Equating Flux
In the last post, including a discussion about how I feel about stupid people, was an explanation of the difference between energy and energy flux. Energy is generally a simple static scalar quantity, while flux refers to an instantaneous expenditure of energy.
Physics, i.e. the real world and real-world reactions, occur in real-time. Reality doesn’t wait around for an average of something to build up and then decide to act – reality acts as time flows by, each infinitesimal moment to the next. Reality reacts to instantaneous flux, not the average flux because there is no “average” that reality waits around for to react to.
The standard procedure for “conserving energy” and then creating an energy budget and subsequent greenhouse effect is by numerically equating the terrestrial flux output with the solar flux input. This numerical procedure is done with the justification that “on average, the input and output must equal if the system is in equilibrium”. But this is done numerically on paper, not physically in reality, because the physics of reality reacts instantaneously to forces, and doesn’t wait around for averages.
Equating Energy
So what’s the basic thing that we’re actually trying to conserve in regards to solar input and terrestrial output? The real physical quantity we want to conserve is energy, not flux. Energy is a fundamental unit of physics, while flux always depends upon the particular, real-time, local situation. So if we assume that, on average, the input and output energies are equal, which they should be, then we can consider such energies for any particular second. Considering any particular second is convenient since this allows us to directly convert the energy into flux later on.
In any given second, the Earth absorbs 1.22 x 1017 Joules of light energy from the Sun. This is calculated with the Stefan-Boltzmann equation for the Sun, factored for the distance to the Earth and the Earth’s cross-sectional area, and its albedo.
In any given second, this energy, 1.22 x 1017 Joules, falls on one-side of the planet – the day-side hemisphere. So, now that we know the total energy falling on the Earth in one second, and we now also know where the energy falls in one second, we can convert the energy value into the units of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, which are Joules per second per square meter. Therefore if we take the total energy and divide it by the surface area of a hemisphere of the Earth, you get an (linear) average of 480 Joules per second per square meter, or 480 W/m2. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation which equates flux to temperature, this is a temperature of +300C, which is very nice and warm and will melt ice into water on the day-side, etc. It is a reasonable number.
However, we must again recall that reality reacts to forces instantaneously, and not to averages of those forces after-the-fact. The light energy falling on the day-side hemisphere in one second is not evenly (linearly) distributed because the Earth is round, not flat. That means that there is a locality-dependence on the true, real-time value of the flux density. That is, when the Sun is overhead it is strongest, and when it is near sunrise or sunset it is weakest, and in between it smoothly ranges. When the Sun is directly overhead, and even barely so, the flux density of the energy falling isn’t strong enough to just melt ice into water, but it is also strong enough to evaporate water into vapour. This is what basically creates everything we recognize as the climate, is water vapour rising into the atmosphere from the strength of the Sun, and this occurs in real-time. The greenhouse effect models do not show this, and they actually even contradict it, because they incorrectly average the power of the Sun to where it doesn’t physically exist, and thereby make the solar power far too cold (on paper) to be able to create that water cycle and climate.
This diagram is a representation of real-time reality and the physics that drives the climate on the Earth:
Back to Equating Flux
With an energy input of 1.22 x 1017 Joules over a hemisphere in one second from the Sun, and an energy output from the Earth of 1.22 x 1017 Joules from the entire globe, i.e. both hemisphere’s, it is not physically correct to equate these energy values in terms of flux. These values are true and totally correct in terms of energy. They can not be made to be equal in terms of flux.
For example, if we say that the Earth is in numerical flux equilibrium with the Sun, and mistake this for conserving energy, then that would mean that the Earth must emit the same flux of energy as it receives the Sun. Therefore the Earth must emit 480 W/m2 on average since that is what it receives from the Sun on an instantaneous basis.
Well, the Earth does not emit this flux of energy. That is way too high of value. If you converted that value into total energy emitted per second over the entire globe, it would be more energy than actually comes in. The known and measured value for the flux output from the Earth is 240 W/m2.
Alternatively, we might also say that if the Earth is in numerical flux equilibrium with the Sun, then that means that the Sun must deposit the same flux of energy as the Earth emits. Therefore the Sun must deposit 240 W/m2. However, this is only -180C if you check what the temperature of this flux is with the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, and that is not nearly high enough to melt ice into water let alone evaporate water into vapour. Obviously, the problem here is that Sun does not deposit its energy over the same surface area that the Earth emits energy.
Equating Energy vs. Equating Flux
If we equate the energy coming in from the Sun to that leaving from the Earth, in the proper units of energy which is Joules, then 1.22 x 1017 Joules comes in and 1.22 x 1017 Joules goes out. There is no problem here.
If you want to know what this energy is in terms of flux, then the Solar flux deposits 480 W/m2 (and this is still a “poor” average because it is linear and ignores real-time location dependence), and the Earth emits 240 W/m2. The energy from the Sun and the Earth can not be numerically equated in terms of flux, but only in energy.
I mean, you can equate the fluxes on paper if you want, but this no longer corresponds to the real system or its physics because, basically, the procedure is physically meaningless. Reality and physics does not respond to averages, reality does not wait around for an average to be determined and then choose to react to it, reality and physics react in real-time to instantaneous inputs, and the Sun doesn’t shine evenly on both hemispheres at once.
With instantaneous inputs, the Sun creates the water cycle and drives the entire climate. It heats up the surface to very high temperature, such as you can feel scalding your feet on a nice beach on a sunny day!
With the faulty flux-averaged inputs, Sunlight is imagined to be freezing cold at only -180C. This isn’t strong enough to do anything – melt ice, sustain life, heat the beach, etc etc.
Branching Science
Mistakes are everywhere to be made. They can be very difficult to detect.
When starting with the problem of conserving energy input and output to the Earth, you can do it in terms of units of energy, in Joules, or you can try to do it in terms of energy flux density, in Joules per second per square meter. The problem is that averaging only works in terms of plain energy, in Joules, but not in energy flux density. If you say that, every second, 1.22 x 1017 Joules enters and leaves the Earth, and you identify where it enters and leaves the Earth, then you’re fine, you’re acknowledging reality, and the flux densities explain the processes we see in reality, such as the water cycle.
However, if you say that the flux density is equal for every second and every place, then you either have to say that the Earth emits the same flux as it receives from the Sun, which is wrong, or that the Sun deposits the same flux as the Earth emits, which is also wrong. In the former case it makes the Earth too hot (on paper), and in the latter case it makes sunshine too cold (on paper).
So the problem is that climate science went down the path of equating flux densities in their energy budgets, instead of the correct procedure of equating energy. If you equate energy you’re fine; if you equate energy flux density, you create mistakes.
When equating energy flux density, climate science thus chose the branch of making Sunshine way too cold (-180C). Such freezing cold sunshine is at odds with the observation and fact that Sunshine creates the water cycle by both melting and evaporating H2O. Instead of reconsidering whether or not the “numbers on paper” were correct, climate science chose to add some more numbers on paper called “the greenhouse effect” in order to bump up the temperature from -180C to the temperature of the air near the ground, which is +150C on average.
Conserving Energy
The interesting thing is that the Earth is actually -180C, as observed from outer space. Given the total energy input from the Sun, the Earth does have the global average temperature of -180C that is predicted when re-emitting that same energy from the Earth. The global average temperature is -180C when observed from outer space.
But -180C is NOT the input! It is only the output. The input from the Sun is NOT freezing cold. Only the output of the Earth has a Wattage of 240 W/m2 and an associated temperature of -180C. The solar input is actually really hot, maximizing at up to +1210C: ouch hot!
The mistake that climate science makes is to equate the output temperature with the input temperature, which is the same thing as equating the output flux to the input flux in a rather naive attempt to conserve energy. But this goes about it the wrong way – we need to conserve energy first, and let the flux be whatever they actually are in real-time to correspond with that energy. It is wrong to start at the output flux and work backwards by equating that with the input flux, in order to conserve energy. This conserves energy but it does not conserve physics because physics depends on real-time flux, and in real-time the input flux is not the same as the output flux. The input flux only occurs over half of the area that the output flux comes from, and hence is much more dense and hence much more warm.
The IPCC model (first graphic below), and all other greenhouse effect models such as this one from Harvard (second graphic),
all start by equating the output flux with the input flux. Of course this has all the problems of violating real physics by assuming that the Earth is flat and that the Sun is farther away than it actually is, etc. etc., as has been discussed here extensively, and so an additional major catastrophe for these models is that, if you just stop to think about what they’re saying about the solar input, their solar input can’t melt ice or evaporate water or create the water cycle, or warm anything up at all, by itself. That is because these models do not conserve physics, even if they might “numerically” conserve flux. This is the difference between math and physics, and understanding this is the difference between being a physicist, and not. Many of these people who are thinking of themselves as physicists, are not, unfortunately.
With a model that conserves energy as well as physics, and allows the flux be the actual real-time values they have to be in reality, the greenhouse effect is no longer required to make the atmosphere heat itself up some more without being an actual energy source.
The Earth system is not analogous to a house being heated with a furnace running at -180C, which temperature then gets amplified to +150C by insulation or backradiation or heat trapping. In fact, your furnace in your house doesn’t even work like this. In fact, nothing anywhere works like this because it is a violation of thermodynamics. The greenhouse effect models have to violate thermodynamics because the people creating them never go back to think about whether they are conserving energy vs. flux, and whether or not they are conserving physics. These details haven’t apparently appealed to them.
By steadfastly adhering to the false idea that solar input is freezing cold at -180C, and never questioning it, and never thinking about the real-time physics, they are forced to invent “on paper” a mechanism where something cold heats itself up with its own energy. Reality simply doesn’t do this and we all know that. The input to the Earth is not -180C with the greenhouse effect amplifying it to +150C. The input to the Earth is +300C as a “linear average”, and this average is composed of a maximum of +1210C, and the related flux input has enough strength to deposit an enormous amount of trapped energy in the latent heat of liquid and vaporous water, which the -180C input simply can’t do. -180C input doesn’t conserve the physics…not without making up the greenhouse effect to make up the difference to what the Sun actually does with its real-time flux.
The resulting global average temperature of the Earth is then subsequently -180C. There is no cold being amplified to hot, anywhere. The furnace in your house doesn’t work by running at -180C, then being amplified by insulation to room temperature, +220C. Imagine if things worked that way. Why run the furnace at -180C since you could engineer a better system to run at only -1000C and be amplified by backradiation or heat-trapping to +1000C? As a simple matter of engineering, you could use as near to zero energy input as you want, and get however high of temperature you wanted. This has never been done because it is a violation of thermodynamics, because reality doesn’t behave this way. If reality did behave this way, nothing would be stable because cold things would always be accidentally heating themselves up to destruction.
Your house furnace runs at a few thousand degrees, and the insulation in your house helps to trap the air warmed up by the fire in the furnace. If your house is drafty or has poor insulation, the warm air escapes the inside of your house easily, exchanging itself with cool air from outside. If you have a well-sealed house with good insulation, the warm air stays inside your house for a longer time.
The most the furnace could do is heat the air to the temperature of the fire inside it, and no insulation will make this temperature higher, because the temperature of the fire is determined by the flux density of the energy release from the combustion of natural gas. You can’t make this combustive release of energy hotter by reflecting or trapping its own energy on itself – the maximum temperature is determined by the source supply of energy, coming from a chemical reaction (natural gas oxidation).
Likewise, the solar energy input on the Earth’s surface (and also some energy goes directly into the atmosphere) induces a temperature of up to +1210C, and there is no way to trap or reflect this temperature to make itself hotter, as is claimed by the greenhouse effect. We checked to see if the solar energy was being trapped or back-radiated by the atmosphere in such a way as to induce a higher temperature, in the real-world with empirical observational data, using the predictions of the greenhouse effect math. The data showed that the greenhouse effect math was wrong. Of course, we already knew this, but we did the due-diligence of performing the appropriate observational experiment just to make sure. We already know the greenhouse effect math is wrong, because nowhere do we have something running at -1000C being amplified to +1000C – this would be a perpetual motion machine.
Clarity
Now be clear here, the greenhouse effect is premised upon a -18C solar input being amplified to +150C by the atmosphere trapping or back-radiating heat. None of this is correct because 1) the solar input is not -180C, 2) reality doesn’t function like this in any case – heat can’t amplify its own temperature.
At this point is where many greenhouse effect advocates will switch their argument to the input being “the surface of the Sun”, which has a surface temperature of 60000C. Well, the reference to the Sun’s surface temperature of 60000C is also not a correct relevance to the Earth, because at the distance the Earth is from the Sun (the Earth is not on the Sun’s surface!), the power of sunlight has been reduced to +1210C. The only way to make sunlight warmer than this again is to re-condense the sunlight with a mirror or magnifying glass, and, the atmosphere doesn’t do this. Well, I don’t think it does, but if it did, this would not be a greenhouse effect, but a natural phenomenon. Any “back-radiation” or “trapped radiation” doesn’t have the same spectrum as sunlight, it just has the thermal spectrum of its local Earth-bound temperature, and so it can’t add to or re-condense the solar input. By extension, any “back-radiation” or “trapped radiation” has a source in its own local temperature, and equal temperatures don’t add together to make hotter temperatures.
But that’s fine – so the solar input at the Earth is +1210C, not 60000C, and definitely not -180C. The argument then goes on to say that the insulation from the greenhouse effect makes the surface closer to being +1210C. Please realize that at this point we are entirely outside of the bounds of the actual greenhouse effect and what it is supposed to do – amplify -180C to +150C. Greenhouse effect advocates who “go here” are contradicting their original position entirely, and have thus lost any credibility. Now we’re talking about hot sunlight heating the surface to high temperature all by itself, with insulation promoting even higher temperatures, closer to +1210C. Of course, what is left out of this argument is any estimation for the temperature that the hot Sunshine is heating the ground to in the first place. If it is already heating the ground to high temperature, are we sure there is any requirement to heat it further, as the improperly flux-averaged models require? That needs to be determined first before we can say whether or not an additional heating is present from the GHE. Besides which, if the solar input is +1210C, it seems like there is a lot more cooling than heating going on! Also, using the correct math and physics to average this input over the hemisphere results in +30C, which is still much warmer than the average global temperature. And finally, in the paper linked above, we used the correct physical input of +1210C in the correct real-time thermal equations, and predicted the temperature of the surface both with and without an additional heating from a greenhouse effect: the observational data showed that there was no additional greenhouse effect heating on top of the solar input.
Ambiguity
You may notice that we run into so many problems of ambiguity at the basis of climate science. For example the ambiguity of whether they are conserving energy or energy flux, and the ambiguity of what happens if you take the incorrect approach. But one of the biggest ones is this idea of a “global average temperature” or “global average surface temperature“. When climate science refers to “global average” temperature, it is actually referring to a numerical value of +15C which corresponds to the average near-surface air temperature at an altitude of 1.5m above ground (not above sea-level) from a bunch of temperature stations randomly distributed around the planet. So this isn’t a surface temperature and isn’t global.
The true “global average temperature” is that measured from outer space, and this has a value of -180C. We do not actually know what the average surface temperature is because we simply don’t have thermometers placed on the actual ground surface. If we did, climate science would see the Sun heating the surface to very high temperature, as we did in that linked paper above, and then they would have to abandon the flux-averaged models that create a greenhouse effect because they assume that the Sunshine is too cold to heat the ground by itself.
So the only thing that climate science actually knows is the average near-surface air temperature, which isn’t all that useful. It would be much better at least to have the actual physical surface temperature.
But the “near-surface air temperature” is +150C, and this is different from the “global average temperature” of -180C. Well, this isn’t a big deal. The real global average temperature is measured from outer space, and so it includes all of the atmosphere above 1.5 meters altitude, which the near-surface air temperature thermometers never measure. All of the air above the 1.5 meter measuring stations has temperature which steadily decreases to about -700C at an altitude of 15 km (which is ten-thousand times higher than 1.5 meters!). Above this altitude hardly any molecules are left and non-ideal gas and plasma effects cause the temperature to increase again, but because the gas is so rarefied it contains a negligible amount of heat.
Now, the average of this system, the whole atmosphere and surface included together, is what should have the global average temperature of -180C, and it does, because the temperature goes from warm (+150C) at the bottom of the atmosphere, to cold (-700C) at the top of the atmosphere, and measured from space it is -180C on average. The bottom of the atmosphere is warmest because that is where the Sun does the real-time physical heating in the first place. The temperature decreases with altitude because the heat dissipates outwards from the ground and cools down, and also because of the natural adiabatic gradient. The amount of water vapour in the air-column reduces the adiabatic gradient and it also reduces night-time cooling, because of latent heat which is trapped and then released by the H2O molecules. -And to be sure, those H2O molecules wouldn’t be able to get into the air-column if sunshine was freezing cold at -180C!- Finally, the natural existence of the adiabatic gradient (that is, the fact that the air has to cool with altitude), means that the bottom of the atmosphere must be warmer than top – and therefore the bottom must also be warmer than the average. If the average has to be -180C, then this average has to be found between the bottom (warmest) and the top (coldest), and the bottom will naturally be warmer than that average. It’s all totally sensible when you do the physics correctly, and no greenhouse effect is needed to be invented.
Nowhere in the universe does an input of -180C become +150C, by having -180C combine with itself or “trap” itself.
Climate of Sophistry 
Good to see a plausible, well-written account of the actual situation. And very good to see it rant-free. I have a minor but significant quibble with the first diagram, specifically the note on the left. The release of latent heat does keep that part of the earth warmer than otherwise, but only on account of it keeping an earlier part of the earth cooler than otherwise, when the latent heat was being stored. Over the entire earth, the effect has no overall effect on temperature, except for far smaller extremes of cold and hot (e.g. compared to the moon). Would you agree Joe?
In the paper I referenced, I showed that there is a net positive temperature balance due to the latent heat cycle. If the input is too low, then the latent heat barrier can’t be “breached”, and so the average temperature would be lower than without that barrier. For Earth conditions, the input is such that the barrier IS breached, and then the barrier makes it harder to get back below it, which thus results in a net positive “temperature anomaly”. This temperature anomaly is also a function of mass. Discussion starts on page 35, here. Integrated over all mass quantities from zero to infinity, the anomaly totals about positive 61 degrees K, although I am not yet sure how to interpret that.
Joe Postma:
“So the problem is that climate science went down the path of equating flux densities in their energy budgets, instead of the correct procedure of equating energy. If you equate energy you’re fine; if you equate energy flux density, you create mistakes.”
Jim McGinn:
Science groupies thrive on ambiguous and vague terminology. If you present clear, concise arguments they lose interest. And If you help them clarify their own thinking they will forever hate you for it.
Jim McGinn
http://www.solvingtornadoes.org
Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner regarding energy balance diagrams:
“From the definition given in Section 2.1.2 it is immediately evident that a radiation intensity
I is not a current density that can be described by a vector fi eld j(x; t). That means
that conservation laws (continuity equations, balance equations, budget equations) cannot
be written down for intensities. Unfortunately this is done in most climatologic papers, the
cardinal error of global climatology, that may have been overlooked so long due to the
oversimplification of the real world problem towards a quasi one-dimensional problem. Hence
the popular climatologic “radiation balance” diagrams describing quasi-one-dimensional situations
are scientific misconduct since they do not properly represent the mathematical and physical fundamentals.” [Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse E ffects Within The Frame Of Physics]
Hey, WOW, nice! Thanks for that!
Joe, you use your tongue purdier than a $20 whore (with apologies to Mel Brooks and Slim Pickens).
You are so much more effective in educating and explaining when you resist the understandable temptation to slag off the GHE charlatans.
It is a travesty that a self-enriching, empty-headed mouthpiece like Gore gets a Nobel prize for talking arrant bollocks, when there is science gold around, like this piece, indeed, your whole series. Energy v energy flux, maths v physics, and a plausible, well delivered explanation of the -18C observation from space – a killer argument.
I’m linking your piece to a UK Member of Parliament called David Davies (MP for Monmouth). He has been quite active recently in questioning the future of the UK’s disastrous Climate Change Act (2008).
PS: Trivia alert – there’s a “because because” towards the end of the piece.
Thanks Viffer!
Illuminating article (pun intended).
Bookmarked for future reference; thanks for posting Joseph.
Cheers Ozboy!
Very good article Joe, and in hindsight it should probably have been one of your first articles because it deals with understanding the basics of radiation physics and where the IPCC hypothesis has gone wrong. Maybe then you wouldn’t have had to put up with some of the criticism from people who should have understood all this in the first place. You know who they are! When did the standards of scientific education fall so low?
Your points about what an average global temperature actually means needed to be said. I think we are very lucky that the “numbers” they collect are showing no increase at the moment. Although they call these “numbers” temperatures they are really meaningless when made into an average global temperature. These Individual “numbers” are the mean (not average) of the highest and lowest readings each day (They don’t take into account the temperature distribution throughout 24 hours). Perhaps you need to explain to warmists the difference between a mean and an average, and that unless an average is calculated from exactly the same values then there will numbers above and below the average. They shout catastrophy if a number appears above the average without realising that there must have been numbers above the average to make the average!
We need simplified explanations Joe to be able to pass on to non technical decision makers (and readers of another well known site!), and this article is a good start. I am preparing a short presentation for my local member of the Scottish Parliament, and this article will be used as the starting point. He was a chemical engineer so I am sure that he will have no trouble understanding most of your articles.
Finally, I understand your frustrations and reasons for your rants, but I think you will have more success and be accepted more widely (in non technical circles) if you still criticise, but moderate it a bit.
Retired applied scientist.
Agreed with all that D.M. Especially about the averages bit. Cheers!
WHAM !!…..#18 is out of the park….in damn near plain English….well done! Am figuring out how to best use it. Will keep you posted.
Great stuff Peter. Please do what you can with it!
Very interesting article of Credentialist Fallacy
http://www.aim.org/guest-column/global-warming-and-the-credentialist-fallacy/
That is an Excellent article! Thanks!
Check this out…
Here’s the original really scary looking temperature graph from the IPCC that scares people who are afraid of temperatures:
And here’s the exact same graph that isn’t scary at all, shaded green for the benefit warmer temperatures and higher CO2 give for life:
Amazing the lengths liars go to make good data look bad! lol!!!
I wonder, if you took a climate model and started it at -18 Celsius rather than initializing it to past temperatures, what would it do?
THAT is a great idea. Very smart idea.
Joe,
Thanks for a great article. It will be people of your scientific integrity who will eventually help the media and public to start asking questions for themselves.
I urge you to concentrate on producing scientific truth and real-wold logic without ranting. Keep at it. Stay calm and keep punching but with clean punches – they are the one that score! The truth will out eventually.
Many thanks,
Arfur
Wonderful article Joe! … thanks for that!
Phrasing the problem in terms of energy flux is very useful. I hadn’t considered looking at the diagram this way. It is impossible to understand how anyone could now accept the “Trenberth” type energy budget diagram as anything other than a fraud. I wonder when “climate scientists” will start denying the diagram?
I don’t know if they ever will. Could they ever swallow the idea that the Sunshine creates the water cycle, and that it needs to be a certain strength in order to do that? We’ll see.
Thanks for posting another challenging article.
This may be a little off topic, but I think it is related to energy balance diagrams. As you are aware, the IPCC just posted their Summary for Policymakers. One interesting snippet from the SPM:
No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.
So the all important climate sensitivity cannot be accurately calculated. I am not familiar with how they calculate climate sensitivity and radiative forcings in general. I assume they start with the basic energy balance diagram as their base model? Perhaps you could comment on this in a future article?
Your diagram of the diurnal cycle and associated fluxes is clearly better than the Trenbarth diagram at showing how solar input is distributed.
The thing is that it still SEEMS TO represent a balancing of the in/out solar energy on a diurnal or short time-scale which (if it does) then it is still short of a model that represents phenomena which make up our changing weather patterns over decadal time-scales. To my mind it is these balancings over longer time-scales that affect what is nowadays called climate.
I am thinking of your diurnal diagram as being the inner, fast revolving, wheel of a wheel within wheel (cycles) diagram. The next wheel out would be the annual cycle. I am thinking of the late summer/autumn being warmer than early summer/spring even though the solar input is the same. The heat in the late summer/autumn came from stored energy in the ground and the oceans earlier in the year so the in/out could not have balanced earlier in the year could it? Ice truckers use the effect to drive on ice roads way into spring.
The next wheel out would be the solar cycle, a complicated wheel showing decadal oscillations which do not coincide with the solar cycle but are on a similar time-scale and store and release energy after being stored in the oceans.
A cycles within cycles approach would show how complicated it is and why short term approaches to understanding climate/weather (I think of our climate as being an interglacial climate and that’s it) with computer models is a waste of taxpayers money.
Energy stored as heat in the oceans can take decades to cycle and that is why (in my opinion) the end of 20th Century was warm even though the solar input declined. It is only by balancing in/out over long time-scales and understanding the rhythms that the Earth has worked into that any sense can be made of these apparently mysterious rises in temperature which have been attributed to the greenhouse effect.
Anyway that’s my view of it.
Hi Martin,
Yes I should be more clear that my model is just the start of what real physics would look like in a diagram and with some physically correct math. It does get more complex if it is developed further.
Yes indeed about the two systems with unique time lags. My model’s math does already show how that comes about, and yes it is because of the mass quantities that get involved on either the diurnal or annual (seasonal) scale. The hottest part of the day comes well after the daily solar zenith, and the hottest part of the year comes well after the summer solar solstice. The diurnal variations oscillate on top of the longer-term seasonal oscillation.
Agreed entirely with your observations and approach, etc.
Joe,
The main thing is we now have your work which gives us numbers, diagrams and explanations to fight the root madness. The thing is we shouldn’t have to be fighting anybody because this stuff is common sense and sometimes I wonder what achievements I might have made if I wasn’t angry about this all the time.
Martin.
I know what you mean Martin.
As angry as it makes me also, I have realized I wouldn’t have discovered such truths if it wasn’t for their constant bullshitting. I just don’t understand what makes people lie and BS so much…not sure I can know that.
@Joseph E Postma
Your position that the greenhouse effect with its backradiation is nonsense is correct.
The idea that the sun can explain our current pleasant temperatures is not.
Just look at our moon: reflects less solar than Earth (11% vs 30%), noon equator temperature rises to ~400K, due heat retention night-time low still ~100K.
Yet its average temperature is just 197K, of which ~25K is probably caused by geothermal heat flux to begin with.
see http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/123-moons-hidden-message.html
So you have to look somewhere else for an explanation for Earth’s surface temperatures.
see http://principia-scientific.org/supportnews/latest-news/124-real-global-warming.html
When talking about the static atmosphere temperature lapse rate please don’t use the term Adiabatic with it. The atmosphere isn’t adiabatic. Energy is being added to it and lost from it all the time.
Thanks Ben.
Thank you Joseph E Postma. I’ve been wondering for a while how a ‘greenhouse gas’ FREE atmosphere is unable to ‘trap heat’. I will post links to this site in my travels.
Richard D Henderson
@Joseph E Postma
Isn’t it time to start a serious discussion about my ideas?
With my setup I can simply explain our current temperatures, the alternating hot and cold periods in Earths history, the Faint Young Sun Paradox etc.
The bizarre current discussion about the deep oceans warming up from above can be countered by just showing the graph in my second link. They have lost a full 17K (SEVENTEEN DEGREES) in the last ~85 million years. And we have to worry about an unproven temperature rise of 0.06K???
Sunlight in space at the top of Earth’s atmosphere is at a power of about 1366 watts/m2. The solar irradiance at the Earth’s surface is reduced to approximately 1000 W /m2 for a surface perpendicular to the Sun’s rays at sea level on a clear day.
Now according to the IPCC’s global mean energy budget, the incoming solar TOA is 340 W/m2. At the earth’s surface, the solar component is reduced to 161 W/m2, but then there is 342 W/m2 coming back from GHG’s in the atmosphere. So, 161 at TOA is amplified by over a factor of 3 to 503 W/m2 at the earth’s surface. How come when measurements are taken at the earth’s surface when the sun is overhead the value is not 4,000 W/m2? According to the IPCC, GHG’s amplify the power of the sun by a factor of more than 3. So how come actual measurements indicate the suns TOA power of 1366 is reduced to 1000 at the earth’s surface. Why doesn’t the GHG amplification show up? What am I missing here?
@SkepticGoneWild
“What am I missing here?”
That the greenhouse effect is non-existent?
That’s all exactly right, @SkepticGoneWild. That is precisely what we sought-out to experimentally demonstrate in my paper last year. What we found, perplexingly, was that the Sun heats the surface, and that the atmosphere doesn’t amplify sunlight at all.
It is a basic perpetual motion device they’ve created – the Sun can’t create the climate, so, the climate creates the climate with the climate.
@Joseph E Postma
” What we found, perplexingly, was that the Sun heats the surface, and that the atmosphere doesn’t amplify sunlight at all.”
This is classic meteorology, and still very valid. The problems started when the Climaclowns tried to explain Earths surface temperatures with warming from a cold atmosphere, having the same thermal mass as ~3 meter water.
Here is another baffled layman looking for guidance. I constantly read that CO2 absorbs energy from the surface. I am trying to find out how? My reading tells me CO2 can only ‘see’ energy in the 15u band which peaks at -80C. It is statistically possible that a CO2 molecule will be at the slow end of the kinetic distribution curve and absorb a 15u photon, but where is the warming? By absorbing this photon the kinetic speed did not change. The vibrational/rotational levels change which can pass to other air molecules by collisions but this is happening in the slow portion of the local temperature related kinetic curve.
At the high end the CO2 molecules have too much energy to absorb but more than enough to emitt. Thus I see CO2 as purely a cooling agent. Obviously I am wrong. But where?
Dicky3,
The specious notion that CO2 can ‘trap’ heat is what first activated my BS detector. As you say, a CO2 molecule can briefly resonate to incoming 15u radiation.
As I understand it (somebody put me right if wrong) the absorbed energy is spontaneously re-emitted but at different wavelengths. Given the temperature lapse rate *, the local value of T is always less than the T at the surface; hence, re-radiation from elevations above the surface can never cause the already warmer surface to become even warmer (2nd LOT violation).
When I look at that arrangement, I see a cooling pathway, which would also apply to the other radiative gases. I can’t see how re-radiation from CO2 could ever cause surface warming.
* Unless there is a temperature inversion, which can happen, but is localised and temporary.
viffer,
Thanks for the agreement, but no proof we are right, yet. 🙂 Small point; I can understand spontaneous re-emission of lower energy photons but unsure how CO2 can do this below 15u.
Another interesting point I never see mentioned, CO2 must be seeing energy from sun at 2.7 and 4.3u, even if not a lot, here I think will be more re-emission of lower energy photon, probably mostly in the 15u band. Thus surface is shielded from 2.7 and 4.3u energy and can’t respond to the resulting 15u (down to half anyway) energy because as you say – 2 LOT.
Oh, and if half emission is up and half down, isn’t that exact cancellation of the warming because equal energy out to space?
@Ben – yes indeed. I mean just think of how ridiculous it is: The colder atmosphere is what heats the warmer surface. Humanity may have failed this test…academic science certainly did…only a few of us succeeded.
@Joseph E Postma
The basic idea that the sun can’t possibly explain our surface temperatures is correct.
To look for the explanation at the atmosphere was a stupid idea on a planet that consists mostly of molten rock with temperatures of 1000K and higher.
Only the mechanism needs some explaining, but no rocket science required.
In a real heat-flow PDE, which has never been encountered in climate science, what is the effect of setting the infinite heat bath about 5 feet below our feet to 0 Kelvin instead of the ~283K it is? Climate science assumes there is zero difference, that the temperature of the subsoil has no contribution to the surface temperature, since the flow-rate is small. Well, the heat flow rate might be small, but that doesn’t mean the temperature is.
Forget the continents. The temperature of the deep oceans is the basis for the surface temperatures on Earth. Deep oceans are ~275K at the moment (down from ~300K some 80 million years ago) Sun warms the surface layer from ~275K to an average ~290K.
(Think Joules/s warming seawater with a certain heat capacity.)
The surface loses it’s warmth via the atmosphere to space All the atmosphere is doing is reducing the heat loss from ~400 W/m^2 to ~240 W/m^2, and we have a balanced energy budget.
Joseph,
I’ve been reading your papers, many of which are above my pay grade, but I do have a question regarding equation {11} in your “Understanding the Atmosphere Effect”. I followed your example calculating the temperature of sand. Now suppose I would want to add in the alleged effect of back radiation; let’s use the common 324 W/m-2 as an example. Assume solar insolation is 1000 W/m-2. So we would have a combined effect of 1324 W/m-2. Couldn’t one just adjust the atmospheric extinction value in equation {11} proportionally to an amount that would in effect raise the solar insolation value to 1324 W/m-2? So instead of a 0.25, one could use 0.03, because 97% of 1370 is about 1324. Yes. I read your other paper “A Discussion on the Absence of a Measurable Greenhouse Effect”, but I couldn’t quite figure out how you added in the GHE to obtain a value for the combined solar insolation effect + GHE.
Hey SGW,
Yes the extinction coefficient can be adjusted…but it can not be adjusted arbitrarily. It has a known measurable value, and we measured it in the later paper because we can calculate precisely what the TOA insolation is at any given second. The difference between the TOA insolation and the measured surface insolation is due to extinction.
The GHE can be added in simply by adding the supposed backradiation heating flux to the solar surface insolation flux. The solar surface insolation is short-wave and measured by the solarimeter, while the backradiation would be long-wave and is not seen or measured by the solarimeter. So yes then you just add the two fluxes together, and the maximum heating has to be higher than the solar heating alone if there is heating occurring from backradiation. Since that paper is of course why they’ve been trying to come up with new language to describe the greenhouse effect…they’ve been forced into a position of saying that “backradiation doesn’t cause heating, it just means that heat is being trapped which leads to a higher surface temperature in order to balance the heat flow”, which is just a bit of simple sophistry because the end result is the same, and it is not measured.
Joe,
Thanks for the reply. I’ll have to read your latest paper again. Takes awhile to sink in sometimes.
I input equation [11} as noted in my previous post into Excel and obtained the 62 degrees C for sand as in your example. However, when I change the albedo to say 0.70, which represents a highly reflective white roof, I get a temperature of -1.6 degrees C. I must be doing something wrong.
NASA did some testing of cool roofs in New York and published a report in 2012 (http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20120307/). I’m just trying to calculate what the theoretical surface insolation temperatures should be and compare to what temperature values they obtained in the report.
I also noticed that the ASHRAE (formerly the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers) has tables of insolation values to be used by engineers in performing their various calculations. There is no mention or any data provided to include back radiation effects.
Hi SGW,
If you’re simply changing the parameter to a new value and properly re-calculating, the result should be just fine. Possibly you need to include the emissivity too though – low emissivity increases temperature.
Good point on the ASHRAE tables.
“Therefore the Earth must emit 480 W/m2 on average since that is what it receives from the Sun on an instantaneous basis.”
No, that is how much energy half of the earth receives from the sun on an instantaneous basis, since it is only heating one side, half.
This is the fundamental flaw that makes this entire paper nonsense.
Right…that’s what I talked about. The fundamental flaw of climate science and the GHE…because of one-side heating, etc.
But the error is yours. The average solar flux is 480W/m2, on one side, but since the sun is heating the entire planet, the average over the entire surface is 240W/m2.
@SH
You are correct that the lit side of the earth receives 480 W/m^2, and it will heat accordingly (+30C, linear average, simple SB stuff). It won’t wait for a global average and it couldn’t care less what is happening on the dark side, of which it has no knowledge.
It is also correct that the earth must also lose 480 W/m^2. What is it that prevents you from joining the final 2 dots, which are, only half the globe is heated at any one time BUT the whole globe cools 24/7? Unless, for some inexplicable reason, you think the earth doesn’t emit LWIR from every sq m, day or night.
This is why the UNIPCC ‘4 quarters heated all the time by 1/4 of the incoming flux’ model is arrant nonsense. It simply takes no account of the physical reality that half of the globe gets hot, every day. Replacing that physical reality by applying fictitiously cool sunlight to a fictitiously large area is designed to generate the need for the fictitious GHE, to heat the earth from the artificially low SB temp of -18C.
Welcome to the scam.
Don’t be an idiot SkyHunter…that’s exactly what I discussed. You’re not even reading that part in context, or understanding it.
Calling me an idiot is psychological projection.
Even though the sun only shines on one side, it still heats the entire earth. If half is receiving 480W/m2… half of that is 240W/m2. Which is the earth’s effective radiating temperature.
[JP: That is exactly what my point has been.]
@AS What part of the whole earth radiates while only half is heated don’t you understand?
If half of the Earth is receiving on average 480W/m2 on one hemisphere, the average for both hemispheres is the half of that or 240W/m2. And that is the average emission over the entire earth, dark side and bright side. In equilibrium with the total energy received.
[JP: This is also what I’ve been writing about already.]
I read that part in context. You say that sunlight is too cold.
Well sunlight has no heat, only energy. The sun’s energy is only translated to heat when the light field of the photon interacts with the matter.
[JP: No, the IPCC and GHE diagrams say that sunlight is too cold. Sunlight definitely is a force for heating when its energy falls on something cooler. We agree.]
Another point you don’t explain. Since the atmosphere is radiating 333W/m2 back to the surface… what happens to that energy in your hypothesis?
[JP: Only the K-T budget says the atmosphere radiates that…I bet real-world measurements don’t agree. Whatever the atmosphere emits it does in two directions, and so that energy leaves the planet. It has no heating effect on the surface which is already warmer.]
And you don’t understand what is wrong with your hypothesis?
Have you ever cooked a hotdog over a fire on a stick?
Did you turn it over and cook (heat) both sides?
Or did you eat it half raw?
[JP: Turning it over is what this is all about. Only the side of the hotdog you heat undergoes the physical changes that can only happen with the directly supplied real-time heat. The IPCC does not rotate the hotdog, and, it says the fire is too cold to cook it in the first place.]
OMG! Now you say that all matter is not a black body?
How could the atmosphere not radiate?
[JP: This comment doesn’t make enough sense to be able to respond to. Let’s see: OMG, yes, not all matter is a blackbody. OMG, yes, the atmosphere can radiate, but has low emissivity. Hope that helped you out.]
Sunlight has no heat. Only when it interacts with matter does it create heat.
When the sun is directly overhead on a clear day, it is delivering over 1000W/m2, not 480, that is an average for one side. But just like your hotdog, it is heating both sides.
So if it heats one side with an average of 480W/m2 half of the time. Because remember, to convert flux to energy you need the element of time, 1 watt per second is 1 joule of energy.
So 480/2=240 wallah, we have a balanced equation, no energy or matter is being created or destroyed.
[JP: A difference in radiant intensity is called heat flow…it is proportional to the difference of the fourth power of the temperatures of the would-be source and receiver of heat.
Yes I’ve written all about the radiant intensity of the actual Sun in real-time. Sunlight only heats one-side at a time, since it doesn’t shine on one side. It is meaningless semantics to say that sunlight heats both sides. Heating can only occur when sunlight is present…that’s one side at a time, and the Earth rotates through it. It does not heat the dark side of the Earth half the time with half the energy – it heats one side of the Earth all the time with all the energy.
Indeed, flux is all about referencing time and spatial location in real-time, again as I’ve written on here extensively and in my papers. The only physical numeric balance is in total energy in and out, not in flux in and out.]
Are you now saying that most of the energy the earth receives from the sun is instantaneously radiated away?
And why does the atmosphere have a low emissivity?
Does it not conform to the SB Law?
[JP: Umm, no I didn’t say that. Energy isn’t like little trackable pellets or something…the energy from the Sun gets absorbed, and energy from the Earth leaves the planet. There isn’t a 1:1 correspondence to the energy coming in and that leaving, even though they might be perfectly balanced (ideally). Oxygen and nitrogen emit very poorly or not at all at terrestrial temperatures…therefore the atmosphere has low emissivity. Only blackbodies perfectly conform to the S-B Law; usually, we use “effective” temperatures which would be the temperature of a perfect blackbody, or a body with a known emissivity, given the output energy flux.]
Of course the balance is energy in energy out. But energy = flux over time.
Why is this so hard for you to grasp?
For the average surface temperature to be 15C, some of the earth is warmer, where the sun is shining, and some of it is cooler, where the sun is not shining, or is not very direct. The nights in the tropics is warmer than winter days in Canada.
Yah umm…you’re not saying anything I don’t understand and that I haven’t explained umpteen times on here for people.
More accurately, though, is that flux = energy over time and space. Your version is wrong.
Sunlight has no heat. How can it be too cold?
See: radiant heat flow.
So you understand that you are wrong and are still just making a specious bullshit argument to fool people.
You should be ashamed of yourself!
[JP: What in the m.f. are you talking about? lol]
Light is energy, not heat. How can energy be cold?
[JP: See radiant heat flow.]
You are trying to say that your average of 480W/m2 over half the earth is OK, even though we know that it is more or less depending on latitude. But that it is not ok to average it across the entire surface, because the sun does not shine on the whole surface?
Where did the energy that the earth is radiating on the dark side, if not from the sun?
If it came from the sun, why are you not including it in the 480W/m2 average?
[JP: The 480 W/m^2 input over half the Earth is more accurate than 240 W/m^2 over the whole Earth…the reason is that the latter isn’t like the real Earth at all, while the former begins to look like the real Earth. The Sun flux doesn’t shine on all sides of the Earth in real-time, or on average. Of course, full time and latitude dependence comes with the real-time equations for modeling that, which I’ve shown in my papers etc. Right, the Sunshine flux doesn’t shine on the whole surface, only half the surface.
Of course, the energy that is radiated on the dark side can originally have come from the Sun…but it is not COMING from the Sun. It came from the Sun earlier.
It IS included in the 480 W/m^2 average from the day side. 480 W/m^2 comes in on the day side, and 240 W/m^2 comes out from both the day and night side. 240 W/m^2 is not what comes in. It makes a big physical difference when you consider what the real-time spatial flux inputs and outputs are. A supposed night & day-less 240 W/m^2 input can’t do the same things that the 480 W/m^2 on the day-side only input actually does, such as create the water cycle.]
The only way to make sunlight warmer than this again is to re-condense the sunlight with a mirror or magnifying glass, and, the atmosphere doesn’t do this.
And here is a man made mirror that does just that:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2409073/Walkie-Talkie-melted-Jag-Londons-Fenchurch-Street-skyscraper-melts-businessmans-car.html
@It doesn’t add up: I wonder if they realized they would have a problem like that when they built that building?!
You said in this post that since the earth receives an average of 480W/m2, on one hemisphere, that is must also radiate at 480W/m2. This would be true if the earth always faced the sun. But since it doesn’t, average flux is 240W/m2, because in 24 hours the entire earth has received 480W/m2, half of the time 480/2=240.
[JP: Alright…let’s see if I can deal with this confusion here. Apparently this is the new vector for attack from GHE fraudsters – if all your sophistry gets defeated and exposed, then just make confusing statements that make no sense and have no context and pretend to claim the things that your opponent already explained, and pretend your opponent didn’t explain them…
Your first short paragraph refers to my discussion about why it is INCORRECT to try to numerically equate fluxes as if they can stand in for conservation of energy. My point was that it is incorrect, and you seem to be confirming that you understand that, although you don’t seem to understand that that was the very context I was writing that part in. Hopefully you get it now.]
What is the difference between averaging flux over 1 second, (1.22×10^17) or averaging flux over 24 hours?
[JP: The difference is that between reality and fiction. Real-time flux is what reality and physics responds to, not average flux. Flux does not impinge the whole planet at once or over 24 hrs.]
Your logic is internally inconsistent, you can’t compare half of the earth to all of the earth and have a balanced equation.
[JP: You haven’t pointed out any inconsistent logic…only confirmed the inconsistent logic I have already pointed out on behalf of the IPCC and GHE energy budgets. Sunlight energy comes in on half the Earth, and terrestrial energy comes out from the entire Earth – this IS a balanced equation.]
Your hypothesis is nonsense and I think you know it.
[JP: My hypothesis that it is wrong for “science” to model the Earth as flat, because it isn’t flat? My hypothesis that heat-flow follows a real-time differential equation and that the Earth is round and rotating, and that equations can model that? My hypothesis that the average value of a sequential distribution is found somewhere in the middle of that distribution, and that the high and low values of that sequential distribution are found at its extremities? Riiiiiight, lol.]
You are argument is a strawman.
You are arguing that because the IPCC relies on textbook physics, and averages the flux over the entire surface that they are saying sunlight is too cold (sic) to melt ice or evaporate water. But the sun does not shine on the entire surface at once, and no one but you is making that argument.
[JP: The IPCC doesn’t rely on textbook physics. Even if it appears in some textbooks, doesn’t mean that it isn’t wrong. That the IPCC’s flat Earth might appear in a textbook doesn’t mean that the Earth being flat is “textbook physics”, as if that even means something. The Earth isn’t flat, and if a textbook pretends the Earth is flat, it only means the textbook is wrong.
The IPCC and GHE energy budgets DO INDEED show the sun shining on the entire Earth at once. That is precisely what they show. And in doing that, they make sunshine too cold to melt ice and create the water cycle.
Nice attempt to blandly introduce confusion. This is fun to watch. You have to realize at this point, Mr. Fraudster and your internet troll buddies, that the more you fucking morons do shit like this, the more you’re only making me stronger and able to pick your ludicrous, retarded, idiocy apart. You guys are SO pathetic, the trolling lowness you’re willing to stoop to. It is pathetic that you would do this for money…you are sad, pathetic people. Shore/Folkerts much? lol]
And your logic is internally inconsistent, since you are averaging incoming flux over half of the surface. 480W/m2 is not the same as the more than 1200W/m2 being absorbed by the ocean on a clear day.
[JP: Again, this is precisely what my work has been about – real time flux, and what it is actually capable of, and what the flux in the GHE and IPCC models IS NOT actually capable of, hence proving them as meaningless, moronic fictions.]
You can’t have it both ways. Energy in must equal energy out.
[JP: You are a complete embarrassing idiot. A Darwinian embarrassment to the human race. Energy in = Energy out is precisely what I discuss and use…it had never, ever, been an issue of concern for me, other than in the Zero-Energy-Balance plots where, locally, energy in does not equal energy out. Only for the whole planet does energy in =energy out, assuming energy equilibrium. Etc. But in all cases, it is global flux in which does NOT equal global flux out.]
480W/m2 over half the globe equals 240W/m2 over all of it.
[JP: As if you’re saying this like it is something I don’t know and that hasn’t been a fundamental part of the science and physics I teach people about here. Flux in does not equal flux out.]
If the Earth’s surface is only emitting 240W/m2, then the earth’s average surface temperature is -18C as per the SB law. It is not, radiating 396W/m2 and is on average 15C.
[JP: It is NOT the “Earth’s surface” which emits 240 W/m^2 – it is the entire terrestrial ensemble including the atmosphere emitting. The atmosphere also has a very low emissivity which lets it hold a higher temperature than the radiative power it emits, and the bottom of the atmosphere has to be warmer than the average of the atmosphere because of the sequential distribution caused by the lapse rate. ]
Evidently the planners who sanctioned the building did not, although the architect had already designed buildings with similar problems elsewhere in the world – including the Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2410972/Walkie-Talkie-building-Walkie-Scorchie-skyscraper-firm-scaffolding-protect-nearby-shops.html
I presume that at other times, birds flying through the focus for a given sun angle might get roasted. It’s a nice proof of the concept that repeating an experiment and expecting different results is one definition of insanity.
“You are a complete embarrassing idiot. A Darwinian embarrassment to the human race.”
More projection.
[JP: No, you see, that’s only your subjective opinion. My statement and your opinion are not equal. When I state that you’re an idiot, that is reality speaking, it is an absolute statement of objective fact. When you retort like that, it is a mere subjective opinion brought about by your insecurity, fear, stupidity, and inability to reflect upon yourself and admit what you are to the world. It’s cute, but ultimately it is just another indication of your stupidity and shallowness, and the meaningless subjectivity of your opinions.]
“Energy in = Energy out is precisely what I discuss and use…it had never, ever, been an issue of concern for me, other than in the Zero-Energy-Balance plots where, locally, energy in does not equal energy out.”
Agreed.
[JP: Then why did you pretend different? Because you’re an idiot. Welcome to reality…you just need to admit it to yourself.]
“Only for the whole planet does energy in =energy out, assuming energy equilibrium. Etc.”
Agreed. The flux varies widely throughout the year, but we can compute the average energy the earth receives in one revolution. We can also measure with satellites what energy is coming back, and at what frequencies.
So an average of 480W/m2 shining on the earth over 24 hours should equal an average of, 240W/m2. Since the sun can only shines on half of earth at a time, and the earth completes a full revolution in 24 hours, each half receives 12 hours of sunshine.
This is the same math you used to calculate 480W/m2 per second from 1.22×10^17 Joules
If it worked then. It must work now. Or your logic is internally inconsistent.
[JP: 480 W/m^2 is the average of where sunshine actually falls. 240W/m^2 is an average for a flat Earth with sunshine falling all places at once, with no day or night. The former reflects reality, the latter a fiction.]
“But in all cases, it is global flux in which does NOT equal global flux out.”
On average flux in = flux out. Just like on average, energy in = energy out.
[JP: energy in = energy out. This does not translate to flux in = flux out. 240 W/m^2 as an average input can’t do in physics what the real-time input actually does. The 480 W/m^2 is an indication of what the Earth actually experiences; going to full real-time goes all the way.]
If you can average the distribution of 960W/m2 over a single hemisphere to arrive at an average 480W/m2. (960/2=480)
Why can’t you average it over the entire sphere, provided the sphere is spinning at a constant rate?
Since each side only receives half of total flux each revolution. (480/2=240)
So if the total global average flux out is 240W/m2, which we agree it is. Then the average flux in must also be 240W/m2, since the sun can only shine on one side at a time. So even though flux in can vary from zero to theoretically around 1300 W/m2… Global average is 240W/m2.
Do the math.
[JP: I did, but I also did the physics, which you are not doing. 240 W/m^2 cannot produce the physics that the actual flux does. 240 W/m^2 is not a valid physical average because it can’t reproduce the physics, and it makes the Earth flat and without day and night. It entirely divorces the math from reality. 480 W/m^2 gets a lot closer to reality because it begins to show the true physical power of sunshine and the existence of day & night and hemispheres, and then going to real-time gets there fully.
Do you know what it is that gives you morons away? It’s quite simple. 1) You write with enough technical expertise that 2) you should be able to understand what you steadfastly create sophistry around to continue to pretend you don’t understand. You’re very obvious, and you’re very obvious to distinguish from a real human. A real human learns what their technical competence dictates they are able to learn; a faker troll does what you guys do. This is a problem for you guys that you simply can not get around. That reality must burn. The more you pretend to be a real human, the more the truth gets out from discussions with me because that is what reality with real humans produces. But then the more you act what you actually are, the more you guys get exposed as the “pretenders” you are and the fraud that the GHE is. Thanks for the training…it is really proving useful and helpful for my work and outreach. You’re really improving my ability to identify and converse with real humans.]
I know that the source layer of 18C (240W/m2) is ~5.5 kilometers above the surface. The atmosphere below this layer is warmed by the warmer surface, which is emitting ~396W/m2, while absorbing 333W/m2 back from the atmosphere.
[JP: The lapse rate is what creates the sequential temperature distribution in the atmosphere such that the average is naturally found above the surface, and, naturally, the temperature increases below this average until it reaches the surface…due to the lapse rate. Cold doesn’t heat up hot; the colder atmosphere does not heat up the warmer surface.]
[JP: The lapse rate is what creates the sequential temperature distribution in the atmosphere such that the average is naturally found above the surface, and, naturally, the temperature increases below this average until it reaches the surface…due to the lapse rate. Cold doesn’t heat up hot; the colder atmosphere does not heat up the warmer surface.]
Just because the atmosphere is cooler, does not mean it cannot return energy to the surface. It means that the net energy flow is from the surface to the atmosphere. 356W/m2 from the surface to the atmosphere, and 333W/m2 from the atmosphere to the surface.
[JP: This means that the atmosphere can not, and does not, heat the surface. It is basic physics – the higher intensity thing warms the lower intensity thing, and the lower intensity thing has no effect on the temperature of the higher intensity (warmer) thing. Those numbers demonstrate that the greenhouse effect can not exist.]
You do understand that this is not a theory?
It measurable with a spectrometer.
[JP: And it is standard, basic, traditional, and modern physics that heat only flows from higher intensity to lower, and so the atmosphere has no heating or warming effect on the surface.]
The adiabatic lapse rate is a product of the troposphere being heated by the surface.
[JP: The lapse rate arises from the thermal capacity and strength of gravity…-g/Cp.]
I see you censored my comment: So I will make another similar and publish it elsewhere, so that the people you are deceiving can have a balanced perspective.
[JP: No I just trashed the trash that you keep posting over and over again here…the same thing over and over again after it has been explained to you several times. See below for how you yourself prove your comments are trash 🙂 lol]
[JP: And who needs a balanced perspective? That’s the language of consensus idiots. People here, and I, are only interested in the absolute truth. Truth does not care for the “balanced opinions” of sophist morons.]
[JP: No, you see, that’s only your subjective opinion. My statement and your opinion are not equal. When I state that you’re an idiot, that is reality speaking, it is an absolute statement of objective fact.]
If anyone wanted proof that you are delusional. there it is.
Anyone who claims they speak for reality is delusional.
[JP: So let’s then look at just how much of a stupid anti-intellectual philosophically illiterate moron you are. According to you, no one can speak for reality. Then by your own definition, your words are subjective and arbitrary and meaningless, because the last thing we should do is think that you might speak for reality. Your subjective irrelevance has now proven itself for what it is. Your have just demonstrated your own logical illiteracy, and, that your comments have no connection to reality because you admit that you think that the very concept of speaking for reality is delusional. Hence, your comments are subjective meaninglessness, by your own claim of your own words. Hence, you have corroborated the reality my empirical observation of you.]
There goes the last shred of credibility that you ever enjoyed.
[JP: My credibility isn’t determined by idiots and morons. I define it, myself, and you have just told us that you are a subjective idiot and that none of us should have any reason to believe your words, because the last thing you might do is objectively speak for reality, because such a concept is delusional to you. Thanks for removing yourself from the conversation.]
You say that the flux that heats the entire planet cannot be averaged over the whole planet, but it can be averaged over half the planet.
Why? What is the physical reason?
[JP: For the benefit of the real people who will read this, I will explain it to you one last time.
The flux input over half the planet corresponds with reality, because it indicates the existence of day and night. It begins to indicate the true power of sunshine and its ability to heat the surface to high temperature. Going to full real-time goes all the way to reality.
Averaging the flux over the entire planet at once gets rid of day and night, and, it makes sunshine too cold to melt ice. It doesn’t correspond with reality at all.
Averaging flux over the entire planet doesn’t correspond with reality at all, because sunshine doesn’t fall over the entire planet. Averaging flux over one hemisphere only is much more like reality, because sunshine actually only does fall on half the planet at once, and, it begins to show how strong sunshine actually is.
Going to full real-time with actual modern and traditional physics, using heat flow differential equations, brings the math together with the actual physics completely.]
So if your “hypothesis” is correct… and the GHE does not exist…
How does it explain the differences between Earth, Venus, and Mercury?
[JP: The natural lapse rate, -g/Cp, and the extent of the atmosphere in question. Venus, Earth, Mars, the moon, Mercury, etc., all then fall under a single set of fundamental physics that has no reference to cool heating hot and that attendant violation of the laws of thermodynamics.]
So what is the average incoming flux over the entire surface?
[JP: Given that averaging the flux over the entire surface of the Earth produces an unphysical, and unrealistic result, for the physical abilities of the solar input, and that linearly averaging it over a hemisphere produces a result which, while much more realistic and physically accurate, is still not totally representative of reality, and that only in going to a real-time thermodynamic physics equation for flux produces actually-observed temperatures, then the obvious conclusion is that there is no valid value nor a valid concept as flux being averaged over the entire surface. The units of flux are J/s/m^2 and so this refers energy to a particular second and particular square meter, and so linearly averaging a spatially non-linear and time-dependent distribution of flux into time and space and where it never actually exists and in a geometry which is itself in fact a fiction, is incorrect, by definition. This is particularly important when the system that the flux interacts with has a non-linear physical response. Sunlight has to melt ice in real time (an extremely non-linear response), and only real-time solar flux can do this; the averaged solar flux of 240 W/m^2 can’t do this and so therefore the concept is proven as physically meaningless, and erroneous.
The only case in which the flux-averaged value is correctly used is when it is considered for the thermal radiant output (not the input) of energy for the entire terrestrial ensemble, which obviously has to include the atmosphere. Then, a physically correct treatment must consider the natural lapse rate of the atmosphere, and the attendant natural fact that the bottom of the atmosphere must be warmer than the average, the average is found in the middle, and the top of the atmosphere is coolest. As the average (found near the middle altitude) must be associated with the temperature of the flux output by definition, then the bottom of the atmosphere must be warmer than that equivalent temperature, and this is precisely what is calculated from fundamental theory.
However, one thing that climate science has overlooked is that the atmosphere naturally has a low emissivity due to its 99% of oxygen and nitrogen, which are very poor emitters. Physics is very clear in defining that a substance with low emissivity will hold a higher temperature than its equivalent blackbody radiant output, and therefore, the atmosphere must be warmer in temperature than the blackbody-equivalent radiant output of the terrestrial ensemble.
So, the higher temperature of the bottom of the atmosphere, than compared to the average temperature, has two fundamental factors to support it: 1) the lapse rate which strictly requires a warmer bottom than middle or top, and 2) the atmosphere’s low emissivity. Factor 1) already explains everything that is required about average temperatures, while factor 2) has simply not been well studied, if at all, but probably has an effect in setting the altitude of the average temperature. Both of these fundamental physics theory options are catastrophic to the meme of the atmospheric greenhouse effect, which forms the basis of climate alarm and climate-alarmist politics, and hence, climate political theory tends to pretend they don’t exist or at least to not have the effect that textbook physics theory requires them to have.]
“1) the lapse rate which strictly requires a warmer bottom than middle or top”
Sorry but this is total nonsense. The lapse rate is just the result of MEASURING the temperature of the atmosphere when going up (weather balloons).
At Antarctica you can easily have an increasing temperature with increasing height for a sizeable portion of the atmosphere.
The AVERAGE lapse rate shows a decreasing temperature with increasing height, but it does not require anything.
For most of the atmosphere, -g/Cp works just fine. It fully explains the average lapse rate from first principles, fundamental physics. Inversions and other effects in the Antarctic don’t change that.
-g/Cp is de value for the dry adiabatic lapse rate. Has nothing to do with the average atmospheric lapse rate. The atmosphere is NOT adiabatic.
The dry lapse rate is set by -g/Cp. Modulations away from this value are due to physical effects, but they’re still the same thing. For example, when you include water vapour condensation, which is what creates what is called the wet lapse rate, then -g/Cp gets modulated down a significant bit. It can all be calculated from first principles. The wet lapse rate COMES FROM the dry lapse rate, but when including the effect of water vapour. They have EVERYTHING to do with each other. It is not like there are all sorts of different lapse rates. There’s the initial one, -g/Cp, which is the dry rate, but this gets modulated by water vapour to the average lapse rate, also called the wet lapse rate or sometimes the environmental lapse rate, etc.
The dry AND the wet ADIABATIC lapse rates are only valid for rising or sinking parcels of air,
that do not exchange energy with their surroundings (hence adiabatic)
They do not set the environmental lapse rate, since for every rising parcel of air some place else air is sinking. This is basic meteorology.
See eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapse_rate
except for the nonsense about “Thermodynamic SS/Radiative GHG lapse rate”
-g/Cp can be derived from very simple fundamental physics. It matches the same result that meteorology gets with an adiabatic analysis. -g/Cp combined with water vapour ALSO matches the result meteorology gets with an adiabatic analysis including water vapour. It’s all related, obviously. There is one lapse rate: -g/Cp. Then there is water vapour which modulates this to lower absolute value. Meteorology and physics are talking about the same thing.
“Meteorology and physics are talking about the same thing.”
I sure hope so. The dry adiabatic lapse gives the temperature change with altitude for a RISING (or sinking) parcel of air. (thermals etc.) If and when the air in that parcel becomes saturated during the ascend, the lapse rate changes to the wet adiabatic lapse rate. This says nothing about the environmental lapse rate for the atmosphere from surface to top of the atmosphere.
The atmosphere isn’t adiabatic. At the top of the atmosphere on average ~240 W/m^2 is leaving for space. This flux is coming from the surface, clouds etc etc . Basically this flux passes trough the whole atmosphere, and is one of the many factors that create the environmental lapse rate.
[JP: This is sophistry. There isn’t some concept of an environmental lapse rate that is different and separate from the existing measured lapse rate. The lapse rate is measured as the dry rate, -g/Cp, if the air is dry, and the lapse rate is measured as the wet rate, depending on the concentration of water vapour. The lapse rate is not set by radiation or backradiation, because the radiation from the atmosphere is a consequence, not a cause, of its physical characteristics. The atmosphere’s lapse rate physical characteristic is set by -g/Cp and water vapour. It is not set by the atmosphere’s radiation because the radiation is only a consequential property of its pre-established characteristics. Trying to pretend that there is something else called the environmental lapse rate, which is something separate from -g/Cp and water vapour, is sophistry and make-pretend. Caught you. -g/Cp and water vapour says everything about the environmental lapse rate, because they alone perfectly predict the measured lapse rate given the local conditions. The idea that there’s another lapse rate due to radiation/backradiation is sophist nonsense, and it has no empirical room to exist in any case, since -g/Cp and water vapour already explain the observed, measured lapse rate.]
thanks Joe, but you can equate flux, provided you consider the areas concerned. ie. 480W/m2 over a hemisphere = 240w/m2 over a sphere.
But the alarmists cannot think that far.
No they do not think that far. If they did, they would be apoplectic over the temperature 480 W/m2 equates to, and what physics it is capable of performing.
This looks like the perfect post for this. Got into a long useless conversation with someone who claims is part of the Heartland Think Tank (Although they are supooes to be against climate change). We were discussing Thermodynamics and he was making up thermodynamics. So he was using the Radiative Transfer doesn’t require energy scam. So I gave him word for word what you said to be sure he didn’t find a fault in the wording:
“Thermal backradiation heating is simply thermal heating from cold going to hot. Again, the Laws of Thermodynamics: a temperature can not increase its own temperature; a temperature can not heat itself; a temperature can not transfer heat to the same temperature or itself. Heat flows from hot to cold; cold does not cause hot to become hotter; hot in warming cold does not become hotter still because it warmed the cold; only the colder temperature rises when it is heated by hot; a temperature can not heat itself.”
This is his reply:
“You are absolutely right except the first sentence. You forget the radiation temperature. What you are describing, is thermal conduction. Indeed, a cold layer can’t warm a hotter one. But thermal conduction is in the atmosphere a marginal heat transfer mechanism. Radiative transfer is the dominant one. In this case, the exchange of energy isn’t between the layers themselves (conduction), but between the layers and the nonlocal radiation field, and vice-versa (the definition of radiative transfer). The warm layer is not heated by a cold layer, but by radiation with a higher radiation temperature. Again: radiative transfer is about exchanges between the thermal pool and the radiation field, NOT between adjacent thermal pools (layers)! This is what I’ve been talking about the whole time: you ignore radiative transfer. It is EASY to violate the laws of thermodynamics if you are not looking at the proper mechanism! You are obviously right if you ignore RT!”
He also used a Wiki Link to demonstrate I was wrong about Thermodynamics.
Somehow he claims this is working with a measly 0.04 Co2 to heat our planet up. Jo these people are mindless zombies.
“Somehow he claims this is working with a measly 0.04 Co2 to heat our planet up. Jo these people are mindless zombies.”
These think tanks and well-funded “skeptic” groups are stop-gap measures…they seem to be put in place in order to corral the argument, in order keep the debate from straying to far in any direction towards truth. The simplest thing to do to question and deunk climate alarm is to look at its basis, but these groups NEVER do that and avoid doing that like the plague.
As for his reply (@ 2019/01/24 at 5:46 pm)…it is complete sophistry, and is barely legible. Can’t even really tell what the heck he’s tring to say. It seems to be that radiation heat transfer can get around the laws of thermodynamics which physical heat transfer can’t. LOL! Such BS. The equations are qualitatively exactly the same in their limits and their restrictions, although the terms merely look different. As if there’s a special set of Laws of Thermodynamics for radiative heat transfer as compared to physical heat transfer. Why doesn’t Wiki state the two sets of Laws? Why doesn’t any textbook!?
You see? These people are stop-gap measures to keep the underlying fraud in place…to keep the average person from straying too far out of the narrative they want. Oh, you can question the degree of climate change…but you can never be allowed to question the underlying fake greenhouse effect.
Reblogged this on Roald J. Larsen.