Here is a paper I wrote and put in my last book The Great Noetic Filter:
It is all about how to derive the adiabatic gradient from first thermodynamic principles, and it addresses the claim that the troposphere should be isothermal – it should NOT be. Maxwell and Boltzmann, from where the isothermal claim is derived, assumed a fixed enclosure surrounded by a constant and infinite heat bath: it is that assumption which sneaks in a constant temperature from the outset, and a constant temperature is the only possible result from those premises. But those premises are not the atmosphere. The air is not fixed in an enclosure: it is free to expand and rise; the air is not surrounded by a constant heat bath: there is periodic heat at one extremity, there is no surrounding bath, and otherwise in equilibrium there is zero heat flow.
The other problem is that the typical explanation invokes bulk convection, using phrases like “consider a parcel of gas rising or falling”. However, something is left out: what replaces that rising or falling parcel? Is vacuum left behind? And what do we mean by parcel? A fixed volume? A fixed mass? The correct way to handle this problem is with an infinitesimal slice of space, and to consider the gas which moves through the slice, and the gas can move through it with no bulk convection because there is still always thermal motion from the Maxwellian speed distribution. So, the rising and falling parcels actually have to be sieves if the atmosphere is mechanically stable, with air rising and falling simultaneously. Use an infinitesimal slice for that.
Here is the paper. It fully derives the temperature structure of the troposphere from standard thermodynamics, leaving no temperature residual for a radiative greenhouse effect to have to come in to explain, let alone entirely replace:
Cool. Book ordered. I wondered about the ‘parcel of air’ thing. If the terms all cancel down to the lapse rate equation, then why not consider a particle of air, a nitrogen or oxygen molecule. But I suppose a single molecule can’t yield a temperature, or only can with a difficult randomised vector/velocity for it. I’m sure your paper clears it up JP.
Yes that’s right, you cannot consider a single molecule when it comes to temperature. However, you can consider that single molecules are always in motion even when there is no bulk convection, and that is what allows the sieve between upward moving air and downward moving air simultaneously.
The paper derives the state of the column from first principles on the atmosphere’s own principles, i.e., that it is a free gas and not in a heat bath; that’s where Maxwell and Boltzmann went wrong and snuck in an isothermal column instead.
“…single molecules are always in motion…” of course! Otherwise it would be a solid. It’s good that you’ve dealt with those sneaky isothermal column inserters.
@Joseph E Postma
Very good stuff, Joe.
A short summary?
The lapse rate is not the governing principle/ the governing constraints are: The lapse rate is the solution that emerges from those constraints. Earth’s specific lapse rate is a product of it’s constraints. On Earth, when we say lapse rate is associated with a dense, collisional atmosphere in near-hydrostatic balance where energy is exchanged efficiently between parcels and layers.
For the Moon for example, the lapse rate is purely a radiative process. For the lunar surface thermal gradient, the temperature change can occur over centimeters to decimeters. That really blew my mind btw. If they could create a micro technology with adaptive thermal resistance, it would be a game changer for space travel.
“we say lapse rate” we think lapse rate,
A parcel is not real it’s a mathematical abstraction. Temperature is an emergent property, a very important distinction.
T ∝ ⟨KE⟩
Temperature is related to the average kinetic energy of a population, not an individual particle. Temperature emerges from a statistical ensemble.
Why?
I’ll let the physicists argue that one. 😏
That proportionality requires entropy to make it an equality with some other manipulations, and entropy requires more than a single particle as a single particle is not an ensemble and thus has no entropy.
Ah,
1/T=(∂S/∂U) ?
Temperature emerges from the relationship between:
entropy (S)
energy (U)
…not from a particle itself.
Right!!
@Joseph E Postma
Always the teacher. 😊
This obviously is on a level out of my wheelhouse. It appears to be an opposing argument on the greenhouse-theory field of play. My approach is to invalidate the field of play entirely and not engage in the minutia of showing how the complexities derived from that field make their ways into arguments. Hence, my latest:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/do5gt2xvsfxiyta7j1dgv/UnderstandingGreenhouseEffect.pdf?rlkey=2ta7uluhy6vihz0nqgu4h1pvs&dl=0
Good write up Robert.
@Joe Cutting to the chase; does the atmosphere offer any thermal resistance?
The concept of “thermal resistance” is I think malformed.
The atmosphere is thermal mass and it takes time to cool down. It also takes time to heat up. This isn’t really “resistance”…it’s just the size of the reservoir.
That reservoir is also generally cold and actively cooling the ground.
The one valid place to think of “resistance” is in emissivity; highly polished surfaces have low emissivity and this is a sort of resistance to thermal radiant emission, and this does indeed lead to higher temperature for the same energy emission compared to high emissivity.
So then you have to look at what gases have this low emissivity, radiant thermal emission resistance property or effect: that’s N2 and O2.
It might be useful to define exactly what the phrase, “thermal resistance”, might refer to.
Is “thermal” referring to heat? Is “thermal” referring to temperature? In the first case, “resistance to heat” would be hard to define, unless you think of heat as a substance. Resistance to a change in temperature is also sort of hard to conceive by itself, because some thing causes temperature — kinetic energy of molecules, so something would have to cause those molecules not to move as much — what could do that?
As I see it, the phrase, “thermal resistance”, seems tailored to the idea of heat as a substance that can be blocked, which is what the greenhouse theory, either knowingly or unknowingly, hearkens back to. Heat, like flux, is not a static thing, as I’ve come to understand it — it’s more a description of movement — a dynamic relationship between two bodies. The “stuff” of that relationship is energy (if we are to think of a stuff at all). Resistance to the flow of energy would seem to be what “thermal resistance” means, then.
But then you have to figure out what you’re talking about when you say “resistance”. Does that mean “make it slower moving”, and then you ask, “slower moving with respect to what time frame and why?” Again, it seems like playing on the greenhouse-theory turf, to use that phrase.
@Robert Kernodle
“It might be useful to define exactly what the phrase, “thermal resistance”, might refer to.”
An excellent question, it really does apply to approach.
From an engineering viewpoint I believe it is viewed more like q = ΔT/R. In that “perspective” it can be viewed as having thermal resistance for mathematical purposes.
From an atmospheric physics view point? No. You’re dealing with radiative exchange, water vapor absorption/emission, cloud effects, turbulence, latent heat processes & changing/shifting boundary-layer structures…
You could look at like F(net)=F(rad)+F(conv)+F(latent)+F(adv)+F(turb) maybe? I don’t know.
You could “approximate” the surface, maybe?
But in atmospheric physics or just the atmopshere in general their is no equivalent single thermal resistance equation because the atmosphere is not a resistor in how engineering sees the context.
The atmosphere is not a system with a single dominant transport mechanism. But an engineer doesn’t have to believe Q is a substance to define what they view as resistance.
R(th)= ΔT/Q(dot)
In atmospheric physics, it is simply not approach or a consideration. The troposphere is a heat engine, not a resistor in simpler terms.
Okay, so putting all that together, we might say that Earth’s atmosphere itself offers thermal resistance by way of multiple processes, the least of which is radiatively active gases. The bulk of the “resistance” takes place in the lower layers of the atmosphere. Radiation does not really come into the picture until top of atmosphere, which is where the cosmic cooling of the planet to outer space takes place. Earth does not boil on the sun-lit hemisphere, because the atmosphere is cooling. Earth does not deep freeze on the dark side, because the atmosphere is warming. The phrase, “thermal resistance”, thus, does not seem to capture both of those functions. “Thermal regulation” might be better. And then we ask, “How does the atmosphere both cool and warm?” This is the question that greenhouse theory seems to have overlooked.
“Earth does not deep freeze on the dark side, because the atmosphere is warming.”
Not warming, as that implies heat flow. It is simply large thermal mass cooling at the rate it is supposed to, which is slowly.
Zero warm(ing) on the night side for no external energy is gained. Internal energy shifting, yes. Rate of cooling, yes. Even in rate of cooling, one must be careful to distinguish the T1 max not as a T2 increase. Rate of cooling might adjust the total temp gradient average, never the max total temperature for it’s not +energy gained. Nightside equals DU < . Even latent heat is distribution of energy, not gained energy in the night side system.
Once you apply the correct thermodynamic boundary condition, the nighttime energy balance is fixed: Δ𝑈 = 0 −OLR + DWIR <0 . That’s just thermodynamics based on an externally heated energy source.
SpaceX’s $2 Trillion Bet Has a Physics Problem
It is many orders of magnitude harder to cool things in space because of lack of moving atmospheric gasses.
I’ve encountered the argument that a cloud preventing a frost is an example of back radiation. But clearly the rate of thermal loss would be slower on a cloudy night than on a clear night. If you endured a night three times as long and you’d have a frost alright.
When I wrote “warming”, I did not mean in an active sense as in adding energy to increase the temperature. I meant “has a warming effect” or “maintains warmth”. The atmosphere keeps the dark side warm by cooling slowly enough to maintain a habitable temperature. The atmosphere keeps the light side cool by distributing energy in a way that the same cooling process maintains a habitable temperature. That last sentence might need some work.
Greenhouse theory erases the oceans and other water features of the planet, except when it obsesses on forcing, which disproportionately focuses on radiative heat transfer at the expense of ignoring thermal inertia of the very mass that it erases. It erases 70% of the surface to fantasize about a planet with no oceans and no atmosphere to compare with the reality of a planet with both.
Earth’s thermal resistance I reckon is about the same as a single pane of glass ie. 0.37 m^2 K/W or to express it as a planetary u value; 2.72W/(m^2K)
Robert I believe you are conflating simplification for the purpose of establishing a principle with sleight of hand. The simple radiative-only models indeed miss out significant influences but I would aver that doesn’t make them wrong; only an approximation rather than an exact formula.
@J Cuttance – right, exactly; there is increased thermal mass which therefore cools more slowly, increased water vapour which has latent heat release making it cool more slowly; it’s not backradiation heating anything, and everything is still cooling, not getting hotter.
@Robert Kernodle – yes for sure, I know you understand that, I was just writing it down
“Robert I believe you are conflating simplification for the purpose of establishing a principle with sleight of hand.”
[] Far from it, donaldgisbey.
When an attempt at establishing a principle violates the definition of flux, reverse engineers a supposed surface temperature using a radiation law that applies to blackbodies, compares it to another metric that violates the definition of intensive quantities, then that is NOT a mere “simplification” — that is gross error masquerading as “simplification”
“The simple radiative-only models indeed miss out significant influences but I would aver that doesn’t make them wrong; only an approximation rather than an exact formula”
[] Again, donaldgisbey:
An “approximation” with all the issues that I point out is NOT a mere “approximation” — it’s gross misrepresentation that facilitates ease of: teaching, book writing, public communication, grant funding, reputation building, policy justification, …. setting up a whole generation of young minds to perpetuate a childhood fantasy model that infects future adult climate scientists and diverts massive resources from addressing the real issues of modern civilization.
@ donaldgisbey
I meant to change the phrase, “sleight of hand” in my article, because I’m not convinced that there is an intention to deceive. I haven’t decided on a better phrase.
The effect of promoting that model is “sleight of hand”, in other words, not the intent necessarily. People trained on the “simple model” have really fallen for it and are invested in it honestly 100% to the point of it being a religion. When you look at the axioms that it violates, though, it’s not forgivable to keep this thing viable. It’s time to leave it behind and grow up, so to speak. Santa and the Easter Bunny do not exist. A world like Earth with no atmosphere and no oceans, used as a baseline comparison planet, besides being an absurd oxymoron, does not exist.
@J Cuttance
So I started with a simple question: Does DWIR bring up the temperature variance they claimed. I did the numbers, and it was no it did not in many cases, especially over tropical ocean nights. So, what did?
Another reason why Joe has hammered it is invaluable to understand basic thermodynamic fluxes (a work in progress for myself). I have seen climate scientists get this wrong. Joe and I argued with Slick Willy on X over this very thing he was clueless and remained so.
But anyway, 🤷♂️
You’re describing a radiative inversion effect. Clouds don’t stop cooling; they slow it. But the observed temperature difference is often larger than can be explained by cloud-base radiation alone. Dew-point regulation, latent heat release from condensation, turbulent mixing, wind, and advection frequently contribute as well.
Can DWIR alone account for the observed Tmin difference? That is the real starting point. Sometimes it is yes, often times no. Almost nothing in the atmosphere operates as a single‑mechanism system.
In cold, dry regions under relatively stable conditions, you can often get much closer to the DWIR signal. In very dry, cold air masses, the dew point is so far below the ambient temperature that its moderating influence is negligible.
Now compare that to a humid autumn boundary layer over the eastern United States, the cloud deck often arrives with: rising dew point, changing air mass, increasing wind, turbulent mixing, condensation, changing pressure gradients, & inversion suppression…& so forth.
Now the cloud becomes part of an entire atmospheric regime change that is not set by DWIR. When the dew point is near ambient temperature, many additional mechanisms become important.
Hats off to the meteorologists who deal with this on a daily basis and aren’t ideological idiots. They tend to deal more with internal energy distribution rather than external energy contribution, but they get it to some degree.
@ donaldgisbey
“The simple radiative-only models indeed miss out significant influences but I would aver that doesn’t make them wrong; only an approximation.”
For establishing the effective radiative temperature of Earth absolutely correct…and that’s it.
>RT is excellent for Teff.
>Teff is not GMST or even how GMAT is determined.
>A convecting atmosphere requires additional physics. This it is treated as a radiative-convective coupling.
@ Robert Kernodle it was established in the 70s as a hack for fast rotating planets based on stellar physics.
“T_eff, or effective temperature, was originally created to determine the temperature of stars. It represents the temperature of a black body that would emit the same total amount of electromagnetic radiation as the star. While it is related to a star’s luminosity and radiance, its primary purpose is to estimate the star’s surface temperature.” I think that was @Philip Mulholland ?
I think CD Marshall touches on a very important point: No one process at any one time operates to cause the measurable effects that we might observe. There’s sort of a symphony of processes, where sometimes one is leading, sometimes another, and there is a cumulative effect of how they work together at any one time.
I coaxed this short melodramatic manifesto-like piece out of the Gemini AI, via extensive discussion, correction, coaching and prompting, and I rewrote parts of it using better words:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8aqjym8kkyy0knff82aww/StarDrivenWaterPlanet.pdf?rlkey=eh8ilbyct1ljor7vaib6hsld1&dl=0
cheers jp/cd/Rob. While I’ve got such distilled intellect here…vapour’s deduction from the lapse rate is a cognitive paradox for me. It appears that the absorption of heat by vapour occurs by its increasing absence as we ascend in altitude. How does something’s removal contribute to the properties of that which remains. I can follow the maths – as per JP’s greenhouse book – and I can imagine the observed vapour droplets simply changing size or raining out while going up, but I need latent heat for dummies explanation from someone.
I asked AI to shorten my reply (it would be way too long) this is the best I got and I still added…Prob didn’t help.
A phase state is a function of both temperature and pressure, not temperature alone. That’s why water vapor can exist even in the stratosphere at temperatures near −80°C.
When you look at phase equilibrium, the key question isn’t “How much water can air hold?” but rather “What is the relationship between the actual vapor pressure and the saturation vapor pressure at that temperature and pressure?”
That’s where humidity, condensation, cloud formation, and ultimately precipitation start to make more sense.
Actual vapor pressure and saturation vapor pressure are not the same thing but they are relative. HOW air moves through the atmopshere is based on pressure gradients,
parcel buoyancy, phase equilibrium, stability, moisture transport, condensation levels & circulation and so forth.
The lapse rates are constraints on parcel behavior, not a complete description of atmospheric behavior:
>DALR tells you how a dry parcel cools when lifted.
>MALR tells you how a saturated parcel cools when lifted.
>ELR tells you what the atmosphere is actually doing.
The adiabatic lapse rate is an idealized construct like the ideal gas law, hydrostatic equilibrium or Point Mass approximations so forth… a regulating anchor, not a fixed anchor.
I wrote this out a while ago.
6 identifiable major mechanisms moves thermal energy through the surface-tropopause system. Five are diabatic (energy is added or removed), and one is adiabatic (energy is exchanged internally through work, not added).
>Diabatic processes (energy added or removed)Conduction — molecular collisions transfer energy from the warm surface into the adjacent air.
>Convection — buoyant parcels rise, carrying internal energy upward.
>Advection — horizontal mass transport moves warm or cold air into a region.
>Latent heat — evaporation removes energy from the surface; condensation releases it aloft.
>Radiative transfer — absorption/emission exchanges energy with surroundings (but internal radiative exchange does not change total U of the subsystem).
>Adiabatic processes (energy redistributed internally)Adiabatic expansion/compression — rising air expands and cools; sinking air compresses and warms.
>reversible isothermal expansion
>reversible adiabatic expansion
>reversible isothermal compression
>reversible adiabatic compression
This is the backbone of the lapse rate, or rather the anchor.
Why this is the “engine” of the climate system. The surface–troposphere behaves like a heat engine:
>Energy source: solar absorption at the surface
>Working fluid: moist air
>Cycle: evaporation → convection → expansion → condensation → subsidence
>Exhaust: radiative cooling to space at the top of the atmosphere
To understand climate physics you need to start with the fundamentals:
>the working cycle
>the role of buoyancy
>the lapse rate
>the adiabatic constraint
More (or less) confusing, the six major surface-tropopause transport mechanisms describe where thermal energy moves once it has entered the system. They are not themselves the primary source of that energy (external source).
One of the things Joe has taught for a long time: Once energy is absorbed by the surface, every transfer between the surface and atmosphere is an internal redistribution of energy within the Earth-atmosphere system.
That’s the key distinction between external energy gain and internal energy distribution.
Solar absorption increases the total energy of the system. Conduction, convection, latent heat transport, longwave exchange, turbulence, and advection merely redistribute that energy between reservoirs.
bugger…I was hoping for something simple
Joe can do better…obviously.
But if I had to break it down in short term for a test I’d write it something like this:
How does water vapor influence the atmosphere?
1.Phase change:
>vapor condenses
>latent heat released
2. Parcel thermodynamics:
>moist parcels cool slower than dry parcels
3.Vertical circulation:
>rising air loses moisture
>sinking air gains relative dryness
4.Planetary circulation:
>Hadley cells export latent energy poleward
5. Radiative effects:
>water vapor affects where IR is absorbed and emitted
Or as an outline:
Water Vapor includes…
Phase changes
Evaporation
Condensation
Latent heat
Cloud microphysics
Nucleation
Droplet growth
Precipitation
Dynamics
Convection
Moisture transport
Hadley circulation
Radiative effects
Spectral absorption bands
Spectral emission bands
Water vapor continuum
Longwave radiative transfer
Some near-IR and weak visible absorption
@J Cuttance
Nothing about water vapor is simple. Earth is a hydrological planet, after all.
@CD, upon further clunky turns of my mind’s gears, it’s easier to think of the lapse rate in descent through the atmosphere, whereby the percentage of water increases for whatever pressure/temperature reasons, and resists the easier temperature increases of the dry content with its latent heat properties. I’m still waiting for my Noetic book and its Infinitesimal essay at arse end of a country at the arse end of the world so who knows when it’ll get here.
@J Cuttance; none of CDM’s explanation and nor does Joe’s book negate the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is not about heat flow from cold to warm, it’s about the slowing of transfer of heat from warm to very cold. Often it gets confusing when people talk about back radiation from the atmosphere warming the already warmer surface which obviously can’t happen. Between the surface and to an extent the depth of the ocean and the top of atmosphere (which doesn’t really exist but think of it as an opposite to the densified depths of the ocean maybe, there is a transfer of energy going on which ultimately ends in radiative escape to space to balance the incoming from the sun. Yes there is a lot of mixing and conduction advection latent heat transfer goes on in the middle but ultimately it boils down to what goes in must come out and the more slowly the energy goes out the more the temperature at the surface must rise to balance it. To my mind the arguments that are relevant are how much of an effect there is and what can be done about it. Both of those questions (in my opinion) have as yet been in the first case unresolved, and in the second absolutely kneejerked into achieving nothing but chaos. As I’ve previously noted here sea level rise has not been happening and the IPCC have been subverting that observation. If that lie is being accepted as truth then reactions to it will be highly damaging. On the other side integrated ideas about conserving energy, which is not to do with the obsession with CO2 but is to do with slowing the rate of degradation of limited planetary resources, are hampered severely by the inability of people to work together from cross-disciplinary spheres. Globally, private wealth is way greater than public, ie owned by the commons. In the West it’s actually way worse than say in China. The USA might be dubbed the land of the free but financially it is the land of the enslaved. I think the way forward with energy conservation has to be from the ground up.
Donald, the thing is is that a real scientific theory does not get to redefine itself midstream. Everyone used to explain the RGHE as being about backradiation heating…everyone. You know why they don’t anymore?
Because of ME. The Slayers kind of got a start on it, but then they disbanded and stopped working on it, and I stayed with it. I’m the one who made the entire online discourse about the RGHE have to switch to the slowed cooling argument.
And after I took that apart, then they switched to the “setting the height of -18C” argument, which I also took down by pointing out what an average means.
Now they just rotate between these three explanations and claim that they all mean the same thing.
That’s not science, is changing goal posts. A theory which has no consistent physical explanation is not science, but politics.
Slowed cooling is refuted by surface cooling at night, which is enhanced relative to the rest of the column, not impeded. It is also contradictory to the flat slab pedagogical models still in use which show that it is not merely about slowed cooling, but is about actively amplifying the temperature above the maximum set by external heating.
The atmosphere is heated by the Sun heating the surface, it has a lapse rate set by the ideal gas law which necessarily places the average at the average, and after that it has thermal energy content and it emits what it has to by the law of emissivity.
Joe I appreciate your patience in this, I see the goalposts being moved, and I never doubt your integrity. The problem as I see it now is that you and others who try to present the truth continually get sidelined into expending energy on the maths and physics associated with parameterized modelling and cut off from real observation and cut off from resources which might help to save what really matters. I get you totally that there are forces at work that want to destroy but actually if a parasite destroys the host then it must also perish. It is like a suicide pact. Takes us back to square one. The present globally significant condition whereby war can be instigated by the USA against a regime which the USA installed is madness and then look
The exception to that limit is if the parasite doesn’t care if its host gets destroyed; its own destruction might be part of its life cycle.
What else is there but math and reasoning? It has actually worked quite well so far, given how much it has made them switch positions. The only thing they have now is brute power, as with Alex’ banning from FB due to “dangerous misinformation”. But it’s good that that’s where they’ve been driven to.
Donald, I think we’re talking about the atmosphere at different levels of description.
When you say the greenhouse effect is about “slowing the transfer of heat from warm to very cold,” that’s a useful systems-level shorthand, but I don’t think it describes the actual physical chain very well.
The atmosphere is not transferring heat to a cold body in the engineering sense. Space is largely a vacuum. What ultimately leaves the Earth-atmosphere system is radiation, not heat conduction or convection. The relevant physics is the interaction between matter and radiation within a gravity-stratified fluid.
From my perspective, the useful question is not simply whether cooling is slowed, but how energy moves through the atmospheric column:
Solar input → absorbed solar radiation → surface absorption → thermalization → convection, advection, latent heat transport, turbulence and radiative exchange → broadband emission → outgoing longwave radiation.
That’s why I keep emphasizing lapse rates, buoyancy, phase equilibrium, boundary layers, and circulation. They are the mechanisms by which energy is redistributed once it enters the Earth-atmosphere system.
I certainly agree that the atmosphere alters the rate at which energy ultimately leaves the system. Where I differ is that I don’t think that effect can be isolated to a single mechanism such as “slowed cooling.” The atmosphere is simultaneously a radiative, convective, latent-heat, and dynamically mixed system. The existence of the atmosphere itself modifies the thermal structure.
Put another way, “the atmosphere slows cooling” is an observation. Explaining why requires following the entire chain, not just the endpoints.
A TOA balance tells you something important about the state of the system. It does not by itself tell you how the system achieved that state. That’s where the rest of the chain comes in.
As I have stated many times in many different ways, a TOA (Top of Atmosphere) energy balance is fundamentally a boundary condition:
ΔU = ASR − OLR
That’s a diagnostic of the TOA energy budget, not a description of the mechanisms by which that budget is achieved.
And without Joe this conversation wouldn’t even be possible. Many in his shoes knew better but kept quiet. He risked everything not to and we are here now because of it.
You have to stop protecting domain conceptualization and look at the system as a whole. My biggest issue with scientists isn’t that they are wrong it’s just that they are domain focused in their interpretations and that is where the confusion often arrives.
We all get there at our own pace. The important part is to make the effort to get there.
@CDM believe me I am being devil’s advocate. I am sceptical everywhere. To reach the heights you have to plumb the depths. Sometimes I get a feeling in my heart about it and then I doubt it. When I’m told for instance that some model can replicate reality by substituting actual observation for a math or physics rule which may apply very well in one carefully bounded subset then I naturally ask what happens when you extend the framework.
donaldgisbey wrote:
“Yes, there is a lot of mixing and conduction advection latent heat transfer goes on in the middle but ultimately it boils down to what goes in must come out and the more slowly the energy goes out the more the temperature at the surface must rise to balance it.”
The part where you say, “the more slowly the energy goes out the more the temperature at the surface must rise to balance it”, endorses the doctrine of reverse causation that is the heart of the error in using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to justify such a claim.
How the energy is processed throughout the lower atmosphere determines the temperature in that part of the atmosphere. What happens at the top of atmosphere, where radiation ultimately goes into outer space does not control the surface that much. The overwhelming causes of lower atmosphere temperature are the things CD points out. The fluid dynamics of the massive fluid ocean-air ensemble is what moves energy up higher to its ultimate escape via radiation to space.
Radiatively active gases act as secondary relay stations in that transfer from lower atmospheric layers to the higher layers, where the planet vents to space. The temperature profile of the atmosphere stays the same — warm at base, cold at top. Massive fluid dynamic forces (70% fluid water composition of Earth and 99% fluid air mass of Earth’s atmosphere) mitigate temperature at the surface, long before a mere 0.04% of radiatively-active gases could change that.
In a phrase, the bottom controls the top, not the other way around, as you present it.
@ Robert the middle controls the relationship between bottom and top. Ultimately if the atmosphere slows radiation to space then it provides thermal resistance, There are arguments about whether a change in cO2 level can have any effect on that degree of thermal resistance with any effect worth reacting to but to my mind so far the reactions have been thus far ineffective or even negative to the purpose they purport.
@ Robert, just to take it down to a granular level, data centers are being built which require cooling and meanwhile energy is required elsewhere. The two are not connected due to the lack of vision.
donaldgisbey
I believe that a roadblock to thinking is viewing the atmosphere literally in terms or strict layers where radiative cooling is concerned, which happens at all levels of the atmosphere. Absorption of photons happens at all levels, but depending on the temperature where that happens, the energy of excitation either blends with the surrounding air, if the same or warmer temperature, or thermalizes, if cooler, which would be higher up. The amount of thermalization at higher altitudes merely increases the temperature a little in that region. There would have to be massive, massive thermalization from the top down to have any effect on surface temperature, where the overriding fluid dynamic forces cool that level.
That’s one of Joe’s core teachings: Conservation of energy is an energy constraint, not a temperature constraint. Full stop.
Atmospheric thermal resistance would be beneficial as a mathematical diagnostic to determine an effective resistance. You could consider it an emergent property of a gravity-stratified radiative-convective fluid. It may be measurable and diagnostically useful, but the property itself emerges from the combined action of multiple transport mechanisms rather than existing as a standalone physical process.
So, for me anyway, my reservation is that the atmosphere is not physically a resistor. What we might calculate as an effective thermal resistance emerges from convection, latent heat transport, advection, turbulence, pressure structure, phase changes, and radiative interactions operating simultaneously.
In that sense, atmospheric thermal resistance may be a useful engineering abstraction or diagnostic of the whole system, but it is not itself the mechanism. The mechanisms are the transport processes that collectively produce the observed resistance.
And this matters, slowed cooling does not imply ΔT>0 in an externally heated system operating under conservation of energy. It simply means energy is being lost more slowly. For temperature to increase, energy gain must exceed energy loss (ΔU>0).
Nightside energy gain is zero = (ΔU<0).
@ robert, I get all that. I
Another issue is what I consider a one-sided point of view, where Earth’s atmosphere is concerned: The popular discussion focuses predominantly on warming, as if the sun-lit side of the hemisphere does not figure into the picture.
The atmosphere keeps the sunny side cooler than it would otherwise be, while keeping the dark side warmer than it would otherwise be. And this is from a static point of view too, which might be somewhat useful, but not realistic, when you get down to it.
Earth is rotating at 1000 miles per hour at the equator and 0 miles per hour at the poles, plus every velocity in between as we move from equator to poles. So, there is a velocity difference as well as a sun-angle difference, as we move from equator to poles. And gravity is the prime factor that shapes what these differences cause.
If the atmosphere enables both warmth and cooling, I don’t think the conversation can remain strictly warming-centric. It has to shift to a regulation-centric point of view. Radiative cooling cannot be the overwhelming focus in such a point of view.
@ Robert, radiation is the only method of warming and the only method of cooling.
@donaldgisbey If you meant, “Radiation is the only marginal mechanism by which the Earth-atmosphere system exchanges energy across its outer boundary with space.” I agree.
Where I would be cautious is in the “ing” part of the descriptor. Warming and cooling are processes that describe changes in a thermodynamic state. Radiation is one way those changes can occur but hardly the only one within the atmosphere itself.
And I say marginally, for some matter does escape to space and is added to Earth’s system. So, in strict thermodynamics, I’d use marginally as a disclaimer for the strict scientifically accurate definition.
Now for shorthand among fellow physics literates, yes radiation in and out gets the process across.
@Robert Kernodle very well worded.
It is because of the fact Earth is not static that the ITCZ moves and the thermal equator is not a fixed geospatial location. Energy distribution is continuously changing and flux is a variable factor on every vector of the planet because flux is a local and time-dependent variable, not a universal absolute constant.
@CDM and Robert, of course there other forces at work which I’m sure Joe is also aware of which play into the thermodynamic behavior within the earth system Because the solar system’s massive bodies do not share a single flat plane, the Sun’s motion around the barycenter is complex and three dimensional. – The Mismatch of Planes: Earth’s orbit defines the ecliptic plane, but Jupiter sits at an inclination of about 1.3°, Saturn at 2.5°, and other bodies vary further. Even the solar system’s Invariable Plane (the true weighted average of all angular momentum) is tilted by about 1.57° relative to Earth’s ecliptic.
This means the energy input driving Earth’s thermodynamic engine is constantly being nudged out of alignment, introducing subtle, long-term spectral and spatial variations that ripple directly into atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns.
In my perspective, only the Sun adds marginal external energy to Earth’s system, describing the minor perturbances is fine, as long as we are still anchored in perspective. Minor perturbations are worth study I fully agree, but they should remain anchored to the primary energy source framework rather than any attempts at replacing it.
And as always, understanding internal energy responses and external energy perturbations are crucial in understanding how internal energy changes.
What is the real greenhouse affect? Simply how spectroscopy works in the atmopshere and yes, it was poorly named.
That’s the right direction: Spectroscopy was reinterpreted as a greenhouse effect, as an effect which could do things with heat and temperature beyond thermodynamic sources and outside of gas thermodynamics, for example, ignoring the pre-existence of the adiabatic lapse rate. They tried to stand spectroscopy fully in for thermodynamics.
I’ not even sure if that was the original intention either, honestly. So much gets “interpreted and repeated” and hi-jacked for political gains.
I wrote on FB that there were no radiation involed into the equation of the adibaitic lapse rate, I got this response. Any thought?
Very stupid to challenge someone whose professional expertise you don’t know. Something tells me that you don’t really understand your own question, but have copied it from something you thought sounded cool. But let’s take the equation you refer to seriously.
From the first law of thermodynamics and hydrostatic equilibrium, you get dT/dz = −g/cₚ. If you integrate it, you get T(z) = T₀ − Γz. Note two things.
First, T₀ is an integration constant. The equation tells how steeply the temperature drops with height, but not from what temperature. A line needs both a slope and a fixed point, and the equation only gives you the slope.
Second, radiation is not omitted because it is unimportant. It is removed by assumption. The equation is derived by setting dQ = 0, i.e. no heat exchange. The fact that radiation is not in an equation where it has been assumed that there is no heat exchange proves nothing about radiation. It’s like saying that air resistance doesn’t exist because it doesn’t appear in the equation for free fall in a vacuum.
So what determines the fixed point? The radiation balance. The Earth has to radiate as much energy as it receives from the sun, and that happens on average from a level high up in the troposphere, where the temperature is around 255 K. The ground temperature is then roughly the temperature up there, plus the lapse rate times the height down to the ground. More CO₂ raises the level where the radiation occurs. With the same lapse rate, it gives a warmer ground. The lapse rate is the ladder. The radiation determines how high the ladder is.
And your equation only applies where convection dominates. All of us who fly know that the temperature levels off at the tropopause: in the standard atmosphere it is a constant −56.5 °C from 11 to 20 km, and above that it rises again. It’s not adiabatic. It’s radiation balance, and in the stratosphere the ozone’s absorption of UV. If the temperature profile were simply adiabatic, neither the tropopause nor the stratosphere would look the way they do.
This is exactly what Manabe and Strickler solved in 1964: pure radiative equilibrium gives a too steep profile, convection adjusts it to the lapse rate, and radiation determines the level. The work was part of the basis for the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics.
So the question back to you: If it is not the radiative balance that determines T₀, then what is?
Sources:
– Manabe and Strickler 1964, J. Atmos. Sci. 21, 361–385: https://journals.ametsoc.org/…/1520-0469_1964_021_0361…
– Nobel Prize in Physics 2021, press release: https://www.nobelprize.org/…/physics/2021/press-release/
the T profile is diabatic and adiabatic, put simply.
“From the first law of thermodynamics and hydrostatic equilibrium, you get dT/dz = −g/cₚ. If you integrate it, you get T(z) = T₀ − Γz. Note two things.
First, T₀ is an integration constant. The equation tells how steeply the temperature drops with height, but not from what temperature. A line needs both a slope and a fixed point, and the equation only gives you the slope.”
And if you compute the average of T(z) you will necessarily find that its average value is in the middle of the range of z, since the equation is linear. Thus, if we have any expectation for an average value, such as -18C, it must therefore be around the middle. From there you get the surface temperature. The fact that there is an adiabatic gradient which originates purely from thermodynamics and hydrostatic equilibrium means that the bottom of the gradient must be the hottest part of the gradient, and must be hotter than the average. Therefore it is impossible for -18C, the average, to have been found at the surface in the first place.
Secondly, if increasing GHG’s raises emission height, and raises where T = -18C is found, then the power emission of Earth has just changed from P = σ*T^4*r*pi*R^2 to P = σ*T^4*r*pi*(R + δ)^2, thus violating conservation of energy, which cannot be violated by any value other than zero, which is to say, not at all.
The emission height can therefore increase up the slope of the gradient, to lower temperature and larger radius, but the profile remains fixed by the adiabat and the ideal gas law and where the average must occur.
Thirdly, the greenhouse effect should have a differential effect which makes it stronger where the gas is thick and weaker where the gas is thin, thus contributing to the temperature lapse rate, however, the lapse rate is fully explain by the adiabatic effect, leaving no residual for a radiative greenhouse effect to explain.
Fourthly, dq = 0 simply means thermal equilibrium and no constant heat bath, which is the valid approximation for the atmosphere in equilibrium.
Fifth, the adiabatic lapse rate does not require bulk convection; even when the atmosphere is placid we see the adiabatic lapse rate stabilizing, not stabilization towards isothermicity.
Sixth, the tropopause and the stratosphere are the exception to dq = 0 which therefore supports the adiabatic calculation for the troposphere; no one claimed that the tropopause nor the stratosphere should continue the adiabatic calculation with dq = 0.
Seventh, the pair of T0 and P0 for the temperature and pressure relations are set by the ideal gas law, with no radiative offset terms.
Eighth, “convection adjusts it to the lapse rate,” which demonstrates that hydrostatic equilibrium and the adiabatic effect are what sets the profile, not the greenhouse effect which was always claimed as such by the pedagogical models, and “and radiation determines the level” only determines where the photons escape, not where -18C, the average physical temperature, must be found.
See how easy it is to debunk them? I mean…it’s not, it requires a lot of knowledge of physics, but once you do know it, you can see through how they lie about things.
“even when the atmosphere is placed “, meant “placid” – edited corrected above
This is how the climate thermo interpreter (https://climate-thermo-interpreter.vercel.app/ ) answered it, Hasse:
The integration constant is not free, and radiative balance does not set surface temperature by parking 255 K at an emission height that extra CO2 can raise. Surface temperature is already computed from the First Law, hydrostatic balance, latent heat, the definition of an average, and the equivalent temperature of the outgoing planetary power.
Energy of a mass of air is U = m Cp T + m g h plus the latent-heat term in water vapour. Equilibrium requires dU = 0, so dT/dh = -g/Cp. With g ≈ 9.8 m/s² and Cp ≈ 1004 J/kg/K that is the dry adiabat, about -9.8 K/km. Latent heat reduces the cooling rate to the observed environmental mean near -6.5 K/km. That slope is mandatory for an unguarded hydrostatic ideal gas; it is not an optional ladder waiting for radiation to choose a rung.
A non-constant linear profile cannot have its average at an extremity. The mass-weighted mid-level is near H ln 2 ≈ 5.8 km (H ≈ 8.4 km). The blackbody equivalent of Earth’s outgoing planetary power S(1-alpha)/4 is about -18 C, and that temperature is observed near 5 km. S(1-alpha)/4 is the outgoing, not the absorbed, and not a spherical-average solar input. The planetary energy balance of totals does not occur at 5 km; it fixes the system’s equivalent temperature. The lapse and the definition of an average then decide where that temperature is found. The profile is therefore T(h) = -6.5 K/km · (h – 5 km) – 18 C, so T(0) ≈ +14.5 C, observed as about +15 C. The same line gives about -55 C near 18 km. Those steps use the First Law, laboratory constants, and the definition of an average. They do not reinterpret the Second Law. The ledger is closed. There is no residual for a radiative greenhouse.
T0 in T(z) = T0 – Γz is therefore not an undetermined intercept that radiation is free to set. Putting -18 C on the ground first, then lifting it with infrared opacity so the adiabat can slide down to a warmer surface, is already forbidden. Heat is deposited where sunlight is absorbed, which is the ground, the hottest location. A transparent atmosphere does not cancel gravity, heat capacity, or that deposition. You never obtain a legitimate initial state with the system equivalent temperature on the ground. Raising a 255 K shell from radius R to R+δ also increases emitting area while the intercepting disk remains π R², so outgoing power would exceed the absorbed power for every δ > 0. The first kilometre already fails energy conservation. Empirically -18 C sits slightly below the half-mass level, not above it, so there is no surplus lift for CO2 to claim.
Setting dQ = 0 does not prove radiation is unimportant by omission, like air resistance in vacuum free fall. It is the energy equilibrium of the unguarded column. Where heat is added or removed the profile leaves that slope, which confirms the closure: night inversions, optical thinning near the tropopause, and ozone absorption of ultraviolet in the stratosphere are layers with dQ ≠ 0. They do not make the tropospheric adiabat optional, and they do not hand the intercept to greenhouse opacity. Heating from below mixes the troposphere toward the moist adiabat rather than a purely radiative profile that is too steep; that is the stability statement of the same energy law, not a calculation in which radiation then chooses how high the ladder sits.
More CO2 cannot warm the surface by raising an emission height. Cooler atmospheric gas cannot perform heat on a warmer surface. The independently existing adiabat sets the temperatures first; the small constitutive transfer follows. A rival complete cause of the same observables must compute the dry lapse, the environmental lapse, the altitude of the average, and the surface temperature with explicit equations and a residual this accounting does not already fix. Emission height, the ladder, and sliding the adiabat are slogans, not that calculation.
Thanks a lot Joe!! 💪🏻😃
#hasse “Very stupid to challenge someone whose professional expertise you don’t know.”
now you know his professional expertise. Let us know how the pompous prick replies.
@Joseph E Postma
Must have bee more to this conservation for such a detailed reply. 😂
Basically you are just supporting the well established global average temperature. Or physics accurate, ” Given Earth’s gravity-stratified atmosphere in hydrostatic equilibrium, the thermodynamic structure determines where the average temperature resides and therefore determines the surface temperature without requiring an additional radiative offset.”
This is well known & established. So what was all the fuss about?
…and on a climate literate note, they could not differentiate between the ALR and ELR. A rookie mistake in energy allocation taught in the most remedial climate courses.
Radiation is not in the DALR derivation. Correct.
Radiation absolutely influences the ELR. Correct.
There’s no contradiction because those are different domains.
…In fact, several different quantities can coexist in domain specific temps:
>Effective radiating temperature (~255 K diagnostic derived from TOA energy balance)
>Global mean surface temperature (~288 K)
>Mass-weighted atmospheric average temperature
>Spectrally weighted emission temperatures
>Effective emission heights that *vary
*By wavelength band, absorption coefficient, opacity (optical depth), atmospheric density, molecular concentration, pressure broadening, & mean free path.
“Only means of heating” … “only means of cooling” … is entirely misplaced thinking, when referring to radiation. There are multiple mechanisms in Earth’s lower atmosphere that do both. The surface is a different domain than the top of atmosphere. Heating and cooling in the lower domain determines heating and cooling in the upper domain. It works from bottom up, not top down.
Temperature can change without any change in total energy. It really is simply thermodynamics.
And throw in chaos theory, there literally doesn’t even need to be a systematic causative reason for temperature changes!
I guess I have become the “domain” guy. 😏
Also, two entities with the same temperature can have vastly different quantities of energy. Water at 60 degrees has four times more energy than air at 60 degrees, if I understand correctly. That’s one reason why a Global Mean Surface Temperature is so thermodynamically meaningless — because it is calculated using both air temperatures and water temperatures. It’s bad enough that this absurd metric violates math for intensive quantities, but it also mixes temperatures of substances with unequal heat capacities. It’s errors within errors within errors.
Robert; GMST is not used in the way you describe. That of course would be mathematically nonsensical.GMST is a standardised spatial index of the thermal state of earth’s boundary layer. It tracks how surface temp changes over time relative to a baseline. (there are problems with how that is fixed)
@CDM “Radiation is not in the DALR derivation. Correct. Radiation absolutely influences the ELR. Correct. There’s no contradiction because those are different domains.” That statement looks as if it is in direct contradiction to Joe’s assertion that those are mutually exclusive and in the same domain. Recognizing that local parcel mechanics and global radiative-convective energy balance operate in complementary domains resolves the apparent paradox entirely: the adiabat dictates the slope of the structural response, while radiation dictates where the system anchors its energy balance to space.
donaldgisbey wrote:
“Robert; GMST is not used in the way you describe. That of course would be mathematically nonsensical. GMST is a standardised spatial index of the thermal state of earth’s boundary layer. It tracks how surface temp changes over time relative to a baseline. (there are problems with how that is fixed)”
My Reply:
First, explain to me how you think I described the use of GMST.
Calling GMST a “standardized spatial index” is just substituting a longer phrase for the errors that I have clearly outlined according to first principles. It is nonsensical as a standard index, because it still violates the math that is allowed on intensive quantities. It is nonsensical because it aggregates air and water temperatures, when water has four times more heat capacity than air by mass, 1000 times more by volume.
It does no such thing as “describing a thermal state”. It is a fiction of category errors.
It is not a “surface temperature”, because there is no surface to which it physically corresponds — no unified, thermodynamically coherent entity exhibiting that one kinetic molecular state. Comparing each periodically contrived fiction to another fiction called a “baseline” still does not make it legitimate scientifically.
It is absurd as a “temperature”, and it is absurd as an “index”.
“while radiation dictates where the system anchors its energy balance to space”
There is no one “where”, if the word, “anchor” is supposed to refer to a distinct level (height) within the atmosphere.
The system determines how radiation moves into outer space. Bottom dictates top, not the other way around. Warm dictates cool, not the other way around. Bottom is warm, … warm heats cool … cool gets cooler.
@Robert. The GMST is not being used to calculate the energy budget. That would be the reason the specific heat capacity differences would matter. The baseline set at about 1850 is a problem given the extemely sparse measurement at that time. The GMST now is also a problem given the amount of blank areas globally. Eg there is about one ARGO float per 35,000 sq miles on average and they’re not spread evenly yet accuracy is claimed down to near lab levels. Heat flow is always from warm to cold yes. Near the surface, collisions dominate so eg CO2 will absorb photons but before emitting that energy will transfer to N2 and O2 through collisions. N2 and O2 do absorb and emit but not significantly due to molecular structure. At the top of atmosphere there are less collisions to inhibit emission but there are also less molecules emitting. So you have two gradients opposing. The product of transmission and emission then has a maximum value at some point which is the effective emission height. The adiabat is set by gravity and that gives the gradient but not the anchor point which is set by the effective emission height. This is not to say that emission only comes from one layer but that there is a peak at that layer.The radiative properties dictate where the column anchors its energy balance to space, and the thermodynamic properties (gravity, heat capacity, and convection) dictate how the temperature scales up and down from that anchor.
@ donaldgisbey
The adiabatic/hydrostatic framework already determines the observed tropospheric temperature. That was Joe’s point.
My point is the atmosphere is the result of all mechanisms operating simultaneously.
Thus no single diagnostic can fully define the system as a whole. Constraints matter regardless if that’s radiative, thermodynamic, dynamic, phase, geometric or whatever.
The atmosphere has several useful radiative and thermodynamic diagnostic anchors, but all of them are diagnostic quantities with varying degrees of domain dependence.
I mean if Joe meant that “literally” the temp would never change so obviously it is inferred constraints matter. That’s why in thermodynamics U ≠ T (but they can be associated) in atmospheric thermodynamics ALR ≠ ELR (but they can be associated). Even though both examples are connected through the same underlying thermodynamic laws they are not interchangeable values.
Teff, GMST, mass-weighted temperature, emission temperatures, brightness temperatures are all useful…But none of those quantities is the atmosphere as a whole.
donaldgisbey,
As I understand it, the GMST is used in the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to determine an emission temperature of 390 W/m², which is a 150 W/m² difference (more) than the fictitious baseline emission of 240 W/m² determined using that same equation in reverse. That difference is traditionally labelled “back radiation”, now “slowed cooling”, which appears on all Earth energy budget diagrams. So, I think GMST is foundational in determining Earth’s “energy budget”.
“Effective emission height” is another abstraction — a sort of average that creates the illusion of the greenhouse ceiling, which flattens the depth of the atmosphere and the complexity of actual radiative emission to space.
In my view, lapse rates dictate nothing — they are the outcomes dictated … by the fluid dynamics of a huge mass of air held by gravity over a huge mass of water. Fluid dynamics in a gravitational field is the dictator. Lapse rates are just descriptions of what’s already there because of that.
@Robert; as I see it GMST is a diagnostic output of the coupled energy balance rather than its fundamental causal driver, while material heat capacity differences between land, water, and air are inconsequential for calculating long-term steady-state equilibrium but critical for determining transient response times and thermal inertia. Yes effective emission height is an abstraction but it is not intended to represent a single spherical plane but rather a mathematical guide from which to base approximations of the effect of adding more CO2. Otherwise there would be no point in looking. Without such approximations, quantifying the baseline radiative impact of a trace gas addition would be computationally intractable. Criticizing the concept for being an abstraction misunderstands the fundamental role of mathematical models in physics, which use simplified representations to capture dominant mechanisms without needing to simulate every microscale complexity simultaneously.
A lapse rate is simply a temperature gradient with position.
Every gravitating body that possesses a temperature structure ends up exhibiting some form of gradient (∇T) because gravity, pressure, density, and energy distribution are all linked. The Moon for example, absolutely has a lapse rate, but it is radiative and very different from Earth’s version: Mars, Venus, the giant planets have them. The specific form depends on the dominant constraints and transport mechanisms operating within the system.
Joe for example, would prob approach that with something like, ∇T = ∂T/∂x ? IDK
The ~240 W/m² comes from the TOA energy balance: (1−α) S/4,
energy balance → Stefan-Boltzmann → T_eff
If you’re just calculating a flux to temperature,
temperature → Stefan-Boltzmann → equivalent flux
That’s why Joe has stated average flux does not equal temperature.
Stefan-Boltzmann is nonlinear: F=σT4
You can calculate an effective radiative temperature from the average emitted flux.
That doesn’t tell you the average surface temperature. The flux average and the temperature average are describing different temp sets.
Just a quick note for refence:
Temperature ≠ Energy
Flux ≠ Temperature
Diagnostic ≠ Physical Object
Constraint ≠ Mechanism
=Averages do not preserve nonlinear relationships. Why? Because the atmosphere is a constrained system, not a single variable.
= The atmosphere is the result of all mechanisms operating simultaneously.
@CDM what do you make of this? The argument that increased carbon dioxide will have no effect typically rests on the assumption that infrared absorption bands are already saturated at the surface, implying that adding more gas cannot intercept additional thermal radiation. That reasoning treats the atmosphere as a single homogeneous layer rather than a vertical column governed by opacity gradients and altitude which of course you and Joe particularly know is nonsensical.
While lower tropospheric layers are indeed optically thick in the primary carbon dioxide absorption wavelengths, molecular density and pressure decrease with altitude, which narrows the absorption lines through pressure broadening reductions. This structural reality means that the effective emission height is not anchored at the surface but resides in the mid to upper troposphere where paths to space remain partially open. Please do not refer to effective emission height as an unusable construct because of its intrinsic nature as an abstraction. It is merely a useful guide, not a physical phenomenon.
When carbon dioxide concentrations increase, the altitude where the atmosphere transitions from opaque to transparent is displaced upward. Because that new emission level sits within a colder region of the troposphere, its upward radiation drops below the planetary energy balance requirement. That is the definition of radiative thermal resistance. The system responds to this radiative imbalance by accumulating heat until the entire temperature profile, structured by the adiabatic lapse rate, shifts upward
@donaldgisbey
Personally, the more knowledge I acquire, the more careful I try and define the boundaries of statements. The lower troposphere is a collision-dominated, convecting fluid system. I do find radiative properties interesting, but for the lower atmopshere they aren’t changing the total outcome of the atmospheric ensemble. I have looked into the saturation level claims, I personally have no conclusive evidence that changes the total outcome. Thermalization alone would supersede those processes in the lower atmosphere. While the 15 µm CO₂ absorption band may be *saturated at increased levels, other factors (such as thermalization and non-saturated bands) still influence the overall radiative effects.
Earth energy budget expressed as a proper energy flow chain: TSI (solar input) → ASR (absorbed solar) → insolation (surface) → ocean absorption → net energy gain (ΔU) → warming (ΔT) → *spectral interactions → thermalization → broadband flux → OLR (radiative output).
(1) “as I see it GMST is a diagnostic output of the coupled energy balance rather than its fundamental causal driver”
REPLY:
In standard climate science frameworks, Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) is treated as the primary proxy indicator or diagnostic barometer for tracking changes in Earth’s energy budget.
(2) “while material heat capacity differences between land, water, and air are inconsequential for calculating long-term steady-state equilibrium but critical for determining transient response times and thermal inertia”
REPLY:
You cannot separate “transient response time” from the final state when the system’s dynamics actively shape the radiation budget itself.
When you look at the planet as a real, heterogeneous, rotating fluid body governed by non-linear thermodynamics, neither claim (1) or claim (2) holds up.
(3) “Criticizing the concept for being an abstraction misunderstands the fundamental role of mathematical models in physics, which use simplified representations to capture dominant mechanisms without needing to simulate every microscale complexity simultaneously.”
REPLY:
When a simplified representation for modeling purposes is then used as an actual causal mechanism, then the misunderstanding is in how to use it. The entire narrative of greenhouse warming depends on treating effective emission height as a literal physical layer.
@Robert; The narrative of greenhouse warming does not depend on treating effective emission height as a literal physical layer; rather, it depends on the fundamental laws of spectroscopy and thermodynamics (specifically, that greenhouse gases have vibrational-rotational absorption bands in the thermal infrared spectrum).
While simple pedagogical models use single-layer approximations to build intuition, the physical reality underpinning climate models is continuous, fluid, and dynamic. Recognizing the difference between a model’s explanatory shorthand and the underlying physics is essential for a rigorous understanding of atmospheric science.
While donaldgisbey dismisses effective emission height as a harmless “mathematical guide,” he doesn’t seem to realize that the entire narrative of greenhouse warming does in fact depend on treating it as a literal physical layer.
The standard greenhouse explanation goes like this:
1. Adding CO2 makes the atmosphere more opaque to infrared radiation.
2. Therefore, the “effective emission altitude” must *physically move higher* into the colder troposphere. … [HERE, the abstraction now becomes a real layer]
3. Because higher is colder, it radiates less energy to space.
4. To maintain energy balance with incoming sunlight, the *entire column below that new height* must warm up via a shifted lapse rate until the emission temperature at the top is restored.
Notice again what just happened? The “mathematical guide” was just used to drive a physical temperature change at the Earth’s surface.
You cannot claim it is “just a useful mathematical abstraction” on one hand and then use it as the foundational physical mechanism for how CO2 warms the planet on the other.
And yes, models do, in fact use proper detailed underlying physics to determine their output, but that output is then summarized in terms of the simple models that use the abstractions.
Saying that the effective radiation height increases and using it to back figure changed lapse rate is using an abstraction as a real mechanism. Full stop.
@Robert Your observation that people “summarize the detailed output in terms of simple models that use abstractions” is accurate. The friction arises when that summary is presented as the foundational physical mechanism itself, rather than as a top-level descriptor of continuous column thermodynamics.
@CDM, I’m convinced that the warming being claimed is not happening but i want to be meticulous
donaldgisbey The warming spikes are happening and are perfectly natural. Those spikes are not by themselves a signal of global warming. Earth-system warming is a long-term ocean signal, whereas surface anomalies are fast-response signals that can reflect circulation changes, internal variability, or external forcing. The oceans do show a modest long-term warming signal. The key is not to confuse transient surface responses with persistent climate-state changes. Surface anomalies may be an early warning signal, but the ocean reservoir determines whether the signal persists.
The same applies to cooling events and glaciations. Surface anomalies may appear first, but persistent climate-state changes are ultimately recorded in the ocean reservoir. A sustained ocean ΔU > 0 eventually appears in the surface response, and a sustained ocean ΔU 0
Only the Sun adds new energy to Earth’s system and only the ocean can signal that increase on marginal scales over time.
True global warming events (sustained, planetary energy balance shifts) are rare in Earth history. The modern use of ‘global warming’ to describe short term surface temperature changes has overwritten a precise paleoclimate term and created a great deal of confusion.
…nd a sustained ocean ΔU > 0
@CDM I’m pretty sure that eg Nils Axel Morner was right when he challenged the IPCC on their assertion that sea level rise was accelerating despite actual data showing that not to be the case. He was employed by the IPCC precisely to check the veracity of their reporting and subsequently experienced character assassination. Also alarming in the UK is the response by govt here which so far has had the effect of increasing CO2 emission in the course of a net zero unilateral policy while crippling our small remaining manufacturing base. We have remotely located wind farms whose output cannot be utilised due to transmission lines not being available. This means the wind farm owners are being paid compensation to not generate! The major upgrade to the grid is estimated at an eye watering £100bn. just to cope with present demand which is now set to increase by 50% due to data centre expansion which is at present in the construction phase. Because of the policy of not increasing taxation, this cost is going on to the unit cost of power thus driving out users in the manufacturing sector to other countries where gas and coal are the primary sources thus entirely negating the net zero stupidity and adding transport costs because we still need the products. to top that off we still need gas fired generation for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. the lions share of power used by data centres is in cooling so there’s a lot of heat to dispose of which is treated as a waste product. Also incredibly stupid. How hard would it be to transfer that heat to domestic or greenhouse use?
Def some warming, knowing what it shows is the relevant part. Most certainly over exaggerated in some cases. Key note though, Satellites are radiometers, not thermometers & that’s why they never correlate exactly and where/what they are measuring matters.
Sensor → Calibration → Radiance → Retrieval → Validation → Climate Datasets
Joe can explain that better than I can but too many don’t understand satellite data and how that data is extrapolated.
@CDM yes satellites which utilise microwave sensing can “see” through clouds and so could be used to check for the iris effect but that’s not their purpose. They are more oriented to prediction of tropical storms. Ceres is limited and piggy backs on to Modis and that has issues too. The performance glitches are all publicly available on NASA.s website. There is a lot of circular or reciprocal justification going on between satellite readings and argo floats. The argo floats tend to cluster over time and they are pretty sparsely placed (on average there’s one per 35,000 sq miles ie the size of Maine). Because they drift with currents they’re measuring the same bit of water repetitively so there’s a picture of temps which is inherently unreliable. There’s so much bullshit being transmitted on tv too. Last week we had the spectacle of David Attenburgh talking with a marine biologist about how ocean acidification is causing coral and the shells of molluscs to dissolve! They didn’t mention that the ph has been measured at 8.04 which technically you could say is acidified from 8.11 over 40 yrs but is clearly still base. Morner did not claim there was no sea level rise but just there has been no unusual rise and it did start to flatten out around 2003. The excuse given for the report of sea level rise accelerating was that the satellites needed to be callibrated. Yes that’s true but that callibration brought the data into line with the tide gauges which showed a rise being taken from those gauges where there was subsidence or crustal movement which skewed the gauge measurements to show an accelerating rise. Some furious back-pedalling went on and the IPCC then pointed out that sea level rise is not uniform but is proportional to depth. A large rise in the deep ocean translates to a modest one near coastlines, which is exactly why Morner had been saying there is no cause for alarm. Unfortunately Morner had been cancelled by the time they dropped that one in. .
Here is more clarity that I have achieved on “effective emission height” in my detailed interactions with AI:
Effective emission height is a zero-thickness mathematical reference sphere. It has no mass, no density, nothing that physically exists. It’s simply a coordinate that describes the state of a system. It describes the system’s state of composition and the system’s state of functioning. It’s where we can locate a reference around which those states operate, like a center of mass.
Consider a sphere of putty. Its center of mass is at the mathematical center of the sphere. Mashing one side of the sphere to reshape it, shifts the center of mass, but that does not cause mass to be added — the center of mass is just a description of how the mass has shifted.
If you treat the effective-emission-height reference sphere as a physical thing that “moves higher,” you run into an immediate logical barrier: a mathematical boundary with zero thickness cannot exert physical work on the layers beneath it. It has no thermal mass, no pressure, and no independent radiative power; it is merely where the bookkeeping ledger balances the escape of photons to space. It is a descriptive metric derived after the fact, not a physical entity operating inside the system. A shift in a reference line on a spreadsheet does not and cannot exert physical work on the air molecules referred to underneath it.
You can calculate thermal expansion to sea level rise and get a average…
If they are accurate:
Argo floats (post‑2005)
satellite altimetry (post‑1993)
modern hydrographic surveys
broadband TOA flux constraints (CERES)
These give us:
~0.06–0.08 °C warming of the upper 2000 m since mid‑20th century
~20–25 cm sea‑level rise since 1900
~40% of current rise from thermal expansion.
OA applies to the microlayer because that’s where atmospheric CO₂ first dissolves and shifts carbonate speciation. But that near‑surface mirolayer is not the ocean proper. Below it, total alkalinity, DIC partitioning, the Revelle factor, carbonate and borate buffering, vertical mixing, and CaCO₃ dissolution dominate the chemistry and keep seawater alkaline. So yes, surface pH changes are real, but they do not describe the behavior of the ocean as a whole. Surface pH changes are real — that’s where the “30% H⁺” talking point comes from — but surface pH does not describe the chemistry of the entire ocean. It’s just smoke and mirrors.
Corals actively regulate the chemistry of the space where they build skeletons by modifying the existing seawater in their calcifying space to 8.4 – 8.6.