Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In my recent post “Putting It Into Reverse” I discussed the relationship between temperature and total surface radiation absorbed. By “total surface radiation absorbed”, I mean the total of the downwelling longwave radiation from the clouds and the atmosphere, plus downwelling sunlight at the surface, minus the upwelling reflected sunlight.
Here’s a graphic from that post. If you haven’t read it yet, you might do so as an intro to this post. Not necessary, however, as this one stands on its own.
Original Caption: Figure 1: Gridcell by gridcell correlation of surface absorbed radiation (shortwave + longwave) and surface temperature. Gridcells are 1° latitude by 1° longitude.
I focus in this post on the radiation balance at the surface—how much radiation is absorbed versus how much is emitted. I’ve done this because it is a very simple and transparent part of the whole. There are no intermediate steps—the surface absorbs radiation, it warms, and it emits radiation.
According to the CERES satellite data, as a 24/7 global average, upwelling (headed to space) thermal radiation from the surface is just under 400 watts per square meter (W/m2). Downwelling (headed to earth) thermal radiation from the clouds/atmosphere absorbed by the surface is about 345 W/m2. And net solar (surface downwelling less surface reflected) energy absorbed by the surface is just under 165 W/m2.
This gives a global 24/7 average of just over 500 W/m2, about half a kilowatt/m2, of radiation absorbed by the surface.
But only about 400 W/m2 are radiated away. What about the other 100 W/m2 of absorbed energy?
Well, first, something on the order of three-quarters of that energy is used to evaporate water from the surface. It’s called “latent heat”. This, of course, leaves the surface cooler than it would otherwise be if there were no latent heat loss.
The other quarter is lost via conduction to the atmosphere and subsequent convection away from the surface. It’s called “sensible heat”. This also leaves the surface cooler than it would be without sensible heat loss.
Here is a scatterplot showing the relationship and the trend of upwelling emitted surface radiation with respect to absorbed downwelling radiation.
Figure 2. Scatterplot, where each dot is a month. For each month, the bottom “X” scale shows radiation absorbed that month, and the vertical “Y” scale shows the radiation emitted in that same month. The seasonal swings have been removed from the data in all graphics.
Figure 2 shows that for each watt per square meter absorbed, only three-quarters of a watt per square meter is emitted as upwelling radiation from the surface. The rest goes to sensible and latent heat loss. (Yes, there is a tiny residual term, less than 1/2%, of energy from/to storage, mainly in the ocean. However, because it is so small, it is typically ignored in this type of first-order analysis.)
So … why is any of this of interest?
Well, back around 1880 a couple of very smart guys named Joseph Stefan and Ludwig Boltzmann figured out that there is a mathematical relationship between the temperature of an object and its thermal radiation. The relationship is given by the “Stefan-Boltzmann Law”. Using that law, if you know the radiation, you can calculate the temperature and vice versa. Figure 3 shows the same data as in Figure 2, but this time I’ve used the Stefan-Boltzmann Law to convert the upwelling surface radiation shown in Figure 2 to temperature. So in Figure 3, the vertical “Y” axis is in degrees Celsius.
Figure 3. Scatterplot, where each dot is a month. For each month, the bottom “X” scale shows radiation absorbed that month, and the vertical “Y” scale shows the temperature of that same month.
What this says is that because only part of the absorbed radiation turns into upwelling surface longwave emission (AKA temperature), it takes almost 7 watts per square meter of extra energy to raise the earth’s surface temperature by 1°C.
And that’s a lot. A doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels is said to increase downwelling radiation by 3.7 W/m2. So if that extra energy to raise temperatures by 1°C comes solely from increased CO2, it would be almost two doublings from our present level of 410 ppmv of CO2. The CO2 level would have to be ~ 1,500 ppmv to get a 1°C rise from the present temperature.
Here’s a graph showing how the surface temperature and the absorbed radiation at the surface are closely related.
Figure 4. Absorbed total radiation at the surface (blue, right scale) versus temperature (red, left scale). Total radiation is the sum of the downwelling longwave (thermal) radiation from the atmosphere, plus the shortwave (solar) radiation. Also shown are the theoretical forcing increase due to CO2 over the period (yellow/black line), and the trend of total radiation absorbed (dashed cyan/black line). Dashed black line is horizontal, showing what would happen with no increase in surface absorbed radiation.
Clearly, much more than CO2 is at play … I’ll leave this all here for further contemplation and discussion.
Evening now, dinner is over here on the hillside. Three generations live here in a rambling house I built with my own hands. We eat together every night. My gorgeous ex-fiancee and I make our dinner. Our daughter makes dinner for her husband and two kids, a 3-year-old girl and a 10-month-old boy. Works perfectly, we all get to eat together and I’d starve on what they eat …
Here’s my ex-fiancee at this very moment as seen from my window, tending her beloved garden …
With the hope that your lives contain joy, laughter, family, friends, and true sweethearts, I remain,
Yr. Obt. Svt.,
w.
Math Note 01: As is common in the field, I’ve used an emissivity of 1.0 to convert radiation to temperature. I could refine that, but a) Earth’s emissivity is quite high, on the order of 0.95 or greater, and b) changing the emissivity changes the absolute values, but it makes very, very little difference to the trends of interest.
Math Note 02: Because there is uncertainty in the “X” axis values (total radiation absorbed) in Figures 2 and 3, I’ve used Deming Regression to determine the correct trend, rather than Ordinary Least Squares Regression which underestimates the trend when there is uncertainty. And if you don’t know what Deming Regression is, don’t worry—most folks don’t know either, including most climate scientists.
My Note: When you comment, please quote the exact words you are responding to. This avoids many misunderstandings. It is also the only way to refute someone’s idea.
Willis – beautifully expressed – as always – though the maths of it are a little beyond someone who studied the arts,
Thank you atticman. Your uncle, Willis, will be proud of you.
I guess you are not yet a member of the Willie E. fan club?
The difference is likely green, as in plant life capturing the energy and greening the planet…future coal in the making…
One, I do not accept a 4 watt per square meter increase in down welling IR from doubling CO2.
1. 90% of down welling IR comes from the lowest 100 meters.
2. I want to see a real calculation of emmisivity for a N2 gas with 400 ppm CO2. It needs to cover 1 atm to .01 atm to show real picture.
3. The calculation needs to account for the mixed gas in thermodynamic equilibrium and show the CO2 self emission time constants. It’s like a second maybe from laser design parameters.
Do not quote the mantra that emissivity equals absorbtivity.
If you do not have quantum electro dynamic time constants and the inter gas collision time constants, you have nothing.
Any idea what modtran uses for emisivity numbers?
Sorry, this subject irratates
DT, your comment irritates me. Had you bothered to look with respect to MODTRAN, you would have found lots and lots of on line documentation. I just looked. MODTRAN allows you to set emissivity depending on your calculation interests—ocean, jungle, desert, Arctic ice— and defaults to higher than 0.95 globally since Earth general emissivity is mostly governed by ocean water, ice, and 65% white topped cloud. (for WUWTers, emissivity is a dimensionless number between 0 and 1. 1 means the radiation emitted is exactly equal to the theoretical Stefan/Boltzmann black body radiation result. Anything less than 1 is a ‘grey body’.)
Since you didn’t bother to look that simple MODTRAN thing up, I tend to pay no attention to the rest of your plaint.
1. 90% of down welling IR comes from the lowest 100 meters.?
My impression , 10-30 meters maybe a lot shorter of atmosphere at the surface fully absorbs all absorbable IR hence most downwelling should occur only from that level, whatever it is, not the 100 metres quoted
One of the advantages of having done this for a while is that if I can find it, I have already made the relevant graphic for lots of stuff. Case in point:
From that, about 73% is from the lowest 100 meters, and about 80% is from the first 200 meters.
w.
DLR is measured by pyrgeometers. Which uses a thermopiles as sensors. Thermopiles can´t measure incoming radiation when directed towards lower temperature than itself. In the case of being directed towards a lower temperature than the instrument has, it only measures the rate of heat transfer FROM the instrument. Then it calculates the emissive power of the atmosphere from ΔT, and infers this as the amount of DLR. Which of course is incorrect.
A pyrgeometer only have a range of 25m into the atmosphere.
This is how they rape the SB-equation:
T1=surface
T2=atmosphere
DLR=σ(T2^4-T1^4)+T1^4
This is not how the SB-equation should be used. And it´s clear that the only heat transfer in there is from surface to atmosphere.
Here, look for yourself. Under downloads, instruction sheet.
CGR 3 Pyrgeometer – Kipp & Zonen (kippzonen.com)
Why do you not know how the instruments work when you refer to the data that they produce?
BTW, your graph shows absorption. Not DLR and they´re not equivalent. A bucket of ice will absorb lots of heat from you if you stick your hand in it, but it doesn´t emit the same amount. You can´t infer emission from absorption. They´re only related through the internal state of the emitter. The emission from a body is determined by the internal state only, this is Prevost´s conclusion that Planck agrees with in his book “the Theory of heat radiation”.
Absorption and emission are not cause and effect, they are only related to each other via the internal state of the emitter. The temperature of the emitter determines the rate of absorption and the rate of emission. Absorption doesn´t determine temperature and emission.
Contrary to what Lit writes, thermopiles can measure incoming radiation accurately when viewing lower temperatures than itself since my room temperature ~$30 IR thermometer measures a lab glass of ice water reliably at 32F & boiling water in tea kettle nearby reliably at 212F.
Also contrary to what Lit writes, a bucket of ice absorbs, reflects and transmits EMR not heat. EMR is not heat.
Correct—he is lying about the pyrgeometer equation.
He’s not lying. How do you think the pyrgeometer folks show hundreds of W/m2 of nonexistent DWLWIR? They make it up… by “raping” the S-B equation, as Lit said. They convert ambient temperature to W/m2, which is invalid.
I posted the equation below—the dome and body temperatures are only used for corrections. A thermopile is not a thermometer.
And the temperatures are converted to irradiance with the instrument calibration constants. I fail to see how this is invalid.
Is the room you refer to less than 25 metres long?
Also contrary to what Lit writes, a bucket of ice absorbs, reflects and transmits EMR not heat. EMR is not heat.
You knew what he meant. Heat is the transfer of internal energy from a warmer object to a cooler object. Absorbs heat is just a short way of saying it.
Trick, your counterexample does not contradict anything Lit wrote. Your thermopile can measure *outgoing* radiation (energy flow, i.e. heat) when the target is colder than the thermopile. Nothing in the laws of physics prevents that.
Steve, what I wrote does directly contradict what Lit wrote viz.: “Thermopiles can´t measure incoming radiation when directed towards lower temperature than itself.”
Lit should have actually done the experiment I conducted to learn from it.
And my statement EMR is not heat contradicts what Steve wrote: “*outgoing* radiation (“energy flow, i.e. heat)”. Steve is also contradicted writing “nonexistent DWLWIR” because all matter radiates, at all real temperatures, at all freq.s & our atm. is made up of matter. The SURFRAD instruments really are calibrated with LWIR from a known BB radiation source.
Leitmotif 12:17 pm is contradicted by what Clausius writes on the defn. of heat.
You 3 all demonstrate some much needed catching up on basic atm. radiation principles.
Leitmotif 12:17 pm is contradicted by what Clausius writes on the defn. of heat.
No I didn’t, numpty..
Trick, your IR thermometer does not measure incoming radiation from a colder object. It measures outgoing radiation.
You are right that I should have been more careful in my phrasing “outgoing radiation (energy flow, i.e. heat)”. Your thermometer is in this case measuring all those three things, and they happen to line up in the same direction, but they are not necessarily the same, and my phrasing probably didn’t make that very clear. EMR is indeed not heat. But I wrote it in parentheses not intending to make it sound like the same concept, but to emphasize that it was only measurable because there was energy flow involved, and not just radiation.
I also should be more careful with my phrase “nonexistent DWLWIR” because you are right, it is not nonexistent, but it has no power in it. So I should probably replace this phrase with “equilibrium photon gas”, to make it clear that there is radiation but no Watts.
according to this interaction with William Happer
http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/Another_question.html
“after a CO2 (or H2O) molecule absorbs a 15 micron IR photon, about 99.9999999% of the time it will give up its energy by collision with another gas molecule”
which means no downwelling radiation from that CO2 or H2O molecule. It has heated the atmosphere; it does not radiate back to the surface.
Just what that means in terms of how much actual downwhelling radiation there may be from the remaining 0.00000001% that does re-radiate, I do not know.
This is probably the reason why the OLR-spectrum looks the way it does. With a large “bite” at co2 wavelengths. The intensity of radiation is below the curve, and co2 clearly reduces that massively. So, co2 absorbs a lot of heat but dumps it to nearby cold molecules which leads to a massive net cooling effect.
Willis stated that 3.7 watts per square metre is “said” to come from downwelling radiation from a doubling of CO2. He may be hedging his bets or he may like William Happer believe that radiation absorbed by CO2 is not re-emitted but converted to increased kinetic energy shared amongst surrounding molecules.
Yes, the absorbed IR is thermalized. To understand how much is radiated in a N2/CO2 mixture you need to understand and know the CO2 self emmision time constants along with the thermal collision time constants. Calling(equating) a sparse gas mixture like this to a black body is realy a stretch.
The 3.7 watts has been around a long time with no good justification.
Then the resulting IR path length is a another story.
You shouldn´t accept any downwelling radiation from the atmosphere. DLR is measured by a pyrgeometer. Pyrgeometers use a thermopile as sensor. Thermopiles can´t measure any radiation coming from lower temperature than the ambient it sits in. It only measures the rate of heat transfer FROM the device when directed towards lower temperature. The atmosphere is always lower temperature than the surface.
Heat is defined as the energy in transfer from high to low temperature, which means no heat can be transferred from low to high T. The first law (ΔU=Q-W) says that internal energy only can increase from heat or work. The GHE isn´t heat and it doesn´t claim to warm by work. The GHE breaks the first law.
Lit, in 1LOT: Q is a rate of heating like W is a rate of working both of which contribute to the delta U per unit time. The GHE thus does not break the first law as you claim.
The GHE isn´t heat and it doesn´t claim to warm by work. The GHE breaks the first law.
Exactly.
Willis appears to be making an error of confusing energy flux and energy. The sentence:
“What this says is that because only part of the absorbed radiation turns into upwelling surface longwave emission (AKA temperature), it takes almost 7 watts per square meter of extra energy to raise the earth’s surface temperature by 1°C.”
is one example. W/m^2 is the measure of energy flux not energy. While in fact any increase in energy flux will raise the surface temperature by 1 degree if you wait long enough.
What the CERES data that Willis is presenting appears to say is that if you sum the energy flux over a month then for every extra 7 W a square metre of land receives it will be on average 1 degree warmer.
Now globally the energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere is much less than 7 Watts so you would expect by this argument that the temperature rise would be a lot slower which in fact it is. But you can’t use it to estimate the temperature change caused by an increase in CO2.
Izaak, you’re right. It’s an energy flux. I often leave the word out. However, that doesn’t change my point. It takes an ongoing increase in surface absorption of ~ 7 W/m2 to raise surface temperature by 1°C.
Next, you say:
Sorry, but that’s simply not true.
The increase in energy flux will only warm the surface to the point where the increase in surface emission due to the warming (a flux) plus any increase in sensible/latent heat loss (also a flux) is equal to the increase in incoming absorbed energy. Flux.
Once they balance, the surface will not warm further. And for an additional 1 W/m2, it will warm by ~0.15°C and no further, no matter how long you wait.
w.
Willis,
You wrote, “It takes an ongoing increase in surface absorption of ~ 7 W/m2 to raise surface temperature by 1°C.”
The Planck feedback calculated from the S-B equation is actually about 3.76 W/m^2/K.
Read his article again – he shows you why on Planet Earth takes 7 W to get that degree…. look at the slope of the graph.
He did not show that. He claimed that, but his graph is off by about a factor of 2. If you use the earth’s effective radiating temperature, you get 3.76 W/m^2. If you use current emissivity for the atmosphere and current temperature, you get about 3.3 W/m^2. I’m using the 3.76 figure since it’s based on differentiating the S-B equation, and that’s what he used to generate his graph. It’s called the Planck feedback, and my numbers are correct.
Izaak, you say:
I didn’t do that. I said that IF the ~7 W/m2 were to come from increased CO2, it would take the concentration increasing to 1,500 ppmv for it to happen.
w.
Not to mention that the real absorbing and emitting surface of the planet is orders of magnitude higher than the factoid area of 510 million smoooth sq km. The area for SW absorption is lower than the surface for LW absorption/emission as well. Ergo, the entire back radiation hypothesis (+33) is built on a foundation of nonsense.
What on earth does this have to do with my post? Nothing in my post depends on those issues.
w.
I went back reread the paragraph under figure 3 and you’re right sorry.
I think all our efforts should be to DIRECTLY discredit the “science” used by IPCC folks to arrive at their temperatures
Each IPCC item should be dismantled to prove the Emperor has no arguments, and then ridicule their results.
Why are balloon and satellite measurements so much less than computerized hokus-pokus?
“ Each IPCC item should be dismantled to prove the Emperor has no arguments” and were that done, it would make no difference. The “settled science” of climatastrophy is already little more than a failed hypothesis. But until legacy media and big tech focus on science instead of science propagandists, “the world will end in x years” narrative will win out.
Ergo, the entire back radiation hypothesis (+33) is built on a foundation of nonsense.
Not in Willis World. Barbecues in Antarctica. Skiing holidays at the North Pole. Beachfront properties in Greenland.
You heard it here first. Book now to avoid disappointment.
Pass, leitmotif. At this point, the First Rule Of Pig Wrestling comes into play for me.
Please feel free to whine at someone else.
w.
Oh a repeat post WIllis?
(Snipped the personal attack)
(Stop being a troll!) SUNMOD!
Beastiality on your mind much?
Let’s compare notes.
Willis is snipping.
I win!!!!!
(Stop trolling the thread, and I am the one who deleted your personal attack on Willis you were a LOSER for doing it!) SUNMOD
I haven’t snipped a jot or a tittle of this thread. Not one word, not one punctuation mark. Leitmotif is either lying or jumping to false conclusions. Your choice.
w.
You’ve snipped me before. Now you just get someone else to do it. Cancel culture is alive and kicking.
Get them to put it back if you are not guilty.
You are FAR too unimportant for me to snip, either directly or by remote control. I had exactly zero to do with you getting snipped. A moderator did it, and stated the reasons.
You are mistaking your self-importance for importance to me.
w.
You are mistaking your self-importance for importance to me.
Says the guy who preaches sophistry on WUWT and god knows where else.
You have a sphere at -20C. You surround it by a shell and its temperature rises to 29C.
Can you not see how stupid that is?
You are worse than Al Gore.
Just a question for lukewarmists on WUWT as I experience huge downvotes.
Are you interested in evidence or are you interested in consensus of opinion on WUWT? I think most of you depend on anthropogenic warming to be part of your annual salary.
I only ask because I thought this was a sceptic website.
My downvotes equal griff’s who is a warmist.
Maybe you should drop the ad hominem content and stick with the discussion
Dose that intend to say that the altitude is lower of that the area is smaller?
No, I’m saying the real surface of the planet consists of plants, mountains, cliffs, waves, etc. That means the true radiative surface of the planet is far more than idealizing Earth as a perfectly smooth ball.
When using the S-B Law, you use surface area, and many climate scientists start their entire hypothesis with the idea that the atmosphere warms the surface, with IR light alone, by 33 C – estimated using the S-B equation and the idea that Earth is smooth.
Energy is defined as a quantity that can do work or transfer heat. Heat is defined as the energy in transfer from high T to low T. The atmosphere is colder than the surface, hence, it cannot transfer any energy to the surface.
“If two bodies at different temperatures are brought together, energy is transferred—i.e., heat flows—from the hotter body to the colder.”
heat | Definition & Facts | Britannica
“energy, in physics, the capacity for doing work. It may exist in potential, kinetic, thermal, electrical, chemical, nuclear, or other various forms. There are, moreover, heat and work—i.e., energy in the process of transfer from one body to another. “
energy | Definition, Types, Examples, & Facts | Britannica
I and many others have been trying to point this out to Willis for years, to no avail. Indeed, in his previous posting on this topic, he went so far as to say (paraphrased) “When I refer to DWLWIR, of course I mean the solar-originating radiation. Everyone knows that’s what I meant.” Yet in every other posting on the topic, he talks about DWLWIR originating in the atmosphere, as he does here. “Downwelling (headed to earth) thermal radiation from the clouds/atmosphere absorbed by the surface is about 345 W/m2”
When you point this out to him, he points to the SURFRAD graphs and says “See!” Those, of course, are “adjusted”, like everything else in climate science, to make a (fake) point. But Willis’ grasp of physics is nowhere near adequate to spot the fake adjustment. What the SURFRAD stations do is to start by measuring the actual energy transfer (always a negative number at night, when using a “downwelling” frame of reference, so in other words the actual energy transfer is upward, from hot to cold, as expected), and then they add several hundred (!) W/m2 derived from converting the ambient temperature to a blackbody radiation quantity, under the assumption that the ambient air is transferring energy to a receiving surface at absolute zero. It isn’t, so of course you can’t do that, but that doesn’t stop them, and undereducated folks like Willis can’t spot the deception.
Steve, there is no such assumption that the ambient air is transferring energy to a receiving surface at absolute zero. The SURFRAD instruments are routinely calibrated to black body radiation emitted at known thermometer temperatures.
They are indeed calibrated, and can accurately measure the energy transferred in or out. But that’s not what they show in their SURFRAD graphs. They add the ambient temperature (in W/m2!) first, which is an invalid operation.
Steve, SURFRAD does not incorrectly add the ambient temperature (in W/m2!) first or downwelling solar would not show 0 W/m^2 at night after twilight ends.
You may be confused in that instead of two opposing thermopiles, to save cost & get same results, the instruments in the field use a thermometer and known case emissivity just like when they are calibrated to a BB radiation known source.
They are not adding anything to their short-wave measurements, as far as I can tell, so that plot shows 0 at night. But the long-wave measurements are not 0 at night, they are upwards of 300 W/m2, even though the thermopile records a negative number. The difference is derived from the case temperature thermometer and the known case emissivity, via the S-B equation, incorrectly, because you cannot use S-B to convert ambient temperature to W/m2.
More nonsense.
The LW at night incident on surface is not zero Steve, as the atm. still radiates at night. The instruments measure correctly because they are calibrated to known LW BB radiation source. My IR thermometer correctly measures 32F for ice water in my room temperature kitchen as it is similarly calibrated.
You seem to be confused (as are Monte and Willis) about the difference between temperature, energy, radiation, heat, and power. These are not all the same. The SURFRAD pyrgeometers are not IR thermometers, although they operate on a similar principle. But one reports power and the other reports temperature, so you can’t directly compare them. But of course you knew that.
The SURFRAD pyrgeometers measure actual power transfer first, correctly, which at night gives you a negative measurement (since they are facing upwards towards a colder sky). Try it yourself if you don’t believe me. But, and here is the “Trick”, Trick, they then add another number to this measurement. How do they get this other number? They plug the ambient temperature into the S-B equation, with the reference temperature set to absolute 0. The equation is sigma * T^4. Why do they do this? Well, who knows? They certainly don’t, and neither do any of you three. It is, of course, totally illegal to convert ambient temperature to power. Any first-year physics student can tell you that, after they stop laughing of course. Well, except Willis, I guess first year physics was a long time ago for him and he’s probably forgotten.
Here is an analogy to try to help you understand what’s gone wrong: confusing ambient temperature with power is exactly the same error as confusing the amount of water in your bucket with the rate at which it is flowing out of the hole in the bottom. Except, there isn’t even a hole in the bottom in this case. They’ve made an imaginary hole and are pretending that the water is flowing out at an enormous rate. It isn’t.
Monte keeps trying to argue that they aren’t in fact converting ambient temperature to power, but he’s got no clue why he says that, because he’s just making it up. The conversion is right there in the equation that he posted, as I repeated above.
Yes, the atmosphere radiates at night… but there is no power in it… remember not to confuse these two terms!
Lit : “……. If two bodies at different temperatures are brought together, energy is transferred—i.e., heat flows—from the hotter body to the colder….”
Yes, as in thermal conduction, or convection, heat transfer is proportional to the temperature difference. Less heat will be transferred if Th is decreased or Tc is increased :
Heat transfer = k*(Th – Tc) [W/m^2]
Or if we have to maintain the heat transfer when the Tc is increased, then the Th has to be increased.
Also for thermal radiation there will be less heat transfered if Tc is increased :
Heat transfer = sigma*(Th^4 – Tc^4) [W/m^2]
sigma = 5,67*10^-8 [W/m^2/K^0,25]
Or as per Willis’ example,
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/30/surface-radiation-absorption-and-emission/#comment-3589982
the 235 W/m^2 nuclear power has to be transfered from
a) the “naked” planet, at close to -20 °C, to the space
or
b) the shielded planet, at close to +29 °C, to the shield. The shield is, at close to -20 °C, transferring 235 W/m^2 to the space and to the planet. 470 W/m^2 in all as achieved from the planet.
Inserting another shield will further increase the planet temperature. The outermost shield will, though, be at close to -20 °C.
Like “back radiation” we can in principle say “back conduction” and “back convection”.
Kind regards
Anders Rasmusson
First
” …./K^0,25]…”
to be replaced by
” …./K^4]…”
Second
With two shields surrounding the planet it still has to transfer net 235 W/m^2, now to the inner shield at +29 °C. The temperature of the planet :
Th = (235/(5,67*10^-8) + (273+29)^4)^0,25 = 334 K or 61 °C
Kind regards
Anders Rasmusson
How is downwelling LW determined?
By Willis.
In Climate phiisics the atmosphere is an enormous power creator from nothing. It averages 160W/m^2 or roughly 80E15W in total.
To put that enoprmpous power generator into perspective, it is 40 times all human energy consumption.
“In Climate physics the atmosphere is an enormous power creator from nothing. It averages 160W/m^2 or roughly 80E15W in total.”
–
Sorry Rick but there is no “power from nothing” component there.
Thermodynamics deals with energy and matter that already exists [cannot be created or destroyed].
When you introduce free energy or power generation you are misapplying physics.
Energy generation de novo does occur from nuclear power sources, the sun, earth core etc but do not apply to the concept of physics being discussed.
Think of it as the atmosphere has 160W/m^2 going through it and ask yourself why and from where.
Not oh good we have a battery storing energy for as long as we like and releasing it whenever we need an answer.
You missed the spelling. “phiisics’
You are not making the distinction between observed physics and climate phiisics. As Willis clearly shows, the atmosphere is amplifying 340W/m^2 EMR potential power flux from the sun to 500W/m^2 at the surface. This is climate phiisics. They have their own “laws”. That is how they arrive at the outlandinsh proposition that a tiny fraction of CO2 in the atmosphere can alter the surface temperature.
Rick, here is the graphic from my post “The Steel Greenhouse“. Read (or re-read) the post if this is not clear.
Note that all parts of the system are in energy balance (steady-state).
The sphere receives 235 W/m2 from the interior and 235 W/m2 longwave radiation from the sphere. In turn it radiates the total of that, 470 W/m2. Energy balanced.
The shell receives 470 W/m2 from the sphere. However, it has twice the surface area as the sphere, so it radiates half that amount, 235 W/m2 inwards and 235 W/m2 outwards. Energy balanced.
The nuclear core puts out 235 W/m2. The system (planet + sphere) radiates 235 W/m2. Energy balanced.
Please explain exactly what part of that diagram contravenes exactly which physical laws. Show your math.
Regards,
w.
If the core is at 29C and there is no matter to absorb energy then the steel shell will reach 29C and radiate at 470W/m^2. That is how it will be. There is no matter to prevent thermal equilibrium.
Placing any matter between the reactor and the shell will inevitably result in a temperature difference between the reactor and shell. So an insulator with thermal resistance of 235W/29K will result in the system equilibrating with reactor at 29C and the surface at -20C. No back radiation involved just insulating will or whatever you like..
The insulation could be transparent and you could place one of the back radiation calibrated temperature probes at the shell and it would indicate 235W/m^2 but that is nonsense because the energy is only going one way.
As soon as you introduce matter, you can throw away any simple radiation equation. The simple S-B relationship only apply where all other forms of heat transfer are negligible. That only occurs at the top of the atmosphere. (Unless you are using climate phiisics)
The attached shows the numbers that I determined for a moored buoy over a 17 day period when it was in a warm pool. The only place where S-B is applicable is at the top of the column. All the heat transport away from the surface was via evaporation. (I know that because all OLR from warm pools contributes to precipitation so is released well up in the column) There was also some cooling from rainfall as part of the surface flux.
Replacing all that is going on in the atmospheric column with some fudge called back-radiation is just nonsense. It is the reason climate phiisics is so screwed.
I have referred you to a lecture given by Michael Mishchenko before he passed away down the thread.
The sphere receives 235 W/m2 from the interior and 235 W/m2 longwave radiation from the sphere. In turn it radiates the total of that, 470 W/m2. Energy balanced.
Utter rubbish. Hang your head in shame.
Gotta love this kind of rebuttal of what I said, so full of logic, observations, facts, and conclusions.
w.
GIGO Willis. It speaks for itself.
You have a sphere at about -20C. You put a shell around it and its temperature goes up to about 29C.
Can’t you see how ridiculous that sounds?
There is no logic to it, no observations were performed, no facts were produced and surprise, surprise no conclusions were reached.
I was going to ask if you are stupid but I don’t think I need to. 🙁
“””The sphere receives 235 W/m2 from the interior and 235 W/m2 longwave radiation from the sphere. In turn it radiates the total of that, 470 W/m2. Energy balanced.”””
This is the statement I disagree with. The fluxes do not add. This would be a perpetual heat energy creating machine. Ask yourself why 470 isn’t absorbed by the sphere and sent back so you now have 705 and on and on. Planck refers to the process as “compensation” where absorbed radiation by a hot body is immediately emitted as part of its own radiation thereby slowing cooling. It is what allows thermodynamic equilibrium to exist. That is what you should have here.
You need to read Planck’s “Theory of Heat Radiation”. The sections on entropy are enlightening. Here are some references.
“”93 …Any change in the energy distribution consists of a passage of energy from one monochromatic radiation into another, and, if the temperature of the first radiation is higher, the energy transformation causes an increase of the total entropy and is hence possible in nature without compensation; on the other hand, if the temperature of the second radiation is higher, the total entropy decreases and therefore the change is impossible in nature, unless compensation occurs simultaneously, just as is the case with the transfer of heat between two bodies of different temperatures.””
“”102 …On the other hand for T i = 0, the increase in entropy is only equal to “(ac/12)T^3″ , i.e., the emission of a black body of temperature T without simultaneous absorption of heat radiation is irreversible without compensation, but can be reversed by a compensation of at least the stated finite amount. For example, if we let the rays emitted by the body fall back on it, say by suitable reflection, the body, while again absorbing these rays, will necessarily be at the same time emitting new rays, and this is the compensation required by the second principle. Generally we may say: Emission without simultaneous absorption is irreversible, while the opposite process, absorption without emission, is impossible in nature.””
“”185 …According to (141) and Sec. 182 this pencil conveys the entropy (345) to the system of oscillators in the time dt, where the function L(K) is given by (278). Hence this amount of entropy is taken from the field of radiation on the side of the rays arriving within dΩ. In compensation a pencil starts from the system on the other side in the same direction (θ, φ) within dΩ having the components Kii and Kiii with the azimuth of vibration and 0 respectively, …””
Jim Gorman August 31, 2022 8:08 am
Jim, it seems to have escaped you that when 470 W/m2 is sent to the shell, the surface area of the shell is twice that of the sphere.
The shell emits what it is absorbing, so it sends 235 W/m2 to space and 235 W/m2 back to the sphere. This is the same total amount that it is absorbing, viz:
235 * (2 * sphere area) = 470 * (sphere area)
As to why it doesn’t continue to warm, if the shell’s radiation exceeds 235 W/m2, the whole system is then losing more energy than it is receiving from the nuclear core. As a result, perforce it must cool rather than warm.
Finally, why do you incorrectly claim that “the fluxes do not add”? That’s like standing between two infrared heaters and claiming that only one of them is warming you. Of course the fluxes add, that’s the nature of energy.
w.
You didn’t read what I wrote and gave you references to. Bodies radiate in all directions at once. Your source emits at 235 W/m^2 in all directions. Every point on your shell is receiving that energy. Likewise, the shell radiates in all directions and the source receives that energy too.
Meanwhile, your calculation of 2 times the original radiance doesn’t work that way. This radiation calculation is done using steradians. Think of a cone and how it grows as you make it longer and longer. The sphere, since it is larger, still only receives what was radiated because you don’t “create” more steradians.
https://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/steradian.html
You didn’t explain where the 470 that hits the shell goes. If fluxes add at the source, then they add here too. This is why Planck describes the issue of compensation.
You said, “As to why it doesn’t continue to warm, if the shell’s radiation exceeds 235 W/m2, the whole system is then losing more energy than it is receiving from the nuclear core. As a result, perforce it must cool rather than warm.”
I’m sorry but this doesn’t compute. The source is constant, that is, constantly emitting 235. The extra 235 you say occurs doesn’t just disappear when it hits the shell. The source doesn’t cool if the shell radiates more than 235. In fact it would warm. The only way for the shell to cool is to radiate more, i.e., shed the additional 235, for a total of 470. But that means if you add it to the source, it now radiates 940.
I think you need to reconsider how equilibrium occurs.
Read what Rick is saying too.
Jim Gorman August 31, 2022 10:55 am
True.
Jim, I clearly stated and emphasized the following:
Note that the distance from the shell to the planet is greatly exaggerated. In reality, it is close enough to the planet that the difference in the areas can be neglected in practice.
Call the distance from the sphere to the shell a half inch, a cm. It’s a vacuum, so the distance makes no difference. You’re correct that it’s stereradians, but with the two surfaces that close the error by ignoring stereradians is too small to care about.
I thought I was clear, but clearly not. At steady-state, the shell absorbs 470 w/m2. It radiates the same, half inwards and half outwards.
Perhaps it might be clearer if you imagined the surface of the sphere to be one square meter. The surface of one side of the shell (separated from the sphere by 0.1 mm of vacuum) is trivially different for our purposes, we’ll call it 1 square meter as well.
But the shell has two sides.
With one square meter sphere surface, that we can see that at steady-state the sphere radiates 470 watts, the shell absorbs 470 watts, and radiates 235 watts from each of the two sides.
w.
“I thought I was clear, but clearly not. At steady-state, the shell absorbs 470 w/m2. It radiates the same, half inwards and half outwards.”
That isn’t how it works. Rabbit’s green/blue plate explanation had the same flaw.
Radiation is not divided by the number of surfaces. It is generated internally and is radiated in all directions equally.
Here is some info from Planck.
If you need more from Planck let me know.
This would be a perpetual heat energy creating machine. Ask yourself why 470 isn’t absorbed by the sphere and sent back so you now have 705 and on and on.
This was pointed out by astrophysicist, Joseph Postma in 2013. Seems like Willis has not taken the criticism on board.
Jim, in the “Steel Greenhouse” article Willis says that the shell is several thousand meters away from the sphere. This automatically causes A1F1 to not equal A2 F2. The shell area is 2x + x^2 more square meters. So the temperature must be lower. No heat will go from the shell to the sphere. No balance.
It’s a thought experiment with no thought and no experiment.
Every time I am downvoted by Willis groupies it reinforces my determination.
Truth will out.
You need to bone up on steradians. Concentric shells will intercept all the energy from the preceding one. Think of a cone intercepting several shells. If the cone begins at the inside, as you move outward each shell will have a larger and larger area intercepted by the cone.
Wait a minute: how do we suddenly get 470 W/m2 when the energy source was only 235 W/m2? Creating energy out of nothing? There’s an extra 235 W/m2 in there that came from nowhere.
Willis I am a bit confused. For the core and shell to both radiate at 235 w/m2, they must have the same temperature. Once the shell and the core reach the same temperature, doesn’t the energy flux go to zero? In your diagram, the equilibrium is with the core much hotter than the shell, which is why you show it radiating at 470. This doesn’t seem like an equilibrium to me.
The core and shell are not both radiating at 235 W/m2. The core is radiating at 470 W/m2.
Also, the system is at steady-state, not equilibrium.
Regards,
w.
The atmosphere is a thermal capacitor.
Good question, Robert. See here for the full discussion.
w.
Thanks.
“The downward longwave irradiance emitted by the atmosphere is primarily sensitive to near-surface temperature and the amount of water vapor as well as cloud fraction and base height in the atmosphere.”
Interesting, nothing about CO2.
It’s also interesting to note that the error on down LW is +/- 6 W/m2 – which you just showed almost comes to a whole degree. The cloud research funding must have gone to green energy scams instead.
Hmmm.. according to the paper the error rate in the calculations of the combined SW+ LW is 8 w/m2. If Co2 is doubled, could we even detect the signal in the measures we use?
How did you adjust for your 1 degree grid overweighting by area at the poles?
ALL of my calculations (average temperature, downwelling solar, reflected solar, and the rest) are area-weighted based on the gridcell areas to adjust for that very question.
w.
Thank you. It wasn’t clear from these series of posts. I am always inclined to accept your data based on the long history of your excellent use of the scientific method.
Only tangentially related but I put out that we souldn’t care about anything within 15 degrees from either pole for the purposes of most global climate discussions. IMHO those regions are every bit as much boundary constraints as the never to be settled boundary of atmosphere.
Kindest regards and sincere respects.
You can’t average temperature, it is an intensive property of materials or systems.
Wrong again Willis. Sigh.
> You can’t average temperature, it is an intensive property of materials or systems.
EVERY nice place to live on the planet boasts about their average temperature. Every.single.one.
So?
Three things.
One, you are factually wrong. You can indeed average tempertures.
Two, average temperatures provide useful information.
Three, you are more concerned with derailing civil discourse than advancing it.
You cannot average an intensive property. Go do your homework.
Density is an intensive property. Can I add densities? NO!
The adjunct of that is you can’t add W/m2 if you change temperature to power.
If a cube of steel is uniformly heated to a temperature that causes it to emit 600 W/m2 can I add all 6 sides together and claim it is emitting 3600 W/m2?
mkelly, the other sides are not 0 m^2. Your steel cube is emitting 3600/6m^2.
When I was preparing for a recent move, I look up the climate at my destination. There were all sorts of data in terms of averages. None of it is actually the lest bit useful for understanding anything about the experience of being here.
All of which is irrelevant to the difference between intensive and extensive properties. It is just that meaningless calculations based on intensive properties are so much easier to present. Few people would understand the real properties.
Pressure is an intensive property also. If you want to know the average pressure of soft drink bottles, compared to truck tires, obviously you can average them and learn information that might be valuable to you. And the average weekly nightime temperature is important to a market gardener. So saying you can’t average temperatures is splitting hairs over small fractions of a degree, while the whole degrees are valuable parameters…..
So?
So several people have proven you incorrect. This is the point where civil people apologize and back off. Based on your average replies I am not expecting either. On average that is.
Calculations based on intensive properties are not measures of anything real, they are ideas that can not be experienced in an way. They might sometimes have a use but I’m not experiencing it.
In the four months I’ve been here, the first two months had daily variations of around 20̊F between day and night. The published averages gave me no clues that the daytime highs were often around 110̊F. The next two months have been 20̊F difference between night and day around 60% of the time, and 30̊F difference the rest of the time, except for the one time it was almost 40̊F down from the high. Daytime highs were almost all below 100̊F and the highest high I saw was was 101̊F.
The listed monthly rainfall averages were all much smaller than 1 inch. During this last month, which was nothing unusual according to local folks, during several storms water was sheeting off the shed roof, which has no gutter, for an extended time, and water ran like a fire hose from the house gutter drain pipes. Puddles formed everywhere. By and by a goodly stream, eight to ten feet wide and maybe six inches deep, was flowing into the intersection down a grade that is essentially invisible to the naked eye. What practical use are the average rainfall models?
Yet the whole CAGW alarm is over small fractions of a degree.
That was proven true by Kip Hansen here recently. But not relevant, since WE very clearly averaged radiation. You assumed equivalent for temp. Ignorant NOT. Ever hear about humidity?
You cannot average radiation, either. It’s meaningless.
It’s a bit like saying,”This man cannot have drowned in this river because its annual average depth is only 6 inches!”
Of course one can average temperature, apparently you have misremembered something your high school teacher once told you.
You can do calculations on it but the results are not about anything that exists in reality. They are only a conception.
Are you sure? Depends on the time scale. For a few nano-seconds the surface may be warmed before an atmospheric molecule makes contact. A warmed surface skin will often give up that energy via conduction. Consider also, 100% of atmospheric molecule types will be active.
If the energy came from the boundary layer, it could be returned to the boundary layer before any radiation event occurred. No warming would be detectable and no radiation emitted.
Much of the 3.7 W/m2 of IR from doubling CO2 could simply disappear in the cloud of energy continually exchanged between the boundary layer and the surface. More of it could be enhancing evaporation. What’s left may be trivial.
Yeah, I figured someone would say “but what about picoseconds”! Not my point.
What I meant was that if we look at CO2 vs. temperature change, there are a bunch of intermediate phenomena and relevant other variables—cloud types and cloud amounts and TOA imbalances and the like.
But with the ocean or the earth, the absorbed radiant energy is turned into heat as soon as the radiation is absorbed. As you point out, some of this heat is lost as latent heat and some is lost as sensible heat. And some is lost as radiation.
This is a FAR simpler system to analyze than the question of CO2 levels vs. temperature.
w.
But with the ocean or the earth, the absorbed radiant energy is turned into heat as soon as the radiation is absorbed. As you point out, some of this heat is lost as latent heat and some is lost as sensible heat. And some is lost as radiation.
You are a total idi0t, Willis.
Only sunlight is absorbed by the oceans. DLR or back radiation is not absorbed by the oceans except for the first few microns of the ocean skin.
Stop telling lies.
You are the idiot here, DLR or back radiation is absorbed so efficiently that it can not penetrate far into the ocean. Here’s the absorption spectrum of liquid water, notice that IR at 15 microns is absorbed about a million times more efficiently than visible light.
DLR or back radiation is not absorbed by the oceans except for the first few microns of the ocean skin.
That’s a fact.
Oh, Willis, you are back from the beating I gave you on your last post.
I took no pleasure. I hope you are well.
Just to reiterate, I offered you a challenge. A challenge that you have yet to accept but you still have time.
Either provide some evidence that back radiation (DLR) is a real forcing that increases the surface temperature or shut up for good. I am sick of you bringing out these ridiculous posts every few months which amount to no more than sophistry.
I CHALLENGE YOU!
I expect to see a post from you with that evidence in September or I will just assume you cannot produce it.
I am sure lots of people on this blog would be interested in seeing you drilling me into the ground. What a victory that would be for you, Willis.
Are you up for that challenge, Willis, or will you just fall back on your “He’s too rude to argue with. He’s hurt my feelings. Woe is me.”?
Somehow I think you will do what you always do, Willis, duck out.
And don’t do what you did last time and say:
As to providing evidence that back radiation increases the surface temperature, I doubt that you’d consider anything I provided as evidence.
And so you didn’t provide it, did you, Willis? Because you don’t have any evidence, do you?.
Did you not think that other readers might want to see that evidence? You must have total confidence in your acolytes if that’s what you think.
And as Joseph Postma, astrophysicist, said to you all those years ago
“However, your claims aren’t true, and a very likely reason is that you have no scientific training. You lack of qualification isn’t an ad-hominem in the reality that you factually lack scientific training and your claims are erroneous. “
Good luck, Willis. I await your statement like I await Joe Biden’s statement on where he was last night.
Pass, leitmotif. At this point, the First Rule Of Pig Wrestling comes into play for me.
Please feel free to whine at someone else.
w.
I accept your defeat, Willis
I knew you weren’t up for it.
Evidence trumps hypothesis and magic forcings.
Btw, you would have been up against an English thoroughbred not a pig. You would have been covered in sh1t, which you are probably used to given your reputation, whereas I would have been unscathed and sparking clean.
I cannot believe you used the blanket argument in that discourse. Always the last resort of a warmist scoundrel.
A puerile adolescent response.
So, inspiring…🤣😂
Pure grade school intellect ad hominems proves the pig enjoys wallowing in muck.
Ohhh! Willis wrestles with pigs. I don’t know any pigs to wrestle with. Only squirrels and rabbits where I live.
Not the same is it?
You haven’t made a single cogent counterpoint to his article which is why many here are considering you a vulgar pest.
Your trolling has caught my attention which is why I now post POLICY reminders:
I have challenged Willis to provide evidence that the DLR or back radiation is a real forcing and can increase the surface temperature several times. I am doing that now but all he does is dodge the challenge. If that makes me a troll then so be it.
In fact most of the likewarmists on WUWT are doing the same thing including you, Sunsettommy.
What? You are not interested in evidence?
It’s different when CAWGers are spouting their lies, isn’t it?
Do what you like with your POLICY reminders. It will just prove my point that WUWT is an apologist for warmists.
You might try posting references describing what you know. That is a meaningful way to argue a point.
So August 30 and no evidence yet from Willis about:
Either provide some evidence that back radiation (DLR) is a real forcing that increases the surface temperature or shut up for good. I am sick of you bringing out these ridiculous posts every few months which amount to no more than sophistry.
… and I look forward to posts headed “Author : Willis Eschenbach”.
Popular phrases about this phenomenon include “Horses for courses” and “To each his (/ their) own”.
Who appointed “leitmotif” as ultimate arbiter of what can … and, more importantly, cannot … be posted on the Internet when I wasn’t looking ?
This leit-person has a very large hat size.
The Carlo person has a very large toilet size. BS needs it.
Mark BLR, WTF are you talking about.
I have followed your eloquent and erudite posts on the Guardian for many years but I could never determine whether you were a lukewarmist, a sceptic or even a full blown warmist.
I wonder why you have never been banned as I have been banned from the Guardian 5 times.
I admit I have been outspoken on 2 or 3 of those identities but sometimes I have been banned just because I disagreed.
You must remember some of the really good sceptics who suddenly disappeared over the years from the Guardian because I do?
How can you still contribute to the Guardian knowing it is thoroughly corrupt?
I am talking about the phenomenon that has variously been called :
1) Everyone is different, AKA “every individual is an individual”
2) People have the right to express their own opinions
3) Saying “I am sick of X” is an indirect call to censor X
If you still don’t “get it”, then nothing further I can type will suffice.
The closest to my “internal belief system” on the subject of “climate change / science” would probably be “lukewarmer”, i.e. there may be a “problem” but the media reporting is (very) overhyped.
I sometimes wonder that myself, but it is possible that my level of “Name Calling (and/or Abuse)” is sufficiently low that they limit themselves to the “Removed by a moderator” level instead.
Odd … as you noted that’s never happened to me, I’ve used the same “User ID” on CiF for well over a decade now … maybe we have different definitions of what it means to be “outspoken” (as opposed to “just rude”) ?
1) My “contribution” remains pointing out when their journalists and editors exaggerate the “crisis / emergency” we are supposedly undergoing.
NB : My polite “disagreements” on topics other than “climate change” sometimes even attract (a few) up-votes !
2) I do not “know” any such thing. That is A COMPLETELY UNSUBSTANTIATED ALLEGATION that you have introduced into this sub-thread.
– – – – –
On a completely unrelated topic …
Me : You, on the other hand, are strictly limited to the “Name Calling (and/or Abuse)” level of Paul Graham’s well known “Debate Pyramid”
.
Carlo, Monte : This leit-person has a very large hat size.
You : The Carlo person has a very large toilet size. BS needs it.
.
“Name Calling (and/or Abuse)” should be either called out or ignored, not responded to by ratcheting it up a notch.
Leitmotif, not WE but you continue to flog a dead horse. Back IR radiation heats NOTHING. But it is a very good indicator of what is actually going on with the GHE, a loss of IR cooling from purely solar SW heating. The IR back radiation just evidences the amount of IR that did not escape to space to cool.
In simpler terms, the GHE is not a heating at all. It is just an absence of compensatory cooling. Which when integrated over time, results in a warming until the resulting larger IR cooling balances the relatively steady solar warming.
Potentially you display a profound misunderstanding of the basics. WE never does.
Rud, you are just another lukewarmist bullsh1tter with no evidence.
In simpler terms, the GHE is not a heating at all. It is just an absence of compensatory cooling. Which when integrated over time, results in a warming until the resulting larger IR cooling balances the relatively steady solar warming.
And of course no evidence to back up the claim. What a surprise.
Potentially you display a profound misunderstanding of the basics. WE never does.
Says an idi0t about another idi0t, Wilis.
Bring it on. You should obey the first rule of holes:
When in one wanting out, first stop digging.
Your hole is in my comprehensive ebook from 2014 titled Blowing Smoke. More than one essay therein explains your confusion.
And we all know which hole you are blowing the smoke from, Rud.
“The IR back radiation just evidences the amount of IR that did not escape to space to cool.”
I can’t figure out why this is so difficult for some people to understand.
It’s not that complicated. It’s a mystery to me.
If it IS radiation. If it is not radiation, why call it “back radiation”?
Re: my post above about Happer’s statement that 99.9999999% of absorbed IR is converted to atmospheric heat in non-GH molecules before it can be emitted, thus it isn’t emitted. How much in energy units is the 0.00000001% that is emitted near the surface? Is it enough to matter? Is there reason to believe that William Happer doesn’t know what he is writing about?
If that’s what Happer really said, then he doesn’t know.
Aye, right. 🙂
You could mean several things but aren’t saying what.
(1) Energy of IR absorbed by CO2, H2O, etc. is not transferred to other atmospheric molecules?
(2) IR is re-radiated by CO2, H2O, etc. in spite of being transferred to other atmospheric molecules?
(3) something else I haven’t guessed at?
I don’t know of any disagreement about the fact that energy of other molecules has to be transferred to GHG molecules at high altitude in order to be radiated away from Earth. This is about what happens near the surface, in much denser atmosphere.
according to this interaction with William Happer
http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/Another_question.html
I think there’s a misunderstanding here. Just because a high percentage of absorbed IR is kinetically transferred to other molecules before reradiation doesn’t mean that similar kinetic energy transfers to CO2 molecules won’t result in emission.
The ability to absorb energy and radiate energy is equal according to Kirchhoff’s Law.
It isn’t about the ability to absorb and radiate, as I understand it. Because the kinetic interaction (conduction, no?) happens in a much shorter time interval than re-emission, there is no absorbed energy left to be emitted. These kinetic interactions surely tend to produce an equilibrium condition but also a convective updraft to carry away some of the energy.
If GHG and non-GHG molecules are in thermal equilibrium, how much energy can be transfer from non-GHG molecules to GHG molecules? If little, then what energy do the GHG molecules have to radiate?
My understanding is the kinetic interactions are happening continually. The radiation emissions events occur much less frequently but still occur on a regular (millisecond) basis. If the CO2 molecule is not in the right state it cannot absorb energy or emit energy. Since the molecules are known to absorb energy then they must also be able to emit energy.
There is no thermal equilibrium involved. Every time two molecules collide energy may be exchanged. It’s all random. GHG and non-GHG molecules both react based on their physical orientation and current internal state.
You are mostly correct. However integrated over time, since the surface is the hot body and the atmosphere is the cold body, an equilibrium temperature would be reached. This temperature will be warmer than it would be without the insulating effects of CO2. However, that’s pretty minor when you consider that H2O in the atmosphere absorbs a goodly portion of the sun’s 50% of radiation that is called near IR. Some of the radiation from precipitation should be considered as part of the sun’s radiation and not back radiation.
I think a little thought experiment might shine some light here. Let’s install a perfect insulating and IR reflective shield above the boundary layer. Let’s also remove all the water and internal energy below the surface from this discussion for simplicity.
All the IR from the atmosphere (and surface) is now reflected back and no cooling occurs. No solar energy gets in so there’s no new energy arriving. The energy is truly trapped.
Next, let’s double the CO2 content. This should lead to an increase in the DWIR from the atmosphere to the surface of 3.7 w/m2. According to Willis,
“the surface absorbs radiation, it warms, and it emits radiation.”
So, let’s assume the surface warms and starts radiating more energy. That should warm the atmosphere and ……..
Hopefully, the problem is now obvious. We’ve created a loop between the surface and atmosphere that appears to be infinite with continued warming, yet, no energy has been added to this system. It is completely isolated from any energy source.
It seems to me there’s a problem with the assumption that DWIR must warm the surface. Will await explanations.
“let’s double the CO2 content” and “no energy has been added to this system” are inconsistent Richard. Think that thru some more.
Also, your shield no longer emits radiation (emissivity zero) so none can be “trapped” by the atm. below. The enclosed atm. keeps on radiating as before at least initially.
The temperatures will change until thermodynamic internal equilibrium is again established at maximum entropy. There will be no “continued warming” after entropy production has ceased in your “perfect insulating” universe.
I avoided going into long detailed description to keep it short. I suppose someone had to pick on my lack of details.
Assume whatever energy was added by doubling carbon was removed by lowering the amount of nitrogen by a trivial amount.
As I indicated the shield reflects all the upwelling IR. Hence, that IR could be absorbed by the atmosphere or would eventually be absorbed by the surface. The reason for the shield was to keep the energy content the same. It would block any added solar energy and remove any cooling. Remember, this is a thought experiment.
Since no energy is added or removed from this experimental environment, the temperature should remain constant. This would appear to falsify the claim that DWIR must warm the surface.
That won’t falsify the claim you note. The total thermodynamic internal energy in your universe will remain the same but the increase in CO2 radiation over N2 radiation will change the local temperatures (local avg. energy) along the lapse rate with a higher T(0) and lower T(max. z) until your isolated universe system reaches thermodynamic equilibrium at max. entropy point.
leitmotif is engaging in nasty debate.
Nevertheless, when we cover ourselves with a blanket to keep warm, this prevents the loss of heat and helps keep us toasty on cold nights. But the blanket does not add heat to our body temperature and raise it above 98.7F, or whatever it might be.
Likewise, any ‘heat trapping’ by greenhouse gases can’t add more energy to the surface of the earth. Granted they can slow cooling; this does not mean increased heating, any more than a blanket over our bodies means increased heating of our bodies such that our temperature is raised to, say, 102F.
You can try this with a tea cosy, too. The blanketing of the teapot won’t raise the temperature of the tea, even if the tea kettle is left on the stove so that the heat of the tea is kept constant.
Back-radiation is a force. Just as a -20C atmospheric temperature level can warm the surface, so can my 30-degree heaters warm my 40-degree room up to a toasty 76 degrees, provided I place enough of them around. Ergo, back-radiation is real.
Although heat travels from warmer to cooler, back radiation actually does the opposite. I believe 97% of scientists say so.
Evidence please. That’s only if you come out of your coma. I wish you luck.
Haha, just realised Don132 was joshing.
Was he? 🙂
Yes,he was.
Don132 Just as a -20C atmospheric temperature level can warm the surface, so can my 30-degree heaters warm my 40-degree room up to a toasty 76 degrees, provided I place enough of them around
Rud Istvan Back IR radiation heats NOTHING
Context, I guess.
A heater is not producing back radiation. It is, in a relative sense, a miniature sun.
It is an energy source. The entropy it introduces into the system must be accounted for.
So it is an energy source, as I stated. That energy heats the room. What has that to do with ” back IR radiation”?
You misunderstood my post. I agree, it is an energy source, but “back radiation” can occur from the walls. I don’t like the term “back radiation” anyway. It is simply radiation from another substance and should be accounted for in the correct manner. For the sun, solid/liquid, atmosphere system the radiation from each can be analyzed using Planck’s and Stephan-Boltzmann equations to get a good idea of what is occurring. And, that is basically that the cooling gradient of the solid/liquid has been reduced. That doesn’t raise maximum temperatures.
The point isn’t the heater, the point is the blanket, which we’re told is analogous to what greenhouse gases are doing to the atmosphere: they’re slowing the rate of cooling, as Rud Istvan said above. But by so doing, they cannot be adding energy to the surface, just as the tea cosy can’t be adding energy to the tea.
If one places a lump of 50-degree granite in a 40-degree room, the walls of the 40-degree room will always radiate IR: we know that for certain. But those same walls will never raise the temperature of the granite through some bizarre mechanism that says that a cooler body can warm a warmer body.
So, apparently we accept the above paragraph (except Willis insists this can’t be true, and that we can magically double the 235 W/m2 from a nuclear source to get an extra 235 W/m2 out of nowhere) but now go with the fiction that something that slows cooling thereby adds energy to the body being cooled. What??
The steel greenhouse makes no sense. Just consider the shell and the source to be one unit (“In reality, it is close enough to the planet that the difference in the areas can be neglected in practice”) and that unit radiates 235W/m2. That’s all. Otherwise you’re creating energy out of thin air.
Please get a grip.
Was referring to my post about the tea cosy, not so much to my sarcastic post about the 30-degree heaters warming a 40-degree room.
I probably should avoid sarcasm as some take it seriously even though it makes no sense. I’d think that ‘it makes no sense’ would be a strong clue, but then again a lot of things said here seriously make no sense.
Re:’a heater isn’t producing back-radiation.’ Back-radiation is simply radiation with a fancy name.
yes… that does seem like double counting
yes, the blanket (CO2) can warm you and itself, in a gradient where the bottom layer is warmest
yes, the blanket’s bottom layers (CO2) can therefore emit more IR at you (the surface) since they’re warmer
but no, the extra IR cannot increase the total flux at your body (the surface)
the flux stays the same because your body is also warmer and emitting more IR, so the body-blanket (CO2/surface) system is just operating at a new equilibrium temperature
So then if I put on a colder blanket, I can still keep warm? If my blanket is at -10C, then I can keep warm because it’ll be radiating at me?
This is good to know./sarc
Gets back to the issue of how a colder atmosphere can warm the near-surface atmosphere. The answer: it can’t. Even if we can measure the radiation from the colder atmosphere, it still can’t warm the warmer atmosphere.
I suppose one can argue the system does experience changes in surface flux until thermal equilibrium is met, but I don’t think anyone is arguing Earth is out of thermal equilibrium, just that it’s warmer
for that matter I’ve never seen any physically sensible explanation for why GHG equilibrium shouldn’t be near-instantaneous (on the order of the gas molecule interaction/emission times), though that seems to be a common assumption in models
It is so that averages (constant values) can be used. The earth rotates on its axis and around the sun. The sun varies a little. Nothing is ever in thermal equilibrium, EVER! The has a somewhat sin curve of warming and an exponential curve during cooling. Some one called it a thermal capacitor. Pretty close to that when discharging.
leitmotif,
If insults are all you have to offer?
Why not state your evidence that DLR is not a forcing?
Then we can assess your evidence.
Why not state your evidence that DLR is not a forcing?
Maybe I could provide evidence that god does not exist while I am doing so? Eh?
leitmotif –>. It is a forcing. The radiation from the hot source is reduced by the radiation from the cold source, thereby resulting in a lower net radiation value. The net radiation is what determines the cooling rate of the hot body (surface) AND the heating rate of the cold body (atmosphere).
Remember, the radiation values do have a time relation, i.e., Joules/second. From that you can derive the gradients involved for both materials.
If it’s not external to the system it is not a forcing.
As long as you have two bodies whose only connection is via radiation, you have a system. Three bodies are similar to the sun, earth’s surface, and earth’s atmosphere. They are a system because they are connected via radiation.
Now does conduction and resulting convection need to enter into the calculations of heat movement? Of course. But radiation can be accounted for with some simplifications to get an idea of what is occurring.
The radiation from the hot source is reduced by the radiation from the cold source
What does that mean, physically?
Radiation is energy. Where has the ‘reduced’ part of the energy gone?
It remains as heat in the hot body. As I have said, it reduces the gradient of cooling in the hot body. Think of it as what happens at thermodynamic equilibrium? Do the bodies quit radiating? No! The NET radiation is zero. That means each body is radiating the same amount toward the other and what is absorbed by each is immediately radiated away by each, therefore the temperature doesn’t rise. Planck calls this “compensation”.
Think of what the S-B equation for two bodies tells you. The cold body receives more radiation than it is emitting so it warms. The hot body just keeps radiating at its temperature but part of that radiation is made up of the radiation from the cold body. Thus the NET radiation is smaller and directed toward the cold body. Now as equilibrium is approached what happens. For example, lets say the hot body is at 200 and the cold body is at 199. The next step is for the heat to reach 200 for both. This isn’t exactly how it works but the math is pretty complicated to do properly. but hopefully you can see what I mean.
That is not, and has never been, an accurate summary of Willis’s “argument(s)”.
Willis actually directly addressed this specific point last year in his article “Surface Response to Increased Forcing“, and at least touched on it in several others.
Near the top is the following “warning” :
NB : His “downwelling longwave radiation” = your “DLR”.
At the end of that post Willis has shown that the BEST (surface temperature) and CERES (up and down radiation) datasets provide “evidence” for his conjecture that for large areas of the tropical oceans increasing DLR (/ total, LW + SW, “back radiation”) results in cooling of that particular subset of the Earth’s “surface”.
Now I personally cannot say for sure that Willis is (100%, down to the smallest of details) “correct” here, but he does at least present a reasonable “logical argument”, including references to the input data and a clear explanation of the methodology used … an approach you should at least consider emulating.
You, on the other hand, are strictly limited to the “Name Calling (and/or Abuse)” level of Paul Graham’s well known “Debate Pyramid” (copied below).
I (obviously) cannot speak on behalf of anyone else here on WUWT, but I tend to side (heavily) with Willis in those cases.
Near the top is the following “warning” :
This is bunk. Pyrgeometers don’t measure downwelling Longwave Radiation they only derive the DLR by a output voltage that corresponds to a temperature gradient.
Surface Response to Increased Forcing
Willis has already decided this DLR is a real forcing in the title alone.
He then goes on to say: Note that this gives us 0.15°C per each additional 3.7 W/m2.
No evidence.
As for abuse if you go back to series of our exchanges you will see that Willis can dish out the abuse with ease. But maybe you won’t see that.
“Pyrgeometers don’t measure downwelling Longwave Radiation they only derive the DLR by a output voltage that corresponds to a temperature gradient.”
Any and all measurements of temperature are indirect, a measure of some physical response to the energy of temperature. If you argument is that the voltage change isn’t a temperature measurement because it is a voltage measurement, you have nothing.
If you are claiming that the voltage change is caused by something other than DLW, that is an entirely different matter but you have provided no evidence to support that claim.
I am arguing that the DLR is not a forcing just because you can point a pyrgeometer at the sky and get a reading.
Willis believes that that is proof enough.
The voltage reported by a pyrgeometer pointed upwards at night is negative. Therefore the hypothetical DWLWIR is actually UWLWIR.
What is your evidence for this claim?
Post me a graph of just the measurement part (U/S, or U/C depending on the terminology used) and then we’ll talk.
If you’re not having any luck getting hold of those measurements, perhaps because you don’t have your own pyrgeometer, ask the SURFRAD scientists for their measurements (make sure to specify the raw ones, not the adjusted ones). I’m sure they’ll be happy to send them to you. I got my information from my knowledge of how thermopiles work, together with the pyrgeometer equation, plus a paper written by a pyrgeometer scientist, which confirms that these devices do in fact follow the known laws of thermodynamics, as I described. It would be disturbing if they didn’t.
Mercury (and alcohol) thermometers didn’t “measure” temperature, they only “derived” it from the thermal expansion of a liquid.
The quote in context :
NB : He compared changes in the total, measured, “surface forcing” (not limited to DLR !) and changes in temperature over a 20 year period.
The figures make it clear that this isn’t a uniform change of “0.15°C per each additional 3.7 W/m2”, it is the global average of a much more complicated phenomenon.
WHAT additional “evidence” do you need ???
– – – – –
Willis then goes on to write :
Willis admited there were issues with the specific point you have latched onto … and then went on to provide an alternative “methodology” to overcome the issues he identified.
What methodology do YOU suggest that would overcome YOUR objections ?
Scrolling through this comments section I see Willis saying :
“Pass, leitmotif. At this point, the First Rule Of Pig Wrestling comes into play for me.”
You may categorise that as “dishing out abuse”, but I don’t.
It’s called “a realistic assessment of the situation”.
And Willis got plenty of criticism from posters on that article you refer to.
You got a bad case of fanboi, seek professional help immediately.
Ok, Willis groupie. Will do.
Yes, and he also got a lot of compliments.
– – – – –
Checking the first example of “criticism” :
Later in that sub-thread :
I see now where you got at least part of your “debating style” from.
– – – – –
A valid “criticism” from that comments section :
No “Name Calling (and/or Abuse)” in sight there, just a (polite) reminder of a “scientific axiom”.
Mark, you are a clever guy but at some point you are going to have to get off the toilet or sh1t.
Does the sphere at at -20c become 29c when it is surrounded by a shell?
Your answer would describe who you really are.
What is the heat flux from the radioactive source in the middle of the (central) sphere ?
What is the “temperature” of the surrounding “empty” space ?
Maybe they should … but what if in the real world they don’t meet your (second-person singular) expectations ?
WE, congratulations. This is the most rigorous short time horizon ‘pure physics’ “proof” I have yet seen (in over a decade of looking) that ‘a lot more than CO2 is going on’. Kills completely the CO2 as climate control knob perspective of the AGW crowd. Nails the attribution problem dragged in by climate model unavoidable parameter tuning to best hindcast just 30 years, subject of several of my past guest posts here.
We can easily demonstrate natural variability on various long/slow time scales. Examples include MWP followed by LIA followed by present warming (in northern hemisphere at least), and the Arctic roughly 60-70 year cycle posited by Akasofu in his 2010 paper, then demonstrated statistically by Wyatt and Curry in their stadium wave paper, supported by whaling ship ice extent observations and DMI charts (examples in essay ‘Northwest Passage’ in ebook Blowing Smoke.
Warmunists always counter natural variation with two objections: ‘but AGW is happening much faster’ and ‘but no natural variation mechanism’.
The latter mechanism argument being the same demonstrably faulty reasoning geologists used to deny Wegener’s Continental Drift theory for 60 years despite his overwhelming physical evidence in four separate categories—until plate tectonics was proven by repeated basalt magnetic pole reversals along the mid Atlantic spreading ridge.
What you just showed is that natural variability MUST also exist on decadal time scales relevant to the anthropogenic global warming theory and model parameter tuning. Kills dead the AGW former ‘but AGW is happening faster’ argument. Leaves the AGW deniers of natural variation with NO arguments. (Not that they might try to invent a new one, like WE is not a university trained expert so ignore this post.)
Well done. My regards to you and your ex-fiancé.
Thanks, Rud, your opinion carries weight with me.
w.
I believe the comments on this post at NoTrick Zone will be of interest.
New Studies Claim The More CO2 In The Venus Atmosphere The Colder It Gets (notrickszone.com)
Willis, the data you present seems to say that surface cooling is 80% radiative and 20% from convective? This seems backward to me.
Nelson, a pro tip. Lose the Venus analogy. Do you have any idea of how many ways it does not apply? You embarrass yourself.
OK, pro tips:
Pro tip — I said read the comments. It’s not about Venus.
Earth’s climate is too complicated.
What we really need are wild guesses about Venus, Mars and Uranus.
It’s positively anti-empirical, the scientific method in reverse.
“Kills completely the CO2 as climate control knob perspective of the AGW crowd”
Didn’t the global cooling from 1940 to 1975, as CO2 levels rose, already kill the CO2 is the control knob theory? It must have, because that global cooling, as reported in 1975, has almost completely disappeared from climate history. Inconvenient data disappears.
This is probably a dumb question already dealt with.
Preamble: We know that summer in the Northern Hemisphere affects CO2 levels because it shows in the data. We also k ow that photosynthesis uses solar energy. Possibly so. E downwelling radiation of the right wavelength.
So overall photosynthetic efficiency is in the order of 3 to 6% of total solar radiation according to the Web This will cover a large part of the NH affects the atmosphere CO2 level, but does it show in the Radiative Balance?
Ben Vorlich August 30, 2022 3:02 pm
On my planet, the only dumb question is the one you don’t ask …
Regarding your question, the energy that is constantly going into photosynthesis eventually turns into heat of decay. And both processes are going on concurrently and are roughly in balance. So it can be omitted in an analysis such as mine above.
Regards,
w.
It would be a lot of work to estimate the enthalpy of formation for the deposited and preserved organic matter and marine shells just to find out it’s probably a tenth of a percent or less but it would be interesting to know.
Doesn’t the ability of CO2 to retain heat go down as its concentration rises? If that is true, did you factor it into your double-doubling calculation?
Kind of correct. And yes, I figured it into the double-doubling calculation. The forcing varies as the logarithm to the base 2 of the change in CO2 from the initial state. If X is the final ppmv, we have
log2(X / 410 ppmv) * 3.7 W/m2 per doubling = 6.9 W/m2
Dividing by 3.7 and taking the antilog (base 2) gives us
X/410 ppmv = 2 ^ (6.9 / 3.7)
X = 1,493 ppmv
w.
Your temperature is 4√(mean T^4). It should be within the ball park of a mean of thermometer measurements on the ground, but not the same. It’s the only thing that can be modelled. Modelling energy absorbed, stored in water then conveyed to warm up surfaces at different starting temperatures, goes into creating phase changes rather than increasing temperature, and as mentioned recently, the same amount of energy that warms air to a degree warms water to about 3/10 000th of that, is not robust by a long shot. It just creates many opportunities to exaggerate a small effect.
It is fantastic how Earth’s atmosphere is able to generate just over 160W/m^2.
Solar EMR available at the top of the atmosphere averages 340W/m^2. Then the atmosphere does its work and amplifies that to 500W/m^2 by the time it arrives at the surface. That is an impressive reactor; 80E15W being produced by the atmosphere – INCREDIBLE.
The 500 W/m^2 absorbed by the surface is comprised of both LW and SW. See the approximate breakdown here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/25/a-balancing-act/#comment-3587058
But the atmosphere is still acting as a power amplifier – creating energy from nothing at an enormous rate. Does not matter what the frequency component is, power flux is joules/second/m^2 irrespective of the frequency.
The fake power amplification occurs when the S-B equation is used to convert ambient temperature to power (in W/m2). That is an invalid operation, of course.
Wrong again, the pyrgeometer equation does NOT do this.
As you posted it, yes it does. What do you think the Tb^3 and Tb^4 terms are doing in there? Are they doing exactly what I said, which is converting ambient (base) temperature to power? Yes, yes they are. Otherwise, how do you think they would convert the measured reading of 0 to -100 W/m^2 to the published value of +350 W/m^2?
Where did you get this bizarre notion about pyrgeometers?
Read it on the internet?
Do you have any real experience with pyrgeometers or radiometers at all?
I posted this graph previously (and one of the other pyrgeometer deniers gave me a downvote for my trouble), made by a competent lab. This is one clear day showing direct normal and diffuse horizontal solar irradiance (red, green) and the black curve is far-IR sky irradiance measured with a pyrgeometer.There is no offset at sunrise and the far-IR increases only about 10% during the course of the day, even though the air temperature changed from 12 – 33C.
Do you have any idea of the magnitude of the calibration constants?
That’s a lovely chart. But the “Incoming IR” is a calculated number, not a measured one. Why don’t you post the raw (pre-adjustment) measurement? At night it is 0 to -100 W/m^2, depending on humidity. It has to be, because a thermopile pointed at a colder object records a negative voltage, hence negative power. The calibration constant is approximately 1, so the magnitude of the calibration value is around 400 W/m^2 on a normal day.
(I am not too sure where you got your “pyrgeometer equation” from, but the ones I’ve seen do not have any multiplier in front of the sigma * T^4 term. That is the term that is complete bollocks, and is described as “the irradiated heat by the sensor itself”, i.e. at ambient temperature. What irradiated heat?)
Always liked WE graphs.
I’ve read gases don’t emit Planck black body radiation. They only absorb and emit radiation at specific wavelengths, on a photon by photon basis, while a Planck black body absorbs and emits radiation at all wavelengths. Also Photons are light not heat.
No gas radiates a total power curve proportional to T^4. In the Earth-Sun climate system, only the Sun and Earth are black bodies – the atmosphere and empty space aren’t.
Thus thermal physics makes atmospheric CO2 incapable of melting an ice cube, because its absorption/emission wavelength at only 15 microns corresponds to a Planck black body radiation temperature of -80C, about the same temperature as dry ice. That means that its thermal radiation won’t melt an ice cube.
The only thing that happens with an increased atmospheric CO2 is a reduction in extinction depth for the wavelengths that CO2 absorbs. Given that the extinction depth is already ~10.4 m, that radiation which is already being thermalized at 420 ppm will be likewise thermalized at all higher atmospheric concentrations, just in a shorter distance. Thus, the atmosphere is opaque at 15µm so a higher concentration of CO2 can’t thermalize any more.
The Beer-Lambert Law says that over the extinction depth for 15µm of ~10.4m, ~50% extinction occurs within the first 1.04m, then 50% of extinction of the remainder occurs over the second 1.04 m, and so forth.
Earth at 288K and an emissivity of 0.936, the radiance from 15µm equates to 10.9W/m^2. This is the maximum that CO2 could absorb.
The Boltzmann Factor calculates that 10.8% of CO2 will be excited in one of its vibrational quantum states, but the Maxwell-Boltzmann Speed Distribution Function shows that ~25% will be excited. This is higher than the Boltzmann Factor because faster molecules collide more often, weighting the reaction cross-section more toward the higher end.
Thus that drops the max to 8.17 W/m^2 able to be absorbed. That’s for all CO2, natural and anthropogenic. Anthropogenic CO2 accounts for ~3.6% of total CO2 flux, thus anthropogenic CO2 can only absorb a maximum of ~0.3Wm^2.
Strictly speaking, “light” consists of EM radiation that can be sensibly perceived by humans. The S-B back radiation is of a wavelength that is commonly referred to as thermal IR EM radiation, not “light.”
Depends on the temperature of the radiator.
Ok.Great. with that settled, glad the rest is fine. No warming ftom so-called CO2 back radiation at 15um. Its weak…much like moonshine.
If the moonshine is weak, it will never sell.
“Thus thermal physics makes atmospheric CO2 incapable of melting an ice cube, because its absorption/emission wavelength at only 15 microns corresponds to a Planck black body radiation temperature of -80C, about the same temperature as dry ice. That means that its thermal radiation won’t melt an ice cube.”
Usual ‘-80ºC’ nonsense! The radiation absorbed/emitted by CO2 depends on the energy of its vibrational/rotational energy levels, nothing to do with the Planck black body radiation temperature.
The wavelength of radiation emitted from an excited molecule is not related to its temperature, the ‘ice cube’ doesn’t know whether the photon it is absorbing came from a source at -80ºC or 100ºC.
Also the Boltzmann distribution just tells you what the kinetic energy distribution of the molecules is, that’s not the same as the fraction in a certain excited vibrational state. The majority of the molecules in air are N2 and O2, in order to be able to collisionally excite a CO2 molecule’s bending mode the air molecule would have to have a kinetic energy in excess of 0.082eV (I assume that’s how you calculated your %ages). However the efficiency of such a collision will be very low, so your percentages will be too high.
That’s hardly a controversial point though, is it?
As I understand it, it’s the long residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere and the feedbacks this causes with respect to increased water vapor, etc that is the main issue; not the direct radiative effect of CO2 itself.
It’s what is covered by ‘etc’, as Rud Istvan has pointed out above as far as is known CO2 and feedbacks cannot account for past climate fluctuations.
“as far as is known CO2 and feedbacks cannot account for all past fluctuations.”
But it can account for some; the PETM event is widely thought to be a result of rapid CO2 release, not as rapid as today, but geologically rapid. Quaternary glaciation patterns require more than just Milankovitch cycles to explain them.
Willis, for your fanbois who whine about this subject, here is a plot from a site in CO that measures the far-IR irradiance continuously. This is today’s plot (with severe-clear weather), as you can see the number at 6000′ (1.8km) altitude is 355 W/m2. It varies only a few W/m2 year-round.
https://midcdmz.nrel.gov/apps/gdisplay.pl?BMS
I’m having a problem with the IR graph line. I would expect a changing value with incoming solar IR from sunup to sunset and overnight.
It goes up slightly during the day, for this one from about 320 to 380.
Alexy, they’re measuring far infrared, not the near IR associated with incoming sunshine.
w.
Thanks, MC. I truly don’t understand these folks who claim that the measurements of downwelling IR such as this one, measurements which are being made every day all over the world, are measuring something that isn’t there …
w.
They are not measuring power flux. They are measuring temperature difference from their reference and inferring a reverse power from the difference.
S-B is an approximation of more complex field theory. Energy can only flow one way at any point in time and space. The notion of photons shooting every which way is an abomination of what it aims to describe.
If you really want to start to understand EMR transmission then look at this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjKJyn_uoIE&t=1213s
The 22 minute mark is where Mishchenko discusses how the concept of photon has been abused. I have attached the quote from Willis Lamb that Mishchenko refers to.
The atmosphere cannot and does not amplify power. Look at how Mishchenko cringes when he puts up the NASA diagram in power fluxes seen in the IPCC reports. He has papers that proves that diagram is nonsense.
Rick, thanks for the excellent video link.
What is “their reference”?
Are you claiming that if you cover the dome of a pyrgeometer with a metallic dome to prevent any radiation from impinging on the thermopile, the output voltage and hence the measured irradiance will not change?
Here are the WMO/PMOD calibration procedures:
https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=7365
Note that the body and dome temperatures are used to make corrections to the radiometer output voltage:
E = U/C +
k1*U/C*sigma*Tb^3 +
k2*sigma*Tb^4 +
k3*sigma*(Td^4 – Tb^4)
(C is the sensitivity constant, k1,k2,k3 are calibration constants)
Also note the procedure compares with the IRIS radiometer that does not need dome temperature measurements.
The simple fact that they have all those calibration constants based on Temperature to the 4th power should give you a clue that they are basically measuring temperature and inferring an energy.
If it was real energy then you could simply use an insulated thermal mass and rate of temperature rise. But no energy can flow from low temperature to high temperature.
Once you have semi-transparent matter interfering with the transmission of EMR, S-B is no longer applicable.
The instruments are a fudge. It is climate phiisics. Something that cannot be observed. That so-called “back-radiation” is not capable of “warming” anything. The insulating property is reducing the rate of cooling as any insulator does.
If the atmosphere was replaced with an opaque blanket that had an inside temperature of 15C and an outside temperature of -20C would you consider that there was back-radiation keeping the inside warm. It is an unphysical concept.
The back-radiation idea provides some ability to take ground based measurements to infer what is happening at the top of the atmosphere. However we now live in the satellite era with the ability to actually measure EMR fluxes beyond the influence of Earth’s matter.
“Back-radiation” is not EMR is is a measure of the insulating property of the atmosphere. In true physical terms, it would be appropriate to call it atmospheric insulation factor.
Wrong, did you even look at the equation?
What causes the U voltage?
I recommend reading the WMO/PMOD calibration document.
Of course they make “corrections” to the measured voltage… otherwise they would have to report negative numbers at night, and we sure can’t have that, can we? It would make a joke of the whole greenhouse effect theory. Oh wait…
Does your BS meter trigger at all when the “corrections” change the measurement from a small negative number to a much larger positive number?
Did you read the calibration procedure document?
Carlo, have you read the document you rate so highly?
Figure 1, shows the 4 reference pyrgeometers with 4 different, visible, slopes. Green increasing, Purple decreasing, light blue roughly level and the yellow one falling then rising.
They average the results! A bit like model outputs.
Then the give away,
“Calibration of a test pyrgeometer (retrieval of the sensitivity C)
As mentioned previously, a test pyrgeometer is calibrated relative to the average of the WISG”
No absolute calibration to an international standard!
Exactly similar to the standard group of pyrheliometers, called the World Radiometric Reference (WRR). Secondary pyrheliometers are calibrated against the primary group. This is standard calibration practice in metrology.
The WISG is the international standard.
As for averaging multiple calibration runs, this too is standard practice.
They are all calibrated to the same fake numbers 🙂
I do notice that they did not show the typical values of k1, k2, and k3 that they determine during their “calibration” procedures. What are those numbers, Monte Carlo?
This story line is essentially stating that far-IR radiometry is nothing but a hoax or conspiracy, I don’t understand it at all. Why would Eppley and Kipp & Zonen manufacture products that don’t measure what they claim?
It makes no sense.
Yep. But then, anyone expecting sense from leitmotif and lit and the like is going to be sorely disappointed.
And yes, you’re right. This claim means that the thousands and thousands of scientists spending lots of money on pyrgeometers are either being totally fooled about what pyrgeometers do, or are part of a gigantic conspiracy.
The odds of either of those being true seem to have escaped the faithful …
w.
You adopted the same Dunning-Kruger stance against Joseph Postma et al and failed miserably.
What makes you think you will do any better this time?
What I haven’t figured out is how Willis and his fan club can, on the one hand, accept that there is a giant conspiracy to fudge the surface temperature record, and on the other, completely fail to recognize the same conspiracy fudging the DWLWIR measurements, for the same reason.
Are global pyranometers also part of this alleged conspiracy?
Also note that there is nothing wrong with the pyrgeometer hardware, per se. It is the post-measurement calculations that are fudged. The manufacturers have nothing to do with that, as far as I can tell from what I have read.
Do you understand there are pyrgeometers that don’t use the dome-body temperature corrections?
Please tell me which model does not add ambient temperature converted to power, and show me the manufacturer’s data sheet for it. All of the SURFRAD stations do this, which is what Willis is relying on, so those are the ones I focused on. As far as I know, they all use the same principle and the same adjustment formula.
Please provide a link to a quote of mine where I say there is a “giant conspiracy to fudge the surface temperature record”.
I’ll wait …
w.
You didn’t say that, but our hard-working host Anthony did. Do you believe him? If not, you had better point out that you don’t. Otherwise he might think that you support his efforts. Do you believe any of the other posters who point out all the lies in sea level rise, polar bear populations, ice melt, proxy reconstructions, ice cores, ocean acidification, butterfly habitats, climate refugees, renewable energy scams, suppression of academic freedom, and all the other bread-and-butter fare around here? You know, the whole reason the site was founded? To point out all these lies? At which it does a great job, I might add? Except that somehow you think the DWLWIR government scientists are the only ones who are NOT lying? How does that work in your head, Willis? Or do you think that all the other lies that are pointed out regularly, in the areas I mentioned above, are actually not lies at all, and everything those government scientists are telling us is true?
Steve Keppel-Jones September 6, 2022 12:30 pm
Listen, you sack of excrement, you can’t get away with accusing me of wrongdoing and when I protest simply claim “You didn’t say that, but our hard-working host Anthony did.”
You LIED about what I said, and that’s your response when I point it out? That someone else said it?
You are pond scum.
w.
That’s lovely, Willis. I apologize for guessing what you were thinking, incorrectly. (Not the same as a lie.) So I will not assume that you accept any conspiracy to alter surface temperature records (or any other aspect of CAGW). They are all honest and accurate, or at least honestly inaccurate. I guess Anthony is wasting his time. He sure has wasted a lot. But instead of calling me names, why not worry about your incorrect physics instead? Is it valid to convert ambient temperature directly to power, like the SURFRAD folks do, or not? I only went down your conspiracy rabbit hole because you didn’t want to discuss the physics, which was the problem that I pointed out to begin with. Let’s stick to that, shall we?
I also find it fascinating that you started this particular subthread with these words: “This claim means that the thousands and thousands of scientists spending lots of money on pyrgeometers are either being totally fooled about what pyrgeometers do, or are part of a gigantic conspiracy.”
Nobody said either of those things, which means you broke the First Rule of Internet Debating by Willis Eschenbach, to wit: Always “quote the exact words you are responding to”.
But never mind about that! I know it is hard work following your own rules all the time, and I totally understand if you just can’t be bothered.
So then, you made an assumption about what we are thinking, to wit: “The odds of either of those being true seem to have escaped the faithful …” Again, no quote, and of course you apparently have no idea what “faithful” means either, but we’ll let that go too.
So, when I replied with a counter-assumption about what you were thinking, for sure without any direct quote either, my bad, you called me a lying sack of excrement and pond scum.
Therefore, first question: what do you call yourself when YOU do that?
Second question: Moderators, do we have rules about name-calling in this forum? And do those rules apply to Willis, or only to everyone else?
And “faithful”? Hahaha! We have no faith in the published “measurements”, but you do, Willis. You are the faithful one…
Because there is a market for them.
And if that is your argument then you are clutching at straws.
I have a wood moisture meter. It is calibrated in % moisture and has a few selectable wood types. I have even checked the calibration by monitoring a fresh log over a period of 6 months and comparing the reduction in weight to change in reading. It is not measuring moisture but it is has correlated conductivity to moisture and is quite good. It is a quick way to get a near enough reading.
The fact that you feel warmer when you are under low cloud at night compared to clear sky has nothing to do with back-radiation. It is simply that your field of view has altered. You are now radiating to a warmer object.
If I placed a blanket around me on a clear night I would also feel warmer but I would not credit the blanket with providing “back-radiation”. I would simply say it provided insulation.
The only way to discard the nonsense that started with the clown Suki Manabe back in the 1960s is to restore observable physics to understanding climate.
This is nonsense, I’ve had enough.
Another good Willie E. article with the usual easy to read charts.
Willie E. is the most consistent author at this website.
Although not much of a wife photographer.
Did you get (need) approval to post that photo?
The big debate between Climate Howlers and Climate Realists is not so much over the effect of CO2 alone. The Howlers do have a high estimate. The big debate is over the water vapor positive feedback tripling the effect of CO2 alone. A positive feedback does exist. A warmer troposphere does hold more water vapor. But the feedback seems smaller than predicted and something limits its effect, or there would eventually be runaway global warming. I assume more water vapor in the troposphere leads to more clouds and reduced incoming solar energy. If that theory is wrong, something else must limit the positive feedback
Nice article Willis, makes sense and pretty easy to understand. I especially appreciate how you handle the skeptic deniers, I think for the most part they are nothing more than contrarians.
Does CO2 reradiate at the exact same frequency bands that it absorbs?
General rule of thumb is at or lower frequency of emission as a consequence of entropy.
I think you are being overly technical.
Yes. Absorption/emission lines.
Yes. Carbon dioxide absorbs energy at a variety of wavelengths between 2,000 and 15,000 nanometers — a range that overlaps with that of infrared energy. As CO2 soaks up this infrared energy, it vibrates and re-emits the infrared energy back in all directions. About half of that energy goes out into space, and about half of it returns to Earth as heat, contributing to the ‘greenhouse effect.’
This isn’t exactly true. Emissions are a spherical EM wave with a given power. It isn’t half up and half down, it is the same in ALL DIRECTIONS. Because it is spherical, steradians must be used to account for distance.
Think of it this way. You radiate 1 W/m^2. At 1 meter away you’ll capture about 1 W using a 1 square meter antenna. At some further distance you’ll need a 10 square meter antenna to capture all of the 1 W. Even further you’ll need need a 100 square meter antenna to capture the 1 W.
This link explains it well.
https://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/steradian.html
Not true because the emission from the CO2 molecule is a quantum event. A single vibrationally excited CO2 molecule emits a single photon in a random direction, there’s an approximately 50:50 chance that it will be towards the Earth. On average over a large number of events it will appear spherical.
To use your thought experiment if you positioned a 1sq meter detector, capable of responding to a single photon, 1m away from the emitting molecule you’d have about a 1 in 12.5 chance of seeing it.
What you are describing is not true. Photons are not “bullets”. When an atom or molecule emits, it emits an EM wave that is spherical in nature. I would refer you to Max Planck’s Theory of Heat Radiation. That EM wave propagates in all directions with a given power. The power determines how many quanta are carried by the EM wave.
Wiki isn’t the best reference necessarily but I’ll quote a few notes from this page.
Richard aren’t you forgetting collision of molecules.
Per Kirchoff’s Law, emissivity = absorptivity at any given frequency.
w.
Thanks, and everyone above as well for the reply.
The potential to emit perhaps, but if energy is transferred through kinetic interaction before the molecule can emit, it either can not emit or it can only emit at a significantly lower frequency.
How is chemical energy accounted for in these energy balance calculations?
A photon captured by photosynthesis can’t be radiated back to space.
So, if there is an increase/decrease in the earth’s biomass doesn’t that affect the radiative balance?
Mike Harker August 30, 2022 6:57 pm
Mike, the energy captured as chemical energy by photosynthesis eventually returns as thermal energy through the heat of decay. Since both are going on constantly, it basically nets out to zero. Changes in biomass would change that, but only temporarily and by a small amount.
w.
The “present level” is not 410 ppmv. Mauna Loa reached 421 ppmv in May of this year. It is currently in the seasonal draw-down phase and was about 419 ppmv in July. It hasn’t had an annual average of 410 since 2019, nor a seasonal low of 410 since 2020.
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
Willis is painting a house and not a portrait. Different brush sizes.
There is a back story to my nit pick.
Thanks, Clyde, my bad. I was coming up on the publication deadline and couldn’t be bothered to worry about a 2% error. In any case, I just changed it to 420 in the head post.
Regards,
w.
It would be help full for those of us new here to know where in the temperature range certain characters in this drama are ie: room temp to lukewarm up to run-a-way hot tub alarmist. Perhaps commentators could select an icon when posting or a color spectrum. Same for article writers. I am especially interested in what temp range is leitmotif .I think I already know which type of music I would pick upon his entrance.
John Oliver
I consider myself newish here. Only arrived 11 years ago by accident via writing a different book. If you want to keep up with current conversations, much homework is needed. We cannot and should not do it for you. That is why Anthony and Charles provide an archive button. Use it.
Amongst my own previous posts:
Why climate models fail
Why renewables are ruinables
Why previous climate projections are absurd.
Below is a slide from a presentation by Maria Hukuba (NASA JPL). This is from the comments I referred to. What I find fascinating is that in the Tropics, H20 is a coolant throughout the atmosphere. CO2 is a coolant as well, except for a small range at the Tropopause. I have no way of checking the data, but Maria Hukuba seems very accomplished. I wonder what the data would look like at higher latitudes.
Trying to find that presentation is frustration. Any links?
Does anything matter is a philosophical question, or fill in your own descriptor such as religious, metaphysical, or whatever suits.. If ANYTHING matters, I think it hard to dispute that the Earth’s biosphere matters, and even that it holds an overwhelmingly high place in the order of what matters.
The biosphere is, first and foremost, sunlight made physical. Humans live 70 to 100 years, energy in physical form. Some trees live several thousand years. Forest, plains, and oceans are filled with sunlight become life in action. While it is probably true that any particular measure of energy is transient in living forms, that energy has to first be absorbed and used to a practical end. Eventually it ends up as heat. However where that energy exists in your summation is quite obscure to me. Is it even considered?
This isn’t as clear as it should be.
If the biosphere was not absorbing, and retaining, some significant amount of incoming sunlight, one could not burn biomass for heating, cooking, power plants, etc. There could be no forest fires. There would be no fossil fuels. And so much more.
These two comments are a nice insight and may even constitute a negative, though small, feedback to warming.
Much of the biosphere is only a temporary energy sink, but hydrocarbon and particularly carbonate formation is functionally permanent.
Only man, as anthropogenitor, lessens that permanence.
We are special; celebrate us.
============
“I mean the total of the downwelling longwave radiation from the clouds and the atmosphere”
There is no DLR from atmosphere and clouds.The instrument that gives values for this is a pyrgeometer. Pyrgeometers use a thermopile. A thermopile determines the temperature of the measured object by measuring heat transfer to and from the instrument. In the case where it´s directed towards a lower temperature than the instrument it only measures the heat transferred FROM the instrument. A thermopile can´t measure any incoming radiation from a lower temperature than the instrument.
It´s amazing that so many climate scientists don´t even know how the instruments work.
According to the CERES satellite data, as a 24/7 global average, upwelling (headed to space) thermal radiation from the surface is just under 400 watts per square meter (W/m2).
Downwelling (headed to earth) thermal radiation from the clouds/atmosphere absorbed by the surface is about 345 W/m2. And net solar (surface downwelling less surface reflected) energy absorbed by the surface is just under 165 W/m2.
To put this into perspective the incoming solar energy is APPROX [A] 341, comprising SW and IR.
Reflected SW and IR is A 102 SW 28 and IR 74
Transmitted is A 161 SW
Absorbed is A 78 both SW 28 and IR 50
One would conclude that most of the IR is absorbed and that this would be high in the atmosphere at the level of the TOA in a layer just above the TOA as at this level all the IR reaching earth including the IR from the sun is going back into space.
Neat, huh.
Say A 50 IR just going back into space, never touches the earth
leaves A 28 SW going down to the clouds and particulates but also not reaching the earth.
This leaves A 28 IR being formed at these levels to work upwards.
Why upwards ?
Because all the other IR coming up is in virtual balance with it layer by layer with a slight upward pressure due to there being more below so more is coming up than ever goes down.
I.e. A 78 IR going back to space as well, A 128 IR in toto upwelling.
With respect to the reflected radiation this is effectively reflected at the TOA as well.
Hence at the TOA we already have upwelling or outgoing A 56 SW and 124 IR
giving A 180 outgoing SW and IR.
Meanwhile at the surface A 161 SW turns into 161 IR to go out.
When it eventually reaches the TOA it to goes totally out balancing the books.
So how does 161 at the surface turn into 341 going back out?
The 161 can only go out [? a few meters??] before it is completely absorbed and has th radiate back and up again
As it heats up half its energy is coming back down to the surface again which acts as a BOA [Bottom of Atmosphere].
It can only lose half its energy upwards at the very cold surface temp that 161 W/m2 emits at.
The recycled energy [back radiation] [not renewed or stored energy] causes the Earth or Ocean temperature to rise until a balance is struck with the energy coming back in from above.
This allows the surface saturated layer to fully discharge 341 W IR to the next layer.
The ascending layers become thinner as they go up meaning that for the same number of H2O and CO2 molecules the parcel of air in the layer is thinner and at less pressure and therefore cooler despite the same amount of energy going out to space from this parcel.
Hence the TOA is always fully in balance quasi instantaneously.
Despite millions or billions of absorption /emissions it takes no time at all at the speed of light for the balance to be kept in check.
Hence the energy in always equals the energy out.
What of latent heat and sensible heat?
What of the movement of the air particles?
What of conduction , convection and currents?
Is there extra energy there?
No.
They are just descriptors of where the emitting particles are that were originally at the earth surface.
–
Lit August 31, 2022 12:01 am
I see. So the people that manufacture the pyrgeometers don’t understand how they work. And the scientists who have installed pyrgeometers all over the world don’t know how they work. And the scientists who calibrate the pyrgeometers to make sure the measurements are accurate don’t know how pyrgeometers work. And the scientists who take the measurements don’t know how pyrgeometers work.
But some random anonymous popup on the web who doesn’t have the albondigas to use his real name knows how they work, and knows that each and every one of those scientists has the same misunderstanding about how they work.
I gotta say … some folks delusions seem to have no end. Here’s an instruction manual for a modern pyrgeometer. Read it. You might learn something.
Or not. Your choice.
w.
So the people that manufacture the pyrgeometers don’t understand how they work. And the scientists who have installed pyrgeometers all over the world don’t know how they work. And the scientists who calibrate the pyrgeometers to make sure the measurements are accurate don’t know how pyrgeometers work. And the scientists who take the measurements don’t know how pyrgeometers work.
No, it’s just you Willis.
No, you are just posting lies.
No, you are just posting lies.
Are you one of Willis’s groupies? You know, someone who feels affronted when their hero comes under fire?
YOU ARE TELLING LIES ABOUT A GREAT MAN!
It is very obvious that Willis does not know how a pyrgeometer works.
God, it’s been explained to him enough times. Give it time.
And you are just an ankle-biter fanboi. Oh for an #ignore function.
I’m actually a unicorn.
Just another internet clown show are you.
That hurt, Carlo.
You re so masterful.
Willis, for some reason the link you published to the instruction manual isn’t working.
Thanks, Phil, fixed.
w.
Lit, you are wasting your time. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, “It is difficult to get Willis to understand this when his whole philosophy depends on him not understanding it.”
All you have to do is read:
https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=7365
Page #1, the body and dome temperatures are only corrections to the thermopile voltage.
I think it is pretty obvious that you are in love with Willis.
Don’t lie for him.
Idiot.
Love is blind.
Willis,
In exact words, you write “Downwelling (headed to earth) thermal radiation from the clouds/atmosphere absorbed by the surface is about 345 W/m2.”
I must be missing something, because I cannot work out or find a reference to the way that this global incoming radiation is measured. Surely it is not by satellites orbiting a metre or two above the surface. So, how is it done?
Geoff S
At the surface, with an instrument called a pyrgeometer:
https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=7365
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrgeometer
Thanks Carlo, Monte
I am heading to the question of whether the measurements can be made accurately enough to be useful in the way Willis presents. I hope they are accurate, but time after time in climate work, authors express what they wish for as well as what the data show. A neutral check is not a hostile act. Geoff S
Thermopile radiometers like pyranometers typically have total uncertainties of about ±5% when properly calibrated, and I would expect similar numbers for a pyrgeometer. At 350 W/m2, this would translate to about ±17 W/m2.
And then after taking a measurement with the pyrgeometer, they add the ambient temperature converted to power, which is an invalid physics operation, and is where all of those 345 W/m^2 come from (and then some).
You have reconfirmed Loeb et al (2021) and Dubal and Vahrenholt (2021). Most warming is from increased absorbed solar radiation.
Willis,
Your calculations are wrong, at least in part because you are using transient values for temperature instead of equilibrium temperatures. You didn’t account for the growing energy imbalance. If you differentiate the S-B equation you get dT/dF = 1/(4σT^3). This means if you solve for dT/dF using the Earth’s effective radiating temperature you get:
dT/dF = 1/[4σT^3] = 1/[4*5.67 x 10^-8*255^3] = 0.266 C/Wm^-2
That means it takes about 3.76 W/m^2 to increase GMST by 1 C, about the same as the forcings of 3.71 W/m^2 for doubling CO2. This is non-controversial, and it’s the reason why scientists say that sensitivity from CO2 alone is about 1 C for 2xCO2.
That of course ignores feedbacks. We’ve experienced about 2.1 W/m^2 from CO2, while forcings for other GHGs and aerosols have roughly canceled each other out (total anthropogenic forcings are ~2.2 W/m^2). Natural forcings have been comparably negligible since the industrial revolution. If you plot CO2 as radiative forcing (using 5.35*ln [rCO2]) on the x-axis and GMST on the y-axis, you get a good correlation (r^2 = 0.87) and a slope of 0.625 C/Wm^-2, which implies a TCR of 2.3 C. Given that EEI is currently about 0.8 W/m^2, that implies an ECS of about 3.3 C.
https://woodromances.blogspot.com/2022/05/estimating-ecs-from-logarithmic.html
Scott J Simmons
I have no idea what you are calling “equilibrium temperatures”.
As to the “growing energy imbalance”, I’m looking at monthly values on the order of 400 – 500 W/m2, with average monthly changes of 0.75 W/m2. Meanwhile, the monthly increase in the energy imbalance is 0.003 W/m2 per month, two orders of magnitude smaller.
Which is exactly why I ignored it. And in fact, seeing someone like you coming, in the head post I said:
(Yes, there is a tiny residual term, less than 1/2%, of energy from/to storage, mainly in the ocean. However, because it is so small, it is typically ignored in this type of first-order analysis.)
True but not meaningful. As I showed above, for each W/m2 absorbed by the surface, only about three-quarters of a W/m2 are expressed as temperature. The rest leaves the surface as latent and sensible heat.
And that means that you can’t blindly apply the S-B equation to the earth’s surface as a whole, because the energy flows at the earth’s surface are much more complicated than are encompassed by that equation.
Regards,
w.
If you agree that “you can’t blindly apply the S-B equation to the earth’s surface as a whole,” then why did you do precisely that? That’s exactly what your post did, and you did it wrong. The actual value for Planck’s feedback about half what you calculated.
You didn’t compare forcings to equilibrium temperature, and you likely used an incorrect value for emissivity. You didn’t show your work, so we can’t know for sure. The Earth’s energy imbalance is ~0.8 W/m^2, so more warming must occur until equilibrium is reached. You didn’t account for that.
You also didn’t account for feedbacks that are dependent on warming from CO2. You just blindly (and probably wrongly) made calculations from the S-B equation.
Anders Ångström constructed his pyrogeometer from an idea of two-way heat flux E_in and E_out, while understanding that only the net flux E_eff could effectively be measured. But to determine DLR = E_in from (*) E_out had to be known and Ångström then simply assumed that E_out = sigma T^4 as if the Earth surface was radiating like a blackbody into a surrounding of 0 K. Since this is obviously not the case Ångström made an ad hoc assumption about E_out without physical basis, and then reported DLR with a terminology suggesting a physical meaning. But the DLR determined by (*) lacks physical meaning because E_out lacks physical meaning.
Anders Ångström thus opened to an unphysical misconception of two-way radiative heat transfer, while according to Stefan-Boltzmann there is only one-way heat transfer from warm to cold. Anders was not a physicist like his father Knut, and evidently lacked some understanding of the physics of the pyrgeometer.
The unphysical science by Anders Ångström opened to give the atmospheric trace gas CO2 an unphysical warming effect which was later efficiently exploited by climate alarmists.
Michael Moon said:
First, your terminology is wrong. Radiation doesn’t transfer heat. It transfers energy.
Heat is energy that flows spontaneously from hot to cold.
Radiative energy is a very different beast. It’s radiated by all solids and most gases. It knows nuthin’ ’bout nuthin’ … it just gets radiated, by everything from the sun to bananas, and the radiation starts its jouney.
And when the radiative energy is finally absorbed, the temperature of the absorbing object is immaterial. Might be hotter, might be colder.
Why doesn’t this violate the laws of thermodynamics? Because this is radiative ENERGY, not heat. Heat is the net difference between the radiation from A to B, and the radiation from B to A, and it only flows one way—from warmer to colder.
Remember that if A can see B, then perforce B can see A. Which means that if radiation from A is absorbed by B, then radiation from B is absorbed by A. It is the net of these two very real flows which is the heat flow between the two objects.
Finally, S-B says nothing about one-way vs. two-way.
Best regards,
w.
In the engineering world, we discuss radiative heat transfer as a lot of money is spent on this phenomenon. Temperature is the average kinetic energy of molecules. Heat is energy, in one of its many forms.
I suspect that pyrgeometers measure nothing. If one points an infrared thermometer at the sky one gets wildly differing readings depending on clouds.
Then by extension, pyranometers and pyrheliometers also measure nothing as these are also thermopile radiometers.
Pyrgeometers do measure something, Michael, it is just the heat flow from the sensor to (or from) whatever it is pointed at. That’s what thermopiles do, and it might be a positive or negative reading, depending on whether the sensor is hotter or colder than what it is looking at.
However, that measurement is not what the pyrgeometer scientists report. They add the aforementioned unphysical Angstrom adjustment first, and then report that. Of course the result of that operation looks nothing like the original measurement. At night, the original physical voltage measurement looking upwards is a negative number, because the sky is colder than the ground, but after the Angstrom adjustment, it is a much larger positive number.
Radiation doesn’t transfer heat. It transfers energy.
Well, heat is the process that spontaneously transfers internal energy from a warmer object to a cooler object. Therefore, in order for an object to transfer energy to another object that law must apply. If there is a transfer of energy it must be by the heat process. Radiation cannot transfer energy without that temperature gradient.
Heat is energy that flows spontaneously from hot to cold.
True. Clausius. As I said above. You just contradicted yourself.
Radiative energy is a very different beast. It’s radiated by all solids and most gases. It knows nuthin’ ’bout nuthin’ … it just gets radiated, by everything from the sun to bananas, and the radiation starts its jouney. Might be hotter, might be colder.
Okaaayyyy. So this radiative energy is different from the energy above that flows spontaneously from hot to cold? Does it reside in a secret pocket inside an object so that it doesn’t get transferred during the heat energy transfer process?
And when the radiative energy is finally absorbed, the temperature of the absorbing object is immaterial.
But you just said Heat is energy that flows spontaneously from hot to cold.
So how does energy flow from cold to hot if the energy flow is spontaneous from hot to cold?
Have you just discovered or invented a new branch of thermodynamics, Willis?
Why doesn’t this violate the laws of thermodynamics? Because this is radiative ENERGY, not heat. Heat is the net difference between the radiation from A to B, and the radiation from B to A, and it only flows one way—from warmer to colder.
Willis, it is the same internal energy of an object and it only flows from hot to cold spontaneously because of a difference in temperature.
I understand now why you think The Steel Greenhouse is a valid display of forcings and back radiations.
It’s because you don’t understand how thermodynamics works.
You have no training.
That’s actually not a bad description as far as it goes, Willis, although we can already see a hint of trouble in your phrase “radiative energy is a very different beast”. But to see where that trouble actually surfaces, let’s see if you can describe the relationship between radiation (which you correctly described as a form of energy) and power. Specifically, what units would you use to measure the radiation emitted by a colder object toward a warmer one? (or an object at the same temperature, for that matter)
Sorry, Steve, but you and leitmotif are on my “Do Not Reply” list. I’ve never seen anyone gain anything by interacting with you, and as a result, I just pass.
So please, direct your questions to someone else. For me, with you and leitmotif the First Rule of Pig Wrestling applies in spades.
w.
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” George Bernard Shaw.
Exploited by religious fanatics and politicians.
“The relationship is given by the “Stefan-Boltzmann Law”. Using that law, if you know the radiation, you can calculate the temperature and vice versa.”
You can calculate that here, we are looking at 508.7W/m^2:
https://www.spectralcalc.com/blackbody_calculator/blackbody.php
Willis,
It would be very interesting to see Figure 1, season by season. Thanks for a great post.
“So if that extra energy to raise temperatures by 1°C comes solely from increased CO2, it would be almost two doublings from our present level of 410 ppmv of CO2. The CO2 level would have to be ~ 1,500 ppmv to get a 1°C rise from the present temperature.”
Does this mean that the ECS is 0.5 degrees C?
yes in fact iirc, by joules, most of the “work” done by heat on Earth goes into lifting water into the air (and eventually a tiny fraction becomes hydropower on its way back down to sea level)
this is relevant to the earlier question of whether downwelling IR can heat the oceans… since the IR is concentrated on the surface skin, some amount (not all) of that energy goes into evaporation
as with sweating mammals and boiling pots, many systems achieve temperature plateaus despite increasing energy flux via increased evaporation
Willis, This is my first reading at WUWT in a long while, and I appreciate your essay.
Thanks for the kind words, Matt.
w.
A bit OT.
Anyway, Boltzmann did never derive any radiation law. Boltzmann showed that the energy density of radiation in a cavity is proportional to the thermodynamic temperature raised to 4.
Boltzmann did comment that this relation could be a support for Stefans experimentally observation that the cooling rate of heated objects seemed to follow a T^4 law.
Planck calculated the spectral distribution in a cavity.
All people who say that S-B law is correct and well proven. Please tell me what the source of thermal radiation is ? There is no explanation whatsoever in S-B law what generates the thermal radiation. It has to come from a source!
Where is the physics that relates the radiation to the source ?
A solid body is not a cavity.
First, the sun is the source. GHG theory says the atmosphere is basically transparent to the sun’s energy. This isn’t true, but necessary to have CO2 drive water feedback. The system is then like having a hot plate with the earth sitting on it. The atmosphere then becomes an insulating body that absorbs radiation from the surface and the atmosphere having a lower conductivity releases heat at a slower rate that then causes the surface to cool slower.
Think about a room being heated. The wall has a conductivity that establishes a gradient of cooling, say -10 W/m^2. You install insulation that has a higher conductivity that your wall. What will happen? Basically nothing because the wall controls how fast heat leaves. What will the temperature be on the wall side of the insulation? Whatever it was before you added the insulation.
Now add insulation with a lower conductivity. It will have a slower gradient of cooling than the wall, say -5 W/m^2. So, since heat doesn’t leave as fast, the wall side of the insulation will have a higher temperature than the first insulation. But, will the wall be heated? No, it too will cool slower. You just made a “wall” that looses heat a rate of -5 W/m^2.
I’m not sure I’m explaining this clearly, but I am trying.
Hi Jim,
I am talking about thermal radiation emitted from a body – e.g. earth.
If you have a piece of something – the theory is that it emit radiation according to SB law.
Something in that body generate an electromagnetic field. The most plausible source is the lattice vibrations (phonons). In my opinion there should be a relation between the spectrum of the thermal emission and the phonon spectrum.
There must be a connection between the characteristics of the source and the characteristics of the emitted field.
I think this is strongly supported by the fact that thermal emission from real bodies does not have a Planck distribution.
There is absolutely nothing in Boltzmanns nor Plancks derivation relating to radiation source. Their work is only applicable to an electromagnetic field in thermal equilibrium in a cavity.
Originally the radiation was called “cavity radiation” (later black box = the cavity).
I am a bit frustrated that everybody is talking about the SB law as it is well proven.
When someone can show how to derive the emission spectra from material characteristic (lattice vibrations) I will be very happy.
Today – thermal radiation is a radiation without source. This is not good physics.
Just to be clear.
Boltzmanns and Plancks physics are great work. The generalization of “cavity radiation” to solids/gases/liquids without any explanation is not good physics.
The concept of emissivity hides the fact that nobody knows why the radiation spectra deviates. The emissivity is a correction factor with a value between 0 and 1. There is no physics in the “emissivity”. It is only a correction factor applied to get agreement between “cavity radiation” and measured radiation.
Planck did not use “cavity” radiation to derive his main conclusions. His Theory of Heat Radiation up until Part II Chapter II did not even mention cavities. He used pistons and cylinder as a volume in the next chapters to prove his theories using Boltzmann and Maxwell’s radiation pressure. Planck was the first scientists to postulate the existence of quanta whose fundamental basis was energy defined by frequency.
I don’t think you can criticize his experiments and conclusions without also showing exactly where his conclusions were faulty. I am not as familiar with Boltzmann’s work, but Planck used it as a confirmation of his own work, not as something built upon Boltzmann’s work.
I forgot to add that Planck’s work does recognize that bodies do not emit full spectrum EM waves. Monochromatic waves are even dwelt with in his derivations.
I am confident you have not read his seminal work at all or you would know that.
I do not criticize Plancks work. I see him as one of the great physics.
But, Yes, Plancks derivation is for a cavity. He assumes that there is electromagnetic radiation inside a cavity. He assumes that an electromagnetic wave carries an energy proportional to the frequence (great assumption), and then he calculates the thermal equilibrium inside the box. The result is the famous Plank distribution.
Boltzmann talked about cylinders and pistons. A cylinder is a cavity.
Planck talked about an empty box – that is a cavity.
Neither Planck nor Boltzmann talked about the source for thermal radiation. What is generating the thermal radiation ? A cavity or a cylinder does not generate thermal radiation. Charge displacement in a body (=phonons) generate radiation.
I am asking for a theory that connects atmo displacement to thermal radiation. That means that I ask for a connection between the emitted radiation and the source of the radiation,
I appreciate your comments, but I would very much appreciate an answer from you or your colleagues.
What generates thermal radiation. What is the source for thermal radiation. Does Planck answer this question ? Does Boltzmann answer this question.
One who tried to answer this question was Einstein at a late Solvay conference.
Do you agree that there is something missing if one can not explain the cause of something ? What generates thermal emission ? The source ?
The issue is not so much what causes it but what is measured in experiments and the functional relationships developed from the measurements.
Planck ignored the atomic level investigations into what actually caused the EM waves to be generated. I’m sure that Boltzmann and Stephan had no way to measure the atomic phenomena either. That doesn’t obviate the fact that they ran exacting experiments to measure what was happening at a more macro level.
Here is a part of his Theory.
As you can see, Planck considered what you are asking and worked around the atomic level considerations. I would add that as far as I know, there has never been any refutation of his work, regardless of the atomic or molecular origination. I think you will find, if you look, papers where that has been studied. Atoms and molecules DO radiate EM waves, we can see them! There is little proof that they can NOT also emit IR frequencies.
Again. I am not at all criticizing Planck´s work. It is great physics.
And yes, I do agree that the crystal structure of solids were not know at that time.
What I do criticize is the way people use Plank´s and Boltzmann´s result.
Today people say that a body radiate according to Planck´s result. Planck´s derivation is for an empty box.
I think the statement “The issue is not so much what causes it..” is a bit strange. Do you mean that it is not important what generate the thermal electromagnetic radiation. The radiation source is not important ?
Of course the radiation source is key physics. The thermal radiation has to originate from something, and that something should be possible to describe.
Todays models/theories are perfect electromagnetic fields in equilibrium in cavities ( also called black bodies). There does not exist any theory today that explains how real bodies generate the thermal radiation.
Have you read any of Planck’s Theory of Heat Radiation?
A goodly portion of his book has nothing to do with black bodies and cavities. He readily admits that monochromatic radiation occurs and his observations are not affected.
I do agree that the Stephan-Boltzmann equation as used without an ε factor to adjust it for non-black body flux is a misuse.
As an electrical engineer I learned to deal with “black boxes” and their inputs and outputs. It is the reason that a step function is input (~infinite # of frequencies) and the output is then analyzed. One doesn’t need to know what is going on in the black box in order to analyze the effects being emitted. This is exactly what Planck has done.
An analogy is a race car driver. Do you think he/she cares what drives the car? Will it matter much if the motive force is made with a reciprocating engine, a Wankel, a turbine, or an electric motor. As long it moves when the accelerator pedal is pushed and stops when the brake pedal is pushed, why would the driver care?
Yes, I have read Planck´s theory of heat radiation.
I spent a couple of years doing research in theoretical physics. My area was quantum thermodynamics, so I am very familiar with both Planck´s theories as well as Boltzmann´s work.
The reason that I stress the importance of the source is that Maxwells equations are linear. This means that the emitted field can not differ from the generating sources. E.g. if the sources does not contain a certain frequency – the emitted field can not have that frequency either. The emitted field reflects the sources.
My own view is that I say something rather obvious. The emitted field is a function of the characteristics of the source.The source is most probably the lattice vibrations. That source will not give rise to a Planck distribution.
My understanding is that is what is observed. Real bodies do not radiate a Planck spectrum.
Both Boltzmann and Planck work with an electromagnetic field in equilibrium with itself. The electromagnetic field is not interacting with matter. It is not generated by matter. This is an idealized model (which I have very high respect of – the model is ingenious).
Bottom line – real bodies do not radiate with a Planck distribution.
The so called emissivity is only a correction factor, to get agreement between the equation and the observation. The reason that this correction factor is needed is that fact the the frequency spectrum of the source (phonons) is not a Planck distribution.
Does it matter ?
Yes it does. Since the SB-law is the fundamental equation used in all (earth) radiation balance models, I think it is very important to clarify the validity for this “application”.
The “green-house” effect may very well be 3 C instead of the claimed 30 C.
As I said before, Planck recognized that monochromatic emission do occur. As to lattice vibrations, that would only be true for solid substances that have appropriate structures. It does not apply to gases under atmospheric pressures.
Also, remember much of Planck’s work is with radiation regardless of how it originates. His research into entropy is seminal in so far as heat transfer is considered.
I’ll say it again, much of his work is based on the effects of radiation and the transfer of heat regardless of how it originates. The fact that he didn’t have the knowledge, equipment, or mathematics to treat the subject down to the atomic level doesn’t really matter. Energy is transferred via EM waves. If the absolute values of the energy is not accurate, I sure haven’t seen any papers that correct his findings. If you have some, you might provide them as references.
Planck´s work is about the spectral distribution of an electromagnetic field inside a box (also called black body). In Planck´s derivation there is no interaction between the field and the material.If you make a hole in the box you will observe Planck radiation.
I do not understand why you insist that I say Planck has made some kind of mistake. I am not saying that at all. I think Planck´s theory is great and perfect. Nothing wrong with Plank – on the contrary.
What is wrong is people stating that a real body radiates according to Planck distribution. That is not correct, and it is not Planck´s fault that people make that kind of statements.
I think your example with gases proves my point. The emission from an emitting gas, e.g. CO2, is not a Planck distribution. It will only contain resonance frequencies of the CO2 molecule. Consequently it will not really follow a Stefan Boltzmann T4 law.
A non emitting gas like eg N2 will not radiate at all. Rather obvious that emission proportional to T4 is not valid.
It is not enough to talk about the temperature of an object (solid, liquid, gas). One has to consider what frequency distribution those sources can generate.
My understanding from reading original papers is that Planck was fully aware of this. All his contemporary researchers wera aware of this.
I do not know why we have ended up in this overbelief in the generality of Planck distributions and SB law.
The earth isn’t a black body, far from it. If elements and molecules absorb/emit at unique frequencies then you must consider it a grey body. Each unique radiator has its own emissivity/absorptivity and the fact that measurements showing a spectrum with different molecules should be a dead giveaway that drawing a nice Planck curve isn’t proper.
Yet the thermodynamic property of heat and can be treated as properly but the atmosphere makes it terribly complicated. Convection, conduction, latent heat, and storage upsets the whole apple cart from the standpoint of consistency. That is something Planck never worked with and he did it on purpose.
I have some problems with the terminology in this area.
The equations does not fit the equations for a black body. Then it is a grey body … The concept of “grey bodies” is a nice way to say that the theory does not fit.
What is the physics in saying “grey boy”. It does not explain anything. It is just a word.
If I ask what is 2+2 and I get the answer 3. Can the respondent argue that he/she was right because it was a grey answer?
Inventing a new word to cover up for a deviation from the theoretical value does not add any knowledge nor substance.
“This does not fit the theory .. It must be a grey body”. Does it exist dark grey and light grey bodies? Maybe slightly blue bodies also..?
Real bodies do not radiate Planck distributions. Simple !
Sorry,
“The equations does not fit the equations for a black body” should have been:
“The observations does not fit the equations for a black body”
This is The Steel Greenhouse by Willis Eschenbach.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/17/the-steel-greenhouse/
If you agree with it, you have serious conceptual problems and cannot consider yourself a climate change sceptic.
The sphere is around -20C and by surrounding it by a shell its temperature increases to 29C.
Why stop at one shell, let’s keep adding shells and solve the energy crisis.
Sophistry at its worst. Neil Ferguson level on Covid.
Haha! I’ve already got a downvote count.
Good old wuwt.
Those are your (second-person singular) opinions.
I respectfully disagree.
PS : I’m closer to a “lukewarmer” than a “sceptic”, but my internal “System of the World” includes elements of both.
– – – – –
Perform the following experiment on 4 consecutive nights with (approximately) identical room (/ air / “surrounding space”) temperatures.
NB : This can be done at any time of year, but the “most striking” results will probably be obtained mid-winter, when the “surrounding space” temperature counts as “cold”.
– On night 1, go to bed with just a duvet cover over you
– On night 2, go to bed with a duvet cover and a TOG-6 duvet (in a single layer)
– On night 3, go to bed with a duvet cover and a TOG-12 duvet (in a single layer)
– On night 4, go to bed with a duvet cover “packed” with both a TOG-6 duvet and a TOG-12 duvet (in two, evenly spread, layers)
Question : Will you wake up with identical skin temperatures on mornings 2 to 5 ?
My hunch was about a third of the warming is due to CO2, based on physics, and the difference between land and SST warming.
That is an iteresting result.
I made a study on a measurement analysis error:
https://osf.io.huxge/
Here I showed that the true warming in the last 140 years was probably only 0.41°C.
I fitted this corrected temperature data curve to the base two logarithm of CO2 concentration with the following result:
1.04°C per doubling.
However calculating the coeficient of determination between the global land surface temperatures and base 2 logarithm of CO2 results in only 36%
So the resulting sensitivity is only 0.37°C per doubling of CO2. This fits very well to your results.
Willis,
As always your posts generate a lot of interesting comments from very intelligent contributors , many with differing perspectives and reasoning. I enjoy reading them all as many seem to make reasoned debate. But leitmotif’s bullshit has been a distraction. He should state his position and then listen/read.