by Judith Curry
With over 1000 comments on Saturday’s greenhouse thread, here is a new thread devoted to technical discussions of Joseph Postma’s paper on the greenhouse effect and Chris Colose’s rebuttal at Skeptical Science.
A primer on solar insolation is excerpted from text Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans, link [thermo txt].
As this is now the topic of a new thread, I repeat my overall conclusion:
The whole content is a combination of a big strawman argument, several serious errors, which are the only basis for some of the central conclusions, and some very vague ideas for continuation.
More in the earlier comment
http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/13/slaying-the-greenhouse-dragon-part-iv/#comment-99848
Pekka,
However stupid Postma’s model may be and pages 7-17 may be a strawman, it is notable that pages 2-6 agree with my (generally warm-luke-warmist) understanding of the GHE.
The stuff he gets into later (my reading still incomplete) are the sorts of things that I ask myself when I have tried to take a skeptical perspective on my understanding.
So while his conclusions may not be supported by his argument, it may be worthwhile for some of us to read it anyway and not just accept that it has been rebutted…
Bill
Ps Then we read the rebuttal.
& this is just general discussion, Pekka I don’t mean to insinuate that you are telling us not to read it….
Postma answered to my message in the other thread, I continue here:
You presented the equations and you made the strawman out of them
Not exactly, but most certainly well enough for even much more accurate statements. You are discussing issues that are more wrong by a big factor or even of wrong sign.
It’s not. It’s only a toy model to explain one idea. It’s not supposed to be anything more. It’s part of your strawman argument to claim otherwise.
It’s not your model, but neither is it what you claim it to be. The claim is yours.
Empty and totally false claims. It’s not explained at all. The only explanation is in the GHE. That’s the only effect that creates a significant temperature gradient. Everything else just reduces its size. Gravity enters in this reduction as a factor leading to convection. Convection doesn’t warm the surface, it cools the surface. (This is perhaps your largest and most essential error). Without GHE all that sun brings would radiate directly out and the surface would be close to the effective blackbody temperature.
Without GHE the surface would be very cold.
I see absolutely no reason to change my view. It’s well known, how much the temperatures vary between day and night. It’s also known that the variation is largest, when the GHE is weakest.
Pekka, you’ve not yet addressed the request that Tomas Milanovic made earlier.
“… It should be very obvious for everybody or at least to those who did a minimum of fluid mechanics that even the GHGless atmosphere would exhibit different more or less complex flow modes.
Did you really think that it’d be isothermal and static?
Then give me your estimation of this constant temperature – a number or a finite interval I don’t care.
And then I will show you that your estimation violates the laws of thermodynamics .
The proof is actually rather easy undergrad level and I am surprised that you didn’t think of it yourself already.
Let’s do that, it will at least evacuate some misconceptions. …”
http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/10/greenhouse-dragon-technical-discussion-thread/#comment-97346
I was arguing with Tomas on that. My understanding is that he didn’t take into account the power of stratification in stopping convection. He didn’t accept that the stratosphere would start almost directly from the surface. The day/night effects would remain very local and limited to a very thin layer at the bottom. That’s the result, when the lapse rate is much less than the adiabatic lapse rate.
Gradually the lapse rate should almost vanish in absence of all IR absorption and emission, but even a much weaker radiative heat transfer would maintain some troposphere and more convection. I haven’t checked, whether N2 and O2 could do that in presence of UV and cosmic rays, which cause various excitations and through them some radiative heat transfer.
I have no estimates for the nearly constant temperature of an non-radiative atmosphere, but my guess is that it’s much closer to the warmest areas of the surface than coldest. The actual value would depend on the albedo. Should we assume non-GHG water or no water? That affects the albedo a lot.
The discussion below has revealed more about the nature of the errors of Postma.
It turns out that he has made two serious errors in the calculation of the average flux of incoming solar energy. In total they make an error by pi (3.14). Making such a huge error in the first step of the calculation makes of course also the rest faulty.
All that concerns his alternative calculations.
The one layer model is described mathematically correctly in the first part of the paper. Concerning that the error is that he implies that others would not know all what he describes already, or that they would use the one layer model for purposes it doesn’t fit to. These claims are unjustified. His claims are pure strawman argumentation in this part of the paper.
As usual you are spamming or carpet-bombing the thread with your vague woolly claims, making the thread unreadable and any response virtually impossible. If your claims had any validity you would say which of postma’s equations in his paper is wrong and why. Why don’t you write it up on your own blog if you have anything sensible to say.
I told you in response to your other post and also above.
The error is in the energy flux to surface. He multiplies the correct value by 3.14 through his ridiculously erroneous calculation of averages. That error has been discussed in this thread by many people.
You told also, how the average should be calculated. You can easily find out that Postma doesn’t follow the rule you gave, but divides by a number that is 1/3.14 times the surface area, not by the area as he should and as you wrote also. That’s his largest single error.
When he has done that huge error, he can claim that the surface gets enough heat without GHE. Yes, an error by 3.14 leads to that conclusion.
The main errors are not in the formulas that he presents. They are in those parts of his paper that are not represented by formulas. No wonder that they aren’t, because that would have made it easier to see the errors. All his conclusions that are presented against the main stream science are based on the text. The formulas are used in the strawman fashion in that, but the formulas are not the essential point here, but the errors of the text and of the conclusions.
And you still haven’t said which equation in his paper is wrong!
If he’s wrong by pi that should be clear in an equation.
Your failure to identify this shows that you are making things up.
Clearly you have nothing valid to say, but you continue to say it in enormous quantity.
Postma’s paper may well be wrong.
But you and Chris Colose are the worst people to try and explain it.
Read, what I wrote.
If you cannot understand my earlier comments, then you cannot.
PaulM
I agree Postma has been given almost a free ride here.
The main conclusions overlooked.
The only common theme for his critics seems to be the question of averages.
Postma has given valid reasons for his method.
But not for his alternative arithmetic.
Postma doesn’t even get the atmospheric radiative flux right.
I’m only presenting the standard GHE model as found in physics textbooks from such places as the Atmospheric Modelling Group from Harvard. It is their mistakes, not mine.
As I said, my paper uses the linear distribution factor of 2 for calculating the average input power over the hemisphere, which therefore has a temperature equivalent value of +30C. I introduced on this blog the idea of taking the integrated average value of the insolation instead, since the mapping of the insolation in non-linear. But either way you want to look at it, the input power temperature is very warm, and not equal to -18C. We need to distinguish between simple mathematical averages and actual physics. That is, use the math the way the physics tells you. And the physics is that the insolation is on one side of the planet only.
Pekka: “It turns out that he has made two serious errors in the calculation of the average flux of incoming solar energy. In total they make an error by pi (3.14). Making such a huge error in the first step of the calculation makes of course also the rest faulty. ”
In my paper I used the linear surface-area projection factor of 2. On this blog I have discussed the integrated average value. Either one produces an actual insolation temperature of at least +30C.
Pekka: “The one layer model is described mathematically correctly in the first part of the paper.”
But it is NOT mathematically correct, nor physically correct, of its own design. It is inherently nonsensical. That was the point. It doesn’t mean anything nor does it work as a model for demonstrating the GHE, neither directly, nor in analogy. It is mathematical sophistry. But we don’t tell anyone that when we teach it to people. That’s just not good philosophy.
Pekka, the strawman is your not Postma’s. Postma paper shows you that Co2 is the opposite of a conductor – it is an insulator. To insulate your house, you want a material that DOESN’T absorb heat. When something absorbs heat it’s a conductor. But greenhouse theory falsely teaches us to think of heat-absorption as insulation. It’s twisted junk logic.
Relative to nitrogen and oxygen, one can only call CO2 a radiative conductor. It would be an insulator if it reflected IR, but it doesn’t. Instead, it is “black” to IR, i.e., it’s an absorber. And absorbers conduct heat from one place to another. Throw in the second law and it’s clear which way the heat goes.
Think of the confused greenhouse theorist on the Titanic who jumps into the frigid Atlantic and shouts: “Good thing this water is absorbing my body heat. Now I’ll stay warm enough to survive.”
Bottom line: If greenhouse gases trap radiation and don’t emit it, then heating by back-radiation cannot occur. If greenhouse gases emit the radiation they absorb, however, they cannot be said to trap it. QED.
CO2 is both. It’s a insulator for radiation emitted from the surface that would otherwise leave the Earth system freely.
It’s provides a conductor type mechanism for heat transfer in the atmosphere.
The first effect the origin of the GHE. That’s the whole idea.
As more intellectual big hitters assess the Postma paper I’m indebted to Dr. Pierre Latour, who has now conducted his own analysis and affirmed that “it seems fair for this old Skeptic to adopt Postma theory until Postma is proven wrong, to my satisfaction.”
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ChE/AboutUs/News/DrsPierreLatourandDuncanMellichampReceive2007Outsta
Below is Dr. Latour’s assessment:
Conclusions: Postma affirms there is no such thing as a GHG. CO2 causes slight global cooling rather than vanishingly small global warming.
Atmospheric gases do indeed “trap” or hold more energy when CO2 increases because their heat capacity increases with CO2 exchange for O2. H2O works the same way and dominates. But if global average temperature is fixed at -18C, 5 km up, the temperature-altitude profile adjusts a bit and air becomes cooler at the surface, not warmer. This procedure works for all planets of all stars.
Whole CO2 cooling package.
Measure and analyze solar spectrum.
Calculate corresponding T avg from radiating surface = 5778K using Plank’s Law of Radiation (1905)
Calculate energy emission rate, w/sq mtr from Stephan-Boltzmann law W = kT**4 (Solar Radiance is 2.01*10**7 w/sq mtr – steridian)
Determine dispersed reception rate at Earth by geometry 150 kk km away. The solar constant is 1366 to 1370 w/sq mtr at Earth.
NASA measured 30% is reflected. Rest is absorbed and reradiated into space; constant input = constant output.
So remaining 959 w/sq mtr absorbed and readmitted at corresponding avg T from Stephan-Boltzmann Law again. T avg = -18C.
(It is important to account for geometry, stationary flat disk to rotating sphere. GHG model got this wrong.)
Actual temperature at 5 km is measured to be -18C.
Conservation of energy = KE+PE proves atmosphere KE and hence T decreases with increasing PE and altitude, determined only by gas heat capacity, Cp.
(GHG theory got this wrong because it imagined a glass greenhouse in the sky, back-radiating energy from cold high altitudes to warmer surface in violation of Second Law of Thermodynamics.)
Using Cp air, average T of air at surface is 14.5C.
Cp depends on composition. Cp of CO2 is 63% greater than Cp of N2; Cp of H2O and O2 are 23.5% greater than N2.
Temperature measures molecular motion and it takes more energy to move a heavier molecule of CO2 than O2 the same amount.
This means a cu mtr of CO2 contains 63% more energy than a cu mtr of N2 at the same temperature and pressure.
If CO2 increases from 400 to 500 ppm, and T avg remains the same where did the additional energy trapped in CO2 instead of O2 come from? Below! Cools.
T avg at surface decreases 0.675C to 13.825C. GHG theory says it goes up about +0.005C, maybe.
Whole temperature vs altitude profile pivots a bit at 5 km to accommodate higher CO2 according to these laws of physics.
the Postma link doesn’t link to Postman’s paper
Try
http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/The_Model_Atmosphere.pdf
The link to Postma’s paper does not go there. It goes to a discussion of a paper on modeling by Mote.
yikes let me fix that
I’ll add my last comment from the previous thread:
“The integrated insolation average is around 610 W/m2, including albedo losses. This is the integrated average of power input, and has an equivalent temperature of 322K or +49C [usually I cite +30C via a different analysis…I will use the integrated average power of 610W/m2 here]. This is the power forcing which comes IN to the planet on the day side. 240W/m2, equivalent to 255K, is what leaves, on average, in accordance with the law of conservation of total energy, over the entire planet.
With a temperature forcing equivalent to +49C, but a day-side temperature which does not actually achieve this, then it is obvious that there is no need for temperature amplification via a GHE postulate. You only need that postulate if you mistakenly model the input as -18C. There’s more than enough energy to go around to explain the ground temperature, and the emission of the entire ensemble is still 240W/m2, with or without a GHE.”
And, I’ll add my (slightly expanded) response:
Okay…Let’s do the calculation right, shall we? First of all, the surface area of a hemisphere is 2*pi*R^2, which is half the area of a disc of the same radius. Hence, in the absence of albedo, the integrated insolation average is around 0.5*1366 W/m^2 = 683 W/m^2. Multiplying this by the factor of (1-albedo) of 0.7 then gives 478 W/m^2. This is the average W/m^2 over half of the earth. The average over the whole earth is half this, or 239 W/m^2. (If that last step confuses you, you can work in terms of total energies by multiplying by the total surface area of the hemisphere.)
Hence, we find that the earth should emit ~239 W/m^2, and indeed, when we look at it from space, it does this since it is indeed very close to energy balance (a little off balance because of rising greenhouse gases, but probably by only about 1 W/m^2). However, the surface of the earth is at a temperature of about 15 C, or 288 K, which means (via the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation) that the surface emits ~390 W/m^2. The difference between these two numbers represents the greenhouse effect, i.e., the only way that the surface can emit 390 W/m^2 and still have the earth be in radiative balance is to have the atmosphere absorb and subsequently re-emit some of the terrestrial radiation, so that the total emission back out into space is only ~239 W/m^2.
As an exercise to the reader, see if you can spot all the mistakes that Postma has made in the above post.
Bonus question: Do you think, given Postma’s background, that these errors are likely honest mistakes or purposeful deceptions?
Give Eli a hint. Is he an engineer?
Apparently an astrophysicist…if Eli believes the climaterealist crazies he is one of those ¨ẗop climatologists¨
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8138
I found a single publication about absorption in giant stars in 2002. See if others can find him elsewhere…maybe he went emertius?
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002PASP..114..536G
Look on NASA ADS, that should give a larger list of my publications.
chriscolose,
I suggest you check out this graph and consider where you are on it:
http://sotak.info/sci.jpg
Before you dig a hole so deep it will take a significant period of time for a photon to travel down to you.
You are a consistant ass, I’ll give you that
Swing and a miss.
Eli. Engineers in this fight could be your best ally because we actually have to use the science you discover to make things that work.
When an IR sensor is built with the understanding provided by RTE it works! when we use the physics that that Dragon slayers deny to build things, those things work. Which means the physics is probably correct.
You would do well to focus on the engineering applications which actually use the physics in GCMs.
We are also your worst enemies because we’ve spent lifetimes working with ivory towered insolent pricks and when they challenge us to write papers ( steig verus odonnell) or to take “matlab’ classes from them, we will gladly rise to the challenge. Or when folks attempt to stall us with beaurocratic bullshit ( FOIA tomfoolery) we do know how to work a paperwork system into stasis or the the head office (ICO). where we win because we do not pick fights unless we know we have a good chance of prevailing. In short, we graduated and left college.
Engineers are into design not theory IEHE
Eli–Do you always reach broad incorrect generalizations about people’s behavior, or is it only in the case of engineers.
No, they are also stuffed shirts. . . .or at least some of them. C’mon with the concern trolling.
yes eli every profession has a spectrum of personalities. So now that you’ve found out your theory about him being an engineer is wrong, can you say these words ” I was wrong” Over the years I’ve worked with all sorts of engineers and scientists. I would avoid making generalizations. If I did make one and was wrong, I’d correct myself. Thank people for pointing out my mistake and move on. We all make mistakes. You could have had hank Roberts google the guy for you before you took a quick swipe. swing and a miss. perhaps you might pause before swinging. just a bit
Thumper thot he thaw a puddy tat.
===========
Scientists, in general, bring posturing and pretense to problem solving.
If you want something actually dealt with, turn the engineers loose on it.
If you want endless games and posturing, leave it to the academics.
Your assessment of the dichotomy is quite honest! :-)
Joel and all,
It would be a large coincidence that the figure could been derived in the following way.
1366*0.7 * (2/pi) =~ 609
Which is consistent with the ratio of the hemispheric area to the plane area of pi/2 as opposed to 2.
This is a curiousity.
Alex
So, in other words, he got the ratio of the surface area of a hemisphere to the area of a disc wrong? Okay. I had no clue where it came from.
Joel
I make no claim on where it came from, but it is a curious happenstance and perhaps he may clarify. Perhaps not.
Alex
A small typo. It doesn’t make a difference to the rest of your argument but the surface area of a half hemisphere is actually twice the area of a disc with the same radius, not half. Because the area is doubled the average flux is halved which is where you get back on track.
Joel, I apologize if this has already been said; but the area of a hemisphere is twice that of the area of a circle with the same radius.
Joel Shore, you wrote:
Dear Dr. Postma:
With all due respect, your model is flawed for the following:
1) Equation (12) is wrong and does not represent the energy balance of the atmosphere. Where is the latent heat of condensation of water vapor?
2) In Figure-1, how can a colder atmosphere exchange a net radiation, σ TA4, with a warmer surface of the earth. This violates the law of thermodynamics.
3) Your model in Figure-1 suggests that the atmosphere as a whole traps fσ Ts4, which must heat all of the atmosphere. Our observations shows that the upper atmosphere is not warming but cooling instead. How do you explain the greenhouse cooling effect in the upper atmosphere?
4) There is no greenhouse gas effect and practical experiments are a proof.
[copied from the previous thread]
Joel Shore: “Okay…Let’s do the calculation right, shall we?”
Joel, you are missing the fine points in that calculation. You’re also assuming that gases radiate directly according to the S-B Law, which they don’t have to. That’s where astrophysics and stellar modelling comes in. The S-B Law is for surfaces, not gases. Even with the ground-air temperature of +15C, the integrated emission is still equivalent 255K. GHG’s can NOT reduce that emission, by heating the Earth. That would be a direct violation of the S-B Law.
The earth’s surface is not a gas. It is a solid surface that, at an average temperature of +15C is emitting ~390 W/m^2. How is it that the earth as seen from space is only emitting ~240 W/m^2?
It is not the surface which is at +15C, it is the surface air. That’s where the temperature is measured…in the air. The thermometers aren’t in the ground.
How does a photosphere have a temperature of 9000K at its bottom but only emit 5700K in aggregate? Same reason the Earth can do it at its temperatures. There are no papers in the astrophysical literature about the greenhouse effect in stellar photospheres…so, don’t try to say that there a GHE in stars.
So, you are saying the “ground” (including ocean surface) is only at a temperature of somewhere around 255 K? Doesn’t seem too likely, does it?
There’s simply no way around the following logic:
(1) The ground emits about 390 W/m^2 of radiation.
(2) The earth as seen from space emits about 240 W/m^2 of radiation.
(3) Therefore, the atmosphere must absorb some of the radiation from the ground. (It, of course, subsequently re-emits some, but less gets emitted to space than is absorbed by the atmosphere.)
This is what we call “the greenhouse effect”. I don’t know what similar effects are called in stellar photospheres or if there are other important factors there. However, there is no getting around the fact that the earth’s surface could not be at its current temperature if it were not for the fact that there are elements in the atmosphere that absorb terrestrial IR radiation (elements we commonly call “greenhouse gases” and “clouds”).
Yet the physics is precisely that light will not escape from the stellar atmosphere until it becomes optically thin enough to do so. On any planet with a greenhouse effect- on Earth, Venus, or on the gas planets, heat moves upward radiatively or via convection until it reaches overlying atmosphere that is no longer opaque to infrared radiation. For a planet constantly illuminated by sunlight, this results in an excess of solar absorption for a constant T, since the outgoing radiation is inhibited. T can only rise as a result. This is what happens on Venus, which absorbs less sunlight than Earth, and is as far into the uniform temperature approximation that you can get. Your misunderstanding of the geometry of energy balance will not change this, nor are your attempts with Joel to move the goal posts.
Joseph E Postma : “The thermometers aren’t in the ground.”
Hmm. The water coming from my well, not too deep in the ground, is an unvarying 12.2 oC. I take it to be a good measure of the average ground temperature at my location.
Is the ground at the depth where your water comes from being heated from below or above? Below I suggest.
Good point.
On second thought, the surface boundary condition is still determined by what’s going on outside, regardless of the geothermal gradient (which does not impose a steep temperature gradient where I live). I estimate that the water is about 1 oC warmer than the (temporally averaged) surface, if it equilibrates at my well depth of about 30 meters.
Maybe in the winter, but in the summer, it’s probably getting more heat from above. Think about it. Permafrost in Alaska stays frozen even in ~20°C temperatures in summer. Or, it did until global warming began to fundamentally change the climate of Earth.
Nobody talks about a GHE in stars because there is a net energy flux in the outward direction, having been generated in the core. A planetary GHE is quite different because the energy source is external to the atmosphere. As Chris points out, the physics is otherwise identical – the radiation at any given wavelength arises from the layer at which the optical depth falls below 1. At the center of strong solar absorption lines (like the ionized calcium lines near 3950 angstroms) one is seeing a higher, cooler layer than one is in the wings of those lines and the line profiles mirror the photospheric temperature structure. For the Earth’s atmosphere it’s the CO2 and H20 molecular absorption at play, but the effect is the same – the higher the concentration of the greenhouse gases the greater the height at which the radiation to space can occur. Since radiative balance with the Sun fixes the effective radiative temperature of the Earth, the surface temperature must necessarily increase.
Actually, the energy is NOT external too the source. The Sun is outside, yes, but the generated temperature is UPON the surface, inside the atmosphere, at the bottom. So in fact it is very similar to a photosphere, in that particular regard. The energy comes from below and transfers out via several mechanisms. And yes then I agree, the physics would be similar.
However, if the temperature-generating energy is modeled as some average value FAR below its actual value, then that same physics, though it might be correct in principle, will not be correct in relation to a reality with a much higher insolation Wattage (much higher than 240 W/m2). This is why it is so important so understand the difference between the 240 W/m2 output, and the 610 W/m2 integrated average input, with a maximum of 1370 W/m2 if there is no albedo and under the zenith.
The difference is the 610 W/m2 is a number that is calculated incorrectly if it is supposed to represent an average over the earth’s surface (or, to put it another way, if that value multiplied by the surface area of the earth is supposed to represent the total input power) whereas the 240 W/m^2 is a correct calculation: see http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/16/postma-on-the-greenhouse-effect/#comment-99914 Needless to say, the 1370 W/m^2 merits no comment.
You have no respect for the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
I respect it enough to apply it correctly. I have already explained how to do the calculation that you tried to do correctly here http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/16/postma-on-the-greenhouse-effect/#comment-99914 (still in the spirit that you tried to do it…I explained it in another way in the other thread).
Joel Shore, you wrote:
Seems you’ve missed one of the most important (and forward) messages in J.E. Postma’s paper, which a lot of people already thought about — though unfortunately, few warmists among them? The statement the Earth should emit ~239 W/m^2 correctly describes the entire [solid Earth+oceans+atmosphere] system when looked from the space, where it can only send heat via radiative transfer (let’s forget other possible ways for the Earth to transmit energy around). It’s completely wrong to directly translate that statement to: the Earth surface — lands and oceans, at altitude=0 (R~6371Km) — should emit ~239 W/m^2. We may consider an “equivalent radius/altitude” (for purely radiative transfer to space) which temperature is -18°C (255 K), but at that stage nobody knows what’s the value of that “equivalent radius/altitude”.
Following your logic, I’ll now consider the “mean” temperature of the Earth in the underground, at depths 700 Km (R=5671 Km), 2900m (R=3471 Km) and 5100 Km (1271 Km), which correspond respectively to transitions between the internal mantle and external mantle, external core and internal mantle, and internal core and external core. So, following the same logic, I’d write: every 3 spherical layers 700, 2900 and 5100 Km deep should emit ~239 W/m^2. However, their temperatures are respectively 2000°C, 3200°C and 3500°C, which means (via the Stefan-Boltzmann equation) that they respectively emit ~1,5, ~8.25 and ~63 millions of W/m^2. Now, let’s take into account the large differences between the radiuses of those spheres (whereas one usualy neglects them when dealing with several kilometers change of altitude in the atmosphere). With the values indicated above, I get ~5*10^16 W at the Earth surface, and 1,5*10^20 W, 3,1*10^20 W and 3,2*10^20 W at depths 700, 2900 and 5100 Km respectively. But that’s still wide differences! Unbelivable! I’ve just brought evidence for a huge green-house effect under the ground!…
More seriously, what’s wrong here?
First, I entirely forgot other ways to transport heat (energy, more generally) than radiation… But that’s what you’ve just done.
Second, I dropped the sticking issue of net transfer VS two-ways transfer… which allowed me to completely forget that any sphere below the ground, as well as the Earth surface (and any strate in the atmosphere) are in contact with other layers which temperatures are obviously not 0 K. But you’ve done the same…
Even if we go on forgetting other possible ways to transfert heat than radiation, and even if we drop the problem of abusing extrapolation of that law to gases and liquids, when refering to Stefan-Boltzmann law, people usually don’t consider sigma*T^4 but sigma*(T1^4 – T2^4). However, if you consider exchanges between the solid+liquid surface and the air immediately in contact with it, you should take into account the fact that they have the same temperatures, because they are in contact. And if you want to take a mean value for a one day + one night cycle, you get a steady-state field with no net transfer. The same way you’ve got an energy balance at the top of atmosphere. Now, go back to my 3 underground layers: how is it that the undergrounds remain in a steady-state (when looked in the mid-term, neglecting the convection in the rocks, not to mention internal nuclear sources)? Simply because those value have nothing to do with net energy transfert / heat transfer. They are just related to the local temperatures, which depend on the pressure, due to gravity, on the calorific capacities, etc.
The net radiative transfer, that’s what gives the heat flux (in a purely radiative context). Your ~390 W/m^2 only describe a theoretical flux in a two-ways transfer (purely radiative) model, not a net (heat) flux. In other words, your ~390 W/m^2, if somehow real, have no reality in terms of heat transfer. So why would they have some room in the calculation of an energy balance? Why consider an equaly virtual (390 – 239 ~ 150 W/m^2) flux as something which is likely to warm the Earth? Only a non-null net transfer is likely to induce some warming. However, that DWLWR just get in and out, so it doesn’t. And it wouldn’t, even if the DWLWR slowly increased, as long as it keeps going in and out in same quantities.
Joel Shore, you wrote:
Wait! There’s something else which seems plainly wrong to me, there.
At best, you can consider that the Earth is a gray body, not a black one — as you can see, tree leaves are a green body, snow a white one, most stones are browns, … So the Earth emissivity is obviously not 1. If one uses the standard value of e = (1 – a) = 0.7, one gets: the surface of the earth is at a temperature of about 15 C, or 288 K, which means (via the Stefan-Boltzmann equation) that the surface emits ~273 W/m^2.‘
Now, the Earth isn’t a grey body. And as far as I know, there are big heat transfers involving something else than radiation. Water and rocks have large thermal inertia (capacity); it takes loads of energy to change ice to liquid water, or water to water vapour; so we’re far from an ‘ideal’ situation with instantaneous radiative equilibrium everywhere at the surface.
Besides, nobody nows what an ‘averaged temperature’ is — to what it is supposed to correspond, in physics. At best, one must consider that there are different ways to make a calculation.
First, take into account the fact that radiative power is induced by the temperature, and not vice versa, and the problem of the 4th power on T. Take 8 points ‘representing’ 8 squares of same areas, which local measured temperatures are respectively -20, 10, …, +30, +40 and +50 °C. The direct averaging on the measured temperatures gets T_avg = 15°C, leading to ~ 390 * 0,7 ~ 273 W/m^2. Now, for each square separately, compute the expected radiative power, then take the average P, then deduce the equivalent ‘averaged temperature’: you’ll get 17,7°C. What to conclude? Do we even know?
But the problem is probably much more complicated. One other big issue can be perceived in the fact that kinetic temperature already involves some kind of averaging, at a microscopic level, which questions the way you get a mean temperature : linear or square mean, etc?
Anyway: sincerly, what kind of averaged temperature can drop the local thermal capacities? Temperature is intensive. ‘Worse’: in most situation, of course including that of the Earth surface, an average temperature probably has no physical sense at all. Remember, for example, how many Joules it takes only to change ice in water, then water in ice, before the temperature of the same volume of water can just go on increasing: if a balance on energy make sense, what would be the meaning of similar calculations (additions, balance, average) on the temperatures of blocks of ice, liquid water and volumes of water vapour considered together, their phases changing with time?…
Dimanche shabbas.
============
Dr. Postma:
Let me try this from another angle. I’m not debating the physics here;
people like Joel are doing fine with that aspect of things.
I’m responding to your argument above, which seems to boil down to:
(A) Nobody talks about a GHE in stars
(B) Stars have a temperature profile that decreases through the photosphere
therefore
(C) The terrestrial atmospheric temperature profile cannot result from the GHE
Beyond the glaring logical fallacy, I’m trying to offer an explanation for
point (A). Nobody talks about a GHE in stars because it’s irrelevant.
The very name of the effect came from the analogy to a greenhouse,
which is transparent to visible light impinging on it from the outside
but which interferes with the subsequent escape of the resultant energy
arising from the heated surfaces within. Yes, in the case of an actual
greenhouse it’s due to convection being blocked while in a planetary
atmosphere it’s due to attenuation of IR radiation, but the basic analogy
holds, while in the context of stellar atmospheres it would be nonsensical.
Yah it is not quite that simple FS. You A B & C is too simple of a break down.
But if a real greenhouse DOES attenuate IR radiation, and this does NOT have an effect upon the temperature inside, it makes no sense. Physics can’t be selective. If IR attenuation works for an atmosphere it should also work inside an experiment.
The idea that some have posted here, that the GHE depends on or creates the temperature gradient, is ridiculous. That gradient is derived from fundamental physics independent of GHG’s or a GHE. My paper explains why and how the lapse rate arises.
Actually 70% of the temperature is measured in the water. 30% is measured at 2meters. the rest is measured in the water
soil temperatures. Not what you predict.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/soil/soiltempclimate.pdf
Sorry no cupydoll for you, these are measurements from 10cm below surface to 100cm below surface.
But meteorologists never ever in their lifetime measure surface temperature! they measure surface _air_ temperature, which can be, and is very different from ‘surface’ temperature. The only place where surface temperature actually makes sense is arid desert, and also to some extent – sea surface. What is the surface temperature of grassland? A forest? better yet, what is the surface of three-tired forest? Oak leafs? Hornbeam leafs? grass? Soil? What about transpiration, how to count it in? Of course, you can say ‘the surface temperature is what satellite measure emitting in atmospheric windows’, and apparently it is composed partly of oak leafs emitting, partly of hornbeam’s, partly of grass and partly of soil. But, does it make _physical_ sense?
Chriscolose rebut attempt
Page 2
Postma picks the highest emissivity value (e=1) for atmosphere to give it a chance to show an effect but chris objects.
Usual insults “Postma does not know how to derive result formally”
Page 3 moves quickly to Venus hoping others are not to sure of chris slight of hand.
Bottom of page
simple model not good
simple model good
take your pick
Page 4
Back to Venus
Lapse rate dance around then back to Venus with no conclusion
Page 5
Chris has now abandoned the previous model he used (2010) but is not up front about it.
His previous model was a 3 layer tropopause mutually radiating layers.
Now the more sophisticated TOA model is used .
Page 6
Desert discussed but Postmas conclusion is not seriously challenged.
Deserts are apparently complicated
If we don’t have a greenhouse effect we will have snowball earth which is the biggest evidence of circular reasoning you will find on the internet.
If this was the challenge that Judith imagined she must be disappointed.
Its like a heavyweight boxing match where Postma knocks out Chris in the first round.
The fans who have paid good money are not very happy.
I’m afraid the heavyweights are not bothering with this thread. As far as I’m concerned Postma was already knocked out on the previous thread.
Stuff like this probably convinced the Andy Lacis´ of the world to leave…
Settle down you guys. Boundary conditions can be difficult to wrap your head around. 240 W/m2 is NOT the input power to the Earth.
Who? Is he overweight as well?
What is a heavyweight? It is usually someone who has a high opinion of him/herself.
A heavy weight is someone with substantial past academic or applied credentials, with demonstrated meta-cognitive abilities to reason about diverse scientific problems and communicate that reasoning.
You have stated two very different criteria — expertise and reasoning ability. I suspect you just mean expertise. I see no evidence of superior reasoning among the experts.
Yes, I am looking for both
It is a good point. Remember- Oliver has credentials
Oliver may have great reasoning skills. He just happens to have a fixation on a topic that is not necessarily relevant to our discussions. Descartes is supposed to have said, of a lunatic who thought his head was made of glass (a true delusion), that he reasoned very well for a man with a glass head. In other words, reasoning and truth are two different things. In logic this is the difference between a valid argument and a sound one. Only the latter yields a true result but reasoning per se is about the former.
There may not be any. Most of our experts are relatively incoherent. This is not unusual. One of the central roles of the university is to shelter such people. Intelligence and intelligibility do not go hand in hand.
Well for this particular topic, someone with a graduate degree in a physical science or related engineering field has the requisite expertise. And most with such expertise that hang out in the climate blogosphere have developed some communications skills.
I am highly critical of academe – but I can’t agree with this statement.
There are those who lack communication skills but who are able to stay afloat by virtue of their intellectual power; but they, by definition, are a relative minority. If someone lacks intellectual power but is able to survive by virtue of their political expediency, then by definition they possess effective communication skills. Like any work context, some people just luck out or fall into the correct place. But for the most part, effective communication skills and expertise are highly correlative with success in academe.
I suspect your politics are showing, David.
David Wojick
You may be right, otherwise perfection would be in excess supply. It is as if a zero sum game is in play with attributes involving persuasion.
Were I to meet someone with God-like beauty, strength, charm, intelligence, charisma and clarity of spoken word, I would likely start edging for the door. I’d be nervous about compensatory defects that I don’t want to find out about first hand.
I don’t think we have heavy weights here. Andy Lacis qualifies but I have not seen him in a while. We have a spectrum from cranks, uninformed, curious, to different levels of informed.
Happily that mix is sufficient to get the job done. No one is an expert on more than a small fraction of the issues so great expertise is not especially useful, and might actually be distracting.
“We have a spectrum from cranks, uninformed, curious, to different levels of informed.”
I think I have that covered. Who else ya got??
The interesting thing is that skeptics are not here defending very much or very well. I suspect some know it’s wrong but don’t feel comfortable calling out their brethren.
A skeptic disagreeing with me would be no more important than an alarmist doing so.
Facts disagreeing with you wouldnt change your opinion.
Oh, no that would! But the fact is that sunshine is hot.
Personally, I’m staying out of this for now, because although, going by what I’ve learnt and figured out for myself over the years, I’m 99.9% confident that they’re wrong, there’s always that niggling 0.1%
Why am I not 100% confident?
Because, in other fields, I’ve found out on more than one occasion that what appears to be generally accepted, long-standing, intuitive and settled can be turned completely on its head by simply using a different frame of reference, eg the frequency domain as opposed to the time domain.
There’s enough people here picking holes in their arguments, and all I have to offer at the moment is more of the same.
“can be turned completely on its head by simply using a different frame of reference”
That is an extremely insightful and valid observation. It characterizes what is happening here too, and what I present in my paper. A possible paradigm shift…change of reference frame.
Unfortunately, if that’s indeed the case – and I’m not saying that it is, or isn’t – you have your work cut out to convince people.
You’ll have to find a way to explain it exactly on a detailed blow-by-blow basis, from microscopic all the way upwards to planetary scales and beyond, with clear workings out at every stage, but, at the same time, in such a way that doesn’t cause the average reader’s eyes to glaze over a quarter of the way through.
No mean feat, as I’m sure you can understand, but it’s unfortunately the only way, short of physically being in the same room as the rest of us.
Imagine that, all of us in the same room? Eeeek!
Yah unfortunately, what you specify is more than one man can handle! Hey, unless I get a big research grant and direct the research activities of, say, a group of a dozen scientists or so! I’d do that :-)
But really, I think that the community will take up the research automatically, once the boundary condition issue is clarified.
Cheers.
Well, in reality, more of half of us are actually beautiful women masquerading as men on this blog.
Does that make it better? :-)
Just kidding :-(
I just got married…so…
LOL :-)
Joel Shore:
“Bonus question: Do you think, given Postma’s background, that these errors are likely honest mistakes or purposeful deceptions?”
Oh that’s a fun game.
Personally, I don’t consider it fun at all when someone’s actions lead me to the almost inescapable conclusion that the person is being purposely deceptive (or that he is self-deluded beyond my abilities to fathom)…especially when that person claims to be a scientist. I consider it very, very sad.
I can assure you I am not being purposely deceptive. When we get into that kind of bashing…ugh, why bother. Same for comments about delusions. I know I do it to, and it isn’t correct. :-)
No, I seriously have honest questions that I wrote about in my paper(s). What happens if we model the input at its actual values? It feels hot under the Sun, doesn’t it? Averaging that out to -18C just isn’t real. Look again at the model of the radiative interaction at the end of my paper.
Joe,
We don’t do energy conservation calculations by trying to figure out how it feels. But, if you want to know, I think that it feels hot under the sun and that it would feel damn cold at night under a sky in which there is no radiative emission from the sun and if there was no radiative emission from the sky either.
Joel,
sadly in terms of feeling or sensation we are insensitive to background IR yet without it we might freeze in warm air.
I think that we vary in surface area from around 1 to 2 m^2 and at 37C we must radiate quite strongly perhaps 500W or so, I haven’t calculated a figure. We don’t generate those sort of amounts at rest and we are not deriving it from cooling the air around us, yet one could stand naked in a room at say 25C and not freeze.
We simply do not sense background IR but I think we would miss it.
Alex
Alexander Harvey
at 37C we must radiate quite strongly perhaps 500W or so
Don’t need S-B for this.
2000 Calorie/day diet = ~97 watts
Great idea, but it ignores other sources of body energy besides food (such as solar or infrared radiation & conduction) and other sinks of body energy (such as conduction & evaporation).
John N-G
Yah, but humans also turn on the furnace/air-conditioning and dress for weather and perspire during physical labor. The result is to adjust the rate of daily energy loss so that it roughly matches input (i.e. 2000 kcal = ~97 W). Of course, some goes into the energy sink around the waist. :)
Anyway, is S-B even applicable? I hope you realize that not everybody with a large energy sink is a round blackbody. What then to use for greybody emissivity? Some say you must calculate radiated power separately for whitebodies and blackbodies because associative combining violates fundamental law, but I will use 0.5 anyway even though I suppose someone will get upset. And don’t forget, 37C is core internal temp, not surface.
However, since you insist, the S-B radiated power for a round, human greybody with 2.0 m^2 surface area and an unrealistic 37C SST (skin surface temperature) is: 0.5 * 5.67 * 10E-8 * 2.0 * 310.2^4 = 525 W.
Happy?
Would that everyone here would write that on a virtual post-it and tack it onto their computer screen.
Joel Shore
You missed out the bit about moral character Joel.
Joel says,
“Personally, I don’t consider it fun at all when someone’s actions lead me to the almost inescapable conclusion that the person is being purposely deceptive (or that he is self-deluded beyond my abilities to fathom)…especially when that person claims to be a scientist. I consider it very, very sad.”
Given many of the dishonest protestations of Mann, Schmidt, and many others through the past few years, you must be a really, really, really sad person.
Joel,
The scummiest thing you believers indulge in is to attribute motives.
Your good manners and politeness stand out as a beacon of light on these pages.
Postma makes a big deal about night and day but this is accounted for already in his eq. (4), which uses the Earth’s cross section, and eq. (6), which uses the total surface area.
Then he makes a big deal that at an estimated 288 K the estimated emission doesn’t match the estimated incoming energy, even though the error is sensitive to the 4th power. The effective temperature required to make the two wattages match exactly is 279 K, a 3% difference. A 3% difference from a textbook estimate disproves the GHE?
We cannot use Venus-Earth-Mercury analogy for a quite simple reason:
Carbon dioxide on Venus’ surface behaves as a supercritical fluid coolant.
Joel Shore, with his entire physics burden on his back, confounds dispersion/diffusion/distribution of thermal energy with an inexistent “storage of heat”. Joel Shore cannot ignore that heat cannot be stored.
Does this mean that Joel is “being purposely deceptive (or that he is self-deluded beyond my abilities to fathom)”? Hey, he started it. Joel likes to substitute “deception” and “delusion” for “disagreement.” Sadly there are many such in the climate debate.
David,
That is simply not the case.
I have made a distinction between legitimate scientific disagreement and nonsense. I may not think that Roy Spencer has always shown the best scientific judgement…He’s made some pretty bone-headed errors in fact (one being arguing that intelligent design and evolution are equally valid scientific theories and others related to analysis of climate change). However, I would not say that his work shows purposeful deception or unfathomable delusion.
There are some arguments that are so ridiculous scientifically that they enter a different category. Do you believe that the differences between a Young Earther and a scientist who believes the earth to be more than 6000 years old are just legitimate scientific disagreement?
Postma is not a Young Earther, Joel. You however are an ignorant fool. Save the term delusion for the real thing, which has a clinical definition. If I had my way you would be kicked off this list for abuse.
David,
If you were actually looking at the argument we are having and if you able to evaluate it yourself, I think you’d have to conclude that the comparison is very generous. I had a guy where I used to work make much better arguments for a 6000 year old earth than this.
Really, that’s what you want me to argue about with you now? You really want to degrade this to a discussion of 6000 year old earth believers? Running from the actual argument.
Joel.
“one being arguing that intelligent design and evolution are equally valid scientific”
Then you do not believe in signal processing, artificial intelligence and any number of other scientific endeavours based on many of the same principles?? My, you warmistas are sure a picky lot for who you hang out with!!
This thread is growing into an illustration of what I am saying. We have Nasif arguing that one doesn’t have to divide the solar constant of 1370 W/m^2 by four to get the average over the surface area of a sphere. You have Postma making simple mistakes in computing total energy by using wrong geometric factors, etc.
This is not a real scientific argument. It is science vs something that is not science.
And neither one taking into account that only little more than half of the solar radiation reaches the surface and some of that is reflected leaving little less than half. Atmosphere including clouds absorbs about 23% and reflects the same amount.
Using almost the maximal value of best conditions as average is unbelievable.
And we have Joel, Pekka, and Fred highly confused with astrophysical constants.
To be fair, Postma is including the albedo correction in what I have seen from him thus far. A good point that we are all ignoring that not all of that 240 W/m^2 makes it to the surface, which could have some implications, depending on assumptions regarding what happens to the radiation absorbed by the atmosphere, for how much the surface could then re-radiate in the absence of a greenhouse effect. But from the point of view of the top-of-the-atmosphere, it is correct to have 240 W/m^2 going out.
Joel… You say: “…for how much the surface could then re-radiate in the absence of a greenhouse effect.”
The same because such greenhouse effect, as it is described, doesn’t exist.
Postma says
…”Joel, you are missing the fine points in that calculation. You’re also assuming that gases radiate directly according to the S-B Law,”…..
This is a point that G&T made and can be checked by anyone with a spreadsheet.
Pick one small section of Planck radiation curve to represent the filtered radiation chosen.say 14um to 16um to get the intensity.
Then for a range of temperatures find the area on the Planck curve between these wavelengths
Plot the intensity against the Kelvin temperature.
Result the T^4 law is no longer strictly valid
Conclusion
1.blackbody assumption not justified
2 for accurate work gray body approximation no longer valid
…which is why the line-by-line radiative-convective codes used for quantitative work don’t make this approximation.
he’s never seen RTEs, and cant spell LBL. But he uses devices that rely on the physics he denies. weird.
And of course, since Steven Mosher was associated with military engineering projects in some capacity he knows these models are perfect from personal experience.
Bravo.
I know the models are good enough to protect the lives of men and women who protect your freedom. The real test of any science is can you build a working useful device. Dragon slayers physics? not yesterday today or tomorrow.
steven mosher
Bryan’s point is also about clarifying the physics. It is a mistake, I think, to reduce the issue to a contest between denying vs. unblinking credulity.
Haven’t you noticed the appalling number of times that the lesser ‘champions of physics’ have conflated back-radiation with Heat? This also is denial of physics, albeit unintentional.
Again, clarity is what is needed.
Judith you say this is a technical discussion. Why then do you allow Joel Shore, Eli Rabbett and Chris Colose to immediately wade in with the insults?
Our arguments have already been made, and highly doubt they will be actually answered.
Stopped payinh attention to arguments as soon as ad hom encountered — which was unecessary.
Well, I only answer unambiguous arguments based on real science. Sorry if I have not answered yours. :)
In the last thread I posted a link to Vaughan Pratt’s experiment:
http://boole.stanford.edu/WoodExpt/
It was implied by Bryan that Prof. Pratt now views the experiment as flawed, although he didn’t update the page to say so. Prof. Pratt, if you are following this thread, I’d appreciate your present view on the linked experiment.
Dr. Postma, it’s a shame you didn’t make the experiment (i.e. Wood-type experiment) you describe in your paper. Do you intend to do it and report about it? Thanks.
Samedi,
it should be noted that Joseph is, in fact, not a Dr. He’s Mr. Postma.
I’m a Master Postma, actually, not Doctor; but Mr is ok too :-)
I would ask anyone to do the experiment. I would like to do it one day too and will report on it.
My help is probably not needed in dismantling Joseph Postma’s conclusions, because Pekka, Chris Colose, Joel Shore, David N, Eli, and others have been doing a creditable job. Not being a mind reader, I won’t question his motives, which I will presume to be honorable. I’ll add one small observation, however.
I read through the earlier version of his treatise, which was discussed previously on this blog. I found many of the same errors that appear to persist in the current version, which I’ve only skimmed through, and so I probably don’t have the patience to scrutinize the latest version in detail. It appears generally similar in its approach to the earlier one. I notice one interesting difference.
In the earlier version, Postma tries to reinforce his theorizing with a concrete hypothetical example in which the absence of back radiation will be proved by the failure of an emitting object to warm up. The problem with the earlier example, in my view (and this is not meant sarcastically) is that it was simple and visualizable enough so that readers could promptly understand why it would give the opposite answer and demonstrate back radiation via a “greenhouse effect” mechanism. It was also simple enough so that a practical demonstration could probably be devised. This was a tactical error in the sense that it made Postma’s assertions empirically testable.
What he appears to have done in the current version is retreat from that simplicity and propose a test that will probably never be attempted because of practical difficulties, and which is much harder to visualize, so that its outcome will not be as obviously contradictory to the theorizing as in the earlier version. (It has significant design flaws in addition, but these can probably be addressed with some adjustments). I conclude from this that regardless of motive, he has revised his theorizing in the direction of making it less testable, without changing its essential elements.
The only other point I’ll make is that a number of participants in this thread have already cited real-world examples of back radiation, some in the infrared, and some in other wavelengths, that refute the Postma conclusions. However, if he ever wishes actually to implement the example he now cites (after approriate adjustments), I will be interested to see the quantitative interpretation of results.
Fred your post is like the manager of a football team down 6-0 at half time.
Its good practice to rally the troops and say what a wonderful effort they have all made.
There’s always the second half.
The experiment is called the Wood Experiment, which showed that heating inside an enclosure is caused by preventing convection, rather than by radiative trapping. It is radiative trapping by which the atmospheric GHE (as opposed to a greenhouse’s greenhouse effect) is theorized to operate – such a mechanism SHOULD be replicable by experiment. It is not. What I desired to make more testable was the theory of the GHE via radiative trapping…I explained that quite well. It is also a test of the S-B Law itself. It should be reproducible experimentally.
Nasif Nahle recently replicated the Wood experiment (which is slightly different than the one I proposed), and her verified its results – the heat inside a GH is due to convective prevention, not radiative trapping.
Look it doesn’t help to “lightly-read” and then criticize. Please actually read with intention.
In the earlier discussion I brought up flat plate thermal solar collectors. They have selective coating on the collector surface, but they have also selective glazing. They are reported to reach temperatures up to 180C, when not cooled by the liquid being heated. A straightforward quantitative calculation appears to confirm that using selective glass is not just a promotional trick, but really needed for that performance.
The significance of selective glazing is a direct confirmation of the effect that Wood could not find due to his crude experimental settings.
Joseph – Go back through various recent threads and look for descriptions of the Wood experiment. You will find that it did nothing to support your conclusions. Rather, it was a very weak test of greenhouse effects, which tended to show results consistent with some effect, but not at an unequivocal level, due to the very limited radiative modifications possible with the experimental design. Examples cited in these threads by others more clearly demonstrate back radiation and its warming effects, confirming theory with observational data..
Failure to properly account for convective changes is one of the design flaws in the test proposed in your current version. If you ever intend to carry out the test, you will have to change the design from the one you described. There are other adjustments that would also be required.
I haven´t looked at these experiments in any detail, but I am not sure how they would reproduce the essential physics of the real greenhouse effect. For example, in the real world the greenhouse effect depends on the vertical temperature gradient (between the surface and the upper atmosphere); how do you set that up in such a boxed experiment?
Chris – I believe they would be a test of back radiation and not the entirety of the greenhouse effect.
The GHE does not cause, nor is caused by, the temperature gradient. The temperature gradient exists independent of GHG’s. If the real world greenhouse actually did depend on the temperature gradient, then why do we teach it as a model which has ZERO dependance upon the temperature gradient…
In fact, in simple models like the one that you looked at, the GHE and the solar insolation both are responsible for setting up a temperature gradient, i.e., lapse rate. Just look at the difference between the temperature at the surface and the temperature on the shell representing the atmosphere. (The value of the gradient wouldn’t really be defined in such a model until you defined the height of your layer representing the atmosphere.)
In more realistic convective-radiative models and in the real atmosphere, the heating from below causes the lapse rate to exceed the adiabatic lapse rate, which makes the troposphere unstable to convection. Convection then restores the lapse rate to the appropriate (moist or dry) adiabatic lapse rate. The existence of this lapse rate is indeed important for understanding how an increase in greenhouse gases then leads to an increase in temperature at the surface.
This comment by Postma just proves that he has no familiarity with the greenhouse effect. I would strongly recommend to him Ray Pierrehumbert´s cliamte book, which goes into detail the dependence of the lapse rate (or any paper on climate feedbacks that discusses the lapse rate feedback in terms of contemporary global warming).
I do think it is a valid criticism of the simple 0-D model however, but it is a straw man in the context of radiative transfer modeling.
I made a comment about this but it seemed to disappear, so I’ll try again.
For a simple model of the greenhouse effect that does not include convection, like the one that you lay out in your paper, the greenhouse effect together with the solar insolation heating the atmosphere from below does in fact create a temperature gradient [lapse rate] (note the temperature difference between the surface and the shell representing the atmosphere) although the model is so simple that the “gradient” just consists of temperatures at two different points and to turn that into a gradient, you’d have to define the height of the shell.
For radiative-convective models of the greenhouse effect, the insolation and greenhouse radiation actually create a lapse rate that would be larger than the adiabatic lapse rate but because an atmosphere with a lapse rate above the adiabatic lapse rate is unstable to convection, convection comes in and transports heat up through the troposphere, enforcing that the lapse rate to be approximately at the adiabatic lapse rate in most of the troposphere. This lapse rate is indeed then important in determining how the surface temperature increases as additional greenhouse gases are added to the atmosphere.
Wood’s experiments were neither a test of backradiation nor of the GHE. Wood explored the mechanism of a glasshouse, so I’m a bit confused why Postma mentions Wood.
BTW:
The mechanism has been already explained by Fourier 1827 in studying de Saussure’s Hot Boxes (a tool for measuring IR), the same paper Fourier claimed the atmospheric GHE for the first time in history.
Woods experiment is a paragraph. no data. and utterly besides the point of how radiation transfers through the entire column of the atmosphere. An example of skeptics being unskeptical of their own.
steven mosher
It looks like the Woods experiment is about to (or has been recently) repeated with much more accuracy.
For instance by Nasif Nahle.
This may be replicated several times to become universally accepted.
What will your reaction be?
Some greenhouse theory advocates would not be surprised with an almost negligible effect.
While others believe in a quite substantial, almost Glasshouse effect
Very simply the Woods experiment or any replication of it doesnt test what is claimed by AGW. Adding GHGs to the atmosphere makes it more opaque to IR. That increase in Opacity raises the effective radiating height of the atmosphere.
You dont test that by doing an experiment in a greenhouse.
wanna know why? see C02 in the the dry stratosphere
I get your point.
But why do several greenhouse enthusiasts want to deny Woods results.
Do they not understand their own Greenhouse Theory?
Steven… You reject the real methodology of science: Experimentation.
What your hypothesis of GHE assures? That the greenhouse effect is due to “trapped” longwave radiation by the atmosphere, in particular, CO2.
Wood’s experiment, and my experiment, demonstrates that such “trapped” longwave radiation by the atmosphere doesn’t exist. So you cannot resort to the old tale of longwave radiation being “stored” by the CO2.
Science is based on facts, not on tortured mathematics and unphysical laws.
Why weak, Fred? Explain yourself scientifically.
This also is an interesting paper especially as it comes from a source with no “spin” on the AGW debate.
The way I read the paper is it gives massive support for the conclusions of the famous Woods experiment.
Basically the project was to find if it made any sense to add Infra Red absorbers to polyethylene plastic for use in agricultural plastic greenhouses.
Polyethylene is IR transparent like the Rocksalt used in Woods Experiment.
The addition of IR absorbers to the plastic made it equivalent to “glass”
The results of the study show that( Page2 )
…”IR blocking films may occasionally raise night temperatures” (by less than 1.5C) “the trend does not seem to be consistent over time”
http://www.hort.cornell.edu/hightunnel/about/research/general/penn_state_plastic_study.pdf
The problem is Bryan that to measure the entire effect of GHGs you have to understand that the effect C02 has for example changes as you go up into the dry stratosphere. You cannot test the effect of added c02 in the ENTIRE COLUMN by looking at a small fraction of it.
Heh, we’re gonna get to CO2 having a cooling effect, yet. So it’s convection, eh? Reminds me of ‘Why Turbulence’?
============
So not only do we have worry about climate sensitivity to CO2 varying through time and space, but we have to worry about the radiative effect of CO2 varying through time and space. I still wonder if my argument with Carrick about CO2 facilitating the release of energy toward the poles may have some merit. He convinced me otherwise, but I’ve forgotten why.
=========================
“I still wonder if my argument with Carrick about CO2 facilitating the release of energy toward the poles”
Well not only that, it also facilitates the release of energy to space. All of the other gases in the atmosphere can only lose thermal energy by bumping into each other. CO2 can do it that way, PLUS all by itself with its internal oscillations. In effect it provides another degree of freedom for energy loss to space. Oh sure it scatters radiation back down to the surface…but a small fraction of much colder-sourced radiation won’t warm up the hotter place where it came from!
Oh, yeah, I meant CO2 facilitated the release of energy to space from the poleward parts of the earth. Thanks for the elucidation.
===================
It seems convectively and/or conductively heated CO2 might relatively facilitate the export of energy to space at night, in drier air, and poleward. This effect would increase with increased energy in the system and it would increase with higher CO2 thus providing two negative feedbacks to the warming effect of rising CO2.
Ah, and it was DeWitt Payne with which I discussed this, not Carrick. Both so gigantic I sometimes can’t distinguish them.
==============
But you should be able to replicate the physical principles involved in a designed experiment to do so. You don’t have to experiment an entire atmosphere. The physical principles involved tell you what you want to test. And that is radiative amplification of temperature by passive IR attenuation.
Here is a paper by S. D. Silverstein that may be of interest. It is behind a paywall, though.
Effect of Infrared Transparency on the Heat Transfer Through Windows: A Clarification of the Greenhouse Effect
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/193/4249/229.abstract
Fred Staples summarizes it in the following way at
http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/the_arrogance_of_physicists?page=2
“… SD Silverstein (who he?) did exactly this in a 1976 paper entitled
“A Clarification of the Greenhouse Effect”.
He used an atmospheric temperature of 0 degrees C, an interior temperature of 21 degrees C, and he calculated the radiative and convective heat flows (heat, not energy) from room to glass/rock salt interior, interior to exterior, and exterior to atmosphere. The radiative heat transfer from the interior was substantial, passing through the rock salt and being absorbed in the glass.
As a result, the glass was warmer than the rock-salt, 4.3 degrees against 2.5 degrees. But, consequently, the convection from the warmer glass was greater than from the cooler rock-salt, compensating for the much greater radiation through the rock salt to the atmosphere.
There is something for almost everyone in this analysis. For RW Woods, Silverstein concludes that IR opacity or transparency is important but “this effect is more in the mix of different transport mechanisms than in the net thermal transport”. Increased convection balances reduced radiation, so the internal temperature is much the same.
Nevertheless, the figures do show the total thermal transport for the transparent case to be 18% greater than for the opaque case. So for the opaque greenhouse salesmen, the temperature differential might be a few degrees centigrade in favour of the glass house.
For the AGW advocates, Silverstein concludes that the IR-absorbing components of the atmosphere do provide a radiation shield, reducing the surface to tropopause radiation and hence the surface cooling.
For the AGW denialists, the corresponding effect of radiative warming of the atmosphere will increase the convective transfer to the tropopause, and the radiative cooling to space. The figures suggest that the difference between zero IR absorption and 100% absorption is a few degrees C.
For the direct atmosphere to surface, back-warming enthusiasts, Silverstein, like Sir Arthur Eddington and RW Woods, can offer no hope. …”
Repeating the same experiment with double or triple glazing with all panes either absorbing or transmitting IR and with a large temperature difference on the two sides would certainly give a much larger difference.
Javs — yours is comment 100,000. Congratulations on making history.
David
LOL love the commentary :)
Javs congrats on being #100,000, a worthy comment!
Judith,
I thank you, twice. For the congratulations and for hosting this e-salon extraordinaire. I feel lucky, not just now, but everyday.
Joseph,
I am curious to know how you derived the 610W/m^2 figure.
I noted a close arithmetic similarity above:
1366*0.7 * (2/pi) =~ 609
or using the figure you have used above:
1370*0.7 * (2/pi) =~ 611
but am missing the logic in it.
Alex
I did that by calculating the integrated mean of the insolation upon the day-side surface (the only surface that receives the insolation). It is the integrated average value. The linear average value would be 1370*0.7*0.5, but, the insolation isn’t actually distributed linearly. That’s why I thought it might be better to use the integrated average value.
That makes no sense at all. What you call the “linear average value” is in fact the average value per unit surface area, since a hemisphere has twice the surface of one side of a disc of the same radius. Multiplying that value by the surface area of the hemisphere then gives you the total power. Alternatively, you could take the 1370 W/m^2*0.7 and multiply it by the disc area of pi*R^2 to get the total power.
You seem to not understand the difference between a linear vs. non-linear mapping function. Using an integrated average produces a better estimate of the mean than a linear average does if the mapping function is non-linear. Which it isn’t. It varies as the cosine of the zenith angle.
But either way you cut it, division by 2, or division by 2/pi, the solar insolation on the surface it actually impinges, which is the ONLY place the S-B Law has meaning, has an average temperature equivalent power of +30C or more. The day-side doesn’t actually achieve this temperature.
No…The S-B Law has meaning in applying it to consider the total energy balance. It has no meaning when you restrict yourself to part of the earth because there are other energy transfers that occur (both within the atmosphere and between the atmosphere and the oceans/land etc..
The S-B Law states the instantaneous power output from a surface of a given temperature. It can also tell you the temperature forcing UPON a surface given an instantaneous incoming insolation. It does NOT tell you that the average insolation upon a surface extends to areas where the surface does not actually receive any insolation. The insolation power only occurs where it occurs – that is where the S-B Law applies.
You can also figure out the average power output of the Earth given the known total energy input, but this output power does not have the same energy density as the input. The total energy is what is conserved…not the energy flux densities.
Like I said, if the elementary way that we average numbers over a surface is too complicated for you to follow, I recommend that we don’t average anything and just work in terms of total powers, which is what I do here: http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/16/postma-on-the-greenhouse-effect/#comment-100061
We’ve already discussed that this derivation glosses over too much of the physics. Please reference equations 17 through 20 in my paper.
Apparently, it did not gloss over too much when you were trying to talk in terms of averages. How does it suddenly gloss over too much physics when we are simply putting it in terms of total power? Do you believe that the earth can have power in not close to equal to power out over significant amounts of time?
Power in terms of W/m2, no, not at all equal.
Total energy in terms of Joules, or even Joules per second? Yes absolutely.
Don’t mix up power with total energy.
Joe,
Power times time gives energy (or the integral of P*dt if the power varies in time). I am not the one mixing anything up.
Good we’re agreed then. The sun doesn’t shine during the nighttime.
A Joule coming in in one second over 1-meter doesn’t get spread instantaneously into the night.
Joe,
Have you ever worked out a problem in your life in which you had to balance power in and power out OR energy in and energy out?
“Have you ever worked out a problem in your life in which you had to balance power in and power out OR energy in and energy out?”
That’s really cute. Please refer to my paper, where I do both.
Joseph E Postma | August 16, 2011 at 4:38 pm | Reply
I did that by calculating the integrated mean of the insolation upon the day-side surface (the only surface that receives the insolation). It is the integrated average value. The linear average value would be 1370*0.7*0.5, but, the insolation isn’t actually distributed linearly. That’s why I thought it might be better to use the integrated average value.
I agree. There does remain the issues of the flows of energy, but Joseph’s method is more realistic. I always said smearing differentiated energy flows into averages was a bad way to try to understand a system which lives and breathes on differentials pumping the bellows of the climate.
Thank you for your interesting and important paper Joseph.
“Thank you for your interesting and important paper Joseph.”
Thank you for the rationality :-)
tallbloke: I have to say that while I may have not thought your arguments to be exactly the greatest, I did not expect you to get taken in by complete nonsense. Now I know.
Please. I can’t comment on your physics, but at least try to get the syntax correct. The Sun will never (hopefully) stop “shining” in our lifetimes.
tallbloke, Bryan, and hunter are generally permanent rebels (for its own sake).
Like with Xeno, the sun keeps trying to shine into the dark, and never quite gets there.
================
Heh, an astrophysicist turns up to lend us the benefit of his expertise in calculating the delivery of energy from a star to a planet, and the computer weenies are aghast at the idea that energy from a star only falls on one side of a planet. But instead of considering carefully whether their previoud habit of simply smearing the energy as an average planetwide, instantaneously may not yield a realistic result, they simply start the ad hominem attacks.
Laughable, but sad at the same time.
tallbloke,
it would seem that Steig is not the only one who has a bad habit of smearing. Seems to be the standard way for many of them to interface with sceptics also.
Joseph,
Thank you,
I believe that this the same thing as equatorial insolation during one of the days of the equinox.
Which integrates as the total insolation that a 1m^2 area would recieve during such a day divided by the 12 hours that it lasts. Which indeed has the 2/pi term. So it equates to the average equatorial inolation on that day.
Whereas others are integrating first the insolation and secondly the area over the entire hemisphere and dividing.
Alex
Yah that’s exactly right Alexander. The equinox average along the meridian is the same thing as the always-existing average independent of the cardinal reference points.
“Whereas others are integrating first the insolation and secondly the area over the entire hemisphere and dividing.”
Actually what most others do is divide not by the hemispherical area, but by the entire surface of the Earth, including the night-side – two hemispheres. As far as I know I am the one who introduced the idea of averaging only over the hemisphere, and the factor of two. While that is a much more physical and realistic average for power input than diluting the sunlight into the night-time where it doesn’t even impinge, we recently realized that the integrated average over the sunlight hemisphere makes the most physical sense. Thus the 2/pi result and 610 W/m2, equivalent to +49C of “temperature forcing”.
As Alex, says, this 609 W/m2 is the daytime forcing at a point on the equator at the equinox with an albedo of 0.7. The full diurnal forcing there would be half that, and it is this number that matters if you want a long-term average. This (609/2) gives an equilibrium temperature near 270 K for that latitude. It seems to ignore that parts of the earth are away from the equator, and it is not always the equinox. Using 0.25 instead of 2/pi accounts for all latitudes, the diurnal cycle and the tilt too. It is more accurate.
Only as for calculating the average output of the system. But that’s not the same thing as the input boundary conditions.
We need the output longwave to balance the input shortwave. You can’t be suggesting that the longwave also goes to zero on the night side, can you?
No of course not. Just that the shortwave only comes in on the day-side.
You are saying the diurnal average longwave doesn’t have to balance the diurnal average solar input over the earth, only the daytime input implying longwave is only radiated in the daytime. Really only half of it is needed in the daytime because the other half can continue through night, hence the factor of two when figuring the longwave part.
The total energies need to equal out, yes indeed. But the powers do not, which are in terms of W/m2. The power figures are different: 240 W/m2 output on average, 610 W/m2 input on average. These equate to the same total energy when factoring in the relevant surface area where these powers values actually occur (entire surface for 240 W.m2 average, sunlight hemisphere for 610 W/m2 average).
Oh, you have to be careful about the geometric mapping though. It is simpler to use 480 W/m2 as the average input for the sunlight hemisphere…then you don’t need to worry about weighting by the projection factor.
To everyone here it is the output that matters. You can define the input any way you like, but you have to use the same area when comparing it to the output. The output gives you the -18 C radiative temperature, which would be the same with no atmosphere (same albedo).
“To everyone here it is the output that matters. You can define the input any way you like, but you have to use the same area when comparing it to the output. The output gives you the -18 C radiative temperature, which would be the same with no atmosphere (same albedo).”
Yah I agree with all that. -18C is the radiative temperature, or 240 W/m2 output.
But where the error occurs is in considering 240 W/m2, or -18C, as also the input power, the “temperature forcing” for lack of a better term. This premise it what leads to the need to postulate a heat-amplifying atmospheric GHE via back-radiative GHG’s. But with a power input of 480 W/m2 (30C), or 610 (49C), or whatever the right value is, you don’t find yourself needing to postulate the back-radiative heating mechanism. GHG’s still exist etc, and yes, everything emits radiation including back down to the ground, but it doesn’t heat the ground, nor is it needed to a-priori, because the input power is already much higher than the ground temperature. So in fact there is excess power being absorbed not showing up as temperature. This excess is what drives convection and evaporation etc, and the balance is emitted by the night-side.
Convection, evaporation, etc. are energy transports, not sinks. The only way for the earth to shed excess energy is through longwave emission out to space.
Anyway, you can’t say 480 inm 240 out. The earth would burn to a crisp very quickly with that accumulation rate.
“Convection, evaporation, etc. are energy transports, not sinks. The only way for the earth to shed excess energy is through longwave emission out to space.
Anyway, you can’t say 480 inm 240 out. The earth would burn to a crisp very quickly with that accumulation rate.”
You need to absorb the energy to get the processes of convection and evaporation going, and going into a cycle. That is certainly a sink which constantly needs replenished…it is not self-sustaining with no further energy input. And yes it transfers energy around to.
Agreed that to SHED energy, the only output is to space.
I am saying 480 over the sunlight hemisphere, 240 out of the sphere. That makes an equality of total energy, and hence no accumulation rate.
If you can see that 480 is irrelevant to the earth’s average radiating temperature, and only 240 is, you would be agreeing with the mainstream.
“If you can see that 480 is irrelevant to the earth’s average radiating temperature, and only 240 is, you would be agreeing with the mainstream.”
Well, let me correct that. 480 is important because it determines the total energy absorbed as the initial boundary condition. It also represents the input temperature forcing. From that total energy absorbed, you get the 240 output. So yes certainly, 240 or -18C represents the radiating temperature of the entire ensemble, but, the input forcing is 480 or +30C. The difference between considering 240 as an input, vs. 480 as an input, is the difference between the existence or requirement to postulate a back-radiative GHE – and this is what my main thesis is about.
You are saying that solar energy is enough to keep the surface temperature above the radiating temperature. Where that falls apart is the case of no atmosphere, where both these should be the same? Which one would you choose?
“You are saying that solar energy is enough to keep the surface temperature above the radiating temperature. Where that falls apart is the case of no atmosphere, where both these should be the same? Which one would you choose?”
I choose both. The average radiative output power of the entire thermodynamic ensemble would be equal with our without an atmosphere. With an atmosphere allows a higher ground temperature than the average because of natural adiabatic effects which exist independent of GHG’s, and because of their thermal capacity and sharing of the radiative output energy – there’s a lot more gas emitting at much colder temperature than -18C; the average of those with the +15C ground-air temperature provide the aggregate output of -18C or 240 W/m2.
And of course, yes I do think the Sun is capable of supporting whatever conditions exist on the Earth. It’s the only source of energy after all. The atmosphere does not represent another source of energy. And it doesn’t need to with the correct power input. It only needs to spontaneously provide phantom additional energy if the input is incorrectly modeled as the output, at 240 W/m2. But that’s obviously not the actual boundary condition that exists.
So your whole argument about the sun making the surface warmer in daytime doesn’t apply without an atmosphere, because now you say it will be colder. Can you see a contradiction here? Does the sun explain the surface temperature or the atmosphere? You are going to say both again, I bet, but you went to a lot of trouble trying to prove it was the sun.
The sun would make the surface over one hundred degrees Celsius in the day time without an atmosphere. The atmosphere helps distribute all that heat and energy around and then keeps the ground cooler, in the day time. The Sun is what provides the energy, for both the ground surface and the atmosphere if there is one. The atmosphere is not an additional source of energy in and of itself.
OK, your model has a warm surface, and a cold radiating level that make it look like the real atmosphere, but I guess you don’t like the standard idea that much of this radiation is from GHGs, and maybe that is your only difference. Instead you say it comes from the atmosphere as a whole. If you saw a spectrum of outgoing or surface IR and saw how it matched expected wavelengths from GHGs you might have trouble defending your model. The standard model has the radiating level at the ground without GHGs because O2 and N2 have no emission at IR thermal wavelengths. If you are in astrophysics, you should know the concept of emission and absorption spectra and how they distinguish the radiating gases.
OK, your model has a warm surface, and a cold radiating level that make it look like the real atmosphere, but I guess you don’t like the standard idea that much of this radiation is from GHGs, and maybe that is your only difference. Instead you say it comes from the atmosphere as a whole. If you saw a spectrum of outgoing or surface IR and saw how it matched expected wavelengths from GHGs you might have trouble defending your model. The standard model has the radiating level at the ground without GHGs because O2 and N2 have no emission at IR thermal wavelengths. If you are in astrophysics, you should know the concept of emission and absorption spectra and how they distinguish the radiating gases.
You know I’m not even really talking about a new model. I’m just elucidating the actual power input input, which is much higher than 240 W/m2…at least double that on average. That’s going to change a bunch of stuff from the idea that the input is -18C on average. The details of all that? Yep, a lot of work to do there. But the first step is to understand the actual power input, of at least 480 W/m2 on average, or +30C.
Everything which has a temperature emits radiation. It is not just spectral emission and absorption that causes thermal emission…thermal emission comes from a completely different process than that and everything does it. Even a perfectly reflective mirror has a temperature, and therefore will emit thermal radiation and this can be observed by thermal cameras. The average radiating level could never be at the ground with an atmosphere, whether or not it has GHG’s. But as I said, the problem of input power comes first…what happens after that then comes, and it will be different from what we understand now.
Judith
In the article by Chris Colose he says this;
‘The claims are of course extraordinary, along the lines of Gerlich and Tseuchner’s alleged falsification of the atmospheric greenhouse effect. As is often the case with these types of “skeptics,” the more extravagant the claim, the more obscure the publishing venue; in this case the host is Principia Scientific International, which according to the website “…was conceived after 22 international climate experts and authors joined forces to write the climate science bestseller, ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory.’” Most rational people would stop here, but this is the Americanized age where we need to glorify everyone’s opinion and must provide rebuttals for everything, so here it goes:’
This immediately sets a tone that the article and its author are by inference not credible.
I know that Chris is very new to the climate game-his background is up on his blog. Other than that he is involved in astrophysics I can find nothing about Postma. Therefore in trying to judge the credibility and track record of those principally involved in the debate I feel at an disadvanatage with regards to Postmas credentials. Can anyone help with some soliid, factual non smearing background to the guy?
tonyb
tony –
Postma himself pointed to where one might find some of his previously published material:
but he didn’t provide any links. Perhaps his articles are proprietary?
Do you find it interesting that he is associated with the Sky Dragon folks?
Do you find it interesting that the Sky Dragon book was published by Stairway Press – who also published this other, rather “interesting” book:
http://www.stairwaypress.com/bookstore/into-the-cannibals-pot-lessons-for-america-post-apartheid-south-africa/
Some related discussion here:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/01/31/slaying-a-greenhouse-dragon/#comment-84169
Multiple degrees if separation – but does that fall under the category of “smearing?” Would you associate yourself with such people? If not, why not? Would you argue that such an association is irrelevant?
Joshua
Calm down.:)
I merely asked if anyone had factual information on Postma. I have no idea of his academic background so it is difficult to know how credible he is.
Yes, use NASA ADS. I have an MSc in Astrophysics, might do a PhD one day, but, I don’t really want to be poor again.
I used to believe in alarmist AGW and thought the IR-cross section of CO2 supported a GHE and the alarmism. Decided to study the science myself so that I could refute the deniers. Discovered loads of sophistry. Realized there might be a problem with the GHE theory itself. Met Hans Schreuder online and was invited to the Slayer team. Still haven’t been able to find convincing evidence for the GHE. Wrote two papers for online publication discussing the problems in the theory and philosophy of the premises of the GHE. Still haven’t found any rebuttals that I couldn’t answer. Some I don’t bother :-)
Cheers.
This might be the same Postma?
http://phas.ucalgary.ca/profiles/joseph-postma
As described here?
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/30865
RB and Joseph postma
RB, thanks for the link to Canada Free Press. I was uncomfortable with the languge of the article but it wasnt written by ‘our’ Joseph, it merely referred to him.
It would seem to me that Joseph Postma and Chris Colose are of a similar age and with limited practical experience (as yet) of climate science . With no disrespect to either of them there would appear to be better qualified people around to engage in a debate concerning a subject of such complexity
tonyb
tonyb,
This whole ongoing discussion about averaging the solar constant is of undergraduate level sophistication and one doesn’t even need to know climate science to do that.
A lot of people seem to get it wrong :-)
A few smart ones skipped undergrad apparently .
http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/The_Model_Atmosphere.pdf
for a better analysis of the actual boundary conditions.
Too funny:
Interesting place, the Canada Free Press
If we want to restrict a science discussion to only those whose political views we share then what about
Heisenberg
Edward Teller
These two of the top of my head.
I’m sure if I googled “scientists with extreme views” I would cast a very wide net.
I think that bringing up smears reminds me of the late and unlamented Senator Joe McCarthy.
Its also a sign of the perpetrators losing the argument
In case you are thinking so, I have no desire to restrict a science discussion to those who share my political views.
However, at some point it becomes relevant to ask whether, or more realistically, to what degree, do political views influence how people interpret the science. Those questions are asked all the time at this here blog – most frequently by those on the “skeptical un-convinced/denier” side of the debate, with rarely a peep of protest.
In this case I don’t presume any political affiliations, let alone political affiliations that singularly explain a view on the science – but would you consider the questions to necessarily be irrelevant, not worthy of consideration?
BTW – it is my observation that sometimes proclamations of victory in an argument is a sign that the proclaimer is losing the argument. FWIW.
tonyb,
I think these are his publications
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/basic_connect?qsearch=Joseph+E+Postma&version=1
I don´t know his astrophysics background, which I will presume to be good. I don´t know if this is a case of someone smart simply trying to jump into another field without reading anything on it, a case of ¨going emeritus,¨ or intentional nonsense. In any case, it is awful. I am much less prone to attribute this to simple error on his part because there was no attempt to even put this in a publishing venue appropriate for climate scientists. If I had an insight in astrophysics that I intended for scientists to read and learn from, I would publish it in an astronomy journal. This paper is not meant for scientists, nor does the tone read like a scientific paper (I actually linked this paper to Grant Petty, who was a professor at my undergrad institution and has written a radiation book people frequently cite around here, and he dismissed it purely because of the paper´s tone…most scientists would, but this is blog world and I am playing along).
http://www.sundogpublishing.com/AtmosRad/index.html
While I am a grad student, and no one needs to listen to me, this is all very simple stuff which I am sure anyone here can work out, and I promise you I understand this material. I won´t say it is 101 level stuff, but an atmospheric science major should be able to spot a lot of errors in his text by junior or senior college year.
Here is a NASA ADS page with papers listing a Postma, J:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/basic_connect?qsearch=joseph+e.+postma&version=1
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002PASP..114..536G
and another possible
http://people.ucalgary.ca/~milone/vs.html
Note to all milestone watchers
This may be post 999994 :)
Alex
oops
99998
I hope this is not the big one.
Alex
the big what? ;-)
Averages are most deceptive than revealing. A good average of insolation should take into account every square meter of the Earth’s surface.
AGW trick is to reduce the local constant by dividing it by the total surface area of the globe, which is absolutely incorrect because the solar constant is already an average of the solar power received on the surface of the whole outer sphere, along one year.
The quantity 1365 W/m^2 means that the average of solar power received on each square meter of the outer sphere surface area is 1365 W. It is not the total amount of solar power received on the whole surface area of the outer sphere. Point.
Actually, the net power impinging on the total surface area of the outer sphere is 2.4535875 x 10^26 W.
If we consider the surface area of the Earth as a flat bi-dimensional surface, the amount of power impinging on each square meter of the surface area of the Earth would be 5.23341 x 10^17 W. This is not insolation, but incident net power on the surface of the Earth.
From here, we are able to calculate insolation, which is the incident solar power per square meter of the Earth’s surface area after being mitigated by the atmosphere. Read it well, it is “mitigated”, not multiplied by two.
Such mitigation is not due to the angle of incidence of the solar quantum/waves, but by absorption, reflection, and dispersion of the solar radiation caused by the atmospheric components before the solar energy “touches” the surface of the Earth.
The angle of incidence of solar radiation affects insolation, so the amount of solar radiation impinging on a perpendicular angle will be higher than the amount of incident solar radiation at higher angles. This means that the Poles receive lesser solar energy than the equatorial regions.
Considering measurements made at key locations on the Earth’s surface area, the average insolation on Earth is ~1000 W/m^2, after mitigation by the atmosphere.
For any given location, getting the issue real, we measure the solar radiation impinging on the surface. For example, today at 19:00 hr (UT), we are receiving in Monterrey an amount of 725 W/m^2 of solar radiation.
Such quantity, if absorbed by a factor of 1, would give as a surface temperature of ~63 °C. The temperature of the surface, at this moment, is 65.8 °C. The difference of almost 3 °C is explained by the absorptance potential of the surface and subsurface materials, which change in proportion to dampening.
On the other hand, the temperature of the air, at the same location, is 34 °C. Consequently, the air is taken thermal energy from the surface by convection. Under these circumstances, and getting real, the surface area of this location is receiving about 3.24 x 10^21 quantum waves m^-2 per second (E = ~726.75 J).
You can verify insolation at different locations of the Earth and you’ll find it varies around 1000 W/m^2, not too far from this amount even at the Pole which is being illuminated by the Sun. ~1000 W/m^2 is the amount of solar power hitting the floor on the illuminated side.
Tonight, the process will continue. If not was for our atmosphere, the Earth’s hemisphere facing the Sun would be toasted. And… If it not were by our oceans and subsurface materials, the opposed hemisphere with respect to the Sun would be frozen.
As you can see, we don’t need to resort to any mythical greenhouse effect, but only to good convective distributors of thermal energy, i.e. oceans, subsurface materials and atmospheric gases. (Peixoto and Oort. Physics of Climate. 1992).
AGW trick is to reduce the local constant by dividing it by the total surface area of the globe, which is absolutely incorrect because the solar constant is already an average of the solar power received on the surface of the whole outer sphere, along one year.
Nasif – You should reconsider that statement.
Yes? Why I should reconsider that statement? Do you have another concept besides the scientific definition of solar constant?
Your geometry is wrong. At all times throughout the year, the surface is receiving different levels of solar radiation depending on angle, with half of the surface receiving none because it is at night. Those must be included in the average, which doesn’t change just because the night and day areas change locations over the course of 24 hours. The solar constant, currently estimated at about 1361 W/m^2 (based on the recent Judith Lean et al revision), must be divided by 4, because the area of a sphere, 4 pi r^2, is four times the area of a disk that solar radiation would traverse to reach the Earth.
Mumbo Jumbo, Fred… Explain why my geometry is “wrong”.
“At all times throughout the year, the surface is receiving different levels of solar radiation depending on angle, with half of the surface receiving none because it is at night.”
Again, mumbo jumbo, Fred. I had mentioned it in my post.
As night falls over your hemisphere, the opposed hemisphere is being illuminated. So the average of insolation is ~1000 W/m^2.
“The solar constant, currently estimated at about 1361 W/m^2 (based on the recent Judith Lean et al revision), must be divided by 4, because the area of a sphere, 4 pi r^2, is four times the area of a disk that solar radiation would traverse to reach the Earth.”
Here, AGW trick starts because the solar constant, corrected by Lean et al, contains units “/m^2”. Do you know what “/m^2” means? Do you know what the outer sphere is?
The solar constant is defined as the amount of solar irradiance passing through a surface perpendicular to a line connecting the sun to the particular point in question. Since the “shadow” of a sphere is a disc of area pi*R^2 and the surface area of the sphere is 4*pi*R^2, you have to divide the solar constant by 4 to get the average solar insolation across the surface of a sphere.
Wrong, Fred… Very, very Wrong.
Read this:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SORCE/sorce_05.php
And this:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SORCE/sorce_02.php
This will help you a lot:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/sunfact.html
You must not divide the solar constant by nothing because it is the solar irradiance received on every square meter of the outer sphere.
Sorry, wrong, Joel, very, very wrong… The same goes to Fred…
Injecting my 2 cents here, Joel is correct
Yes? Read the articles I posted, Judith… :)
Nasif, one of your links is misleading you I think. Let’s blame NASA. TSI is defined by the cross section not the surface area.
David, here the formula to calculate the solar power is:
P_ʘhemis = (εʘ )(Aʘhemis )(σ) (T)^4
Where Pʘhemis is the solar power from the solar hemisphere facing the Earth, εʘ is the total emittance of the Sun (0.9875), Aʘhemis is the solar surface area of the solar hemisphere facing the Earth (3*π*r^2), σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann Constant (0.56697 (erg/s)/(m^2 K^4)), and T is the solar surface temperature (5804.135 K).
Pʘhemis = 0.9875 x (3 * 3.141593 (6.955 x 10^8 m)2)(0.56697 (erg/s)/(m^2 K^4)) (5804.135 K)^4 = 2.897 x 10^33 erg/s
Now, the formula to calculate the solar constant is as follows:
SC = ((fʘ (4π (r^2)) sun) / ((4π * r^2)os)
SC = [6.354 x 10^14 (((erg/s))/( m^2 ))* (6.087 x 10^18 m^2 )ʘ ]/((2.79 x 10^23 m^2 )OS )= 1.386 x 10^10 (((erg/s))/((m^2 ) ))
Where SC is the Total Solar Irradiance on the outer sphere or Solar Constant, fʘ is the solar power emitted from each square meter of the solar surface (6.354 x 1014 ((erg/s)/m2), (4π x (R)2)ʘ is the total surface area of the Sun, and (4π x (r)2)os is the total surface area of the outer sphere on which the Earth orbits around the Sun.
Another formula to calculate the solar constant is:
GPL = QSUN / (4π (POR)^2)
GPL = (3.86235 × 10^26 W) / (2.812 x 10^23 m^2) = 1376.56 W/m^2
Where GPL is the solar constant on the surface area of the outer sphere, QSUN is the load of power emitted from the solar surface (3.86235 × 10^26 W), and (4π (POR)^2) is the surface area of the outer sphere.
Now let’s see the formula to calculate insolation:
I = S * (Cos Z)
Where I is for insolation on any place of the Earth’s surface, S is the average incident solar power on the surface of the Earth, and Cos Z is the cosine of the angle of incidence of the solar radiation.
For example:
I = 1000 W/m^2 * (Cos (43.51°) )=725.25 (W/m^(2 ))
As you can see, Joel, Fred, etc., procedures are flawed and absolutely wrong.
I don’t see that at all. The total incidence S * πR^2 must be averaged over the total earth surface 4πR^2 to get an average insolation value, therefore average insolation is S / 4.
Yes, David, but the total incident solar radiation is not ~1000 W, but the bolometric incident solar radiation on the surface of the Earth.
I think we’re still crossing wires here on power/energy units. The “divide by 4” is required if you are talking energy/hr., and looking for the average Watt-hours per hr. per m^2 over the course of a day, and therefore 24/7/365. I.e., if you want to treat the planet as a disk projection illuminated full time. So 240Whr/hr x 24hr = daily total incident energy (prior to Raleigh scattering etc.; i.e., at the outermost fringes of the atmosphere).
Correction: 343, not 240, in my above.
Here are two definitions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_constant
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/552889/solar-constant
Both say it is the power per area for plane 1au from the sun. 1.366 Kw/m2
?????
And, the solar constant changes.
Summary
The energy transfer processes that occur at the Earth’s surface are examined from first principles. The effect of small changes in the solar constant caused by variations in the sunspot cycles and small increases in downward long wave infrared flux due to a 100 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration on surface temperature are considered in detail.The changes in the solar constant are sufficient to change ocean temperatures and alter the Earth’s climate. The effects on surface temperature of small increases in downward LWIR flux are too small to be measured and cannot cause climate change. The assumptions underlying the use of radiative forcing in climate models are shown to be invalid. A null hypothesis for CO2 is proposed that it is impossible to show that changes in CO2 concentration have caused any climate change, at least since the current composition of the atmosphere was set by ocean photosynthesis about one billion years ago.
~Roy Clark, A Null Hypothesis For CO2
I agree, Wagathon!
1/4 the Solar constant ≈ 343 W m-2 is is the mean solar irradiance at the top of the atmosphere or somebody better call Stephen E. Schwartz at Brookhaven.
Well I agree if you think it is an important call to make! :-)
The solar irradiance can’t be divided by 4 because that would imply it impinges the night-side at the SAME time that it impinges the day-side. But it only impinges the day side, therefore dividing by 2 is the most you might like to do in terms of the average.
Joe,
We want the average Watts per surface area of the earth. But, like I said, if averaging over a surface is too complex a concept for you, we can always work in terms of total powers.
You need to average the power over where it actually occurs, not where it doesn’t. Why is nighttime so difficult to understand?
Like I said, we can always work in terms of total powers. I can understand why you want to stick to averages though. Much more difficult to confuse people about total powers.
Joel: “Like I said, we can always work in terms of total powers. I can understand why you want to stick to averages though. Much more difficult to confuse people about total powers.”
Such is physics! You either understand how the averages and totals work out and why they do, or you gloss it all over and make inputs numerically equal to outputs when the reality is not nearly that scenario.
No, it probably is more important to consider, as Rancourt does, ‘changes in the solar constant such as may be caused by soot from coal-powered plants, mineral, soil, and organic matter dust from changes in agricultural practices, fires from changes in water and land management practices, increased high-altitude and polar atmospheric transparency,’ etc.
But it’s not true. Satellite sensors measure ~1365 W/m^2:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_3month_640x480.png
That’s because the sensor measures the irradiance over a surface perpendicular to a line between the sun and the sensor. The earth’s surface is not all perpendicular to the sun; in fact, half of it doesn’t even face the sun at all at any given time.
And that’s why you can’t average the input power INTO the night-time.
Averaging to get W-hr/hr for the whole day makes any consideration of diurnal dynamics impossible. The act of averaging across 24 hrs. rules that out from the outset.
But if you want to match daytime “excess” input to nightime output, and consider the atmospherics, you must treat each day as a 2-part process. Postma and Nahle are asserting that if you take the trouble to do that, the need to account for the brief CO2 IR ping-pong lag drops away.
Precisely, Brian. Thanks.
That is incorrect Joel. You have to divide the solar constant by the ACTUAL area which it impinges upon, which is NOT both sides of the Earth at once and 4-times the area, but on only half of the Earth, and 2-times the surface area. Even this would only be a linear dilution of the insolation, and so the integrated mean insolation is actually reduced by 2/pi from the maximum, on average, not 0.5.
Joe,
I know this is nonsense. Judith Curry knows this is nonsense. And, you should know it is nonsense. I have explained how you compute the total energy in and the total energy out here in the last thread and repeat it here:
Since it is easier to confuse people when we deal with averages than totals, why don’t you comment on that?
My paper specifically discusses the issue of TOTAL energy and how it is input, and how it should be spread about the Earth.
As I have said, you miss out on the finer points in that derivation. You can NOT model the average input as P/4, because this would never produce liquid water. It is a completely meaningless average which does not conform to reality in any way. You have to look at the REAL, physically existing, actual insolation power input, which provides more than enough power to create a liquid H20 planet, and sustain the observed temperatures. 240 W/m2 could never do that….and it doesn’t.
I’m not averaging. I am getting a total by taking the solar input and multiplying by the cross-sectional area presented by a spherical body to get the total power input. Then I am computing the total power output by multiplying the W/m^2 emitted from the earth by the surface area.
Hence, you can’t try to confuse people with nonsensical statements about averages. No averages are being discussed for the power input or power output. I am looking at the totals.
You’re averaging an average, Joel, not the total solar irradiance on the whole outer sphere.
And you continually try to prevent yourself from understanding the finer points in that derivation.
In terms of energy flux density, i.e., W/m2, the input is not equal to the output. Energy flux density is NOT total energy and does not directly follow conservation. Please read read the paragraphs containing equations 17 through 20 in my paper for a thorough breakdown.
Joe,
When you multiply a flux density in W/m2 by an area, you get a power in Watts.
“When you multiply a flux density in W/m2 by an area, you get a power in Watts.”
Precisely understood. But the the flux doesn’t impinge the night-side. We’re talking about the difference between input power and output power. They’re not equal. And they don’t occur (because they don’t occur) over the same surface area. Output is over 4*pi*r^2, input is over 2*pi*r^2 and non-linearly distributed.
…which is why I used a surface area of pi*R^2*the solar constant for the input and 4*pi*R^2 for the surface over which the earth emits to space. Joe, this isn’t that difficult. I’ve gotten introductory physics students in an algebra-based course to understand it.
Joe,
The amount of solar power hitting the bright side of the earth (and hence the amount hitting the total earth) is the same as the power going through a disc having a radius of the earth, or pi*R^2.
Joe:
We’re talking about input power and output power over the entire earth. That is the conservation of energy we are worried about. Energy can move around on the earth but you can’t create energy out of nothing (or disappear it) on the earth.
Yes and those powers need to be considered over where they actually occur. The input doesn’t occur over the same surface area as the input. And, power is different from total energy, in any case.
Joel Shore | August 16, 2011 at 6:06 pm |
…which is why I used a surface area of pi*R^2*the solar constant for the input and 4*pi*R^2 for the surface over which the earth emits to space. Joe, this isn’t that difficult. I’ve gotten introductory physics students in an algebra-based course to understand it.
You understand the Math Joel, for sure. But you don’t understand the physics. It is a big difference.
Joe:
Math is the language of physics. If you can’t do elementary mathematical calculations, you have no hope of getting the physics right.
@Joel… You say:
“Math is the language of physics. If you can’t do elementary mathematical calculations, you have no hope of getting the physics right.”
You’re correct, physics makes maths; maths doesn’t make physics. Do you agree?
As you describe it, it seems that you think that maths makes reality, not the opposite.
“Math is the language of physics. If you can’t do elementary mathematical calculations, you have no hope of getting the physics right.”
Actually, if you don’t understand the physics, what beliefs you have about your math equations pertaining to reality mean nothing.
Math and physics work together…you need to get them both right.
Heh! As AGWers have not physics support, they resort to twist mathematics; I mean to torture mathematics. :D
Joel, you seem to be in denial. You ARE averaging! You are integrating the solar input and then dividing by the area of the Earth. This is the DEFINITION of averaging. It is ironic that you claim other people do not know elementary mathematics.
The problem is that Postma and Nasif Nahle indeed appear to not know elementary mathematics. They cannot calculate the average.
They are perfectly capable of calculating an average. They are just pointing out that this is a misleading thing to do.
No, they did it explicitly in a wrong way. You told in your above comment, how it should be done. They got it wrong by factors of 4 (Nahle) and 3.14 (Postma).
Averages are one thing; physics is another.
The S-B Law, which is physics, is in regards to the Joules found in one second, i.e., a Watt = Joule/second. In one second, the power output was an average 240 J/m2. Which is equivalent to -18C with the S-B Law. In that second, where was the input? The input in that second was over the day-side, and because it should be the same as the total energy, the power of that input must be a lot higher, and therefore hotter, i.e., about +30C or higher or 480 W/m2 +, depending on how you distribute the average. It is not an instantaneous balance of energy, though. The Joules that come in on the day side are not all immediately radiated by the entire globe…lots of the energy is absorbed into the system first and then radiated back out later. Lots of energy gets absorbed into evaporation, convection, even life, etc. But the long term energy balance does work out because the Earth should be somewhere near thermal equilibrium with the Sun in the long-term.
Please excuse a comment from someone without basic knowledge of physics – but who says that it is instantaneous? Is there any physicist, anywhere, who doubts that the burning of fossil fuels represents a delayed release of previously stored solar energy?
Joseph,
First I would recommend you that you take a break from this site to get rid of the natural reaction of defending own work. As long as you are in the defensive mode, you cannot look at the issues objectively. Then you should think at the total energy balance of the Earth. Not per square meter, but over the whole surface, and the whole surface includes both the day side and the night side.When you have figured out, what the numbers are for that, you can calculate averages, and you must calculate averages for the whole surface, not half of it, and even less “as the integrated average”, which applies only at the equator using the formula that you used.
When you have done that, I trust that you know more.
“but who says that it is instantaneous?”
That was in regards to radiative power input and output, that’s what I’m referring to. The interesting question you pose is different from that.
Pekka, maybe you should take a break. Everyone is averaging.
Yes – I realized my error after I posted my comment.
Pekka: I have done all of what you recommended me to do, and I still arrive at the solution of the input power being a much higher energy flux density, i.e. power, than the output. The input is anywhere between +30C to +49C depending on how you calculate the average; the output is -18C as everyone knows. These values lead to conservation of total energy when you incorporate the specific surface areas applicable to each, and with the correct projection weighting factors. Cheers.
Joseph,
Quite a break.
You are listing temperatures, not energy fluxes. Jumping all essential steps is a good way of perpetuating errors.
Oh I’ve listed energy fluxes all throughout my posts. :-)
Not jumping steps at all…actually I am breaking them down into their piece-wise components individually. When you do that you see a lot more, and better, physics. Jumping to a conclusion of a 240 W/m2 or -18C power input IS what skips the essential steps.
Total fluxes, not peak values at maximum insolation or erroneously calculated averages, please.
More precisely:
Total fluxes, not peak values of flux density at maximum insolation or erroneously calculated averages, please.
“Total fluxes, not peak values at maximum insolation or erroneously calculated averages, please.”
I am specifically using total fluxes and total energies. I just also consider than the Sun shines only on one side of the Earth…because that’s physics.
Please, tell us, what is the total flux of solar radiation that reaches the Earth surface.
“Please, tell us, what is the total flux of solar radiation that reaches the Earth surface.”
You already know the answer tot hat, but here goes once again:
The total ENERGY which reaches the Earth is the raw Solar flux (1370 W/m2) times the cross-sectional area of the Earth. This comes out to 1.22×120^17 Watts, or Joules in one second.
This provides an input power of 480 W/m2 (factoring in albedo) if you use a linear distribution of that energy over the hemisphere, or 610 W/m2 if you use an integrated average. These are equivalent to +30C & +4(C respectively.
This total incoming energy of 1.22×10^17 Watts, in the long run, should be in equality with the total outgoing energy from the entire surface of the Earth, if there is a rough equilibrium and conservation of energy. That energy therefore will be come from over twice the area of the input, and therefore gets reduced to 240 W/m2,equivalent to -18C.
So, the idea that -18C or 240 W/m2 is equivalent to the input power is incorrect. The total energies equate but the power densities do not. The input forcing is much warmer than the output balance.
You like the Stephan-Boltzmann law. Tell us, how much the Earth surface emits radiative energy. If you wish, you may use a safely low value for the average effective temperature.
I already specified that directly above.
I don’t think you told the total power of emission from the surface.
The difference between the effective radiating temperature of the entire thermodynamic ensemble, and the ground temperature, – two physically unique metrics – is entirely expected given the natural distribution of the temperature of a gas in a gravitational field and the definition of what an “effective radiating temperature of the ensemble” is. Similar to a stellar photosphere, you expect the bottom of the atmosphere to be kinetically warmer than the effective radiative average of the entire ensemble. This occurs without a GHE in stellar photospheres, and physics is universal.
Why don’t you answer the simple question?
What’s the total power in watts of the emission of IR radiation from the Earth surface?
It’s not a simple question. But I have answered it as simply as is possible. Any more simply, in the way that you transparently desire, will only jump over the physics and obfuscate the results.
I think that I know, why you don’t answer the question. It’s totally simple, when good accuracy is not required. The effective temperature is about 17C and the power is 200 PW. The solar energy with albedo correction is 122 PW, but less than 90 PW is absorbed by surface, rest in the atmosphere. In addition there’s about 50 PW loss of energy from surface by evaporation and convection.
The balance of all this is about 160 PW negative at the surface.
Do you have any idea of, what compensates for that.
The input power and energy is almost instantaneously received by the Sun facing side.
What happens next is much more complicated.
Where did each photon land.
What was the temperature and nature of the surface.
Was chemical change caused and the energy trapped – eg photosynthesis.
Burning of fossil fuels from stored energy from 400million years ago is of current concern.
What thermal energy transport systems were involved and so on.
The general term of thermal inertia hardly covers it.
How fast the Earth rotates has a big part to play.
How much cooling takes place before the next cycle of heating.
Compare the Earth and Moon in that regard.
So to say that the input energy and the output energy should be treated in much the same way is not physically realistic.
They don’t even have to equal one another except perhaps on the scale of a millennium.
Even then there is no law in that regard
Just our hopes and prayer’s
Sorry Joel.
Dear Joel,
If you consider the earth as a disc for the calculations then the solar constant is 1368 W/m2, before the effect of the atmosphere. However, if the earth as a sphere is considered as basis for the calculations, then the solar constant is about 1368/4=342 W/m2. Either way is correct as long as the basis for the calculations is defined.
Brilliant. Problem is that you can’t use this average radiation to say anything about the resulting temperature. ( The infamous 255K average earth temp by raduiation alone) Notice the fourth power in Stefan-Boltzman?
Ever went outside just after sunset and felt the warmth coming from a wall or something? Heat is stored in stuff, like oceans eg.
So using the sunlit half of the earth to calculate the temp. there, then take the accumulated warmth to the nightside where it is slowly released makes perfect sense.
I have to disagree. It should be 5.23342x10^17 W. ;-)
Seriously, there’s such a thing as plugging in numbers too early. Makes it harder to learn your models sensitivity to errors in your estimated values. Makes it harder to spot flaws in the math or logic. I think you should offer a symbolic accounting of the terms in your conservation equation.
Thanks for the correction, David… I dropped that 0.00002. :)
Dear Dr. Nahle:
Here is a quote from your comments:”Considering measurements made at key locations on the Earth’s surface area, the average isolation on Earth is ~1000 W/m^2, after mitigation by the atmosphere.”
Do you mean that the atmosphere is not transparent to solar radiations, contrary to the claim of the folks of the greenhouse gas theory?
Exactly, I’m meaning it, Nabil.
Then I will not dispute your measurements.
So, which post is this?
Yours is 100,008. We are over the top!
Onward!
Darn it!
There are many comments under the top that are over the top here. :)
Folks
Let’s forget the ad homs or badmouthing the journals where work was published.
Instead, let’s talk about the work itself.
Has anyone refuted it scientifically?
Chris has made an attempt to do so, but has pretty much cancelled out the effect of his rebuttal with his closing statement, which smacks of the ad homs and badmouthing of the journal:
Doesn’t sound very scientific to me.
Max
So, if someone rebutted someone who was going all over the internet saying that the earth is flat or someone who was claiming that the Earth is 6000 years old, you would conclude the work has not been scientifically refuted if they happened to note that they were appalled by the kind of nonsense that was being passed off as science?
Joel… I am showing you correct formulas to calculate total solar irradiance, insolation, etc. You can verify them on any book on astrophysics. You’re a physicist, you can verify them yourself.
Joel, this statement is incredibly ironic. You’re the one who believes the Earth is flat! That’s how you treat your power averaging method!
There’s something really distasteful about the crowing of the AGW Believers that they have succeed in installing such effective pal-review gatekeeping at the most prominent journals that no skeptical research can get published there.
Or because the skeptical ¨research¨ is this sort of pseudo-science, that no real journal would screw up their reputation to publish it…
Do you consider universities are bad peer reviewers?
Joel
Is anyone here arguing that the earth is flat or …that the Earth is 6000 years old?
If not, your argument is baloney.
Max
The comments by Joseph Postma and Nasif Nahle are very revealing, and at this point I don´t think they are fooling anyone except themselves and a few people who have been fooled on this blog for a long time now anyway. They are certainly not out to educate any scientists. I will note that they have also not yet replied to my SkS piece in any substance.
As I pointed out in my article, the utility of spreading the solar radiation (averaging) depends on the application, and for estimating the global emission temperature on Earth, it is not a bad approximation. We can compare to worse applications from Mercury or the Moon to see this. The absorbed solar radiation over the whole Earth is S(1-a)*pi*R^2, where S is 1365 W/m2, a is 0.3, and R is the radius. The emitted longwave radiation is cT^4 * 4 *pi *R^2. c is the S-B constant, and T is temperature. For the purposes here, we are interested in using these two facts to come up with an emission temperature.
As explained in the Selsis et al 2007 paper that I linked to in my SkS article, we can in fact equate these and come up with a general expression of T =[S(1-a)/f*c]^0.25, where c is defined as before and f is the solar-redistribution factor. Note that differences in flux only project onto the temperature as a 1/4th root dependence. What solar re-distribution factor we choose to use depends on the planetary body and location on that body. For airless planets like Mercury that have little thermal inertia and no solar energy re-distribution, any point at noon on the equator will be much hotter than at higher latitudes, or at a point on the nightside. Using ¨4¨ in this case is not incredibly useful because an effective or average temperature is not terribly meaningful; On Earth, this is much less the case (in absolute temperatures), since we have oceans and an atmosphere which smooth out temperature differences to first order. On Venus, there are virtually no temperature gradients except in the very uppermost part of the atmosphere. Thus, on Mercury, the dayside will get hotter than our definition of T above, and the nightside much colder than T. On Earth, the nightside is warmer than absolute zero, which you would get if you naively applied the local solar flux into the above equation, and the dayside does not get as hot as it would with no thermal inertia or heat transport. If Earth had no atmosphere or ocean, it would tend to me more Moon-like, with much larger thermal gradients. With effective re-distribution, this allows us to set up the problem in a way where we can define a global emission temperature even though the instantaneous solar flux impinges unequally over half a sphere.
In essence, we can almost think of 255 K as applying to a hypothetical planet with an atmosphere that effectively re-distributes heat but has no greenhouse effect. To first order, this would be the temperature all across the planet if we kept the albedo at modern value. We can in fact remove the heat distribution and raise the dayside temperature, but at the expense of decreasing the night temperature. This has been extensively studied in other astrophysical communities, notably by the extrasolar planet community attempting to make sense of the prospective climates on other bodies. For an appropriate application of this, see equation 2 at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1106.1152 and the following pages. The authors discuss the temperature in the f=2 and f=4 limit for planets in the 55 Cancri system. This is important for habitability since for planets with super-slow rotation or a thin atmosphere, it is possible to warm the sub-stellar point above freezing while keeping the rest of the planet under ice. The problem with keeping this as a stable climate is the ice-albedo feedback (see Ray Pierrehumbert´s Gliese 581g 2011 paper) which would tend to keep planets too near an average temperature under 280 K into a snowball.
The physics of the greenhouse effect, despite many thousands of comments on various threads here, is unassailable and undisputed amongst real climate scientists (and planetary astrophysicists). If there was a better explanation that could account for the temperature on Earth, and even more obvious, the temperature on Venus (not including Postma´s absurd straw man attacks of setting his absorptivity to 200% and saying it is impossible), then I´d like to see it. Moreover, these explanations should explain the radiant spectra we can observe from these planets, and be consistent with radiative transfer theory. For all the complaining done about the greenhouse effect, no one has provided an answer with such explanatory and predictive capability, and until then I will continue to assume such people are at best hand waving and are too gullible to accept anything in reality with climate science, at at worst, are lying.
Chris… The only person fooled here is you. Answer this question to me:
What the bolometric total solar irradiance on TOA?
Thanks!
Nice exposition, Chris. My own PhD dates back to the 1980s with most of my research centered on stellar physics and related spectroscopic studies, but applying what I know to terrestrial atmospheres isn’t always clear-cut. I’ve learned a lot from you and others (especially Pekka, Fred, and Joel) over the past few months.
I must say that I find the approach taken by Postma to be curious. When my own understanding turns out to be in conflict with others, particularly those with solid credentials and/or more experience, I begin by assuming I’m wrong and then try to find my error. This is even more automatic if my conclusion would require rewriting every textbook in the field. Yet Postma and his ilk respond by digging their heels in that much harder. I simply can’t imagine that mindset.
People on blogs like to rebel for the sake of rebellion, but the default position is usually that the textbooks are right :-)
Not always, but I can´t think of an example where the blog debates have changed this…ever
Being supported by reality helps. Conviction and great strength of character does too.
Might as well compliment myself, ha. :-)
Being in conflict with others does not establish which direction the truth lies.
Being in conflict with the entire body of professional physicists should be a very strong clue to you in establishing the direction in which the truth lies. The fact that it doesn’t clearly establishes you as just another latter-day Galileo wannabe.
There is no physicist in the world with any sanity inside of him that would disagree with the solar insolation being distributed as a cosine function over the daylight hemisphere. They’ve just never been asked the question.
FoveString… Your “entire body or professional physicists” are in conflict with reality, if it is what you meant… :D
Joe: I will have sporadic access to the internet at best over the next several days, so except for occasional comments, I think I will leave it there.
I must say it has been a very surreal experience. I don’t think I can sum things up any better than Chris did immediately above.
Then I must add you to the fooled people here, you and Chris. I hope Chris answers my question without evasive ad hominem and insults.
Well I’ve read all the comments and I have to say you should just give up now.
I am not particularly bright but even I followed all the above to understand that you need to divide TSI by 4.
What the reason is to divide the TSI by 4? Do you have a scientific answer? Also, if you have the answer to my question to Chris, go on… What the bolometric total solar irradiance on TOA is?
Please read my paper to come to a better understanding. The sun doesn’t shine during the night. It is that simple. Dividing by 4 “makes” the Sun shine into the night.
Its night here and the sun is shining.
Your not a big fan of Bishop Barclay then.
which basically sums up your understanding of climate….
wrong reply button…see below
Ha, that’s a funny play on words. I truly hope you understand the intention of my meaning. It’s like the phrase “dark side of the moon”. We all know what it means…but, the wording could be better! ha :-)
Its your math that needs work.
The Sunshine is warm. Hot, even.
which basically sums up your understanding of climate….
It’s the Sun… Chris… Honestly, do you believe the carbon dioxide shines more intensely than the Sun?
Chris
I think you will have to admit that the tiny bit of CO2 in our atmosphere is not likely to be the principal driver of our climate, while the sun remains the 800-lb gorilla in the room (whose impacts we know in general, but do not understand fully as yet).
Let’s not overestimate how much we really know. It could backfire.
Max
You should add Judith Curry too. She made it quite clear here http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/16/postma-on-the-greenhouse-effect/#comment-100037 that she was also fooled and unable to recognize your brilliant and insightful work regarding the solar constant!
I have to say that I would seriously consider lending you and Postma some financial support if you want to take your “show on the road” so-to-speak in order to, say, send your brilliant and insightful work to policymakers or members of the National Academy of Sciences, although I would really encourage you to tout your own horn in explaining how your work represents the cutting edge of thought in the AGW skeptic community. (You may find a bit of push-back from fellow skeptics though if you do this.)
Nope, Judith Curry has not given to me a real motive to do it, as you and Chris have done. You are adding Judith to the list, not me… Judith Curry is a very respectable person and I feel honored for having been allowed to post on his blog and expose your mythical physics. Point.
But she told you you were wrong, above. You’ve been told many times already excatly why you’re wrong.
That’s her opinion. He didn’t told me fool, as Chris did and Joel backed him.
Besides, I supported my arguments with scientific literature, not with mumbo jumbo… :D
The question over power input and output is of paramount importance. With -18C or 240 W/m2 modeled as the input, you HAVE to have a GHE in operation warming the planet and making liquid water.
But with the actual power input distributed non-linearly over the daylight hemisphere, with an integrated average power value of 610 W/m2, or +49C, and a maximum power input around +100C, you’re into an entirely different regime of physics and phase-spaces of matter. -18C can’t make liquid or evaporating water; 610 W/m2 + can do it. The paradigm changes considerably.
Whether or not a GHE is needed in this physically realistic paradigm will need to remain to be seen. But the reasons for the postulate of the existing GHE will no longer remain, and so, there’s no reason to expect a GHE to remain in any of the forms we understand it today. It certainly won’t be considered to have the importance people believe it does today.
Okay…I thought I would highlight this as the first correct statement that I have seen you make here. Indeed, if you want to figure out how much ice melt or how much water vapor gets into the atmosphere, the insolation distribution is quite important and you would want to use a real climate model that deals with that.
However, that is not what we have been talking about so far. What we have been talking about is how one can use basic energy balance on a global scale to determine constraints on the earth’s surface temperature in the absence of elements in the atmosphere that absorb terrestrial radiation, producing the greenhouse effect.
Well that’s the point, thank you. We should STOP using a “basic energy balance”, as you defined it, to determine what the boundary conditions are. The basic balance meme of 240 W/m2, P/4, is incorrect as a boundary condition. And it is the initial boundary condition, the one that matters the most!
I suggest that you read more than one paragraph at a time.
I suggest you start treating people with more respect, or they might start treating you with less.
What’s the GHE explanation for the 600 km.-high diurnal bulge?
Do you “average” the bulge?
:D
It is fine to leave it…we both have better things to do than write on a blog.
But that feeling you’re having will subside once you come to terms with reality…it is eventually a very pleasant experience.
Sorry…but the reality that I am coming to is not pleasant at all. It is in fact quite depressing.
it ain’t that bad Joel! :-)
Sunny days at the beach with HOT sunshine are great!
Quite so Joseph, and the hotter it is, the less everyone wears! More fun for all. ;)
Should you choose to use surface averages, remember that the average earth emittance is a global, 24/7 figure. It applies to the total surface, at every moment. I think we all agree on that.
Postma argues that solar incidence should be averaged only over the “daytime” surface. But then, his average insolation is not a global, 24/7 figure. At every moment he is excluding half the earth’s surface from his average. He is comparing two averages that don’t have the same basis.
This is not a math error or a physics error, it’s a logic error. I can’t make it any plainer than this.
Well, I’ve learned from this a new way to average numbers: The average, say, of 0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,10 is 10 because you exclude the zero values from the average!
It would be a better average than yours:
1365 W on one square meter “actually” is 7.6 x 10^-21 W, following your averaging methodology.
I had 10 dogs, but only fed one of them. The other nine just starved to death, because the poor bastards didn’t know that they were fed a reasonable amount of food “on average”.
Lesson: No physical or real world stuff, no sense.
More like you dumped a lot of it into one dog bowl (you are the sun), but in reality the big dog was pretty nice, used his big nose as a shovel, and decided to share with the rest (the winds, ocean, etc)…
So what was the actual input of dog food energy then? Not the same as the average! :-)
OK, I lied. I have only cats, and they are extremely egoistic. Though alive and well.
The point remains, though. If some receive nothing, the average gives them nothing.
Good point, Bebben… :)
A more accurate analogy for what Postma has argued above is: I have 10 dogs and I take 2 of them into the kitchen and share a can of dog food with them. I conclude that on average, all of my dogs have consumed half a can of dog food apiece because the ones that were not in the kitchen don’t count.
Of course, if I looked at the total amount of dog food and noticed that half a can of dog food per dog multiplied by 10 dogs, I would know that my reasoning was wrong…but I can solve that by just not looking at the total.
Correction: of the dogs that ate, the consumption was half a can of food.
Just as: of the place that the sun actually shines, the input is 610 W/m2.
Small but incredibly important distinction.
And, to get the total amount of dog food eaten, you could either multiply the half a can per dog by the two who ate it or you could multiply the 1/10 of a can per dog total by all 10 dogs. I showed you how to do it both ways in this thread but you refused to engage because I think you know that if you go to total powers, you can no longer fool people (including perhaps yourself, who knows) but you can with averages.
But we’re not interested in unphysical averages in physics. We’re interested in the actual values of the power input. -18C is not equivalent to +30C in terms of the physics which can be produced from each. I.E., ice-cubes or liquid water.
Actual values?
In Physics?
This differs from my introduction to the material, where Laws, such as S-B, were generally based on ‘ideal’ figures, not actual ones.
And really, what actual source do you have for -18C or +30C? Do they exist anywhere in the physical universe?
Plenty of physics applies meaningfully to averages, such as for instance the ‘center of gravity’ where interpreted with a reasonable connection to the physical events investigated.
Nothing in physics means much where the interpretation is independent of logical correlation with the actual.
So far, it has been amply demonstrated that Postma has significant issues of interpretation he has not addressed.
Address those, and please stop starving dogs pointlessly.
Hi Bart.
Right, that’s all well in regards to averages, I agree. But sometimes you need to be VERY careful about how you interpret them.
The value of -18C is the equivalent temperature of the output of 240 W/m2.
The value of +30C is the equivalent temperature of the input of 480 W/m2, on average.
These are obviously not the same. You use averaging to arrive at both values, quite indeed. But you can’t then reverse the output power and call it the input. 240 W/m2 is NOT incoming, it is outgoing. The much higher power flux of ~480 W/m2 is what is incoming, instantaneously over half the sphere. This provides a liquid water planet without need to postulate a GHE.
Also, Joe, the assertions made that the “outgoing” is steady and constant day and night-side is false. As the dayside warms, it cranks up its OLR to match; as the nightside cools, its OLR drops. In proportion to the 4th power.
Just another little “averaging” fudge that distorts the analysis enough to make room for the GHE.
You’re mixing up the logic there, David. No one is saying the output power doesn’t come from all over the Earth. It is that the input power comes in on only one side of the Earth. This changes the physics considerably. It makes it more realistic. Averaging the input into the nighttime, and modelling that as the input, is wrong. Such is only the output, not the input. The input has a much higher flux density.
No, it’s still you that is mixed up. If you were to distinguish between dayside and nightside, and I don’t think you should, then you must do so for both emttance and insolation, becuase you must use the same basis to compare the averages. Since daytime surface temperatures are higher, the daytime emittance is higher than the global average. Likewise the nightime emittance is lower than average.
Let Ps be the solar incidence on the dayside of Earth.
Let 0 be the solar incidence on the nightside. ←this is the part you forgot
Let Pd be the total emittance of the dayside of Earth.
Let Pn be the total emittance of the nightside.
Clearly, the total emittance of earth Pe = Ps + Pn, at every moment.
(Ps – Pd) + (0 – Pn) = 0.
Ps = Pd + Pn
Ps = Pe.
QED
Using the same basis for comparison leads to the same result as when the day/night issue is properly ignored.
“If you were to distinguish between dayside and nightside, and I don’t think you should”
Well, I can’t agree with denying the existence of day & night.
The solar incidence on the night-side is zero. Any mathematical abstraction that dilutes the input power into the night time is unphysical.
Nothing about your post above is the truth. I didn’t deny the existence of day and night; I didn’t create an abstraction; I didn’t “dilute” any input power.
David, thanks for supporting our real physics. You say:
“Since daytime surface temperatures are higher, the daytime emittance is higher than the global average. Likewise the nightime emittance is lower than average.”
Dismissing the point that you are not considering partial pressures of atmospheric gases, you have said it all. The atmospheric gases during nighttime are unable to emit radiation because their emittance diminishes from 0.3 down to 0.045. Of course, you are wrong because you’re only taking into acount temperature.
With great temerity, I wander into a debate on which I have little background information, and thereby no doubt will expose my ignorance – but your comment gives me momentum:
From the summary of the paper at Climaterealists.com
“The planet” receives solar energy only “at night?” When it is night on “the planet?”
It is my assumption that given the configuration of the Earth and the Sun, the Earth is receiving solar energy 24/7/365. I would imagine only some 1/2 of the Earth receives the bulk of direct radiation at any given time, but obviously “The Earth,” as a single entity, is receiving energy from the Sun at all times.
Or perhaps god flips the switch from on to off every 12 hours, and the Earth really is flat?
My assumption was that I simply didn’t understand an obvious point that accounts for the spherical nature of a rotating planet. Your comment leads me to wonder…
Sorry – that should read (with equal incredulity)
“The planet” receives solar energy “only during daylight?” When it is night on “the planet?”
That’s funny.
Daytime radiation is absorbed, mostly by th eoceans, resulting in (very high) temperatures. This heat is again slowly released during the night.
What’s so difficult to understand about hat?
…as if it were a constantly radiating sun?
Whaaaa?
Joshua, that is not nearly as good as this paragraph in the Postma paper:
//…which is generally labelled the GHE, then arises as a meaningful juxtaposition of physically unique metrics with a concurrent physical justification found in fundamental physical equations and including the bare logical necessity that the thermal average of the ensemble be found
at altitude, in-between its two boundaries. This, as opposed to the illogical direct comparison of said physically unique (i.e., different) metrics without qualification and the consequent arrangement of tautologies built up to superficially sustain and promote that original deception. Thus, there is
absolutely no allowance nor justification for a back-radiative GHE whatsoever, in the reference frame of logic and Natural Philosophy.//
Who knew?
I see dead BS…
Dear Dr. Judith Curry… I beg your pardon for Joel and other people attempts to imply me on offending you. I have nothing against you or your post betting your two cents on Joel’s mythology. I think you must give me those two cents because Joel and Chris have demonstrated to be wrong and I have demonstrated to be right. Please, Dr. Judith, read what NASA says on this issue:
http://education.gsfc.nasa.gov/experimental/July61999siteupdate/inv99Project.Site/Pages/solar.insolation.html
Then, the average insolation on the Earth is ~1000 W/m^2, not 249 W/m^2. I’m right, they’re wrong.
All the best,
Nasif S. Nahle
Here a fragment of NASA’s article:
“The solar constant is the average amount of energy striking one square meter (perpendicular to the suns’ rays) each second at the top of the earths’ atmosphere. The satellite measured solar constant is 1366 W/m^2. Of this energy reaching the top of the atmosphere as much as 70% can be absorbed & reflected by the atmosphere. Solar insolation is the amount of energy received by the sun at the earths’ surface. On a clear day ~1000 W/m^2 reaches a surface perpendicular to the incoming radiation. This energy varies due to the angle of the incoming radiation and again cloud cover.”
Thank you, Dr. Curry
A weird typo there; is it yours or NASA’s? “Solar insolation is the amount of energy received by the sun at the earths’ surface.”
“from” the sun, surely!!
From your link: On a clear day ~1000 W/m2 reaches a surface perpendicular to the incoming radiation
Perpendicular.
So tell me then David, what is the geometric orientation of the Sun’s rays as they impinge the night-side when you divide the power by 4 as an input value?
Of course it is a meaningless question because the Sun’s rays do not impinge the night-side. For every second of flux that comes in, those Joules only impinge the day side. The input is a much higher flux density than the average output.
…which is why you have to multiply that flux density by the correct area to get the total power input.
“multiply that flux density by the correct area to get the total power input.”
You mean total energy input, not power. You’re mixing up different physical metrics, and terms. Not good. Sort those out, then the power input issue will make sense.
No, Joel is correct. To get total energy input you would have to multiply by area and duration.
There’s no problem with that. The reality is the input power in W/m2 is much higher than the output power.
No Joel is wrong. He doesn’t seem to understand that power is not the same as energy.
Exactly. You can average energy, but not power. It has non-linear elements that don’t respond well to arithmetical division.
Joel is wrong. He’s averaging W which is power, not energy.
See here smart guy:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/16/postma-on-the-greenhouse-effect/#comment-100204
Already did but you’re not getting it :-)
Yes, David, that’s why we apply the formula that I mentioned in previous posts:
I = S * (Cos Z)
Where I is for insolation on any place of the Earth’s surface, S is the average incident solar power on the surface of the Earth, and Cos Z is the cosine of the angle of incidence of the solar radiation.
For example:
I = 1000 W/m^2 * (Cos (43.51°) )=725.25 (W/m^(2 ))
Yup you got us all. Thanks.
Ours is only correct science, Chris… Sorry! :D
Joseph Postma,
As I understand it the Earth has an average temperature, when measured from space, of 255deg K. (-18 deg C)
To measure a real average temperature of -18 deg C, on Earth, we need to be at altitude of approx 5000 metres.
So don’t these two easily observable facts show that the GH effect is real, and therefore there is no point tying ourself in knots with convoluted arguments about back radiation, or the second law of thermodynamics or whatever, in trying to disprove it?
Hi temp,
No it doesn’t show the GHE is real, actually. It shows there is, as expected, an adiabatic temperature distribution of a gas in a gravitational field. And it also shows that the temperature of the entire thermodynamic ensemble is roughly 255K, satisfying conservation of energy. The warmer-than-average bottom of the atmosphere is entirely expected….it is supposed to be like that and would be like that without a GHE a-priori.
This is the reason why, now, some people are trying to say that the adiabatic distribution is due to the GHE. Which is quite incorrect.
(1) Conservation of energy is only satisfied if the atmosphere absorbs terrestrial radiation. You have 390 W/m^2 leaving the surface but you would only have 240 W/m^2 leaving the earth as seen from space. Ergo, the atmosphere is absorbing some of the terrestrial radiation, allowing the surface temperature to be larger than would otherwise be possible under energy balance conditions. We call this “the greenhouse effect”.
(2) Nobody is saying that the adiabatic distribution is due to GHE. What we are saying is that it is due to the fact that the earth is heated from below (by the combination of solar and terrestrial radiative inputs) together with the fact that the adiabatic lapse rate is a stability limit: The atmospheric lapse rate can’t get above it without tended to prompt convection.
We never said radiation isn’t absorbed by the atmosphere. Sure it is. It just doesn’t go back and heat the surface where it came from. That’s the postulated GHE. Nor is it needed to do so with a physically correct understanding of the high-value of the input power. You only need to postulate a mechanism like that if you assume the input is 240W/m2…which it isn’t. It is much higher.
Joe,
It really isn’t that complicated:
(1) The surface is at a temperature such that it is emitting 390 W/m^2.
(2) The earth as viewed from space is emitting 240 W/m^2.
(3) These two facts would not both be possible if the atmosphere were not absorbing some of the terrestrial radiation…i.e., if it weren’t then the earth’ surface would have to be at a temperature such that it was emitting only 240 W/m^2.
That makes no reference to radiation going back to the surface and causing the increase in temperature. (Not to say it doesn’t, but that is not one of the axioms.)
Well I repeat, then, that we never said radiation isn’t absorbed by the atmosphere. But that it does is not a GHE, nor has it ever been explained to be. But, this is where the GHE then sets off, tautologically taking credit for the already-existing warmer surface air.
The greenhouse effect is that the earth’s surface is warmer because elements in the atmosphere absorb terrestrial radiation. You can see from the above that in the absence of the IR-absorbing elements, the earth’s surface could only be so warm as to emit 240 W/m^2. Instead, the surface is considerably warmer, emitting 390 W/m^2.
No you’d still have the adiabatic and thermal storage effects in a completely transparent atmosphere.
Joel, when does the surface emit 390W/m^2? At midday perhaps? Surely not early morning or at dusk? Maybe integrating sin(angle of incidence) over the daylight hours gives you 240W/m^2.
And here’s an interesting point. At sunset (wherever you are) temperatures begin to drop relentlessly until dawn, when temperatures start to climb again until midday. But after that they don’t drop as much as they rise (Tsunset > Tsunrise). Why the asymmetry? You’d expect daytime temperatures to be the top half of a sine curve cycle culminating at midday.
Thing is Joel, your flat-earth theory needs to explain the day-night cycle from every angle.
Joel, it’s good you have touched this point.
“(1) Conservation of energy is only satisfied if the atmosphere absorbs terrestrial radiation. You have 390 W/m^2 leaving the surface but you would only have 240 W/m^2 leaving the earth as seen from space. Ergo, the atmosphere is absorbing some of the terrestrial radiation, allowing the surface temperature to be larger than would otherwise be possible under energy balance conditions. We call this “the greenhouse effect”.”
Gravity field is a sink of heat. Agree or not?
You are aware of the oceanic currents which take heat from one mass of water and take it to another place. Agree or not?
You know that the average temperature of the atmosphere is not 105 °C (378.5 K). Agree or not?
Now answer this question… How long the atmosphere molecules of carbon dioxide retains “heat”?
My fave little gedanken toy model is perhaps relevant here.
Start with an atmosphere without CO2, with some “average” temperature. Instantaneously add 0.04% CO2, well-mixed.
Expected: a “lag” introduced in the exit of some OLR from the atmosphere, corresponding to its power in the CO2 “notch” x lag duration. The consequent additional molecular agitation of atmosphere and/or surface shows up as a slight temperature increase.
Then, the first lagged OLR makes it through the gauntlet, the OLR resumes its previous level, or perhaps slightly more according to S-B — and a new “average” temperature, slightly higher than before, takes hold.
Next: instantaneously remove all CO2.
Expected: for the duration of the lag, the temperature of the atmosphere will hold at about the higher “average” level, until the last of the lagged OLR makes its escape. Then the temperature will return to the original value.
Thus: the effect of the GHE is a one-time “bump”, whose total energy can be calculated once you know the power of the “bounced” LWIR and the duration of the lag.
Are either or both of those known to any degree of precision whatsoever?
Joseph,
Yes I understand that the lapse rate (approx 5 deg C per 1000m) is entirely due to gravity. Even if the atmosphere was totally transparent to IR you’d still have that.
But isn’t the 6000 metres still significant as the effective surface of the Earth for a distant measurement of temperature?
Increase the IR transparency and the level falls. Decrease the IR transparency and the level rises. As anyone might expect. And knowing what that effective level is, means we can still use the lapse rate to calculate the surface temperature.
Or have I still misunderstood?
temp,
Well if the effective surface decreased in altitude due to increased opacity, then wouldn’t there be less distance for the adiabatic temperature profile to effect a warmer temperature for the ground surface? Seems you could equally conclude GHG’s cause cooling. As said earlier, they do provide an additional degree of freedom for radiative loss to space which non-GHG’s do not have.
However, what interests me more are the boundary conditions which establish how we even begin to THINK about the atmosphere. The boundary condition of a 240 W/m2 input (power divided by four [P/4]) is totally unphysical. The input power temperature is MUCH higher than this. It really changes how you approach the system, and what postulates you need to make to help understand it, in a very significant way.
You don’t even need that to accept the greenhouse effect. Do you accept that measurements from space show emission is about 240 W/m^2? Do you accept that the earth’s surface is emitting much more…about 390 W/m^2?
For heaven’s sake! What the heck will you accept?
You just said that the absorbance of radiation by the atmosphere is not the GHE! Perhaps I misread your other post. In any case, it’s true that it isn’t.
I agree with the output of 240 W/m2, I also agree with the surface air being +15C, equivalent to 390 W/m2 if it were a blackbody (which it isn’t).
But none of that means there’s a GHE.
Okay, so explain to me: If we had an atmosphere that did not absorb infrared radiation, would the surface still be emitting ~390 W/m^2. (It is close enough to a blackbody for our purposes, plus the foruth-root of the average of T^4 over the earth is larger than the average of T.)
The atmosphere is no where near a black body, the 390, is because T^4 means its radiating more strongly in area’s where the T is above the average T than below, and it just works out close to doing a black body calc on the average T… a coincidence is all. the emissivity o the atmosphere is quite variable, depending on clouds humidity etc, somewhere between .7 up past .85… all depending on local conditions.
There’s no reason why the surface could not emit 390 W/m2 without GHG’s. But that still wouldn’t be characteristic of the entire thermodynamic ensemble or conservation of energy because the atmosphere would still be emitting at whatever temperature it emits at. The aggregate average would still come out to 255K. With less emission from the atmosphere due to lack of GHG’s, the surface would likely need to warm to make up for the deficit.
King,
You are confusing the effective emissivity of the entire earth-atmosphere system with the emissivity of the earth’s surface. In fact, the emissivity of the surface in the IR is very close to 1. The surface emits somewhere in the range of 390 W/m^2. However, when viewed from space, we see only about 240 W/m^2 coming from the earth.
You could quibble about a few percent here or there depending on exact emissivities and if you average T or T^4 but you ain’t gonna turn 240 into 390.
dudh, i read it as atmosphere somehow… yea the oceans are around .96, varying from equator to pole between .99 and ,8… my bad
Joe,
You don’t take an aggregate average if the atmosphere is not absorbing the terrestrial radiation. In that case, any additional radiation from the atmosphere would be added to the terrestrial radiation, not averaged with it.
It doesn’t HAVE to absorb the radiation…it will absorb energy by conduction and THEN radiate that energy. It will factor in to the aggregate output as it is participating in said output.
I’ll just repeat what I said:
You don’t take an aggregate average if the atmosphere is not absorbing the terrestrial radiation. In that case, any additional radiation from the atmosphere would be added to the terrestrial radiation that was not absorbed. So, the total amount of radiation emitted would be at least as great as that which is emitted by the surface.
Indeed, it must have been those magic sky dragon that chew on 150 joules per second per square meter. In fact, they have competitions to see who can do it the fastest. One of them, named Daisey, didn´t get to play in any dragon games because he was too slow at it.
I suggest you leave off the alcohol (or whatever you are on).
You’re wrong since the begining, Chris an Joel. You are averaging power by square meter. It is not energy, physicists; you cannot average power.
Dr. Postma: You have not addresses my comments yet, and they are here again:
With all due respect, your model is flawed for the following:
1) Equation (12) is wrong and does not represent the energy balance of the atmosphere. Where is the latent heat of condensation of water vapor?
2) In Figure-1, how can a colder atmosphere exchange a net radiation, σ TA4, with a warmer surface of the earth? This violates the laws of thermodynamics.
3) Your model in Figure-1 suggests that the atmosphere as a whole traps fσ Ts4, which must heat all of the atmosphere. Our observations shows that the upper atmosphere is not warming but cooling instead. How do you explain the cooling in the upper atmosphere?
4) There is no greenhouse gas effect and practical experiments are a proof.
Nabil! Friend! My paper IS a criticism of the points you brought up! I present this model, as it is taught entirely in its specifics by universities all over the place, including Harvard etc, such that I can then demonstrate exactly what is wrong with it. Please read the entire paper. Get passed the section where I present this standard model GHE.
Dr. Postma:
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I read the rest of the work and found some good science and scientific approach. Most importantly the following from page 16:
“Now, it isexpected that an increase in GHG’s will increase the temperature of the bottom of the atmosphere,while decreasing that at the top, and because the atmosphere is essentially fixed in depth,etc…….”
The question that I have, won’t atmospheric radiation to space reduce when air temperature decreases at the top due to GHG emissions? Won’t heat accumulate in the earth as a result of radiation reduction?This is in agreement with my work, and I wrote over 100 pages on this very subject and projected global warming. Would you be interested in taking a look at my book global warming calculation and projection and Earth’s Magic, Article-12, posted on my website: http://www.global-heat.net? Please let me know what you think.
Sure Nabil I would be happy to take a look at your work. But please understand that my time is a little limited and it may take a few days. Is there contact info on your website? We can communicate via email if I can find it.
As to your question: the Earth is open to space. There’s no solid barriers to space. If the atmosphere warms for whatever reason, its thermal energy will, within a few milliseconds, make it out to space and be gone forever. Something needs to sustain a permanent warming, and it needs to sustain it with additional energy. The atmosphere, or molecules of gas, are not additional sources of energy. They’re energetically inert and only react to changes in the ambient energy of their surroundings. There’s only one main energy source for the planet and that is the Sun. But you could also increase the amount of energy with a constant Sun, but with less cloud-cover on the Earth. Cosmic rays and the Sun’s magnetic activity likely plays a role there, rather than the Sun’s direct insolation.
Dr. Postma:
Yes, there is contact us button on my website. Or you can write directly to me to the following e-mail address: nabil@global-heat.net.
As you will find, and you covered some of this in your paper, the amount of solar energy absorbed by the earth is variable with the distance between earth and sun. But, at the completion of one revolution the solar energy exchanged and absorbed by the earth is constant, regardless of orbital eccentricity. You will see the proof of this in Earth’s Magic, Article-12, and in your paper, you were not far off from proving it.
On the other hand, if the sensible heat radiated by the atmosphere to the outer space reduces for any reason, provided that everything else being equal, the surface accumulate heat without additional source of energy. This what carbon dioxide emissions do. As you found out, these emissions decrease laps rate at the top, or air temperature profile decreases, and the sensible heat radiated to the outer space decreases as well. As a result, the surface of the earth accumulates the difference as global warming heat. All described in the book global warming calculation and projection posted on my website: http://www.global-heat.net. you may print copies for your record if you wish. Thank you and am looking forward to hearing your comments.
Dear Tempterrain… 255 K is the blackbody temperature of the Earth, not a measured quantity. It is the result of calculations on a blackbody Earth’s emissions:
P = (5.6697 x 10^18 W/m^2 K^4) (m^2) (Tbb^4)
Or
T^4 = 239.73 W/(5.6697 x 10^18 W/m^2 K^4)
Those are imaginary numbers. The real temperature of the Earth, as seen from the space is 292 K in average; it is approximately 19 °C.
@Tempterrain… This link could help you:
http://www.universetoday.com/55043/earths-temperature/
An excerpt from the article:
“However, Earth’s average temperature is about 14 or 15 degrees Celsius although it varies a few degrees depending on your source. The hottest temperature recorded on Earth was 70.7°C (159°F) in the Lut Desert in Iran; the temperature was recorded by a NASA satellite.”
Nasif,
I can understand how we can measure the surface temperature of the Earth, from a distance, if the atmosphere was totally transparent to IR radiation
But if its opaque or partially opaque, how is that possible? You’d just be measuring the temperature of the outer layer. You’d need to know how high that layer was and then use the adiabatic lapse rate to calculate the surface temperature.
Dear Tempterrain… For calculating the surface temperature we resort to other formulas.
For example, my pyrgeometer gives a reading of 495 W of solar radiation impinging on the surface at several locations sepparated by 100 m each from the others. We average the five locations and get 492 W/m^2 of insolation. After that, we apply an algorithm and obtain an average temperature of the ground (soil) of 333 K or 60 °C.
We know that the ground has a limited absorptance and emittance, so we have introduced the absorptance of the soil to calculate the load of radiation absorbed. If we wish to know how much heat is transferred from the surface to the atmosphere, we resort to other formulas which take into account the mass of air, not a surface of air because the air has not surface, but volume and density. Additionally, we take into account gravity, buoyancy and viscosity of the air at the current temperature. This way, we know how much heat has been transferred from the soil to the atmosphere by convection.
In all calculations, the heat taken by the atmosphere by convection overwhelms the heat taken by radiation.
Once again, you remind me of the summary offered in 1972 by Schack, as cited by G&T:
“the radiative component of heat transfer of CO2, though relevant at the temperatures in combustion chambers, can be neglected at atmospheric temperatures.”
After a pretty stimulating discussion on Dr. Pratt’s post this is a comical let down. Postma’s credential’s are impressive but his logic in this case is on a par with Wagathon. If you don’t like the “flat” disc concept you can use a hemisphere and take the angle of incident from 0 to 90 and back to 0, then divide by two for the unlit side, same answer. If dividing is an issue, how about a time lapse record of a few sundials? A basketball, spotlight and a protractor? I know, a soccerball, heat lamp and non-contact thermometer. I would how many ways this could be done? We should contact Myth Busters!
You can’t dilute the input power into the nighttime where it doesn’t occur. That’s quite simple. It establishes completely different phase-spaces of matter. Diluting to 240W/m2 means sunlight can never make liquid water. The integrated average input power of 610 W/m2 will make liquid water. These are completely different phase-spaces of matter and reality. They can not be set equal to each other in some mathematical abstraction which doesn’t represent reality.
With no atmospheric response you are probably right, but with the atmosphere we have… We live on a water world. Most of that water is at or near freezing. Enough is above freezing that there is trace water vapor in the atmosphere. Neglecting any CO2 impact, we will maintain liquid water even during the next glacial period. If we didn’t, we would not have interglacial periods. There are valid areas of debate, geometry is not one nor is basic thermodynamics.
Whether DWLR “warms” the surface as a good debate issue mainly due to semantics. Whether DWLR exists is not, because the sky has a temperature. If there were no GHE the sky would still have a temperature, the tropopause would be near the surface and its average temperature would be warmer that it is now, but not warm enough to sustain liquid water. But that is a moot point since the Earth luckily never reached the real snowball Earth point.
tempterrain,
Nasif really hasn´t the first clue of what he is talking about, nor does Postma. You are correct that the observed ¨temperature¨ viewed from above is something like 255 K, but more precisely, it depends on what wavelength interval you are looking over. This requires inverting the full use of the Planck function, not the S-B law. In the atmospheric window, the temperature is closer to the ground temperature, and at say, 15 microns the temperature is stratospheric. Aside from their geometrical confusions, it would be even better to hear Nasif´s and Postma´s interpretation of standard radiant spectra measurements. Note that Venus in some areas looks as cold as Mars in the IR.
The lapse rate stuff Postma is pulling on you is also nonsense. With no greenhouse gases, the effective radiating level would not be 5 km, it would be zero, and the tropopause would migrate to the surface. The adiabatic lapse rate is indeed -g/cp, but it only necessarily relaxes to this value under certain conditions, and even in the real atmosphere it only does so until the tropopause (where convection gives out). In the optically thick limit, like on Venus, you can extrapolate along the adiabat all the way to something like 60 km. This was another point I touched on in my SkS article.
Chris… What the bolometric total solar irradiance on top of the atmosphere is?
And you’re fooling yourself on saying that the masured temperature of the Earth as seen from space is 255 K. It’s imaginary. I post again the link:
http://www.universetoday.com/55043/earths-temperature/
Now, you are who don’t know what you’re talking about. Sorry. :D
Try being less absurd and read my post. Note that satellite people actually know about spectra and know how to read a surface or lower atmosphere temperature from space. You should take a class on satellite meteorology; I did.
I read it very well… So 255 K is the average temperature of Earth, Chris? :D
You told it, not me. On answering to Tempt you wrote:
“You are correct that the observed ¨temperature¨ viewed from above is something like 255 K, but more precisely, it depends on what wavelength interval you are looking over.”
Your satellites, not NASA’s satellites, are viewing a frozen Earth from above… :D
This is not even worth responding to. Keep trying.
Perhaps it is because you are not able to handle real numbers?
“With no greenhouse gases, the effective radiating level would not be 5 km, it would be zero, and the tropopause would migrate to the surface.”
Prove it.
Simple logic dictates that the average radiative output of a gaseous ensemble in a gravitational field must be found at altitude, not at the surface. It is simple logic: what is an average? It is an average of something that has maxima and minima. Fundamental physics dictates the maxima be found at the bottom of the atmosphere. Therefore the average is at altitude.
This is so well-established science, that I think you need to prove otherwise, rather than just hand wave in your paper. If there are no IR absorbers/emitters, all the emission from the surface escapes, and the sensor in space doesn´t care about the atmosphere. You´d know this if you actually bothered to sit down with a climate textbook or read some papers on how the greenhouse effect is actually interpreted. I will presume you haven´t because you didn´t reference a single one in your paper.
Actually, I’d say it’s worse than that, chris. If the atmosphere doesn’t absorb any of the terrestrial radiation, then the least you could have being emitted in W/m^2 is what is coming from the surface. You could have additional energy coming from the atmosphere if it was also emitting. (Of course, it wouldn’t emit if it didn’t absorb, so I guess this point is sort of moot…but my point is we don’t even have to argue about whether or not the atmosphere is emitting. If it’s not absorbing, he’s screwed.)
You think if something can’t absorb radiation, it can’t emit it?
You think the atmosphere wouldn’t emit if it didn’t have GHG’s?
Joe,
It doesn’t matter whether it can emit or not. The amount of radiation is going to just get higher anyway…and it is already too high…i.e., higher than is seen from space. The atmosphere has to be able to absorb.
(But, yes, Kirchoff’s Law says that emissivity = absorptivity, although this is only true at each particular wavelength.)
If the radiation gets higher in the atmosphere from GHG’s, then to balance the energy output the ground will have to emit less.
Non-GHG’s in the atmosphere already emit lots of thermal IR, and this emission takes part in establishing the total energy balance with the input.
Not according to Kirchhoff it can’t!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirchhoff's_law_of_thermal_radiation
What’s your description of Kirchhoff’s law, Tempterrain?
The atmosphere will still emit radiation without GHG’s! Come on fellas.
Actually it is stellar photosphere modelling texts I am familiar with…and never have we discussed back-radiative heating in them! And astrophysics is universal, ho ho ho.
The atmosphere will still emit [IR] radiation without GHG’s!
No. It won’t. If a gas doesn’t absorb , it can’t radiate either!
There goes Kirchoff´s law too…amazing how many Galileo´s come around these days.
Kirchoff’s “Law” is not a “law”; it’s a rough arithmetical approximation of a bulk effect. It does not constrain molecular radiative physics.
Um. No
You’re wrong my friend. Anything with a temperature radiates thermal energy. That phenomenon does not depend on its ability to absorb radiation.
Joseph,
Greenhouse gases, yes including water vapour too, are the cause of the opacity of the atmosphere to IR radiation. Remove all GH gases and the atmosphere becomes totally IR transparent.
That’s just a definition of terms. If the atmosphere was totally IR transparent the radiation level would be zero. Again, by definition.
How could it be otherwise?
“If the atmosphere was totally IR transparent the radiation level would be zero.”
Would the atmosphere still not be heated by conduction and then emit said acquired thermal energy as radiation? It doesn’t need to be able to absorb radiation in order to emit thermal radiation…
Not even what I was talking about. I am withholding further comments until you´ve had a chance to look at the paper I linked to below. It is a good introduction and will be educational, and can provide a starting point for further discussion, since you did not want to comment on much on my SkS article.
Yah the point about your article: as I read it I kept on thinking that my paper itself IS the re-rebuttal to your rebuttal. So I don’t know what to do about that. I suggest everyone just re-read my paper.
In any case, nice that you wish to close your mouth now that you exposed yourself as believing that non-GHG’s can’t radiate! The entire atmosphere radiates, and most of that comes from non-GHG’s :-)
I look forward to your next paper telling us all what IR wavelengths all the N2/O2 is emitting at independent of GHG´s, and of course winning your nobel prize for this work. Till then, goodnight.
They would emit continuously. Seriously guys, you think a gas of, say, helium, would never ever ever cool down? Anything with a temperature emits thermal radiative energy.
The premise that non-GHG’s can not emit and participate in the radiative energy balance…it’s, a very poor attempt to save the GHE.
“Would the atmosphere still not be heated by conduction and then emit said acquired thermal energy as radiation? It doesn’t need to be able to absorb radiation in order to emit thermal radiation”
Technically, a gas could have almost zero emissivity in the infrared and still emit in the microwave range, as atmospheric O2 is known to do at atmospheric temperatures and pressures, based, I believe, on its magnetic dipole moment (perhaps someone can comment on this). However, the energy and temperature effects will be so small as to have no discernible consequences for the Earth’s energy budget.
You´re right Fred
I would add that oxygen also absorbs in the microwave spectrum. If it didn’t, it couldn’t emit.
Chris may be letting it go but I’d just like to nail this point. Yes if the atmosphere were totally IR transparent you’d still get a some flow of upward heat by convection. But it wouldn’t be radiated into space. In fact a new equilibrium would be set up – with the only heat exchange possible between the atmosphere and the ground.
So that atmosphere would look a lot different to the one we have – it would just act as a reservoir of heat, sometimes cooling the Earth and sometimes warming.
The only radiation to space possible would be from the Earth’s surface itself.
Anything with a temperature radiates thermal energy. If the energy is picked up only by conduction this does not mean it can not be radiated.
Joseph,
Say we had a hypothetical gas which could do what you suggest; and we housed it in a glass containment vessel constructed like a vacuum flask with almost zero thermal conduction possible between the gas and the container. The outer surface of the container is painted black.
The gas has a temperature and from its temperature we can calculate, using Planck’s law and Wien’s displacement law, just how it should radiate. So it radiates , losing energy in the process, and cools. The black surface warms and tries to radiate the energy back. But, the gas is transparent so it can’t absorb the energy. Does it just carry on cooling , and cooling, as it can radiate energy but not absorb it?
Is this what you really think will happen? Besides the above two laws you need to look up what Kirchhoff had to say also.
So it loses energy to its container. The energy is absorbed by the container
The container also has an outside from which it will radiate to the outside. The system will therefore lose energy and cool with time.
The system will therefore lose energy and cool with time.
Well no it won’t!
The container and the gas within it will just sit there, in the laboratory, doing nothing very much at all. The only changes in temperature that will occur will be, possibly, when the central heating is switched off overnight!
It is not possible to build a thermos that will stay hot forever.
Joseph,
The gas isn’t hot to start with. Its at the same temperature as its surroundings. According to your model it will cool as it is totally transparent to IR radiation but it still radiates IR because it is at a finite temperature.
Its just so obvious that this won’t happen and your thinking is flawed.
Science is isn’t about defending an erroneous position, come what may. Learn to deal with it , learn from it and move on.
Nothing to move on from temp. :-)
I see the situation now…
Hmm, well there must be some mechanism by which the gas would still be able to absorb heat energy. Everything with a temperature radiates…we know that much. But could a completely isolated system otherwise surrounded by a warm environment cool to below that environment’s temperature, passively? Well for one thing, it likely isn’t possible to completely isolate a system in the first place. It’s a good question, someone should actually do an experiment or look it up, rather than theorize in unrealistic and never-existing ideal systems.
In any case this actually has little to do with my position.
To propose a totally non radiating gas you need to leave physics behind.
Gas molecules collide and in the process decelerate.
The electrons in each molecule will experiance a distortion in their electric field.
Bremsstrahlung is electromagnetic radiation produced by the deceleration of a charged particle when deflected by another charged particle, typically an electron.
The energy of the photon will be very weak in the microwave region.
Weak but it still exists.
CO2and H2O radiate several orders of magnitude higher than this.
For practical purposes microwave radiation is often ignored.
Chris,
Yes thanks for your comments. They make perfect sense to me. I agree that my IR thermometer/detector is more of a conceptual idea than a simple instrument. The IR spectrum is made up a band of frequencies/wavelengths all of which have different absorption coefficients – so you’d need to integrate measurements over the whole of the emitted spectrum to effectively create that.
Tempt… Reality says other thing:
http://www.universetoday.com/55043/earths-temperature/
As you can see, you has been fooled by myths.
Nasif,
No I haven’t been fooled, but, thanks to Chris and others I now have a much clearer picture in my own mind of how the GH effect works.
I’m not asking you to take these things on trust but I’m sure if you think about it, and keep thinking about it, you’ll get there too.
Do you agree that anything you can see must be radiating?
Fortunately it’s only in your mind and it’s not in real world… :D
Dear Chris:
The adiabatic lapse rate reduces with carbon dioxide emissions for the molecular weight and specific heat of of CO2 is larger than that of air. An increase of 100 ppm of CO2 will decrease lapse rate by about 0.0005 degrees centigrades/Km. Total reduction is about 0.05 degrees centigrades at the top of the atmosphere. Do not underestimate this reduction for surface area of the atmosphere is huge. This reduction accumulated in the surface about 4.5 E22 joules in 250 years- It caused global warming!
chriscolose
…”The lapse rate stuff Postma is pulling on you is also nonsense. With no greenhouse gases, the effective radiating level would not be 5 km, it would be zero, and the tropopause would migrate to the surface.”…..
No Chris its you spouting nonsense.
You have left out clouds (condensing water) which provides a surface and hence much better radiating output than the gaseous form of H2O and CO2.
If gaseous H2O and CO2 did not radiate in the IR where would not be the conditions you describe.
I think it would be worthwhile if Postma read an actual paper discussing this. Ray´s Physics Today article strikes me as a good starting point. We´ve all taken the time to read his paper, let´s see if he will take the time to read a single one on the topic of the atmosphere. It will then be nice to hear his comments.
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf
I read that article when it came out…it was full of inaccuracies. You can ask me to discuss them but I am informing you right now I will NOT :-) This is already taking up a lot of my time and I can not handle expansion of the discussion beyond close proximity to issues surrounding my paper. Yes that article does qualify as that, but it’s the time thing. Sorry. In any case, that article annoyed the heck out of me for its inaccuracies, it was faulty. I’m sorry I just can’t take more time. I should be spending time with my wife.
Well if Joel wants to continue with this discussion, I think everyone else on this thread has converged to a conclusion. It doesn´t appear you have much else to say or are capable of learning anything.
Well I think I’ve had LOTS to say on almost every single point of contention with the theses in my paper. :-) I’m willing to learn from you folks but you haven’t presented better logic. Everyone just got stuck not understanding the difference between an actual power input of 610 W/m2 (on average) and the output power of 240 W/m2 (on average).
Physicists are nothing if not eager to pounce on mistakes. Do you REALLY think that an article ‘full of inaccuracies’ could be published in Physics Today and that you’re the only one bright enough to spot them? Never mind – I’m sure that you do.
Tortured mathematics and logics, that’s what Ray’s article is… :D
I am the afore mentioned “Joseph” that is the author of the above referenced “Climate Warfare Rules of Engagement” posted at http://www.CanadaFreePress.com/index.php/article/30865 and am a co-author of “Slaying the Sky Dragon” and am a colleague of Postma & Nahle. What Postma has done is to prove there is no GHE using first principles of Physics. This work defeats GHE but only applies to a small portion of the defective science aluded to by Shore, Colose et al above.
The Postma article concerns ‘energy’ but the more revelant factor is ‘power’ which is a function of time. Dr Nahle has calculated the total OLR delay from CO2 impacts at less than 5 milliseconds. This ‘absorption/emission’ is then shared with adjoining Nitrogen and Oxygen molecules in the form of kinetic energy which then moves away from the warm Earth surface, just ask any ‘excited’ hot air balloon. There is NO radiant or convective ‘flux’ toward the Earth. Warmist & Lukes like to pretend that this ‘captured’ energy can somehow stick around and warm all night long. If you have a 1000 watt heater you have no ‘heat’ without energy flow. If that flow lasts for 5 milliseconds you have no heat.
The next Thermodynamic dilemma involves ‘Thermal Mass’. Earth had 259 trillion cubic miles of mostly molten rock and 310 million cubic miles of ocean and we are to believe that 28 gigatons of microscopic CO2 dust controls the planets temperature. I recommend objective readers to visit the Canada Free Press article above and the +60 additional articles I have in archive there. Then visit my website http://www.FauxScienceSlayer.com for more on the Faux Science and Faux History of our Faux Reality.
Light travels 1500 km in 5 milleseconds.
Downdrafts and downbursts are known hazards to aviation.
Co2 doesn’t exist as dust, try gas.
All the molten rock is effectively isulated from the atmosphere.
Other than that, great post.
Sir Droege
‘Light’ travels 1500 km in 5 milliseconds but RADIANT ENERGY is slowed by mass.
Downdrafts are always COLD and accompanied by an adjoining warm updraft.
CO2 is a gas temporarly….it is soon converted to DIRT….3 cu miles of dirt do not control the planet temperature.
Molten rock is NOT insulated from the ocean, read “Earth’s Missing Geothermal Flux”
Other than that, not so great comment.
I clicked on your name and the first thing I seen was
¨My site will expose the FAUX SCIENCE that enslaves us all¨
I´m afraid my crackpot meter has reached its limits for the day. I will let other tackle this…
Ad hominem, Chris? Please, sustain a scientific discussion, Chris.
What the bolometric total solar irradiance on top of the atmosphere is?
@ Nasif Nahle
Oh, please, stop it. Chris has some excellent arguments in his SkS post, but neither you or postma have an answer.
Ok, case closed, popcorn out, good night.
Sorry, but no; Chris has not valid arguments adhered to science and reality, but quite the opposite. If he cannot answer my question, it is a clear demonstration that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
If you don’t have a clear panorama of what happens in nature, in the real world, whatever you say would be imaginary. Point.
Hi Nasif, if you’ll explain what the bolometric total solar irradiance on top of the atmosphere is, I’ll take a stab at the answer to your question. If mine’s the only guess, I’ll be closest to the right answer.
===================
kim, Bolometric means total power, irradiance means flux. The answer is ~1370 W/m2. Nasif will probably quote me on this as some sort of revlelation (it´s not 240!!!!!) but irrelevant.
Wron Chris, that’s not bolometric TSI on TOA… Sorry, but this ignorance on astrophysical concepts is root of your imaginary science.
Nasif, try google if you don´t like my answer
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&cp=32&gs_id=25&xhr=t&q=bolometric+total+solar+irradiance&qe=Ym9sb21ldHJpYyB0b3RhbCBzb2xhciBpcnJhZGlhbmM&qesig=iwQq3qxxZAnMdoF6B5cJoA&pkc=AFgZ2tmZ5hkH21P56op5Z3S5GQQCux8ZW04f0OkVxJy–08YBdzDD2LXFuInhrl4WXS_xQglNlLhbcED_VYKDFFlWlm0T89ilw&pq=o2%20magnetic%20dipole&pf=p&sclient=psy&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=bolometric+total+solar+irradianc&aq=0n&aqi=q-n1&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.&fp=c07e2a9fa93d3c36&biw=1361&bih=641
It took all the way to the fourth link to find
//Total Solar Irradiance [TSI] is the bolometric solar energy flux received at the Earth at its average distance of 1 AU, measured since 1976 by a succession of spacecraft instruments. Figure 1 shows the composite TSI record, compiled by the PMOD World Radiation Center
(Fröhlich 2000, 2006).¨//
Hint: Look at the following figure.
P.S. You won´t be able to fool me
I have not need to fool you and I’m not trying to fool anybody. I am talking about correct science…
You’re fooling yourself. 1365 W/m^2 is not the bolometric total solar irradiance on top of the atmosphere, but the solar constant. Follow the definition from your link; perhaps you can find the correct number. Read the article well and try again. :D
Let’s see, that number, m2, must depend upon the area of the ‘top’ of the atmosphere. Area of the atmosphere? Hmmm, no wonder it’s so dark with the stabbing.
===============
Hi Kim… Well, he says I’m trying to fool our readers. I know our readers are not so naive as to fall on tricks. I am talking about real science. If Chris is an authority as to talk about solar irradiance, insolation, etc., he must know what bolometric total solar irradiance on TOA is. Otherwise, he’s saying nonsense.
I’m waiting for his answer… :D
I hope Chris can find what the bolometric TSI on TOA is… I will wait patiently… :D
The greenhouse dragon is indeed a hydra monster. This thread is making my head hurt :(
indeed…
but it is fun to play along. Have a couple beers first…
Chris you have been doing a good job :)
Joel showed a lot of patience and restraint too.
Jim D
…”Joel showed a lot of patience and restraint too.”….
What planet do you live on?
Joel and Chris have called Postma a liar and of low moral character.
How abusive does it have to get for you?
They have also failed to indicate any flaws in Postmas paper but that’s quite beside the point.
By stooping to the gutter level of smears they are a disgrace to rational discussion.
Judy – I hesitate even to suggest this “last resort” option when a thread’s absurdities threaten to spiral out of control, but I’ve seen it work in other venues. When you absolutely can’t tolerate trying to respond further in a situation like that and thereby keep the argument going, the option I speak of is to respond to the previous comment not with a direct answer but instead with your favorite recipe.
I’ve come across some really delicious items that way, and it can sometimes turn things around in a more sane direction.
Do you have any good recipes?
THAT is actually the response of a true believer. You have no more sophistries to defend a failed idea, so you resort to silliness. Please do so.
Power input and output isn’t that difficult to understand!
You don’t know me, Joseph. If you did, you’d know that ridicule is not my specialty. However, the level of ignorance expounded here is so profound that it has become an embarrassment, and a bit of levity might at least rescue it from being a total disaster
If no-one wants to participate, that’s fine too. But I’m sympathetic with participants who just want to give up banging their heads against the stone wall of your stubbornness, and would enjoy a respite. You don’t need needling from me, Joseph, to give up and admit you’re wrong. What you need is the integrity and courage to realize that an exercise you’ve poured some effort into is a failure, and defending it will dig you deeper into the hole you’ve dug. The rest is up to you. Our lives will go on peacefully regardless of your choice.
Thanks for the advice Fred. I am sure you’re a great guy. Honestly. Thanks.
I did come face-to-face with changing my position once or twice on this thread, but then I would realize I was still correct and my opponent was still wrong. All I can see is that there was some profound misunderstanding regarding the concepts of energy flux density and related power inputs and outputs, and how they are not equal under the context of conservation of total energy.
Well, we can both claim observance of ignorance and stubbornness…I don’t care for consensus arguments on that point! Ha! :-)
I WILL admit I am wrong if I have a good reason to. That reason was not presented here. Yah we’ll disagree on that point!
I’m committed to learning what I have, want, and need to. As I said, I used to be an alarmist. I have to be willing to find myself in a hole if I am to be a real skeptical scientist. Socially, sure, I am in a hole with some people. But my physics is good.
I’m done for a while. This one is just sad.
* 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 pounds chicken pieces
* 4 cups water
* 4 cups chicken broth
* 1 teaspoon seasoned salt
* 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste, depending on saltiness of broth
* 1/4 teaspoon pepper
* 1 leek or small onion chopped
* 1 carrot, chopped
* 2 stalks celery, chopped
* 1/4 cup parsley, chopped
* 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram or basil
* 1 bay leaf
* 6 ounces noodles
Preparation:
Place all ingredients except noodles in the Crock Pot. Cover and cook on low for 5 to 6 hours. Remove chicken and bay leaf from pot; take meat from bones, dice, and return to broth, and add the noodles. Cook another hour or until noodles are done (about 1/2 hour on high). Or, cook the noodles separately and add them just before serving.
It sounds good, Chris. We came across some good recipes in MySpace debates – remember?
I’m not sure Dr. Curry can engage in this without risking her status as a moderator. Or maybe she can. But I’m sure there are other good recipes out there from other participants.
We say in Mexico “métete tu sopa por donde mejor te quepa”.
Heh. ;) I posted a “shaggy dog story” response, but it seems to have violated a forbidden-word filter, so here’s a slightly “fudged” version:
Heard the Foo Bird Saga?
the classic story of the Foo Bird.
Great White Hunter retired in England with wall of trophy heads becomes restless, decides on one last great hunt. Heard of mysterious Foo Bird, never bagged, rarely even seen.
Makes it to darkest Africa, obtains guides and porters with greatest difficulty and expense, natives very skittish. After weeks of tromping futilely about in swamps and jungle, about to accept defeat, turns for home. Porter hears “foo-foo” sound from trees, shouts, “Bwana!”, points. GWH raises gun, porter slaps it down, as it fires. Foo Bird takes flight overhead, crapping on now bared GWH’s head as it flees. GWH irate, but is told Foo Bird carries curse, very dangerous. Starts to wipe hair, hand held down, told that to remove crap is ignominious death within minutes. Scoffs, but leaves hair alone.
Makes it to port, embarks, heads home. But even hat can’t completely cover vile crap smell. At home, in club lounge, people avoid him. Finally gets fed up, defies curse, showers, slips on soap bar, cracks skull open on tub fixtures, dies face-down in own suds.
Moral?
“If the Foo Sh??s, wear it!”
At least we all add had to think on Claes Johnson’s thread. Postma’s model is easily debunked at a level of freshman physics and geometry. This thread has about 2600 hits so far, are any of the lurkers convinced by Postma’s arguments? The heavyweight physicists seem to be ignoring this thread, although Chris Colose with a few undergraduate courses in meteorology can clearly see the problems with this.
My model actually hasn’t even been referenced, really. We hadn’t even left dissecting the standard model.
People’s lack of understanding of the inequality between input and output power hardly constitutes…anything.
I think you are justified in thinking there are problems with some of the climate models and applaud you for looking for new solutions.
Just a question.
What would happen with an axial tilt of 90 degrees? like Uranus, which has the coldest recorded planetary atmospheric temp where one pole faces the sun and the other away perpetual darkness.
That’s an interesting question. The Sun still will still obviously shine only on whatever hemisphere ends up facing it. But who knows what kind of current would get set up in the atmosphere etc. You might get a situation like on Venus, where there is quick enough distribution of heat that the night-side is kept at a relatively decent temperature, and doesn’t completely freeze out. But with 121C of insolation always occurring on one physical spot, rather than one geometric spot with a planet rotating underneath, it might be able to generate a heck of a lot more atmospheric H20, and increase the thickness of the atmosphere.
Anyway, of course I don’t know what would actually happen in that scenario, but it is a very neat idea to speculate on. I’m sure someone out there might have a good perspective. Maybe life would only exist on a band around the equator. Very neat scenario for sci-fi!
Thanks for your consideration :-)
Claes just had an alternative view of the thermodynamic paradigm. This challenges the overly simplified models from which so much smoke pollutes the air. The earth is a gigantic heat engine, pumping energy from the tropics to the poles. Sure, we’ve an approximate figure for the anthropogenic input of just one small variable in that heat engine. The climate is a huge analog computer processing that input with many others, some unknown. It is absurd to expect our relatively primitive digital simulacrums, which can’t even model a single cloud, to authentically model the whole heat engine.
==================
However you accept your simple heat engine metaphor without question.
basically, since you cant grasp the physics you grasp this complicated thing with a metaphor you do understand.
I’ve told you before, moshe, that I have this all figured out, but you have to read the blogs.
Neither you nor I nor anyone completely understand the physics of climate. We are all using metaphors. Frankly, mine explain it better than do yours.
================
seriously. post the hindcast of your metaphor.
epistemically its metaphors all the way down..
pragmatically, the best numbers win. post yours
seriously. attach the forequarters of the horse to the post.
epistemically it’s turtles all the way down but for the last one, who sits on a metaphor.
pragmatically, I’m consulting Koutsoyiannis, Tsonis, and Old Sol. Peering into an opaque crystal, the numbers seem negative.
======================
More simply, moshe, because I understand the physics of CO2’s radiative effect(positive number), I’m a lukewarmer. Because I believe the sun may cool the earth for a century(negative number), I’m a cooler. That’s numbers attached to two separate phenomena, so I call myself a lukewarming cooler, nomenclature that lucia believes is nonsensical. I can’t get her to understand that the terms refer to separate things.
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I am stunned that there is so much argument for little purpose over whether total solar insulation should be divided by 2 (Postma) or 4 ( Joel, chris, et al).
Insolation happens on only one half of the Earth “sphere” and the energy flux of the daylight side should be calculated accordingly. So Insolation of (610*0.7) W/m2 on the day side and almost zero (moonlight) on the night side is A correct way to model it.
Perhaps those who want to divide 1320 W/m2 by 4 (the Gang of 4?) are making a harmless simplification. Maybe it is harmless. If it were a linear system, I’d be the first to agree.
The subject under discussion is NOT a LINEAR system. It is the surface of a rotating spheroid, tracking heat flows proportional to T^4, with gigatons of heat retentive liquids and gases in motion. So perhaps Postma’s setup provides some critical insight into energy flux and temperature differences between the day side, night side, and zenith and poles.
Instead of a debate of day versus night heat flows, I witnessed pointless arguments that dividing by 4 is correct and dividing by 2 for a hemisphere and using zero for the other hemisphere is in error. I learned a lot about those who never got past this point. Frankly, I’m surprised divide by 4 is the orthodoxy. I’m siding with the heretic on this point. Averaging night and day may not be the more accurate analysis assumption.
What I did not see enough in the thread was what important difference Postma’s setup made to the analysis. Ok, he says (7:37pm) that his way 610 W/m2 (actually closer to 540 w/m2) allows for a temperature that makes liquid water without GHE. There is enough to insolation on the day side to have liquid water at an angle of incidence of >43 deg. You then have an insulating atmosphere and ocean heat sinks that retain and spread heat into the night and convection to bleed off heat in the hottest portions of the earth. But it does not eliminate a mild GHE with or without GHGs.
Is that it? Postma’s way is able to make and retain liquid water without invoking back-radiation from GHG’s? The orthodoxy (divide by 4) requires heat retention by GHE to make liquid water?
Amounts of energy are additive. That’s a linear operation. Concerning energy coming from the Sun to the Earth that’s all. There’s no place for nonlinearity. Postma claims that there is, but that’s an empty and totally unsubstantiated claim. Repeating it 100 times doesn’t make it a bit more reasonable.
There are some effects due to nonlinearity in the emission and other energy transfers from the surface, but the Earth surface temperature doesn’t vary so much between night and day that this would lead to a major change in the results. All those variations are also included in the model calculations.
The whole point is ridiculous. It’s maintained only to mislead people, who wish to be misled.
No one is being misled and that is not my intention. I’ve been quite open about who I am and people have even posted where I work, and my publications.
Input power is much warmer than the output power. Total energy is the same but the input is HOT, the output is cold. Because of the difference in surface area.
Prekka, I’ll agree that Postma’s paper is a mess after the middle of page 12 and needs a thorough rewrite from that point.
However, his central thesis that solar insolation varies over the earth is sound. It is on much stronger ground than the assumption of divide solar insolation by 4 and make it uniform over the earth’s surface.
there is no place for non-linearity Now you are saying things unsupportable. Solar insolation as a function of time of day, lat and long, complicates the model greatly. As far as emissions, just how constant is that over the earth surface? Everyone seems to agree on 240 W/m2 as an average, but does it vary with latitude and longitude and time of day? Is 240 W/m2 valid for 90S on August 1 at 00:00 GMT?
The whole point is ridiculous. What whole point? Postma’s biggest mistake was to tackle too much, trying to make too many points in a paper that attempted to shift a paradigm.
The promise of his approach may allow for earth models that do not require as strong a GHE and allow for lower GHG sensitivities as the one dimension orthodoxy. The orthodoxy needs a strong GHE to raise the average surface temp to reasonable levels. By dumping all the insolation onto one hemisphere, we need a weaker GHE so as to retain the heat at night and means of cooling (convection) in the day. That may or may not be right, but it is not a ridiculous point.
Stephen, everyone knows solar radiation varies over the planet. It is only made an average in simple zero-dimensional energy balance model´s, not in any real climate model simulations or detailed analyses, so the whole argument is a straw man to begin with. In any case, for the purposes of temperature, it isn´t a bad 0-D model. The night is not absolute zero.
a strawman Yet you and Joel wrote thousands of words yesterday defending the divide by 4 0-D (strawman) model. You focused on the wrong things.
The night is not absolute zero The night what?
The night Temperature? Certainly not, who said it was?
The night emission flux? I asked for the emission flux over the south pole in the dead of winter. Didn’t say it was zero. I only suggested it might not be 240 W/m2.
The night solar insolation? Well maybe not absolutely zero, but are you suggesting we do not discard moonlight and the zodiacal light as insignificant sources of insolation?
Right, and I will continue to defend the model because it is a matter of simple geometry. The Earth emits over 4 pi R^2 and it absorbs over pi R^2, giving a ratio of 4. If you want the oblate spheroid edition see
http://atmoz.org/blog/2008/08/11/the-simplest-climate-model-oblate-spheroid-edition/
The argument that you should divide by two is strictly an acceptance that the dayside absorbs all incident radiation uniformly (it doesn´t, there are latitudinal and time of day differences) and the nighttime doesn´t get anything. In the real world though, the night isn´t getting solar radiation but it is not immune to the presence of the day hemisphere or to the sunlight it received 12 hours ago. So translate the problem into temperature and you get absolute zero on the nightside and 303 K on the dayside. In even more reality, the equator is super-hot and the Poles are less hot, on the dayside. The real world doesn´t behave this (maybe this sort of thing is better on Mercury, as I suggested to Judith Curry).
“The Earth emits over 4 pi R^2 and it absorbs over pi R^2, giving a ratio of 4”
Nowhere has that been disputed.
“The argument that you should divide by two is strictly an acceptance that the dayside absorbs all incident radiation uniformly (it doesn´t, there are latitudinal and time of day differences) and the nighttime doesn´t get anything.”
Yes that’s correct. The Wattage only impinges one side of the Earth. You may consider a uniform distribution of that Wattage or an integrated average. It means the input is much warmer than the output. The input is warm enough to sustain a water planet without a GHE necessarily.
“In the real world though, the night isn´t getting solar radiation but it is not immune to the presence of the day hemisphere or to the sunlight it received 12 hours ago.”
Exactly. The energy from the night time is left over energy absorbed from the day-time. Perhaps going a few days back even. The balance with the day-time energy does not need to be instantaneous – i.e., the SAME joules coming in do not need to be the SAME joules going out, instantaneously.
“So translate the problem into temperature and you get absolute zero on the nightside and 303 K on the dayside.”
Why would you think that? It is obviously not what exists. The 303K may be the forcing on the day side, but that temperature isn’t actually achieved, even though the energy is absorbed. It gets absorbed into other degrees of freedom in the system. These carry the energy over into the night-time, where the long term balance with the input is reached.
you´re on to something. Keep it going.
Oh I was doing that for your sake, Chris ;-)
You’ve almost learned the difference between temperature and energy.
Radiative temperature forcing in > radiative temperature out.
Results in:
Energy in = energy out.
And the Sunshine is warm.
Stephen,
When energy balances are considered incoming energies add up linearly. That’s totally independent of temperature.
The diurnal variations are important in many other ways. Stephan-Boltzmann law has the fourth power. That leads as an example to the effect that sum of two hours of radiation, one at 10C and one at 30C leads to 0.7% more emission than two hours at 20C. It’s not exactly linear, but the effect is not very large either.
The diurnal variations lead to other larger effects as well through varying evaporation and convection, etc.
Earth without night and day would not be our Earth, but the effects are not going to invalidate any of the basic calculations of energy balance.
The difference between a characterization of -18C power input and +30C power input (240 vs 480 W/m2) is the difference between no liquid water and liquid/evaporative water. Those are completely different phase-spaces of matter with different thermal capacities and “flow” abilities. The difference is obviously quite important.
Basic total energy balance is still satisfied, of course and certainly. But the planet will have entirely different physical characteristics, naturally, and without additional GHE energy.
So what?
How common are day/night variations of that magnitude.
As I explained, incoming energy just adds up. Everything else goes through the actual temperature variations.
By to way, where do you think the 160 PW comes from?
Thanks Stephen for the rational summary.
Your last questions are exactly and precisely the point. Using the correct power input figure provides enough forcing to sustain a liquid planet with lots of water vapor, etc. And that water has a very high heat capacity and cools very slowly, so it can easily carry that heat to the poles and not freeze over night. You can’t get ANY of that physics with an input of -18C. Not unless you invoke self-amplification heating. So, maybe self-amplification of heat isn’t necessary…we’ve just had the boundary conditions messed up: the output radiation temperature isn’t the input radiation temperature. The input radiation is MUCH hotter than -18C. It establishes different physics in the system all of its own ability.
Joseph, as I replied to Prekka, you would do well to go rewrite from the middle of page 12 to the end. Focus on the elements of the paradigm shift and scrap all extraneous asides. A couple more diagrams illustrating the components of your formulas. Break the argument down into smaller bullet points with immediate compare and contrast between your model and the orthodoxy. Substantiate the orthodoxy as real and not a strawman through the use of a few recently published references or classroom texts. Do not lose focus on explaining why the paradigm change matters.
Thanks for that. It seems that linking to the sixty references to the GHE was not good enough…I should have directly included them in the text on or a bibliography at the end. You’re right that it is not a straw man I am critiquing but the entire standard paradigm. I could likely shorten the paper considerably by focusing on the specifics, as you point out. It was intended for online publication…I enjoyed the philosophical discussion of the logic personally…I enjoyed writing that. I shouldn’t assume other would! I will copy your message to my paper for future reference, if we decide to re-publish online or publish to a journal.
Thanks!
“This thread has about 2600 hits so far, are any of the lurkers convinced by Postma’s arguments? ”
Dear Dr. Curry,
Thanks for asking this question!
I’ve been lurking here since the beginning of this blog and for first thing I want to thank You for providing this forum for sharing so many different ideas, now it’s one of the most interesting places in the whole blogosphere.
After reading Joe Postma’s paper and all the comments (especially Joe’s answers to various attacks based on settled scientific consensus) here, I have to say that it seems now reasonable enough to try to write some software for “sanity checking” his calculations with 3D rotating earth (with small number of hexagons as an approximation of sphere and made 100% of water + a lot of other simplifications). If this even nearly works out without the obvious need for GHE, then I must conclude that mr. Postma is probably right and GHE does not represent fundamental Law of Nature, but is merely an approximation (based on flawed thinking, sorry to say that), maybe still useful for some types of analyses (including Moshers instrument building needs, actually, as one of the instrument builders myself, I must say that we use frequently various kinds of approximations when real calculations are too demanding for small microcontrollers), but perfectly avoidable using correct calculations from the first principles. And you surely can’t avoid real laws of nature, if heating from back-radiation is the law, then we have no way to avoid it in the sun’s photosphere and temperature difference 9000K-5700K there must also be explained using the same law…. at least partially, today it looks like nobody does this kind of thing.
So, I still don’t know what the GHE is, a realistic description of natural law or just an arbitrary method of calculation, before this thread I was sure about GHE fundamental reality.
::grin::
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Allan,
Thank you for the reasoned response and assessment of the paper.
It should be pretty clear that an input of +30C on average will produce a very different world, all of its own accord, than an input of -18C. Whether or not a GHE might still exist remains to be seen, but it certainly won’t have the role it is thought to have now. The Slayer team and I think the GHE does not likely even exist. Certainly, we’ve removed the boundary conditions which support its postulation in the first place.
I believe that the concatenation of cooling phases of the oceanic oscillations will lead to a couple of decades of cooling. If the sunspots leaving the visible spectrum means cooling, the earth may cool for a century or so. I hope that CO2’s radiative effect is powerful enough to prevent the social holocaust that will result, but I haven’t seen any evidence yet that the greenhouse effect from CO2 has such puissance..
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Indeed. Against all physics and sense, I hope that GHE is real. Then perhaps cranking up all the world’s coal-fired power plants to the max will offer some relief and protection.
But I doubt it.
Read the Smith 2008 paper in my SkS piece for treating a rotating Earth…
If you cannot state in two sentences what I should learn from these papers, why should I bother?
Sometimes learning requires more than reading two sentences. Perhaps this is the problem.
Thanks, Chris. You have saved me hours knowing I do not need bother reading more of your stuff.
He didn’t say he’d learn it from two sentences, he asked you to state in two sentences what he should learn. Talking past your correspondents is perhaps the problem.
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Actually, snarking past your correspondents is the problem. Wear it.
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Chris starters are snark hors d’oeuvrers along with his other recipes.
“If your Snark be a Snark, that is right:
Fetch it home by all means—you may serve it with greens,
And it’s handy for striking a light.
You may seek it with thimbles—and seek it with care;
You may hunt it with forks and hope;
You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
You may charm it with smiles and soap—”
From Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark”.
Those are what abstracts are for. Let´s try bullet points, if it´s still too tough let me know. I can condense it further.
–energy balance of a rotating Earth.
— Conclusion: you still need a greenhouse effect.
See, that wasn’t so bad. Not nearly as bad as closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.
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Dr. Curry, one of the things that I see bandied about on sceptic sites is the meme that real science should be able to predict something with regard to the subject that it is analyzing.
SOOOO, what predictions do Dr. Nasif or Dr. Potsma need to give this crowd so that we can then see if their ideas are any where near to reality?
They should be able to predict the average planetary surface temperatures for the two planets that have very thin atmospheres, Mars and Mercury. Then, with information about the optical depth of the atmosphere, they should try to predict the average surface temperature for the Earth and Venus (the Venusian case is not straightforward, but the other 3 planets are).
Sorry Dr. Curry, I wasn’t quite specific enough. By reading what I have so far in this post, your suggestions wou;d just lead to more arguments.
I was thinking more along the lines of “in five years according to my ideas, this should be occuring”
What should the “this” in the prediction be?
PS – I will try to be more precise when asking questions from now on.
:(
Leo, your point is relevant for the broader AGW issue. However, for the simple energy balance problem we are considering on this thread, we don’t need to predict the future, we just need to explain the basic planetary energy balances in the context of the observed planetary surface temperatures. This problem is rather simple, and Postma’s model is easily refuted by the tests I propose. Thanks for asking good questions :)
My “model” does exactly what you said: “explain the basic planetary energy balances”.
It is not even a model. It is a graphical representation of the actual, real, physically existing, boundary conditions and radiative envelopes. There’s no “test” to prove or disprove this because it is the only thing that can exist…unless the Earth really IS flat. The boundary conditions, or radiative envelopes, which are real and what actually physically exist, are different from what the standard model GHE describes. Therefore the standard model GHE can’t describe what actually exists. It is simple logic.
Simple logic would seem to dictate that you can isolate individual variables that aren’t sufficiently understood or modeled but yet do not significantly affect the overall estimates of energy balance.
As I see it, a “test” of whether those variables have significant impact would be to employ your methods of quantifying those variables and compare results when measuring “controls.”
But you seem to be ducking a challenge to prove or disprove your quantification of (what you claim are) physical realities. As an agnostic on the physics (due to an inability to understand the theoretical analysis being bandied about), it seems that here you are failing to analyze the full implications of your hypothesis.
Oh, no then. PLEASE go ahead and measure the actual insolation fluxes with solarimeters. Please do that! The implications of my hypothesis, that the solar insolation exists only instantaneously on one side of the planet. But that’s not actually a hypothesis…I think we all agree on that. That’s why I questioned the need to prove it :-)
Again – please excuse my ignorance – but as I read it, you are not simply hypothesizing a phenomenon, but you’re also hypothesizing that the phenomenon you describe has an overall, significant impact on global energy balance – to the extent that it negates the understanding of the vast majority of people who study the relevant physcial interactions. You are hypothesizing not only about a phenomenon, but about the degree of impact of that phenomenon. As such, it would seem that you would seek opportunities to use controls to measure that degree of impact.
I’ll bow out now. I have no real business in this exchange anyway. Just trying to get some understanding of the discussion.
That’s pretty good assessment Joshua, I’d buy that.
But to be technical, I would say that it is the boundary conditions of the system which are different. The energy balances per-se will all equal out, of course, because they have to, but the initial conditions of the actual power that comes in is different than what the standard model GHE says it is. Yes it does have a huge impact, that would be true. It is distinguishing “power” from “energy”.
Sorry Chris, but if your ‘crackpot meter’ is that close to ‘pegged’ it must be sitting right next to a world class crackpot. “An epiphany is a one-time, one-way event”, the opening line from my “Hoodwinked by Hoodlums” posted at Canada Free Press. There are NO Deniers who have turned to Warmists [without government funding]. Nearly every non-Warmist wanted to believe in the honesty of science. Warmists have proven our trust was misplaced. The truth is inconvenient, but days of “hiding declines” and “redefining peer review” are over.
That simply isn’t true – and the fact that you’d make such an unfounded categorical statement does not speak well to your approach to analysis. It would seem that political ideology is driving your perspective about the climate debate.
For a particularly notable example that you are wrong, check out the blogger Charles Johnson, of Little Green Footballs. Once the darling of the right wing, he’s now reviled by many “conservatives” for, among other things, the evolution in his perspective on climate change. If you read through the comments on his site, you will find that quite a few of his readers speak of evolving similarly in their views.
If you need links, I could dig some up for you – but a relatively simple use of The Google should do the trick.
Nonetheless, the flow is from belief to disbelief, and shocked disbelief at that.
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Winnowing again kim?
You do realize, don’t you, that when someone points out an inaccurately categorical statement, and you subsequently winnow that statement down, you are in effect simply acknowledging the point
Next time, save a few electrons, and simply write “Good point.”
Your point was correct, but trivial. My point is correct and non-trivial. Your point is less good than mine.
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Interesting that you think that it is trivial when someone states, with absolute certainty (using all caps no less), something to be true when it is abundantly obvious that the statement is, in fact, not true – and more than likely driven by an underlying political orientation.
And you further think it trivial when someone provides evidence of why a statement of “fact” is invalid.
Think about that for a minute, kim – and then go back to your analysis of the “rot” of climate science.
Anyway, FWIW – I think that when someone displays a disregard for facts, and draws inaccurately categorical conclusions in contrast to abundantly available evidence, it suggests that their overall analytical process might be suspect.
I will give you this much – you are a dogged winnower.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall…
Please explain. A bit too cryptic for someone of my limited intelligence.
Your point contradicted an unsupportable absolute. Trivially easy, and the result is a trivial bit of information. My point gives you an important clue to the dynamics of this conversation. Your point is valid(how could it not be?) but the rhetoric is beneath you. Picking obvious nits is showtime at the zoo.
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That it was easy is precisely why it was not trivial.
When someone overlooks obviously contradictory evidence, it speaks volumes.
At this point I’ll drop it as we will just have already stepped into the recursive dimension of blog arguments.
Basically, son, you’ve supported the general point by picking the nit of the absolute point. You’ve no answer for the general point that belief in CAGW is fading, and the ranks of skeptics rising. You apparently don’t sense very weak rhetorical meat when you find a sophistical nut you can bash open.
As nursemaid, you are fretting over a hangnail when the child is wracked with fever.
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Joshua is the better man than I, for discretion in dropping a argument.
In mathematics, the foundation of Physics, wherein this technical thread is grounded, proof by counterexample is a staple not to be dismissed.
The word ‘trivial’ too has contextual significance: a statement axiomatically true except for a single trivial case explicit in the statement retains th