make up stuff — “So you’re suggesting….”
@Kenneth Richard 4. October 2017 at 4:07 AM
I couldn’t agree with you more.
I really want to believe that SebH is trying his best to understand, as hopefully we all are, but is just too brainwashed for it to get through. The alternative is that he’s just another shill for warmism, without a care for the fact that he’s pushing a false narrative. The fact that he never seems to catch on to anything outside his belief system, or to show any indication that he might at least need to suspend judgment due to lack of facts, strongly suggests to me that it’s that latter.
Your patience with him is appropriate to your position here, and is to your credit. It must be difficult, but you do it well. Thanks for setting the bar as high as you do. We visitors may not reach it, but it’s a good standard against which to gauge our responses.
Thanks, and keep up the excellent work!
This is the angle that I keep pushing. We don’t know enough. And yet he believes we do.
Some skepticism on what we know or can know is in order — especially considering the very real lack of observational evidence — and yet he believes that humans are nearly 100% responsible for the changes in ocean heat content since the 1950s anyway. Is there anything about AGW that is falsifiable? From what I can tell, no. If Arctic sea ice expands to 1970s levels in the coming decades, he’d still believe that humans are responsible for Arctic sea ice losses during the 1990s and 2000s anyway — and find some other explanation for the gains. What’s another name for an unfalsifiable hypothesis?
Don’t hide behind “you just make up stuff” … when you have been caught making up stuff and using it as an argument against something.
Um, I’m not “hiding” behind anything. You do just make up false arguments. It appears to be a habit.
OK, without fabricating (again), identify an instance when I have made up stuff and used my made up statement as an argument against something (which I’m not really sure I know what this means, but…). If you can cite such an instance, I will acknowledge that I misinterpreted/misrepresentated what was actually written (or meant) — something I actively try to avoid. On the other hand, if you falsely claim that I have “made up” something that I did not (which is what I assume you will do, given your track record), I will once again call you on your disingenuousness.
Kenneth,
you wrote that clouds can’t be used as proxy for finding out what effect changing LW radiation has because they also block SAW radiation. This statement ignores that this measurements were done at night. Your claim that isn’t an apples to apples comparison is incorrect and made up. As I have written in the comment above …
So you believe that the ocean heating effects of SW radiation only apply during the daytime? After the Sun goes down, the effects of SW just…stop? You didn’t realize that the effects of SW radiation persist “well past sundown”, and during the night too? You didn’t realize that since direct SW heating can change the temperature of the oceans tens of meters down in a matter of just hours, that this temperature-changing effect of SW radiation does not just stop when the Sun goes down, but temperature changes continue to occur in the oceans due to internal mixing processes that are entirely unrelated to any LW processes, and therefore cannot be controlled for in an experiment? Wow, Sebastian, you have a lot to learn about SW vs. LW ocean heating if you think we have controlled for SW effects if we take measurements at night. But, obviously, that is what you believe. Hint: taking measurements at night does not control for the SW heating effects of clouds. I shouldn’t have to teach you this.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Edson/publication/215721709_Cool-skin_and_warm-layer_effects_on_sea_surface_temperature_J_Geophys_Res/links/0c96051af2eab81df4000000.pdf
“On a clear day the Sun deposits an average of about 500 W/m-2 of heat into the ocean over the 12 daylight hours. Roughly half of this heat is absorbed in the upper 2 m. In the absence of mixing this is sufficient heat input to warm this 2-m-deep layer uniformly by 2.0 K. … Measurable warming occurs as deep as 20 m and may persist well past sundown.”
In the article, I wrote that it’s not an apples to apples comparison because the radiative power of clouds completely overwhelms the radiative power of CO2. Scientists agree.
http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/file/cloud%20radiative%20forcing.pdf
“The size of the observed net cloud forcing is about four times as large as the expected value of radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2. The shortwave and longwave components of cloud forcing are about ten times as large as those for a CO2 doubling. … The greenhouse effect of clouds may be larger than that resulting from a hundredfold increase in the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere.”
With a 10- to 100-fold larger radiative effect for clouds relative to CO2, directly comparing the effects of changes in cloud cover to changes in CO2 is not comparing apples to apples, but apples to watermelons.
Both these factors (1. clouds affect SW + LW but CO2 only affects LW, and 2. clouds have 10-100 times the radiative power to affect OHC as CO2 does) are reasons why I legitimately stated that changes in cloud cover should not be thought to accurately simulate/approximate changes in CO2 concentrations.
That’s what I wrote, and have written (many times).
And then you wrote something else. Again.
And, as I suspected, you have nothing to back up your claim that I have falsely “made up” something. This is why I had originally just decided to not respond to your comments, but to call you on your chronic disingenuousness. And then I got sucked back in.
It’s just getting weird now. I can only repeat my advice to read some physics books and try to understand the radiation topic.
“The effect persists well past sundown” … so what? No new energy from SW radiation is being absorbed at night, is it? You just have a body of water that is losing energy towards the atmosphere/space and does it at different rates depending on the amount of back radiation. A change of back radiation happens when a cloud passes by … is that so hard to understand?
Yes, you did and it doesn’t suddenly become correct with repetition. You are conflating to different topic and somehow think that you found some “huge gap” … if you’d understand the basics you wouldn’t jump to such conclusions. Don’t be ignorant towards that knowledge and I promise you that you’ll drastically change your views about certain climate science problems you make up.
So what? Is it not your claim that directly comparing LW cloud variations to LW CO2 variations in an experiment is apples to apples if the experiment is conducted at night because measuring at night controls for the SW radiative effects of clouds? That seems to be precisely what you are saying…
The effects of SW radiation from changes in cloud cover do not cease after the Sun goes down. The SW effects persist perpetually due to internal mixing processes that have nothing to do with the LW effects of clouds, meaning that one cannot be isolated from the other. Which is why one cannot control for the SW effects of clouds, precluding any direct one-to-one comparison. I would have thought this would be obvious, but apparently you believe that the SW effects of clouds can be controlled for as long as we measure at night. This is another example of the non-nuanced, black-and-white thinking that you routinely employ.
The other reason — the one stated in the article itself — that directly comparing cloud cover changes to CO2 changes is not apples to apples is that the power of cloud radiative forcing is 10 to 100 times greater than CO2 radiative forcing. It should go without saying that comparing two values that are so demonstrably different will not yield results that are physically meaningful. I notice you failed to address this point.
Just to confirm that I understand you correctly: you think clouds are blocking SW radiation at night?
In the last paragraph you mention the difference of the size of the values. That’s exactly what I was asking you above and you – instead of answering – claimed that I was making something up.
Your disingenuousness is showing again.
Again, the shortwave effects of clouds on water temperatures do not cease to exist after the Sun goes down due to internal mixing processes that are ongoing and perpetual. Isolating the cloud effects of SW vs. LW is therefore not possible. You obviously think it is possible, which is why you think that as soon as the Sun goes down, the SW effect of clouds disappears.
Assuming you will you say that you still don’t understand how this works – even though this is the 3rd time I have explained it to you – I will request that you don’t even bother trying to purposely mis-state what I have written.
Huh? You wait until it is night and the Sun isn’t further warming the water, not even by shining on the nearby water. Then you wait for a cloud and measure what happens below that cloud when it passes. How much the back radiation changes, what the water does, etc …
But ok, this leads to nowhere. You have your convictions about this topic and nothing will convince you that LW radiation indeed causes warming of water even when that radiation is smaller than the radiation emitted by the water.
And what does the water do when a cloud passes over it, SebastianH? Is it anything like what occurs with CO2 molecules “passing over” the water so that we can compare…apples to apples?
By how much relative to SW radiation? What are the real-world physical measurements from a controlled experiment? Wait — you don’t have any such measurements? So how is it that you have derived your conclusions?
By the way, you’ve already agreed that the re-radiation from greenhouse gases doesn’t just go downwards. It goes in all directions, including sideways and upwards…to space. So compared to SW radiation, why do you nonetheless believe that the LW forcing from CO2 is just as strong as the SW since the direction of the re-emission goes sideways and upwards, and not just downwards?
Also, you’ve denied that there are graphs that show the backradiation from GHGs only going downwards. (“There are no uni-direction arrows in those diagrams.”) Why are you in denial, SebastianH? Are these graphs wrong, since you’ve agreed GHGs emit sideways and upwards too?
Schematic diagram of the global radiation budget in the climate system.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/282393775_fig12_Fig-12-Schematic-diagram-of-the-global-radiation-budget-in-the-climate-system
It changes the amount of downwelling LW radiation. BTW, you can try out this effect for yourself when you go outside in a cold clear sky night and look up towards the milky way. Wait for some time then use a large enough paper or magazine to block the night sky from your face. You’ll immediately notice the difference that the increases downwelling LW radiation causes …
Why do you keep bringing up SW radiation? Yeah, it changes too and has it’s effects. That doesn’t mean that increases LW radiation doesn’t happen or has no effect at all. Why is that so hard to understand?
Measurements of radiation, knowing the properties of CO2, experiments. You are grasping a straw that somehow the actual mechanism decided to ignore physics and behaves in a totally different way. Why?
LW forcing is what it is and SW forcing is what it is. There is no contest to determine the winner and that one then causes all the warming. About the direction of the re-emissions: please, look at some atmospheric models or use the Modtran tool linked to by Ed Bo. It’s really not too hard to understand how radiative transfers happen in an atmosphere. If it is, just imagine multiple blankets keeping you warm. Why is the outer blanket not at the same temperature than the inner blanket? Roughly the same principle. Or maybe it helps you to deconstruct your kitchen oven and look at how that insulation works.
Why are you ignoring the 165 W/m² path going up from the atmosphere?
Maybe this link helps you to understand how it works: https://climatephys.wordpress.com/2015/02/22/a-better-use-of-layer-models-in-teaching-the-greenhouse-effect/
Notice the wielding pattern of dishonesty. Correcting your false claim that I have taken the position that LW doesn’t affect warming at all, I specifically ask you how much LW warms the oceans relative to SW — which by the very nature of the question acknowledges that LW radiation could and does cause warming to some unidentified degree. And then you, on two occasions in the same comment (the bold above), just choose to repeat your false claim that I have posited that LW has “no effect at all”. This is sick.
For the umpteenth time, I don’t use words like “all” in claiming that only one and not the other “causes all the warming”. I specifically acknowledge that it’s not 0% vs. 100%, it’s not all vs. nothing. That’s why I’m asking for relative values, using words and phrases like “how much relative to…”
You just cannot allow yourself to respond to the actual questions I pose. You must twist my words to fit your narrative, and thus make up a position that you want me to have in an attempt to marginalize. It’s a dishonest debate tactic that makes interacting with you highly unpleasant. You cannot be trusted to engage in honest debate. I wish you could be. That’s why when you write something, my first instinct is to assume that you aren’t being truthful. Just about every other comment has some sort of disingenuous comment or made-up position/straw man. I wish you would stop behaving this way.
I will say it again. I have not rejected the idea that LW radiation can have an effect on surface temperatures. Instead, I have asked you how much LW forcing from GHGs (which re-emit to space just as much or more than they do towards the surface) affects ocean temperatures relative to SW radiation. Your “answer” to this question…
…is not an answer. It’s an evasion.
Do multiple blankets re-emit heat energy away from the surface, since that’s what GHGs do (they re-emit in all directions, including sideways and upwards to space, which is a pathway to cooling)? No, blankets don’t do that. They trap heat (downwards) towards the surface. And if GHGs re-emit in all directions, the analogy of “multiple warm blankets” does not apply.
Uh, SebastianH, that’s the “emitted by atmosphere” arrow. The atmosphere does not equal greenhouse gases. In fact, nearly all (99-plus percent) of the atmosphere is not composed of greenhouse gases. Quantified, 99.96% of the atmosphere is not CO2. So why are you claiming that greenhouse gases can now be represented by the “emitted by atmosphere” arrow? Do you not understand the difference between the atmosphere as a whole and greenhouse gases?
I’ll ask you the same question again. Try not to twist my words and make up a new position this time.
You’ve already agreed that the re-radiation from greenhouse gases doesn’t just go downwards. It goes in all directions, including sideways and upward to space … a pathway to cooling. So compared to SW radiation, which directly (downwards) heats the first 10s of meters of the ocean, why do you nonetheless believe that the LW forcing from CO2 is just as strong as the direct SW radiation is in determining water temperatures since the direction of the re-emission for GHGs goes sideways and upwards, and not just downwards?
Well, so we have the same opinion about each other. Question is why we continue to debate anything. On my part it is a distant hope that you will someday begin to understand how the mechanisms work and stop posting nonsense about how you imagine it works (or rather how you think it definetly can’t work) 😉
No, they don’t. There is a difference between looking at just one molecule and what it does and the sum of all molecules in a volume, especially when you consider their distribution.
Of course they do. No amount of insulation (<100%) reduces the energy that is emitted away in the final equilibrium state. When you have an energy source with X Watt and insulate it you'll still eventually lose X Watt to the surroundings. The difference is the temperature inside. The heat trapping …
That’s a bold statement. You must be aware of spectrometer measurements of the atmosphere from orbit, are you? Do you know how much of the LW radiation can be attributed to oxygen, nitrogen and all other non-GHGs? Those gases aren’t very efficient at radiating … almost all LW radiation comes from GHGs, Kenneth.
… like always … it does never end with you.
The net effect isn’t cooling. Don’t make up a conclusion that doesn’t follow from re-emission in all directions.
You mix those thing together so you can claim it makes no sense, correct?
So once again, just for you: SW radiation changes the heat content and so does LW radiation. I don’t know how they exactly compare over a long period of time. What is the total amount of energy that the surface absorbed during the last 50 years due to additional SW radiation reaching the surface? What is the value for LW radiation? The latter one is an easy calculation and I showed you many times that it matches the heat content increase of the oceans. So it can be said that it would not have increased if that additional LW forcing would not have been there.
Is that so hard to understand?
GHGs (which re-emit to space just as much or more than they do towards the surface)
Can you provide empirical evidence from a real-world experiment — from a high school science lab, even — that shows that the re-radiation for a cluster/volume of CO2 molecules is mostly in one direction (downwards), and not in all directions? Of course you can’t. That’s because this “explanation” as to why CO2 molecules mostly emit downwards rather than in all directions depending upon distribution is post hoc and made up. It is a belief that re-radiation from GHGs does not go in all directions. If you claim it is not a belief, but a real and observed — prove it.
Do multiple blankets re-emit heat energy away from the surface […] No, blankets don’t do that.
Blankets don’t radiate heat, SebastianH. GHGs do, and they do so in all directions, not just towards the surface. To simplify for you: blankets prevent heat from escaping. GHGs absorb heat and then re-emit it. For these reasons, the blanket analogy does not apply.
Which is why the “emitted by atmosphere” 165 W m-2 arrow that points upwards does not support your contention that graphs show that the arrow directions for greenhouse gases point in more than one direction (downwards). That is your claim, remember? You wrote that the arrow direction for GHGs does not point in only one direction. When I pointed out that only one direction (downwards) for GHGs is indicated on this graph (which is representative of pretty much all the graphs of its kind), you replied by pointing out that there is an arrow that points upwards. When I point out to you that that upwards arrow is not representing GHGs, but the entirety of the atmosphere (and 99.96% of the atmosphere is not CO2), you reply by saying that “almost all LW radiation comes from GHGs”. Huh?
Wouldn’t it be rather important for us to know how much SW radiation changes the heat content relative to LW to be able to claim that it is the LW radiation from CO2 that has changed the heat content of the oceans during the modern era? Considering that cloud radiative forcing (SW) has, according to satellite observations, exerted about +2 to 3 W m-2 to the radiation budget since the 1980s, why should this SW forcing be ruled out as an explanation for the temperature changes?
Could it not also be said that OHC would not have increased had there not been a 2 to 3 W m-2 increase in SW cloud forcing since the 1980s? Or should we dismiss this because it doesn’t fit the narrative that humans caused the increase?
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/13/8505/2013/acp-13-8505-2013.html
“[T]here has been a global net decrease [of 3.6%] in 340 nm cloud plus aerosol reflectivity [which has led to] an increase of 2.7 W m−2 of solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface and an increase of 1.4% or 2.3 W m−2 absorbed by the surface.” [between 1979 and 2011]
For a start, blankets insulate by reducing convection of energy away from the body, nothing to do with radiation. Next there’s the fact that in your analogy the source of energy is the body (inside the insulation) whereas with Earth the heat source is outside. Wrap a rock up in a blanket and it’s not going to get any warmer.
Aside from that, great analogy.
Sorry to butt in but this is really just getting ridiculous. Why does everything always have to be explained by analogy? Perhaps because they allow for so much sophistry…
This got a chuckle.
Analogies and imaginary worlds are what SebastianH and Gavin Schmidt and their ilk use because they know they can’t apply real-world data to the conceptualizations they espouse that contend humans control the temperatures of the oceans/Earth.
CO2 molecules morph into blankets in this imaginary world…because that’s what the uninitiated can understand. They can fool the uncurious that way. For engineers and chemists and for those who understand the rudiments of heat transfer physics, the CO2 = blankets analogy can’t get past the first sentence. Blankets don’t radiate heat.
Because he doesn’t understand it otherwise as he shows us every time. But he’s also resistant to analogies and simplification, arguing that they would not exactly represent reality, so they must be wrong. You are right, it is ridiculous.
Then imagine that the blanket is a rescue blanket and there is a vacuum between it and whatever it is covering. Seriously, it can’t be that hard to understand how insulation works and that the atmosphere is just a big gaseous insulator.
I don’t even know how to reply to something like this … not much of the SW radiation from the Sun is absorbed by the atmosphere, the large part is absorbed by the surface due to the transparent properties in that wavelength. The energy for the GHG insulation effect is coming from the surface (from the inside).
I understand that greenhouse gases are said to re-radiate heat (in all directions, not just downwards) upon absorption. Blankets do not re-radiate heat. Therefore, greenhouse gases do not function like blankets.
Do you understand this, SebastianH? Do you believe that blankets re-radiate heat?
There is no analogue to the proposed GHE in terms of any insulation which is found on Earth. A rescue blanket works by reflectivity of the material not by absorption/re-emission.
“I don’t even know how to reply to something like this … not much of the SW radiation from the Sun is absorbed by the atmosphere, the large part is absorbed by the surface due to the transparent properties in that wavelength”
You don’t have to reply, and you certainly don’t need to explain the GHE. I don’t know why but you people always do. Over and over again. Please try to get this into your head once and for all:
People don’t argue with you because they don’t understand what you’re saying. They do understand, but they disagree. Just consider that possibility, at least.
Blankets do re-radiate heat. Place a blanket around an object in space and observe what happens. Every form of insulation that insulates an energy source eventually warms up to a point where it emits the same amount of energy to the surroundings that would have been emitted without the insulation.
But I don’t want to drift into a blanket discussion with you again. Read a physics book about radiative heat transfer and insulation. Thank you.
GW,
Nothing is 100% reflective.
Ok, and you propose that we should ignore those who disagree when their opinion is based on errors/mistakes they make? Don’t try to correct someone because hey, he/she has just a different opinion on that matter and who are we to say that it is incorrect? So a teacher should not correct a student who says that the square root of 144 is 11?
“Nothing is 100% reflective.”
Not sure where I argued otherwise…
“Ok, and you propose that we should ignore those who disagree when their opinion is based on errors/mistakes they make?”
No, I’m certainly happy to point out where errors are made, such as confusing SW radiation with SWIR radiation. All I’m saying is, be careful you’re not mistaking facts for opinions when you start playing your “teacher” role.
Kenneth:
I have written in previous threads that I don’t find the “greenhouse effect warms the earth by xxK” to be productive, because it requires a comparison to some alternate imaginary earth, and you can get completely tied up in arguing about the nature of this alternate imaginary earth, as has occupied most of this thread. (This is why I prefer to examine the surface “power gap” of this very real world instead.)
Gavin Schmidt’s alternate imaginary earh is one that absorbs as much solar energy as our earth does, has unit (1.0) infrared emissivity, a completely transparent (or no) atmosphere, and has a high enough thermal capacitance and low enough lateral thermal resistance that it has a uniform surface temperature over its entire area. This alternate imaginary earth would have a surface temperature of 255K.
So Kramm gets it exactly wrong when he claims that “any heat storage in the oceans … and land masses is neglected.” A more valid criticism is that the heat storage (thermal capacitance) in the oceans etc. is grossly exaggerated so that temperature variations can be ignored. A paper that makes this fundamental an error can also be ignored.
Holder’s inequality demonstrates that the larger the temperature variation over a surface that radiates power as the 4th power (or really any power greater than 1) of absolute temperature, the lower the mean temperature of the surface (and hence the integrated energy level) will be for a constant power input.
So Schmidt’s alternate imaginary earth with no temperature variation provides an upper limit on the average surface temperature that absorbs as much solar power as the earth does, has unit infrared emissivity, and a transparent (or no) atmosphere.
Nikolov and Zeller get the math of Holder’s inequality correct that the larger the variations, the lower the average temperature in these situations. But they draw completely the wrong conclusions from this.
N&Z’s alternate imaginary earth is … the moon. The moon has huge temperature variations and a much lower average temperature, as they note. But then they argue that only atmospheric effects could explain the difference, which is simply absurd.
There are multiple reasons that the moon has greater temperature variations than the earth does, that have nothing to do with atmospheric effects.
1. The moon’s day is almost 30 times longer than the earth’s, so it would heat up much more in each of its days, and cool off much more in each of its nights, than the earth would, even with other things equal.
2. The nature of the moon’s surface — the dust of the “regolith” — means that the thermal capacitance of the surface layer that responds to day/night cycles is very small compared to that of the earth, and would yield much greater diurnal temperature variations than the earth, even for days of the same time length.
3. The moon has no significant lateral heat transfer mechanisms to transfer thermal energy from the equatorial regions towards the polar regions — nothing like the Gulf Stream or similar currents on earth.
4. The moon has no “phase changes” in its materials that absorb or emit lots of energy without changing temperature. The earth does.
So N&Z’s argument that the 90K difference between the earth’s average surface temperature and the moon’s average surface temperature can only be made up by atmospheric effects (and that it is far too large for any “greenhouse effect” is completely fallacious.
So apparently you think we are capable of accurately measuring the heat energy in the Earth’s oceans with enough precision to settle on a particular temperature/Kelvin value. So what do you believe this value is, Ed? Be sure to include the heat energy below 2000 meters too in calculating this figure.
Previously you have claimed that we have “very precise measurements” of the CO2 W m-2 values in LWIR. I have asked you to identify which value you believe is the “correct” one.
According to Kiehl and Trenbreth (1997), the downwelling LW value is 75 W m-2 for water vapor, 30 W m-2 for clouds, and “the second most important greenhouse gas is CO2, which contributes 32 W m−2 in agreement with Charnock and Shine (1993) but differing from Kandel’s (1993) estimate of 50 W m−2.” According to Smithusen et al. (2015), the measured LW value for CO2 can be no more than about 15-20 W m-2 for the globe.
Do you believe in the 50 W m-2 value? The 32 W m-2 value? The 15-20 W m-2 value? Since they vary from measurement to measurement by 15-18 W m-2, which value is the right one? For the most recent evasion of this question, you have decided to claim that you never said we have precise measurements of CO2 forcing, only LWIR in aggregate. But, originally, you didn’t write that. You wrote that the Air Force has…
Again, since different measurements yield vastly different forcing values for CO2, which forcing value is the one that you believe in? And why do you seemingly find it unimportant that the uncertainty/variance in the “precise” CO2 measurements are so large…considering this is what the entire AGW conceptualization is based upon?
1. You have previously cited the Trenberth radiative values for LWIR as if they were accurate – and he believes in the 288 – 255 = 33 K equation. Assuming you agree (based on comments you’ve made) that the 288 – 255 = 33 K equation is not accurate or representative of what’s “really” happening, what else is Trenberth and the IPCC wrong about when it comes to Earth’s temperatures?
Or is the 288 – 255 = 33 K thought experiment value(s) the only one they got wrong in that 1997 paper?
2. In recent comments you have appeared to acknowledge that cloud radiative forcing “easily” supersedes any alleged forcing from CO2 within the greenhouse effect. How, therefore, does this position co-exist with your belief that the radiative forcing associated with an atmospheric CO2 concentration in the range of 200 ppm to 280 ppm (Pleistocene to 1850 C.E.) is capable of being a non-negligible player in bridging the ~250 W m-2 “power gap”? How much of the “power gap” do you believe is bridged by CO2? Based on your comments here, I’ve assumed you believe CO2 forcing is not negligible, but significant. Do you believe that? Define significant, then, please. Be specific.
I have long been trying to gauge how radiatively effective you believe CO2 is within the GHE, but every time I ask you questions like these, you refuse to answer or evade…and then you accuse me of focusing too much on climate sensitivity when you want to focus on the 250 W m-2 “power gap” in aggregate.
3. Do you agree that the centennial-scale reductions in solar activity and the increase in volcanism (both solar explanations, of course) during the 1,000 to 1700 C.E. cooling, and the Modern Grand Maximum of solar activity and reduction in volcanism within the last century could explain the temperature changes? If so, does this mean you believe solar factors significantly explain Earth’s net ocean temperature changes, and that CO2 concentration changes are non-determinative by comparison? And if you don’t agree that centennial-scale solar minima and volcanism can explain the global-scale LIA cooling, then what, specifically, do you believe caused it?
4. So if you agree that cloud variations of even 1% can and do override the increases in CO2 concentrations that have accrued since 1850 — and cloud cover changes can, of course, vary by even more than 1% — does this mean that your position is that humans have had and will continue to have a minimal to negligible influence on the Earth’s temperatures? What, specifically, is your estimate of the extent to which humans can influence changes in ocean temperatures, Ed? And if it can be assumed that you believe CO2 climate sensitivity is very low for increases in the range of +50 ppm (since 1990), +100 ppm (since 1900), from whence comes your confidence/certainty that the radiative forcing values associated with a 200 to 280 ppm CO2 concentration (pre-industrial) can be significantly (or at least non-negligibly) responsible for bridging the ~250 W m-2 “power gap”?
I have asked you these questions many times. Will you be evading them again?
How did you get from the part you quoted from Ed Bo to your conclusion? Serious question.
Why do you feel the need to post this over and over? Don’t you understand the answers that have been given to you? (oh sorry, I can’t say that you don’t understand something anymore, because that doesn’t make me right … I wonder if students are using something similar to claim that their teachers aren’t right when they don’t understand how something works and the teacher points that out)
You really think that the 33K example is wrong? It isn’t in that “thought experiment”. Simplification doesn’t make you wrong, Kenneth. When I give you the line of sight distance for the path between two points, then the given value is not wrong even though the path using roads is much longer. Is that too hard to understand?
I’ll answer that one too. The GHE directly caused by CO2 is around 20% of the total. Since the GHE of water vapor depends on its concentration in the air and that depends on temperature, the direct and indirect effect of CO2 is much higher than this “around 20%” value.
Has been answered multiple times already and yet you continue to repeat the question as if you need someone to “admit” that CO2 had little to do with past changes. That should be obvious. This CO2 thing is a rather recent development and will continue to cause temperatures to be higher than they would be without our influence for quite some time even if we stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow.
Ed Bo, your points 1 – 4 are all dealt with in the Volokin & ReLlez paper. There is an entire section on the rotational speed of the bodies. They argue that the Earth in absence of atmosphere would not have oceans and that the soil would be similar to that of the moon:
“Aside from this coincidental similarity of surface albedos between present-day Earth and the Moon, one can also argue that, in the absence of atmosphere, Earth would have no liquid oceans and/or exposed glaciers, since these require an atmospheric pressure (P) and temperature (T) above the triple point of water to exist, i.e. T > 273.2 K and P > 611.73 Pa (Cengel and Turner 2004). Without an atmosphere, the surface of our planet would be subjected to the same geologic processes that presently govern regolith formation on the Moon (e.g. bombardment by cosmic radiation and micrometeorites). Hence, an airless Earth would likely have a surface soil layer of similar radiative and optical properties (shortwave albedo and long-wave emissivity) as the lunar regolith”
Plus of course, without water your point no. 4 about phase changes is also redundant.
GW:
There are huge problems with the V&R paper you cite, which would have gotten it rejected as an undergraduate paper.
Let’s look at their treatment of the rotational speed. They go through the fancy integrals demonstrating Holder’s inequality, which show that the greater the variation in temperature, the lower the average temperature will be, given constant insolation and ambient conditions around the planet, due to the 4th-power relationship of radiative flux to temperature. So far, so good.
But then in their consideration of rotational speed effects, they do not include the heat loss effects of radiation from the surface to space AT ALL in their calculations. They assume that all of the solar energy absorbed during the day is conducted down below the surface, then conducted back up at night. Since conduction is related to the 1st power of temperature, Holder’s inequality does not apply, and they conclude that rotational speed does not affect average temperature.
This is, to say the least, completely daft. The idea that the surface is not radiating away energy during the day is laughably absurd. Especially so when you consider the powdery surface is a terrible conductor, but a great radiator.
More generally, they try to make conclusions about MECHANISMS of heat transfer when they are really analyzing SUBSTANCES with multiple mechanisms. I argued that the large thermal capacitance of the earth’s oceans involved in the day/night transfers minimizes temperature swings compared to the minimal capacitance of the lunar regolith. They (and you) conflate the effect of the MECHANISM of capacitance with all of the other mechanisms that an ocean of water brings.
But fundamentally, they have absolutely NO basis for their claim that the radiative greenhouse effect cannot explain the temperature levels of the earth.
Ed, do you believe that greenhouse gases radiate heat in all directions, or only in one direction (downwards)? Assuming you believe the latter, and that GHGs do not emit sideways and upwards, allowing another pathway to space, can you explain the mechanism whereby the particular direction of the radiation is prevented from re-emitting sideways and upwards, or in some directions and not others?
Kenneth:
Why on earth would you believe that I would think that GHGs only radiate downward? What have I ever said that would lead you to believe that?
Do you really think that the greenhouse effect could only exist if the gases only radiate downward? If so, you fail to understand the most basic principles of heat transfer with regard to radiant barriers.
Haven’t you ever seen the presentation of the “single shell model” presented in any introductory atmospheric physics text (and popularized in the climate blogosphere by Willis Eschenbach as the “steel greenhouse”)? Yes, it’s a simplification, but if you don’t understand its principle of operation, you can’t possibly comprehend what the greenhouse effect does.
Work through the power flows of the single shell model, with the shell radiating as much up as it does down, and you will see how the presence of the absorbent shell still leads to a higher temperature of the surface below it.
This is the most basic stuff, and it is critical that you understand it.
I made the mistake of using the wrong word – only – in the question above. I should have asked if you believe GHGs re-emit mostly to space, since they necessarily re-radiate sideways and upwards (to space, eliciting heat loss) in the process of re-radiating in all directions.
Charts of the arrow directionality of greenhouse gas power is downwards (lower right in GHG backradiation, 324 W m-2), not upwards or sideways…
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/282393775_fig12_Fig-12-Schematic-diagram-of-the-global-radiation-budget-in-the-climate-system
Are these visual depictions of the directionality of GHGs wrong, since they only go in one direction and not mostly sideways and upwards, since GHGs do re-emit in all directions, and not just one (downwards)?
Since you have not once demonstrated that you disagree with SebastianH, and since he has said he believes that CO2 molecules radiate in all directions by themselves, but then mostly downwards when clustered together “in a volume”…
…I assumed you and he are probably in agreement on this too. Or do you think he’s wrong about the distribution of the gases causing the directionality to change to “more towards the surface” rather than mostly to space?
If CO2 molecules re-radiate in all directions, or mostly sideways and upwards to space, in what way do CO2 molecules not mostly provide a pathway to cooling?
Ed, the single shell model is (a) still only a model, (b) “has nothing to do with greenhouse gases”, and it (c) cannot be applied to the Earth’s greenhouse effect because “it is not physically possible to model the Earth as a two-layer system”. Besides these rather enormous shortcomings, it’s a wonderfully imaginative concept.
Eschenbach, 2009
A planetary “greenhouse” is a curiosity, a trick of nature. It works solely because although a sphere only has one side, a shell has two sides. The trick has nothing to do with greenhouse gases. It does not require an atmosphere. In fact, a greenhouse can be built entirely of steel. A thought experiment shows how a steel greenhouse would work. … So that’s the trick of the greenhouse. It has nothing to do with blankets, or mirrors, or greenhouse gases.
Now, it is tempting to think that we could model the Earth in this manner, as a sphere surrounded by a single shell. This is called a “two-layer” model, with the two layers being the surface and the atmospheric shell. And in fact, a number of simplified climate models have been built in this way. Un-noticed by their programmers, however, is that it is not physically possible to model the Earth as a two-layer system.
You are really resistant regarding learning new (for you) concepts. Why do you repeat this nonsense when you have been told x-th times that this is not the case. There is a clear upward directed arrow with the emission from the atmosphere towards space. You can not possibly think that the back radiation is the only thing that is caused by the GHE, can you?
You think you found some clever loophole, but it just shows that you have no clue how the GHE works. Get a textbook, learn how the mechanism works and we can talk. Until then you grasping at straws like this is just ridiculous …
That’s why it isn’t modeled this way. The two-layer model is just a good way to introduce someone to the physics behind the effect. If you don’t understand this simple concept, how can you even begin to understand what happens when you model it with millions of layers? The result being that you don’t have more re-emits to space than to the surface as with a single CO2 molecule. Apparently that is too much for you and you chose to ignore it and continue to repeat your nonsense as if nobody had shown you that it is nonsense.
And “the atmosphere” is more than 99 percent non-greenhouse gases. The arrow depicting backradiation/greenhouse gases goes only downwards. Are you claiming the upwards arrow represents backradiation from GHGs, SebastianH? Do you believe “the atmosphere” = GHGs?
Explain why it is that you believe this chart shows that GREENHOUSE GASES in particular re-radiate heat in all directions (including sideways and upwards to space) since the arrow representing backradiation from GREENHOUSE GASES in particular points downwards, and downwards only.
I have 3 times invited you to back up your claim that CO2 molecules re-radiate mostly downwards when clustered together, but in all directions (which is mostly sideways and upwards) when all alone or by themselves. You have failed to cite any real-world physical evidence – a paper even – that supports this belief of yours that CO2 molecules’ distribution causes the differences in directionality. I will invite you now for a 4th time to provide evidence for this phenomenon. I assume you will once again fail to produce anything, which will further confirm for me that this is a belief of yours.
And yet the two-layer model “has nothing to do with greenhouse gases” and requires no atmosphere according to the popularizer of the conceptualization himself. It’s a thought experiment that is entirely disconnected from the phenomenon you imagine to be “reality”.
I find it rather amusing that you (and Ed) seem to believe that all that is required to “counter” a explanatory challenge to the thought experiment models you espouse is to call them “nonsense”. Something a tad more substantive may be more compelling.
Are you suggesting that the 99% of the atmosphere that aren’t GHGs are radiating a significant amount of energy towards space? And that is what the upward arrow depicts?
Of course it is. GHGs radiate in all directions! Their distribution in the atmosphere makes the downward arrow much bigger than the upward arrow. It’s really not hard to understand if you’d care to follow any of my links and just read what’s written there …
Also, I think I have answered this comment yesterday and included links. Where is that reply? Has the moderator deleted that comment too (besides all the other ones)?
Well, I guess someone doesn’t want you to find out how stuff works …
Kenneth:
I’m glad you don’t believe the greenhouse effect theory depends on GHGs radiating only in the downward direction. I assumed you were stating what you believed when you said that, and that’s why I invoked the “single shell” model to show how this was not true.
I’m afraid you miss Willis’ point completely, though. He is a fervent believer in the atmospheric greenhouse effect. When he says the “steel greenhouse” has “nothing to do with greenhouse gases”, he means that it is a fundamentally a geometric effect and other materials could create the effect as well.
When he says “it is not physically possible to model the Earth as a two-layer system”, he means that the Earth’s greenhouse effect is large enough that a single shell, even one that is 100% absorbent, cannot explain it. He suggests a two-shell model as an improvement that can explain the magnitude of the Earth’s GHE. I emphasize that even this is a greatly simplified model that is intended to show the principles of operation conceptually.
The two-shell model can conceptually answer your question about the directionality of radiation. Let’s use shells that are 100% absorbent for analytic simplicity. In steady-state conditions, the outer shell must radiate to space as much as the whole system absorbs as input. We’ll call this 240 W/m2.
But the outer shell is also radiating 240 W/m2 downward (“local” omni-directionality) toward the inner shell. So the shell is outputting a total of 480 W/m2. For it to be in steady-state conditions, it must have an input of 480 W/m2, and the only possible source is radiation from the inner shell. So the inner shell must be at a temperature such that it is radiating 480 W/m2 outward.
But this means that the inner shell is also radiating 480 W/m2 downwards toward the surface (again, “local” omni-directionality). Since the surface is also getting 240 W/m2 from the external source, it must be at a temperature such that it can radiate 720 W/m2.
Now, if you had a satellite looking down on this system from outside, it would measure 240 W/m2 of upward radiative flux (from the outer shell). And if you had a sensor on the surface looking up, it would measure 480 W/m2 of downward radiative flux (from the inner shell).
So here we have a system where “locally” there is no difference in the directionality of the radiation, “globally” there is. This is the same principle that is true in our atmosphere.
Of course, the atmosphere is not just two discrete 100% absorbent layers. As you divide it into more and more layers that are less than 100% absorbent each, you get closer to modeling how it works, going in the limit to infinitesimally thick layers. But this principle holds. The surface is absorbing more DWLWIR radiation than space is receiving UWLWIR, even though at any given layer in the atmosphere, there is NO difference in upward or downward radiation.
Once again, this is very basic stuff. If you are really to grapple with the greenhouse effect, even to try to refute it (which is fine by me — I have tried often), you must understand this type of analysis.
Varying the speed of rotation would create differences in the amount of temperature variation across the planet. The more temperature variation there is, according to Holders inequality, the lower the average temperature must be. In Schmidt’s 255 K scenario effectively the Earth is rotating so fast that there are no temperature variations at all. The slower the body rotates the larger the temperature variations there are and so the lower the average temperature will be. The moon rotates slower than the Earth.
OK, so with all of this said, even IF Nikolov and Zeller were to concede the point you’ve just raised about their first paper, and acknowledge that their 90 K estimate for the Earth is an overestimate…the “true” surface temperature value for Earth without an atmosphere must still be lower than 255 K. Because whatever the “true” effect of the Earth’s rotation speed is in comparison to the moon; the Earth is still going to be rotating far slower than the one in Schmidt’s scenario, so it must have a far lower average surface temperature than 255 K. That being the case, and a greater than 33 K difference between the surface temperature of the real and the theoretical Earth requires explanation, then the point raised in their second paper still stands. That point being, “since the current greenhouse theory strives to explain GE solely through a retention (trapping) of outgoing long-wavelength (LW) radiation by atmospheric gases [2,5,7- 10], a thermal enhancement of 90 K creates a logical conundrum, since satellite observations constrain the global atmospheric LW absorption to 155–158 W m-2 [11-13]. Such a flux might only explain a surface warming up to 35 K. Hence, more than 60% of Earth’s 90 K atmospheric effect appears to remain inexplicable in the context of the current theory”
All you are doing is arguing to increase the difference between the average surface temperature of the moon and the average surface temperature of this fictional Earth without an atmosphere that they have calculated. The point though is that anything below a 255 K surface temperature of an Earth without an atmosphere presents a problem to the GHE theory (as per my quote from their second paper), and due to Holders inequality (as you have already said yourself) the “true” surface temperature of Earth without an atmosphere MUST be lower than 255 K. All that your arguments would change is to reduce the amount of the atmospheric effect that “appears to remain inexplicable in the context of the current theory”. There would still be an amount that remains inexplicable so long as the “true” surface temperature of the Earth without an atmosphere is below 255 K.
GW:
You quote N&Z 2017 as saying “a thermal enhancement of 90 K creates a logical conundrum, since satellite observations constrain the global atmospheric LW absorption to 155–158 W m-2 [11-13]. Such a flux might only explain a surface warming up to 35 K.”
The first problem with this is that their cited sources show atmospheric LW absorption of 350 W m-2. This can easily be seen in the summary diagram in their source 11, which shows 356 W m-2. So their claim as stated is completely wrong.
Now, what I think they are trying to note is the difference between the measured surface upward radiation (given as 396 W m-2 in their source 11) and the measure top-of-atmosphere radiation (given as 239 W m-2 in the same source). They seem to conclude the difference (157 here) is what is absorbed by the atmosphere.
They claim that this difference can only explain changes in surface temperature of up to 35K. It is true that a planetary surface of uniform temperature radiating 239 W m-2 will be at about 255K and a planetary surface of uniform temperature radiating 396 W m-2 will be at about 289K, a difference of about 35K.
But this comparison is for surfaces of UNIFORM TEMPERATURE! There is no such limit when that constraint is relaxed. I find it astonishing, that in a paper focused on the effects of non-uniformity of surface temperatures, they could make such a basic error.
Thanks for highlighting that for me — it gave me the best laugh I have had in a while!
Yawn. The 239 W/m2 is the flux leaving at TOA so yes, it will equate to a 255 K temperature or thereabouts. It isn’t a “surface temperature”. The surface at 288 K is measured. Their source is the K/T energy budget so unless you’re saying the arrow showing a flux of 390 W/m2 leaving from the surface is wrong, then I guess you are forced to concede the point.
GW, you are still failing to see that the same principle applies to the difference of 155 W/m2 … That doesn’t mean that it’s a 33K difference for a not as fast rotating planet.
Seb H, you are still failing to see that in the case of the Earth as it is, the surface temperature is measured. It’s 288 K. The flux leaving at the TOA equates to a temperature of 255 K. The Earth as seen from space has a temperature of 255 K. You can argue that either of those temperatures are wrong, if you like…but I fail to see how.
So all you can really argue is whether the flux difference related to those temperatures should actually be 155 W/m2 (which would then mean an error with the K/T budget). And even then, it would be irrelevant to their point. Whatever that flux difference was, it would represent conditions as they are on the real Earth, and would represent the maximum energy flux the Earth has to have produced any GHE warming of the surface. And would have to relate to a max inducible temperature increase of around 33 – 35 K.
Why would I argue that?
33K is the minimum GHE for an Earth with uniform temperature distribution. A GHE of 65 K or even 90 K (for an imaginary Earth without an atmosphere) results in the same 155 W/m² in equilibrium.
“Why would I argue that?”
OK then, so you agree. Good!
“33K is the minimum GHE for an Earth with uniform temperature distribution”
It’s the minimum total Atmospheric Temperature Enhancement, based on an Earth without an atmosphere with uniform temperature. Since the “true” Earth without an atmosphere would not have a uniform temperature, the total ATE must be greater than this. As you have just agreed that there is nothing wrong with either the surface temperature of the real Earth being approx. 288 K or the ‘real Earth as seen from space temperature’ being approx. 255 K, you agree there is only sufficient energy absorption by the atmosphere (that thing between the surface and space) to explain up to a 33 – 35 K sort of effect.
So you agree there is a problem with the current understanding of the GHE. Excellent!
Curses! Just when you’ve reached this point of agreement…he gives up. I applaud your efforts to educate and expose, GW.
We were all so close to peace and harmony I was just about ready to sing, Kumbaya. Such a shame…
And thank you. Likewise!
You explained why that is somewhere in the comments here and yet you still come to the conclusion that a 155 W/m² “gap” means that the enhancement can only be 33-35K. Why are you unable to recognize that the same principle applies here too? You can have two surfaces which differ by 155 W/m² in emitted radiation and have a greater than 33-35K average temperature difference.
This 33-35K value only applies to uniform temperature distribution and as you wrote, that is not and would not be the case.
So you lied! You hadn’t given up after all.
“Why are you unable to recognize that the same principle applies here too?”
Well, read the rest of the post other than the bit you selectively quoted, e.g:
“As you have just agreed that there is nothing wrong with either the surface temperature of the real Earth being approx. 288 K or the ‘real Earth as seen from space temperature’ being approx. 255 K, you agree there is only sufficient energy absorption by the atmosphere (that thing between the surface and space) to explain up to a 33 – 35 K sort of effect”
Here’s the absolute crux of where you go wrong (time and again):
“This 33-35K value only applies to uniform temperature distribution and as you wrote, that is not and would not be the case.”
No it doesn’t. The 33-35K value applies to the real Earth, the one we live on. Now. Measured, factual, irrefutable. You are conflating two different 33 K values, from two completely different contexts, relating to different things. You do this continuously, and I can only assume by this point, deliberately.
1) There’s this “33-35K value” based on actual measurements of the system as it is. As I said; measured, factual, irrefutable.
2) There’s the minimum ATE enhancement that is possible from considering an Earth without an atmosphere compared to the Earth in reality. That is also, perhaps entirely coincidentally, 33 K. However, 33 K is the absolute minimum it can be, due to Holder’s inequality. We know it must be greater than this.
The problem for the GHE theory is that the amount in 1) is therefore not sufficient to account fully for 2), which it is supposed to be, according to the theory.
You can’t say, “well, why isn’t the surface temperature in 1) also affected by Holder’s inequality”. Perhaps it is. Regardless, it is measured. So you can’t exactly claim that it is less than it is measured to be. So that’s it. Done. You have nothing left you can possibly say. You even said you weren’t going to say anything else.
And yet…
You are doing this. Somehow the similarity between those figures has confused you.
The unit is W/m² and the value is around 155 W/m². It does correspond to some temperature in that range, but it doesn’t mean that this is the atmospheric effect (or GHE). I don’t know why you believe that.
Again, no. 1) is the current equilibrium state and 2) comes from imaginary Earths without the GHE. At some point the GHE gets added to those Earths and the planets warm up. And since we are talking about Earths here, they warm up to the current state with the current measurements (from point 1).
Now you try to argue that this warming up is impossible from the GHE alone. But how is it possible then that the current equilibrium state does look like it does? Your claim makes no sense.
Of course I can.
What exactly is measured in your view? That Earth uniformly emits 235 W/m² towards space? That the surface uniformly emits 390 W/m² towards space/the atmosphere?
I meant Kenneth with that. It’s pointless trying to get him understand. He is fixated on his close-minded view and thinks that everything AGW proponents could come up with is a hoax, fake, etc … regardless of what he writes about himself being agnostic and open-minded (he should really read and understand a physics textbook if he is so open-minded).
“You are doing this.”
No I’m not.
“The unit is W/m² and the value is around 155 W/m². It does correspond to some temperature in that range, but it doesn’t mean that this is the atmospheric effect (or GHE). I don’t know why you believe that.”
Let’s just go back to the other place where we were arguing this exact same thing, and I’ll ask you the same questions. I realise I have to write it all out in full here, else you will just ignore it. I could simply link to the relevant comment if I was arguing with someone honest, but OK:
“This is from their first (Volokin/ReLlez) paper:
“According to satellite observations, Earth’s atmosphere retains on average 155–158 W m−2 of the upwelling long-wave radiation emitted by the surface (Kiehl and Trenberth 1997; Trenberth et al. 2009; Stephens et al. 2012; Wild et al. 2013). This infrared heat absorption by greenhouse gases a.k.a. long-wave radiative forcing (Kiehl and Trenberth 1997) is presently believed to drive 100% of the near-surface ATE (Peixoto and Oort 1992; Lacis et al. 2010; Pierrehumbert 2010; Schmidt et al. 2010).”
and this is from their second:
“In a recent study Volokin et al. [1] demonstrated that the strength of Earth’s atmospheric Greenhouse Effect (GE) is about 90 K instead of 33 K as presently assumed by most researchers e.g. [2-7]. The new estimate corrected a long-standing mathematical error in the application of the Stefan–Boltzmann (SB) radiation law to a sphere pertaining to Hölder’s inequality between integrals. Since the current greenhouse theory strives to explain GE solely through a retention (trapping) of outgoing long-wavelength (LW) radiation by atmospheric gases [2,5,7- 10], a thermal enhancement of 90 K creates a logical conundrum, since satellite observations constrain the global atmospheric LW absorption to 155–158 W m-2 [11-13]. Such a flux might only explain a surface warming up to 35 K. Hence, more than 60% of Earth’s 90 K atmospheric effect appears to remain inexplicable in the context of the current theory.”
So if you don’t agree, what do you disagree with? If it’s this bit:
“This infrared heat absorption by greenhouse gases a.k.a. long-wave radiative forcing (Kiehl and Trenberth 1997) is presently believed to drive 100% of the near-surface ATE (Peixoto and Oort 1992; Lacis et al. 2010; Pierrehumbert 2010; Schmidt et al. 2010).”
Are you disagreeing with all those citations? Pierrehumbert, Schmidt et al? Are you saying they’re misrepresenting those citations?”
OK. That’s that. Hopefully that resolves for you whatever it is that is leading you to conclude in your next paragraph that my (their) “claim makes no sense”. If not, please proceed by answering my questions. Otherwise we are going to get nowhere. Then you say:
“Of course I can.”
OK, and I agree; in the sense that yes, Holder’s inequality should affect the surface temperature of the planet as it is. As I went on to say, “Perhaps it is. Regardless, it is measured”. Meaning (to answer your next question), the temperature of 288 K is measured. What I meant was that you can’t say “well, why isn’t the surface temperature in 1) also affected by Holder’s inequality” in the sense that the current surface temperature is measured to be what it is. I was trying to say, you can’t argue that due to Holder’s inequality the Earth’s surface temperature as it is now is *less* than 288 K, because it is *measured to be 288 K*. I mean, this is self-evident, and shouldn’t need to be said, but I am at the point now that I felt like every single possible thing that you could possibly misconstrue needed to be explained just in case. Because you seem hell-bent on (perhaps deliberately) misconstruing every single aspect of this until I just give up trying to explain it to you and so you’ve had the last word. Perhaps that is your debating tactic. Who knows.
The only thing, then, that could be different due to Holder’s Inequality is the flux relating to that measured surface temperature of 288 K. This, as I said before (to either you, or Ed, or both, can’t remember now) would mean that the K/T energy budget would need adjusting (if the 390 W/m2 flux associated with that temperature is wrong). It doesn’t, however, affect N/Z’s point. Whatever the flux difference is between what is emitted by the surface and what is emitted at TOA to space, that also relates to the difference between the temperatures those fluxes are associated with. To finish answering your question, in my view it is measured that Earth emits 235 W/m2 to space, which equates to a blackbody temperature of 255 K. I’ve already said that the surface temperature is measured at 288 K. You have already said that you would not argue against either of those temperatures. That’s a 33-35K (including margin for error) temperature reduction from surface to TOA which can only be accounted for by the thing inbetween the Earth’s surface and space – the atmosphere.
Now, we have the difference in fluxes as being 155 W/m2 if we believe the Earth’s surface is emitting 390 W/m2. If that 390 W/m2 should actually be something different (due to Holder’s inequality) then that 155 W/m2 will also be different. As I said before, this doesn’t affect N/Z’s point. I assume I don’t have to now repeat why.
Hopefully this explains everything.
Kenneth:
Below is a response I tried to post in an earlier thread well over a week ago, but you shut down comments. When I get more time, I will try to answer your new points.
************************************************
Kenneth:
I have been overwhelmingly focused here on the subjects of the posts you put up uncritically that question the very existence of a radiative greenhouse effect. I have argued that we have a VERY high certainty that this effect exists, far beyond any uncertainty in measurements or possibility of alternative explanations.
You keep demanding that I express similar certainty about the sensitivity of this radiative greenhouse effect to small changes in some atmospheric constituents. (I am sadly coming to the conclusion that fully distinguishing between level and derivative is beyond your capability.)
On this subject, I have also been clear that the posited sensitivities are well within measurement uncertainties, feedback uncertainties, and other possible causal sources, so I am – uncertain. You don’t seem to be able to accept this.
I have also been clear that while we do have precise measurements of DWLWIR for various combined atmospheric compositions, the overlap in absorption/emission between some of these constituents makes blanket statements of attribution problematic.
It seems that I have to spell it out for you step by step. Go to the following website:
climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran
This site is based on decades of measurements by the US Air Force backed up by a century of spectroscopic lab measurements.
Select:
Altitude: 0 km
Looking Up
Mid-latitude summer
No clouds or rain
Enter 400ppm CO2, all other constituents zero. You will get 98.8 W/m2 DWLWIR
Now increase H2O to 1.0 (100% standard concentration). You will get 331 W/m2.
So CO2 provides 30%, right? Not so fast.
Keep H2O at 1.0, and zero out CO2. You will get 317 W/m2. Comparing these last two values, CO2 only contributes 4%.
It is important to realize that the values from the MODTRAN (and related HITRAN) agree VERY closely with spectroradiometer readings under multiple conditions.
So it all depends on how your frame your analysis. So I’m not being evasive at all when I do not provide A NUMBER. And if you even remotely understood the subject, you would realize that.
I encourage you to spend time playing with multiple different variations from this database. It may be the single best way of understanding the underlying physics.
Now, the thermal effects from small variations in DWLWIR are much less certain, as I have been stating, given the poorly understood knock-on (feedback) effects, and other (poorly understood) competing “forcings”.
You continue to try to get me to ascribe certainty to all sorts of effects we have next to no certainty on. How did solar activity change over the last millennium? Serious scientists are all over the place on that one – but you read one paper, and think you know. Did volcanism have any real long-term effects (we only really see short-term dips recently)?
You completely miss my point about my avoiding the “33K” argument. I avoid it because it leads to a pointless circle of arguments about what imaginary, alternate, and unphysical world is being compared to ours. The 33K argument assumes a certain imaginary world – that argument is intended for less technical people who can understand temperature differences better than power flux density differences.
I have neither the power or inclination to “shut down comments”. Apparently there is a limit as to how long a comment thread stays open?
And I have been overwhelmingly focused here on the subject of the CO2 portion of the radiative greenhouse effect, not the GHE as a whole, as that (the CO2 GHE) is the crux of the debate as to the extent to which humans influence climate change. Each time I try to get you to focus on CO2 in particular, you abscond and evade…just as you are doing once again here. Do you understand why it is that I am so focused on CO2, and not, say, water vapor or clouds, or the GHE as a whole or LWIR as a whole? It is my assumption that you definitely do understand why I am focused on CO2: the gravity of the implications for governmental policies and for lifting 100s of millions of people in developing countries out of poverty with fossil fuel energies. That is why I am even here. As a humanitarian, I devote hours of my day to this topic precisely because “green” policies end up hurting the world’s poor in both developing and developed (fuel poverty) countries.
Why do you insist on avoiding talking about CO2 in particular, instead trying to make this about the greenhouse effect as a whole? My assumption has long been that you are afraid to acknowledge your position about a strong or weak anthropogenic effect on climate because of the ramifications it may have for you occupationally or in your standing among your colleagues. Of course there has been no such admission, but that has been my suspicion. Until you at least take a position — however uncertain — on the subject of CO2 climate sensitivity, whether low or high, I will likely continue to assume that concealment is your motivation. After all, you early on stated that you were unwilling to admit where you taught due to concerns about what others might do with that information. So there’s that.
No, I’m not “demanding” that you express certainty in taking a position on CO2 climate sensitivity. I’m requesting (with great frequency, but to no avail thus far) that you at least take a position — no matter how certain or uncertain — on what you think the climate’s sensitivity to CO2 is either in the GHE as a whole (the “250 W m-2 power gap”) or due to incremental changes that may accrue due to fossil fuel consumption.
I am uncertain too. I’m uncertain that the world wasn’t created in 7 days. I’ve taken the position that I don’t think it was, though.
I don’t expect you to be certain before taking a position. If that was requisite, we would have to acknowledge that we cannot take a position about much of anything.
Again, not expecting you to “ascribe certainty”. This, ostensibly, is just the straw man argument you are using to avoid having to expose your position(s).
I would really appreciate it if you would stop making up thoughts and claiming I wrote them. I would say my position on solar activity and climate is based on many hundreds of papers that have been published in scientific journals just in the last few years alone, including over a hundred for 2017 already. Not one paper. And I go to great lengths to avoid claiming that I KNOW the answers to cause-effect questions — especially for a subject as unsettled and esoteric as climate change. I avoid using words that express certainty (like “know”). Stop using words that I don’t and pretending I wrote them. The frequency with which you have used this disingenuous tactic has increased in recent posts, which leads me to believe you have become increasingly desperate.
The OCEANS2k scientists attributed the centennial-scale cooling of SSTs during the LIA to volcanism. Several other papers do as well. Is this new information?
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v8/n9/full/ngeo2510.html
Climate simulations using single and cumulative forcings suggest that the ocean surface cooling trend from 801 to 1800 CE is not primarily a response to orbital forcing but arises from a high frequency of explosive volcanism. Our results show that repeated clusters of volcanic eruptions can induce a net negative radiative forcing that results in a centennial and global scale cooling trend via a decline in mixed-layer oceanic heat content.
Kenneth:
The absurdities continue.
You say: “So apparently you think we are capable of accurately measuring the heat energy in the Earth’s oceans with enough precision to settle on a particular temperature/Kelvin value. So what do you believe this value is, Ed?”
Again, you don’t understand my very clearly stated point. The uniform 255K imaginary alternate earth used by Schmidt et al. to try to explain the greenhouse effect requires an effectively infinite thermal capacitance so that there is no appreciable diurnal or seasonal temperature change. My point was that Kramm gets this completely backwards when he says this model of an alternate imaginary earth neglects heat storage in the oceans. That in no way is an argument that I “think we are are capable of accurately measuring the heat energy…” in our real world.
You say: “Previously you have claimed that we have “very precise measurements” of the CO2 W m-2 values in LWIR. I have asked you to identify which value you believe is the “correct” one.”
Read carefully what I have really said, which is that we have very precise measurement of DWLWIR, but because of the overlap between H2O and CO2, it is difficult to ascribe how much is due to one or the other. I have showed specific examples using the MODTRAN database that demonstrate from the same data you can ascribe anywhere from 4% to 30% of the DWLWIR to CO2, depending on how you frame the question.
You continue to misunderstand my argument about the general pointlessness of trying to figure out which alternate imaginary earth we should compare the real earth to. I will say this about the uniform 255K alternate imaginary earth used by the “establishment”: it is the warmest that a world (of unit infrared emissivity) could be if it were free to radiate directly to space. Any variation in temperature would yield lower average temperature.
If I were explaining this, I would emphasize that this was an upper limit, and I would use an emissivity somewhat less than 1.0 (the oceans and most surfaces are about 0.95), resulting in a slightly higher limiting temperature for an alternate earth. I emphasize that the same thing — about being a limiting case — cannot be said about Kramm’s or N&Z’s alternate earth.
You say: ” In recent comments you have appeared to acknowledge that cloud radiative forcing “easily” supersedes any alleged forcing from CO2 within the greenhouse effect. How, therefore, does this position co-exist with your belief… ”
Can you for once understand the difference between level and rate of change? No matter how many times the difference is explained to you, you continue to confuse the two.
You ask: “Why do you insist on avoiding talking about CO2 in particular, instead trying to make this about the greenhouse effect as a whole?”
You are the one who “make[s] this about the greenhouse effect as a whole” when you keep putting up posts that approvingly cite studies like the one in this post that argue against the very existence of the atmospheric radiative greenhouse effect.”
When you approvingly cite these kinds of papers, which anyone who has a basic grasp of the material in relevant introductory undergraduate science or engineering courses can immediately see are nonsense, you serve to discredit all of the other valid work that you do.
The reason that I get exercised when you put up these ridiculous posts is that it allows the alarmists to dismiss skeptics as scientific know-nothings who don’t understand basic science. You are making Schmidt et al. look smart by comparison.
For the record, I believe the most likely climate sensitivity to increased CO2 concentrations is most likely somewhat below the lower bound of the published mainstream sensitivity estimates. I do believe that the climate “establishment” has paid far too little attention to possible natural sources of variation, which I think (as I have said) could easily cause changes of similar size.
I think such warming — most likely greatest where it is coldest — will be more beneficial than harmful, and that even where and when harmful, steps taken to counteract it will likely be worse than the harm. And I think the benefits of CO2 fertilization to agricultural productivity are being ignored for political reasons.
And no, even if I were an outright “denier”, that would have no effect on my occupational standing. You claim that I “early on stated that [I was] unwilling to admit where you taught due to concerns about what others might do with that information.”
When did I state anything remotely like that????
I will repeat that you do yourself and your commendably humanitarian cause no favors when you post drivel like this post and others I have commented on recently. It will just lead many people to dismiss you as a crank.
Ed, I have quoted your exact words. It’s a copy/paste. Do you wish to retract what you actually wrote, which is that the Air Force has:
If you are hereby acknowledging that we do not have precise measurements of CO2 LWIR, and that you wrote this by mistake, why not humble yourself enough to say so? Why continue to deny you wrote something that is on the public record?
No matter how many times I write this, you continue to write the same things over and over again. I am not necessarily approvingly citing these papers, or agreeing that they are “right”. My sole purpose in calling attention to papers that question the CO2 greenhouse effect in particular (like the Allmendinger paper does) or the physical conceptualization of the greenhouse effect as a whole (the G & T 2009 paper), is to highlight that it (the CO2 GHE) is hypothetical, not rooted in real-world observation evidence, has unanswered physical mechanism and magnitude questions and deficiencies, and is not “settled science”.
You seem to believe that the science is settled on this, and if we cannot come up with a better explanation, the explanation that you prefer must be right. The latter p–>q is a logical fallacy, of course.
Just because you believe we have enough information to declare the CO2 GHE the truth, which you obviously have done by claiming THERE IS NO PLAUSIBLE ALTERNATIVE (your all-caps and word choices expressing certainty)… does not make it so. I am open-minded to alternative explanations for a non-observed, non-real world explanation — even if those new explanations also have many question marks and inconsistencies. You are not open-minded. You claim there is NO PLAUSIBLE ALTERNATIVE to what you believe to be true about a hypothetical, non-real-world explanation, and you have proceeded to conduct yourself as a bully does in belittling and denigrating the positions of others (Ph.D. atmospheric scientists no less) who do not agree with you. I have little respect for this style of discourse. All it does is make you smaller for stooping to that level.
Ed, the conceptualization of the CO2/H20 greenhouse effect as espoused by alarmists like Schmidt is not “basic science”. It is a theory, actually a hypothesis, rooted in assumptions about what might possibly happen on an imaginary world with no atmosphere. Even Gavin Schmidt himself calls it a “thought experiment”. Please explain, though, the point at which you believe the theoretical CO2/H20 greenhouse effect was elevated to “basic science”. What year did it become fact?
Interpreting your comments, then, you believe that climate sensitivity to doubled CO2 concentrations is “somewhat below” 1.2 C (for 3.7 W m-2 of forcing), which I will assume you mean it to be somewhere around 1.0 C, and you further do not believe that it is likely that 100% of the changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations are due to human emissions, but that there is a good possibility that a non-insignificant portion of the changes in atmospheric CO2 are natural. Thank you. Do you believe feedbacks with water vapor and cloud are net positive or negative?
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Pierre Gosselin: “Please provide us with your full name and ‘top university’ with which you are affiliated. If you really are this sort of leading authority you claim to be, then come out of hiding. We want to verify this claim of yours. I’ve seen lots of people claim authority on a subject”
—————————————-
Sorry, Ed, but your attempts to shut down debate about a theoretical/hypothetical conceptualization by calling people names (“crank”, “know-nothing”) and referring to atmospheric physicists’ work as “drivel” and trying to influence me not to publish articles by atmospheric physicists and other scientists with whom you disagree only serves to undermine your case. Again, you are not the open-minded one here. Not when you write that there is NO PLAUSIBLE ALTERNATIVE to the non-real-world conceptualizations that you assume to be the Truth.
You really have no idea, do you? Nope, the greenhouse effect is not based on that 33K difference that is mentioned so often.
Whether you approve of those papers or not is not relevant. You are posting them with the intent to show that the greenhouse theory could be incorrect. Either you know that those papers are ridiculously unscientific and want to troll the AGW crowd and re-affirm your followers that climate skepticsm has something to it, or you really don’t know that those papers are nonsense. I think it is the latter one and the only way out of this is learning about the mechanisms and understanding physics/math. If it is the first one, then admit it and at least I will never again comment on posts containing such nonsense papers.
BTW: about Gerlich and Tscheuschner 2009 … the paper is included in the list of papers with gross errors: https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1007%2Fs00704-015-1597-5/MediaObjects/704_2015_1597_MOESM1_ESM.pdf … they are also “barking at the wrong tree”.
By all means, continue to publish those articles! But acknowledge that it makes you look like a scientific illiterate when you present them like they could be on to something. There are valid forms of skepticism and nothing is settled, but the kind of papers you post here, the conclusions you derive from papers you post that themselves have different conclusions, your confusion about values and their derivatives and the difference between absolute and relative effects … it all adds up to a picture of someone who desperately doesn’t want to learn the truth.
Exactly. There is nothing unscientific about showing that atmospheric scientists have found that the classic “thought experiments” making up the 288-255=33K conceptualization of the “greenhouse effect” could indeed be incorrect. Even you call it a “theory” – though its more like an assumption. Theories and hypotheses and assumptions have not been confirmed as facts. The greenhouse effect as hypothesized hasn’t been observed in the real world. Therefore, there is nothing unscientific in the slightest about highlighting the work of scientists who question a theory/hypothesis/assumption. That’s what the scientific method is all about. People like you and Ed Bo wish to shut down debate by dismissing and belittling and name-calling the atmospheric scientists and physicists and chemists and engineers and heat transfer experts with whom you disagree. You are anything but open-minded. I am undeterred in highlighting these scientists’ work. After all, the GHE as you imagine it to be is merely an hypothesized/assumed thought experiment.
Measuring the human skull, or craniometry, was once considered “consensus” science; one’s intelligence and racial superiority/inferiority were widely thought (by scientists) to be connected to one’s cranial measurements. The scientific consensus served to justify decades of biological racism that extended through the mid-20th century. Were there scientists who questioned the scientific “correctness” of craniometery? Yes. But it is highly likely that, at the time, there many people like you who thought we should just acquiesce to your demands that we no longer highlight these dissenting scientists’ work because they are “illiterate” and their questioning of established science makes them out to be know-nothings. Unlike you, I refuse to close my mind to the possibility that there might be better explanations than the currently popular one…which already has many inconsistencies and question marks associated with it as it is.
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/08/25/545508337/science-gone-wrong-can-teach-us
“Crucially, ‘eugenics’ was establishment science in the mid-20th century. Courses on eugenics were offered at our universities and colleges and most high school textbooks included racist misinformation. Eugenics was widely believed to provide a sound basis for law and social policy.”
You are kidding, right? You mean that all we know about the atmosphere and radiative heat transfer and the measured radiation level aren’t based on observation?`
What you mean is the CO2 greenhouse effect or rather that a small change of only some hundred ppm could make a difference. It looks like we can’t measure this in detail because we lack a second Earth. Fine. But that doesn’t mean that the greenhouse effect can’t be observed … how would you even come to such a conclusion?
I also disagree with someone who claims 1+1=3 … shouldn’t people who know that this is not the case point out that those who’s “opinion” 1+1=3 is are wrong?
You aren’t Galileo in this debate. Skeptics which ignore the laws of physics and can’t handle math beyond 10th grade are basing almost all their arguments on errors and imagination. They are basically using the tactics of conspiracy theorists … and by employing those you will not be seen as a group that might be on to something, but a group that is composed of know-nothings.
Learn the basics, how mechanisms that you think aren’t plausible actually work and you will change your mind or at least the way you argue. I promise you that. Ignore how stuff works and continue to post these kind of papers unreflected and you’ll stay where you are right now. Being openminded is different from what you are. You don’t accept anything from those who might know better, but offer conflicting data that doesn’t match your reality.
P.S.: Comparing modern climate science to eugenics, etc … I don’t have words for that kind of nonsense. Do you think that is a good strategy? Do you think that works as effectively as claiming that being called a “denier” has too many associations with the Holocaust for you?
The greenhouse effect as hypothesized hasn’t been observed in the real world.
No, I’m not kidding. The hypothesized 288 – 255 = 33 K greenhouse effect, with CO2 contributing 7.2 K of the 33 K, is a thought experiment. Thought experiments by definition are not observed in the real world. We have also never observed (or measured in controlled, real-world experiments) the hypothetical phenomenon of CO2 concentration variability in volumes of +/-0.000001 (parts per million) heating or cooling water bodies. This is assumed to occur. It has not been observed. If it had been observed, we’d have physical measurements from a controlled experiment. We do not.
The hypothetical 288 – 255 = 33 K greenhouse effect thought experiment is not 1+1=2, with those who question it doing the equivalent of claiming 1+1=3. Hypotheses and assumptions and thought experiments are not the equivalent of math facts.
The hypothesized 288 – 255 = 33 K greenhouse effect, with CO2 contributing 7.2 K of the 33 K, is a thought experiment of what the Earth’s temperature might be on an imaginary Earth that has no atmosphere. Despite your incessant protestations, this is not “the laws of physics”.
So do you think I should “accept” the hypothetical 288 – 255 = 33 K greenhouse effect thought experiment because Gavin Schmidt, a mathematician, believes it should be regarded as the truth?
Kenneth, you have to free yourself from the idea that the 33K thought experiment is the greenhouse effect. This is a huge straw man and you should know how to recognize those …
The greenhouse effect itself is undisputed. It’s basically settled science as in there is no better explanation for the observations we make. What is up to debate is whether or not an increase of this effect is happening and that is responsible for the current warming phase. The majority of scientists think that is the case. Some skeptics don’t think that is the case. Some other skeptics think that the GHE and global warming is a big conspiracy because they don’t really understand the problem and what is a mystery to them may very well be fake invented by the elites … and with your replies and some of your posts you definitely belong in that category. Get out of that category by learning how the mechanisms actually work. Knowledge is power, Kenneth.
So…these papers are wrong to call the 33 K warmer Earth due to greenhouse gases the greenhouse effect?
—
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0034-4885/54/6/002/meta
“On any planet with an atmosphere, the surface is warmed not only by the Sun directly but also by downward-propagating infrared radiation emitted by the atmosphere. On the Earth, this phenomenon, known as the greenhouse effect, keeps the mean surface temperature some 33 K warmer than it would otherwise be and is therefore essential to life.”
—
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2010/2010_Schmidt_sc05400j.pdf
“The global mean greenhouse effect can be defined as the difference between the planetary blackbody emitting temperature (in balance with the absorbed solar irradiance) and the global mean surface temperature. The actual mean surface temperature is larger (by around 33°C, assuming a constant planetary albedo) due to the absorption and emission of long‐wave (LW) radiation in the atmosphere by a number of different “greenhouse” substances. … This reduction in outgoing LW
flux drives the 33°C greenhouse effect defined above”
—
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/08/recipe-for-climate-change/
We know that 255 K is the wrong answer; off by 33°C. The discrepancy is the greenhouse effect, and to this we owe our comfort and our liquid oceans. The greenhouse gases absorb some of the outbound infrared radiation and re-radiate in all directions, sending some of the energy back toward Earth. Two-thirds of the effect (about 22°C) is from water vapor, about one-fifth (~7°C) is from carbon dioxide, and the remaining 15% is from a mix of other gases, including methane.
—
Spoken like a true believer. Kudos to you, SebastianH, for coming right and declaring your allegiance.
So is it scientific fact, then, that the Earth is 33 K warmer due to greenhouse gases? Is it undisputed settled science that CO2 contributes 7.2 K to the 33 K greenhouse effect? Why is it unnecessary to have real-world physical evidence and measurements in declaring you have found scientific truth?
I take it you disagree with Dr. Wyatt…
“By definition, science equates to varying degrees of uncertainty, with hypotheses and theories bookending the uncertainty spectrum. Hypotheses – suggested explanations for how things work, and based upon observed evidence, offering potential prediction of phenomena whose correlative relationships may be causal – must be both testable and falsifiable. A hypothesis cannot be proven to be true; it can only be proved false. For a hypothesis to be elevated to theory – a rare and significant promotion – the hypothesis must survive multiple replications of results with a wide set of data, and it must be tested under a variety of circumstances. Even then, while uncertainty of a theory is minimized; it is never zero. Hence, science is the constant process of trying to figure out how things might work.” — Dr. Marcia Wyatt, Earth Scientist
You keep on staying entrenched in your certainty that the science is undisputed and settled and hence unfalsifiable, SebastianH. I’ll assume that there is yet much to discover about the climate system and keep on searching for better answers. I’m not satisfied with thought experiments and non-real-world observations that have been modeled and then declared to be truth by the gatekeepers of the orthodoxy.
Kenneth, I’m fairly sure that they’re aware of exactly how important the 33 K idea is to the GHE theory. That’s why they’re still here defending it, after all! And I think it’s one where they’re going to have to have the last word, even if it means them continuing to post until the page closes for commenting!
I also find it interesting that both Ed Bo and SebastianH wish to back off from accepting the 288 – 255 = 33 K greenhouse effect equation as representing reality, but yet at the same time they claim that the 250 W m-2 “power gap” bridged by CO2 and H2O is not only reality, it is “undisputed” (SebastianH: “It’s basically settled science as in there is no better explanation”). And Ed Bo is so certain of this CO2/H20 GHG “power gap” bridge that he declares THERE IS NO PLAUSIBLE ALTERNATIVE (his all caps) to it. In other words, if no one can provide a better explanation, that makes what they believe in right, or reality. Little did they know, apparently, that they are knee-deep in logical fallacy…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
Perhaps this is why they have found name-calling and insults and shaming to be worthwhile debating tactics.
Yes, just general scorn is the default approach to debating anything that questions the GHE…and that seems to come from both sides of the “mainstream” debate (let’s call that “warmists” vs “luke-warmers” if we must resort to labels). It is really very strange. “Luke-warmers” have this fear that pandering to any anti-GHE ideas “makes real skeptics looks bad” (does that sound like particularly skeptical reasoning in any way!?) and from the “warmists” you will just get jeers, scorn, and “even Roy Spencer disagrees” (as if that is supposed to mean that you must, too).
I sometimes get the impression that in a lot if cases, neither side has even read any of the anti-GHE literature. It is just automatically assumed to be wrong since both sides of the mainstream debate have so effectively labelled those producing it as “nutters” and “cranks” that it’s not even considered worthwhile reading. This despite the fact that “poisoning the well” is a well-known logical fallacy.
Fact is, if the anti-GHE stuff is so obviously bunk, it should be a breeze to debunk. Yet whenever it’s debated, the arguments go on and on and on and on…blog posts on the GHE always seem to generate more comments and more debate than any other. Over at Roy Spencer’s, it’s pretty much the case now that any single post he writes (whatever it’s about) descends into 1,000-comment-plus conversations with usually a large part of that on the GHE.
But in any case I applaud this site for being open-minded enough to feature such articles as it does.
It is and it gets debunked all the time. But …
… this is entirely the skeptics side here (you and Kenneth) who keep ignoring explanations and continue their nonsense … on and on as if nothing has happened. It is irritating and I guess that’s also a valid debate strategy, annoying your opponent until he gives up and you look like you’ve won the argument.
@Kenneth:
you clearly don’t seem to understand what the available measurements combines with lab experiments and the laws of physics mean. I have no other explanation for your behaviour and why you could possibly entertain the thought that the GHE is not a good explanation for these observations.
For the record, I give up. GW is right, this continues until the comments get closed off again, because you must have the last word and will never change you views on this topic. You are the opposite of open-minded. Bye
Fact is, if the anti-GHE stuff is so obviously bunk, it should be a breeze to debunk.
So amusing. SebastianH, your version of “gets debunked” is to call it “nonsense” and to claim that those who don’t agree that you are right must not understand it. That’s not how “debunking” works.
Again, the 33 K greenhouse effect is an imaginary-world thought experiment that is not confirmed by observational evidence and thus is no more than an assumption/hypothesis. It is NOT settled science, undisputed, the laws of physics, reality, truth, or the equivalent of 1+1=2. It’s a belief. You are a believer. We do not share your beliefs. We are skeptical of your beliefs.
We’re not ignoring your explanations. We just don’t think your explanations even remotely answer the question with supporting evidence. I’ve asked you 4 times to back up your claim/belief that CO2 molecules re-emit in all directions when by themselves, but then mostly downwards and no longer sideways and upwards to space as much when “in a volume” (whatever that means). And what do I get when I ask you to back up your claim/belief with supporting evidence? Nothing. You cannot back up what you believe to be true. As a skeptic, how should I interpret this failure to back up your beliefs? Should I just believe anyway, as you do? Sorry. I don’t do that. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And you don’t even provide any evidence, not to mention the extraordinary kind.
Yes, I guess I would find it annoying too if I was constantly being asked to back up my claims/beliefs with evidence and I knew I could not do so. Should I be apologizing for asking you to cite evidence to support what you believe too often?
I know. You are so deeply entrenched in your beliefs about the imaginary world 33 K greenhouse effect and the 7.2 K CO2 contribution that you cannot understand why anyone could possibly not be as convinced as you are of its truth.
OK, then. Yes, the globe has warmed some since the depths of the Little Ice Age. See there? We agree!
“It is and it gets debunked all the time.”
And from the skeptics point of view, those debunkings get debunked all the time…and so it goes on…and on…and on…
“this is entirely the skeptics side here (you and Kenneth) who keep ignoring explanations and continue their nonsense”
Well actually from my POV it is you and Ed Bo (though mostly you) who keep ignoring explanations. I’m not sure Ed has ignored what I’ve said though, it’s just so far each time I’ve raised a point he’s moved the subject on to something else. So I’m never sure whether he concurs or disagrees.
“For the record, I give up.”
OK. I shan’t expect a response to either this or my other comment I’ve just made then.
[Let’s see if the third time to post this is the charm…]
Kenneth:
I’m glad you don’t believe the greenhouse effect theory depends on GHGs radiating only in the downward direction. I assumed you were stating what you believed when you said that, and that’s why I invoked the “single shell” model to show how this was not true.
I’m afraid you miss Willis’ point completely, though. He is a fervent believer in the atmospheric greenhouse effect. When he says the “steel greenhouse” has “nothing to do with greenhouse gases”, he means that it is a fundamentally a geometric effect and other absorbent materials could create the effect as well.
When he says “it is not physically possible to model the Earth as a two-layer system”, he means that the Earth’s greenhouse effect is large enough that a single shell, even one that is 100% absorbent, cannot explain it. He suggests a two-shell model as an improvement that can explain the magnitude of the Earth’s GHE. I emphasize that even this is a greatly simplified model that is intended to show the principles of operation conceptually.
The two-shell model can conceptually answer your question about the directionality of radiation. Let’s use shells that are 100% absorbent for analytic simplicity. In steady-state conditions, the outer shell must radiate to space as much as the whole system absorbs as input. We’ll call this 240 W/m2.
But the outer shell is also radiating 240 W/m2 downward (“local” omni-directionality) toward the inner shell. So the shell is outputting a total of 480 W/m2. For it to be in steady-state conditions, it must have an input of 480 W/m2, and the only possible source is radiation from the inner shell. So the inner shell must be at a temperature such that it is radiating 480 W/m2 outward.
But this means that the inner shell is also radiating 480 W/m2 downwards toward the surface (again, “local” omni-directionality). Since the surface is also getting 240 W/m2 from the external source, it must be at a temperature such that it can radiate 720 W/m2.
Now, if you had a satellite looking down on this system from outside, it would measure 240 W/m2 of upward radiative flux (from the outer shell). And if you had a sensor on the surface looking up, it would measure 480 W/m2 of downward radiative flux (from the inner shell).
So here we have a system where “locally” there is no difference in the directionality of the radiation, “globally” there is. This is the same principle that is true in our atmosphere.
Of course, the atmosphere is not just two discrete 100% absorbent layers. As you divide it into more and more layers that are less than 100% absorbent each, you get closer to modeling how it works, going in the limit to infinitesimally thick layers. But this principle holds. The surface is absorbing more DWLWIR radiation than space is receiving UWLWIR, even though at any given layer in the atmosphere, there is NO difference in upward or downward radiation.
Once again, this is very basic stuff. If you are really to grapple with the greenhouse effect, even to try to refute it, you must understand this type of analysis.
[Let’s see if the fourth time to post this is the charm…]
Kenneth:
I’m glad you don’t believe the greenhouse effect theory depends on GHGs radiating only in the downward direction. I assumed you were stating what you believed when you said that, and that’s why I invoked the “single shell” model to show how this was not true.
I’m afraid you miss Willis’ point completely, though. He is a fervent believer in the atmospheric greenhouse effect. When he says the “steel greenhouse” has “nothing to do with greenhouse gases”, he means that it is a fundamentally a geometric effect and other absorbent materials could create the effect as well.
When he says “it is not physically possible to model the Earth as a two-layer system”, he means that the Earth’s greenhouse effect is large enough that a single shell, even one that is 100% absorbent, cannot explain it. He suggests a two-shell model as an improvement that can explain the magnitude of the Earth’s GHE. I emphasize that even this is a greatly simplified model that is intended to show the principles of operation conceptually.
The two-shell model can conceptually answer your question about the directionality of radiation. Let’s use shells that are 100% absorbent for analytic simplicity. In steady-state conditions, the outer shell must radiate to space as much as the whole system absorbs as input. We’ll call this 240 W/m2.
But the outer shell is also radiating 240 W/m2 downward (“local” omni-directionality) toward the inner shell. So the shell is outputting a total of 480 W/m2. For it to be in steady-state conditions, it must have an input of 480 W/m2, and the only possible source is radiation from the inner shell. So the inner shell must be at a temperature such that it is radiating 480 W/m2 outward.
But this means that the inner shell is also radiating 480 W/m2 downwards toward the surface (again, “local” omni-directionality). Since the surface is also getting 240 W/m2 from the external source, it must be at a temperature such that it can radiate 720 W/m2.
Now, if you had a satellite looking down on this system from outside, it would measure 240 W/m2 of upward radiative flux (from the outer shell). And if you had a sensor on the surface looking up, it would measure 480 W/m2 of downward radiative flux (from the inner shell).
So here we have a system where “locally” there is no difference in the directionality of the radiation, “globally” there is. This is the same principle that is true in our atmosphere.
Of course, the atmosphere is not just two discrete 100% absorbent layers. As you divide it into more and more layers that are less than 100% absorbent each, you get closer to modeling how it works, going in the limit to infinitesimally thick layers. But this principle holds. The surface is absorbing more DWLWIR radiation than space is receiving UWLWIR, even though at any given layer in the atmosphere, there is NO difference in upward or downward radiation.
This is now the 3rd time you’ve posted the same comment. As was explained to you below, sometimes posts don’t go into moderation, but go straight to the trash bin, mixed in with dozens of spam and ads. They “disappear”. This happens to everyone, including me (when I am not able to log in). Please stop posting the same comment over and over again. Sometimes you have to go to the trouble of re-posting if the comment goes straight to the trash bin.
And did you finally understand why GHGs radiate more towards the surface than to space? Or does it remain a mystery to you?
Yet another new scientific paper has been published that questions the current understanding of the Earth’s globally averaged surface temperature and its relation to the hypothetical greenhouse effect……fixed
I like your site, but you should choose your words better.
You give a thought bubble and it’s back of a beer-mat math far to much credit calling it a Theory.
Theory definition.
In science, an explanation that covers a substantial group of occurrences in nature and has been confirmed by a substantial number of experiments and observations. A theory is more general and better verified than a hypothesis
There quite simply is no verification of a Radiative Greenhouse Effect.
Keep up the good work’s, the bastards are finally on the back foot.
Articles like this would be dismissed immediately if the GHE was referred to as a “pipe dream” or “hoax” or some equivalent. I always prefer not to use dismissive language, as that shuts off debate.
This article is bunk. Sensible people know the GHE is real and has been measured. Without GHGs, temperatures would be much lower. Trying to nitpick how much lower is a distraction. GHGs capture and resend heat back down to earth, thus warming beyond what the sun alone can do. How are you not embarassed by denying 100+ years of textbook physics?
GHGs capture and resend heat in all directions, not just back down to Earth. In other words, since GHGs re-radiate sideways to space and upwards to space, most of the re-radiation from GHGs is not directed back down to Earth. But why do you believe GHGs only re-radiate in one direction?
Don’t be silly, radiation is sent only back down due to gravity. Radiation may bounce from co2 molecule to co2 molecule, but eventually drops down to earth. Try reading a science textbook, so you don’t make silly comments.
Can you supply a source for this claim that the re-radiation from greenhouse gases only radiates downwards from heights of 10s of kilometers above the surface due to gravity instead of re-radiating “in all directions”?
Stop being silly. It’s in the energy budget diagrams. I’m sure you will fall back to conspiracy theories and claim that it’s all fraud, like all deniers.
Last night, I posted a lengthy comment explaining how omni- directional radiation from GHGs in a thick atmosphere can lead to differing fluxes out of the top and bottom. It went into moderation. You chose not to post it. Why?
I neither saw or deleted any such posting. Sorry that this happened; it’s likely a WordPress thing. You are welcome to re-write and re-post if you find the time.
Posted it again. Site said in moderation. Checked again and it’s gone.
Just found it in the trash bin. It was never in moderation, then. Posts “disappearing” happens to everyone here, including me (when I’m unable to log into the site). The trash bin accumulates about 10 to 20 spam messages per hour, which can turn out to be an overwhelming number after a while. You’ll just have to accept like everyone else that sometimes you’ll need to re-post.
Does this one come through?
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/atmosphericwarming/multilayermodel.html
Finally went through… twice.
Actually, 3 times. The first time (whenever that was) apparently went into the trash, the last 3 went to moderation. Please be patient next time. Now we have 3 of the same comment. I would go to the trouble of deleting 2 of them but then you’d probably falsely accuse me of doing something sinister again (“You shut down the comments!”).
Kenneth:
You say: “I also find it interesting that both Ed Bo and SebastianH wish to back off from accepting the 288 – 255 = 33 K greenhouse effect equation as representing reality”
For weeks now, I’ve been emphasizing an argument based on this world alone, emphasizing that my argument does not rely on any specific alternate imaginary world in a “thought experiment”. So no, I am not “back[ing] off from accepting” that. I was never “on” it.
I have been pushing a very basic argument based on the 1st Law of Thermodynamics. The earth’s surface outputs power at a far greater rate than the input from the sun could provide. Yet the surface is very close to being in power balance.
The measured power of the downwelling longwave infrared radiation explains this balance. I have considered other possible explanations and found them completely wanting. I have challenged you and the others to provide any other explanation. Crickets…
You claim I am being close minded here. ” In other words, if no one can provide a better explanation, that makes what they believe in right, or reality.”
The thing is, thermodynamics, radiative heat transfer, and spectroscopy are very mature sciences now. (Unlike the finer points of climate science.) Every day, they make very successful predictions in all sorts of fields. Engineering designs for over a century have successfully used the predictions of these fields to create our modern world.
So I think the chances of an as yet unidentified power source amounting to 250 W/m2 over the entire globe, while simultaneously explaining how the power in the DWLWIR is “disappeared”, are for all intents and purposes NIL. It is not an “argument from ignorance”; it is an argument from knowledge.
I also have a VERY high level of certainty that gravity is the source of the force that pulls me toward the earth. I have examined other possible forces — e.g. electrostatic, magnetic — and rejected them. Gravitational theory explains what we see very well, and nothing else does. So, I conclude that there is NO PLAUSIBLE ALTERNATIVE.
I have told you I would welcome plausible alternatives to the (real) earth’s “power gap”. You don’t even try to suggest one, even given the incredible amount of time you have spent researching scientific papers on climate. Do you really think that someone will come up with another power source that no one has thought of before? (I’m not holding my breath.)
In my professional career, I must make sure that my thermal designs work and my designs don’t fry. I take into account conductive, convective, and radiative heat transfer modes in my designs. I do not lose any sleep that I might have missed some as yet undiscovered thermal source. (That is different from worrying about subtle modeling errors in the designs. That is what safety margins are all about.)
I understand that you are convinced that there is no plausible alternative to the views you have about the greenhouse effect, especially as it relates to the efficacy of CO2 within it. I do not share your certainty. That’s because the challenges to the current conceptualization that says that CO2 and water vapor molecules exert the power to be a dominant heat energy source for the thousands-of-meters-deep oceans have not been answered sufficiently. Calling papers “nonsense” that challenge this conceptualization is not persuasive, but that’s essentially all that has been done.
For example, if I present a paper like this one from Dr. Roy Clark, physicist, I highly doubt that you will be capable of convincing me that it has no merit whatsoever. I fully expect that you will claim that Dr. Clark’s paper is “nonsense”, or that he doesn’t understand radiative heat transfer, or something similar.
Clark, 2010
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.364.736&rep=rep1&type=pdf
“[T]here is usually no direct heating of the ocean by the atmosphere, as required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The latent heat of evaporation is not released until the water condenses, which is generally at an altitude above 1 km. It is therefore impossible for an increase in downward atmospheric LWIR flux of 1.7 W.m-2 to heat the ocean. The increase in flux is converted by the ocean surface into an insignificant change in evaporation rate. This is buried in the noise of wind induced fluctuations in evaporation and changes in LWIR flux caused by variations in aerosols, clouds and near surface humidity. … Variations in cloud cover, aerosols and humidity will produce fluctuations in LWIR flux that are much larger than 1.7 W.m-2, so the effects of CO2 on ground surface temperature are not measurable. However, no historical record of surface temperature is available, so the meteorological surface air temperature has been substituted for the surface temperature without any consideration of the differences between the two.”
“Most of the large scale climate models used to predict global warming ignore the physics of energy transfer at the Earth’s surface and use an approach known as radiative forcing. This assumes that long term averages of dynamic, non-equilibrium climate variables such as radiative flux and surface temperatures can be analyzed using perturbation theory as though they were in radiative equilibrium. Although the mathematical derivation is correct and may even appear elegant, the underlying physical assumptions are invalid before the first equation is written down. The troposphere is an open thermodynamic system so heat and flux are not conserved. The temperatures in the upper troposphere are near 220 K. The assumption that small changes in LWIR flux in the upper troposphere or stratosphere can influence surface temperatures of 288 K is a flagrant violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Molecular linewidths also vary with altitude because of pressure broadening, so the upward and downward LWIR fluxes are not equivalent. At the Earth’s surface, radiative flux is not conserved, especially over the oceans. The calculated ‘equilibrium surface temperature’ is not even a physically measurable climate variable. Radiative forcing can be compared to telling the time using a broken clock. … Radiative forcing by CO2 is, by definition a self-fulfilling prophesy, since the outcome is pre-ordained with a total disregard of the basic laws of physics. An increase in CO2 concentration must increase surface temperature. No other outcome is allowed and other possible climate effects are by definition excluded.”
Now, I refuse to agree with Dr. Clark’s word choice of “impossible” here, as that would mean that I am claiming some degree of certainty that the RF increase associated with CO2 concentration changes “cannot” heat the oceans. And I am anything but certain about that. Perhaps it can…I’m still open to that as a possibility. What he says about the LWIR flux from CO2 being so small relative to other factors (i.e., wind and cloud cover changes) that it is “buried in the noise” of changes from other forcings and therefore unmeasureable is quite plausible to me, however. And this plausibility is what drives my skepticism with regard to the CO2 greenhouse effect and its capacity to be a driving source of ocean heat content variations. And, again, my focus is on the efficacy of CO2 to dominantly deliver net OHC changes, not the greenhouse effect or more precisely LWIR forcing in general. The anthropogenic implications and the policy derivatives are the reason why this remains my focus.
Furthermore, although I realize there are some questionable conclusions found in a paper like Gerlich and Tscheuschner (2009), it doesn’t help the cause to read the rather weak response to it, a “rebuttal” paper by Halpern et al. (2010) that effectively made up some straw man arguments not found GT09 and then “refuted” these made-up positions. This is what I find repeatedly in response to these skeptical papers — instead of responding to the challenges as stated, the side you seem to align with effectively makes up their own false dichotomies and then slays straw men. Here’s the 1st response to Halpern paper that amusingly was claimed to have “debunked” GT09:
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https://arxiv.org/pdf/1012.0421.pdf&embedded=true
“It is shown that the notorious claim by Halpern et al. recently repeated in their comment that the method, logic, and conclusions of our “Falsification Of The CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics” would be in error has no foundation. Since Halpern et al. communicate our arguments incorrectly, their comment is scientifically vacuous. In particular, it is not true that we are “trying to apply the Clausius statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to only one side of a heat transfer process rather than the entire process” and that we are “systematically ignoring most non-radiative heat flows applicable to Earth’s surface and atmosphere”. Rather, our falsification paper discusses the violation of fundamental physical and mathematical principles in 14 examples of common pseudo-derivations of fictitious greenhouse effects that are all based on simplistic pictures of radiative transfer and their obscure relation to thermodynamics, including but not limited to those descriptions (a) that define a “Perpetuum Mobile Of The 2nd Kind”, (b) that rely on incorrectly calculated averages of global temperatures, (c) that refer to incorrectly normalized spectra of electromagnetic radiation. Halpern et al. completely missed an exceptional chance to formulate a scientifically well-founded antithesis. They do not even define a greenhouse effect that they wish to defend. We take the opportunity to clarify some misunderstandings, which are communicated in the current discussion on the non-measurable, i.e. physically non-existing influence of the trace gas CO2 on the climates of the Earth.”
Until challenges like these — and they are just the tip of the iceberg, with dozens more like them — are addressed directly, and not by responding with made-up straw man arguments, I will remain skeptical and I will not assume that the explanation affirmed that says CO2 concentration changes are significantly what heats and cools the oceans, and therefore humans are significantly responsible for changing the climate. That is an unproven hypothesis/assumption, and I will regard it as such.
Kenneth:
The Clark paper is all about the climate sensitivity to small CHANGES in LWIR from increased CO2 concentrations. He argues that the effects from this can be lost in the noise of other changes, which I have stated repeatedly is entirely plausible.
But if you go through his analyses, he fully accepts that downwelling LWIR is part of the energy balance of the earth’s surface (i.e. the “greenhouse effect”) and even that the increased CO2 concentration increases LWIR.
I am dumbfounded by your continued inability to distinguish between these two issues.
As to G&T, it would take far more time than I have to fully deal with that mess. But look quickly at one issue. They spend the first 5-6 pages of their analysis discussing thermal conductivities of gases, when the GHE has nothing to do with changes in conductivity.
They conclude this section by saying: ” About 80 percent of this warming is attributed to water vapor and 20 percent to the 0.03 volume percent CO2. If such an extreme effect existed, it would show up even in a laboratory experiment involving concentrated CO2 as a thermal conductivity anomaly.”
My jaw dropped when I read that. They have no freaking clue as to what they are talking about! With all the research you do, you should be able to discern that immediately.
Good, then. We agree that an anthropogenic signal in changing the temperatures of the ocean, and thus the climate, is likely not detectable. In other words, the crux of the AGW argument — that we can definitely attribute climate changes to human activity — is not supported by the evidence. That has been, and is, my entire emphasis.
Correct. We agree again. And I have not rejected the idea that downwelling LWIR provides a plausible explanation for Earth’s energy balance; I also have not said there is no such thing as a planetary “greenhouse effect”. Heck, I’ve made a point to collect dozens of papers that offer a climate sensitivity value that necessarily agrees the planet is warmed by CO2 to some specified degree, which means that I have also not rejected the idea that increased CO2 concentration may increase LWIR. But as I have just stated again and again, and in my comment above, my emphasis has been, and still is, how much does the LWIR affect the temperatures of the ocean waters relative to the influences from such factors as changes in, say, cloud cover. Does the effect from CO2 get “buried in the noise”, and thus become immeasurable, even negligible? Dr. Clark thinks so. That’s exactly what he writes, actually. In other words, what Dr. Clark has written is precisely what I have been saying all along — sans the absolutist language that he uses, and that I refuse to use, namely that a 1.7 W m-2 flux from anthropogenic CO2 “cannot” [his word] heat the oceans. I refuse to dismiss that possibility altogether, as this all is still very unsettled science.
This is so disingenuous, Ed. You’re dumbfounded? Please, the faux histrionics are beneath you. This patronizing habit of yours — claiming that I don’t understand that there is a difference between the relative/incremental changes in CO2 from concentration increases (my consistent focus) and the non-precisely measured “absolute” CO2 forcing for the globe (that varies between about 15 and 50 W m-2, depending upon the imprecise “measurement” — is a tactic that you have employed as a means to try to marginalize and dismiss. I am so, so done with it.
What challenges? There is no serious challenger for the GHE explanation. And we are even able to measure the radiation from those gases. You can’t just imagine this away and hope for some other effect that neutralizes this and somehow provides for the additional surface heat instead.
When someone writes something like this:
Then yes … it would be a valid claim to say that he didn’t understand that quite right. So yes, even someone with a Ph.D. can get the basics wrong.
Hmm, a paper equating the greenhouse effect to a glass house that tries to show that it’s not working like a glass house? Yeah right. It’s hard to believe that this paper still gets quoted in the skeptics circles 😉
You assume that G&T’s reply to the comment by Halpern is correct, are you?
Is this paper not addressing the issue directly enough? https://arxiv.org/abs/0802.4324
And is this article not addressing the issues directly enough?
http://rabett.blogspot.de/2009/04/die-fachbegutachtung-below-is-elis.html
Until skeptics aren’t capable of recognizing such basic mistakes there is no hope that they can recognize anything at all. So my only suggestion to you is (and remains): learn how the mechanisms that you are trying to argue against work. Don’t argue from a position of ignorance! Get over your stages of denial …
Again, it is highly unlikely that there is some yet unknown effect that neutralizes the measured energy fluxes and replaces them just “appearing” to be the GHE. You seem to believe in that possibility despite every explanation given to you. That is not open-minded, that is being laser-focused on one goal …
This was buried in the trash, and yet rescued. Oh the joys of responding to the same old, same old from you, SebastianH. Sometimes it would be nice if you would stop “intervening” (to put it nicely) in my conversations with others…since what I wrote wasn’t directed toward you.
There are serious challenges to the CO2 GHE, namely that humans, by burning fossil fuels control ocean heat content, sea level rise, glacier melt, hurricane intensities… And that’s what this is all about.
But yet we can’t measure the actual effect of CO2 concentration changes on ocean temperatures. As I just wrote elsewhere…
The measured effects of atmospheric CO2 concentration changes on thermal changes in the ocean have not been observed. They are not only guessed at using models and assumptions. The DWLR from clouds and water vapor are so much more dominant that an anthropogenic signal is lost in the noise. And considering the entire climate debate centers on detecting a clearly measurable anthropogenic signal in ocean heat content changes, the inability to actually measure the effects of CO2 on ocean heat renders conclusions regarding the anthropogenic influence on climate speculative at best. Sure, you have your beliefs and confirmation biases, but that’s all they are.
Of course that is your opinion that Dr. Clark “didn’t understand” how “small changes” (i.e., the 1.7 W m-2 from CO2) in the LWIR flux in the troposphere are responsible for changing ocean temperatures. Between the two of you, I assume he, as a physicist, is far more informed than you. So while I don’t dismiss what you say by calling it “nonsense”, I also don’t dismiss what he has to say as “nonsense” either.
Clark, 2010
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.364.736&rep=rep1&type=pdf
“[T]here is usually no direct heating of the ocean by the atmosphere, as required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The latent heat of evaporation is not released until the water condenses, which is generally at an altitude above 1 km. It is therefore impossible for an increase in downward atmospheric LWIR flux of 1.7 W.m-2 to heat the ocean. The increase in flux is converted by the ocean surface into an insignificant change in evaporation rate. This is buried in the noise of wind induced fluctuations in evaporation and changes in LWIR flux caused by variations in aerosols, clouds and near surface humidity. … Variations in cloud cover, aerosols and humidity will produce fluctuations in LWIR flux that are much larger than 1.7 W.m-2, so the effects of CO2 on ground surface temperature are not measurable.
You’ve done exactly what Halpern et al (2010) did: concocted a straw man position. T&G09 do not “equate” the GHE with a glass house. You obviously didn’t bother to read the 2010 paper responding to the Halpern “rebuttal”.
No, I didn’t write that. I read and considered G&T10. I didn’t immediately dismiss what those scientists wrote. The only thing I can say affirmatively is that G&T correctly stated that the Halpern paper misrepresented what their 2009 paper said for the purposes of marginalizing it and then dismissing it. Which is exactly what you do.
For me, this isn’t nearly as much about the GHE in general, but it’s about the CO2 GHE in particular, especially the capacity for humans to exert control over ocean heat content, glacier melt, sea level rise, hurricane intensities, etc. But, of course, no matter how many times I write this, you will continue to just ignore it and make up your own stuff. I’ve come to expect no less.
P.S.: Did you finally understand why even though individual molecules radiate in all directions the whole atmosphere radiates more downwards then upwards? You didn’t reply to that subthread, so I think you did. Do you think any of your other ideas about how the mechanisms work could be wrong too?
Only “intervening” when I read nonsense (quotes) from you. And yes, I use the word nonsense, since that is what it is.
You can’t have it both, a GHE that depends on GHGs and then, on the other hand, some magical effect that neutralizes the effect of “small” changes in their concentration. That is why (and I assume Ed Bo) are pointing out that your argumentation reads like you dismiss the general GHE. You say you don’t, but that’s how it looks like to others, especially when you post quotes from papers that clearly don’t understand what they are arguing against.
It doesn’t become true, when you repeat it more often.
That’s great, so you trust what physicists say and write? Why not trust the overwhelming majority of climate scientists on this matter?
Sorry Kenneth, a Ph.D. doesn’t protect you from writing nonsense, especially in old age. After all this time sifting through papers you should have developed some kind of bullshit detector, but you didn’t. I’d blame that on your ignorance regarding the actual laws of physics and your lack of understanding how the mechanisms work. So again, learn how stuff works and then you can try arguing against it (same advice goes for G&T). Otherwise it sounds like someone claiming that cars are driven by directing the exhaust backward and arguing against that for whatever reason (like G&T did).
I did and it is as hilarious as the original paper. Completely missing the point while ignoring the laws of physics and ironically claiming that the GHE can’t work because of the laws of physics. It’s one big mess, but since it supports the skeptical way of thinking about climate change your bullshit detectors don’t ring. Why aren’t you the least bit skeptic about that paper?
What makes you so sure about that? Their reply that says this was the case?
Then don’t argue against the GHE effect itself. If it is the climate sensitivity of CO2 concentration changes that bothers you then that is fine with me. What makes me wonder about your motives is the constant posting of nonsense papers, your confusion with numbers in general as an argument against anything and how you pull out every deniers argument that exists to make your point. Why not just stick to the climate sensitivity? Why are you following the “stages of denial”?
1) There is no global warming (you post that often enough) because of lack of evidence, contradictory evidence or even fake evidence
2) We don’t know why climate change happens because it’s only non working models, we can’t predict anything and we are not sure what causes it (does that sound familiar?)
3) It’s all natural because it happened before, everything that we measure – like the CO2 increase – is natural and the warming is surely not caused by CO2
4) It’s not bad that the climate is changing. What can happen when the globe warms a few degrees and plants have more CO2 available, right?
5) It’s too expensive to do anything against it and/or the stuff we do has no effect (the wind turbine / electric cars discussion).
Break out of that way of thinking and focus on climate sensitivity without dismissing/ignoring how the physical mechanisms work. Don’t be the guy who barks at the wrong tree because he ignores everything important.
Only? SebastianH, you butt in to just about every conversation to add your opinions and share your beliefs. It does become annoying that you can’t just let the person I am directing my questions to respond…you’ve got to jump in first. It hints of desperation.
It’s not both ways that I’m “having it”. The DLWR “greenhouse effect” depends predominantly (80-98%) on clouds and water vapor. CO2, especially due to its trace concentrations, plays an insignificant role. For the 132nd time, my emphasis is on questioning the efficacy and climate sensitivity of CO2 within the GHE, as that is what the entire AGW debate is about.
This is maddening. SebastianH, it’s not “their” concentration that I have suggested (with scientific backing) that is neutralized, it’s CO2’s concentration change that is neutralized by water vapor (the dominating GHG) and clouds (the dominating DWIR variable). You just cannot help yourself in fabricating your own straw man positions and then disingenuously claiming that I have written or thought what you have fabricated. And the neutralizing of CO2 by the main DWIR constituents is not “magical”. Why do you insist on claiming there is magic involved?
Do you believe that the neutralization (or buried-by-noise signal) of the effects of CO2 on water temperature changes by water vapor, clouds, aerosols, and wind is magical, SebastianH?
Clark, 2010
“The increase in flux is converted by the ocean surface into an insignificant change in evaporation rate. This is buried in the noise of wind induced fluctuations in evaporation and changes in LWIR flux caused by variations in aerosols, clouds and near surface humidity. … Variations in cloud cover, aerosols and humidity will produce fluctuations in LWIR flux that are much larger than 1.7 W.m-2, so the effects of CO2 on ground surface temperature are not measurable.”
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Professor Peter Minnett’s anthropogenically enhanced insulation effect
In the 2006 quote Stefan Rahmstorf expands on the notion that increasing DLR as a result of rising aGHG emissions (which are unproven) heats the top of the skin layer to such an extent that the thermal gradient over a few millimetres of cool-skin from warm layer to surface is modified, creating an enhanced insulation effect so strong that energy egress from the ocean is significantly inhibited. This enhanced insulation, according to the blog theory [RealClimate.org], accounts for measured late 20th century ocean heat accumulation.
There are a number of problems with Peter Minnett’s blog theory that need to be addressed. DLR is emitted by all GHG including natural emissions and water vapour (gas). Clouds (liquid water) also contribute, so extracting the anthropogenic component of DLR presents considerable difficulties.
What counts most against Peter’s theory is the significance of the insulation effect and this issue was raised in the 2006 Real Climate comments thread by Steven Sadlow but not responded to by either Stefan Rahmstorf or Gavin Schmidt. Stefan Rahmstorf describes the enhanced insulation process as “if you heat the top of the skin layer” but spectroscopic studies (e.g. this plot from Hale and Querry, 1973) show that DLR only impinges on the top 10 microns of the water surface and because of that, DLR is an ineffective water heating agent, DLR having very low energy per photon as compared to solar SW radiation. Fairall et al. state the 10 micron figure explicitly, so no dispute there either. There can only be negligible surface heating (if any) in a non-enhanced situation, because DLR energy will be used up by evaporation in calm conditions which actually aids energy egress. The intensity of DLR is not increased enough by aGHG increase to exacerbate the situation to any level of significance if the insulation effect is already insignificant and there has been no measured increase in DLR intensity. If it was, evaporation and therefore energy egress is actually enhanced. This is a key plank of AGW theory and contrary to Minnett’s theory.
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It’s fine with you??? Then why do you constantly keep on butting into conversations about low CO2 climate sensitivity? I keep on pointing out that the effects of CO2 concentration changes are significantly lost amid the noise of the dominant factors (something that Ed Bo has implied he agrees with too), and yet you insist on calling this “magical” thinking. You just did so again above. Will you at some point be consistent? You claim you’ve given up, and tell me “Bye”, and then within 4 hours, you’re back at it again. Do you get something out of this? Are you just trying to annoy me with your circular and fabricated “rebuttals”?
Your list of “stages of denial” is sick. I do not appreciate you making up thoughts or motives and attributing them to me. Please show some class and, for once, stop doing this. Your “interventions” here are the opposite of persuasive. They repel me.