Source: American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting
At next month’s American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in New Orleans (US), an independent researcher named Trevor Underwood will be presenting an equation-rich analysis that thoughtfully undermines the perspective that increases in CO2 concentrations are a fundamental variable affecting climate.
Instead, Underwood argues that the absorption band where CO2 emissivity could have an effect is likely already saturated, precluding the capacity of increased CO2 concentrations to produce atmospheric warming.
He also advances the position that solar irradiance changes can explain modern temperature variations, which is consistent with other recent analyses.
It seems that more and more of these papers questioning the “consensus” view on the efficacy of the CO2 within the greenhouse effect are being considered in scientific circles. Several previous examples are listed below.
The volume of contrarian analyses would seem to suggest that the climate’s specific sensitivity to CO2 concentration changes is not yet settled.
And so the debate rages on.
• Another New Paper Dismantles The CO2 Greenhouse Effect ‘Thought Experiment’
• New Paper: CO2 Has ‘Negligible’ Influence On Earth’s Temperature
• 3 Chemists Conclude CO2 Greenhouse Effect Is ‘Unreal’, Violates Laws Of Physics, Thermodynamics
• Ph.D. Physicist Uses Empirical Data To Assert CO2 Greenhouse Theory A ‘Phantasm’ To Be ‘Neglected’
• Swiss Physicist Concludes IPCC Assumptions ‘Violate Reality’…CO2 A ‘Very Weak Greenhouse Gas’
• Recent CO2 Climate Sensitivity Estimates Continue Trending Towards Zero
• A Swelling Volume Of Scientific Papers Now Forecasting Global Cooling In The Coming Decades
• Russian Scientists Dismiss CO2 Forcing, Predict Decades Of Cooling, Connect Cosmic Ray Flux To Climate
• 2 New Papers: Models ‘Severely Flawed’, Temp Changes Largely Natural, CO2 Influence ‘Half’ Of IPCC Claims
• Leading Heat Transfer Physicists/Geologists Assert The Impact Of CO2 Emissions On Climate Is ‘Negligible’
• New Atmospheric Sciences Textbook: Climate Sensitivity Just 0.4°C For CO2 Doubling
• U of Canberra Expert: Doubling Atmospheric CO2 Would Increase ‘Heating By Less Than 0.01°C’
• Uncertainties, Errors In Radiative Forcing Estimates 10 – 100 Times Larger Than Entire Radiative Effect Of Increasing CO2
• New Paper Documents Imperceptible CO2 Influence On The Greenhouse Effect Since 1992
Underwood, 2017
No Increase in Earth’s Surface Temperature From Increase in Carbon Dioxide
A critical look at these different in situ measures of the Earth’s surface temperature identified a divergence between land and marine surface temperatures, with land surface air temperatures showing a significant and increasing rate of warming of around 0.5°C between 1880 and 1981, and 0.7°C between 1982 and 2010, whilst marine air temperatures show little if any change between 1880 and 2010 (Underwood (1) 2017). Recent academic literature is also beginning to question the accuracy of the adjusted in situ data (Kent et al. 2017).
In order for an increase in carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere to result in an increase in the surface temperature of the Earth, it must be able to increase the absorption of infrared radiation emitted from the surface. This would result in an increase in the absorption factor, f. However, as seen above f is currently around 0.9444. Absorption of infrared radiation by molecules of greenhouse gases, involves increasing the internal energy of the molecule by changing the quantum state of the molecules, which can only occur at particular wavelengths, known as absorption bands.
These absorption bands can be extended by what is referred to as pressure broadening (Strong and Plass 1950; Kaplan 1952), but when all of the emitted infrared radiation within these absorption bands has been absorbed by greenhouse gas molecules in the atmosphere, no further absorption of the terrestrial radiation is possible. The radiation with wavelengths falling outside of the absorption bands passes through the atmosphere and escapes into space.
Absorption of solar radiation in in the stratosphere is almost 100% efficient in the ultraviolet due to electronic transitions of oxygen (O2) and ozone (O3) and a significant amount of solar radiation is absorbed by water vapor (H2O) in the lower atmosphere. It is primarily the visible radiation that is absorbed at the Earth’s surface. In the infrared, absorption is again almost 100% efficient because of the greenhouse gases, but there is a window between 8 and 13 mm, near the peak of terrestrial emission, where the atmosphere is only a weak absorber except for a strong ozone feature at 9.6 mm. This atmospheric window allows direct escape of radiation from the surface of the Earth to space and is of importance in determining the temperature of the Earth’s surface (Jacob 1999).
Additional leakage could occur if the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere were insufficient to absorb all of the infrared radiation in the absorption bands emitted by the Earth’s surface, but due to the extent of the atmosphere and its known unsaturated state, it is more likely that the current leakage corresponds to radiation in the part of the infrared spectrum that does not fall in the greenhouse gas absorption and emission bands, referred to as the “infrared window”. As a consequence, even in the case where there is leakage of infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface directly into space, as long as the atmosphere is able to absorb all of the upwelling infrared radiation in the greenhouse gas absorption bands, neither the amount of this leakage nor the amount of the absorption will depend on concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. From the emission spectra (a) and absorption percentages (b) in the diagram above (Fig. 2.6, Yang 2016), where the 255°K blackbody curve represents the terrestrial radiation, it appears that at the current surface temperature and absorption factor of 0.9444 all of the radiation within the emission bands is fully absorbed, and that the remaining 5.56 percent of the infrared emission represents radiation with wavelengths within the atmospheric window. If this is true, there can be no further increase in f [absorption], and no increase in the surface temperature with an increase in carbon dioxide.
Increase In Solar Forcing Explains Recent Warming
The difference between the minima showed an increase of 0.2812 W/m-2 for VIRGO; 0.4701 W/m-2 for ACRIM; and 0.2650 W/m-2 for ACRIM + TIM over the 11.6 year solar cycle 23 beginning in May 1996 and ending in January 2008; or 0.24 W/m-2 per decade for VIRGO, 0.40 W/m-2 per decade for ACRIM, and 0.23 W/m-2 per decade for ACRIM + TIM (pmodwrc website
2016).
These decadal increases in TSI [Total Solar Irradiance] from ACRIM, SARR, VIRGO and ACRIM + TIM are sufficient to explain the whole of the increase in surface temperature estimated from in situ data during the last 100 years. They compare with the six published model-based estimates of forcing examined in Schwartz (2012) that showed forcing by incremental greenhouse gases and aerosols over the twentieth century ranging between 0.11 and 0.21 W/m-2 per decade.
Summary
Solution of the Greenhouse Effect equations based on a more realistic atmospheric model that includes absorption of solar radiation by the atmosphere, thermals and evaporation, and an examination of the fraction of terrestrial infrared radiation absorbed whilst passing through the atmosphere, suggests that the contribution of greenhouse gases to the surface temperature is close to its upper limit. Any further contribution would depend on an increase in the infrared absorption factor of the atmosphere from its current level of around 0.9444, which seems unlikely. As this appears to correspond to total absorption of all black body infrared emission from the Earth’s surface at wavelengths at which there are greenhouse gas absorption bands, including for water vapor, it seems likely that we are close to the thermodynamic limit of greenhouse warming for the current luminosity of the sun, and that any further increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere will have little or no effect on the surface temperature of the Earth. Questions about the reliability of in situ measurements of surface temperatures also raise questions about current estimates of global warming. Moreover, recent evidence from satellite measurements of solar irradiance, indicate that any recent warming could be due to increasing solar irradiance.
A conference paper with a similar conclusion regarding the emissive/warming limitations of increased CO2 concentrations was presented by a molecular physicist, Dr. N. Doustimotlagh, at the World Conference On Climate Change in October, 2016.
What kind of “independent researcher” is the author of the paper? It should be basic knowledge amongst climate scientists (and skeptics) that the surface temperature does not increase because more infrared radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, but in changes of the volume/distance it is absorbed (at least for Earth). So, why do we want to believe in the results of a paper from someone who doesn’t understand this basic principle?
http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/djj/book/bookchap7.html#pgfId=105886
“Molecule for molecule, CO2 is less efficient than other greenhouse gases because its atmospheric concentration is high and hence its absorption bands are nearly saturated. From See Global warming potentials from the instantaneous injection of 1 kg of a trace gas, relative to carbon dioxide we see that over a 100-year time horizon, reducing SF6 emissions by 1 kg is as effective from a greenhouse perspective as reducing CO2 emissions by 24,900 kg.”
And? How does that quote help you or the author in any way? It still remains a misunderstanding of a basic physics principle.
What’s up seb, don’t like the message go after the messenger?
What’s up tomOmason, don’t recognize when someone goes after the message?
OK seb, you obviously are trying not to understand so let’s take this statement first
What kind of “independent researcher” is the author of the paper?
“What’s up tomOmason, don’t recognize when someone goes after the message?”
Guess what that first question is about err, not the message but the messenger!
In REAL SCIENCE it doesn’t matter, so why did YOU bother asking. Ex-patent clerks would be interested if they were still alive.
And you didn’t bother to read further than the first sentence? Does that happen often to you?
The message is bad, so recognizing that it is not allowed to ask who this “independent researcher” is that is being celebrated so uncritically in the article?
No YOU are implying by saying What kind of “independent researcher” that he has researched and had this paper published to do something other than further scientific knowledge — that he has an anterior motive for this research.
Only someone with a mental aberration could disparage this independent researcher without proof.
Reply in spam folder?
What I am implying is that a researcher should know the basics of his field, shouldn’t he/she?
Improving insulation doesn’t mean that the insulating material is suddenly absorbing more of the energy, than before. Or to say it in another way, do you (and/or the researcher) think that the CO2 above the height at which all radiation at the relevant wavelength is absorbed, has no effect?
What kind of child would attempt to divert the conversion?
No seb, YOU are implying, by saying ‘What kind of “independent researcher” is the author of the paper?’, that he is a researcher doing something other than seeking to further scientific knowledge — that he has an anterior motive for this research. By that one phrase You are questioning the bona fides of the man, and not his research.
What kind of crumpy old person would misinterpret everything on purpose and make up straw man arguments to distract from the topic?
Should I have written “what type”? The intent was to ask for the field that this researcher researches in, but if you say I implied stuff … then that must be the case.
“What kind of crumpy old person would misinterpret everything on purpose and make up straw man arguments to distract from the topic?”
Look in the mirror much seb?
In the Underwood paper shouldn’t the Units be nM and not mm?
Introduction to Atmospheric Chemistry (Jacob, 1999)
http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/djj/book/bookchap7.html#pgfId=105880
The efficiency of absorption of radiation by the atmosphere is plotted in Figure 7-11 as a function of wavelength. Absorption is ~100% efficient in the UV due to electronic transitions of O2 and O3 in the stratosphere. The atmosphere is largely transparent at visible wavelengths because the corresponding photon energies are too low for electronic transitions and too high for vibrational transitions. At IR wavelengths the absorption is again almost 100% efficient because of the greenhouse gases. There is however a window between 8 and 13 mm, near the peak of terrestrial emission, where the atmosphere is only a weak absorber except for a strong O3 feature at 9.6 mm. This atmospheric window allows direct escape of radiation from the surface of the Earth to space and is of great importance for defining the temperature of the Earth’s surface.
Another important point from the above discussion is that all greenhouse gases are not equally efficient at trapping terrestrial radiation. Consider a greenhouse gas absorbing at 11 mm, in the atmospheric window ( Figure 7-8 ). Injecting such a gas into the atmosphere would decrease the radiation emitted to space at 11 mm (since this radiation would now be emitted by the cold atmosphere rather than by the warm surface). In order to maintain a constant terrestrial blackbody emission integrated over all wavelengths, it would be necessary to increase the emission flux in other regions of the spectrum and thus warm the Earth. Contrast this situation to a greenhouse gas absorbing solely at 15 mm, in the CO2 absorption band ( Figure 7-8 ). At that wavelength the atmospheric column is already opaque ( Figure 7-13 ), and injecting an additional atmospheric absorber has no significant greenhouse effect.
Absorbing closer to the ground does have a significant greenhouse effect. It’s called physics.
And if that absorption band is “already saturated”, regardless of how close it is to the ground, it will have minimal impact even if the concentration is increased. That’s what the paper says.
Kenneth, what happens when you have one layer of isolation around a heat source? Let’s say it is a sheet of metal, so no IR goes through that sheet, everything is absorbed (or reflected, but that is irrelevant now). What happens when you add a second sheet closer to the heat source? Everything is still absorbed, but you now have a far better insulation effect.
If you think gases work fundamentally different insulating things, then please prove it and get a Nobel for that discovery.
Whether or not “everything” is still capable of being absorbed or reflected in all directions is not irrelevant.
And no, an atmospheric gas like CO2, which has had its molecules spaced together 1/10,000ths more closely today (400 ppm) than 100 years ago (300 ppm), does not function just like a blanket or insulating material does around a sheet of metal. Blankets aren’t radioactive, absorbing heat and then actively re-emitting it in all directions, including to space. The atmosphere is not a sheet of metal. Nor are the oceans, which are not even penetrable by IR. The analogy is not real-world.
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/downloads/Anthropogenic%20Ocean%20Heating%20Part%201%20RC.xhtml
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, accounts for measured late 20th century ocean heat accumulation. Rahmstorf lent credence to this theory in 2006 but as we will see in Part 2 he is certainly not as wedded to it in 2013 as Skeptical Science is.
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. The theory is also dependent upon DLR increasing over time (the last 40 years, say) in concert with rising aGHG levels. There is no study that I am aware of over that time frame to provide evidence of that happening. Recent studies that have been done do not return any correlation with CO2, for example, and even the sign of the DLR trend can be opposite the aGHG trend, or when the DLR trend is positive the magnitude can be far greater than can be attributed to aGHG.
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 (but unproven) plank of AGW theory and contrary to Minnett’s theory.
SebastianH,
“Kenneth, what happens when you have one layer of isolation around a heat source? Let’s say it is a sheet of metal, so no IR goes through that sheet, everything is absorbed (or reflected, but that is irrelevant now). ”
Wow! You use a sheet of metal as an analogy of insulation. A metal sheet reduces the transfer to conduction, do you mean that air reduces transfer to conduction as well? That would destroy the radiative greenhouse effect, wouldn´t it?
Insulation of a hot body is done by REDUCING absorption of heat in the surroundings. Not increasing it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_insulation
“Thermal insulation is the reduction of heat transfer”
“Heat flow is an inevitable consequence of contact between objects of differenttemperature. Thermal insulation provides a region of insulation in which thermal conduction is reduced or thermal radiation is reflected rather than absorbed by the lower-temperature body.”
Increasing absorption from increasing co2, is the EXACT opposite of what thermal insulation does. If you knew heat transfer and thermodynamics, you would know that decreasing emission(radiative imbalance) in the cold fluid surrounding a hot body, means that the rate of transfer increases, because reduced emission is equal to reduced temperature of the cold fluid.
So, your position is in contradiction with 100% consensus, proven and applied physics from the 19th century. If a heat source heats a cold fluid, the fluid cools the heat source. If you increase the amount of dry ice(co2) in the cold fluid, absorption increases and it cools more.
But hey, I get it, you couldn´t figure out why surface temperature is 287K. You can´t help being ignorant, you were probably born that way. Let me help you.
Solar irradiation on a disk, pi*r^2, distributed over a hemisphere, 2pi*r^2, absorbed in depth of a volume(atmosphere), 4/3pi*r^3, and then another spherical volume, 4/3pi*r^3:
(TSI/2)/(4/3)^2=383W/m^2, 287K
(TSI=1360.8W/m^2)
If you use the inverse square law together with the emission from the surface in the s-b equation, you find effective emission:
(TSI-383)/4=244.5W/m^2, 256K
Include gravity as work in the first law, with average solar heating. A blackbody would emit TSI/4=340.2W/m^2
340.2(dU)-244.5(Q)=g^2(W)=95.7N/m^2
(g=9.78, surface acceleration according to NASA)
N/m^2 is units for pressure and it is equal to W/m^2.
And guess what:
The source power of g^2, according to the inverse square law, is:
95.7*4=383W/m^2
Ties it up nicely, doesn´t it?
“If you think gases work fundamentally different insulating things, then please prove it and get a Nobel for that discovery.”
Shhh, be quiet now. You have embarassed yourself enough already. You didn´t even know that absorption in the cold fluid is the exact thing insulation prevents.
Save yourself some embarassment, and get off the stupid-train. Only complete idiots thinks that a cold fluid and dry ice can increase the temperature of the heat source that heats it.
SebastianH: “If you think gases work fundamentally different insulating things, then please prove it and get a Nobel for that discovery.”
SebastianH will likely respond to this by calling you a “denier” and claiming you don’t understand “basic physics” or “simple maths”. That’s what he does every time he is shown to be wrong. We’ve warned him that the more he posts here, the more he embarrasses himself and his cause, but he keeps on doing so anyway.
There is really no need to respond to the numerology “magic” that is performed by the commenter above. It stands for itself and everyone who is not a math illiterate will immediately see what he did. You do not and that should not surprise anyone at this point.
Let’s just say, it amounts to claiming that (surprisingly) when A – (A-B) = C, then C = B … hurray 😉
It’s 9.81 m/s^2 and g^2 is 96.236 m^2/s^4 not W and not N/m^2.
No …
1 W = 1 kg * m^2/s^3
1 N = 1 kg * m/s^2
And you, Kenneth, believe these kinds of things (you think I was “shown to be wrong”) and you defend this nonsense in the comments. Do you see why that is a problem?
That is correct.
I thought that article was about the fact that CO2 was already absorbing all radiation in its spectrum at lower concentrations and higher concentrations would not increase absorption, is it not?
Everything in the path of radiation that absorbs and re-emits that radiation acts like insulation, reducing the heat transfer.
Whatever you mean by the greenhouse effect, it does not exit in the atmosphere. A greenhouse will prevent radiation escaping but this does not cause any heating. A greenhouse gets warmer because it is a barrier which prevents mixing of the air inside with that outside. There is nothing equivalent in the atmosphere. Radiation is not necessarily heat transfer. Heat transfer only takes place from a high temperature to a low temperature and heat cannot be trapped. The atmosphere will radiate to the surface but there is no heat transfer from the cold atmosphere to the warmer surface. Backradiation from the atmosphere is utter nonsense.
Insulation certainly reduces heat transfer but it is basically because it stops heat loss by convection. The atmosphere cannot act like an insulating blanket. Even if it did, insulation does not generate heat. In a house it does not increase the temperature, it reduces the energy needed to maintain a specified temperature.
Ignoring the energy from the earth’s core, then there is only one source of energy received by the earth and that is from the sun. The atmosphere cannot generate any heat to increase the surface temperature. However, a gas in a gravity field is compressed and energy conservation results in potential energy being converted to thermal energy. This is why the surface has a higher temperature.
The effect of gravity can be seen in deep mines. Although the earth provides some heating, the mines cannot be cooled by pumping cooler air from the surface because gravity increases its temperature. This is why Venus has a higher temperature. It is because the surface pressure is 92 times that of earth. The CO2 in the atmosphere of Venus has nothing to do with it.
[…] saturated, precluding the capacity of increased CO2 concentrations to produce atmospheric warming. New AGU Presentation: ?No Increase In Earth?s Surface Temperature From Increase In CO2? […]
“Instead, Underwood argues that the absorption band where CO2 emissivity could have an effect is likely already saturated, precluding the capacity of increased CO2 concentrations to produce atmospheric warming.”
It will be interesting to see how much of his analysis matches this analysis. It would be independent confirmation if it happens.
Climate “Science” on Trial; CO2 is a Weak GHG, it has no Permanent Dipole
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/30/climate-science-on-trial-co2-is-a-weak-ghg-it-has-no-dipole/
Same conclusion (CO2 has no significant effect on climate) but different approach
and including that which is temporarily countering global cooling are at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com
Ditto that, Dan.
https://objectivistindividualist.blogspot.com/2010/05/false-catastrophic-man-made-global.html
Underwood doesn’t understand the Hansen theory. With Hansen, saturation at low altitudes is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that CO2 emissions occur at a high altitude which is cooler/less efficient and that warms the entire planet. The adiabatic curve shifts.
That is of course ridiculous as we all that CO2 acts as a blanket to shield us from the warmth of the stratosphere.
Sebastian,
How can CO2 act as a blanket,shield when it most of the IR window is outside of its bandwidth absorption range?
Here is a simple chart showing how little outgoing IR gets absorbed:
“Let’s look at a real result, below – the absorption spectrum for pure carbon dioxide plus an amount of water vapor equal to that in our current atmosphere as the sample and infrared radiation from a black body spectrum as the source. This is part of the so-called “greenhouse effect”
https://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/CO2%20Absorption%20Spectrum.jpg
“As we can see above, carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation (IR) in only three narrow bands of frequencies, which correspond to wavelengths of 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µm), respectively. The percentage absorption of all three lines combined can be very generously estimated at about 8% of the whole IR spectrum, which means that 92% of the “heat” passes right through without being absorbed by CO2. In reality, the two smaller peaks don’t account for much, since they lie in an energy range that is much smaller than the where the 15 micron peak sits – so 4% or 5% might be closer to reality. If the entire atmosphere were composed of nothing but CO2, i.e., was pure CO2 and nothing else, it would still only be able to absorb no more than 8% of the heat radiating from the earth.”
https://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html
I have known this for many years,how come you still don’t know?
sunsettommy,
the article is about how CO2 is already absorbing all radiation in its spectrum. Did you miss that?
Sebastian, did you write this?
What I wrote is correct,while you IGNORE the 92-95% outgoing IR flow it doesn’t absorb. Therefore it can’t be a insulator,blanket at all.
That slight increase in the absorption of outgoing IR doesn’t significantly impact the total energy flow that leaves the system.
I think that ought to make clear why he rarely engages in scientific details. They just aren’t his strong suit.
It doesn’t have to perfectly absorb all IR to be an insulator/blanket. Absorbing all IR at a specific wavelength over a distance and re-emitting it again in all directions and that repeated several times until the radiation (at that wavelength) leaves the Earth-atmosphere system is what happens here. More CO2 raises the height at which that happens, which makes “losing” the heat to space less effective, which causes the surface to warm. A pretty basic principle which doesn’t only work with CO2, but anything that isn’t a perfect reflector or perfectly transparent.
It certainly doesn’t on the grand scale. What is a 1K temperature increase at 288 K average temperature? A 0.35% increase?
Sebastian, you still fail to think it through because the 1K you babble about is swamped by the increase in outgoing IR OUTSIDE of the CO2 absorption bands.
I showed you this before,yet you still fail to get it:
“Since the accepted value of the total GHE is 33 °C, I used each proportion of energy to the 33 °C. The result was as follows:
Evaporation: 22.0 °C
Water vapor (GHG): 5.0 °C
Convection: 4.7 °C
CO2 (GHG): 0.9 °C
Ozone (GHG): 0.3 °C
Other (GHG): 0.2 °C
If CO2 were removed, the change in energy transfer would be 3.3 W/m^2 which is 2.75% of the total. That change corresponds to a total change to the GHE of 0.9 °C which I will consider 1 °C as the ozone transfer really takes place in the stratosphere.
Since the Earth’s temperature is ~287K, the temperature of the Earth without CO2 would be ~286K.”
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2012/08/what-would-the-temperature-of-the-earth-be-without-co2-in-the-atmosphere/
The added CO2 in the atmosphere is a TRIVIAL increase in the overall budget.which is based on the %5 of the outgoing IR that CO2 absorbs.But when you realize that as the surface warms up,increases the speed of energy leaving the planet…..CO2 doesn’t stop it.
As shown here:
“A 0.5 °C temperature difference between these two years resulted in an additional 2.5 W/m2 increase in the measured amount of energy lost to space. That increase in energy loss is not theoretical, it is a measured difference. It is also what is predicted by the Stefan-Boltmann Law.
If the Earth were to warm by 1.1 °C, the amount of energy lost would be almost 4 W/m2 greater than what it lost in 1984. If the Earth were to warm by 3.0 °C which is what is predicted by a doubling of CO2, then the amount of energy lost would be > 10 W/m2 the energy loss that existed in 1984.
The science of this is very clear. The rate at which the Earth loses energy will increase at more than twice the rate that the theoretical CO2 forcing is capable of causing warming to take place. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere cannot stop the Earth from losing more energy if it warms up. The reasons behind this are the wavelengths of energy that are transmitted by the Earth, but it can simply be shown by looking at the energy loss increase that has taken place over the past 25 years.”
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2012/05/the-science-of-why-the-theory-of-global-warming-is-incorrect/
You fuss over a 5% of the IR window,while ignoring the rest.
That is stupid.
Blankets aren’t radioactive, and thus they don’t re-emit heat in all directions.
How much more CO2 is required to cause this hypothetical conceptualization to occur? I ask because the Earth’s surface was about 5 degrees warmer than now, and the oceans were about 3 meters higher than now, at a time when CO2 concentrations were about 260 ppm. So what was the mechanism or mechanisms causing all that extra warmth in the Earth’s oceans (and surface)?
Yes, a “principle” that has never been observed to occur in the real world. In the real world, 90-some percent of the Earth’s heat exists in the oceans. Less than 1% is found in the atmosphere. So you have here posited a hypothetical explanation for how heat absorption at an unspecified raised atmospheric height (due to CO2 molecules being spaced together 1/20,000ths more closely than they were in 1990) causes “losing” heat to space “less effective”, thus warming the surface air temperatures. Nowhere in your “explanation” does the physical process by which the Earth’s deep ocean temperatures are warmed by this unspecified mechanism (“more CO2 raises the height at which that happens”).
sunsettommy,
Sorry, but it is you who “has to get it”. We had that discussion before and you didn’t understand why it is nonsense to split up the upward energy flux from the surface to the atmosphere this way. Do I need to repeat myself?
Oh please, you have to stop believing that “inconvenient skeptic”. Take a physics course and learn how heat transfer works. The above statement works for a moon without an atmosphere, then a warmer surface results in more radiation being emitted. With an atmosphere that is also true for the top of the atmosphere temperature … if it increases the planet loses more energy. But we are talking about the surface of a planet with an atmosphere.
I don’t know why you choose to believe that author over there. Aren’t you a skeptic? What causes you to not question the validity of what he writes? Because it’s what you want to read? Maybe you should read something that really is “inconvenient” for you.
What has radioactivity to do with it? And of course, blankets re-emit in all directions. Everything re-emits in all directions. If it has a temperature, it emits.
Every single CO2 molecule causes this to occur. When you add gas to the atmosphere and increase its concentration, what do you think happens? The concentration increases at every height and since the height where CO2 radiates towards space depends on the density of those molecules this height naturally increases when the concentration increases.
No, you are asking because you ignore basic physics and instead want to distract (again). Surprisingly Earth’s surface was even hotter before and maybe it will get even hotter in a billion years again. That has nothing to do with the CO2 (and other GHGs) mechanism and how it influences temperature.
Every day.
How much more CO2 is required to cause this hypothetical conceptualization to occur?
So with well-mixed CO2 concentrations, why was the Earth 5 degrees warmer than now when CO2 concentrations were apparently causing significant cooling (because they were only 260 ppm vs. today’s 405 ppm)? Why does this principle/hypothetical model not match up with paleoclimate data which show the oceans were much warmer with low concentrations of CO2 than high concentrations? Sheesh, considering about half the Earth has not experienced any net warming since the first half of the 20th century, when CO2 was only `310 ppm, why haven’t these CO2 molecules been doing what you’ve claimed in modern times? What caused the lack of significant warming? The Antarctic ice sheet has been gaining mass since 1800. The Greenland Ice Sheet gained mass between the 1940s and 2000s, just as CO2 concentrations were rising dramatically. Why, SebastianH? Why has the GIS only contributed 1.5 cm in total to sea level rise since 1900? In other words, why has the GIS effectively been in long-term balance, and why has Antarctica not even warmed at all?
Yes, a “principle” that has never been observed to occur in the real world.
Sorry, but no, there has been no real-world cause-effect observation or controlled scientific experiment that provides measurements for how much a body of water’s temperatures are cooled by reducing the airborne CO2 concentrations above them by -0.00001 (-10 ppm). If there was, you could finally answer this question that I have asked you about 40 times. If there was, there would be more than just a blog post by Peter Minnett (RealClimate.org) explaining “Why Greenhouse Gases Heat the Ocean” that precisely states that we have no such real-world experimental data that show reducing CO2 concentrations cause water bodies to cool, and by how much. It’s hypothetical. It’s assumed. It’s a principle. No matter how many times you try to pretend that this is an observed phenomenon, it’s not going to be believed until you can provide real-world physical measurements.
So in your version of reality, atmospheric CO2 molecules that are today spaced together 1/20,000ths more closely than they were in 1990 are what has caused the 0-2000 m ocean waters to heat up…because the CO2 molecules have become an even thicker blanket due to that extra 1/20,000ths of denser spacing. Wow, with this kind of power to heat the oceans with such minuscule change in CO2 density, one would think the Holocene would have been much, much colder than now.
Are you asking this question because you think that I am saying that only CO2 concentration changes cause temperature changes?
I bet Earth was a few hundred K warmer shortly after it formed. And I am also pretty sure that the CO2 concentration was way higher in the past (e.g. before plants existed). Neither was caused by humans.
So – to answer your question – something else warmed the oceans. You don’t need high CO2 concentration to get warming, but when they happen, you get warming.
From the soon-to-be Kenneth FAQ: Nope … https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-blended-mntp/201709.gif
Global warming doesn’t necessarily mean that the additional heat is distributed equally.
You asked about the principle … it is observable every day, you can observe it in laboratories. That is can’t be directly observed for the scenario you describe doesn’t mean that the principle doesn’t exist. Your logic seems to be flawed.
You don’t seem to be aware of what huge quantities of energy a constant forcing causes to accumulate. It’s not a switch that causes instant warming, it is the accumulation over decades/centuries. The effect of the current level of the CO2 concentration are just at the beginning. Even if we could somehow stop the increase and let it level out at 400 ppm with reduced emissions, it would still continue to warm until the accumulation of energy is enough to reach an equilibrium state.
You and large numbers, integrals, derivatives and exponential functions … they don’t seem to go together.
So identify the “something else” that caused surface temperatures to be 5 degrees C warmer than now, and sea levels to be 3 meters higher than now, from about 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, when CO2 was exerting a cooling influence (since it was only 260 ppm during that period). You keep on dodging it when I ask you to identify the mechanism that caused this massively greater level of warming. You’ve dodged it again here.
So, in other words, the current warmth (relative to the Little Ice Age) has not been globally synchronous. That’s probably why the Southern Hemisphere hasn’t been warming since the 1940s.
There Has Been No ‘Global’ Warming In The Southern Hemisphere, Equatorial Regions
https://notrickszone.com/2017/05/04/there-has-been-no-man-made-global-warming-in-the-southern-hemisphere-equatorial-regions/
I see. So it’s a principle that varying CO2 molecules in volumes of +/-0.000001 over water bodies causes either cooling or warming. (How much cooling or warming? Don’t ask that, Kenneth.) Who needs observation or real-world physical measurements anyway? After all, the principle exists. And since the principle exists, therefore it actually occurs in the real world. This is the logic of believers.
And yet you claim that this same “principle” of accumulated forcing over decades to centuries does not apply with the increase in solar forcing since the successive solar minima periods encompassing the Little Ice Age (the Modern Grand Maximum). Apparently this “accumulation” principle works for CO2, but not other natural factors. That would appear to be rather logically inconsistent.
This statement assumes that ocean temperatures are controlled by human CO2 emissions, a model-based “principle” that has admittedly never been observed to occur in the real world. It also assumes that all other factors that “used to” influence changes in ocean temperatures remain static or do not change to any significant degree, an assumption at odds with paleoclimate data that show ocean temperatures rise and fall at ten times the rate of the last 200 years, or since humans presumptively took over the climate controls.
Why? I guess you have a list of papers which tell you exactly what supposedly happened, haven’t you? Pick anything from that list.
You haven’t understood a thing about how CO2 acts and how the greenhouse effect works. Why do you think 260 ppm exert a cooling influence?
I’ll just repeat that link … https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-blended-mntp/201709.gif
No, it is a principle that’s based on the laws of physics and can be observed in a laboratory. Again, while your point is valid, your conclusion from it is the same as someone claiming gravity works differently at some place in the universe where we can’t easily test it. It could be, but it is very unlikely that Nobel prize worthy physics concerning this principle hasn’t been discovered yet.
It works for any constant forcing. The periodic changes of the Sun’s influence aren’t constant, they are periodic and sometimes even cause negative forcing. It seems to be the time of the month (again) to repost this graph:
https://imgur.com/a/IkdQh
Still don’t understand it?
No, it just assumes that the laws of physics continue to work.
Huh? If there is a change that counters the warming from CO2, good. If there is a change that causes additional warming, bad. Whatever other changes happen, it doesn’t influence the change caused by CO2.
Sometimes I think you really believe that if you turned on the air condition in a heated building you could somehow cause the heater to not cause heating. Yes, the temperature will stabilize, but it still would be warmer than without the heater.
I find it very strange that you seem to think the man-made climate change first has to surpass past climate changes in magnitude to confirm that it couldn’t be of natural origin …
So identify the “something else” [that caused surface temperatures to be 5 degrees warmer than now while CO2 was causing cooling at 260 ppm]
Because I would like to know what you believe about what mechanism(s) caused ocean and surface temperatures to be so much warmer while CO2 was so much lower. Why is this question so difficult for you to answer? You dodge it every single time.
It would exert a cooling influence relative to today, wouldn’t it? If CO2 levels were reduced to 260 ppm between now and 2100, would that change be a cooling influence or a warming influence?
Your link is amusing. Because here’s the animated gif that shows how much of that data is just made up…because there are no thermometers there…
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/122016.gif
No, raising or lowering CO2 concentrations above a body of water has not been observed in a laboratory to cause heating or cooling. If it had been observed in a laboratory or real-world experiment, we would have physical measurements identifying how much warming or cooling is caused by raising or lowering CO2 concentrations by ___ ppm. And we have nothing of the kind. It’s all an assumption. Your repeated claims otherwise are intellectually dishonest. If you don’t agree, then posts the results from a real-world, controlled laboratory experiment.
Interestingly, this graph shows 3 W m-2 of solar forcing between 1900 and 2000:
https://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Soon-Connolly-2015-TSI.jpg
Van Geel and Ziegler, 2013
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bas_Geel/publication/275459414_IPCC_Underestimates_the_Sun's_Role_in_Climate_Change/links/5543916f0cf234bdb21bd1e8.pdf
“Hoyt and Schatten (1997) combined with the ACRIM data and suggest that TSI increased between 1900 and 2000 by about 3 Wm-2 and was subject to major fluctuations in 1950-1980 (Scafetta, 2013; Scafetta, 2007). … [T]he cyclical temperature increase of the 20th century coincided with the buildup and culmination of the Grand Solar Maximum that commenced in 1924 and ended in 2008.”
No, the assumption that varying CO2 concentrations up or down over a body of water in volumes of +/-0.000001 causes cooling or warming is not “the laws of physics.” It’s a belief. And it’s a belief that is entirely inconsistent with paleoclimate data for the Holocene, which shows no correlation between the flat and low CO2 concentrations and the rapidly fluctuating ocean temperatures (i.e., +1.0 C warming within 100 years in the 0-1000 m layer) and much lower temperature values now vs. when CO2 concentrations were in the 260s ppm.
So you prefer cold temperatures to warm temperatures. Why? Would you prefer to return to the Little Ice Age?
“It’s 9.81 m/s^2”
*Surface acceleration (m/s2) 9.780*
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html
“1 W = 1 kg * m^2/s^3
1 N = 1 kg * m/s^2”
http://www.endmemo.com/sconvert/wnm_s.php
Convert 1W to Nm and see what you get.
If you want instructions how to square Nm and W, let me know. It seems like you have some problems with this stuff.
Are you aware that Newton’s constant, G, is in units Nm²?
You seem to have a problem with perspective, having a hard time visualizing a force acting on a square meter instead of in a point along a meter.
On Mars you can find the same relationship where g² is the difference between effective emission and surface temp. Venus has it as well, but at higher altitude.
If you choose a retarded theory where dry ice in cold fluids makes its heat source hotter by energy creation, instead of the first law, then it’s your problem and everybody else can ignore you, because that is religious blanket-people talk.
Here is a chart showing how little CO2 absorbs outgoing IR:
https://cosmoscon.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/atmospheric_transmission.png
Surely you have seen this before?
Sure, I’ve seen this before. Surely you can calculate what amount of energy is absorbed by CO2, can you?
Have you seen this before and played with it?
http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/modtran.html
Seb,
You must be willfully avoiding that 95% of the IR outflow that CO2 doesn’t absorb. That part of the IR window has long been habitually avoided by narrow minded warmists everywhere,you are just the latest to do it.
The chart make it clear how little outgoing IR CO2 absorbs,yet you ignore that fact.
MODTRAN doesn’t cover it either,when you use CO2 and CH4 in it.
Why can’t you think beyond the end of your nose?
Again, can you calculate the amount of energy in that band or not?
@sunsettommy 16. November 2017 at 4:39 PM
I’ve got a calculation for SebH right here (from a paper published in 1998)…
https://www.john-daly.com/artifact.htm
In other words, we knew 2 decades ago that CO2 causing any warming to speak of was nonsense.
It has been calculated many,many times Sebastian, you are being desperate because you know your babble is silly and confined to just one small energy stream,the main point I keep bringing up is what you never acknowledge at all. You keep harping on the that slim CO2 bandwidth (the 5%) while you ignore the 95% part I bring up.
The chart make clear the main Terrestrial IR outflow is mostly OUTSIDE the main CO2 band. This is the part most warmists fail utterly since they don’t even have that 95% adequately accounted for in that cute Trenberth cartoon chart.
Modtran calculations only covers a small part of the IR window,surely that is obvious. You made that clear with your own MODTRAN link, he he….
The 1990 IPCC report PREDICTED a .30C per decade warming,based on the AGW conjecture. The Satellite data shows about HALF that rate of .16C per decade.
This is why there is no visible indication in the Satellite data of any CO2 effect. No Tropical hotspot either,which is a major prediction based on the ABW conjecture.
THere is no CO2 warm forcing effect visible in the temperature data. The Inconvenient skeptic is a well educated man with a science degree and strong math skills,who used actual data that you apparently ignored,while you mock him. He used two calendar data points to show the INCREASED outflow of energy from the planet,that is more than TWICE what the postulated increased CO2 warm forcing can promote.
Stop ignoring the evidence Sebastian!
Likewise, if cloud cover changes dominate over CO2 in both longwave and shortwave radiative forcing, even a small change in cloud cover — which has been documented — would not be insignificant either. Right? That’s why the surface solar radiation forcing from the reduction in cloud cover since the 1980s has a much larger radiative forcing value (W m-2) than that which is alleged for CO2 over the same period.
In your country, SebastianH, do your adult peers find references to fantasy land animal flatulence when responding to challenges in a debate…convincing?
First up, my apologies, I’m about to ask something which was mentioned on a different thread. Specifically, this comment about the ‘two shell model’: https://notrickszone.com/2017/09/25/another-new-paper-dismantles-the-co2-greenhouse-effect-thought-experiment/#comment-1231386
I’m trying to follow this in my poor uneducated head, but it seems to me that there’s a lot of extra numbers coming from nowhere. If the rule is, the outer shell must emit to space as much as it absorbs as input, and the input is 240W/m2 from the sun, then where is the extra 240W/m2 coming from that gets passed on to the next ‘shell’? And if the first shell is 100% absorbent, how is the 240W/m2 from the ‘external source’ getting to the inner shell and the surface?
If the shells are also ‘transparent’ to the external source, in other words, the external source acts on them independently of each other, which is the only way I can how the extra 240W/m2 is applied to the inner shell, then surely each shell and the surface will all emit 240W/m2 back into space the same way that it arrived?
This example as read (by me) implies that the surface will be emitting 3x as much (720W/m2) as is being provided by the external source, and I don’t understand how this can be so unless there is another ‘source’ at or below the surface.
Pariah Dog,
you need to understand that the two shell model a wrong representation of the thermodynamic processes in the atmosphere is. It is only for the radiative energy transfer but neglects the true complexity and dependencies, which arise from conduction and convective heat transfers that occur simultaneously.
The key to understand the idea behind the two shell concept is the point that the heat flow has to be constant. As per transfer equation it depends on the temperatures. Two bodies at the same temperature will have no heat flow between them. If one body is hotter it will transfer energy to the cooler body. If the cooler body has a warmer temperature then according to the equation the warmer body would need to be at a higher temperature too in order to be able to transfer the same amount of energy.
The main conditions in the shell problem are:
Shells are not connected, outer shell surrounds the other body and has a constant energy source. No other energy transfers or cooling options.
While the atmosphere surrounds Earth like a shell it also is coupled with Earth via conduction and convective heat transfer.
Also the sun is not a constant energy source for all of Earth and it is also a energy source not on the inside. To understand the complexity look up “Prandtl layer”.
So the simple model of the two shells wrongly assumes to represent the Earth and its atmosphere. It does not!
Thanks, John, that’s what I thought. The explanation of it given didn’t make any sense to me at all!
Here is an experiment that proves that radiation fluxes cannot be added together to produce a higher temperature than the highest produced by either of the sources.
That means that you cannot add heat fluxes and get an intelligent result any more than you can add temperatures.
In turn that means that the radiant flux from the Greenhouse Gas layer cannot increase the temperature of the Earth’s surface set by the Solar flux.
Fluxes can never, ever be added under any circumstances – although that is what is taught in all universities as the Greenhouse Gas theory.
Go here: https://cldup.com/iml7FGaeo2.pdf
Of course this should be done in a proper laboratory using a vacuum instead of the open air – but the results are undeniable anyway.
We are currently thinking how to use this simple experiment to get some the people spending our money to rethink – and do something else.
All ideas welcome.
John,
while it is correct that fluxes do not add up as proposed in the Greenhouse gas theory it is not correct to assume that the apparent flux coming from the sun is equivalent to a temperature. Simply spoken it is energy that is coming in. And in theory if you have energy being added to a body it heats it up dependent on the in and outs. The fundamental flaw with greenhouse gas theory is: not to look at how the incoming energy is converted to heat and also that it ignores that Earth has a primary temperature from its internal heating processes.
The assumption of Earth being at -18 Deg C is bogus the same way it is bogus to assume that back radiation heats up Earth. Back radiation adjusts to the temperature of Earth and not the other way around. If it was the other way around it would be a self heating process and we would have burned out already.
Greenhouse gases cool Earth. How is that as a general idea?
I remember from one of my themo classes from 50 years ago that there is such a thing as critical radius of insulation i.e. if an insulation thickness is increased over a certain distance the increased area of the exposed surface are of the insulation to the outside temperature difference will cause an increase in heat flow and thus a decrease in the temperature of the body being insulated. We even performed lab experiments which showed this happening.
The Underwood paper treats the so called Earth Energy Balance diagram of Trenberth as though it is based on science. Firstly, it is not an energy balance diagram. It is a heat flux balance diagram. Thermodynamics is about conservation of total energy, not heat flux. It is not correct to say the heat flux from the sun is equal to the heat flux from the earth.
Next it assumes a balance at the surface of the atmosphere, the surface of the earth and at some point in the atmosphere. It does not matter whether this is flux or total energy because these energy balance points do not exist. Even at the surface of the atmosphere there cannot be a balance in the long term otherwise we would not have experience the ice ages. An accurate climate model must take the energy from the sun as variable and calculate all other variables with no balance points assumed. Such a model may be too complex, but anything else is just nonsense.
The Trenberth diagram is complex but it simplifies to this. The energy from the sun (S) is absorbed by the earth’s surface. The surface heat (E) is transferred to the atmosphere where it is absorbed. The atmosphere radiates energy (A) equally to the earth and to space. Sketch the diagram and S = A at the edge of the atmosphere. The atmosphere is in balance so E = 2A. The surface is in balance and so E = S + A. But since S=A then E = 2S. The result of assuming the atmosphere has an energy balance means that the earth’s surface radiates twice the energy received from the sun. This is not correct. Hence, the greenhouse effect was born. The atmosphere cannot generate energy and in the Trenberth diagram it is shown as heat circulating as backradiation. This is a perpetual motion machine.
The entire concept put forward by Trenberth is wrong. The climate models make the matter worse since they add more balance layers to the atmosphere in an attempt to increase the accuracy. But just extend my simple diagram to three balanced layers and each layer has to generate energy to make it work.
I do not understand how this utter rubbish has taken hold of the science community and highly technical papers are written in support and against. It is rubbish at a fundamental level generating even more nonsense in published papers.
Prof Brian Cox supported this the Australian TV Q&A programme in 2006. He claimed a “consensus” of scientist could not be argued against. In his work on the Large Hadron Collider which proved the existence of he Higgs Boson particle he would never claim a consensus. It was experimental evidence. He then went on to hold up graphs of CO2 and temperature and claimed a visual correlation was proof that humans were the cause of global warming. I am afraid that many scientists have now been bought by government funding which is only available for research on human causes of global warming. Michael Mann tried to eliminate recent warm and cold periods with his hockey stick. Now it seems the world has eliminated all the ice ages and believes only humans can change the climate.