The Two Errors Corrected
Here is the IPCC definition of the greenhouse effect, upon which climate alarm and its socially, politically, economically and scientifically destructive movement is based:
The IPCC definition of the greenhouse effect, which is the sole fundamental underpinning of climate alarm. See http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1510/1510.02503.pdf for a full listing of official references to this mechanism by the climate science establishment.
Note that radiant emission from a cooler atmosphere is adding as heat to a warmer surface below it, in an attempt to explain why the surface is warmer than the cooler atmosphere.
Now consider the definition of heat, from “Thermodynamics”, G. J. V. Wylen, John Wiley & Sons, 1960:
“Heat is defined as the form of energy that is transferred across a boundary by virtue of a temperature difference or temperature gradient. Implied in this definition is the very important fact that a body never contains heat, but that heat is identified as heat only as it crosses the boundary. Thus, heat is a transient phenomenon. If we consider the hot block of copper as a system and the cold water in the beaker as another system, we recognize that originally neither system contains any heat (they do contain energy, of course.) When the copper is placed in the water and the two are in thermal communication, heat is transferred from the copper to the water, until equilibrium of temperature is established. At that point we no longer have heat transfer, since there is no temperature difference. Neither of the systems contains any heat at the conclusion of the process. It also follows that heat is identified at the boundaries of the system, for heat is defined as energy being transferred across the system boundary.”
Thus, there is no heat transfer from the atmosphere to the surface. Thus, the climate science greenhouse effect is incommensurate to the modern definition of heat. Thus, the climate science definition of the greenhouse effect, upon which alarmism and its associated socially, politically, and economically regressive and scientifically destructive political movement is based, is false. Thus, climate alarm and much of the entire field of climate science itself, is in fundamental error.
At this point a secondary argument for a radiative greenhouse effect arises, where emission from a cooler object “slows the emission” from a warmer object thus making the warmer object warmer still. This is called the “blanket analogy”.
However, given the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, where an object’s emission is proportional to its temperature and given its emissivity:
F = σεT4
and given the definition of radiant heat transfer:
Q = Fhot – Fcool = σThot4 – σTcool4
then one can see that one cannot prevent something from emitting at the temperature that it is at. That is, emission from a cool object does not slow the emission from the hot object.
In other words, you cannot prevent something from emitting at the temperature that it is at. And of course, again, radiant emission from a cooler object does not transfer heat to a warmer object.
A blanket is about preventing convection, and has nothing to do with radiation. And there is no stopping radiation – everything emits at the temperature it has acquired and you can’t stop it from emitting at the temperature that it is. Whereas, one can prevent what would be open convection. And so this alternative version of the radiative greenhouse effect is as logically baseless as the original IPCC one. Radiant emission can’t be prevented, whereas convection can be prevented; therefore it is a false analogy.
The Victory
1) A cooler object does not transfer heat to a warmer object (Laws of Thermodynamics)
2) You cannot prevent something from emitting at the temperature that it is at (Stefan-Boltzmann Law)
Therefore both versions of the greenhouse effect are debunked. The blanket analogy where radiation from a cooler object slows emission from the warmer object is false, because you cannot “slow emission” from the warmer object, and originally, the cooler object doesn’t transfer heat to the warmer object.
I’ll ask again: Why would people like Roy Spencer, Anthony Watts, Christopher Monckton, JoAnne Nova, David Evans, et al, invent and defend new, alternative versions of the greenhouse effect which thus serves to protect alarmism from fundamental criticism, while not admitting that they thus agree that the IPCC version of the greenhouse effect must be incorrect (since they invented an alternative GHE), and while not acknowledging that this is what they’ve done? Or if they don’t do the alternative thing, then why would they defend the original IPCC greenhouse effect when the basic definition of heat debunks it? What purpose are they serving?
When the alarmists themselves do it it is understandable – they are keepers of the faith, true believers, fanatics, human haters and life haters, last men, destroyers of civilization, etc. The fact is that some people aren’t just invested in the fruition of the alarmist movement, but are invested in the continuance of the debate itself.
Now, the alarmists might complain that the existence of the debate gives false legitimacy to skepticism of their movement which thereby harms their movement, but the way I see it is by taking a page from Lionell Griffith: if you witness something absurd, then consider the end-point of the absurdity, and thereby you will see its true purpose.
Therefore, the existence of the form of the debate coming from the side of the leading, most widely recognized “skeptics” (many of whom named above), where the existence of the debate is promoted ad nauseum and where they defend both the original and invent alternative versions of the greenhouse effect, and where the greenhouse effect is the sole basis of alarmism, thus indicates that these so-called skeptics and the debate they support are actually working for the climate alarmist movement.
You have to wonder why people would defend climate alarm by inventing a new greenhouse effect for it, when the IPCC greenhouse effect has just been debunked very simply by the definition of heat? Isn’t the IPCC greenhouse effect the one we’re concerned with, and since it has been shown to be non-existent, then we should tell that to people and spread the news, rather than invent and defend (multiple) alternative versions? Given that people seem not to care about that, nor care about the illogic of inventing alternative versions, then it is clear that this is what is desired. They mean to promote alarmism and its socially, politically, economically and scientifically regressive and destructive policies. They want to believe in and promote a greenhouse effect, and at least to a certain extent, climate alarm.
The existence of the debate legitimizes alarm. Or, serving another purpose, it legitimizes the destruction of science and logic and reason. Even if alarm was accepted to be debunked, but the radiative greenhouse effect and most of climate science remained, we will still be ending with what it worst: the full usurpation of science by political sophistry.
Analogies
From CB:
“Consider the fact that within the realm of rhetoric (“the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing”) the “analogy” is used to convey an abstract idea using a concrete or tangible reality. For example one might say, “You are as annoying as nails on a chalkboard.” Being annoyed is an intangible, emotional feeling whereas “nails on a chalkboard” actually generate a physical sound that is very unpleasant to listen to.
Scientific truths are tangible realities and as such are in no need of an analogy to be understood. They are simply observed and/or experienced. Charles Law, for example, is a scientific truth. If you keep the pressure of a gas the same the temperature of the gas will be directly proportional to its volume – as the temperature increases so does its volume. One does not need to use an analogy to understand Charles Law; one simply states what is observed in the real world.
Ergo, if the “greenhouse effect” were a tangible -a scientific- reality it wouldn’t need to be explained vis-a-vis an analogy. One could simply observe and describe its operation in the real world. Even the name “greenhouse effect” is itself an analogy used to give an intangible thought or idea the appearance of being a scientific reality. The intangible idea, “the presence of carbon dioxide in the air causes the air to be warmer than it would be without it,” has not only not been observed in the real world, historical observations that compare CO2 levels and temperature contradicts the belief. In order, therefore, to make the “greenhouse effect” appear to be real they attach an analogy to it drawn from the tangible world.
Carbon dioxide makes the atmosphere behave like . . .
. . . a greenhouse
. . . insulation
. . . a jacket
. . . a heat trap
. . . a heater
. . . etc.
Scientific truths also have a singular name, they have a singular definition and are quantified by a singular mathematical formula. All three of these singularities are absent when it comes to the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis.”
Nothing more needs to be said.
Logic
All Slayers are lovers of logic. We’re all rationalists and the core Slayers are probably all INTJ’s; logic and reason is all we talk about over email, when it comes down to it. It is the logic of this situation that concerns us most. I was an alarmist before I decided to look into things myself, and as soon as I saw that the historical correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide actually indicated that it was temperature change that caused carbon dioxide change, rather than the alarmist implication that carbon dioxide drove temperature, I knew that there was a major problem here. Looking into it further, you find that this “problem” is actually a “feature(!)”. Almost everything that alarmism and climate science says and does is sophistry.
The Slayers are logicians and philosophers first – true lovers of reason. We are excellent scientists and engineers second, and we’re such good scientists and engineers that all we have to do is to refer to a basic textbook definition of heat and we debunk the (most recent) greatest political fraud of all time.
The Slayers won, and we won on the first day we entered the argument. The meantime has been spent bemusedly witnessing the attempt to protect the faith, and the intended fraud.
Just look at what has transpired: Our argument hasn’t changed, because the definition of heat and temperature hasn’t changed; whereas, the argument for the climate science greenhouse effect has changed repeatedly, every single time we keep debunking them.
What happened here is going to get out. And the Slayers are the victors.
Climate of Sophistry 
“In other words, you cannot prevent something from emitting at the temperature that it is at. And of course, again, radiant emission from a cooler object does not transfer heat to a warmer object.”
The cooler object does not transfer heat, it transfers energy. Since it is cooler, it isn’t going to “make the warmer object warmer than it was before”, but it is going to slow the rate it cools at (i.e. the rate it loses energy).
At this point you need to remember that we are not discussing a closed system. The Sun is pushing energy in continually, and energy is being emitted to space continually. Changing the make-up of the atmosphere won’t alter the amount of energy incoming or outgoing, but it will alter the rate at which energy moves through various parts of the system.
However, CO2 variation will make very little difference, because there’s far less of it than there is water vapour, which is the much bigger determinant. Variation of water vapour content in the upper atmosphere has a far larger effect than that near the surface, and that has been falling for a decade according to NASA’s NVAP-M data. Here’s why:
Its the Sun.
i really hope you’re right.
i am no scientist, far from it, so i am interested in your opinions on James Lovelock’s findings; if my brain will allow me to recall, he found that the atmosphere was warming & that the warming & collection of Co2 was ubiquitous: that if you took a reading in any part of the world whether polluted or clean, you would get the same reading of pollutants, which led him to conclude the Earth was an organism that everything relied on a balance, threatened by man made pollutants. (correct me please or just stop me & tell me to shut up if i’m wrong, but correction i think more profitable. i am trying to remember something i read a long time ago).
if you have time could you give me some thoughts on this?
@tallbloke;
Heat is not the conserved quantity. Read the definition of heat. Heat is a transient phenomenon and is not the conserved quantity. The hotter object still emits all of the energy it has to. Look at the radiant heat flow equation: q = sigma(Th^4 – Tc^4); there hot term is right there, emitting all of the energy it is supposed to and that it has to. It is an error to conflate energy with heat. The hot term emits all of the energy that it has to and that it must and that it is, whereas heat is transient and goes to zero in equilibrium, even while the hot term is still emitting energy. Heat goes to zero in equilibrium while the hot term still fully emits all of the energy that it is. Objects do not contain heat.
And yes, at this point we indeed are discussing a closed system: that of the sun-earth system. Aside from very slowly changing galactic processes, and slowly changing modifications to the state of the closed system, the system between the earth and sun is basically energetically and thermally closed. Other energy inputs are negligible. We can’t talk of the Earth and the energy it is receiving from the Sun, which is the reference frame, but then consider the Earth all by itself as the system under consideration and now consider it open because we’ve left out the Sun: the thermal system in question has to include the sun because it is the input from the sun which is setting the reference frame and the physics considerations from the outset. So yes, the Earth-Sun system is a closed system, and it is the closed system in consideration. As a closed thermal system, there is nothing inside that system which can out-perform what the input of the system is initially doing. The correct concern would be if emissivity was being reduced, but reducing emissivity isn’t a concern of supposed “greenhouse gases”.
The concern of water vapour is its huge heat capacity and also its huge latent heat capacity.
I like that chart – it shows galactic and probably intergalactic effects at work on the planet; while quite small indeed in terms of any actual energy input, still large enough to have an effect on the climate of Earth by changing the conditions of the system. The thermal system is essentially closed, because these galactic effects do not introduce new external energy, so in the respect of thermal energy the Earth-Sun system is closed; but these external factors modify the conditions of the system, such as cloud formation, magnetic field of Sun, etc. So the Earth-Sun system is closed in terms of thermal energy – there are no (or negligible) external inputs of additional energy; however, the system is “open” in terms of its internal parameters being modifiable by external effects, and these changing parameters can affect the internal state of the system by changing such things as cloud formation. These concerns aren’t about the greenhouse effect in any case. I like intergalactic weather effects…the climate has always changed at the same pace and rate as we see today for billions of years because of them.
So just to make sure I’m clear: I agree that the Earth-Sun system is “open” in terms of its internal parameters being modifiable by outside effects, but it is “thermally closed” because there is no additional thermal energy supply from outside of the Earth-Sun system. The Earth-Sun system is energetically closed as there is no significant energy introduced from outside this system, but its internal state can be modified from the outside. There is a need here to be very strict about the terms used: energetically, it is closed; but the coefficients of the system can be dialed somewhat from outside.
Yes Daniel, Lovelock came up with the Gaia hypothesis. Here’s the problem with the way that hypoethesis is interpreted: if Gaia is an entity which self-regulates, and has created and modified the living beings on the Earth as part of this regulation, then why is man considered to be outside of this creation, modification, and regulation? Is man thus to be considered Gaia’s mistake? If so, then what other mistakes is Gaia making? Was man created by Gaia to fix a previous mistake? Is man Gaia’s first mistake? How many mistakes has Gaia made? If Gaia is prone to making mistakes, should we accept responsibility for “her” mistake and end our technological civilization?
What if Gaia was running out of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that the carbon dioxide level was getting so low that all carbon-based life (i.e., all life on the planet) was going to go extinct? Given that all life, i.e. carbon based life, is created by the carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere, then perhaps Gaia created man and endowed man with a mind that would figure out how to use fossil fuel to make his physical life better, while at the same time and initially unknowingly replenishing the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere? Isn’t this a much better interpretation of Gaia theory? Isn’t this actually much closer to the facts? Carbon dioxide was getting far too low in the atmosphere. Life on Earth, in order to continue to exist, did need more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Man does return carbon dioxide, that had once been in the atmosphere and had once been part of the biosphere of life, back to the atmosphere and thus to the life from whence it came.
Lovelock’s own, and the alarmists and environmentalists, interpretation of Gaia theory is totally illogical. It requires the belief either that man is separate from Gaia’s creation, or, that Gaia is prone to making mistakes (and if she’s prone to mistakes, then what all mistakes has she made, and why should we bear responsibility for them now being free and willful conscious creatures capable of our own growth and survival?). So either man is an alien, which then gets really ridiculous, or Gaia makes mistakes which we shouldn’t have to be responsible for anyway, given that we care about our own survival.
No, the rational, and factually-based, interpretation of Gaia theory is what I described above.
Hi Jo, nice to chat with you again. I mostly agree with your analysis, but we should try to talk about energy only and leave heat right out of it, as it never fails to lead to confusion and disagreement.
I agree that we can think of the Sun-Earth system as a closed system with an infinite heat sink – space.
Where we differ is that I think the greenhouse effect does exist. However, it’s smaller than current theory says it is, and CO2 makes little difference to it, due to the latent heat transfer and convective processes at work.
For me, the important issue is establishing the Sun’s variation as the principle driver of climate change, for three reasons.
The evidence supports it
My team can model it
Nobody needs to be taxed for it
I have sleep then drive. I’ll check back in 24hrs.
@tallbloke
[“The cooler object does not transfer heat, it transfers energy. Since it is cooler, it isn’t going to “make the warmer object warmer than it was before”, but it is going to slow the rate it cools at (i.e. the rate it loses energy).”]
Rog, I suspect you are making a fundamental mistake which obfuscates the basic fallacy of the CO2 = warming meme:
There is no ‘transfer of energy’. Although the cooler object radiates energy (in the form of radiation), this energy (radiation) is not absorbed by the hotter object for energy gain. It is either transmitted or reflected (i.e. absorbed and instantly re-emitted at the same frequency). There is no energy gain by the hotter object because the photon (if that is how you want to view it) from the cooler object does not possess the energy required to elevate the thermal energy state of the already hotter object.
So no heat transfer and no energy transfer to the hotter object. The idea of energy transferring to the hotter object by radiation is the fundamental error made by lukewarmers. The downward radiation from the atmosphere (in the IPCC diagram) is irrelevant to the temperature of the surface if the surface is warmer than the atmosphere (which, taken globally, it always is).
If there was energy (for gain) transfer, you could simply put more and more cooler objects around the hotter object and eventually the hotter object would get even hotter. Not possible.
So, the argument of “…the hotter object loses heat more slowly…” only applies if you consider the CO2 to be an insulator. This is an entirely different argument. The problem with the insulation argument is, as you point out, there is too little CO2 to make a measurable difference even if CO2 was an insulator – which it isn’t!
Simply put, there is no mechanism whereby CO2 in the atmosphere can cause any significant, or even measurable, warming of either the planet or the biosphere.
Regards,
Arfur
ps, Good luck with the Brexit movie! 🙂
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Another great post, thanks. Since I can’t find the time or energy to post at my own blog much these days, I know how much effort it takes.
I don’t know why we have so many “skeptics” who work hard to support the IPCC’s view that CO2 heats the surface by at least 33 degrees or whatever the figure is this week. Or perhaps they work hard to claim that CO2 “traps the heat” and that makes the planet overheat just like someone wearing a sweater in August in Florida.
The “Scottish Skeptic” once opined that the Slayers had the Physics right but misfired on public relations. I think that the slayers has little chance on public relations due to the fact that finding that CO2 can not do what the IPCC says it does ends the gravy train for everyone concerned. Even the “skeptics” have reason to want to see their role continue in this “great war”.
To me, one of the more powerful arguments besides the two that are mentioned in this post, and the last one, is the comparison of the planet Earth and its moon. The atmosphere and oceans of the planet moves energy/heat around which moderates the environment and it ultimately cools the planet. The moon at high noon is much hotter than the earth at high noon.
If you get time, another look at the comparison of Earth and the moon would be nice.
Yes nice to see you again too tallbloke.
I think that the distinction between energy and heat is the crux of the issue. It is the lack of distinction which causes the confusion and which causes the conflation of terms. That’s why the definitions are so important, and why it is good to state them and refer to them.
“Where we differ is that I think the greenhouse effect does exist. However, it’s smaller than current theory says it is”
OK that’s kind of the point made in this article: it’s the IPCC radiative greenhouse effect which is the basis of the fraud, and so if people disagree with it and understand it to be wrong, then why invent an alternative in order to keep the debate going basically on behalf of the alarmist movement!? Alternative “pet” versions are irrelevant. Logic and fundamentals are the primary and sole concern…other stuff about galactic weather effects and such are essentially mundane and beside the point.
Definitely agree on the Sun’s variations (not just its thermal variations but its second-order variations caused by galactic processes etc.) being responsible for climate change.
Great explanation Arfur! Thanks for that. Quotable!
“The Sun is pushing energy in continually, and energy is being emitted to space continually.”
Yes, Tallbloke, and according to the Earth’s energy budget, a continuous 239 W/m² input generates a continuous 390 W/m² output on the surface of our planet. And you believe that water vapor is principally responsible for this.
But gee, I suppose you understand that our atmosphere is very lossy. Certainly a more thermally efficient device could be invented that multiplies wattage not by a mere 163% but to 500% or more. Hells bells, I suppose one might even be able to heat an office building with a AA battery — as long as the building loses to its surroundings the same amount of energy that it’s demanding. So why haven’t scientists invented such a device? Do you suppose it’s because such a thing is friggin’ impossible?
Markstoval You wrote “If you get time, another look at the comparison of Earth and the moon would be nice.” Have you read http://www.tech-know-group.com/papers/Greenhouse_Effect_on_the_Moon.pdf by Alan Siddons?
Hans Schreuder asked: “Have you read http://www.tech-know-group.com/papers/Greenhouse_Effect_on_the_Moon.pdf by Alan Siddons?”
Yes, I have it bookmarked under “atmosphere-moon” and have read it several times. I think they have a powerful argument. I always wonder how other experts look at the moon vs. the earth.
~ Mark
Brilliant. Much obliged. i completely see what you are saying. It seems so obvious, like the poetry of Wallace Stevens, yet it takes that acute ability to see that simple idea lurking in a murk of obfuscating arguments vying for the pulpit. i read Lovelock years ago & didn’t really consider that he left man out. Really very much obliged.
The discussion of heat vs. energy transfer and “cool doesn’t transfer energy to warm” seems continually being reprised in the climate blogosphere. I think the discussion here so far has largely been confined to a semantics argument. However, I would appreciate feedback on my interpretation of it.
Tallbloke’s statement that “the cooler object does not transfer heat, it transfers energy” may have been more palatable as “the cooler object does not transfer any net energy.” Arfur Bryant may still object on the grounds that this leaves room for a photon from a cold body actually being absorbed at the surface of a warmer body. Nonetheless, it is obvious to me that a cooler body can slow the rate that a warmer body cools. For example, consider the extreme case of a hot body placed at the South Pole vs. the same hot body placed in a warm humid place. The hot body will undoubtedly cool faster at the pole irrespective of how one hypothesizes the cooling occurs.
The other point of contention is the existence of a greenhouse effect. The problem starts with the term greenhouse which almost everyone agrees is a misnomer. Why do we still use it?
To avoid being hypocritical, I will refer to the greenhouse effect as the “Temperate Atmosphere Effect (TAE).” The TAE results in an atmosphere warmer than it would be without TAE gases, AKA, IR active gases (IRAGs). Without IRAGs, the planet would still be warmer than without an atmosphere, but it would be subject to much wider diurnal temperature swings than the present atmosphere. Gradually adding IRAGs to a IRAG-free atmosphere will make the days cooler and the nights warmer. Adding sufficient IRAGs in the atmosphere, we arrive at our present day temperate atmosphere.
Now to consider what happens if additional IRAGs are added to the atmosphere. This is the question Tallbloke raised and what I believe the blogosphere refers to as the “enhanced” greenhouse effect which I would prefer we call the enhanced TAE. I think Tallbloke misspoke by saying “Changing the make-up of the atmosphere won’t alter the amount of energy incoming or outgoing…,” because IRAGs affect SW reaching the surface and how much LW escapes, at least on short time scales. What I think is most important is to determine how much of a long term effect an incremental increase in any IRAG will have on global temperatures. IMO, this is the holy grail of climate science.
Yep Daniel it just takes a little salting of proper reason and then you can begin to see where erroneous assumptions are being implied, etc. Cheers.
@Chic, climate science can’t get anywhere until it is basically reinvented from first principles, after getting rid of the greenhouse effect and any reference to a greenhouse effect entirely. As has been repeated often, the term is sophistical, and meaningless.
And in regards to your discussion, there is still a problem there requiring getting rid of all of those concepts and starting over from scratch: IRAG’s, since they are defined as emissive, thus must enhance cooling relative to non-IRAG’s. This is guaranteed by the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. Hence, discussion of IRAG’s as “being responsible for keeping things warmer than otherwise”, is logically in error, and incommensurate to the laws of physics. Emissive gases enhance emission by definition, hence by definition enhance cooling; whereas objects or gases with low emissivity must actually be the ones which “keep things warmer than otherwise”. According to the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, it is non-IRAG’s which should be considered “warming gases”!
“Hence, discussion of IRAG’s as “being responsible for keeping things warmer than otherwise”, is logically in error, and incommensurate to the laws of physics. Emissive gases enhance emission by definition, hence by definition enhance cooling; whereas objects or gases with low emissivity must actually be the ones which “keep things warmer than otherwise”. According to the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, it is non-IRAG’s which should be considered ‘warming gases’!”
Exactly, Joe. And that’s what I was getting at in The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2010/02/the_hidden_flaw_in_greenhouse.html
“[M]eteorologists acknowledge that our atmosphere is principally heated by surface contact and convective circulation. Surrounded by the vacuum of space… the earth can only dissipate this energy by radiation. On one hand, then, if surface-heated nitrogen and oxygen do not radiate the thermal energy they acquire, they rob the earth of a means of cooling off — which makes them “greenhouse gases” by definition. On the other hand, though, if surface-heated nitrogen and oxygen do radiate infrared, then they are also “greenhouse gases,” which defeats the premise that only radiation from the infrared-absorbers raises the Earth’s temperature. Either way, therefore, the convoluted theory we’ve been going by is wrong.”
The idea can fit in a nutshell: If it radiates it cools.
Yep, you were the one who cottoned me on to that Alan!
Alan Siddons: Yes, Tallbloke, and according to the Earth’s energy budget, a continuous 239 W/m² input generates a continuous 390 W/m² output on the surface of our planet.
At equilibrium 239W/m^2 enters the Earth’s system and 239W/m^2 leaves it again at TOA. How hot various intermediate layers get (and thus how much energy they radiate) depends on their emissivity (resistance to energy flow). The relatively dense near-surface atmosphere atmosphere under 1 bar of pressure overlying a warm ocean (effective emissivity ~0.67) will radiate 390W/m^2.
The ocean is as warm as it is, because it has to rise to that temperature in order to get rid of energy at the same rate it absorbs it under the hot dayside Sun. It has trouble getting rid of energy because while it absorbs solar energy in 3D up to 100m, it can only get rid of it in 2D from its surface. That surface is under a humid atmosphere at a pressure of 1 bar, which restricts the ocean surface’s ability to evaporate into it and lose the energy of latent heat.
The overturning warm ocean surface keeps the near surface air warm at night, reducing the diurnal swing and thus raising average temperature. Thus atmosphere and ocean conspire together to raise the Earth’s surface temperature. The ‘greenhouse effect’ is actually bigger in the water, where the path length of IR photons is considerably shorter than it is in air.
This is another reason why changing the amount of CO2 in the air will make very little difference to anything (apart from the rate of plant growth).
So what happens to the energy in the second term of your radiant heat transfer equation (sigma*Tcool^4)? Where does it go? How is energy conserved?
The problems tallbloke are that 1) you’re making up a new version of the greenhouse effect, and 2) there is no greenhouse effect, and, 3, the greenhouse effect can’t be defined.
And if emissivity was the issue then the greenhouse effect would be called emissivity effect, and it would still be a very strange, illogical thing to call that “the greenhouse effect”. And in any case, -g/Cp, the lapse rate, is what determines the temperature distribution in the atmosphere.
@Ed Bo – firstly, the heat transfer equation isn’t a conservation equation.
On the cool object’s side facing the hot object, the cool object gains energy according to the heat transfer equation; on the cool object’s other side, it emits to open space. The cool object is passive.
It’s very disappointing to me that skeptics, contrarians, slayers, whatever we want to be called, can’t get crucial climate science issues defined and understood. How the h*ll do you expect to have any credibility with the establishment climatology community if you can’t even get the rest of us onboard?
Of course there’s a so-called greenhouse effect, despite your statement 2) in your reply to Tallbloke. You refer to it yourself in 1) and 3). I can be defined. I did it earlier. If you don’t like other people’s definitions, you should provide an alternative. Or possibly, Joe Postma, you like the confusion about the definition so you can continue to bash anyone who disagrees with you about it.
Joe,
I hope my last comment wasn’t too offensive. You probably have explained your position many times and I haven’t been following your blog as closely as I should.
I never said or implied that IRAGs are “responsible for keeping things warmer than otherwise.” Others do and this contributes to the misinformation over the that-which-shall-not-be-named effect. My view is that IRAGs contribute to warming the atmosphere by absorbing LW off the surfaces. This absorbed energy is immediately thermalized almost entirely by collisions between excited IRAGs and the rest of the air molecules. If not for the IR gas absorption and energy transfer by these collisions, most of the LW would just radiate to space. Some warming would occur via conduction, but not without wide swings in temperature not unlike what happens on the moon. Your thoughts?
I don’t think you have to reinvent climate science to get some of these first principles generally understood.
“And if emissivity was the issue then the greenhouse effect would be called emissivity effect…”
Which ties into Martin Hertzberg’s argument in Earth’s Radiative Equilibrium in the Solar Irradiance
Click to access EE20-1_Hertzberg.pdf
Find a more appropriate emissivity than a silly blackbody’s of 1 and you obtain an Earth temperature that’s a little more believable.
Most climate ‘experts’ appear to be unaware that fictional blackbodies don’t represent the highest temperature attainable. Given an irradiance of 1367 W/m², for instance, a flat blackbody will reach 121°C, but a sheet of gold will reach 413°C, even though it absorbs much less light than black objects.
“At equilibrium 239W/m² enters the Earth’s system and 239W/m² leaves it again at TOA. How hot various intermediate layers get (and thus how much energy they radiate) depends on their emissivity (resistance to energy flow). The relatively dense near-surface atmosphere atmosphere under 1 bar of pressure overlying a warm ocean (effective emissivity ~0.67) will radiate 390W/m².”
No, Tallbloke, that’s incorrect. Emissivity pertains to what a blackbody would emit at a particular temperature. For instance, if a surface at 91°C is emitting 500 W/m², then its emissivity is about 0.5, because a blackbody at that temperature would be emitting 1000 W/m². Given a 0.67 emissivity, then, and assuming an absorptivity of 1, your warm ocean would have to have absorbed 390 W/m², the same as what it’s radiating. But the ocean’s temperature would be 45°C, whereas a blackbody at that temperature would be radiating 581 W/m².
Temperature varies with absorption and emissivity, but emission is determined by absorption. In short, you will never get 390 W/m² out of 239 W/m². Your substance may reach a higher temperature than a blackbody but it can never radiate more than a blackbody or more than it has absorbed.
Joe:
I’m trying to understand your argument. You say that the hot object emits (sigma*Thot^4) regardless of the cool object’s temperature, and the cool object absorbs (sigma*Thot^4)-(sigma*Tcool^4). Is that what you’re claiming?
Does the cool object become “passive” as soon as it is infinitesimally cooler than the hot object?
Chic: “My view is that IRAGs contribute to warming the atmosphere by absorbing LW off the surfaces. This absorbed energy is immediately thermalized almost entirely by collisions between excited IRAGs and the rest of the air molecules.”
“YOUR VIEW” is an alternative definition of the greenhouse effect! That the cooler atmosphere can be warmed by a warmer surface is NOT a greenhouse effect in any way shape or form…it is simply heat flow. And it is NOT the IPCC greenhouse effect of alarmism.
Yes of course, some warming of the atmosphere occurs by radiant heat transfer. This is not the greenhouse effect of alarmism, nor could it be considered a greenhouse effect.
We rationalists are indeed getting definitions and terms correct. It is why we have debunked the greenhouse effect, because the alarmists don’t get it correct, and the apologists don’t get it correct either.
@Ed Bo: Look at the radiant heat transfer equation. Q = sigma*(Th^4 – Tc^4). So yes, of course, the hot object is always emitting sigma*Th^4. It’s right there in the equation. The heat transfer, a non-conserved transient phenomenon, is the difference.
I’m not claiming anything. The radiant heat transfer equation is what it is, right there, and the emitting terms are in it right there. Yes, of course, the cool object is absorbing the heat, Q, from the hot object, as per the heat flow equation. That’s what it means.
In this context, the cool object is passive always; it has no internal power source.
I just recently stumbled upon a “thought experiment” that might help those still confused about the infamous, and unscientific, GHE.
Suppose we could instantaneously make the atmosphere completely transparent to all infrared. That is, the atmosphere had ZERO ability to stop infrared.
It’s a very interesting thought experiment, because now, Earth’s surface would be receiving MORE infrared from the Sun. Consequently, it would get warmer.
Interesting, huh?
geran,
For the purpose of understanding why you would think this would reduce confusion, how would your transparent atmosphere be any different than an atmosphere free of all IR absorbing gases?
I don’t think it would be warmer on average, but how could I prove that? It should be warmer during the days, but much colder at night.
Hi, geran.
You’re right, but according to the standard literature, the Earth’s temperature as a blackbody under those conditions would be about 5°C. Yet this assumes that no reflection occurs, which is unrealistic. Throw that in (about 0.3) and you’re down to minus 18° again. On the other hand, water vapor (a GHG) wouldn’t exist in your scenario, thus reflective clouds wouldn’t exist either. So your Earth would be warmer than minus 18° but less than 5°.
Referring to Trenberth’s budget, then, say that the 341 effective W/m² beaming at the Earth is reflected by the surface alone, with nothing else reflecting or absorbing light. That’s 341 minus 23, or 318 W/m². Which brings you up to 1°. Disappointing. Reduce this Earth’s emissivity to 0.7, however, and you obtain an average temperature of 26°. Very hot!
Would the icecaps melt? It’s likely. And would that decrease reflectivity and therefore increase the temperature? That’s likely too.
This is all just playing with numbers and standard greenhouse assumptions. But it does suggest that Dr Martin Hertzberg is onto something with his emissivity angle. The Earth is not a perfectly emitting blackbody for sure.
Chic asks: “I don’t think it would be warmer on average, but how could I prove that? It should be warmer during the days, but much colder at night.”
The surface would be warmer, because it is receiving more infrared. At night, it would cool, but starting from a higher temp. Also, the atmosphere can still be warmed by conduction and convection from the surface. Without the atmosphere the “experiment” would be the Moon.
Would the common thought experiment of an extra object, cooler, being added, not change the conditions to a two-body experiment? Therefore not relevant because of added mass? Brett
geran,
Again I have no way to prove this. But assuming all 1366 W/m2 gets absorbed by the Earth’s surfaces, those surfaces collectively would have to radiate back out 1366 W/m2. That averages out to 341 W/m2 globally and but for diurnal swings that would be equivalent to 278K. Accounting for diurnal swings would make the average even lower.
“consider the extreme case of a hot body placed at the South Pole vs. the same hot body placed in a warm humid place. The hot body will undoubtedly cool faster at the pole irrespective of how one hypothesizes the cooling occurs.”
It does matter “how one hypothesizes the cooling occurs”, because one will then invoke the correct law of physics to explain the rate of cooling. What you are describing in your example is Newton’s Law of Cooling, i.e., “the rate of change of the temperature of an object is proportional to the difference between its own temperature and the ambient temperature .” The “greenhouse effect” hypothesis invokes instead the Stefan-Boltzmann Law which only determines the rate of cooling when the warm object is separated from its surroundings by a vacuum. In that case the rate of cooling is, indeed, directly proportional to the amount of IR radiation being emitted by the surroundings as per the “net radiation heat loss rate” formula, which is a derivation of the Stefan-Boltzmann formula.
When a warm object (the surface) is in direct physical contact with its surroundings (the atmosphere) the Stefan-Boltzmann formula becomes irrelevant because the rate at which the warmer object cools is relative to the temperature differential between it and its cooler surroundings and not to the amount of IR radiation that its cooler surroundings might be emitting because under those circumstances heat loss via IR radiation is reduced to a bit player.
Through a series of studies looking at nighttime cooling rates I found this to be true. The rate at which the ground cools at night is relative to the temperature differential between the ground and the air touching the ground regardless of how humid it is–regardless of how much “back radiation” there might be. If you like I can elaborate. Suffice it to say that the thermal relationship between the ground and the atmosphere is better defined by Newton’s Law of Cooling than it is by the Stefan-Boltzmann formula.
Why does this make a difference? Carbon dioxide’s affect on Newton’s Law of Cooling is relative to its “specific heat” rather than its emissivity and even though carbon dioxide’s “specific heat” is less than that of air there isn’t enough of it to make a measurable difference.
Specific heat of air with CO2 = 1.0100
Specific heat of air without CO2 = 1.0101
Chic says: “…that would be equivalent to 278K.”
Yes, but that is at TOA. It would be compared to current 255 K. That means IR transparent atmosphere provides 23 K (23 C) increase in the planet’s “effective temperature”. The “lapse rate” would only have to be half of the current 33C to then provide a surface temp of 295 K (278 + 17). Current surface is thought to be 288 K.
“The ‘lapse rate’ would only have to be half of the current 33C…”
Not sure what you’re getting at there, geran. A planet’s lapse rate is determined by its surface gravity and its atmosphere’s specific heat. Since water vapor and CO2 are such minor constituents, your atmosphere would still have the present lapse rate.
Carl Allen,
“…under those circumstances heat loss via IR radiation is reduced to a bit player.”
Newton’s Law of Cooling applies to solid-gas interfaces where the energy transfer is not purely radiative, i.e. in a vacuum. However, it is mathematically indistinguishable from a system where radiation and other heat transfer phenomena coexist as is the case with an atmosphere. I would be interested in your data and your elaborating on it. It would seem to me that humidity, clouds, wind, and what else might be affecting the temperature differential which, by Newton’s Law of Cooling, determines the cooling rate.
I haven’t and don’t expect CO2 to have any effect other than possibly increasing the cooling rate somewhat due to an enhancement of convection.
Do you disagree that the ground cools faster when the air above is cool and dry vs. warm and humid?
geran,
Do you see why I wondered how your thought experiment would reduce confusion? There is no way to prove one way or another what would happen because we can’t make the atmosphere transparent to IR.
Nevertheless, let’s wade through this. In your original thought experiment, you proposed to make the atmosphere transparent to IR. Alan Siddons already elaborated on how problematic that is, because you have to eliminate water and ice. So that’s how we get to a black body surrounded by an inert atmosphere. It will both absorb and radiate at the surface a maximum of 341 W/m2 on average. If you want to attenuate it in any way making it a grey body, it will be less than 341 W/m2. There is no TOA radiation, because you made it transparent to IR. The lapse rate doesn’t have to be anything other than closer to the theoretical value of g/Cp because there’s no water, no evaporation. The average temperature will be less than 278K depending on day/night temperature extremes.
Wow, you gents are making this WAY too complicated. You’re trying to read more into the initial conditions than were implied.
“Alan Siddons already elaborated on how problematic that is, because you have to eliminate water and ice.” >>>No, the “thought experiment does NOT eliminate water and ice. All properties of the atmosphere remain as is, EXCEPT nothing in the atmosphere absorbs IR.
“So that’s how we get to a black body surrounded by an inert atmosphere.” >>>Nope, see above.
“It will both absorb and radiate at the surface a maximum of 341 W/m2 on average.” >>>The surface (disk) will absorb approx. 1366 * 0.7 = 956 W/m^2, plus some amount because additional IR arrives from the Sun (albedo is no longer exactly 0.3). Surface temp will be 288 K, plus a few degrees. TOA will be 255 K.
“There is no TOA radiation, because you made it transparent to IR.” >>>No, the atmosphere still exists, and gases still emit IR. The gases just do not absorb IR.
“The lapse rate doesn’t have to be anything other than closer to the theoretical value of g/Cp because there’s no water, no evaporation.” >>>No, atmosphere still contains same amount of water.
It’s not hard to understand if you understand it! 🙂
“The gases just do not absorb IR.”
“No, atmosphere still contains same amount of water.”
Contradiction.
“Do you disagree that the ground cools faster when the air above is cool and dry vs. warm and humid?”
Your question does not contain enough information to be answered. There is also cool and humid as well as warm and dry.
Newton’s Law of Cooling only is concerned with the temperature differential between an object and its surroundings. “Cool” and “warm” are relative terms, so we would need to know “cool” or “warm” relative to what? An even warmer ground? An even cooler ground?
Also the dry vs. humid—the humidity—parameter in your question is a non sequitur within the context of Newton’s Law of Cooling.
When I have more time I will elaborate on the data that supports this.
Carl
Alan, you probably just misunderstood the original conditions:
“Suppose we could instantaneously make the atmosphere completely transparent to all infrared. That is, the atmosphere had ZERO ability to stop infrared.”
If you don’t like this “thought experiment”, just say so. I’ve got more! 🙂
Geran, if you have an “atmosphere completely transparent to all infrared” then why object to Chic Bowdrie’s observation that it is inert? It looks to me he’s trying to simplify your scenario. He’s trying to help.
Alan, here’s another one:
The IPCC AWG/GHE/CO2/back-radiation nonsense is based on the Arrhenius equation
∆F = 5.35 ln(C/Co)
So, for current CO2 at 400 ppm, the calculated forcing becomes:
∆F = 5.35 ln(400/280) = 5.35 (.357) = 1.9 Watts/square meter
But, Earth has a surface area of 510 trillion square meters!
So, the bogus Arrhenius equation tries to tell us Earth has an extra 969 trillion Watts to deal with!!!
The First Law of Thermodynamics tells us that energy cannot be created out of thin air. But, the Arrhenius equation “creates” 969 trillion Watts, OUT OF THIN AIR! (Carbon dioxide is only 0.04% of the atmosphere.)
Of course, a “Watt” is actually a unit of power. But, power supplied over time is energy. So, 969 trillion Watts supplied to Earth for one year totals 8,488 trillion Kilowatt-hours (KWH). The entire world only produces about 21 trillion KWH of electricity annually. So, Arrhenius’ equation is trying to tell us we can create over 400 times the electrical energy mankind needs just from “thin air”!
Interesting, huh?
“The Earth-Sun system is energetically closed as there is no significant energy introduced from outside this system, but its internal state can be modified from the outside. There is a need here to be very strict about the terms used: energetically, it is closed.”
In any meaningful thermodynamic discussion it is, indeed, necessary at the outset to clearly define the parameters of the “system” under study. One of those parameters is whether or not the system is “closed”.
The typical explanation of the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis pulls a slight of hand in this regard in that it starts out describing the thermodynamics of one “system” with an emphasis on the first law of TD, but then switches twice midstream to a different “systems” all-together and asserts that the thermodynamics of the second and third systems mirror the thermodynamics of the first system. If you are already confused you are not alone. The “greenhouse effect” hypothesis is itself confused. Let’s explore.
A) First system—entire the Earth/atmosphere ensemble whose “boundary” is space whose two thermal energy sources are 1) incoming sunlight and 2) internal nuclear decay. This is, indeed, a “closed” system in that for all practical purposes there is no movement of matter into or out of the system that would carry thermal energy with it into or out of the system. (For the sake of this discussion we will neglect the energy added to the system by meteor impacts and lost from the system as the outer atmosphere continually loses molecules that are blown out into space by the solar wind.)
In this system the thermal energy that crosses the “boundary” between the system and its surroundings is 100% electromagnetic. Input = sunlight absorbed (insolation minus albedo); Output: long-waver IR radiation out into space. According to the first law of thermodynamics for this entire Earth/atmosphere ensemble system to be in thermal equilibrium the total energy contained within the sunlight absorbed must equal the total energy contained within the outgoing long-wave radiation.
The “greenhouse effect” hypothesis asserts that an increase in the concentration of “greenhouse gases” inhibits the ability of the entire Earth/atmosphere ensemble “system” to emit long-wave IR radiation out into space. In the language of radiation thermodynamics the entire Earth/atmosphere ensemble “system” becomes less “emissive”. This, in turn, forces the entire Earth/atmosphere ensemble system to retain enough thermal energy to raise its collective temperature high enough to again began emitting the requisite amount of long-wave IR radiation out into space to equal the absorbed incoming sunlight. (I am not saying that I agree with this construct, rather I am simply attempting to state the claim of the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis.)
Note: This over-arching, big picture definition of the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis is not concerned with the distribution of thermal energy within the entire Earth/atmosphere ensemble system, only that the total amount of outgoing long-wave radiation equally the total amount of absorbed sunlight per the First Law of Thermodynamics. Now comes the slight of hand.
B) Second system: The “greenhouse effect” hypothesis now switches mid-stream to a completely different thermodynamic system—a one-meter thick layer of air about 1.5 meters off of the ground, which is where weather stations are sited, whose temperatures are averaged along with sea surface temperatures to create the “global mean temperature”. The “global mean temperature” ignores the temperature of the entire solid Earth, 99.98% of the oceans (the amount of ocean not contained within layer of water whose temperature is being called the sea surface temperature.) and 99.9998% of the atmosphere (the amount of atmosphere not contained within the one meter thick layer of air whose temperature is being monitored.)
Stated another way, the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis assumes that the entire Earth/atmosphere ensemble system is retaining excess thermal energy based on the temperature of hottest 0.02% of the ocean combined with the hottest 0.0002% of the atmosphere. Were they to base their calculations on the average temperature of the entire troposphere, which contains 85% of the atmosphere’s mass, no retention of thermal energy would be suspected since the average temperature of the entire troposphere is well below zero °C.
What are the characteristics of the land based portion of this second system? Its “boundary” is an imaginary dividing line between the one-meter thick layer of air about 1.5 meters off of the ground and both the air above and below that layer. 1) Convection: This second system is completely “open” in that air is continually moving into and out of the system carrying thermal energy into and thermal energy out of the system. 2) Conduction: Because of the high R-factor of air very little thermal energy is moving into and out of the system via conduction (quite frankly the air within that limited layer does not stay in it long enough for conduction to occur.) 3) Radiation: Only a small amount of thermal energy enters this second system via IR radiation since most of the “net radiation heat loss” from the ground up-ward via up-going long-waver radiation passes straight through this system because of its “transmissivity”. 4) Latent heat: There isn’t any liquid water in this system (unless its foggy) so no thermal energy is lost due to evaporation, but this system might gain thermal energy at night when some of the water vapor present condenses into dew.
Let me elaborate on #3, the Radiation portion of this second system’s thermodynamics. In a study that I did using surface radiation readings at a SURFRAD site in Desert Rock Nevada in the summer 2012, on cloudless days the up-going “net radiation heat loss rate” from the ground was 119 W/m2.
Up-going long-wave radiation minus down-going long-wave radiation.
418 W/m2 – 299 W/m2 = 119 W/m2
Since the calculated “transmissivity” of the air in this very arid climate was 0.26, 109 W/m2 passed straight through the system in question—the one-meter thick layer of air about 1.5 meters off the ground—without thermally interacting with the system.
Total up-going IR radiation x transmissivity
418 W/m2 x 0.26 = 109 W/m2
Stated another way, the amount of “heat” that was being transferred from the ground into this second system on the hottest, cloud free days within this desert climate was only 10 W/m2, (109 W/m2 was passing straight through the system without thermally interacting with the system) while at the same time this same ground level air was emitting 299 W/m2. Since the air above this system also had a transmissivity of at least 0.26 we can calculate that the up-going radiation heat loss rate from this system was 77.4 W/m2.
Total up-going IR radiation from ground level air x transmissivity
299 W/m2 x 0.26 = 77.4 W/m2
As you can see, from these simply calculations drawn from standard radiation thermodynamic using surface radiation readings being gathered by NOAA, this second system (whose temperatures are being averaged to create the “global mean temperature”) loses over 7 times as much “heat” via IR radiation upwards as it gains via IR radiation from the ground! That is, 10 W/m2 of “heat” is transferred via IR radiation into this system through the lower boundary of the system, while 77.4 W/m2 of “heat” is simultaneously being lost via IR radiation through the upper boundary of the system. Contrary to this physical reality the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis asserts that IR radiation is somehow being “trapped” within the system under study and forcing its temperature to increase.
If you agree that this study of the second “system’s” thermodynamics does not support the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis you are correct, which is why the believers in the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis had to create a third imaginary system.
3) Third system: The entire atmosphere is replaced by a single thin pane of magic material that is 100% transparent to sunlight while simultaneously being 100% opaque to up-going longwave radiation. Beyond that, this pane of magic material, unlike the atmosphere, is separated from the ground by a layer of vacuum thus making the thermodynamic relationship between the ground and the atmosphere 100% radiative. Gone are convection, i.e., the movement of thermal energy into and out of the system via mass transfer, conduction and latent heat transfer.
The majority of the mathematical formulas being taught at institutions of “higher learning” that presume to explain and quantify the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis apply to this third imaginary—read nonexistent—system and thus have no connection to the real world, which is what science is suppose to study.
Carl
Carl,
where did your transmissivity factor = 0.26 come from? was 418 W/m2 – 119 W/m2 measured during the day or is this an average over a day, week, or month long period? The long term average difference between upward and downward LW should be somewhere around 40 W/m2. If not, how do you explain how your measurements are different from published energy budget figures?
The evacuation of heat from the surface of the planet to the higher layers is not that much by LW
radiation but rather by convection of sensitive and latent heat.
The surface is not emitting the Prevost LW flux of sigma*Tsurface^4 (would be 390W/m^2) but only 79 LW radiation of which 60W/m^2 through the window straight to outerspace and only 19 W/m^2 to be absorbed by the atmosphere.
We should forget the two-way formulation of Schwarzschild, suggested to Hanssen by the late Carl Sagan, because the two-way formulation is en vogue in astronomy.
Sceptics should not repeat again and again the two-way formulation illustrations!
Back radiation of heat does not exists, and the lukewarmers should forget their youth sins.
Claes Johnson has proposed the one-way formulation.
The following link gives more details:
Click to access Sensitivity_overview.pdf
“The “greenhouse effect” hypothesis invokes instead the Stefan-Boltzmann Law which only determines the rate of cooling when the warm object is separated from its surroundings by a vacuum.”
Really – the Stefan-Boltzmann equation only applies to an object surrounded by a vacuum ????
I think this claim is absolute rubbish.
Firstly I cannot any reference that the “cavity” radiation experiments which lead to the radiation equations and constants were conducted in a vacuum – so I assume they weren’t. It is possible to purchase equipment to replicate the calculations of the original experiments and these are not conducted in a vacuum.
Besides IR thermometers seem to function adequately in our atmosphere.
(IR thermometers cause me to remember that absurdity proposed by Roy Spencer that they prove the transfer of “heat” from cold to hot. He seems to have missed the simple explanation that IR thermometers require electrical input to function and they also involve massive focusing of the incident radiation to cause the detector to function. Hence the detector is NOT detecting the incident flux but a magnified version which is further amplified and subsequently compensated for in the electronics of the instrument. Net energy transfer – Bullshit. And no “net” energy transfer no temperature increase.
The incident unmagnified IR flux would most likely cause no effect on the sensor. Hell, even the powerful solar radiation is concentrated in thermal power stations.
Seriously how clueless are people who offer explanations like this BS as a defense of the back radiative greenhouse effect ?)
Secondly just how did these excellent physicists determine something like the “net” form of the equation from first principles without knowing the value of sigma ?? Such an assertion is nonsensical !
People completely mess up the F(net) = sigma x e(T1^4 – T2^4). Again how is it possible to measure something like this equation.
The vacuum thing is total bullshit – a vacuum is not a place where there is no radiation flux – it may come close in far flung remote corners of the Universe but on Earth such an assertion is absurd !!! !
A vacuum is subject to the fluxes in the locality – in a laboratory it would be the flux due to the ambient air and other objects in the room temperatures.
Just how did they account for the emissivity of the chamber surrounding the vacuum surrounding the cavity oven ??
The ONLY relationship capable of being measured is the simple Stefan-Boltzmann equation F = sigma x e T^4 as Joe correctly states – and I’m not even sure about the appropriateness of the “e”. To measure anything else without knowing the values is impossible – surely anyone can see that?
If one uses a flux of 478 and glass (e = .094) and aluminium (I’m Australian) foil (e = 0.04) how does one calculate the temperature induced by this flux ?
Simply invert the equation using normal mathematical relationships ? This leads to some extraordinary results.
If e = 1 then it is ~303 K, ~307 K for glass and ~677 K for aluminium foil ??
Such reasoning leads me to be suspicious of all of the algebraic manipulations performed by climate “scientists” on the Stefan-Boltzmann equation – all of them !
“was 418 W/m2 – 119 W/m2 measured during the day or is this an average over a day, week, or month long period?”
Using data that is being collected at two SURFRAD sites maintained by NOAA, I was studying the affect of water vapor on the radiation thermodynamics of the surface/atmosphere interface during cloud free days and nights between early June and early July in 2012. I excluded cloudy days and nights because clouds are not “greenhouse gases”. I was seeking specifically to answer the question whether or not an increase in the concentration of “greenhouse gases”, in this case water vapor, forced ground level air temperatures to rise. To do so I compared readings taken at the Nevada site with readings taken at the same time at the Mississippi site.
The SURFRAD sites record every second, among other things, the net insolation absorbed, up-going IR radiation from the ground, down-going IR radiation from the atmosphere, temperature of the air ~1.5 meters above the ground and ground level air humidity. I discerned which days were cloud free by the smoothness of the insolation curve. The 24 hour average of all the cloud free days and nights during this period yielded 1) the 418 W/m2 up-going IR radiation number, 2) the 299 W/m2 down-going IR radiation numbers and 3) the subsequent 119 W/m2 number—being the average net up-going radiation heat loss rate from the ground during these same cloud free days and nights at this particular location.
“The long term average difference between upward and downward LW should be somewhere around 40 W/m2. If not, how do you explain how your measurements are different from published energy budget figures?”
The 40 W/m2 “atmospheric window” to which you refer is a global, yearly average. My numbers came from one location only during the hottest period of the year in an extremely arid climate on cloud free days. That Nevada’s summertime, cloud free “atmospheric window” exceeds the global, yearly average should not be surprising.
In fact, I chose that location for that very reason since I wanted to see what affect high humidity had on surface level air temperatures when the “atmospheric window” was significantly less as it was in Mississippi during the same period. I chose a SURFRAD site in Mississippi to do the comparison because it lies roughly along the same latitude and therefore receives roughly the same amount of sunlight as the Nevada site year around.
In a nutshell the higher humidity in Mississippi was associated with cooler not warmer surface level air temperatures, which is out of sync with the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis.
“where did your transmissivity factor = 0.26 come from?”
I derived the emissivity of the air by plugging into the Stefan-Boltzmann formula both the average Nevada air temperature and the average Nevada down-welling IR radiation number. That calculation yielded an atmospheric emissivity of 0.74 in Nevada. (The same calculation using readings taken in Mississippi yielded a higher atmospheric emissivity of ~0.86 presumably because of Mississippi’s higher humidity.)
Based on Kirchhoff’s Law of thermal radiation I assume that the atmosphere’s absorptivity is equal to its emissivity. Arbitrarily setting the up-going atmospheric reflectivity at zero left the transmissivity of the air 0.26. In other words, after calculating the emissivity of the atmosphere using the Stefan-Boltzmann formula I subtracted the air’s emissivity from 1.0.
1.0 – 0.74 = 0.26
There may be a better approach to calculating/measuring the transmissivity of air using real world temperature and emission readings. If so I am open to learning.
Carl
Carl,
Thanks for providing some real data. It illustrates how complex this climate science is.
Was 119 W/m2 the average of the up/down difference from one or both sites? it’s not clear how much the measurements differed between sites. I’m also curious where (at what distance from the ground) the up and down LW measurements are made.
At first glance you appear to have evidence that contradicts the hypothesis that humid temperatures should be warmer than dryer temperatures. I’m assuming you verified the premise that the window in Mississippi was less than that in Nevada.
Playing devil’s advocate, does choosing locations at the same latitude guarantee a proper control? Perhaps cooler air from the gulf or differing altitudes confounded the results?
Also, do you disagree that the ground at night cools faster when the air above is cool vs. warm when the humidity is the same in both cases?
Just to jump in for a moment, Rosco, yeah, I pointed out years ago that if radiative confinement spawns a greenhouse effect, then a laboratory black-body — which amounts to an irradiated sphere turned inside-out — should display a greenhouse effect since its internal radiation has but a tiny hole to escape through.
In addition, if a simple glass enclosure generates a radiative greenhouse effect, as the University of Colorado, Boulder, believes,
https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/greenhouse
then how can we trust a glass thermometer? The temperature it reports must be hotter than the real temperature, just as 239 W/m² can become 390 W/m² when it’s trapped.
Hi Rosco,
Can we not have a rational, scientific discussion without the injection of profanity, invectives and ad hominem insults?
Your post contains the following words and phrases:
1) Bullshit
2) Hell
3) how clueless are people
4) nonsensical
5) People completely mess up
6) total bullshit
7) assertion is absurd
Words and phrases such as these, beyond not being scientific arguments, detract from your line of reasoning, because instead of attempting to understand what you are trying to say my mind is reeling from the fact that you just called me a clueless person who utters absurd, nonsensical bullshit.
Let me clarify what I was attempting to say in the post to which you responded. When a warm mass is in physical contact with its cooler surroundings the rate at which “heat” flows from the mass to its surroundings cannot be determined by the Stephan-Boltzman formula, because Stephan-Boltzman formula can only calculate the radiation component of the heat transfer. In the case of the warmer ground (the mass) being in physical contact with the cooler atmosphere (its surroundings) other modes of “heat” transfer come into play such as convection enhanced conduction and evaporative cooling (which will vary depending upon how moist the ground is.)
I have observed in data that I have collected and studied that an increase in near the ground humidity does, indeed, reduce the “net radiation heat loss rate” from the ground. If all that you are using is the Stephan-Boltzmann formula to calculate “heat” loss from the ground you would conclude that an increase in humidity would therefore slow the rate at which the ground cools, but such is not the case. Under clear skies the ground cools just as fast at night when its humid as it does when its arid even though when its humid the “net radiation heat loss rate” is reduced.
The key here is the phase “under clear skies”. In general one will observe that the ground cools slower at night in humid climates, but that reduction in cooling is not due to the humidity in the air; rather it is due to the presence of clouds, which are more prevalent in humid climates.
I observed this to be the case through a focused study on the temperature relationship between the ground and the air above the ground over the course of a couple years. Here are my observations:
1) 24/7 the air was nearly always cooler than the ground
2) at night the air cooled faster than the ground. That is, the temperature differential between the warmer ground and the cooler air grew wider as dawn approached
3) the rate at which the ground cooled was directly proportional to the temperature differential between the warmer ground and the cooler air above the ground.
4) the level of humidity had no effect on this temperature differential
5) what affected this differential was the presence or absence of clouds, i.e., the presence of clouds significantly reduced the temperature differential between the warmer ground and the cooler air above the ground.
Here is a simple, rather loose scientific experiment that you can run. When you go outside just before dawn and notice that it is unseasonably cool look up and you will see the stars, because there will be few clouds. When you go outside just before dawn and notice that it is unseasonably warm look up and you will not see the stars, because there will heavy cloud cover.
The question then arises. What is it about clouds that cause a reduction in the temperature differential that exists at night between the warmer ground and the cooler air just above the ground, which, in turn, inhibits the ability of the ground to cool rapidly when its cloudy (and not raining)?
If you are a believer in the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis you will jump to the conclusion that clouds exert a strong radiative “greenhouse effect” and not look any further. In doing so you will not uncover the real reason.
Carl
“…then how can we trust a glass thermometer?”
Yes, a very good question.
There are numerous examples that falsify the “back-radiation” nonsense. The one I use is that of a long hallway. Both opposing walls are radiating at each other. And, as we know from the “rules” for back-radiation, one wall is “heating” the other wall, which then “heats” the other wall, which “heats” the other wall, etc. The process continues until the structure ignites and burns down.
The 2LoT be damned, we’re talking “back-radiation” here!
“Dictum sapienti sat est.” — Titus Maccius Plautus
Translation: To the wise, a word is sufficient.
To Radiative GHE Advocates, however, it seems that no amount of words is enough to convince them.
DELENDA EST GREENHOUSE-O!
The simple fact Joe was making was that the equations of radiation state that objects radiate with a power that is primarily determined by their temperature. Cavity radiation observed in a laboratory analyzed to produce the Stefan-Boltzmann equation P – sigma.T^4. Further experiment confirmed real objects emit with less power and a range of emissivities was empirically established.
But this is all about emission – and it is in our atmosphere.
The point to all of this is – how do computer models model temperatures in our atmosphere ? After all computers simply slavishly calculate what they are programmed to do no matter what.
Just because variables can have values that change depending on input from other functions in the code which can make logic decisions from other variables or parameters or other function return values doesn’t change this fact.
So how does one solve the SB equation for the temperature induced in an object heated by radiation ?
This question is crucial as all of the IPCC science appears to be based on the concept of radiative forcing.
No one seems to categorically state how this is achieved.
Let’s say we place some material in a vacuum chamber which is insulated and can provide a constant radiation on a unit area of some material.
At 0 degrees C ice emits ~305 Watts per square metre with “e” = 0966 for smooth ice – Engineering Toolbox.
Would a unit area of gravel (“e” = 0.28) heat up to T^4 = 305/0.28.sigma = ~372 K or about 99 degrees C ?
I don’t think so.
So if that isn’t correct perhaps we need to consider the “e” as the amount of the incident radiation actually absorbed and we calculate T using – “e”.P = sigma.T^4.
So for gravel irradiated by the emission from ice at 0 degrees C we calculate T = (0.28 x 305)/sigma.
Hence T = ~197 K or ~ – 76 degrees C.
And what of the Aluminium foil – T = ~121 K or ~ – 152 degrees C.
None of this makes any sense yet it is the basis for all of the explanations of the greenhouse effect I see all the time – doubt this and people like Spencer, Watts, Willis ,Brown, Lindzen etc etc claim you are idiotic ?
They all use emissivity values in the formulation of their simple one layer model. Hasn’t anyone ever bothered to check if the algebra actually makes any sense at all ?
Why obfuscate a simple argument with other distractions ?
They use radiation and the Stefan-Boltzmann equation but is it actually right to do so – the only sensible answers of how to calculate heating by radiation seems to be to ignore emissivity and assume a unit response.
They claim to have it just right – just like Goldilocks – https://www.e-education.psu.edu/meteo469/node/198
Perhaps Tinothy Casey is right when he says – http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net –
“Thus a body’s temperature response to incident radiation is entirely independent of emissivity, such that
Wi = σT4”; and,
“As you can see, the temperature of a body in constant incident radiation cannot be raised by compositional changes, and solely depends on the intensity of the radiation. This confirms the duplication of energy and to some degree, the perpetuum mobile inherent in the “Greenhouse Effect.””
Just how do the models calculate temperature induced by radiation ?
“a body’s temperature response to incident radiation is entirely independent of emissivity”?
Gosh no, that’s not right. Funny, but the average solar hot water system technician probably knows more about this subject than many a renowned climatologist. He knows that incident radiation × the absorptivity/emissivity ratio will get you in the ballpark of the correct temperature (given the SB constant). That’s why a chrome wrench can get so hot in the sun. Sure, it’s shiny, so its absorptivity is low. But its emissivity is even lower, meaning that its a/e ratio is high. In the vacuum of space, with no convective currents to interfere, that wrench’ll get hotter than a blackbody ever could. Check out the ESA site I mention in Three Impossible Outcomes.
I quoted from Timothy Casey’s derivation of the SB relationship for incident radiation. The original SB law deals with emission at a temperature. All I see is that a simple algebraic calculation of how hot gravel or aluminium foil can become when irradiated by radiation which would not melt ice seems unrealistic.
OK – I’ve seen the tables you quoted and noted the values and the relationships – hadn’t seen that before.
I’ll concede the point being made about the ratio alpha/epsilon – there is no reason why this analysis would be false.
But why doesn’t Aluminium foil simply melt in my fan forced convection and radiation oven ? At over 200 degrees C in the oven both the elements and the fan forced air are damn hot and the radiant emission is of the order of ~2800 W/sqm – there is no convective cooling of the foil in the oven.
After some more cursory reading of the ESA site – Satellite TC document – I tend to think the most important statement I have found mentioned thus far is “but alpha (H) does not equal epsilon(H) because the spectra are different”.
Failure to consider the spectra when adding differing radiation fluxes simply has to be wrong – surely ?.
In the Washington University lecture notes diagram at the top of the page they make the claim that because each radiation has a value of 239 W/sqm they have equal heating power – there is no denying this as they explicitly calculate the temperature as the 4th root of 2 times each radiation value.
I may concede many points in a discussion but I will not concede that the atmospheric back radiation has equal heating power to the solar radiation – or even a tiny fraction of it.
I once saw a comment years ago that the solar radiation carries a signature of the original emission and could be “re-constructed” back to its original emission power if we only had enough focusing power. At the time I thought this seemed far fetched but I no longer do so.
Surely this is a major failing of the greenhouse effect hypothesis – failing to consider the spectra of the emitted radiation.
Plotting a few Planck curves highlights this – when scaled down to 239 W/sqm the solar radiation remains far more powerful than ambient radiant emissions.
Yet I have had many intelligent people insist that radiation from Ozone high in the atmosphere must transfer energy – which they equate to a heating effect – to the ground because it can be sensed by equipment.
“Was 119 W/m2 the average of the up/down difference from one or both sites? it’s not clear how much the measurements differed between sites.”
The average “net radiation heat loss rate” upward from the ground at the Mississippi site was 53 W/m^2 and the transmissivity of the air was only 0.12. It is my assumption that the significant decrease in the “net radiation heat loss rate” at the Mississippi site was due to the high absolute humidity present there of 9.5 g/kg (Nevada’s absolute humidity during the same period was 3.8 g/kg)
Keep in mind that 9.5 g/kg is 9,500 ppm and that the increase in water vapor concentration in Mississippi compared to Nevada is a 5,700 ppm increase. Carbon dioxide, which is a much weaker “greenhouse gas”, at 400 ppm would have to double almost 4 times to equal just the increase in “radiative forcing” that Mississippi is experiencing compared to Nevada let alone the total water vapor induced “radiative forcing” that would be present if the “greenhouse effect” were real.
The “catastrophic anthropogenic global warming” meme asserts that the “greenhouse effect” is so strong that when carbon dioxide reaches ~600 ppm (a doubling from pre-industrial levels) there will be a climate apocalypse. Why then isn’t Mississippi experiencing catastrophic regional warming right now with water vapor (a stronger “greenhouse gas” than carbon dioxide) at 9,500 ppm. Better yet, why, if the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis is true—is the average temperature in Mississippi with water vapor at 9,500 ppm cooler than the average temperature in Nevada???
“I’m also curious where (at what distance from the ground) the up and down LW measurements are made.” Specific about the instruments used and placement can be found at this web site: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/instruments.html
“Playing devil’s advocate, does choosing locations at the same latitude guarantee a proper control? Perhaps cooler air from the gulf or differing altitudes confounded the results?”
The Mississippi site was lower in altitude and a little further south than the Nevada site, both of which alone should have made Mississippi warmer all things being equal. Also, you are assuming that the landmass south of Goodwin Creek (the location of the SURFRAD site, which is in northern Mississippi) was cooler so that wind blowing from the south would cool down the site, but during that same period of time Jackson, which is about 150 miles due south of Goodwin Creek, was according to publicly available temperature records much warmer than Goodwin Creek.
Keep in mind that this is not an isolated example. In 2012 I uploaded a video to YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2K1uHvfaek), which contains five such comparisons all of which showed the same cooling effect of water vapor on a regional climates. Other scientists have done similar arid vs. humid comparisons along the same latitude with the same results. The average temperature in the more humid climates along the same latitude tends to be cooler than their arid counterparts.
A concomitant study that I did of weather balloon soundings near these SURFRAD sites demonstrated why. Above ~5 km in both Nevada and Mississippi the air temperature was nearly identical all the way to the tropopause (~11km in altitude) with the same lapse rate, which was ~ 8°C/km. In Nevada this lapse rate continued all the way to the ground because of Nevada’s low humidity, but in Mississippi the lapse rate below 5km dropped sharply to ~5.5 °C/km because of its high humidity. This is not an unexpected finding since It is universally acknowledged that water vapor lowers the lapse rate.
The compulsory result was cooler air above Mississippi throughout the entire lower 4-5 km of the troposphere! Let me repeat that. The presence of water vapor in a climate system has a cooling effect on the lower 4-5 km of the troposphere; it does not just cool ground level air.
Here is the kicker. In spite of the above incontrovertible, empirical evidence to the contrary, it is still the “consensus” opinion that water vapor is a “greenhouse gas” that causes warming of the lower atmosphere. Why?
In my view it is because none of the scientists who hold the “consensus” view have bothered to look. They were taught in school that water vapor is a powerful “greenhouse gas” that “traps heat” in the lower atmosphere. That is what “Science” says and if you question “Science” you will be ruled a heretic; you will become an outcast and lose the respect of the “Scientific Community”. Sad but true, it would seem that many members of the “Scientific Community” hold the approval of their peers in higher regard than the naked truth.
I capitalized “Science” and “Scientific Community” because orthodox scientific beliefs have risen to the station of God’s Word and the “Scientific Community” has become indistinguishable from religious communities both in organization and attitude.
“Religious Community”
The Clergy go to seminary, become ordained and are given a parish.
“Scientific Community”
The professors attend university, are granted a PhD and are given a classroom.
“Religious Community”
Certain books are canonized and become unchallengeable scripture
“Scientific Community”
Certain documents such as the IPCC assessment reports are canonized and
become unchallengeable gospel
“Religious Community” and “Scientific Community”
The orthodox beliefs that are taught both at seminary and at university are taken
on faith to be true
“Religious Community” and “Scientific Community”
Those who challenge orthodox beliefs are branded heretics and shunned
Carl
“Failure to consider the spectra when adding differing radiation fluxes simply has to be wrong”
Yes, Rosco, exactly right! Shiny metals are lousy at absorbing/emitting IR but slightly better at absorbing visible light. And keep in mind that they can’t EMIT visible light at the temperatures we’re talking about. So this is why an a/e disparity exists. The upshot is that a shiny metal exposed to solar radiance will get very hot, but exposure to the same intensity in IR will have much less effect. Because shiny metals are lousy at absorbing/emitting IR. All told, when we speak of the theoretical blackbody we’re talking about something whose a/e ratio is 1 to 1. No real body conforms to such a ratio.
Thanks to all for the comments. I enjoy the high level of conversation at this site. Always refreshing compared to the luke-warmer sites.
“The question then arises. What is it about clouds that cause a reduction in the temperature differential that exists at night between the warmer ground and the cooler air just above the ground, which, in turn, inhibits the ability of the ground to cool rapidly when its cloudy (and not raining)?
If you are a believer in the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis you will jump to the conclusion that clouds exert a strong radiative “greenhouse effect” and not look any further. In doing so you will not uncover the real reason.”
So what’s the real reason?
Graham, The “real reason” is simply the latent heat of water being released as the water vapor present in the cloud of water droplets condenses (phase change) releasing this energy. This release of energy reduces the lapse rate and the temperature differential between the air and the ground. This in turn reduces the rate of convection and inhibits conductive heat transfer from the ground to the air. Simple.
Here’s a question that might seem off topic but is scientifically related if perhaps deeper down the rabbit hole. Given that as Alan Siddons states “a shiny metal exposed to solar radiance will get very hot”, how are satellites including the ISS in the near vacuum of their orbits cooled to temperatures that can be tolerated by electrical equipment and humans. I have not found a believable answer to this question on the internet.
“So what’s the real reason?”
I’d hazard a guess, though I have some doubt that Carl Allen would agree. Bearing in mind that clouds represent evaporative cooling for the location where they were born, and that clouds reflect solar energy, thereby reducing insolation, it remains that the temperature of a nighttime cloud is higher than the naked sky the surface would otherwise be facing. In short, it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other. So to speak. Cloud formation is responsible for cooling in one context and for warming in another. Indeed, it is my understanding that when clouds move in at night the local temperature often rises.
Perhaps I should have clarified in the “real reason” that the presence of a visible cloud is evidence that invisible water vapor or humidity is condensing and releasing its latent heat. Under clear skies with humidity, the water is not condensing and therefore is not releasing energy to the system.
durangodan01 says: how are satellites including the ISS in the near vacuum of their orbits cooled to temperatures that can be tolerated?
Excellent question. Short answer: It’s a bitch. Even though the ISS is highly reflective, cabin temperatures require huge black external radiators tied to heat exchangers that pump heated fluid to them for radiative release to space. Pretty much the same way that a car radiator works to keep the engine cool. Moreover, if those radiators are not kept in shadow, we’ve got a problem, Houston.
Alan, Unlike a car radiator that transfers heat by conduction to the cooling air transiting the radiator the ISS can only transfer heat by radiating it away to space. Here’s NASA’s description of their cooling system: http://www.nasa.gov/content/cooling-system-keeps-space-station-safe-productive . It seems to me that in order to believe that this system can work you must first believe that space is cold. It’s not! It has no temperature and does not conduct heat. Strictly radiative cooling doesn’t seem sufficiently effective to maintain survivable temperatures. Perhaps I’ve observed too many bubbles released during astronot zero gravity space walks.
That’s what Alan meant…it is by radiation.
Thanks, Joe.
“Strictly radiative cooling doesn’t seem sufficiently effective.”
True, it isn’t very effective, which is why the cooling fins have to be huge.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap010228.html
PS: That photo link I added doesn’t show the cooling fins in the best way. They’re visible but not very prominent to the eye. Look for rippled panels. I was wrong to call them black, though. My error. Apparently they’re white, to prevent them from getting overheated themselves, but must have a high emissivity. This link
Click to access 473486main_iss_atcs_overview.pdf
shows the scale of the fins on page 14.
Thanks for the replies.
Rosco says: “I may concede many points in a discussion but I will not concede that the atmospheric back radiation has equal heating power to the solar radiation – or even a tiny fraction of it.”
No need to ever concede that fact, Rosco.
That is one of the major misconceptions treasured by the AGW/CO2/back-radiation believers. They think that all “Watts” are the same.
If a 10-Watt motor is the minimum size motor required to lift a load 10 stories, then by “back-radiaton” reasoning, a 1-Watt motor should be able to lift the same load 1 story.
The math works on paper, but fails in reality.
By the way, guys, do you know from what field the term “back radiation” originates? Reservoir management, as best as my research could find. The term refers to a body of water that is radiating as it’s being irradiated — always something to keep in mind when estimating the temperature that a reservoir will reach. Somehow it crept into the climatology field and now it refuses to leave.
Interesting. Well, sophistically co-opting language is the strategy with them.
Indeed, Joe! And the irony is that back radiation in its original context is a cooling mechanism, along with the effects of convection and evaporation on a body of water. It’s an innocent term turned to nefarious ends.
Oh well that makes even more sense then from them…perfect inversion of logic is how they operate.
Alan, The NASA pdf linked above only addresses the problem of waste heat from on board electrical equipment. That problem seems miniscule compared to the problem of solar insolation. This paragraph from page 17 of that document puzzles me: “Rotation angles are determined via the Radiator Goal Angle Calculation (RGAC) algorithm which commands the Radiator Beam to put the radiators either “edge to the sun” during isolation phase of the orbit or “face to the Earth” during the eclipse phase.” During the eclipse phase of the orbit why would it make any difference where the radiators are pointed. Also, what would the maximum skin temperature of the ISS be when subject to direct unfiltered sunlight. Of course cooling the alleged Apollo moon shots must have been extremely difficult not to mention walking about on the moon in direct sunlight. I’m baffled.
White overcoat can have high albedo and high emissivity. So it reflects solar insolation.
Given that NASA knows that in space overheating is the main problem why do the vast majority of alarmists and “luke warmers” keep insisting near Earth space is cold – some even claiming ~2.7 K temperatures as realistic ?
This fallacy is reported on the media and on websites run by people with PhD’s ?
Surely even evangelic greenhouse effect advocates can understand that the huge sphere based on Mars’ orbit as radius is permanently irradiated with powerful radiation diminished only by the inverse square law to a value of ~586 Watts per square metre at Mars ?
Surely even evangelic greenhouse effect advocates can understand that the only way to avoid this is to hide from it or reflect it away as much as possible ?
Surely even evangelic greenhouse effect advocates can understand that the only area of the night sky we see on Earth where the solar radiation is excluded consists of a cone shadow cast by Earth with a base diameter of ~12,742 km and a height of ~1,382,049 km – tiny ? Simple similar triangle geometry shows this.
Sure the directional solar radiation is passing by anything in the shadow but there is the Earth’s own radiation to consider plus the possibility of the solar radiation being diffracted around Earth and its atmosphere resulting in no near Earth space having a radiation level anywhere near the CMB.
And yet people keep insisting this claim – space is cold – is not complete nonsense.
Roscoe, The problem with believing that space is neither cold nor hot sets up the cognitive dissonance regarding belief in the moon landings. If you believe in the moon landings, you must believe that space is cold. This article explains this quite succinctly: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread827279/pg1 Cooling in space is not just a difficult problem, it is an insurmountable problem unless you have sufficient propulsion capacity to include in your cargo enough sacrificial phase change medium to get rid of the excess heat. An energy source of sufficient energy density is yet to be engineered into such a propulsion system. If you’ve never been there, you can never go back. 44 years and counting.
Gotta part company on that score, durangodan01. Rosco’s comments were spot on. I’d refer doubters to
http://www.clavius.org/
Dr. Postma,
While I agree with a lot of what is being said on your blog, life on earth is the driver of the climate. The greenhouse gas effect is not the driver of the climate for this effect is a fiction. However carbon dioxide, or carbon cycle, is the driver of the climate through thermodynamics. Please see
Swedan, N. (2015). Anthropogenic and Natural Forcings as Functions of Emission Time, Development in Earth Science (DES) Volume 3, 1-9.
Carbon dioxide emissions induces a thermodynamic transformation whose outcome is energy transfer from the upper atmosphere to the surface. The external energy to accomplish this is a available. It is the force of gravity of the atmosphere. That is why geopotential heights of the upper atmosphere are decreasing.
Please see
Thompson D. W. J. and Solomon S. (2005). Recent Stratospheric Climate Trends as Evidenced in Radiosonde Data: Global Structure and Tropospheric Linkage, Journal of Climate, 18, 4785-4795.
Thompson D. W. J. and Solomon S. (2002). Interpretation of Recent Southern Hemisphere Climate Chang, Science, 296, 895-899.
Dan, not only did the Moon-landings not occur, there is not even a moon up there. And, there is no “there”, up there.
The only reality is delusion, and we are immersed in it….
(Speaking of delusion, did anyone notice that Dr. Spencer has shut down comments due to the infamous Doug Cotton?)
I owe Carl an apology though I wasn’t calling him what he assumed. I also hadn’t read his comments thoroughly.
But, I don’t understand why people think that when something is irradiated by a certain “Q” it MUST radiate the same amount back out. “But assuming all 1366 W/m2 gets absorbed by the Earth’s surfaces, those surfaces collectively would have to radiate back out 1366 W/m2.”
Nothing radiates with the same incident radiation power until it has reached the temperature which the Stefan-Boltzmann equation requires for the emissivity value of the object concerned.
This is unequivocal and well established by experiment.
Using values from the Engineering Toolbox for various real materials to emit 1366 W/sqm we can see that:-
Sand – e = ~0.75 – requires a temperature of ~423 K or ~150 degrees C to emit 1366 W/sqm.
Salt – e = ~0.34 – requires a temperature of ~516 K or ~243 degrees C to emit 1366 W/sqm.
Water – e = ~0.95 – requires a temperature of ~399 K or ~126 degrees C to emit 1366 W/sqm
A blackbody requires a temperature of ~393 K or ~120 degrees C to emit 1366 W/sqm
The object thus heated radiates at the value its emissivity determines and all real materials require significantly higher temperatures to emit the same value as a blackbody.
Time seems to be ignored in all discussions of Earth’s temperatures. Data from the Diviner graphs indicates that the maximum cooling rate of the lunar surfaces occurs from lunar noon in the following 6 hours.
The regotith cools from ~390 K to ~150 K and the rocky surfaces change in temperature from ~360 K to ~275 K in ~6 lunar hours according to a NASA produced PDF entitled “Diviner PDS Level 3 Data Products” dated 15 March 2015.
The regoltih appears to cool a further 40 K while the rocky surfaces cool a further ~65 K in the following 18 lunar hours.
As 6 lunar hours corresponds to ~177 earth hours the maximum cooling rate is ~240 K/177 hours or ~ 1.36K per hour for regolith and ~85/177 or 0.48 K per hour for the rocky surfaces. During the night when there is no solar insolation the regolith cooling rate is ~40 K/354 hours or 0.113 K per hour and ~65/354 or ~0.184 K per hour for rocky surfaces.
The values for the lunar surfaces at Earth’s ambient temperatures are “contaminated ” by the solar insolation but given the maximum surface temperature on Earth of 343 K occurs some ~4 hours past lunar noon when the solar insolation is ~50% of the maximum and declining rapidly to zero this time frame seems appropriate for estimating the surface cooling rate due to radiation alone.
For the rocky surfaces this corresponds to a temperature change of about 68/59 or ~ 1.15 K per hour.
Thus I estimate a realistic radiation only cooling rate for rocky surfaces is more than ~1.15 K per hour when insolation ceases but most probably less than 1.5 degrees C per hours given that 59 x 1.5 = 88 degrees C which is the total cooling for the rocky surfaces over 6 lunar hours.
The question then remains are there localities on Earth where the overnight cooling of local air temperatures equals a cooling rate of between 1.15 and 1.5 degrees C per hour – remember this is air temperature not the surface temperature.
The answer is YES – there are numerous examples of localities on Earth where the air temperature changes by between ~13.8 and 18 degrees C in a 12 hour night – even higher values are observed.
Alice Springs has an annual air temperature variation of ~15 degrees C.
If changes in air temperature show no significant difference to the lunar surface cooling rate there is no evidence of a greenhouse effect.
Doug is on spam block here and I continue to see him still trying to post and under various guises. He also spams our email and they all auto spam too.
Rosco,
“If changes in air temperature show no significant difference to the lunar surface cooling rate there is no evidence of a greenhouse effect.”
I have read several people do a long comparison of earth cooling to moon cooling and reach the conclusion that the atmosphere of the earth does more overall cooling of the surface than the moon’s radiation only situation. I have also seen people say that the earth’s atmosphere moves heat around (from equator to the poles for example) and that it mitigates temperature extremes.
There is enough confusion over the moon’s example to obfuscate the situation and hide the facts and conclusion you arrive at. That is a shame.
Let’s cut to the chase. This notion of radiation from a cooler object inhibiting the heat loss from a warmer object puts thermodynamics in conflict with itself. If brought into contact, a cooler object will certainly cool a warmer object, yet it is alleged that, kept at a distance, the cooler object will keep it warmer or even heat it up. The implicit fallacy here, as always, is that light can be contained and concentrated, like warmed air molecules inside a non-convecting greenhouse enclosure. If this were so, however, the interior of a reflective thermos with a light source inside it would grow brighter by the second, and thermoses could be made into blinding radiant bombs.
A fact: The cooling rate in a vacuum is less than for any other physical medium. Because ‘nothing’ has any temperature at all. This is why the best filler for double-paned windows is nothing. With ‘vacuum-filled’ windows the reduced transfer of interior heat to the outside is quite dramatic.
Geran, Given the matrix in which we live including the common delusional belief in AGW and the greenhouse effect, I’m not ruling out anything. Even though NASA lies about virtualy everything, one comment from Neil Armstrong which at first seems bizarre but may in fact reveal one of the greatest secrets was his statement that stars are not visible in space. Many moon landing deniers thought this to just be cover for the lack of starts in all photographs and videos from the moon. Misplaced star positions would have revealed the lie. Moon landing supporters say the brightness of the sun washed out all faint light objects. I tend to believe that Mr. Armstrong was in fact revealing that starlight is all in the UV and higher wavelenghs. In space the stars including the sun are therefore invisible to our eyes. The solar spectrum as reported by NASA and others shows about half the EM energy to be in the visible portion of the spectrum. I believe this reported spectrum exists only after atmospheric processing in the form of molecular absorption and emittance at the lower visible frequencies required for our viewing. In other words Neil told the truth about no stars visible in space, even if he never went there. This “truth” may mean that the power of the sun impinging on our atmosphere is substantially different that that reported. If so, the wattage calculations which many of you are using may be incorrect. Hence garbage in garbage out.
@DurangoDan – I’ll leave your last comment up so that people can see what I don’t want discussed here. That inlcudes anyone replying to it to debate it – that topic will be trashed.
Please stay on topic. Don’t take it personally.
Sorry Joe – but I’ve always been interested in the takeoff from the moon.
Earth has an escape velocity of 11.2 km / second and required a massive Saturn V rocket.
The Moon has an escape velocity of 2.3 km / second and required ????
No problem Joe. I was surprised you allowed as much as you did. Thanks for that. Given the portion of NASA’s funding associated with AGW, people should recognise the pattern. NASA is basically a profit center for the MIC. Regardless of how obvious the falsity of the greenhouse effect, the propaganda from the corporate media is just too powerful. Still there is great satisfaction in knowing the truth and much of that stems from your work. I appreciate it.
INTJ here.
The atmosphere is not a heater.
Using fire will not make the sky get hot.
A frigid self refrigerating, light blocking turbulent fluid bath washing a sun warmed rock,
to emit the reduced surface energy from an overall colder, larger total mass, is the definition of cooling: not a magic heater.
When reduced surface energy density
emitted from an overall colder, larger, total mass, is a heater,
The Magic Gas scammers you speak with, will have answers to your challenges.
Entropy is a property of a system, not of a single object. I can say that my piano is equally tempered tuned but not that one string in this instrument has this precious property. Similarly, the Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLT) applies at a system and not a single object. It is a statistical law and therefore does not forbid that a cool photon is absorbed by a warm object. To deny the latter because of the former is a fundamental error and IMHO the most important reason that the discussion about effective back radiation does not come to an end. It is said that back radiation slows down the cooling rate of an absorbing object. If you keep talking about one object and its cooling rate, you will never get a conflict with SLT, applying at the (temperature) evolution of a system in which we have to consider at least two objects or elements. Therefore, back radiation should be treated as a statistical phenomenon as well. I will show in a provisory thought-experiment what this means. Next, I will give in a valid thought-experiment the proof that back radiation cannot be effective. Does anyone know of a valid proof? Please, mention it because I have never seen it.
Let’s do an experiment during the night somewhere on earth using a space mirror. The mirror
reflects emitted IR back onto a target area but not onto the rest, to be called the environment. So we have a system with at least two elements within and outside the target area. The claim of effective back radiation becomes in this case that the cooling rate of (all elements in) the target area should be suppressed but not of the environment. After some time the environment will be cooler than the target area which is linguistically the same as saying that the target area has become warmer than the environment. Next, we will observe a heat flow from the target area into the environment. Around the target area we may put a ring of wind mills. As a consequence of the induced temperature difference, they will produce useful electricity in the end. As yet the experiment is a bit sloppy because the mirror may reflect sunlight from below the horizon, rendering an open system.
The laws of thermodynamics do not depend on the openness of a system because they are universal. If a phenomenon would violate a law of thermodynamics in a closed system, it would do the same in an open system. A closed system is needed in thought-experiments in which we can exclude additional effects.
In a thought-experiment we may consider an iron planet in empty space (once heated by a passing star). Let the temperatures (above zero Kelvin) all over the planet have become homogeneous. SLT implies that without additional energy or work, the temperatures cannot become inhomogeneous in the future. Now we need something better than Maxwell’s demon. Let a mirror be fixed to a satellite on a geostationary point above the planet. Let the satellite slowly spin around its axis. When the planet got its uniform distribution, the mirror pointed into space. The spinning mirror belongs to the closed system because no energy or work is added. After some time the mirror will reflect IR radiation back onto a target trajectory on the planet. This should slow down the cooling rate of that trajectory but not of the environment, inducing inhomogeneous temperatures, which violates SLT. Therefore, back radiation cannot be effective.
I do not consider it a valid objection that during the night a cloud may slow down the cooling of the earth below. This may be the case but cannot be caused by back radiation. The essential point of the proof is the possibility to manipulate radiation in a closed system without additional work. This opens the possibility to project radiation onto one part of the system but not the other. I am not a physicist or engineer and invite the visitors here to show that the spinning mirror in empty space does work, making the system open. This would mean that the mirror stops spinning because of arriving and reflected IR photons. I also invite them to show that on the iron planet an uniform temperature distribution will not remain uniform for all times. Without serious objections, I would conclude that the story of effective back radiation can be transferred to the library of wrong ideas.
So Mindert Eiting, tell me how this statistical interaction works with conductive transfer. When a vibrating molecule intrudes on a molecule that’s vibrating less, does the lesser make the greater vibrate more? Or less? And is it the same for radiative transfer? When a lower energy photon is absorbed by a higher emission body, does this photon heat that body? Or cool it?
You may tell me, Alan, because you know more than I do. Is SLT everything you need for the correct answer? Let by some miracle a lower energy photon heat an higher emission body. Would the physics community decide that SLT is false? I know that our opponents try to create a play room with this kind of stuff. I would give them all the room they want except for the sale of a perpetual mobile. Do you agree with me that in a thermodynamically closed system we can get a frontal collision between SLT and effective back radiation? I want a frontal collision and not something more of a perpetual discussion about vibrating molecules and photons, that may not exist at all.
This will have to serve as an answer, Mindert. In one of science’s first “thought experiments,” Pierre Prévost (1751-1839) conjectured that a hot body absorbed less radiation from a cold body than cold absorbed from the hot, so eventually they both reached the same temperature. Thus was born the theory of radiant exchanges. This view, conceived before the laws of thermodynamics were understood, is more than two centuries old. Yet Prévost’s theory of radiant exchanges survives to this day. Experts talk about the “net flow” of heat — of heat flowing downhill while cold proceeds up. This has been exacerbated by distorting the black-body concept, to wit, that it’s an all-absorbing entity which can even absorb its own radiation, thus raising its temperature by the bootstraps. Radiant exchanges and all-absorbing emitters have been very useful to radiative greenhouse theorists.
“Experts talk about the “net flow” of heat — of heat flowing downhill while cold proceeds up.”
Well that’s just the thing right there…they’re ignoring the definition. As in my previous post about definitions, heat is only the difference. It is not – NOT – both from hot and cold. Heat is a form of energy, just as kinetic and potential energies are forms of energy. However, in real, rational science, physicists know not to conflate kinetic energy with potential energy because while these are both energies and have the same units, they are very very different forms of energy. Heat is the form of energy which flows from hot to cold, causing cold to warm up; this form of energy does not flow from cold to hot, and this energy is what is required to raise temperature. Thus, whatever thermal energy the cold object may have, it can not transfer that energy as heat to a warmer object, and therefore can not raise the temperature of a warmer object via a thermodynamic process. Note now too that I’ve introduced yet another form of energy: thermal energy. Thermal energy is itself yet distinct from heat energy!
In other words they’re just either really, really stupid, terribly bad scientists, or, they conflate terms and definitions on purpose in some trolling operation.
And that’s the moral of my story: The 2nd Law is not “statistical;” it is a physical reality.
And yes, Joe, radiative greenhouse theorists talk more like weasel-mouthed lawyers — distorting the laws at every opportunity — rather than intellectually honest human beings. They even lack the most important trait of a scientist: basic curiosity.
You would think that if they were truly interested in saving the planet, then they would be interested in debunking the theory that threatens the planet, and at least questioning it. Because if the supposed threat were questionable and debunkable that would mean the planet was safe and saved already. Which should be a joy for them to discover.
No, what these people are looking for is an ideology…a faith.
“You would think that if they were truly interested in saving the planet …”
They are not afraid for the planet at all. They know as well as we do that CO2 will not cause us any harm. They are interested in money, power, prestige, grants, awards, and so forth. The truth is not their concern.
In the 80s the new “CO2 will fry us all” meme came to be and did not even pass the laugh test, and yet all the “professional societies” got on-board with the non-physical new speculation. The speculation soon became faith delivered to us on stone tablets that came down from the mountain. CO2 warming the surface is religion.
Can you imagine working for NASA and knowing that the books are cooked to cool the past and warm the present? What kind of scientist can work for such frauds?
Thanks, Alan, for your comment. You may be right that SLT is not a statistical law. In any case we may agree that SLT is a system law. Although Claes Johnson and G&T may have been close, I have not yet seen a short and convincing proof, a frontal collision with this law.
Let’s first make the case for our opponents as convincing as possible. Let the mirror in my example be situated at a distance of half a light year from the planet. Not many IR photons will make the trip but one IR photon may return after a year when the emitter has cooled by many degrees. The still ‘warm’ photon would be gratefully absorbed by the now ‘cool’ emitter, whose cooling rate should slow down. It must, isn’t it?
At this point the opponent may remark that the emitter does not know where the photon comes from. This is sophistry, hiding the fact that the system is governed by thermodynamic laws. In all these examples, including Spencer’s, the system is ignored. I guess you will not succeed in falsifying the opponent’s argument by a direct application of SLT, as the rest of the system is kept invisible, a system existing in space and time.
An example to play with, is a village whose inhabitants, A and B, may exchange money or spend it to a sink outside the village. Of course, no wealth can be created or destroyed but we also have the rule that money can only flow from rich to poor. Let A have 100 dollars and B 98. So A may conduct one dollar to B. In my thought-experiment this is the moment of homogeneous wealth as both A and B now own 99 dollars. Right before this moment both had spend (radiated) 3 dollars to the money sink. So it seems. If we would intercept the 3 dollars from B and give them back to him, this would mean the same as never spend. We have smuggled in the idea of hidden wealth. Of course, A does not know B’s hidden wealth. On the transfer moment the transaction would have been illegal if B still had owned 102 dollars. Therefore, intercepted money must be worthless. Otherwise, we would create an illegal history in our village. We cannot have together the flow-rule and the possibility to return money already spend. In this simple example effective return causes a frontal collision with that rule.
In order to even begin to make inroads against the climate fraudsters we must first correctly identify the nature of the problem. I believe that AGW is just one more variant of the Hegelian Dialectic.
“Hegelian Dialectic”: First a problem is created and designed to elicit fear within the public. Then the people demand that something be done about the problem and willingly accept the pre-planned New World Order (NOW) solution; a solution that always involves government intervention that never would have been permitted let alone welcomed under normal circumstances.
The oligarchs at the top of the food chain understand that a debt based monetary system eventually runs out of suckers at the bottom of the pyramid scheme. For the past 30 years, world GDP has been growing at about 4% per year while global debt has grown at about 8% per year. This disconnect between organic growth and debt based growth means that about 30 years of future consumer demand has been pulled into the present. When does this end? It appears that peak debt occurred last year as sovereign wealth funds have now gone into deflation and central bankers are the only significant buyers of government bonds. The system is running out of credit worthy debt slaves. This portends economic collapse as all pyramid schemes must ultimately fail. If the powers that be (TPTB) can successfully divert blame away from the real cause of this coming e-pocalypse (monetary structure based on a foundation of exponential debt) by demonizing AGW and selling the sheeple on the idea that we must drastically reduce consumption of fossil fuels, they can paint a happy face on this collapse and maintain some semblance of control. I used to think TPTB were just trying to create a new $Trillion commodity via carbon trading, but I think the explanation above is a better fit. I’m not optimistic that the sheep will ever see the truth.
(Joseph, please feel free to delete if this is not appropriate, but it just struck me a super-hilarious!)
The infamous English-major states, emphatically, that “c03 still warms the planet”!!!
At least he’s let CO2 off the hook….
geran,
Thanks for posting that comment by the infamous English-major. It was a hoot, but the replies to it were even better. His ears must still be burning!
Yeah, Mark, I try to be cautious about ridiculing others behind their back. But, if they commented in “public”, then I guess they wanted the “public” to know….
I got many more.
The “real science guy” (not to be confused with the “science guy”), once stated “CO2 produces warming”.
LMAO. He believes that CO2 is a “heat source”.
Then, there is the guy that says that the Earth warms the Sun. (He was/is believing that “back-radiation” from our planet can warm the Sun!)
Humor is good for the soul, they say….
I just came across this site and I think it is well worth sharing: http://nov79.com/gbwm/grn.html . Here is an excerpt: “The Stefan-Boltzmann constant indicates how much radiant heat is given off by a surface at a particular temperature. Simple observations indicate that about 20 times too much radiation is projected by the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. Without such excessive radiation, the claimed greenhouse effect would not exist. Since numerous other lines of logic also show that the greenhouse effect cannot exist, they show the absurdity of the quantities produced by the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.”
As I have tried to point out previously, even ClimateofSophistry seems to have fallen into the trap of debunking the AGHE using Stefan-Boltzman mathematics. This approach starts with the acceptance of the purely fictional accounting of the process of earthly heat transfer. Let’s hear your thoughts.
@durangodan – There is nothing wrong with the S-B Equation. What’s wrong is when the RGHE advocates say that it means that heat energy can flow from cold to hot just because a cold object is radiating as required by the S-B Law – this is sophistry.
[This comment was from Carl, and was accidentally deleted]
“The Stefan-Boltzmann constant indicates how much radiant heat is given off by a surface at a particular temperature.”
This statement from the article that you referenced–“How ‘Greenhouse Gases’ are Mathematically Contrived”–indicates that the author does not understand either the Stefan-Boltzmann formula nor the thermodynamic concept called “heat”. It is generally accepted that all matter emits electromagnetic radiation at some fraction of what a “blackbody” would at a certain temperature. The Stefan-Boltzamann formula simply calculates the intensity of that radiation. Whether or not “heat is given off” because of that radiation depends upon the intensity of radiation being emitted by that matter’s surroundings. This is called the “net radiation heat loss rate.”
“It also means physicists made up the Stefan-Boltzmann constant off the top of their heads with no relationship to objective reality.”
This statement is also from the article and is patently false. Just because the author doesn’t understand the Stefan-Boltzmann Law and/or the founders of the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis have misused/misapplied the Stefan-Boltzmann formula does not mean that it was just made up out of thin air and has no relationship to objective reality.
It is articles like these that give credence to the claim made by believers in the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis that those who don’t believe in the “greenhouse effect” are scientifically illiterate.
Carl
Hi Joe and Carl,
Carl refers to actual measurements of radiation (Surfrad) being made at the earth surface where we live. And he has studied them. There is no evidence that anyone else who has responded to what he wrote has actually gone to NOAA Surfrad to study to what he has drawn your attentions. Before I read Carl’s references to the specific data he had studied, I too had studied this specific data. But I came upon the Desert Rock data of 2012, because of the data which was observed during the same period in 2013. For during the 2013 period a few days of record high temperatures were observed. And record high temperatures still do not frequently occur every year.
So I studied the radiation data in an attempt to see what factor, or factors, might contribute to record high temperatures. For at Salem OR in 2015 several record high temperatures were recorded and it was easy to directly see that the skies during these record breaking days were not cloudless. There clearly were cirrostratus clouds (transparent, whitish cloud veil of fibrous [hair-like] or smooth appearance, totally or partly covering the sky, and generally producing halo phenomena, R. C. Sutcliffe, Weather and Climate, 1966) present.
So when I went to the Surfrad site, I knew what I was looking for. Carl did not refer to the diffuse solar radiation (DSR), because his focus was, as clearly stated, upon the factor of humidity differences and did not consider that cirrostratus clouds could be ‘smooth’ and therefore not produce irregularities in the radiation measurements.
For the five days (6/26/2012-6/30/2012) the DSR, at midday, varied between 63.5 and 75.6 watt/m2. And the air temperature, at midday, varied, excluding that of 6/26, between 33.1 and 34.3 oC. For the same five days in 2013 the DSR, at midday, were consecutively 67.6, 79.5, 194.0, 186.8, and 197.5. And the temperatures at midday were 34.9, 36.7, 39.2, 40.9, and 41.3.
I believe these data establishes the role of these cirrostratus clouds upon the air temperature observed. Carl, I cannot find the ‘ground level air humidity’ reported in the Surfrad data, so maybe you can help me there because it is a factor which should not be ignored. But the Desert Rock site has the advantage, which the other Surfrad sites do not have, in that there is an airport with a few miles where the weathers service does observe relative humidity and calculate dewpoint temperatures (DPT). And the DPTs of 2012 are quite lower than those of 2013. So, it is not possible to eliminate any contribution of this factor.
Joe, one major thing I have to share with you is what Carl has shared with you and to which I do find you responding with any comment.
Chic Bowdrie (2016/03/03 at 2:03 PM) wrote: “Carl, Thanks for providing some real data. It illustrates how complex this climate science is.” Climate science, or any science, must remain complex until everything that can be measured (observed) is considered. Joe, there is a great lack of real (actual) data in your posts. Averaged values are not actual data.
Have a good day, Jerry
Joe/Carl, Sorry I missed this comment earlier. I agree that the author mistates the S-B issue, but he is correct that the energy budget completely overstates the role of radiative heat transfer from the Earth’s surface. Even at temperatures approaching 100 C infrared can’t across the narrow vacuum of the hydro flask. I looked into this issue a bit deeper and it seems there is no mathematical means of determining the proportions of conductive and radiative heat transfer. It should be noted that photons emitted are Earth surface temperatures are about 1 million times less energetic than the solar photons that heated the surface. Consequently the only way you can begin to rationalize a means of those photons backradiating to add more heat to the surface than came from the sun would be to have more than 2 million times as many of these photons generated by the surface as we’re received from the sun. Then half that number could be imagined to return to the surface thus heating it. The radiative GHG is so nonsensical it just wears on a person to even consider it.
Hi Jerry,
You begin by asserting that there exists a correlation between the presence of cirrostratus clouds (clouds 5 km—cause an increase in ground level air temperatures, because you without further investigation believe that the marked increase in the diffuse solar radiation present at Desert Rock Nevada on June 30th 2013 was due to the presence of more cirrostratus clouds that day.
Since you don’t live in this area it is not surprising that you don’t remember that 2013 was a year of massive wildfires throughout the Southwestern USA. I remember it very clearly since the June 30th, 2013 wildfire that took the lives of 19 firefighters near Yarnelle, Arizona was only a 30-minute drive from where I live and the entire are area was submerged in a thick haze of smoke for weeks.
Here is a web site (https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=11330) of satellite photos from the summer of 2013 that shows lots of smoke and a number of low level clouds, but none of cirrostratus clouds that you assumed were present.
Forest fire smoke is not a “greenhouse gas”; it is a massive quantity of very small particulates suspended in the air that not only diffuse sunlight but also absorb it (turn it into heat) both coming and going. It is not therefore surprising nor unexpected that ground level air temperatures go up when the air is thick with smoke from forest fires.
Needless to say, the nearly threefold increase in diffuse solar radiation present on June 30th, 2013 over the prior year’s date had nothing at all to do with thin clouds in the upper troposphere. Beyond that your post offers no explanation of how thin clouds in the upper troposphere can increase diffuse solar radiation by nearly 300% without there being an equal and corresponding decrease in direct solar radiation, especially since collectively cloud cover is responsible for 2/3rds of the Earth albedo. That is, clouds decrease the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface; they do not increase it as your post suggests.
Concerning the humidity readings taken at the SURFRAD sites, the index page (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/index.html) contains a number of links to different data sets. The humidity readings, along with wind speed, wind direction, temperature and pressure, can be found by following the “Meteorology Plots” link. (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/metplot.html)
Carl
Hi Carl,
Thank you! Thank you! We might not totally agree at this point but you seem to be one of few who actually believes that science is based upon observation and not only reasoning and debate. And thank you for the information about the availability of humidity and wind data at the Surfrad sites.
No, I did not realize (recognize) the possible presence of smoke particles in the atmosphere in 2013 at Desert Rock. And I must accept the fact of very large wild fires in eastern Oregon in 2015 when record high temperatures were observed on the west side of the Cascade Mountains in the Willamette Valley. I do not dismiss what you wrote. But you seem to be suggesting there was only a ‘local’ reason for the record high temperatures at Desert Rock during 2013. As I write this it seems I might be debating what you wrote, which I do not intend. I am merely trying to clarify exactly what you were thinking as you wrote.
And when I call attention to a fact about the Oregon winter of 2014-2015, which was abnormally dry, and thereby produced the extreme fire conditions of the summer of 2015, I am not debating what you have written. For I know that from time to time we, in Oregon, can observe the consequences (smoke) of wild fires in Alaska.
I believe we (you and I) need to have an extended conversation (dialogue) about what can be observed and has been observed that so few actually seem to consider. Galileo had to invent his dialogues but there is a saying that two heads is better than one. And I believe that Joe’s site is not really appropriate for such an extended conversation. My email address is: jerry.semivision@gmail.com if you are interested in such an extended conversation.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Carl,
You wrote: “Here is a web site (https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=11330) of satellite photos from the summer of 2013 that shows lots of smoke and a number of low level clouds, but none of cirrostratus clouds that you assumed were present.”
I have just taken time to check these satellite photos. I find that none which seem reasonably close to Desert Rock (DR) and many of the images of smoke which are shown seem to be of relatively limited extent. So, I conclude that, while I have no direct evidence that cirrostratus clouds were present, you have no direct evidence of a smoke haze, which I admit could increase the value of the diffuse solar radiation (DSR) threefold during 6/30/2013 over that of 6/10/2012. But I believe we can agree that there was some atmospheric condition present at DR on this date in 2013, not present during the same date in 2012, which caused the nearly threefold increase in the value of the DSR.
You continued: “Beyond that your post offers no explanation of how thin clouds in the upper troposphere can increase diffuse solar radiation by nearly 300% without there being an equal and corresponding decrease in direct solar radiation, especially since collectively cloud cover is responsible for 2/3rds of the Earth albedo. That is, clouds decrease the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface; they do not increase it as your post suggests.”
Carl, thank you for this comment. On Roy Spencer’s blogsite, it became evident that others did not appreciate my long comments so I have tried to keep them briefer. Based upon your comment there is a brief explanation; you and nearly everyone assume that whatever causes the diffuse solar radiation only decreases the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface. So, a brief explanation is that the atmospheric particles which scatter visible radiation might also scatter the invisible longer wavelength IR radiation. However, not everybody accepts that cloud particles scatter visible radiation. Even NASA scientists still state, on their site, that clouds reflect visible radiation. It seems they are unaware of, or they ignore, what Richard Feynman lectured to his introductory physics class at Caltech during the 1961-1962 academic year. (The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol 1, 32-8, 32-9) For he taught a novel scattering theory of cloud droplets which I have not found anyone else considering. According to this Feynman scattering theory average sized (20µm diameter) cloud droplets should scatter invisible IR radiation much, much, more strongly than they scatter visible light. And cloud droplets do scatter visible light much, much, more strongly than atmospheric molecules scatter visible light.
Here, I must insert something that is seldom stated. It has been long explained that the sky is blue because of Rayleigh scattering by atmospheric molecules. However, I seldom read that twilight is the result of this scattering by atmospheric molecules high in the atmosphere long before the sun rises over the eastern horizon. In other words, few even recognize that twilight is DSR.
So, my explanation of how cirrostratus clouds or a smoke hazes, which increase the value of DSR at the same time record high temperatures occur, produce these record high temperatures is that the same particles which scatter short wave solar radiation scatter the invisible longer wave IR radiation more strongly than the short wave solar radiation. For the influence of these particles, much larger than molecular sizes, seems not dependent upon at what their altitude in the atmosphere is.
I understand my explanation is totally based upon the assumed validity of Feynman’s novel scattering theory. But the fact that it seems to have been ignored does not make it invalid.
Verner Suomi is said to have stated that the downwelling infrared radiation (DIR), which now is observed at the Surfrad sites, is positive evidence of the greenhouse effect. The value of DIR at midday 6/30/2013 was 416.0 and 6/30/2012 was 336.9 watts/m2 (hereafter radiation units will be omitted for brevity). Compare these DIR values with the values of the DSR (197.6, 2013; 70.0, 2012). I suspect, but do not know, that you would agree that these values of DIR are not insignificant nor that is the difference between them.
Joe states that climatic science is sophistry. The greenhouse effect as originally defined involved the absorption of IR radiation, emitted from the earth’s surface, by certain atmospheric molecules which in turn emitted this absorbed energy as IR radiation in all directions. Hence, the possible scattering of IR radiation, in all directions, by atmospheric particles significantly larger than atmospheric molecules is not the greenhouse effect as initially defined. But I suspect that you have read, as I have, that this acknowledged influence of clouds (regardless of the mechanism involved) upon radiation is also considered to be the greenhouse effect.
I ask: How would you explain the magnitude of the 2012 DIR measured when there seems no evidence of atmospheric cloud nor smoke?
All who study weather and climate, whatever their labels, recognize that the atmosphere must contain the foreign particles termed condensation nuclei. For the atmosphere has never been observed to be supersaturated with water vapor. And I have little doubt that many would agree that these condensation nuclei are far larger than the atmospheric molecules but smaller than say the smallest cloud particle. My understanding of the consequences of Feynman’s scattering theory, as he taught it, is that condensation nuclei could significantly scatter the IR radiation being emitted from the earth’s surface. This because the condensation nuclei ‘cloud’ extends from the earth’s surface up to altitudes of about 85km where the presence of noctilucent clouds have been observed.
An early problem with which the meteorologists were confronted was how did the average supercooled 20µm diameter droplets ‘grow’ large enough to achieve a fall rate sufficient to produce precipitation in a reasonably short period of time. So, Alfred Wegener proposed a few of these supercooled droplets eventually began to crystalize and, because the vapor pressure of the ice crystals formed was less than that of the supercooled liquid droplets, water molecules rapidly evaporated from the supercooled droplets and condensed upon the surfaces of the ice crystals.
I review this which is generally known and accepted, to point out what I have yet to read as being described as part of this mechanism. It is sometimes proposed that the condensation nuclei might be tiny droplets composed nitric or sulfuric acid solutions. Hence, ordinary sized cloud droplets could be dilute solutions of these acids. What seems to be not considered is the fact that the ice crystals formed when the water of these droplets begin to freeze are pure water. And when water molecules evaporate from the supercooled droplets, tiny liquid droplets of a more concentrated acid solution are left behind and acid condensation nuclei are not removed from the atmosphere by this ‘precipitation’ mechanism if the condensation nuclei are tiny, tiny, droplets of acid, or salt, solutions.
Yes, I have omitted many details, to be briefer, which are needed to ‘flesh out’ this skeleton of my understanding of the interaction of radiation with the earth’s surface and the atmosphere and the fundamental mechanisms of weather.
Have a good day, Jerry
“Verner Suomi is said to have stated that the down-welling infrared radiation (DIR), which now is observed at the Surfrad sites, is positive evidence of the greenhouse effect. The value of DIR at midday 6/30/2013 was 416.0 and 6/30/2012 was 336.9 watts/m2.”
Verner Suomi is not the only person that asserts that DIR “causes” the temperature of ground level air to increase some 33C above what it would be if there were no “greenhouse gases” in the air (as the most popular version of the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis asserts.) If you doubt that this is his claim then you only need to look at the mathematical formulae that are being taught at today’s “institutions of higher learning” that presume to quantify the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis. These formulas simply add the DIR to the solar input (whether direct or diffuse) a though it all “new” energy.
DIR is an affect; it is not a cause. DIR exists because there is thermal energy present within ground level air. In 2013 at Desert Rock, Nevada the DIR was higher because the air was warmer. The higher intensity of DIR did not cause the temperature increase; the temperature increased, which caused the DIR to go higher. In other words, DIR does not cause thermal energy to come into existence as the mathematical formulas that presume to quantify the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis suggest.
Your focus has been on the contribution of diffuse solar energy to raising ground level air temperatures. This is appropriate because all solar energy (whether direct or diffuse) is “new” energy that is being added to the system. DIR is not “new” energy; it exists because of the thermal energy that is already present within the system. The simple fact that “greenhouse gases” might cause DIR to become “diffuse” does not change it into new energy. Therefore, “diffuse” solar radiation is not equivalent to “diffuse” DIR, because the former is “new” energy that is being added to the system, while the second exists because of energy that is already present within the system.
That is what the article, which started this thread, was attempting to point out. The mathematical formula that presumes to quantify the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis does not differentiate between DIR and solar energy (whether direct or diffuse). It simply adds them together to yield a total global downwelling average of ~390 W/m^2. When it is pointed out that doing so is improper from a thermodynamic point of view they change the theory and they change the analogy that they use, but they don’t correct the fundamental error that is at the heart of their formula–the indiscriminate mixing of energy added to the system with energy already in the system as though it is all “new” energy. What’s more is that said mathematical formula is completely blind to the energy that is added to ground level air via the adiabatic process as tropospheric air continuously overturns within the pressure gradient created by gravity.
Carl
Hi Carl,
Thank you for your reply. I must confess I am guilty of not previously have read your post of 3/1/2016 at all and others maybe not thoroughly. For your review of System B establishes the fact that you have studied in fundamental depth what the proponents of the greenhouse effect have considered (believe?) or still do (?). In the past I had a meeting with a full professor of atmospheric science and when he told me that all the emission of IR radiation came from “a one-meter thick layer of air about 1.5 meters off of the ground” instead of from the earth’s surface I was speechless. And until I read your review, I had no idea how he had gotten to such a conclusion.
I believe I am about eight years older than you. But I am not certain of this. I try to research just whom I am corresponding with as I participate on blogsites. So while not certain I believe we both have a common farm background in a location whose climate could be described as being harsh. For your information I grew up near Clear Lake, SD whose harsh winter was probably shorter than yours but I suspect you did not often have the hot, humid summer days that we more often had. I believe that where one was born and grew up might have something to do with what one reasons in later life. Do you know that Copernicus grew up at a high latitude along a Polish river which flowed into the Arctic Ocean? Hence, the sky he saw was quite different from that the Greek philosophers saw at Athens and the days and seasons were of a quite different lengths.
I thank you for your reply even if it seems you do not agree with much that I had written. Galileo had to invent a dialogue to share his understanding and reasoning. I find it much easier to respond to the understanding and reasoning of others because in such a case I do not have to assume what someone else with different experiences and for different reasons might write. So I am not offended when someone does not see things as I see them and I hope you are not offended when I do not see things as you see them. However, there might be more common ground than might seem apparent to you.
I have had opportunity to read your recent take on the greenhouse effect and some of your understanding of what influences the air temperature 1.5m above the earth’s surface. I have read your scholarly approach to the development of this understanding. I am handicapped because you most likely do not know much, which I consider important, about my scholarly approach to the development of what I would term my understanding. Last year I wrote a six page essay titled Have You Read? Have You Considered?. Clearly you have read and considered much. But I conclude, based upon what I have read of your scholarship, that we may not have read and considered the same things. I am not suggesting that what I have read and considered is better than what you have. It is just that it is possibly quite different, while having connections (relationships) about which you cannot know.
Because Joe emailed me as I requested, I had sent him an attachment of this essay. I had asked him to email to you, because he has your email address, my address with the request that you email me so I could send this essay to you. Since there is no evidence that this has happened, my address is jerry.semivision@gmail.com. So until I have a chance to send this essay to you, I will not try to share any more of my considerations with you because I do not know how to efficiently do this when I cannot refer to what I had already written.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Carl,
I have had, from time to time, what I term God sightings. Yesterday I tried a google search as to what Joe Postma’s employment was. For some reason a possibility given was his post of May 1, 2014 on the principia-scientific.org blogsite. His post was a rebuttal of Roy Spencer’s post of April 25, 2014 on Spencer’s blogsite which was a defense of the greenhouse effect. To which (Roy’s post) you had responded on Joe’s blogsite on April 29 at 6:39pm. I consider such a sequence of events which I discovered by simply trying to learn what Joe did to feed himself beyond the reasonable probability of coincidence; hence a God sighting.
So, I can efficiently respond to what you wrote without referring to my essay. But first I need to briefly review some of my history, which is not part of the essay.
I was a chemistry instructor at a small community college in 1973, because the theory of the greenhouse effect was a topic of the chemistry textbook I choose for my students I could not avoid the topic because I was not an atmospheric scientist or a meterologist. From the being I was a skeptic because I knew cloud cover during a winter night SD and northern MN (where I was an instructor), limited the cooling of the atmosphere from the daytime high temperature relative to the cooling observed when the nighttime sky was cloudless. This common observation is a reason of my focus upon the influence clouds upon atmospheric temperature observe near the surface. While for more than twenty years I read scientific articles in Science and Nature about the issue of the radiation balance associated with the greenhouse effect, and did some experiments which I thought might apply to refuting the greenhouse effect of greenhouse gases, I must admit I have learned more that seems important in the last few years than I had in the previous forty years.
And after ‘retiring’ from instruction in the mid-90s, I had somewhat retired from my studies of and efforts to ‘refute’ this theory. But in going through some old papers, which I had brought home from my office, I discovered a rough draft of an article (essay?) of an unknown author who was also trying to refute the greenhouse effect theory. The author is unknown because there is no name included on the copy and I have no memory where I could have acquired it.
This author (UA) wrote: “V. E. Suomi [ ] stated the presence of downward longwave radiation form a clear sky was positive evidence of the greenhouse effect.” And, “Suomi, S. O. Staley, and P. M. Kuhn [ ] designed a light and inexpensive net radiometer (Fig) which could be ballon-borne and gave its detailed theory, which is simply an analysis of the energy balance at the two absorbing-emitting (a-e) surfaces of the instrument.” The title of their article was “A Direct Measurement of Infrared Radiation Divergence to 160 mb”. The article is found in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, vol. 84, No. 360, Apr. 1958, pp. 134-141. About the article UA wrote: “The temperature of the upper a-e surface is seen (Fig) [Fig 3 of the article] to be consistently 10C, or more, less than the temperature of the atmosphere which is about 2 cm from the a-e surface.” The three authors of the Suomi etal. article did not call attention to this observable fact of their data.
UA wrote: “It is clear that a major objective of radiometer design is to thermally isolate, except radiatively, as much as possible the detector (the a-e surface) from the remainder of the instrument and its environment.”
You began your post with Spencer’s statement: “When I claim heat is the average kinetic energy of atoms in a substance that’s about as close as you are going to get to an explanation of heat, like it or not.” To which you responded: “What you are describing is “temperature”. The “temperature” of matter is the average kinetic energy present within the random movements of its atoms and molecules; its symbol is “T” and its units of measurement are degrees on any one of the Kelvin, Celsius or Fahrenheit scales.” I am with you to this point.
Then you continued: “ “Heat” on the other hand is an energy flux between a system and its surroundings; its symbol is “Q” and its units of measurement are W/m^2.” I am with you to this point.
And you continued: “When the “temperature” of a system is equal to the “temperature” of its surroundings it is in thermal equilibrium [with its surroundings I assume] and the “heat” (the energy flux between the system and its surroundings) = zero as per the “zeroth law” of thermodynamics.” I am with you to this point.
And you continued: ““Temperature” and “heat” therefore are independent thermodynamic realities. For example, a thermodynamic system could have a temperature of 1,000 K without there being any “heat” provided that the surroundings are 1,000 K as well.” I have studied this and now I need to question what you wrote and with what I have just agreed with. The key word in my comment is ‘question’ as I am not claiming you are wrong in what you have stated. It is just that I do not know if you are correct as you properly try to rigidly define what you are considering.
While as a chemistry major I have taken several thermodynamic course, I must admit that I have never understood some of the deeper mathematical reasoning of this subject. I have merely trusted the conclusions (which I considered I did understand) of this mathematical reasoning. So, I have developed what I consider to be a fundamental understanding of things.
What are these things? In the universe there are two things: matter and energy. There are three fundamental forms of matter: gas, liquid, solid. There are many forms of energy but these many forms can be reduced to energy related to motion (kinetic energy) and energy related to position (potential energy). You wrote: “ “Temperature” and “heat” therefore are independent thermodynamic realities.” Before we invented an instrument, the thermometer, which could quantitatively measure “Temperature”, we could only detect that which we termed hot or cold or nothing (as you stated to be the case if we were in thermal equilibrium with our surroundings). It seem we must consider that the thermometer, to quantitatively measure “Temperature”, must be in thermal equilibrium with its “surroundings” if this measurement is to have any meaning (purpose).
UA referred to an instrument, a radiometer, which is said to quantitatively measure “heat” (a radiation flux according to your definition) by measuring the temperature of an a-e surface.
I constructed a simple inexpensive radiometer which could be considered to be the top one-half of the Suomi etal net radiometer so I could quantitatively observe “heat”, the downward radiation flux from above. Now when, after sunset, I observed the temperature of the a-e surface was less than the temperature of the atmosphere only about two cm above the a-e surface I have been told I had not measured the quantitative “heat”, or the downward radiation flux from the atmosphere, when I used the S-B law to convert the temperature of the a-e surface into a quantitative upward radiation flux which balanced the downward radiation flux at the a-w surface. What is your take on this? Are you with me or do you need to correct my understanding?
I will stop and await your answer.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Jerry,
You will have to describe in more detail the construction of your radiometer before I would venture to comment on what the readings that you got might mean.
As far as the statement: “V. E. Suomi stated the presence of downward longwave radiation from a clear sky was positive evidence of the greenhouse effect.”
Whatever “downward longwave radiation” is it is not a downward flux of energy; it is not a downward flux of “heat”.
Certainly you remember that in physics “energy” is defined as the capacity to do “work”. Since “downward longwave radiation” from the atmosphere does not have the capacity to do “work” it is not therefore “energy”. If it were there would be massive quantities of photovoltaic electricity being generated 24 hours per day using just “downward longwave radiation”. After all, the “calculated” downward energy flux from the atmosphere in the K&T “Earth Energy Budget” suggests that “downward longwave radiation” is nearly twice the down-going energy flux as is the sunlight that makes it to the surface!
Direct a photovoltaic cell up towards the sun and you get electricity as solar energy is converted to electrical energy. Direct a photovoltaic cell up towards the sky at night, up towards “downward longwave radiation”, and you get nothing; you get no electricity because there is no downward flux of energy from the atmosphere to the surface that could be converted into electricity. So again, whatever “downward longwave radiation” is it is not a downward flux of “energy”; it is not a downward flux of “heat”.
Carl
Hi Carl,
I was composing a comment to you and Joe when I checked to see if either of you had replied to any of my previous comments. The other can wait because this can be brief. It turned out that maybe I should not claim this is brief.
You wrote: “Whatever “downward longwave radiation” is it is not a downward flux of energy; it is not a downward flux of “heat”. Certainly you remember that in physics “energy” is defined as the capacity to do “work”.” I must admit I am a bit confused by this.
I have burned wood to keep my house from becoming cold during night and day (when temperatures of the atmosphere and most everything outside the house were considerably colder than the temperature I desired that the inside of my house to be. I understand the burning of this wood converted its chemical potential energy into a kinetic energy which replaced the kinetic energy of the air and material of the house being transferred to the colder environment outside the house. In the heating of my house by burning wood, no literal work was done. Does this mean I should not consider that the burning of the wood did not produce energy (heat) which kept the inside of my house from cooling to the temperature of its outside environment (surroundings)?
Yes, I know I could have set up a steam turbine to utilize the kinetic energy being released by the wood’s burning to generate electricity as I used that portion of this released kinetic energy, which could not be used to produce work, to “heat” my house.
Next, solar radiation is downward radiation. I am sure, but I could be wrong, you will not claim that this radiation does not have the capacity to do “work”. So while solar radiation has the capacity (by the invention of devices) to do “work”, it seems you claim that IR radiation cannot do “work”.
We know, I believe again, that if there is cloud cover during the nighttime that the measured atmospheric temperature will not cool as much by the next morning, from the maximum temperature observed in the afternoon than would be observed the next morning, it would have cooled if there were no nighttime clouds. You know, this I know, that there are radiometers at the Surfrad sites which claim to quantitatively measure the downward radiation during the nighttime, during which there is no solar radiation involved. And if you have not noticed, I assure you there can be times during the night when the measured upward emission from the earth surface that portion of the atmosphere below the radiometer and the downward radiation from above appear to be equal. I know there are many who say I should not ask what I now ask. I burn wood to keep my house from cooling during the night. How different is the kinetic energy produced by the burning of the wood, and the downward radiation which keeps the earth’s surface and base atmosphere from cooling as much as it would have if the clouds were not present?
Here I must insert another known (observed) fact. We know, from the measurement being conducted at the Surfrad sites, that during a “cloudless” nighttime sky the measured upward radiation from ‘below’ is about 100 w/m^2 greater than the downward radiation from ‘above’. We know, I believe again, that when these measurements are nearly equal, the nighttime sky is overcast.
Now, I am not sure you have noticed because I admit this case is not commonly seen, but it can be seen sometimes. It is that for a short period, longer than a ‘spike’, that the downward measured radiation can be greater than that of the upward measured radiation. I do not consider this to be an instrumentation problem; I consider this can be observed when the temperature of the overcast base is greater than the temperature of the surface. Which only requires that the atmosphere has a temperature inversion instead of always having a temperature which decreases with altitude as commonly considered by many. And I am sure, but do not know, that you know from a study of atmospheric soundings that atmospheric temperature inversions are not rare. So, in such a case, the radiation from the warmer atmosphere can warm the colder surface.
But as you have stated, when the temperatures of two ‘masses of matter’ become equal they are in thermal equilibrium. But what you seem not to see is that the upward radiation being emitted from below and the downward radiation being emitted from above do not cease. It is just that they balance each other and nothing observable can be seen to be happening in the system being observed. This is the elementary concept of a dynamic equilibrium.
It will be interesting to learn what your responses, to my comments, might be. In the past it sometimes has been said that I reason in circles and therefore have said nothing. But I do not consider what I have done is reasoning. I have only drawn some undebatable (reproducible) observations to your attention.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hello Jerry,
Let me comment in sections to keep the posts relatively brief.
“I have burned wood to keep my house from becoming cold during night and day (when temperatures of the atmosphere and most everything outside the house were considerably colder than the temperature I desired that the inside of my house to be. I understand the burning of this wood converted its chemical potential energy into a kinetic energy which replaced the kinetic energy of the air and material of the house being transferred to the colder environment outside the house. In the heating of my house by burning wood, no literal work was done.”
Energy is the “capacity” to do “work”. This does not mean that it has to do “work” in order to be energy. Like you said, you could have burned that wood to boil water to create steam to run a steam engine, which does “work”. You chose instead to heat your house.
Remember that I was speaking specifically about what what referenced in the quote from V. E. Suomi that you included in your post. He was speaking specifically of “‘downward longwave radiation’ from a clear sky.” Do you know of any instances in which someone using “‘downward longwave radiation’ from a clear sky” has boiled water to create steam to run a steam engine?
“Next, solar radiation is downward radiation. I am sure, but I could be wrong, you will not claim that this radiation does not have the capacity to do ‘work’. So while solar radiation has the capacity (by the invention of devices) to do ‘work’, it seems you claim that IR radiation cannot do ‘work’.”
My comment was not a general assertion about what IR radiation can or cannot do in general. It specifically related to “‘downward longwave radiation’ from a clear sky.” If you reread what I wrote you will see that I acknowledge that solar radiation can be converted into electricity, which can do “work”. They are also working on photovoltaic cells that utilize the infrared portion of sunlight and on generating electricity using up-going longwave radiation from the the surface, because a portion of up-going longwave radiation from the the surface is an actual upward flow of energy. It is usually referred to as the surface’s “net radiation heat loss rate” for which there is a specific formula that people employ.
Carl
“How different is the kinetic energy produced by the burning of the wood, and the downward radiation which keeps the earth’s surface and base atmosphere from cooling as much as it would have if the clouds were not present?”
One of the formulas that quantify the First Law of Thermodynamics is:
∆U = ∆Q – ∆W
where
U = internal energy
Q = heat
W = work
Before working this formula we have to solve for ∆Q or the change due to the flow of heat into and out of the system. In this case “the system” is your house. In your scenario heat is both flowing into and out of your house. Since the temperature of burning wood is much higher than the temperature of the interior of your house there is a flow of heat from that burning wood into your house. Since the temperature of the inside of your house (let’s say that it is January in North Dakota) is higher than the temperature of outside air, your house loses heat through the walls at a rate that is determined by 1) the temperature differential that exists between the temperature inside of your house and the outside air that is in contact with your house and 2) the R factor of your walls as per Newton’s Law of Cooling.
If these two flows of heat are equal, that is the flow of heat from the hot burning wood into your house equals the flow of heat from the interior of your home to the outside air is equal, than ∆Q = 0 and the temperature within your home, which is determined by the U of the inside air will remain stable. If ∆Q = 0 and ∆W = 0 than ∆U = 0
To answer your question, when the effect is the same one cannot assume that the cause is the same. Even if the end result may be the same, the addition of heat to a system is qualitatively different than is a slowing of the rate at which a system loses heat to its surroundings.
Carl
Let’s take a look at an assumption that is present within your question. You assert, “downward radiation . . . keeps the earth’s surface and base atmosphere from cooling as much as it would have if the clouds were not present.”
The operative law of physics that determines the rate at which your house loses heat to its surroundings (or the ground loses heat to the atmosphere) is Newton’s Law of Cooling and the colder the outside air is relative to the temperature inside your house (or the colder the air is that is in contact with the ground relative to the temperature of the ground) the faster will be that rate of cooling.
As you note, on overcast nights ground level air is warmer than on cloudless nights and one can also observe that the up-going net radiation heat loss rate (the difference between up-going longwave radiation from the surface and down-welling IR radiation from the atmosphere) is also less on overcast nights, but don’t confuse cause and effect. One cannot simply assume that the warmer surface level air temperatures are a being caused by this decrease in the up-going net radiation heat loss rate. Indeed, is not this decrease in the up-going net radiation heat loss rate a natural effect of warmer nighttime air. That is, warmer nighttime air naturally emits a higher intensity of down-welling IR radiation, which naturally reduces the difference between up-going longwave radiation from the surface and down-welling IR radiation from the atmosphere.
Should we not first ask, why is ground level air warmer when its cloudy?
I did a study on the temperatures of nighttime air at various distances above the ground compared to ground temperatures and observed that the air 10cm above the ground is cooler than both the ground and the air at 1.5m above the ground with the temperature of the ground being always the warmest of the three temperatures. What’s more the temperature of all three decreased during the night with the air at 10cm cooling at the fastest rate.
How does that cold layer of air just above the ground get there? Since it cannot be losing heat via conduction or radiation either to the warmer ground below it or to the warmer air above it I concluded that this cool air was moving to that location from aloft. That is, after the sun goes down the air does not stop moving but throughout the night dense pockets of cool air “settle” out of the atmosphere and cause a significant drop in ground level air temperatures. In fact, if you study weather balloon soundings you will note that this “settling” of cool air from aloft will often cause a temperature inversion (air becomes cooler with decreasing altitude) in ground level air as high as 500-1000m in altitude.
The study also revealed that when it is cloudy this process is significantly reduced and the temperature differential that evolves every night between the ground and the air that is in contact with the ground is significantly reduced as well. As per Newton’s Law of Cooling this reduction in the temperature differential between the ground and the air that is in contact with with the ground significantly reduces the rate at which the ground cools when its overcast.
I therefore concluded that the presence of cloud cover significantly reduces the vertical movement of air within the lower atmosphere thus slowing the nighttime “settling” of said pockets of cool, dense air. This naturally manifests itself as warmer nighttime ground level air temperatures, which again slows the rate at which the ground cools when it is overcast.
Carl
“But what you seem not to see is that the upward radiation being emitted from below and the downward radiation being emitted from above do not cease. It is just that they balance each other and nothing observable can be seen to be happening in the system being observed. This is the elementary concept of a dynamic equilibrium.”
This goes to the question of what do radiometers actually sense? If you take a radiometer down into a wine cellar some 9 feet below the ground you will be in a fairly isolated thermodynamic system that is in thermal equilibrium at ~12C and the radiometer will read ~350 W/m^2 coming from all the walls, the ceiling and the floor.
As you note “nothing observable can be seen to be happening”. What that means to the radiometer is that there will be unity between the temperature under the dome, the temperature of the dome and the temperature of the case. The onboard computer then calculates, based on these temperatures and certain scientific theories, that all walls, the ceiling and the floor are emitting ~350 W/m^2 of IR radiation. To then assert that the readout of radiometers proves the truth of those same scientific theories is, indeed, a quintessential example of circular reasoning because the premise is programmed into the computer that is giving you the readout.
Be that as it may let’s return to my original assertion that started this conversation. The readout of a radiometer down in a wine cellar says that every surface is emitting ~350 W/m^2 of IR radiation. Is that an energy flux if you accept the physics definition of energy as being that which has the capacity to do “work”?
The wine cellar as a thermodynamic system, being in a state of thermal equilibrium, is already in a state of maximum entropy. Doing “work”, from a thermodynamic perspective, requires that entropy be increased. Another version of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is this: one cannot produce work from a single temperature reservoir, that is, “the production of work requires [a] flow of heat from a hotter reservoir to a colder reservoir.”
Thus I contend that the readout of radiometers is not measuring an energy flux, rather the only radiative energy flux that exists is what is called the “net radiation heat loss rate”, because that is energy that has the “capacity” to do “work”. Within the atmosphere the “net radiation heat loss rate” is nearly alway upward and the down-going “net radiation heat loss rate” is nearly always zero.
That is the reasoning behind my prior statement, “Whatever ‘downward longwave radiation’ is it is not a downward flux of energy; it is not a downward flux of ‘heat’.”
Carl
Hi Carl,
Before I read your comments this morning I had spent a somewhat sleepless night thinking about the sophistry to which Joe has drawn attention. Reading about the ancient Greek philosophers is not a common thing I do. However, in reading about teaching and I was informed that there were a group of ancient Greeks termed sophists. And I was informed that Socrates, who is said to have taught by only asking questions, immensely disliked the sophists. For an identifiable property of the sophists was that they could, by a clever manipulation of words, convince an audience one night that white was white and that black was black and the next night convince an audience, maybe the same audience, that white was black and black was white. Hence, sophists had no desire to learn the truth which was Socrates’ purpose for asking questions. Because he, the teacher, claimed he did not know.
Many people recognize the names: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. And that Plato was a student of Socrates and Aristotle was a student of Plato. (I believe this is correct but I am not an ancient Greek scholar and too lazy at this point to check out what I believe is a historical fact.) However, I do not know if many people recognize that in three generations of Greek philosophers that this sequence of philosophers (teachers) changed (evolved) from one who abhorred the sophists to one who was a sophist.
Some might ask how can I claim that Aristotle was a sophist? My answer is we now know there were other Greek philosophers who did consider the right answers (ideas) to certain questions about their physical environment, but the wrong ideas of Aristotle prevailed and the right ideas were forgotten for about 2000 years. My answer is I have finally read Crew and de Salvio’s English translation of Galileo’s Dialogues Concerning Two Sciences. In it read that Galileo read what Aristotle had written. And concerning the idea that bodies twice as heavy fell twice as fast, Galileo wrote that Aristotle stated that he had tested this idea by dropping bodies of different weights from high place as Galileo wrote that he had. And Galileo knew that he could not observe a significant difference between these bodies of different weights, being dropped at nearly the same time as possible, reaching the ground at the same time. While Galileo did not say the words, it seems a fact that Aristotle lied as he argued (debated) what was true. I cannot understand how anyone can still consider that Aristotle was (has) a ‘great’ mind, unless they are unaware of what Galileo read and wrote. Which I was for a long time because none of my science professors ever suggested I should read Galileo’s book or Newton’s classic.
These professors and I evidently ignored the well-known wisdom of Newton, whom we knew to have stated: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” As I read about the controversy about the idea known as the greenhouse I find very few you try to climb up onto the shoulders of giants. Joe refers to his mentor, whose name I know I have in my pile of stuff but I also know I had never heard of before I read what Joe wrote. This does not make his mentor (professor) a man without wisdom and/or knowledge. But giants usually are people with widely recognized achievements like the physicists: Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and most recently Feynman. Sure, as the time passes, the number of important people who had critically important supporting roles increases. But as I read about the greenhouse effect and the controversy which surrounds this idea, I seldom, if ever, read the name of Einstein and Feynman.
I wonder how many of those participating in this controversy actually know what these two giants (my judgment) actually considered that might be considered relative to this controversy. I wonder how many participants know what the accomplishments of possible supporting cast members with names of Suomi, Agassiz, and Sutcliffe actually were. Just as I wonder how many recent physical science students are aware of the names of Tycho Brahe and Robert Kepler and the importance of what these two cast members contributed to the physical science of their time.
Before I begin addressing your comments I need to state what I had considered writing a few postings earlier. I really am not comfortable with much of which I have written because argument (debate) is not my thing. Yet, that is what I consider I have been doing and will now do.
But since you separated your comments in separated posts, maybe there was a reason to do so and I will do likewise. Even though I have gotten to something about the sophists.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Carl,
I consider that the wine cellar you defined is a classic blackbody without the tiny hole connecting it with its surroundings (environment). If as you described, its seems one does not need a radiometer to measure the radiation being emitted by its walls, floor, or ceiling. One only needs a thermometer and the S-B radiation law with which to calculate, with pencil and paper, the value of this radiation. However, what you wrote does inform me as to how certain radiometers directly measure (report) the radiation they intercept. For I had wondered why the case and globe temperatures were included in the Surfrad data sets along with the value of the measured radiation.
Beside your opinion about the validity of my simple radiometer constructed according to the design of the Suomi etal net radiometer, I had wondered if you considered that the radiometers used in measuring radiations at the Surfrad sites were actually quantitatively measuring the radiations reported.
In this description, or narrative, of my simple radiometer, I thought I had given enough basic information about its design. But you replied that you needed more information to comment upon what I was observing when I observed only the temperature of the a-e surface. Maybe I did not phrase my question properly when I asked if, when I used the S-B radiation law to calculate the radiation using this observed temperature, I had indirectly observed the value of the downward radiation from above. For that seems to be what is claimed that the less simple upward facing IR radiometer at a Surfrad site is doing.
For what is sometimes written, by certain participants on blogsites, seems to be the question if the value of radiation can be measured by any device. And my understanding is that it cannot be directly measured and that what is directly measured is the temperature of any radiometer’s a-e surface. I believe I understand the critical issue that distinguishes the simple Suomi radiometer from the commercial, not simple, radiometers is the window material which can become a source of radiation, or thermal conduction, in addition to any radiation passing through it. In the case of the simple Suomi radiometer the window material is two thin films of polyethylene spaced 1 cm from each other the bottom one 1 cm above the a-e surface which is a thin aluminum sheet painted, in the case of the net-radiometer, with some paint of known properties, and in my case with a dull black spray paint. The rest of my radiometer is extruded Styrofoam to thermally and radiatively isolate the a-e surface from its surrounding, except for the window. There is a space of 1cm beneath the a-s surface into which I inserted, through the Styrofoam wall a probe, food grade, digital, thermometer.
The Suomi net radiometer was intended be only used during a nighttime sounding but I have observed the temperature of the a-e surface when it intercepts the downward radiation during the daytime. Both when the a-e surface is horizontal and when pointed directly toward the sun (direct normal solar radiation). In the latter case the temperature of the direct sunlight through an apparently cloudless sky has risen to within a few degrees of the maximum surface temperature observed for the moon’s surface. Which melted the Styrofoam beneath the a-e surface.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Carl,
I have just reviewed the comments I have posted here to see if I had posted anything that I would now have been embarrassed to have posted. For I had composed comments, but fortunately not yet posted, which I now consider are embarrassingly wrong.
Thank you for saving me from my ignorance. I was composing a reply to your reported experimental results (observations), which I considered had to be wrong. And to support my case I decided to do some simple calculations of Surfrad data of Desert Rock using the S-B radiation law. What I discovered supported your observation and refuted something I had done which was not based upon observation but based upon my reasoning.
A few days ago I had composed the following (somewhat edited for brevity) which I do not consider to be embarrassing; it is where I was going that would have been embarrassing.
You wrote: “I did a study on the temperatures of nighttime air at various distances above the ground compared to ground temperatures and observed that the air 10cm above the ground is cooler than both the ground and the air at 1.5m above the ground with the temperature of the ground being always the warmest of the three temperatures. What’s more the temperature of all three decreased during the night with the air at 10cm cooling at the fastest rate.” C
My immediate question is: How did you measure (determine) the ground temperatures? The next is how could one measure the temperature of a surface?
My answer is not with a thermometer, but with a radiometer. For I believe, but do not absolutely know, that a thermometer, or other temperature measuring device, must be measuring the bulk temperature of the ground, not only that of its emitting surface. … It seems a thermometer could not measure the temperature of a “thin” surface because the energy (heat) which must be added to, or removed from, the thermometer for it register the temperature of the surface would change the temperature of the thin surface. And I quickly draw attention to the apparent fact that a “cloudless” atmosphere has no surface except for the solid or liquid surfaces of the earth.
You ask a very important question then give your answer. “How does that cold layer of air just above the ground get there? Since it cannot be losing heat via conduction or radiation either to the warmer ground below it or to the warmer air above it I concluded that this cool air was moving to that location from aloft. That is, after the sun goes down the air does not stop moving but throughout the night dense pockets of cool air “settle” out of the atmosphere and cause a significant drop in ground level air temperatures. In fact, if you study weather balloon soundings you will note that this “settling” of cool air from aloft will often cause a temperature inversion (air becomes cooler with decreasing altitude) in ground level air as high as 500-1000m in altitude.”
Your proposed mechanism, as stated, has “throughout the night dense pockets of cool air “settle” [settling down] out of the atmosphere. I will agree that cooled, denser, surface layer atmosphere is well-known to flow down slopes where it accumulates in depressions as the warmer, less dense, surface atmosphere is lifted from the surface of the depression, but the question remains: How is this colder, denser surface layer of atmosphere itself cooled? For I have never read that cold dense pockets (parcels) of cold air “settle” vertically out of a warmer atmosphere during the nighttime. But the fact I have not read this does not mean it does not happen. So I will pause a bit to try to work with you without knowing what the outcome will be.
I can imagine that the downward flow of this colder, denser air along the stationary surface will have less speed at the surface than that a little above. And I know that subsiding atmosphere is warmed adiabatically as it flows downslope. Hence, I can image that on a slope the atmosphere nearest the surface can be warmed less than the faster moving (subsiding) atmosphere above it. And I believe I have heard about the observation that vegetation growing on slopes is the last to be harmed by ‘frost’. And I am quite sure that frost occurs first in the depression before it occurs on a slope.
It seems to me that you are claiming that during the night that the surface is not cooling the atmosphere in contact with it and it is the atmosphere in contact with the surface which is cooling the surface whose temperature is always greater than that of the atmosphere just above it. This, given the density difference between the ground and the atmosphere, seems a little like the tail is wagging the dog.
You state that your observations force the conclusion that “it [the colder atmosphere at 10 cm] cannot be losing heat via conduction or radiation either to the warmer ground below it or to the warmer air above it”. Are you not in this conclusion also concluding that the earth surface plays no role in the observed decrease of atmospheric temperature that occurs 1.5 meter above it during the nighttime?
Or, it seems one could ask: How does this colder pocket of atmosphere descend through the warmer layer of atmosphere just above it? Ptolemy tied his reasoning into knots by assuming that a wrong mechanism (model) applied as he attempted to explain valid observations. I consider you have tied your reasoning into knots by assuming your observations are valid. [I leave this in so it can clearly be seen what my intent was.]
And I will break my comments into separate posts.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Carl,
In the course of trying to organize what I have, and have not, posted to you and/or Joe, I read that you wrote to me: “Your focus has been on the contribution of diffuse solar energy to raising ground level air temperatures. This is appropriate because all solar energy (whether direct or diffuse) is “new” energy that is being added to the system. DIR is not “new” energy; it exists because of the thermal energy that is already present within the system. The simple fact that “greenhouse gases” might cause DIR to become “diffuse” does not change it into new energy. Therefore, “diffuse” solar radiation is not equivalent to “diffuse” DIR, because the former is “new” energy that is being added to the system, while the second exists because of energy that is already present within the system.”
I can remember reading this before but am sure I did. So you can imagine the impression it made upon me. But now it prompts a thought. First, I do not see what the difference between new energy and old energy might be. Energy is energy, going or coming, coming or going. I have asked myself, why did Carl studying the data observed at Desert Rock from the early part of June to the early part of July of 2012, or some period? And I asked myself, was it because there was a long sequence of when one 24hr period seemed like the next in that the temperature of the air at the beginning of the period was about the temperature at the end of the period. Hence, like the temperature at the beginning of the next period.
If this were to be the case, it would seem that any new energy would have to have been returned to space, not necessarily to the sun which was the source the new energy, within not more than 24 hrs. So while the energy which being constantly emitted to space old energy just because it is different energy. Clearly, if every 24hr period could begin and end with the same temperature for about a month, it seems to me there can be no old energy which has been stored for more than 24hrs during this period of maybe 30 24hr periods.
No, this is not an old thought I had yesterday, just a thought I had a few minutes before I began composing this. I will maybe get back to some old thoughts if something does not prompt a new thought.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Carl and anybody else.
You can see I fail to carefully proofread, or edit, what I write. So please change whatever needs to be changed to make better sense.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Carl,
What I have learned from the result of your experiment is the importance of the little variable in the S-B radiation law termed the emissivity. Do not have time to go into details now.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Carl,
I have the following posted on the outside door of my “study” (sometimes guest bedroom).
The More I Study
The More I Learn
The More I Know
That Which I Do Not Know!!!
This is the truth I know. Maybe twenty years ago I recognized that the S-B radiation law included a factor unique to different surfaces of matter termed the emissivity. And I began asking people who might know what the emissivity of liquid water was because the vast majority of the earth’s surface is liquid water. So it seemed we could not really study any radiation balance unless we knew what this fundamental property of water was. It was apparent, that at that time, most people studying the earth’s radiation balance were assuming the emissivity of the liquid water to be one (1) or nearly so. And I discovered that at that time some physical science professors, who should have known, did not even know to what this term, emissivity, was related.
I have always considered a face to face conversation better than a telephone conversation and the latter better than a written conversation such as the one we are having. However, I also recognize the truth that: “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.” – Francis Bacon quotes from BrainyQuote.com.
And because of a staff development project, Writing Across The Curriculum, in which I participated, I began to write to see exactly what it was that I thought I knew. Hence, my written comments to you have a two-fold purpose. One to communicate to you and the other to see what I believe I know. And I have just deleted the word think and replaced it with believe because for me think is a code word for I do not know. For I know what I have observed just as you know what you observed during your experiment.
Back to emissivity. For a reason already stated I drove 250 miles and stayed overnight at Madison, Wisconsin to have a conversation with Verner Suomi, whom I considered to be a giant. One question I asked him was something like this (I do not remember its exact phrasing): Who has measured the emissivity of liquid water? Or, what is the observed emissivity of liquid water? Initially he was sure that it had been measured and began searching for a reference for me in his office library. This without success. Unfortunately, he was especially busy at that time because he was being honored during the days I was at the U of Wisconsin for the many significant contributions he had made to the study of meteorology and the earth-atmosphere system’s energy balance. So it was arranged that I could use the University’s library resources to search for information relative to my question.
So I read how the emissivities of various solid, non-volatile, materials had been determined. It was apparent that these methods used in the case of solids could never be used to determine the emissivity of a liquid, and especially a volatile liquid whose surface could be cooled by evaporation or warmed by condensation. So, it seems I forgot, dismissed, (but not totally as you will read) the issue of a surface’s emissivity until I began questioning your observations of your experiment. For while I have recently read others acknowledging the issue of emissivity, it seems they did not seem to consider that it was a critical issue.
A month or two before I even became aware of you and your consideration of the Surfrad data for June and July of 2012, I had calculated the surface temperature for each hour of the period from June 26 through June 30 from the measured values of upwelling IR radiation using the S-B radiation law. And I did not automatically assume that the surface’s emissivity was one (1). Instead, I assumed, without any observational evidence, that during the diurnal temperature oscillation of the air temperature there would be two times when the surface temperature and the observed air temperature must be the same. This because I had the hypothesis that between these two times surface was either warming the atmosphere in contact with it or was cooling the atmosphere in contact with it. So I used the value of the upwelling IR radiation and the value of the air temperature at the time I reasoned that the transition between cooling and warming, or vice versa, was likely to occur to calculate the emissivity of the surface at Desert Rock at that time. Because what I had assumed and done, there was a period when the temperature of the surface was a little less than that of the air and a period when temperature of the surface was much greater than that of the atmosphere. The calculated value of the emissivity of the surface seemed reasonable and the calculated values of the surface’s temperature during the diurnal temperature oscillation seemed reasonable.
That is until you reported the results of your experiment. Before I go forward I must note that you, Roy Spencer, and myself are the only persons I am aware of who actually have done backyard experiments relative to the topic of the greenhouse effect. And I recognize that you might consider your experiment more than a backyard experiment, whose results have not been submitted for publication because it seems that the results of the simple experiments do not warrant publication in a peer-reviewed journal. But, that is what I consider about the observations, experiments, I had made. Yet, I believe my experiments have validity because I know they are reproducible.
And I know that while science can never prove anything to be the truth; I also know that science can prove things to be false. So, I assumed that the surface temperature at the time of the minimum measured upwelling IR radiation was that of the air temperature at that time, and calculated the emissivity of the surface given these measurements. The value of this calculated emissivity was 0.93. Which I recognized was certainly as reasonable as the one I had calculated and used to produce surface temperatures less than the air temperatures during the nighttime.
You have observed (measured) ground temperatures; I have not tried. And I never considered to try to do what you report you have done. But I can explain to my satisfaction what you have observed if your experiment was conducted on a sloped surface or that there was a nearby sloped surface. I believe, but do not know, you know the midday and afternoon southerly wind of 20 miles per hour and more (gusts) at the Surfrad site are the well-known result of this site’s surrounding topography of sloped surfaces without checking its observed topography. If you do live near Chino Valley AZ as I assume, you probably experience the same midday and afternoon that I find are observed at the nearest airport (Prescott). This because valleys, even their level bottoms, have sloped surfaces nearby. And I know that the influence of these sloped surface does not cease at sundown, but I know the direction and speed of flow usually changes toward, or after sundown because of the same slopes. Most everywhere, the air temperature begins to decrease near sundown and continues to decrease during the night. A critical question is: What is the mechanism, of mechanisms, by which this cooling occurs? At some point upslope, that thin layer of colder air which you observed must have become cooled. I suspect, but do not know, that ribbons places at the various levels which you measured air temperatures would have indicated there was a much thicker layer of atmosphere that was flowing downslope during the nighttime when the sky was cloudless. But, if you did not observe ribbons, we both know that one could do more experiments in which one observes temperatures at different levels at the same time one observes ribbons placed at different levels.
This is fun.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Carl,
Before I begin here I need to correct an omission relative to my previous comment: This is fun. I should have written: This is fun and it is productive. More than 12 years ago I quit playing golf because while it was fun; I concluded it was not productive. I consider the efforts of previous scientists to discover the truths of nature to have productive. Especially so when they discovered that what was thought to be true was actually false.
In Genesis 1:26 I read that the Creator God said: “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule of the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” (NIV) When I view the history of humans that we know by the writing of those who have proceeded us, I conclude that not much of the dominion that humans were to acquire did not really begin until the time of Galileo. What Galileo started has been productive. For at the time of Galileo I doubt anyone would care to argue (debate) that the activities of humans had already altered the natural climate of the earth. Yes, I realize that some claim that dinosaurs became extinct because humans hunted them into extinction. But, I also realize that others claim that dinosaurs and humans never coexisted.
Galileo is said to have stated (as translated by someone): “We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.” So he wrote a book which he was forbidden to write while under house arrest for writing a previous book which offended certain officials with the power to burn him at a stake if he did not recant his belief that heliocentric model of our solar system was a better model than the geocentric model of the universe in which the earth did not move. So, I must could that the second book was merely to help the reader discover what Galileo had concluded that he had learned through experimentation, whose results were observable, and common everyday observations of natural systems.
You termed your observations an experiment even though you were only observing a natural system without trying to manipulate it.
At the beginning of Galileo’s Third Day of dialogues he began (as translated by Crew and de Salvio): “My purpose is to set forth a very new science dealing with a very ancient subject. There is, in nature, perhaps nothing older than motion, concerning which the books written by philosophers are neither few nor small; nevertheless I have discovered by experiment some properties of it which are worth knowing and which have not hitherto been either observed or demonstrated.”
You can read how Galileo continued and I would recommend that one does so if they have not yet read what Galileo wrote more than 400 years ago. For I conclude that such an activity for me has been productive, if not always fun. Not always fun because when I read some of what he wrote, I did not, at first, understand what I was reading. So, for a time my reading was not productive for my goal is to spend my time being productive in one way or another and it was not happening. But now that I have been able to find in myself a little of what Galileo knew as he wrote, I consider what I have learned to have been productive fun; even though for a time it was not.
When I was in graduate school in the 60s we often referred to “first principles” as being the place where our reasoning need to begin. It has been a long time since I have read the term “first principles”. I have written the following before, but I write it again because I consider it contains a first principle. “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” (Newton) And I have written that of the many who comment about the hypothesis termed the greenhouse effect and the associated issues of global warming and climate change, I see little to no evidence they have tried standing on the shoulders of Galileo and Newton, whom I consider to also be giants and on the shoulders of the more recent scientists Einstein and Feynman, whose achievements seem to qualify them as having been giants. Yes, there are many other past scientists of great stature and there still are scientists of great stature but in certain ways they were, and are, only following trails blazed by the previous giants.
Carl, you impressed me greatly when you explained how some atmospheric scientists concluded that all the longwave IR emission, both upward and downward (?) originated in shallow atmospheric layer centered about 1.5m above the earth’s surface. You impressed me greatly when you referred to, and considered in your reasoning, the measurements being made at the Surfrad sites. You impressed me greatly when you referred to your own observations of the atmospheric temperature gradients you observed between the earth surface and 1.5m above the surface. For, there is little evidence that many who have comments about the topics which concerns us have never made the effort to observe what you, Roy Spencer, and I have tried to make. And there is evidence that Roy is not a good experimentalist. But I have ultimately learned what I consider significant knowledge because of his described experiments and reported results. Just as I have learned from your reported experimental results which I consider have been carefully made. But I do not yet know what the temperatures, or temperature differences, that you observed actually were.
However, you do not impress me when there is no evidence that you have acquired (or intend to) the article by Suomi etal to which UA drew my attention. In this case I only had to drive about 40 miles to acquire a copy of it so I might study it. Yes, I suspect, but do not know, that you would have to travel much further and I do not know if you the access which would allow it to be copied by a library which subscribed to the necessary journal and therefore has the hard copy in its reference section. But I would encourage you to do so because I consider the 10C temperature difference between the temperature of the upward facing a-e surface and the ambient atmospheric temperature, which by the way was being determined one hour later by the regular atmospheric sounding which was and is being routinely made a Green Bay WI.
While I have not gotten to what I intended when I began this response, I do consider what I did write to be important if we (you and I) are to have a productive conversation by writing. Maybe I should write a more productive conversation for certain to this point it has been quite productive and I only consider that it can be even more productive.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Joe,
First I must add some information to the previous nighttime soundings because I had not set the output to calculate the RH relative to ice for all the nighttime soundings that were reviewed. So at Maniwaki 5/21 the RH(ice) was 100+% at 8124m to 8904m. At Int. Falls 5/20 RH(ice) 101% at 3290m, 5/24 RH(ice) 102+% at 6734m to 8575m. Of course, the influence of these apparent clouds need to be considered in developing an understanding of their influence. Of course, anyone wanting to understand the influence of clouds upon the atmosphere’s temperatures needs to go the sounding data sets in order to see what this influence actually is.
Since I, to provide incentive for others to do this, I reviewed the morning (nighttime) soundings, I now review the afternoon (daytime) soundings made 12 hours after the nighttime soundings.
Maniwaki
5/20 22.6C at 189m, 19.8C at 610m, 11.0C at 1539m
RH(ice) 101% at 6389m
5/21 21.0C at 189m, 20.2C at 573m, 11.4C at 1524m
RH(ice) !00+% at 3382m to 3962m
5/22 22.0C at 189m, 18.0C at 610m, 9.8C at 1488m
5/23 24.4C at 189m, 22.4C at 610M, 14.2C at 1496m
RH(ice) 109% at 11123m
5/24 27.2C at 189m, 25.1C at 610m, 16.8C at 1494m
Int. Falls
5/20 23.2C at 357m, 20.6C at 610m, 11.6C at 1541m
5/21 26.2C at 357m, 23.7C at 610m, 14.6C at 1549m
5/22 26.6C at 357m, 24.2C at 610m, 16.0C at 1467m
RH(ice) 105% at 6744m
5/23 23.6C at 357m, 22.2C at 610m, 14.2C at 1433m
RH(ice) 100+% at 8794m to 9144m
5/24 20.6C 357m, 17.9C at 610m, 13.0C at 1484m
Because I could not access the sounding site (University of Wyoming) for the Kelowna Apt afternoon soundings, I turned to the following.
Since I do not commonly read how it is that the RH(ice) can be greater than 100% without invoking instrument error, I quote R. C. Sutcliffe, a meteorologist, from his book Weather and Climate. “While there is no evidence that the air is ever significantly supersaturated with respect to water without the formation of cloud, the occurrence of supersaturation with respect to ice without the formation of ice particles is normal. Down to temperatures of -10C clouds, unless contaminated by falling ice crystals from above, are regularly and perhaps invariably clouds of water droplets alone although at this temperature the air, saturated with respect to water, has a relative humidity with respect to ice. At lower temperatures clouds are liable to contain ice, while below -20C pure water clouds are exceptional and the problem is to discover why the droplets freeze.” However, RH(ice) 109% at 11123m was reported to have been observed at Maniwaki during the afternoon sounding of 5/23. Since the reported temperature at this altitude was -54,5C, it seems in this case we need to invoke instrument error. Because of Sutcliffe’s comments I do add a little more specific inform as I now review the Kelowna Apt afternoon data.
Kelowna Apt
5/20 20.6C at 456m, 16.2C at 610m, 8.2C at 1426m
RH(ice) 104% at 3353m -7.2C to 112% at 4153m -12.1C
RH(ice) 104% at 6712m -28.4C
5/21 16.6C at 456m, 13.6C at 610m, 5.8C at 1458m
RH(ice) 100% at 4880m -15.8C
5/22 15.4C at 456m, 14.1C at 610m, 6.6C at 1402m
RH 99% at 2069m 0.4C to 2134m 0.0C
RH(ice) 101% at 2438m -1.6C to 107% at 4877m -14.4C
5/23 18.2C at 456m, 16.4C at 610m, 9.2C at 1425m
RH(ice) 104% at 3658m -6.4C to 111% at 3952m -10.1C
5/24 24.6C at 456m, 20.5C at 610m, 12.2C at 1456m
RH(ice) 107% at 4439 -10.3C to 106% at 4492m -10.7C
I find that when my ‘tables’ are posted they have a different arrangement than intended. Not that my table as intended are so great because I compacted them to allow them to be better compared. Which is the purpose of the sequence of days and the various sites and the separation of nighttime soundings and daytime soundings. Of course you could see this.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Jerry,
Concerning your “net radiometer” the paper that your referenced states:
“The value of net radiation is obtained from the difference of fourth power temperatures of the upper and lower radiating surfaces.” SUOMI, V. E., An Economical Net Radiometer, Department of Meteorology, The University of Wisconsin, and KUHN, P. M., Office of Meteorological Research, U.S. Weather Bureau, Jan. 10, 1957
What this paper reveals is this: when pointed down towards the ground the thermocouple under the dome of a radiometer generally experiences radiative warming and when pointed up at the sky the thermocouple under the dome of a radiometer generally experiences radiative cooling. What this instrument measures then is a radiative, intra-atmospheric flow of “heat”, a radiative intra-atmospheric flow of “energy”, that is almost always upward away from the ground and is always less than the calculated up-going IR radiation based on the Stefan-Boltzmann formula.
That this up-going, intra-atmospheric flow of heat, this up-going intra-atmospheric flow of energy is a “net” figure is based on an imagined two-way radiative flow of energy. That is, many people imagine that there is an up-going flow of energy from the ground towards the sky, which globally averages ~390 W/m^2 and a concomitant down-going flow of energy from the sky towards the ground, which globally averages ~324 W/m^2 and that the “net” up-going flow of radiative heat is therefore ~66 W/m^2. In reality the “only” flow of heat, the “only” energy flux that radiometers actually detect is the up-going ~66 W/m^2 of heat—the rest is imaginary; it is a mathematical hypothetical that is based upon a particular scientific hypothesis that has its roots in Prevost’s Theory of Exchanges, which is nearly always described as a two-way flow of “heat”.
“A body at all temperatures radiates heat and the rate of emission depends on temperatures of the body. Consider an enclosure the walls of which are maintained at a constant temperature. If a body at a lower temperature is placed inside the enclosure, the temperature of the body would rise till it becomes the same as that of the enclosure. In this case, the amount of heat absorbed by the body from the enclosure per second is greater than that emitted by the body in the same time so that there is a net gain of heat by the body. If the body were at a higher temperature than that of the enclosure, the rate of emission of heat by the body would be greater than the rate of absorption of heat from the enclosure.” https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/heat-and-thermodynamics/9789332511231/xhtml/ch12sec3.xhtml
“Prevost suggested that all bodies radiate energy, but hotter bodies radiate more heat than colder bodies . . . Eventually the bodies will be at the same temperature and heat will be transferred from body 1 to 2 at the same rate as from 2 to 1. The bodies will then be in thermal equilibrium.”
http://astarmathsandphysics.com/a-level-physics-notes/182-thermal-physics-and-gases/3055-prevost-s-theory-of-heat-exchange.html
Prevost’s Theory
“A theory according to which a body is constantly exchanging heat with its surroundings, radiating an amount of energy which is independent of its surroundings, and increasing or decreasing its temperature depending on whether it absorbs more radiation than it emits, or vice versa.” The Free Dictionary
“Prevost’s principal contribution to physics was his theory of exchanges, enunciated in 1791, in which he stated that all bodies regardless of temperature are constantly radiating heat and that an equilibrium of heat between two bodies consisted in an equality of exchange.” encyclopedia.com
“Prevost’s theory of Heat Exchange
“1) Every body emits and absorbs heat radiations at all temperatures except at absolute zero, 2) If a body emits more heat energy than what it absorbs from the surroundings, then its temperature falls, 3) If a body absorbs more heat energy than what it emits then its temperature rises, 4) If a body emits & absorbs heat in equal amounts, then it is said to be in Thermal equilibrium, 5) When the temperatures of body and surroundings are equalized, conduction and convection stop but the radiation exchange takes place.” http://aieeeconcepts.blogspot.com/2010/04/heat-transfer.html
Let me call your attention to a phase that is part of the third definition of Prevost’s Theory of Exchanges above. Prevost’s Theory is a “theory according to which a body is constantly exchanging heat with its surroundings, radiating an amount of energy which is independent of its surroundings.”
In a subsequent post I will demonstrate the fallacy of this statement.
Carl
Hi Carl and anyone else,
I miss posted my comments of 5/15/2016 at 1:11PM to this posting of Joe instead of to his posting Lapse Rate Refutes Radiative Greenhouse Effect. These comments here were intended to be a continuation of a previous posting I had made there.
So while I did not have a good day 5/15, you have a good day today, Jerry
Hi Carl,
Again, thank you for your response for it informs me what you think, reason, believe, and sometimes have observed that I and others have not observed. As I read comments, which concern the greenhouse effect etc. (etc. because I believe that the issues of global warming and climate change are based upon this hypothesis), that have been posted on blogsites I have to consider that most participants do not have much to say about actual observations. They prefer to do what you have just done in reviewing what a man named Prevost reasoned more than 200 years ago. I have to admit I had never heard about Prevost and his reasoning until I read what you wrote about his reasoning.
In Physical Chemistry 2nd Ed. by Walter J. Moore, which I have for a reference, I read: “At any given temperature there is a characteristic distribution of the gas velocities given by Maxwell’s [whose name I recognize from the writings of other scientists] equation. The corresponding problem of the spectral distribution of black-body radiation, that is, the fraction of the total energy radiated that is within each range of wavelength, was first explored experimentally (1877-1900) by O. Lummer and E. Pringsheim. [whose names I do not recognize because I was never assigned this textbook for any physical chemistry course I took] … When these data of Lummer and Pringsheim appeared, attempts were made to explain them theoretically by arguments based on the wave theory of light and the principles of equipartition of energy. Without going into the details of these efforts, which were uniformly unsuccessful, it is possible to see why they were foredoomed to failure. … The man who first dared to discard classical mechanics and the equipartition of energy was Max Planck. [a name with which I am quite familiar] Taking this step in 1900, he was able to derive a new distribution law, which explained the experimental data on black-body radiation.”
I review this, which I consider generally accepted history, to state that it appears that much, which has to do with radiation, cannot be explained by the ‘classical’ physics which existed before about 1900. Hence, because I know I am not a theorist, I dislike participating in theoretical ‘arguments’ and I dislike participating in theoretical ‘arguments’ because I know that it is what is observed that dictates that which any reasoning must explain. And we know that for certain defined systems ‘classical mechanics’ must be replaced with ‘quantum mechanics’ to explain what can be observed.
Moving on. Today, 5/26, you began: “Concerning your “net radiometer” the paper that your referenced states:”. The paper you refer to is not the paper I referenced. So you have not yet seen what Suomi, Staley, and Kuhn observed as the result of the sounding made with their net radiometer at Green Bay WI on 12/21/1956. Whose ‘raw’ data (temperatures of the a-e surfaces instead of calculated radiations) were plotted vs. observed atmospheric pressures (as the linear scale) in Figure 3 of this paper. And it is the paper to which I referred which also describes in detail the net radiometer’s design, construction, and analysis thereof.
As described before, UA noted the fact that the temperature of the net radiometer’s upward facing a-e surface (a flat piece of aluminum foil painted black) was about 10C less than the ambient atmosphere’s temperature 2cm from the upward facing a-e surface as it rose from the surface to near the top of the troposphere. This can be seen in Fig 3. The paper’s authors, in their discussion of the sounding results, do not call this to the attention of a reader. But neither UA nor the authors draw attention to the fact that shortly after launch the temperature of the downward facing a-e surface begins to decrease as it rises to its greatest height. So by this highest ascent, the temperature of the downward facing a-e surface has decreased more than 40C from it maximum temperature near the surface of the ground. It is possible that UA noticed this but purposefully did not point it out because this decrease of temperature represents a decrease of upward radiation which is exactly what the proponents of the greenhouse effect propose should occur.
Somewhere I know you have written about this decrease of observed upward radiation from below but by a couple quick scans I have not found what I am sure you wrote. So, I give my review one more try. Which failed again.
Now, I must ‘brag’ a bit as I saw, soon after beginning to study the figure, the apparent consequence of the downward facing a-e surface’s temperature decrease as the net radiometer ascended. And I tried to reason some malfunction of the instrument without success. And I must consider the downward facing a-e surface decrease of temperature to be even stronger evidence of the greenhouse effect than the fact of observed downward radiation from a cloudless sky, which Suomi considered to be evidence of the greenhouse effect.
Yet, there is (are) the question (s): To where is this radiation disappearing? What is absorbing it and not soon emitting it? How is it that the value of the upward radiation observed being emitted upward near the surface not that being observed at the top of the atmosphere?
At this time I do not claim to have any ‘good’ answers to these questions. So I will break off these comments and begin another posting related to the theme that we cannot understand the interaction of radiation with matter according to ‘classical mechanics’ and that instead we must consider the mysteries of ‘quantum mechanics’ that apply to such interactions.
And I wait for your comments which you stated would be forthcoming.
Have a good day, Jerry
“the temperature of the downward facing a-e surface has decreased more than 40C from it maximum temperature near the surface of the ground. It is possible that UA noticed this but purposefully did not point it out because this decrease of temperature represents a decrease of upward radiation which is exactly what the proponents of the greenhouse effect propose should occur”
“must consider the downward facing a-e surface decrease of temperature to be even stronger evidence of the greenhouse effect than the fact of observed downward radiation from a cloudless sky, which Suomi considered to be evidence of the greenhouse effect”
As Carl has pointed out, a radiometer reporting some signal when pointed to the sky is not evidence of a greenhouse effect and backradiation heating. And although the warmists might interpret a cooler reading as height increases when looking down as evidence of a greenhouse effect, this is not actually evidence of a greenhouse effect either.
Hi Joe,
It is my objective to refute the greenhouse effect and I believe it can be done if you actually study observation evidence more and try to actually explain with something more than “this is not actually evidence of a greenhouse effect either.” I can say black is white and white is black but no one should believe just because I say it.
I have drawn some specific observations from atmospheric sounding to your attention to which you have not responded. While I do not believe greenhouse gases have much influence upon the surface atmosphere’s temperature, I certainly believe clouds do. And this influence is not a greenhouse effect because I believe it does not involve the absorption of radiation by atmospheric particles much larger than the gaseous molecules of the atmosphere.
Please do keep responding to what I share because it helps me to respond specifically to what you share. And I really try to respond with common, reproducible observations or with what scientists with much greater scientific achievements than my own have stated or with questions that you or others need to try to fully answer because as in the case to which you responded, I really at this time, do not know possible answers to the questions I have asked.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Joe,
I had just written a response to your comments and I guess I forgot to post it. And I forget what I had written. So now I quickly summarize it by stating that comments like “this is not actually evidence of a greenhouse effect either” are seriously lacking any scientific basis.
I discovered my apparent forgetfulness when I came to post an example of something which I consider has a scientific basis because it is not what I have done, except by quoting, or thought as I know there are such things as carbon dioxide lasers.
So read on.
Have a good day, Jerry
Thank you for the more detailed description of the simple Suomi radiometer.
“In the case of the simple Suomi radiometer the window material is two thin films of polyethylene spaced 1 cm from each other the bottom one 1 cm above the a-e surface which is a thin aluminum sheet painted, in the case of the net-radiometer, with some paint of known properties, and in my case with a dull black spray paint. The rest of my radiometer is extruded Styrofoam to thermally and radiatively isolate the a-e surface from its surrounding, except for the window.”
Even before Kirchhoff’s law was recognized it was experimentally established that things painted dull black where both better emitters and better absorbers of infrared radiation than most everything else. Is it really so surprising then that a dull black surface pointing up through the semi-transparent atmosphere towards interstellar space cools faster than the air around it from which it is thermally isolated? I fully accept the proposition that a dull black surface is more “emissive” than is air and will therefore cool faster via IR radiation than the air around it when pointed upwards at.
Since the air is semi-transparent to IR radiation and a dull black surface pointed down-ward is not, neither is it surprising that up-going IR radiation from the ground warms said dull black surface to a temperature that is above the air around it from which it is thermally isolated.
What such observations demonstrate is that there is well-established up-going, intra-atmospheric, radiative energy flux. What can also be observed is that the strength of that up-going, radiative energy flux is relative to the opacity/transparency of the atmosphere, e.g., the more humid the air is the more opaque the air is to IR radiation. Thus the surface (oceans and surface) cools less efficiently via up-going IR radiation in humid climates than it does in arid climates.
What is not experimentally established by observation is that this well-established up-going, intra-atmospheric, radiative energy flux is attenuated by a concomitant down-going, intra-atmospheric, radiative energy flux, rather than it simply being relative to the air’s opacity. Submerged in completely opaque surroundings—let’s say a block of iron suspended within a vat of crude oil—matter emits zero IR radiation. If that same block of iron exists within 100% transmissive surroundings—let’s say that it is out in interstellar space—it would emit 100% of the IR radiation predicted by the Stefan-Boltzmann formula relative to its temperature and emissivity.
Those are the two extremes that exist when it comes to the emission of IR radiation—zero vs. 100%—and these extremes are determined by the opacity of the surroundings of the matter in question. The ground and oceans, the “surface” of the planet, is surrounded by a semi-transparent medium—the atmosphere. Why do scientists not consider the possibility that the amount of IR radiation that the “surface” emits in the first place is simply attenuated by the opacity of the atmosphere, rather than imagining that the “surface” emits IR radiation as though it were in interstellar space, but that a certain portion of that emission is “cancelled out” as it were by a down-going radiative energy flux from a cooler atmosphere?
Carl
I find the semi-transparent medium theory a little disturbing. This envisions bottom of the atmosphere as a “filter” for outgoing radiation that simply blocks the photons..
The opaque layer of photons that would quickly coat the bottom of the atmosphere indicate this isn’t what is really happening.
Hi Carl,
As I find your previous postings on other blogsites, it is obvious that your focus has been about the influence of relative humidity upon atmospheric temperature for quite some time. And I believe I have made it clear that my focus has been about the influence of clouds upon the surface atmosphere temperatures. I really appreciate your efforts because you have consistently referred to observed data from one source or another.
End Note: In one of my career paths I obtained a degree in Electronics Technology and it was from that knowledge base
Hi Carl and Joe,
All I know about QM is what I read and the fact that it explained the structure of molecules which chemists had already learned about by their experiments. Hence it seems chemists immediately embraced this new physics (mechanics) and I have read that such was not the case for many physicists.
The following from The Feynman Lectures On Physics seems, to me at least, to have a direct application to the hypothesis of the greenhouse effect. From pages 42-9 and 42-10
“Einstein assumed that Planck’s final formula was right, and he used that formula to obtain some new information, previously unknown, about the interaction of radiation with matter. His discussion went as follows: Consider any two of the many energy levels of an atom, say the mth level and the nth level. Now Einstein proposed that when such an atom has light of the right frequency shining on it, it can absorb that photon of light and make a transition from state n to state m, and that the probability that this occurs per second depends upon the two levels, of course, but is proportional to how intense the light is that is shining on it. Let us call the proportionality constant Bnm, merely to remind us that this is not a universal constant of nature, but depends on the particular pair of levels: some levels are easy to excite; some levels are hard to excite. Now what is the formula going to be for the rate of emission from m to n? Einstein proposed that this must have two parts to it. First, even if there were no light present, there would be some chance that an atom in an excited state would fall to a lower state, emitting a photon; this we call spontaneous emission. It is analogous to the idea that an oscillator with a certain amount of energy, even in classical physics, does not keep that energy, but loses it by radiation. Thus the analog of spontaneous radiation of a classical system is that if the atom is in an excited state there is a certain probability Amn, which depends on the levels again, for it to go down from m to n, and this probability is independent of whether light is shining on the atom or not. But then Einstein went further, and by comparison with the classical theory and by other arguments, concluded the emission was also influenced by the present of light—that when light of the right frequency is shining on an atom, it has an increased rate of emitting a photon that is proportional to the intensity of the light, with a proportionality constant Bmn. Later, if we deduce that this coefficient is zero, then we will have found that Einstein was wrong. Of course we will find he was right.
“Thus Einstein assumed that there are three kinds of processes: an absorption proportional to the intensity of light, an emission proportional to the intensity of light, called induced emission or sometimes stimulated emission, and a spontaneous emission independent of light.”
Feynman next writes some equations and makes comments relative to these equations which one (you) can read if you are into such analysis for which I do not consider myself qualified. I only trust Einstein and Feynman. So I pick up Feynman’s lecture where there is more of a descriptive narrative on page 42-10.
“But Planck has already told us that the formula must be (42.12). Therefore we can deduce something: First, that Bnm must equal Bmn, since otherwise we cannot get the [mathematical expression]. So Einstein discovered some things that he did not know how to calculate, namely that the induced emission probability and the absorption probability must be equal. This is interesting. And furthermore, in order for (42.17) and (42.12) to agree, Amn/Bmn must be [mathematical expression]. So, if we know, for instance, the absorption rate for a given level, we can deduce the spontaneous emission rate and the induced emission rate, or an combination.
“This is as far as Einstein or anyone else could go using such arguments. To any specific atomic transition, of course, requires a knowledge of the machinery of the atom, called quantum electrodynamics, which was not discovered until eleven years later. This work of Einstein was done in 1916.”
Carbon dioxide lasers (light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation) have been invented and certainly seem to confirm the validity of Einstein’s assumption and the deductions taught by Feynman to freshman students at Caltech during the 1961-1962 academic year.
I have had trouble getting this to port and in the mean time I have read some Carl’s quotes about what is being taught at very respected universities. And I was surprised to read what I would expect to be the result of what I have just reviewed. So I am getting a little (honestly more than a little) confused and no sarcasm is intended. But better to be confused than to know something that isn’t true. For Newton is said to have stated: “A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the thing is false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.”
But to learn we must imagine things. For Einstein is said to have stated: “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” And “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
So I have to go back to carefully imagine the system I believe must exist, knowing there are fundamental conflictions which I have not yet resolved.
And Carl, I will next more directly respond to your last posting.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Carl,
As I find your previous postings on other blogsites, it is obvious that your focus has been about the influence of relative humidity upon atmospheric temperature for quite some time. And I believe I have made it clear that my focus has been about the influence of clouds upon the surface and surface atmosphere temperatures. I really appreciate your efforts because you have consistently referred to observed data from one source or another.
In reading what you have written I found: “End Note: In one of my career paths I obtained a degree in Electronics Technology and it was from that knowledge base … .” I am really curious about your background as I had decided I knew who you were but if I was correct you would have had to have had several diverse career paths. So I am now just as confused about your actual background as I am right now about what I believe about the greenhouse effect ect.
However, I really appreciate your efforts because you have consistently referred to observed data from one source or another. Yes, I repeat.
Have a good day, Jerry
There exists within science that which is observed, i.e., empirical evidence, and that which the human mind believes is causing that which is observed. There also exists what can be called “orthodox” scientific beliefs, which are the generally accepted explanations for the aforementioned observed reality.
History is replete with examples of “orthodox” scientific beliefs being proven wrong. My suggestion that matter emits IR radiation relative to the opacity of its surroundings indeed challenges the “orthodox” scientific belief that all matter emits IR radiation irrespective of the opacity of its surroundings—a belief that sets up the “orthodox” scientific belief that there exists a full-on two-way radiative exchange of energy between all matter, which sets up the “orthodox” scientific belief that down-welling IR radiation from the atmosphere at least doubles the power of sunlight, which in turn causes some 33C of extra surface level warming.
That being said, how on Earth does acknowledging that the atmosphere is semi-transparent to IR radiation suggest that an “opaque layer of photons” “coat[s] the bottom of the atmosphere”?
I fully agree. The bottom of the atmosphere is not coated with an opaque layer of photons.
Carl
“It is my objective to refute the greenhouse effect.”
Which version? This question goes to the original article that started this thread. Those who believe that there exists a “greenhouse gas” mediated “greenhouse effect” that raises surface level temperatures some 33 C above what they would be if 1) there were no atmosphere or 2) there were no “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere will present you with a hypothesis of how the “greenhouse effect” works. When you show them evidence—either empirical, theoretical or mathematical—that demonstrates that their particular hypothesis is out of sync with reality they will 1) ignore you, 2) question your evidence, 3) attempt to discredit you by throwing up any number of logical fallacies and/or 4) not uncommonly change the hypothesis to something else.
Concerning this last point Joe listed about 20 variations of the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis in an article back in 2012 – http://principia-scientific.org/versions-of-the-greenhouse-effect/
Knowing that the term “greenhouse effect” is itself a misnomer the IPCC switched to calling it “radiative forcing” or “climate sensitivity” in their assessment reports, which they define:
“In both the Third Assessment Report (TAR) and AR4, the term radiative forcing (RF, also called stratospherically adjusted RF, as distinct from instantaneous RF) was defined as the change in net irradiance at the tropopause after allowing for stratospheric temperatures to readjust to radiative equilibrium, while holding surface and tropospheric temperatures and state variables such as water vapour and cloud cover fixed at the unperturbed values. RF is generally more indicative of the surface and tropospheric temperature responses than instantaneous RF, especially for agents such as carbon dioxide (CO2) or ozone (O3) change that substantially alter stratospheric temperatures. To be consistent with TAR and AR4, RF is hereafter taken to mean the stratospherically adjusted RF.”
If it is, indeed, your objective to refute the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis just be aware that you are shooting at a moving target that is often obscured by vague or obtuse language.
Carl
Hi Carl,
First, I am now having trouble getting my comments promptly posted as had been previously occurring. So this is a short test to check how long it might take for this to be posted. I am aware of the challenge involved in my objective and the tactics of the ‘authorities’. But I believe there are simple observations being overlooked. I try to communicate with you because you seem to critically examine what I write and obviously are more knowledgeable about somethings than I. So, if I can convince you of the validity of some of these observations and ideas, it seems we might have a possibility of convincing others.
Since this is a test about my comments being promptly posted, Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Carl,
While I am not sure when my test was finally posted, I am reasonably sure (I do not claim to have a perfect memory) that a previous set of comments has not. So I went to the Principia site because I have read several of your postings there and therefore hoped I could possibly establish a better line of communication with you there. I found Ken Bryer’s recent (5/29/2016) posting there. Which seemed to be another of my God sightings. You can go there and possibly see why I consider this.
I really want to continue the dialogue we have started. But I am not sure where or if you are even interested in doing this? So I will be watching for your reply either here or at Principia.
Have a good day, Jerry
Carl, you wrote: “If it is, indeed, your objective to refute the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis just be aware that you are shooting at a moving target that is often obscured by vague or obtuse language.”
At various times I know you have referred to Surfrad data, atmospheric sounding data, and the weather data being observed at many airports. I know you are the only person I have discovered was has studied this data. So we have this much in common. What we seem to not to yet have in common is an understanding of which factor, or factors, most influences the earth’s surface temperature measure 1.5m above its surface.
Given what we have in common, I know it will be unlikely (maybe impossible to achieve my objective) if we (you and I) cannot come to a common understanding of what factor(s) we believe most influences this temperature. And I believe we both agree that this factor is not the greenhouse effect as originally defined.
Based upon what I claim to know and what I claim to not know, I anticipate that coming to a common understanding will be a slow process because I am sure we have many diverse tidbits of experiences and information which need to be shared and discussed.
I know there have been many who have questioned, without success, for decades the validity of the greenhouse effect hypothesis; as I have. I know I have not known about observations, which I now know, until recently. Until recently, say since 2012, I have not known what these who question were doing and reasoning. And I have found no evidence that some, perhaps many, have ever conducted an experiment in their lives as you and I have. But I have found that many love to debate (make clever arguments by using vague or obtuse words).
Will try to post this and see what happens. An experiment, which, based on previous experience, I should not need to be making.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Joe,
In a response to tallbloke, (02/26/2016) you wrote: “The Earth-Sun system is energetically closed as there is no significant energy introduced from outside this system, but its internal state can be modified from the outside. There is a need here to be very strict about the terms used: energetically, it is closed.” The Earth-Sun system is constantly emitting energy (radiation) to space (infinity). So how can you claim that it is energetically closed? I do not attempt the mathematical analysis that you do; so that I have no idea about the possible consequences of your mistake.
Have a good day, Jerry
Hi Joe,
Just reviewed the first response to your post, which was that of Tallbloke. And I discovered he, near the beginning, wrote: “At this point you need to remember that we are not discussing a closed system. The Sun is pushing energy in continually, and energy is being emitted to space continually.” So I see you somehow ignored this simple fact that Tallbloke brought to your attention and obviously I wrote basically the same thing and I expect you will find me just as ignorant as evidently you considered Tallbloke to be.
Have a good day, Jerry
What does selective quotation do for you Jerry? Here’s what was said:
JP: “And yes, at this point we indeed are discussing a closed system: that of the sun-earth system. Aside from very slowly changing galactic processes, and slowly changing modifications to the state of the closed system, the system between the earth and sun is basically energetically and thermally closed. Other energy inputs are negligible. We can’t talk of the Earth and the energy it is receiving from the Sun, which is the reference frame, but then consider the Earth all by itself as the system under consideration and now consider it open because we’ve left out the Sun: the thermal system in question has to include the sun because it is the input from the sun which is setting the reference frame and the physics considerations from the outset. So yes, the Earth-Sun system is a closed system, and it is the closed system in consideration. As a closed thermal system, there is nothing inside that system which can out-perform what the input of the system is initially doing. The correct concern would be if emissivity was being reduced, but reducing emissivity isn’t a concern of supposed “greenhouse gases”.”
JP: “So just to make sure I’m clear: I agree that the Earth-Sun system is “open” in terms of its internal parameters being modifiable by outside effects, but it is “thermally closed” because there is no additional thermal energy supply from outside of the Earth-Sun system. The Earth-Sun system is energetically closed as there is no significant energy introduced from outside this system, but its internal state can be modified from the outside. There is a need here to be very strict about the terms used: energetically, it is closed; but the coefficients of the system can be dialed somewhat from outside.”
The Earth is open to space; however the Earth & Sun are effectively a closed energetic thermal system; however some of the parameters of the system can be modified from the outside, through non-thermal means, such as cloud formation rate being affected by cosmic rays (this isn’t a thermal energetic input, but an effect on the parameters of the system).
Once again, I’m very late to the party, but I’m really enjoying reading through old posts and comments. This one is a bombshell to me!:
“But, I don’t understand why people think that when something is irradiated by a certain “Q” it MUST radiate the same amount back out. “But assuming all 1366 W/m2 gets absorbed by the Earth’s surfaces, those surfaces collectively would have to radiate back out 1366 W/m2.”
“Nothing radiates with the same incident radiation power until it has reached the temperature which the Stefan-Boltzmann equation requires for the emissivity value of the object concerned.
“This is unequivocal and well established by experiment.
“Using values from the Engineering Toolbox for various real materials to emit 1366 W/sqm we can see that:-
“Sand – e = ~0.75 – requires a temperature of ~423 K or ~150 degrees C to emit 1366 W/sqm.
“Salt – e = ~0.34 – requires a temperature of ~516 K or ~243 degrees C to emit 1366 W/sqm.
“Water – e = ~0.95 – requires a temperature of ~399 K or ~126 degrees C to emit 1366 W/sqm
“A blackbody requires a temperature of ~393 K or ~120 degrees C to emit 1366 W/sqm
“The object thus heated radiates at the value its emissivity determines and all real materials require significantly higher temperatures to emit the same value as a blackbody.”
Wow! Now that is a learning experience for me. It is also another crushing blow to the energy budget diagrams used to supposedly quantify the greenhouse effect. All values in it are blackbody values with an emissivity of 1. As no part of the earth’s surface has an emissivity of 1 then that means that the surface radiation value is wrong. It was wrong already simply because it took the average temperature of the planet and converted that number into an average energy value, when in fact because temperature is proportional to the fourth root of energy, the wildly different temperatures across the globe above and below this temperature average increase the average energy needed for the total of all the different regions dramatically. It is probably impossible to calculate a remotely accurate average surface energy emission. This new revelation just makes the whole Kiehl Trenberth diagrams even more absurd.
Well yes exactly. And consider that the atmosphere is said to have a very low emissivity given that cool gases don’t radiate very strongly for their given temperature. This also says that the atmosphere will therefore have to be warmer than a blackbody.