There has been some progress in the greenhouse. On the ‘toy planet’ thread, physicist Tim Folkerts now agrees with me that longwave infra-red radiated from the air towards the surface doesn’t directly heat the ocean but makes it harder for the ocean to cool. In my view this is due to IR radiation from the ocean making the air warm, reducing the temperature differential between ocean and air, slowing the rate of the Sun warmed ocean’s heat loss. Tim says:
LWIR is indeed incapable of “heating” the oceans in the strict sense of the word (net transfer of thermal energy). The best it can do is aid in making it “a far more difficult task escaping” for the energy.
But it’s hard for him to let go of ingrained notions, so his next comment is full of ambiguities, which I have tried to deal with in my followup comment:
Tim Folkerts: The DWIR DOES amount to ~ 330 W/m^2.
Fine, no problem.
This energy DOES get absorbed by the ocean.
In the top few microns, and is soon re-emitted along with an additional ~60W/m^2 IR, upwards.
The ocean IS warmer than it would be without this DWIR from the atmosphere.
But not because it is absorbed and re-emitted from the top few microns of ocean. The thermalisation of IR in the bulk air helps keep the air warm and that warm air slows the sun warmed ocean’s heat loss.
But the reason the air is warm is because the ocean warms it with the energy it emits into it which is absorbed and re-emitted, or conducted to the O2 and N2 in the air, by water vapour (from the ocean) and co2 (mostly from the ocean). Air has very little heat capacity of its own, and is nearly transparent to incoming solar short wave radiation. And this ocean warmed air is usually convecting upwards.
So the level of LW radiation in the air is what it is because of the temperature the Sun warmed ocean gets it to by emitting energy into it plus the small amount of incoming SW it absorbs near the surface. To say, as may proponents of the greenhouse theory do, that half this energy is then being re-radiated downwards and making the ocean warmer is an abuse of language and conceptual thought, and exhibits either an inability for clear expression of logical thought, or unwitting (self) deception.
The Sun warms the ocean. The (predominantly) ocean warmed air slows down its rate of cooling, along with the air pressure, which suppresses the rate of evaporation of the ocean and prevents it from boiling away into space, as demonstrated in the empirical experiment shown in the vacuum jar video above.
The Moon shows us how averagely cold (and locally hot) it gets at 1AU with no ocean.
Earth’s surface temperature is as warm as it is because of Sun, ocean, air pressure, and last and least because of the absorption of ocean emitted energy in the near surface air by radiatively active water vapour and carbon dioxide and passed into the bulk air providing some insulation. It’s not negligible for sure, but it’s not the prime consideration you co2 fetishists think it is. Us pressure-heads have it right. 🙂
However, the presence of radiatively active gases at altitude (mostly water vapour from the ocean plus traces of co2 and ozone), cooling the planet by radiating to space, is vital to enabling the surface to become warmer than an airless grey-body by the action and presence of Sun, ocean and air pressure.
So don’t despair, you weren’t entirely wrong. Just mostly wrong. 😉
_________________________________
So why does all this matter? It matters because now we are clear of the notion that ‘back radiation heats the ocean’ we can better understand the relative importance of the various climate drivers at various locations in the climate system, and reappraise the likely effect of additional carbon dioxide released into the air by human activities.
But we won’t try to get too far too fast, so we’ll discuss this breakthrough before moving on to the re-appraisal of the ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
That is the clearest exposition on the matter I have seen so far. Excellent!
Thanks M Simon. I felt it was worth elevating from comment to post as it’s a watershed moment in the debate here at the talkshop. Tallbloke and Tim Folkerts agree on something! And still disagree on other things. But it’s definitely progress.
I love that vacuum jar experiment.
Sorry, but it’s time for a Master Class in this physics. ‘Back Radiation’ is an irradiance, the potential energy flux from the atmosphere to a sink at absolute zero. Thus it has units of W/m^2 but can by itself do no thermodynamic work.
This is because the Law of Conservation of Energy applied to matter and the electromagnetic aether is qdot = – DIV Fv. qdot is the monochromatic rate of heat transfer per unit volume of matter; Fv is the monochromatic radiation flux density.
Integrate this at the surface absorption/emission depth over all wavelengths and you get Qdot = -Δ[Irradiance]. The Irradiances are predicted by the Stefan-Boltzmann equation.
So, mean net surface heat transfer = -[396 W/m^2- 333 W/m^2] = -63 W/m^2, 2009 Energy budget data. -23 W/m^2 is in the non self-absorbed H2O bands. None of this can be thermalised in the gas phase because that would breach Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation. The -40 W/m^2 goes directly to Space in the ‘atmospheric window’.
Self-absorbed bands which emit at the black body level mutually annihilate the same wavelength surface IR; the vector sum of the individual Poynting Vectors is zero.
To summarise: a pyrgeometer detects Irradiance, not an energy flux. There is no significant atmospheric impedance to GHG IR because there can be no net main GHG band surface IR. There is no significant atmospheric warming from GHGs but clouds might warm slightly.
Hence there can be no ‘Enhanced GHE’, no ‘positive feedback’.
PS in 2012, a 2nd year Physics class at a Russell group university was set a task to invent a reverse heat engine for a car powered by a roof mounted ‘back radiation’ collector.
The purpose of the exercise was to deprogramme these students from their indoctrination in ‘back radiation ‘ and the rest of the fake IPCC fizzicks.
Alec M: Your summary of the radiative theory involved is well above my pay grade, I’ll allow others to comment to comment on it.
But I think that it is also perfectly valid to make a summary of the thermodynamic situation in plain language as I’ve tried to do. Carefully used, everyday language is sufficient to giving an account of the way energy flows through the system. In fact, it is essential that we involve pressure and convection in our description, and the radiative theory involved in integrating those factors into a verbal/algebraic description is very complex and incomplete.
Feel free to disagree with and/or critique my summary in language we can all understand.
@AlecM: what breach of Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation 😉
e.g. http://vixra.org/abs/1310.0127
e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hstum3U2zw (outline at ~04:56)
To Chaeremon: There is some GHG-absorption in the lower atmosphere of non self-absorbed H2O bands. These are the weakly absorbed wavelengths so the absorption depth is high.
If that energy were to be thermalised in the gas phase the absorptivity of that local volume at local thermodynamic equilibrium would be higher that its emissivity. But that would mean it would not comply with Kirchhoff’s Law, which is that at LTE, emissivity = absorptivity. Hence the energy cannot thermalise locally; it is transmitted onwards by pseudo-scattering (repeated emission then absorption in random directions) until it meets condensed matter where it can thermalise at ‘Planck cavities’.
Another way of looking at this is that the Law of Equipartition of Energy means the vibrationally-activated GHG quantum density of states is set solely by temperature and to change it is impossible because of quantum exclusion.
The experimental issue is that the PET bottle heating is by thermalisation at the vessel wall: Nahle has apparently confirmed this experimentally by showing a Mylar balloon container. 1/12th the PET wall thickness, doesn’t allow heating.
“and that warm air slows the sun warmed ocean’s heat loss.”
And what would that do to evaporation rates?
I have yet to see anyone demonstrate that the “The DWIR DOES amount to ~ 330 W/m^2.” actually do any work, whereas Sunshine can demostrate lots of work heating objects up.
Many experiments have shown that objects exposed to “DWIR” actually cool compared to Ambient temperatures, not warm, of course the excuse used by Roy Spencer when he tried it is that the object would be even cooler without it. Yeah right.
PS: having seen the video, I must point out that Planck’s Law devises the Planck Irradiation Function. This is the potential EM energy flux to a sink at absolute zero, not a real energy flux except for an isolated body in the vacuum of space.
This URL shows how disastrously wrong is the understanding by Atmospheric Science of radiative physics: http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/
Bottom left:‘ Upward IR Heat Flux 289.288 W/m2’. It is not a heat flux but an Irradiance. The net energy transfer is (OLR – σTcmwb^4) where Tcmwb is the 2.7 K cosmic microwave background. The heat transfer in the negative of this because the atmosphere loses heat converted by thermal emission to EM energy.
This error, to fail to understand the basics, means that the climate models are based on a Perpetual Motion Machine of the 2nd kind.
238.5 thermalised SW + 333 ‘back radiation’ – 238.5 DOWN (from the imaginary -18 deg c emitter) = 333 W/m^2. This is a 40% increase over reality!
There is no single emitter: OLR comes from between ground level and 20 km. This mistake, to apply a negative heating from ToA in the two-stream approximation, caused Sagan to believe in the black body surface flux idea. Houghton got this bit right: there is no DOWN term from ToA.
A C Osborn: the cooling is by IR to space in the AW.
PS Spencer is correct; the atmospheric irradiance does reduce net IR loss but that means the surface temperature rises so the sum of convection, evaporation and radiation remains constant. Do the beach windbreak experiment to prove it! i have tried to educate him but his programming in false phsycis is strong. same goes for Lindzen.
The problem with everybody trained in atmospheric science for the past 45+ years is that they overestimate net surface IR by 5.1x and none can thermalise in the gas phase!
“In the top few microns, and is soon re-emitted along with an additional ~60W/m^2 IR, upwards.”
Hmm, I don’t think I like the sound of this. To me it seems like a restatement of the very flaw that made the whole ‘Steel Greenhouse’ debacle so confusing in the first place (and the part which I still don’t agree with). When you say “is soon re-emitted along with an additional ~60W/m^2 IR”, you make it seem like the ‘back radiation’ actually has time to do ‘something’ in between absorption and reemission, and one gets the sense that the ‘back radiation’ is thereby the cause of there being a larger energy flux emitted out from the surface in the next ’round’. But the DWLWIR can never increase the ‘internal energy’ of the surface, making it warmer in the process, leading to a subsequent larger energy output. This would be HEAT transfer from cool to warm. What we must ALWAYS keep in mind, is that the energy exchange between hot and cold is continuous, simultaneous and instantaneous. The DWLWIR and UWLWIR are not ‘real’, separately working flows of energy. They are completely integrated in ONE, only part of the radiation field between the two objects, making up the HEAT, the only ‘real’ flow of energy, moving from hot to cold, always. There is no ‘absorption’ first and ‘reemission’ later. If we don’t get rid of this idea, we will never get anywhere. The only reason the inner planet warms with a shell placed around it, is that the shell warms also, while space (the vacuum) never could. Reduced temperature gradient/difference. Less heat out. Radiative heat transfer equation: P/A = es*(T_hot^4 – T_cold^4).
To Kristian: The equation you present is the only correct one. the atmospheric scientists forget this so they lump SW and LW ‘forcing’ together. The former is near correct because the temperature of the Earth is much less than that of the Sun. However, it fails for the ‘DWLW’.
The reason is that the real energy transfer is by Poynting Vectors for travelling waves with the difference of hot and cold amplitudes, superimposed on a standing wave of twice the amplitude of the cold body waves. there is no energy transfer from cold to hot because there is no Poynting Vector to carry it.
” The (predominantly) ocean warmed air slows down its rate of cooling, along with the air pressure, which suppresses the rate of evaporation of the ocean and prevents it from boiling away into space, as demonstrated in the empirical experiment shown in the vacuum jar video above.”
If we could magically remove the complete atmosphere instantaneously, imo it would only take the evaporation of the first 10 meter or so of ocean water to restore the same pressure as the original atmosphere gave. (add some more water to cover the continents as well)
Evaporation would stop and the earth would end up with a water vapor only atmosphere)
Question to AlecM:
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight#mediaviewer/File:Solar_Spectrum.png
Seeing the absorption bands for H2O and CO2, what are the chances for IR coming from the surface to add anything to the already solar heated gasses in our atmosphere?
I understand CO2 absorbs surface IR in other bands than solar R.
If the surface of the earth including oceans is a system and the atmosphere is a system then boundary can only be crossed by work or heat. Q= U + W. Air mostly is at a lower temperature than the ocean so no heat nor work can cross the boundary to increase the temperature of the ocean. DWLIR can do no work it is diffused.
“However, the presence of radiatively active gases at altitude (mostly water vapour from the ocean plus traces of co2 and ozone), cooling the planet by radiating to space, is vital to enabling the surface to become warmer than an airless grey-body by the action and presence of Sun, ocean and air pressure”
Sorry, no. The surface is not a “greybody” or even a “near blackbody”.
My empirical experiments show that the oceans superheat due to selective surface effect without atmospheric cooling. And in turn the atmosphere has only one effective cooling mechanism. Radiative gases.
Bottom line folks.
If your answer is anything other than –
“radiative gases act to cool our atmosphere at all concentrations above 0.0ppm”
– then you have gotten it wrong. No if , no but, no maybe. Just totally wrong.
Harsh? Yes…and?
Tallbloke
How childish of you. Tim will never agree with you unless you abandon your pseudo-science.
There are energy inputs to the ocean and there are energy outputs from the ocean. If the total input is larger than the total output the ocean will warm, if the total output is larger than the total input the ocean will cool. I does not matter where the energy is coming from or going. The oceans surface is the boundary between sea and air, the oceans surface is not a few microns below the boundary so all energy absorbed by the ocean will increase the temperature of the ocean.
On The Dogmatic Jihad of Radiative Transfer Theory Believers
This guy Robitaille has missed a key bit of understanding; he’s not very good.
1. Absorptivity = emissivity at LTE for any given wavelength range. The idea that it is all predicted on black body emission and absorption is not the issue. E.g., I have measured emissivity of oxide coated Al as a function of wavelength and helped create the first two-colour pyrometers – we used the ratio to scale the real emissivity-wavelength function as a function of temperature via a look-up table.
2. He has got it seriously wrong with gases. The emissivity will vary with temperature simply because they expand whilst the apparatus is effectively fixed. Hence the physical emission depth at high enough temperature is less than that for which the end of the emission volume is space filling when you project the activated molecules onto that plane. So, it cannot emit as a black body and you measure a lower effective emissivity. This goes back to Hottell. Leckner made corrections in the 1970s. An engineer is quite happy with empirical data.
Regarding the minor bands, it all depends on whether they are self-absorbed. if so, no net IR can be emitted from the surface – think of the opposing Poynting Vectors. As for non self-absorbed, this bit only works for H2O which is not well mixed. The absorption/emission depth is less than the effective depth of the atmosphere. Well-mixed gases are mostly self-absorbed otherwise, you won’t measure a detectable effect more than optical scattering.
To mkelly: by definition, there is zero work on the ocean by ‘DWLW’ – think of the Poynting Vectors again.
To all: I trained as a process engineer so I have measured these things. Carl Sagan seriously messed up atmospheric physics so none of the people, who were trained in the past 45 years or so knows what they are on about, not even Lindzen! I’m not an atmospheric scientist but I have measured and designed GHG heat transfer processes, and they still work.
Sorry, but this is about a bunch of people who have never had to face being sacked for getting the physical manifestation wrong, which is why the less well controlled shout and scream at people like me, claiming we’re ‘deniers. Lindzen at last does experiments so he can learn. Eventually i will correct his knowledge! There is no enhanced GHE. There is no 33 k GHE. The real CO2-AGW is controlled by atmospheric processes, more later, to near zero. However, to get here has taken me 4 years; in effect a new PhD. Trouble is, there’s no-one to tell me i’ve got it right or wrong because I am The Expert…..:o)
The IPCC’s ~3C equilibrium climate sensitivity estimate assumes that the oceans are heated by back radiation and that this heat is slowly released back to the atmosphere over periods of hundreds of years.
But what if back radiation doesn’t heat the oceans?
Then the concept of equilibrium climate sensitivity is invalid, the IPCC’s ~3C climate sensitivity is too high and the IPCC’s climate models predict too much future warming. Assuming, that is, that increasing CO2 will generate any.
To R Andrews: back radiation cannot heat the oceans. Full Stop.
CO2 climate sensitivity is very near zero.
You need to stop putting words in my mouth. Your interpretations of of my position is close, but not quite right in many cases.
[SIDENOTE: I am going to try sticking with “Q” rather than “heat”, just to be clear that I mean the “the net flow of thermal energy” as found eg in ΔU = Q + W.]
MAIN POINT: The temperature of an object depends on both Q_in from hotter surroundings and Q_out to cooler surroundings. The temperature will tend to adjust until these two quantities are equal. Never think in terms of only Q_in or Q_out.
“Tim Folkerts now agrees with me that longwave infra-red radiated from the air towards the surface doesn’t directly heat the ocean but makes the air warm, reducing the temperature differential between ocean and air, slowing the rate of the Sun warmed ocean’s heat loss.”
1) I have always agreed that Q_out is directed from the surface up toward the cooler atmosphere and space (other than during the occasional temperature inversion).
2) You almost make it sound like this is only a conductive/convective change as the air gets warmer, but it is also (perhaps most importantly) a IR change. Less IR can escape from the oceans because the clouds & GHGs overhead get warmer.
ME: This energy DOES get absorbed by the ocean.
TB: In the top few microns, and is soon re-emitted along with an additional ~60W/m^2 IR, upwards
This is still looking at it mostly backwards. The “first few microns” can either emit thermal IR Q_out =~ 60 W/m^2 (with that warm atmosphere full of GHGs and clouds) or Q_out ~ 400W/m^2 (with no warm atmosphere to limit the IR output). In one case, there will be a tiny cooling effect. In the other there will be a huge cooling effect on the first few microns (leading to convection that brings up fresh supplies of warm water from below until the whole thing starts cooling down). And as the ocean cools, it will cool the air above it.
Furthermore, the phrase “first few microns” is a red herring. All of the Q_out is from the same top few microns. The surface re-emits ~ 60 W/m^2 or IR along with ~ 80 W/m^2 of evaporation and ~ 20 W/m^2 of conduction/convection. But that Q_out ≈ 160 W/m^2 is WAY less than the Q_out ≈ 400 W/m^2 that we would have with no suppression of outgoing IR.
“But the reason the air is warm is because the ocean warms it with the energy it emits into it which is absorbed and re-emitted, or conducted to the O2 and N2 in the air, by water vapour (from the ocean) and co2 (mostly from the ocean). “
and
“The Sun warms the ocean.”
That is half the equation– the “Q_in” part. What about Q_out? If I set an electric heater outside on a cold winter day in a pot of water, it will not get as warm as it would get on a warm summer day. In either case, the electric heater is the only thing adding the same Q_in to the water. But you can’t tell the temperature of the water just from the electrical power input — you have to know the outputs as well! You need to know both Q_in from warmer objects and Q_out to colder objects
The REAL reason the air is warm is because it absorbs Q_in (fairly well) from the surface (and from the sun directly) and because it loses Q_out (rather poorly) to space. It warms until the two are in balance.
“Earth’s surface temperature is as warm as it is because of Sun, ocean, air pressure, and last and least because of the absorption of ocean emitted energy in the near surface air by radiatively active water vapour and carbon dioxide and passed into the bulk air providing some insulation.”
This again shows your fixation on Q_in. The surface is as warm as it it because of the balance between Q_in and Q_out. Q_out is not “last and least” — it is exactly as important as Q_in!
So don’t despair, you weren’t entirely wrong. If you look at both Q_in and Q_out, you will start to see the bigger picture.
AlecM:
That’s the conclusion I reached.
A useful concept is static fields
Such as air pressure. If you weigh a bag of sugar on scales does anyone bother calculating the air pressure from all the different directions? These cancel to unity.
You can try this for yourself, 2kg * 1 == ??
Same with many other things.
The static thermal radiation field cannot be measured.
A reminder, I’ve shown how the static field is added on by maths in instruments then passed off as real, wasn’t measured.
Ulric asks: “and that warm air slows the sun warmed ocean’s heat loss.”
And what would that do to evaporation rates?
Smaller temperature differentials reduce evaporation in general.
Tim F: You need to stop putting words in my mouth.
I’ve quoted you verbatim.
A C Osborn says:
July 17, 2014 at 1:02 pm
I have yet to see anyone demonstrate that the “The DWIR DOES amount to ~ 330 W/m^2.” actually do any work, whereas Sunshine can demostrate lots of work heating objects up.
——————-
Lets up the power a bit but keep the wavelengths roughly the same: Wiki
The carbon dioxide laser (CO2 laser) was one of the earliest gas lasers to be developed (invented by Kumar Patel of Bell Labs in 1964[1]), and is still one of the most useful. Carbon dioxide lasers are the highest-power continuous wave lasers that are currently available. They are also quite efficient: the ratio of output power to pump power can be as large as 20%. The CO2 laser produces a beam of infrared light with the principal wavelength bands centering around 9.4 and 10.6 micrometers.
……………..
So here we have 10um radiation (just the same as radiation from CO2 in the atmosphere) equivalent to the radiation from a body at low temperature heating steel to vapour.
Surely a bit of a conundrum there – certainly would be for slayers!
Yes, you did quote me, but you also went on to say what I think, and that is what I was having a problem with.
Ford: Isn’t this where Alec M’s ‘annihilation’ of opposing streams comes in?
Also, a body of gas modulating the wavelength of throughput ‘pumped’ energy is not a closed thermodynamic system is it?
The vacuum jar experiment does one other thing not discussed. It removes the water vapor from the system. In a low-pressure atmosphere the water vapor would remain in the system and in fact become part of the atmosphere as a GHG, and contribute to a denser atmosphere. What that might mean to the discussion I don’t know yet.
Tim F: OK, I’ll amend to say it’s my interpretation.
To thefordprefect: the CO2 laser vaporises steel because the flux density is extremely high.
This is because the population inversion sympathetically collapses, leading to the coherent, parallel beam.
Thermal radiation is incoherent so the amplitude of each self-absorbed wavelength, hence the Poynting vector, is set by the Planck Irradiation Function for that wavelength. For a collimated beam, this integral of this over all wavelengths is the irradiance.
thefordprefect says: July 17, 2014 at 5:57 pm
Sorry that is bullshit and you know it. Why can’t 330 W/m^2 do work at the surface, the reason given by Warmists is that the object to be worked on has to be colder. Total contradiction.
How much power is input in to your laser and what does that represent as W/m^2 bearing in mind that the beam is concentrated down to about 1mm diameter.
I most heartily concur with all that AlecM has posted!
The following is a repost from the toy planets thread.
Tim Folkerts says: July 17, 2014 at 4:36 am
“(Tallbloke says: “Thank you. That’s the end of lgl’s ridiculous “DWIR is a separate stream of energy heating the ocean with 330W/m^2″ argument then.”
The only thing wrong is the word “heating”. There IS a separate stream of photons heading down that is not the same as the stream of photons heading up. The DWIR DOES amount to ~ 330 W/m^2. This energy DOES get absorbed by the ocean. The ocean IS warmer than it would be without this DWIR from the atmosphere.
I would have to go back and carefully see what lgl said to know if it was “ridiculous’ (or perhaps just “poorly stated”, or perhaps even “correct”). But overall I have been impressed with what he has to say.)”
OK Tim, I
In Tim’s Toy planet all below have been observed, measured, and demonstrated as valid:
While in Will’s toy planet all below have been claimed, theoreticized, but never observed:
1. The Schuster-Schwarzschild two stream approximation for a non luminous gas is valid.
2. All bodies radiate flux rather than have only “radiance” proportional to T^4.
3. Between two surfaces with same temperature this flux is in both directions but does no work.
4. Thermal radiative flux is always photons never EMR as described by Maxwell’s equations.
5. Thermal radiative flux always produces sensible heat energy at any interceptor.
6. Statistical mechanics apply to all energy transfer.
7. The equipartition theorem is always valid.
8. Kinetic theory of gas is both useful and proven.
9. Kinetic theory of thermodynamics is both useful and proven.
10. Both Photons being emitted, and the effect of Photons on an interceptor “is”.
That is enough. Many more concerning the Neuvo science and Wm. Connolley’s claims of everything thermodynamic.
We will let Roger and the readers, decide which toy planet is similar to Earth!
Alec says:
“This is because the Law of Conservation of Energy applied to matter and the electromagnetic aether is qdot = – DIV Fv. qdot is the monochromatic rate of heat transfer per unit volume of matter; Fv is the monochromatic radiation flux density.”
1) There is no “aether”. That concept was thrown out just a bit after “caloric”.
2) Could you restate your equations using some common names and nomenclature. Perhaps we can agree to use this list from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiant_flux
“-23 W/m^2 is in the non self-absorbed H2O bands …
I get the part about -40 W/m^2 going straight to space in the atmospheric window, and that -23 W/m^2 is the net that does not go thru the atmospheric window, ie that is in bands absorbed by GHGs or clouds. But then you say a few things that don’t sound right.
Self-absorbed bands which emit at the black body level mutually annihilate the same wavelength surface IR; the vector sum of the individual Poynting Vectors is zero.”
This would only be true if the atmosphere were at the same temperature as the surface. The radiation in the absorption bands does not all get absorbed right at the surface, and the higher you go, the cooler the atmosphere. So the sum of the Poynting vectors will be slightly upward away from the surface. It will be small, but it will NOT be zero!
“None of this can be thermalised in the gas phase because that would breach Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation.”
Kirchhoff’s Law simply says that (at each wavelength) emissivity = absorbance. There would be a problem if energy were getting thermalize for two radiating surface at the same temperature, but not when the one (the lands and oceans) is warmer than the other (the atmosphere).
The 23 W/m^2 IS getting thermalized and IS warming the atmosphere. It is certainly not being reflected back to the surface or transmitted on thru to space. Where else do you propose that it is going?
“To summarise: a pyrgeometer detects Irradiance, not an energy flux.”
This contradicts what you have been saying! As you have been telling us, only net energy flux is actually measurable — irradiance is only a “potential”. The detector detects the difference between the irradiance from the detector (known because we know the temperature) and the irrradiance into the detector, which is exactly the net energy flux.
“There is no significant atmospheric impedance to GHG IR because there can be no net main GHG band surface IR.”
This seems an odd use of the word “impedance”. The GHGs block ALL of the IR in certain bands, which I would call a huge impedance (at least within the bands). I would say it is the the atmospheric window that has no significant impedance to IR.
Rather over my pay grade here, but an interesting instance comes to mind. On the teslamotors.com/forums site, there has been discussion of pop-out chrome car door handles getting painfully hot to the touch sitting in the sun in warm (e.g. AZ) climates, despite being so reflective. The consensus seems to be that they are very poor emitters, and heat up by conduction from the car body, but cannot cool by radiation.
TF
““To summarise: a pyrgeometer detects Irradiance, not an energy flux.”
This contradicts what you have been saying! As you have been telling us, only net energy flux is actually measurable — irradiance is only a “potential”.”
You are correct to point out an error which looks like inversion, quite possibly a typo. Should have stopped then. I’m leaving it at that.
You know you’ve had too much back radiation when it feels crispy as you roll over to get some front radiation.
AlecM says:
July 17, 2014 at 4:16 pm
———————————–
“back radiation cannot heat the oceans. Full Stop.”
And nor can it slow the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool.
Challenge any AGW believer to come up with empirical evidence that incident LWIR slows the cooling rate of water. They have nothing. Nothing at all…
Brian H says:
July 17, 2014 at 9:55 pm
———————————–
“ The consensus seems to be that they are very poor emitters, and heat up by conduction from the car body, but cannot cool by radiation”
Actually they could well be heated just from the sun. This was something that came up in a discussion of the “Planet Aluminium” thought experiment on a previous thread.
Absorptivity and emissivity are not necessarily equal for polished metals. Just because polished metals reflect most sunlight, this does not mean the sun cant heat them. If their emissivity is lower than their absorptivity (say e=0.02 a=0.2), they can heat to very high temperatures because they are poor emitters.
For some polished metals this is quite extreme. A plate of polished nickel placed in full sun in a vacuum at earth distance from the sun will heat to incandescence.
Roger,
there really is no room for DWLWIR to have any role in slowing the cooling of the oceans. After all, convective circulation depends on radiative cooling at altitude. Without radiative gases, circulation in the Hadley, Ferrel and Polar cells stalls (Dr. Spencer 2009). Without radiative gases the atmosphere can’t evaporatively cool the oceans as the atmosphere would have no way to cool itself.
You need always to think of the “what if the atmosphere was non-radiative case”.
Konrad: I’m doing this in baby steps. First we establish LWIR radiation doesn’t heat the oceans directly. Then we say; at best, it slows the cooling rate by warming the air above the ocean surface. Then we can move on to more advanced concepts like convection and enthalpy. It’s softly softly wih these radiative only folks, explaining thermodynamics as we go.
Don’t scare the horses.
Tim Folkerts says: July 17, 2014 at 8:14 pm
Alec says:Alec says: ( “None of this can be thermalised in th
“This is because the Law of Conservation of Energy applied to matter and the electromagnetic aether is qdot = – DIV Fv. qdot is the monochromatic rate of heat transfer per unit volume of matter; Fv is the monochromatic radiation flux density.”
1) There is no “aether”. That concept was thrown out just a bit after “caloric”.
2) Could you restate your equations using some common names and nomenclature. Perhaps we can agree to use this list from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiant_flux
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Oh! funzies_ Can you admit that “the aether” has never been thrown out, nor ever verified?
For the atmosphere, the atmosphere is the aether, in space, aether is space junk!
Wiki Radiant flux is fine, never to be confused with Radiant Intensity, a vector potential, never Joules/sec. Andrew is using the correct EMR expression to insist correctly that under discussion even using radiometric terms, the power,or energy “is” always EMR, never HEAT, as assumed by the Nuevo science, which is fake! EMR need not be absorbed as sensible heat, and on this Earth rairly is. Your whole kinetic theory of thermodynamics is scientific trash, never to be considered.
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Alec says: “-23 W/m^2 is in the non self-absorbed H2O bands …
I get the part about -40 W/m^2 going straight to space in the atmospheric window, and that -23 W/m^2 is the net that does not go thru the atmospheric window, ie that is in bands absorbed by GHGs or clouds. But then you say a few things that don’t sound right.
—————————————————————————————————————————-Oh! funzies_ Trenberth got that 40W/m^2 way wrong. to space via window is 13W/m^2. The 23 W/m^2 to cloud bottoms via same window is close. I get 19 W/m^2, I can go with 23! All of that goes through the equilibrium clouds as they are exiting to space 88 W/m^2.
Alec says: “Self-absorbed bands which emit at the black body level mutually annihilate the same wavelength surface IR; the vector sum of the individual Poynting Vectors is zero.”
“This would only be true if the atmosphere were at the same temperature as the surface. The radiation in the absorption bands does not all get absorbed right at the surface, and the higher you go, the cooler the atmosphere. So the sum of the Poynting vectors will be slightly upward away from the surface. It will be small, but it will NOT be zero!”
Congratulations Tim this is precise, but still “radiates” intent to deceive!
From the surface a not zero 60 milliWatts/m^2 is upward!
More Later!
tchannon says: July 17, 2014 at 11:05 pm
TF
““To summarise: a pyrgeometer detects Irradiance, not an energy flux.”
This contradicts what you have been saying! As you have been telling us, only net energy flux is actually measurable — irradiance is only a “potential”.”
You are correct to point out an error which looks like inversion, quite possibly a typo. Should have stopped then. I’m leaving it at that.-
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No error from AlecM. The pyrgeometer detects Irradiance! The word detects is a synonym, for “indicates” of any measuring instrument. Folkerts complains because the instrument “measures” an only flux “opposite” of what he claims. That radiative exitance to a lower temperature is used to correctly calculate, indicate/detect the SI “Irradiance” of that lower temperature that is radiating absolutly “no” energy flux whatsoever. Yet still has the potential of irradiance.
Konrad says: “A plate of polished nickel placed in full sun in a vacuum at earth distance from the sun will heat to incandescence.”
Do you have experimental confirmation? I’d love to see that.
Because this sounds highly improbable. The lowest emissivity I see for Nickel after a brief Google search is 0.05. Full sunlight is 1370 W/m^2. If the nickel absorbed all of the incoming sunlight (ie looked pitch black), then it would reach 560 C, which is indeed a dull red color (ie just barely incandescent).
But I have never seen matte black polished nickel. If it were just 50% reflective (very low for any polished metal), then it needs an emissivity of 0.025 to reach this temperature. (Then there is also the little detail of Kirchhoff’s Law: the surface is absorbing visible light well, it will also emit visible light well once it becomes incandescent. Thus the emissivity must be quite high for that low wavelength part of the spectrum.)
All in all, it seems that only impossibly extreme parameters can get the incandescence you claim.
Congratulations Tim this is precise, but still “radiates” intent to deceive!
From the surface a not a zero is 60 milliWatts/m^2 upward!
As continued:
Alec says: ( “None of this can be thermalised in the gas phase because that would breach Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation.”)
“Kirchhoff’s Law simply says that (at each wavelength) emissivity = absorbance. There would be a problem if energy were getting thermalize for two radiating surface at the same temperature, but not when the one (the lands and oceans) is warmer than the other (the atmosphere).
The 23 W/m^2 IS getting thermalized and IS warming the atmosphere. It is certainly not being reflected back to the surface or transmitted on thru to space. Where else do you propose that it is going?”
Oh! funzies_” Kirchhoff’s Law simply says that (at each wavelength) emissivity = absorbance.”
What complete nonsense. absorbance (also called optical density) of a material is … something!
Kirchhoff’s Law refers only to radiative surface properties, and the consequences thereof.
He precisely states that at each wavelength, and in each direction emissivity = absorptivity.
Each term is a surface property, never some absorbance (also called optical density) of some atmosphere. The radiative Law of Gus Kirchoff goes on to state that at thermodynamic equilibrium, a surface, has zero impedence to any incident EMR. This is but a reiteration that at thermodynamic equilibrium: Flux in must equal flux out, or temperature must change!
Alec says: (“There is no significant atmospheric impedance to GHG IR because there can be no net main GHG band surface IR.”)
“This seems an odd use of the word “impedance”. The GHGs block ALL of the IR in certain bands, which I would call a huge impedance (at least within the bands). I would say it is the the atmospheric window that has no significant impedance to IR.”
Oh! funzies_ Your illusionary absorptive gas also has no siginificant impedence to any EMR while at thermodynamic equilibrium. All has already been done, before arrogant academics even look!!! What a wonderful planet!
Left sidebar search facility type in pyrgeometer. Note the author names and the dates. You will recognise commenter names including alecm and TF.
Automatically produced here an hour ago.
Anything inconsistent with what you expect?
Tim Folkerts says:
July 18, 2014 at 3:22 am
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“incandescent” was a poor choice of word on my part. In terms of spacecraft thermal engineering that simply means – “emits in visible wavelength” not – “you can read by the light”. My claims are based on the work of Dr. Konrad Buettner conducted in the pre-spaceflight era. (paper-clip? More like rubber stamp….) His work may have prevented anyone doing something so foolish in space for real 😉
There are many figures around for polished metals, the issue is not just emissivity but absorptivity and the ratio between.
After doing more research into spacecraft thermal control I have found widely varying figures for both absorptivity and emissivity of polished metals and electroplated metals. Take your pick. The issue is for many polished metals absorptivity is higher than emissivity.
As I pointed out, the emissivity/absorptivity ratio issue caused us both to get the wrong figure for “Planet Aluminium” on the toy planet thread. The equilibrium temp of a polished aluminium planet without atmosphere receiving an average of 240 w/m2 (and ignoring mass, specific heat capacity and speed of conduction) may be as low as 453K (180C).
Now here is the important question we did not get to on that thread – Would the surface of planet aluminium be cooler or warmer than 180C with the addition of a thick methane atmosphere?
Planet Aluminium Tim, warmer or colder at the surface for the addition of a thick methane atmosphere? ….Warmer or colder?
1. I use the ‘aether’, an archaic term, to indicate the electromagnetic continuum.
2. The temperature fall in the IR emission/absorption depth, ~30 m, is no more than ~1 K.
3. Net surface IR for each wavelength is set by the difference of mean Poynting Vectors, nearly the same for the self-absorbed GHG IR bands. So there is near zero net IR emission over much of the wavelength range.
3. The emissivity of the atmosphere is between 0.7 and 0.9, the former cold dry, the latter warm humid. The mean is ~0.84.
4. The mean operational emissivity of the surface is (1 – 0.84) = 0.16 = 63 W/m^2/396 W/m^2 for 16 deg C mean surface temperature (2009 Energy Budget). The rest of the 160 W/m^2 SW thermalised at the surface leaves as 17 W/m^2 convection, 80 W/m^2 evapo-transpiration.
5. 23 W/m^2 is absorbed by GHGs in the atmosphere. These are the low absorbing minor H2O bands and the absorption depth is km, set by the humidity fall off with altitude.
6. That energy cannot be thermalised in the gas phase because to do so would mean the absorptivity would be greater than the emissivity at that wavelength. Another way of thinking about it is that the Law of Equipartition of Energy means the IR activated Density of States is a function solely of temperature, so what is absorbed is exactly matched by emission from the local volume, meaning no temperature rise. The energy mostly heads to Space because absorptivity is so low.
7. The 40 W/m^2 in the Atmospheric Window appears to be accurate from satellites.
8. My argument about the impedance of the atmosphere to surface IR is that it is near zero because there is near zero net surface IR. If there were such IR, it would be absorbed, but there is’t much. So in practical engineering terms the IR impedance term is near zero. Purists can argue about the meaning of ‘near zero’ but it doesn’t matter in reality.
9. if there were no clouds, CO2 climate sensitivity would be 1.2 K. What would happen is that higher ‘forcing’ would reduce net surface IR. Hence it would heat up so the sum of convection, evapo-transpiration and radiation = 160 W/m^2.
10. The action of the real atmosphere is to control the climate sensitivity of all the well-mixed GHGs to near zero, as is being proved empirically. Atmospheric heating in the 1980s and 1990s was because there was a sharp fall of apparent cloud area; 67% to 63% in 1984, rebounding in 1997. Because of the image analysis routines of the satellite images, this fall of area was actually from reduction of albedo as Asian aerosol levels rapidly increased. In 1997, the oceans reacted to the increased SW input by the large El Nino, cloud area rose, part of the PID control system!
11. The real atmospheric control system is immensely subtle; more later……:o)
Revised point 8: My argument about the impedance of the atmosphere to surface IR is that it is near zero because there is near zero net surface IR in the strongly absorbing IR bands. The weakly absorbed, non self-absorbed bands have such a low absorption depth that most of it pseudo-scatters to Space. So in practical engineering terms the IR impedance term is near zero. Purists can argue about the meaning of ‘near zero’ but it doesn’t matter in reality.
Sorry: The weakly absorbed, non self-absorbed bands have such a high absorption depth that most of it pseudo-scatters to Space.
Gentlemen,
It is a post like this one and the comments thread that has followed that makes this blog “the best European Weblog”. While my formal science is now old and rusty, the back and forth here was fun to follow and I think I learned a thing or two.
I liked this part:
Those of use not “in the business” benefit from “baby steps”. 🙂
~ Mark
markstoval says:
July 18, 2014 at 10:17 am
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There may be something in that.
My late grandmother used to say – “Whatever folks do in their own homes is ok, so long as they don’t do it on the streets and frighten the horses”.
That’s the problem of the Internet. Our homes have become the main street….
AlecM says:
July 18, 2014 at 7:49 am
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“if there were no clouds, CO2 climate sensitivity would be 1.2 K.”
Not on “Planet Ocean” sunshine. For that to be true the surface of our planet would need to be a “near blackbody”.
If you think adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will reduce the atmosphere’s radiative cooling ability, then you need to see this instructional video –
Sorry for the diversion Roger, but I’m in Australia and this is weasel stomping day. Carbon tax repealed! –
Not really shooting you down Alec, just party time here in OZ 😉 Horses frightened? No, but the Twitterati are foaming…
Whoops, forgot the disclaimer for last video posted. Extreme puppet violence and plasticine gore. Not suitable for viewers “lukewarmer” or younger…
Konrad: Enjoy the day, and slug a tube of Fosters for me, I’m away to Scotland for the weekend now. Very limited inet access.
Konrad says: July 18, 2014 at 12:10 am
AlecM says:
July 17, 2014 at 4:16 pm
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“back radiation cannot heat the oceans. Full Stop.”
And nor can it slow the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool.
Challenge any AGW believer to come up with empirical evidence that incident LWIR slows the cooling rate of water. They have nothing. Nothing at all…
I did this experiment using thermocouples in water in a thermos flask wrapped in insulation.
No stirring of water (standard tap water!)
Two sources of energy input to the water
exp 1 with a aluminium heatsink heated to 100C placed above the flask at end of ventilated tube to reduce conduction End of tube in flask sealed with cling film window to prevent air movements
Exp2 with a waterbath at the end of the tube and a halogen lamp above The water bath removes most IR and needs to be continually replaced to maintain its low temperature.
Results
IR only at approx. 3mm depth the water heats at 0.02°C/minute
Light but no IR at approx. 3mm depth the water heats at 0.027°C/minute
Of course it is not known if the W/m^2 in both cases was the same but the water with IR only did not cool it warmed.
The sea is not a still body of water – the surface microns get mixed the surface microns conduct IR does warm the water, by how much? no idea!
http://www.climateandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/more-on-ir-water-penetration-depth.html
tallbloke says:
July 18, 2014 at 11:43 am
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Umm, not quite sure how to say this… Australians don’t drink Fosters (we ship it overseas to get rid of the horrible stuff). You won’t find it on tap at most pubs in Sydney.
I’m only staggering distance from one of Australia’s oldest. Still brewing on site –
http://www.lordnelsonbrewery.com/
– and still available at most bottle shops within 1km of the rocks.
Good export beer comes from Tassie. Just put the evil blue tube down and back away slowly….;-)
thefordprefect says:
July 18, 2014 at 1:03 pm
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Noooo…
you need this –
or this –
Average wind speed over the oceans Beaufort scale 4. The question is does incident LWIR slow the cooling rate of water that is free to evaporatively cool. You are not in the ball park (and you need to take that towel off your head).
Give it up. The data on water being a selective surface has been in the basement of Texas A&M since 1965. There was no sign saying “beware of the tiger”. Apathetic warmists, I’ve no sympathy at all…Energise demolition beams!
AlecM
1. Just say “electromagnetic radiation” or “electromagnetic wave”. Using the name of the medium would be like using “air” to mean “sound waves”.
2. Even with only 1K difference, we are looking at close to 5 W/m^2. Furthermore, toward the edges of he absorption bands, the distance is much greater and the tempereture difference larger, so the energy transferred is larger.
3. But “near-zero” is not zero. And over much of the range it is not near-zero.
3. Sources like this suggest that your 0.16 value is way toward the low end. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_Transmission.png
4. It appears you are working backwards from 63/396 to get your operational emissivity. That is a clever approach. That is not how I would tend to think about emissivity, but it is very useful in some settings, like figuring out how much extra IR would escape from the surfac to space if the surface warmed.
5. This is where you start to lose me. You are simultaneously claiming that 23 W/m^2 net IR is going from the surface to the atmosphere and that no net IR is going from the surface to the atmosphere. Sometimes you are assuming that the “small temperature difference” between the surface and the atmosphere above is exactly zero, while other times you are assuming there is a dictinct difference.
6. We would need absorptivity greater than the emissivity only if the temperatures were identical. Since the atmosphere is cooler, we can have energy transfer without breaking Kirchhoff’s law. The Law of Equipartition of Energy only applies when the systems is in thermal equilibrium. The “warm” photons from the ground are not in thermal equilibrium with the “cool” molecules in the air, so there can indeed be a net transfer of energy. Taken to an extreme, this is also how sunlight warms the atmosphere. “Hot” photons from the sun get absorbed and thermalized. Conceptually this is the same – the only practical difference is that the sun is MUCH warmer than the air, rather than just SLIGHTLY warmer than the air.
9. More CO2 would reduce the IR from the top of the atmosphere (radiating from even cooler levels higher up). The the net surface radiation up through that atmospheric window would be the same (initially). With less IR leaving from the atmosphere and the same from the surface, the planet as a whole would warm until the net IR from the surface increased enough to balance the lose from the top.
10. Feedbacks are certainly the most challenging part of all this. If we hypothesize some specific conditions (for example “change the CO2 but keep the clouds the same”), the physics is relatively straightforward. When we try to include the actual chaotic effects of a dynamically changing system, then yes, it becomes vastly more complicated. That is why I stick with the basic physics. 🙂 (And why Tallbloke wanted to keep the discussion focused on one issue at a time).
Tim Folkerts,
“More CO2 would reduce the IR from the top of the atmosphere (radiating from even cooler levels higher up).”
I feel that there is a misunderstanding. You assume an imbalance, why? Practically, the upper troposphere will instantly adjust its temperature to maintain balance. The question is in which extent the stability of the emission temperature will have an effect on the surface. This is certainly not with concepts as strange and contrary to thermodynamics that GHG forcing and backradiations that we can get an idea.
Konrad asks: “Planet Aluminium Tim, warmer or colder at the surface for the addition of a thick methane atmosphere? ….Warmer or colder?”
I already said that the answer depends on a variety of factors. There is no “one size fits all” answer,
* Adding layers with higher emissivity tends to be a cooling effect.
* Adding more layers (ie a thicker atmosphere) tends to be a warming effect.
Methane does have higher emissivity than polished Al (at least in certain bands), so a thin layer would certainly be a cooling effect. A thick enough atmosphere of CH2 could possibly be a warming effect, but it would depend on the specific Al IR emissivity & visible reflectivity, how wide the CH4 bands are, and how thick the atmosphere is.
And then it goes dark, nothing is in steady state.
What happen in the dark?
Phil says: “The question is in which extent the stability of the emission temperature will have an effect on the surface.”
I am working with the assumption that the lapse rate — set by instability with respect to convection — is constant. To the extent that this is not a perfect assumption, then my conclusion is also not perfect.
If the lapse rate is constant, then as the TOA gets higher, the temperature difference between top and bottom becomes larger. The only option in this case to re-establish steady-state is for the top to get cooler and the bottom to become warmer.
[Of course, the system will in reality change — the lapse rate might change as the humidly changes, the albedo might change as cloud cover changes, etc. These will adjust the “simple” conclusion, but should not 100% mask it (nor reverse it).]
Tim Folkerts,
Indeed, this will probably not cause a surface cooling. However, the dependence between heat flux and temperature gradient is certainly one of the things the best established in the field of physics. Only climatolgists think they can get rid of this link through inadmissible simplifications. Before anything else, adding CO2 alters the gradient (and I’m obviously not talking about feedback by water vapor). The temperature gradient is determined by convection AND by radiative fluxes.
Phil says: “The temperature gradient is determined by convection AND by radiative fluxes.”
On the other hand, over a wide variety of weather conditions on earth (and on other planets and moons as well), we can predict the lapse rate based solely on the adiabatic lapse rate set by convection. Radiation is limited in how much energy it can transport up through the atmosphere, but convection can and does increase rapidly if the bottom tries to warm and push the lapse rate too high. Thus over a wide range of energy flows, the lapse rate should (and is empirically observed to) remain fairly steady.
Tim Folkerts says: July 18, 2014 at 10:38 pm
I’ve only read the last few posts in this thread Tim, but ‘/what-back-radiation-does-and-doesnt-do’ is, I believe, related to ‘Earth’ and not as you post.
Tim Folkerts says: July 18, 2014 at 10:38 pm
“On the other hand, over a wide variety of weather conditions on earth (and on other planets and moons as well), we can predict the lapse rate based solely on the adiabatic lapse rate set by convection.”
No we can’t!
“Radiation is limited in how much energy it can transport up through the atmosphere, but convection can and does increase rapidly if the bottom tries to warm and push the lapse rate too high.”
“Push the lapse rate too high”??? Please expand!
“Thus over a wide range of energy flows, the lapse rate should (and is empirically observed to) remain fairly steady.”
No it isn’t where it’s ‘really’ important for surface temps. The ELR below the tropopause is all over the place!
Tim Folkerts says: July 18, 2014 at 7:50 pm
Phil says:( “The question is in which extent the stability of the emission temperature will have an effect on the surface.”)
“I am working with the assumption that the lapse rate — set by instability with respect to convection — is constant. To the extent that this is not a perfect assumption, then my conclusion is also not perfect.”
“If the lapse rate is constant, then as the TOA gets higher, the temperature difference between top and bottom becomes larger. The only option in this case to re-establish steady-state is for the top to get cooler and the bottom to become warmer.”
With no definition Of TOA or steady-state, Tim again makes claims that no one can understand.
All you ever do is sew misunderstanding!
tchannon says:
July 18, 2014 at 6:58 pm
And then it goes dark, nothing is in steady state.
What happen in the dark?
In the so called dark, and Solar insolarion is reduced by the rotation of the earth the whole atmosphere quickly reaches, or perhaps already is in, thermodynamic equilibrium (all temperatures and all fluxi are constant), then always remains in thermodynamic equilibrium as the surface cools. There are variances from that in both directions. For EMR flux transfer and Kirchoff’s law of radiation, the whole atmosphere remains in thermodynamic equilibrium. No work is done on the mass of the atmosphere, due to the EMR flux from below passing through it unimpeded. Please explain the manner in which your “steady state” differs from classical thermodynamic equilibrium?
Tim Folkerts says:
July 18, 2014 at 5:45 pm
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“Methane does have higher emissivity than polished Al (at least in certain bands), so a thin layer would certainly be a cooling effect. A thick enough atmosphere of CH2 could possibly be a warming effect, but it would depend on the specific Al IR emissivity & visible reflectivity, how wide the CH4 bands are, and how thick the atmosphere is”
Tim,
all that we need to know is that methane has a higher IR emissivity than polished aluminium at temperatures at or below 180C.
We already have empirical results that show us what another radiative atmosphere at 1 bar pressure does for the surface of “Planet Aluminium” if it is receiving an average of 240 w/m2. It cools.
Go outside with a plate of polished aluminium and place it in the sun on top of a sheet of EPS foam insulation. Record the temperature over a diurnal cycle. It is not going to average 180C or anywhere close. This proves a radiative atmosphere will cool a surface polished aluminium down from the equilibrium temperature it would have achieved in vacuum. A non-radiative atmosphere couldn’t do this as it would have no effective way to cool itself. (no, empirical experiment shows conduction back to the surface won’t do it)
Depending on surface properties, radiative atmospheres can cool.
Aluminium is a selective surface. What about other selective surfaces? Let’s try “Planet White Titanium Oxide”. With surface absorptivity of 0.17 and emissivity of 0.92 , without an atmosphere, this planet would only heat to 167K for an average of 240 w/m2 of sun. Add a radiative atmosphere like ours and the surface of “Planet Titanium Oxide” would warm.
Depending on surface properties, radiative atmospheres can warm.
It should be clear that the effect radiative atmospheres have on planetary surface temperatures depends on the radiative ability of the atmosphere and whether the equilibrium surface temperature of the surface without atmosphere is higher or lower than theoretical blackbody.
On our planet 71% of the surface is a selective surface not a near blackbody. The equilibrium temperature of the oceans without atmosphere is far higher than theoretical blackbody temperature. Our highly radiative atmosphere is therefore cooling the surface. This means AGW is a physical impossibility.
Climastrologists stuffed up. They claimed the oceans were a “near blackbody”. No matter how they thrash and flex, they can never make this error go away.
Rog,
You wrote:
Tim who?
Yep I know (/sarcasm); it seems that he teaches his physics at a university. But, will he revise his teaching to his flowering young physicists?
Tim Folkerts,
“Thus over a wide range of energy flows, the lapse rate should (and is empirically observed to) remain fairly steady.”
The temperature gradient varies greatly by location and over time, it can also be reversed locally. The empirical lapse rate you admit steady is an average not known with great accuracy. A doubling of CO2 corresponds to an increase of the emission altitude of just over 100 m. Obviously, there are no observation which demonstrates the stability of the gradient for such an evolution. Ramanathan justifies this simplification by the material impossibility of modeling convection, it has actually no theoretical or observational basis.
“Radiation is limited in how much energy it can transport up through the atmosphere, but convection can and does increase rapidly if the bottom tries to warm and push the lapse rate too high.”
Exactly. There is a change in the allocation of heat flow in favor of convection and thus a decrease of the temperature gradient (the lower troposphere approaching adiabatic conditions).
The concept of GHG forcing is therefore silly.
Konrad says: July 18, 2014 at 2:23 pm
Apart from some excellent chilled amber fizzy stuff that you hint on, there is also a selection of sociable lubricating fluids of a different colour from Vignerons, of which I’m partial to Shiraz, Cabernet-Merlot , Cabernet-Sauvignon to mention but a few.
After only quickly browsing through the comments on this thread I get the impression that some think that back radiation cannot be absorbed by the oceans. However, here follow three Planck curves in the terrestrial T range, and it is clear (whilst not directly addressing it) that there are plenty of lower energy molecules that can absorb down-welling IR photons without offending Law 2.
Well yes, they don’t get below the skin, but that is a separate issue.
PS: I do not believe in harmful AGW
Answer to Tim Folkerts July 18th 4.08 pm
1. The temperature of the atmosphere up to 30 m from the surface, the absorption depth, cannot be more than ~1 K lower than the surface. Lapse rate would make it 0.2 K. However, for the non self-absorbed bands which have very low absorptivity, the absorption depth is much higher, limited by the humidity fall-off.
2. The 0.16 operational emissivity is an engineering term meaning the difference of emissivities of the opposing emitters. Atmospheric emissivity at low level varies from 0.7 to 0.9.
3. There is zero IR energy flux from the atmosphere to the surface so long as Tsurface >= Tatmosphere. the proof is simple: the IR flux is set by the sum of the Poynting Vectors of a travelling wave of amplitude equal to the difference of the hot and cold emitter amplitudes. This is superimposed on a standing wave, amplitude twice the cold emitter amplitude. The idea of opposing fluxes is the result of people imagining that a hot body slings out photons at the S-B rate when the S-B equation predicts a potential flux.
4. The absorption by GHGs of IR energy from an emitter which is hotter than the gas phase will cause more heating the greater the temperature difference. For 1 K ΔT it’s trivially low. The argument about sunlight is not relevant because 9a) the energies have to match so it’s only the IR part that is absorbed in minor bands and (b) that energy is pseudo-scattered to thermalise at condensed matter; aerosols.
5. The idea that CO2 in the lower atmosphere can absorb energy from cooler, higher altitudes is wrong – see point 3: the travelling wave is always from hotter to colder.
6. As for feedbacks, it all comes down to evapo-transpiration. As with the atmospheric window, at Tsurface ^4, the water vapour emits IR to Space outside the OLR ‘CO2-bite’ so the feedback is always negative. With clouds it’s always sufficient to reduce CO2-AGW to zero. Only in the driest of regions, mountains > 8 km and dry high deserts > 3 km is there any temperature rise as [CO2] increases.
To Bob_FJ: ‘back radiation’ is the atmospheric Irradiance, the potential flux it could emit to a sink at absolute zero. it is not a real energy flow.
The sea Irradiance, from the same temperature, exactly offset most of the same temperature atmospheric Irradiance. There can be no heating of the oceans by IR; i’s entirely S heating.
AlecM says, July 20, 2014 at 1:33 pm:
“To Bob_FJ: ‘back radiation’ is the atmospheric Irradiance, the potential flux it could emit to a sink at absolute zero. it is not a real energy flow.”
I hope we could all start agreeing to this. Bob_FJ, a real energy flow down from the atmosphere to the surface would be a HEAT flux – a direct transfer of energy across a system boundary – from cool to warm. This is where your confusion lies and why the AGW’ers so easily have managed to fool you. If you just acknowledged the strict, unambiguous physical (thermodynamic) definition of HEAT, you would see this straight away. AlecM is absolutely right.
Alec
“1. The temperature of the atmosphere up to 30 m from the surface, the absorption depth, cannot be more than ~1 K lower than the surface. Lapse rate would make it 0.2 K.”
Again, not all of the absorption is sort-range. near the middle of the bands it certainly is, but near the edges of he bands, the absorption length gets longer and longer. So yes, much is absorbed in the first few meter; but much of it does indeed go much further.
“2. … operational emissivity is an engineering term …”
Google gives 163 hits for “operational emissivity”, so it is certainly not a very common engineering term. And most of those seem come from skeptical climate sites, so this seems to be mostly a skeptics term.
We seem to have a philosophical difference on what it means to have two opposing hot surfaces. On the one side are statements like ” ‘back radiation’ is the atmospheric Irradiance, the potential flux it could emit to a sink at absolute zero. it is not a real energy flow” and “the idea of opposing fluxes is the result of people imagining that a hot body slings out photons at the S-B rate when the S-B equation predicts a potential flux.”
This is certainly one what to think about the situation, and it leads to perfectly good calculations of net result when two warm objects radiate at each other.
But this is not the only way to think about it (nor the best in my opinion).
* “standing waves” are in fact mathematically equivalent to two real equal waves traveling in opposite directions (which I am sure many people here know). Saying something is “a standing wave” is to admit it is two equal waves traveling in opposite directions.
* “standing wave” implies something that is fairly uniform — a long sine wave oscillating back and forth nice and steady. By the coherence length of thermal radiation is rather short — on the order of a few wavelengths. Thus any recognizable “standing wave” could be no more than the order of a millimeter before any coherence is lost.
* Suppose i shine two identical flashlights at each other. If I understand your position correctly, then you would say that since the temperature is the same, there is not actually any “light” between them — only the “potential” for light. It would not be until I actually stuck my hand in to block the opposing beam that there would be “light” there.
* Finally, there exist “single photon sources” and “single photon detectors” and even “single photon interference”. The fact that these are ‘things’ suggests that most scientists have left 1900 behind and acknowledge the existence of photons that can pass back and forth through each other, even if the object at one end might be warmer than the other.
Again, the other classical approach that views only the collective average EM field is mathematically sound. I have no problem saying that if one BB would emit 400 W/m^2 to empty space, and it is facing another BB that would emit 300 W/m^2 to empty space, then the net flow will be 100 W/m^2 from the warmer to the cooler.
But please don;t think that this is the ONLY approach. Please don’t get stuck in 1900, ignoring quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics and photons.
And probably my last comment for a while …
I was a bit over-zealous about the uniformity of the lapse rate. Certainly it varies depending on humidity. It can certainly get inverted (especially at night).
Let me re-phrase a bit. The weather on this planet is a response to many factors, resulting in the movements of air and water and energy. The main driving force behind this is energy — energy comes into the atmosphere from the bottom (and a little in the middle directly from sunlight); energy leaves the atmosphere from top (and some directly from the middle mostly from clouds). This energy flow sets up patterns that (averaged over enough years) become “climate” — patterns in rainfall; patterns in wind; patterns in temperature; patterns in lapse rate.
Any change to the energy flow will necessarily have repercussions throughout the atmosphere. In particular any decrease in energy out from the top must cause changes in the system until the balance is restored and the energy out the top equals the energy coming in. There are many changes that could occur to balance the energy flow — the surface could warm and emit more IR; the clouds could increase to block more incoming light; clouds could get lower so they radiate more from the tops; … and many others.
But there will be a change. To say that temperature will NOT change is to say that out of all the possible changes, this ONE will definitely not occur. That seems like pure hubris to me.
On the other hand, claiming that a computer model will tells us exactly what the changes will be is also a bit of hubris. It is one thing to say “everything else being equal, blocking “x” amount of outgoing IR would increase that surface by “y” degrees”. It is quite another to say “blocking ‘x’ amount of outgoing IR will have exactly these extra effects and thus will raise the surface temperature by ‘z’ rather than ‘y’ “. I am not very comfortable that the models are really up to that task yet.
I struggle to try and understand all facets of the discussions about ‘back radiation’ but remain stuck at a very limited level of understanding. I feel I understand BB radiation from a solid object with a finite surface and a specific heat capacity. I simply cannot see how this applies to a gas! With regard to CO2 in the atmosphere EVERY MOLECULE IS AT THE SURFACE AND CAN EMIT IN ANY DIRECTION. Any ‘heat capacity’ is from kinetic collisions with the other air molecules. These collisions DO effect the vibrational energy of the CO2 molecule raising its temperature such that it can and does emit over some 3,800 lines of radiation within the 13 to 17 micron band. This means the CO2 molecule is mostly TO WARM to absorb radiation over that bandwidth from the surface or any other CO2 molecule. This includes radiation from the more common H2O molecule. Therefore how does one characterise the well observed radiation from the atmosphere in the 15 micron band as coming exclusively from CO2 molecules and that this is ‘back radiation’???? Also how does this radiation warm the surface WHICH IS ALREADY HOT ENOUGH TO RADIATE OVER THAT BAND????
Is there any law that confirms continuous exposure to a constant bandwidth of IR radiation will raise the temperature of a body ABOVE THE PEAK TEMPERATURE FOR THAT RADIATION AS DEFINED BY WIEN’S LAW???? If this were true then there would be a time constant defining the rate of temperature increase with the intensity of the specific band of radiation.
Tim Folkerts,
“In particular any decrease in energy out from the top must cause changes in the system until the balance is restored and the energy out the top equals the energy coming in.”
No doubt. But who told you that the addition of CO2 causes a reduction of the outgoing energy? It is true, the theory advocated by the IPCC says something like this. But it arises from stupidity, a prior thermalization of the added CO2. This step is actually quite arbitrary. In reality there is simply no reason to think that there is a reduction of the outgoing energy.
“To say that temperature will NOT change is to say that out of all the possible changes, this ONE will definitely not occur.”
It is only the most likely, I agree. On the other hand, the stability of the gradient is not only unlikely, it is a thermodynamic heresy.
Tim Folkerts says, July 20, 2014 at 6:49 pm:
“We seem to have a philosophical difference on what it means to have two opposing hot surfaces.”
Hehe, I guess you could call it that.
“* “standing waves” are in fact mathematically equivalent to two real equal waves traveling in opposite directions (which I am sure many people here know). Saying something is “a standing wave” is to admit it is two equal waves traveling in opposite directions.”
You will find that I normally try to moderate the apparent categorical meaning of the term REAL by rigging it with a pair of apostrophes, to become ‘real’.
That is because this specific term in this specific situation needs to be qualified.
The ‘back radiation’, the DWLWIR, is real in the sense that it represents EM waves/photons moving from the atmosphere down towards the surface of the Earth as part of the natural radiation field between them. The radiation does, so to say, exist.
That doesn’t mean, however, that this radiation represents a real, separate (extractable, detectable), thermodynamically working flow of energy, one that by itself is capable of changing the internal energy (U) of thermodynamic systems. Because that would be something altogether different. Only HEAT and work is able to do this. ΔU = Q – W. These are the only real transfers of energy across a system boundary. Why? Because streams of EM waves/photons moving in all directions are simply part of an integrated, indivisible radiation field, where all exchange of energy happens instantaneously, simultaneously and continuously, which means we can never spot or detect the effect of individual EM wavefronts or photons, ONLY the dynamic sum of them all, the spontaneous net flow of energy that moves through the field as a result of a temp difference/gradient – the HEAT, equivalent to bulk air moving from high to low pressure or to an electric current moving from high to low voltage. Always from high potential to low potential. Moving down the gradient slope. In the case of HEAT, always from warmer to cooler.
So in this sense, as fluxes go, the DWLWIR and the UWLWIR are merely of a potential nature, only mathematically conceived and employed. The radiative heat transfer equation: P/A = εσ(T_h^4 – T_c^4). The ‘P/A’ (or ‘Q’) term here is the HEAT, the actual flow of energy from hot to cold as a result of the temp difference/gradient between them, and the solution to the equation. The ‘T_h^4’ and ‘T_c^4’ terms aren’t really anything other than individual mathematical steps on the way to this solution.
In the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, the solution and the step are the same, since there is only the one: Q = εσT^4. So here the radiation and the heat are equal. This theoretical situation describes a body radiating into a vacuum at 0 K or one where the body radiating is very much hotter than its surroundings (where the ‘pure emitter’ situation can thus be said to be approximated). The S-B equation works very well on celestial bodies, especially stars, but also on red hot items on Earth. It doesn’t work on the global surface of the Earth, because the temperature of its surroundings is much too close to its own. So the actual radiative HEAT emitted by the surface and the mathematical radiation term wouldn’t be anywhere near equal. This is an exceedingly simple point that still seems to strangely elude the promoters of the rGHE/AGW hypothesis.
“* Suppose i shine two identical flashlights at each other. If I understand your position correctly, then you would say that since the temperature is the same, there is not actually any “light” between them — only the “potential” for light. It would not be until I actually stuck my hand in to block the opposing beam that there would be “light” there.”
This is only a straw man, Tim. Again you conflate heat and radiation. You know better. Hence, I’m led to believe you do it on purpose. If the two flashlights are equally hot, then there is no HEAT flowing between them. None of the lights can thus directly make the other one even hotter. This doesn’t mean the flashlights don’t shine.
“I have no problem saying that if one BB would emit 400 W/m^2 to empty space, and it is facing another BB that would emit 300 W/m^2 to empty space, then the net flow will be 100 W/m^2 from the warmer to the cooler.”
Good.
“But please don;t think that this is the ONLY approach. Please don’t get stuck in 1900, ignoring quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics and photons.”
It is you that’s stuck in the far-distant past, Tim, with your utterly dated macroscopic (I would almost call it ‘naive’) view of radiative energy exchange. It’s not like there is one separate photon ‘highway’ from hot to cold and then another one next to it from cold to hot, both dumping their photons completely disconnected and independent from the other one. Those are just simplifying (conceptual) arrows on a blackboard or a piece of paper, Tim. Not reality.
There is ONE radiation field, ONE continuous exchange, ONE resulting flow of energy.
“Those are just simplifying (conceptual) arrows on a blackboard or a piece of paper, Tim. Not reality.”
None of this is ‘reality’ — it is ALL simply arrows and numbers on blackboards. Your “one radiation field” is no more ‘real’ than my “billions of photons flying back and forth”. Both are simply human attempts to make sense of the universe.
There are advantages to a microscopic photon view and advantages to a EM field macroscopic perspective. Typically the microscopic view is richer, but tougher to deal with mathematically. The macroscopic view can typically be derived from the microscopic view, but not vice versa. (BTW, you got it completely reversed when you called my view “macroscopic”. You are using the “outdated” macroscopic EM field model; I am using the “modern” microscopic photon model.)
“So the actual radiative HEAT emitted by the surface and the mathematical radiation term wouldn’t be anywhere near equal. This is an exceedingly simple point that still seems to strangely elude the promoters of the rGHE/AGW hypothesis.”
This seems a larger strawman than anything I said. Consider the ubiquitous Trenberth diagram — there is a radiation term upward from surface to atmosphere (356 W/m^2) and a term downward (333 W/m^2). The ‘heat’ is the difference. No one (if they are being careful) ever says “there is a heat flow of 356 W/m^2 from the surface to the atmosphere”. This “exceedingly simple point” is front and center in that diagram — not forgotten or hidden.
That fact that this distinction DOESN’T elude scientists seem to elude skeptics. 🙂
AlecM says: July 20, 2014 at 1:33 pm & Kristian says: @ 3:25 pm, Re; my 8:46 am
My point is that any two samples of gas and water involved have bell-curve distributions of different molecular energy levels for any “average temperature” of those samples. In effect each molecule has a different T (momentarily, between collisions and emissions) and the colder sample contains some individual molecules that are “hotter” than some molecules in the hotter sample. Thus relatively high energy level photons are free to seek residence within the hotter sample in conformance with law 2.
And yes of course, when there is a difference in EMR POTENTIAL between hot and cold there will be a net heat transfer to the cold
Further my 1:29 am,
I am not claiming that cold air heats a warmer ocean or that there is a net heat transfer from cold to hot.
Reply to Folkerts:
i use the term ‘Operational Emissivity’ in calculations of coupled convection and radiation, e.g. hot mill strip cooling. Its usefulness in climate is that it shows the earth’s surface emits IR energy at 1/6 th of the black body rate, and virtually none of this can cause atmospheric heating or an impedance to energy flow by radiation.
[Operational is an adjective used in science meaning that the magnitude of the parameter to which is applies is determined by the experimental conditions.]
A standing wave causes no energy transfer; there is energy storage. As regards ‘photons’, these do not exist except at the moment of energy transfer. The obsession of Climate Alchemists with photons and the Prévost Exchange theory gives them an entirely false idea of electromagnetic energy transfer.
You must go to Maxwell’s Laws because these have within them the Law of Conservation of Energy between the mechanical and EM domains, specifically qdot = -∇.Fv where qdot is the monochromatic rate of generation of heat energy per unit volume of matter, Fv the monochromatic radiative flux density and ∇ is the Divergence operator. You need this because the more you heat matter, the greater is it own electromagnetic field potential whose vector opposes that of the other emitter.
The idea that the EM energy matter emits is solely a function of its temperature is WRONG. Integrate the above equation at the surface plane between condensed matter and the atmosphere over all wavelengths and Qdot = – Δ[Irradiance] where irradiance is what you get from the S-B equation. However, this hides complexity.
Because the atmosphere transfers energy that is increasingly non self-absorbed as you get nearer the surface, for self-absorbed bands, the atmospheric partial emissivity at the surface over that band’s wavelength range is the same as a black body but decreases as you go further away from the surface, hence the interior partial emissivity/absorptivity beyond the emission/absorption depth to/from condensed matter is less than this.
This then leads to the real physical model of the atmosphere. It is not a single emitter/absorber. Instead, it is a continually oscillating medium in radiative equilibrium with the planet’s surface and Space. A guy at Brookhaven has set out to look at its irreversible thermodynamics, but because they imagine it’s a grey body, they have failed at the first hurdle.
The key physics is that it is semi-transparent and its temperature at any altitude in the troposphere is set by surface temperature and lapse rate. The equilibrium for any wavelength, between Space and surface is set by clouds, aerosols and the pressure. Thus above cloud level, water vapour radiates to Space from +5 deg C to -30 deg C, the former being the weak absorber/emitter, going to the strong absorber/emitter. Well mixed GHGs emit much further up at a temperature set by the upper troposphere but there is a stratospheric contribution, non self-absorbed.
This is why there is no fixed emission zone as Hansen falsely claimed in 1981. That paper and the 33 K GHE claim should never have passed peer review. The whole of Climate Alchemy’s IR energy transfer is wrong and needs restarting from the pre-Sagan era!
Tim Folkerts says:
July 20, 2014 at 10:57 pm
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Tim,
at the end of the day you have conceded that a radiative atmosphere would cool a planet of polished aluminium.
That is in effect conceding the entire AGW debate.
Just like aluminium, our oceans are provably a “selective surface” not a “near blackbody”. They would heat to far higher temperature than 255K regardless of DWLWIR if it were not for atmospheric cooling. And the atmosphere has only one effective cooling mechanism – radiative gases.
There is no way out. AGW is a physical impossibility.
Tim Folkerts says, July 20, 2014 at 10:57 pm:
“None of this is ‘reality’ — it is ALL simply arrows and numbers on blackboards.
No, Tim. The HEAT is real. We can feel it, detect it, measure it. The effect of the radiation field. Your DWLWIR and UWLWIR is purely conceptual.
“(BTW, you got it completely reversed when you called my view “macroscopic”. You are using the “outdated” macroscopic EM field model; I am using the “modern” microscopic photon model.)”
No, Tim. Your view is macroscopic. And very clumsily outdated. You think it’s microscopic, but it’s not. It’s purely schematic. One highway this way and another highway that way. Absorption, then emission. Ping pong balls. That’s not how radiative energy exchange work. There is no energy being added to the hotter object. True on all levels. It is a continuous, simultaneous, instantaneous exchange, an integrated, indivisible process. There are no separate highways. It all nets out to one radiation field. How we know? The HEAT. One effect.
Anyway, you apparently didn’t read the real vs. ‘real’ part. That’s the main point of my comment. DWLWIR radiation is real. However, it is not real in the separately working energy flux sense. That’s why it’s pointless (and a bit deceiving) to depict is as if it were one. This is what you should address.
“This seems a larger strawman than anything I said.”
That’s because you refuse to see what I’m getting at. We’ve had so many discussions on this, Tim. How many times have you stated that the DWLWIR ‘flux’ is ADDED to the solar flux to give us a total radiative INPUT to the surface, Tim? I can give you examples. (161+333=) 494 W/m^2 IN, (97+396=) 493 W/m^2 OUT. That’s how you see it. The DWLWIR is extra direct energy INPUT to you.
“Consider the ubiquitous Trenberth diagram — there is a radiation term upward from surface to atmosphere (356 W/m^2) and a term downward (333 W/m^2). The ‘heat’ is the difference. No one (if they are being careful) ever says “there is a heat flow of 356 W/m^2 from the surface to the atmosphere”.”
And I have told you a million times, Tim, no one ever SAYS so. But they expect it to work AS IF IT WERE. Depicting the DWLWIR and UWLWIR as separate fluxes in that diagram shows they do. It is deceiving. Reading the diagram, the only conclusion one could ever come to, is that the downward flux of 333 W/m^2 from the atmosphere is directly warming the surface from 231K (solar input, 161 W/m^2) to 289K (actual surface temp). If it weren’t for the 333 W/m^2 it wouldn’t and couldn’t happen. Direct extra INPUT, Tim.
If this weren’t the conclusion T&K didn’t want for people to arrive at, then why show these two opposite fluxes as real, separately working radiative fluxes at all? Why not simply show the actual heat flux going up? All the other arrows in that diagram are heat fluxes. Why not a radiative heat flux as well? Because they want us to think that the ‘back radiation’ is heating (yes, heating) the surface way beyond the solar input. They’re not SAYING it, they’re not CALLING it heat. But they’re treating it separately from the UWLWIR to have a direct effect on the surface temp. In other words, they TREAT it as if it were heat. There is no way around it.
“This “exceedingly simple point” is front and center in that diagram — not forgotten or hidden.”
It’s very much hidden, Tim. That’s the whole point. There is no NET radiative heat in that diagram. Where is it?
“That fact that this distinction DOESN’T elude scientists seem to elude skeptics. :-)”
My point seems to elude you still. Why am I not surprised?
Some sloppy writing in that last posting. “There is no NET radiative heat in that diagram” should’ve been “There is no NET radiative flow of energy (a HEAT flux) in that diagram”.
Thank you Kristian (July 20, 2014 at 9:07 pm) and AlecM (July 21, 2014 at 6:13 am) for the above comments. This helps confirm my layman intuitions on this subject. I have always been an AGW sceptic since I first read of the theory/fallacy. I spent many years working in desert regions and experienced first hand the huge daily summer time temperature changes and observed the surface of rocks cracking off as inner heat prevented the whole rock from contracting during the cold night temperatures that often approached zero. I noted that viewing the stars was much better on the cold nights. Clearer air. ‘Back radiation’ is a subject I’ve always viewed with deep suspicion.
Maybe this can facilitate visualizing:
phi says:
July 21, 2014 at 11:09 am
———————————
It’s better, but outgoing surface LWIR still needs to be lower that half evapo-transpiration and thermals…;-)
Konrad,
Maybe. But what allows you to claim that ?
Effective, not apparent, emissivity is less than 0.8 😉
that should read Effective, not apparent, emissivity of water is less than 0.8…
Related, http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/07/new-paper-finds-significantly-more.html and
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014JD021877/abstract.
Konrad says: “at the end of the day you have conceded that a radiative atmosphere would cool a planet of polished aluminium.
That is in effect conceding the entire AGW debate.”
No. Not at all!
This is only conceding that an atmosphere with IR absorbing gases can (sometimes) cool an object that has a higher absorbance of visible light than emissivity of IR light. To concede the debate we would have to (at a minimum) show that the earth has a higher absorbance than emissivity. Even with your low-ball estimate of water’s emissivity at 0.67, the emissivity and absorbance are basically equal, and GHGs won’t provide cooling.
Kristian says: “They’re not SAYING it, they’re not CALLING it heat. “
That pretty much sums it up. You are imposing your own interpretation that is not based on anything they actually say.
1) The infamous diagram is specifically captioned “mean energy budget” (not “heat budget”).
2) The paper never calls the IR fluxes anything by fluxes — never “heat”. There are many mentions of “latent heat” and “sensible heat”, but never anything like “heat from the atmosphere toward the surface”. Basically, they are using the words pretty much exactly the way you think they should. For example:
“Employing the surface budget values described above of a net shortwave flux of 168 W m^-2, a net longwave flux of 66 W m^−2, and a latent heat flux of 78 W m^−2 implies a sensible heat flux of 24 W m^−2.”
And they do mention that the sun heats the earth:
“Thus, incident radiation will either be absorbed by the surface–atmosphere system and be available to heat the system (shortwave radiative forcing) or will be scattered back to space”
[In one spot they do say “heat storage”, which should more precisely be “internal energy storage”, but in context it is pretty clear what they mean.]
PS the 2009 Kiel & Trenberth paper is available here: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0477%281997%29078%3C0197%3AEAGMEB%3E2.0.CO%3B2
Tim Folkerts says:
July 21, 2014 at 5:11 pm
Kristian says: “They’re not SAYING it, they’re not CALLING it heat. “
“That pretty much sums it up. You are imposing your own interpretation that is not based on anything they actually say.”
Er, no. I’m simply calling out what they’re in fact DOING (you too) and that is TREATING it like heat.
You don’t really have anything, do you Tim? Just you’re “no one’s saying it’s heat”. So even when we SHOW you how you treat the ‘back radiation’ as a separate input of energy to the surface, an extra incoming, working flow of energy directly raising its internal energy and thereby its temperature, all you have to offer is: “But no one’s calling it heat. So the theory works.”
There’s really nothing more to say at this point, Tim.
“1) The infamous diagram is specifically captioned “mean energy budget” (not “heat budget”).”
Yes, of course it does. Because calling it a ‘heat budget’ would reveal to everyone what they’re actually doing. All arrows in that diagram except the two thick radiative ones up from and down to the surface represent actual heat fluxes. Nowhere is this pretty crucial distinction pointed out to the reader. What is one to think when looking at that diagram, Tim? How does the surface get its mean global temperature of 289K, radiating 396 W/m^2 as an alleged consequence? Because of the solar input? Not according to the diagram. There is only one other INPUT arrow to the surface than the solar. The ‘back radiation’. 333 W/m^2. You ADD the solar (161) and the atmospheric (333) inputs as if they were equivalent fluxes of energy, and FROM THIS you get the resultant output from the surface: (97+396=) 493 W/m^2.
If the solar is a HEAT flux, but the atmospheric isn’t (you say EVERYONE knows this, no one says otherwise), how come you still add them together as if they were the same kind, a working flow of energy, both apparently able to increase the internal energy of the surface, raising its temperature to cause an emission of 396 W/m^2?
“2) The paper never calls the IR fluxes anything by fluxes — never “heat”.
I know. They meticulously avoid the ‘heat’ term. And by now we all know the reason for that. They want us to think that all energy flying around is equal, all energy will be able to cause a temperature rise.
“There are many mentions of “latent heat” and “sensible heat”, but never anything like “heat from the atmosphere toward the surface”.
Of course not. If they actually came out and SAID that, then there would be no rGHE story to tell.
“And they do mention that the sun heats the earth:
“Thus, incident radiation will either be absorbed by the surface–atmosphere system and be available to heat the system (shortwave radiative forcing) or will be scattered back to space””
Do they really? Wow! Clever people! Real scientists!
Not all the way to 289K, though. It needs the extra input from the ‘back radiation’ (apparently an additional, separate working flow of energy with an intensity of 333 W/m^2 (more than twice as intense as the solar) to get there.
It doesn’t matter what you say they (and you) say, Tim. We all see what they (and you) DO.
To Tim Folkerts Jul 21 5.11 pm.
Your post demonstrates very well the failure to understand radiative physics. Fig. 1 of the Kehl and Trenberth paper shows the black body surface irradiance and OLR Irradiance. They claim ‘The difference between the surface emission and the top-of-atmosphere emission defines the longwave radiative forcing….’
This is simply wrong. It’s because OLR Irradiance is very nearly the net LW energy flux from ToA to Space = [OLR – σTcmwb^4] where Tcmwb = 2.7 K, cmwb = cosmic microwave backgound. The opposing Irradiance is negligible.
However, the surface to atmosphere black body Irradiance is offset by the atmosphere to surface Irradiance, resulting in real net 66 W/m^2 LW leaving the surface (see Fig. 7).
To subtract OLR from the surface to atmosphere Irradiance is meaningless because only the 40 W/m^2 atmospheric window flux forms part of OLR. The 26 W/m^2 is scattered and some may be thermalised.
This is Bad Physics by people who have failed to understand the difference between irradiance, the potential IR flux of an emitter to a sink at absolute zero, and real net IR flux = Δ[Irradiance] with real net heat gain by the hotter body = -Δ[Irradiance].
Atmospheric Science must stop propagating this false physics ASAP. Until then I shall refer to it disparagingly and totally justifiably as ‘Climate Alchemy’, a non-science.
Tim Folkerts says: July 20, 2014 at 6:49 pm
“We seem to have a philosophical difference on what it means to have two opposing hot surfaces. On the one side are statements like ” ‘back radiation’ is the atmospheric Irradiance, the potential flux it could emit to a sink at absolute zero. it is not a real energy flow” and “the idea of opposing fluxes is the result of people imagining that a hot body slings out photons at the S-B rate when the S-B equation predicts a potential flux.” This is certainly one what (way) to think about the situation, and it leads to perfectly good calculations of net result when two warm objects radiate at each other.”
Tim,
This is post is likely your most egregious attempt so far to delude and misinform all. There is no philosophy involved only good engineering practice, and extremely sloppy physics. All of the sloppy
physics starts with your refusal to define the words and phrases you write.
In your post what means:
photons
slings out photons
The S-B rate
The S-B equation predicts a potential flux
standing wave
coherence
single photon sources
single photon detector
single photon interference
All are buzz words/phrases that you read about in some magazine with no understanding.
Can you scientifically define any?
To me a “photon” is a gauge boson at the location of any generator of electromagnetic field that determines the exact flux emitted at each frequency and in each direction.
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* “standing waves” are in fact mathematically equivalent to two real equal waves traveling in opposite directions (which I am sure many people here know). Saying something is “a standing wave” is to admit it is two equal waves traveling in opposite directions.
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What nonsense a standing wave is the sum of a travelling wave and its reflection.
———————————————————————————–
* “standing wave” implies something that is fairly uniform — a long sine wave oscillating back and forth nice and steady. By the coherence length of thermal radiation is rather short — on the order of a few wavelengths. Thus any recognizable “standing wave” could be no more than the order of a millimeter before any coherence is lost.
——————————————————————————————————————
Standing waves may persist, and have nothing to do with coherence length or coherence interval.
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* Suppose i shine two identical flashlights at each other. If I understand your position correctly, then you would say that since the temperature is the same, there is not actually any “light” between them — only the “potential” for light. It would not be until I actually stuck my hand in to block the opposing beam that there would be “light” there.
————————————————————————–
If the opposing field strength (Irradiance) is equal at every frequency an in each direction, absolutely no electromagnetic flux shall be emitted.
————————————————————————————————————————
* Finally, there exist “single photon sources” and “single photon detectors” and even “single photon interference”. The fact that these are ‘things’ suggests that most scientists have left 1900 behind and acknowledge the existence of photons that can pass back and forth through each other, even if the object at one end might be warmer than the other.
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It is you that is stuck in 1970 when the Nuevo (bullshit) science was invented. Only you and your Climatastrologists that acknowledge there own nonsense.
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Again, the other classical approach that views only the collective average EM field is mathematically sound. I have no problem saying that if one BB would emit 400 W/m^2 to empty space, and it is facing another BB that would emit 300 W/m^2 to empty space, then the net flow will be 100 W/m^2 from the warmer to the cooler.
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That is nor a net flow or any flow. it is the very measurable and only flux.
—————————————————————————————————
But please don;t think that this is the ONLY approach. Please don’t get stuck in 1900, ignoring quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics and photons
———————————————————————————————–
Only you and your Climatastrologists, apply those three useful but limited concepts, to every one of your fantasies! The rest of us have learned how to think! What a wonderful planet!
Strictly speaking, real net radiative flux from a first emitter’s surface plane =[ Radiative Emittance from that plane – irradiance to that plane from the second emitter].
The Radiative Emittance is the radiative energy in W/m^2 that would be received from the first emitter by a radiative sink at absolute zero. It is also equal to the Irradiance, same units, which falls on the plane that forms the surface of the second emitter, that plane being coincident with the surface of the first emitter!
In this way, we describe scientifically that the net flux is really the emittance of the first emitter minus the Irradiance onto that surface plane of the radiation from the second emitter, the latter being the net flux it would emit to a sink at absolute zero!
For the average atmospheric scientist to appreciate this subtle distinction would require a considerable degree of retraining!
The best way to avoid the confusion is to understand that the Poynting Vectors for each individual wavelength of plane waves in the surface Emittance is opposed by the opposite Poynting Vector of plane waves from the second emitter, the net mean flux being their mean vector sum, hence accounting for thermal incoherence. The total net flux is the Sum of the net Poynting Vectors over all wavelengths.
The important result is that fro same surface and atmosphere temperature, all the self-absorbed main GHG bands of the atmosphere annul all surface Emittance in those wavelength ranges. Hence the mean operational surface emissivity is 1/6th of a black body.
Tim Folkerts says:
July 21, 2014 at 4:44 pm
———————————–
“No. Not at all!
This is only conceding that an atmosphere with IR absorbing gases can (sometimes) cool an object that has a higher absorbance of visible light than emissivity of IR light. To concede the debate we would have to (at a minimum) show that the earth has a higher absorbance than emissivity. Even with your low-ball estimate of water’s emissivity at 0.67, the emissivity and absorbance are basically equal, and GHGs won’t provide cooling”
Good “flappy hands” but –
A. 0.67 is not my estimate. Don’t try that.
B. Emissivity and absorptivity are not “basically equal” for liquid water.
C. Empirical experiment says there are TWO selective surface properties for water. Emissivity/absorptivity imbalance and depth of UV/SW absorption.
D. Empirical experiment says average ocean surface temps would be higher than 15C without atmospheric cooling regardless of DWLWIR.
The sun heats the oceans.
The atmosphere cools the oceans.
Radiative gases cool the atmosphere.
AGW is not “less than we thought”. It is a physical impossibility. There can be no “soft landing” for the hoax or any of the fellow travellers.
Alec says:
“They claim ‘The difference between the surface emission and the top-of-atmosphere emission defines the longwave radiative forcing….’
This is simply wrong.”
How can a definition be “wrong”? They think this concept is useful, so they give it a name. That cannot be “wrong”.
“To subtract OLR from the surface to atmosphere Irradiance is meaningless because only the 40 W/m^2 atmospheric window flux forms part of OLR.”
On the contrary, this concept of (surface irradiance) – (top-of-atmosphere irradiance) is quite meaningful! On the one hand, it is useful to look at the irradiance from the top-of-atmosphere — the ACTUAL energy leaving the earth as a whole under current conditions. On the other hand, it is interesting to look at the irradiance from the surface — the THEORETICAL energy that would leave the earth if not for the ‘IR impedance’ of the GHGs and clouds.
This is not about the atmospheric window. It is not about heat from the surface to the atmosphere. It is not about 26 W/m^2 of scattered IR. It is about ACTUAL IR to space vs the THEORETICAL IR to space if the atmosphere were suddenly magically made transparent to IR so that the entire surface irradiance could escape.
Konrad says:
The sun heats the oceans.
The atmosphere cools the oceans.
Radiative gases cool the atmosphere.
Let me expand a little (working from the back).
Radiative gases cool the atmosphere rather ineffectively. The gases are chilly so they radiate poorly, so it is tough to push heat from the atmosphere to space.
The atmosphere cools the oceans, equally ineffectively. Since there is little or no long-term change in the internal energy (ie temperature) of the atmosphere, heat can only be entering the atmosphere from the oceans as fast as the heat leaves from the top.
The sun heats the oceans extra effectively. Since the heat leaving the oceans to the atmosphere is limited by the heat leaving the TOA (see step 2), the heat from the sun will warm the oceans rather well.
Contrast this with the two-step alternative.
The sun heats the oceans.
Radiative liquids cool the oceans.
We have bypassed the ineffective cooling by the chilly air high in the atmosphere, replacing it with a more direct and more efficient cooling straight from the surface to space. The more effective cooling means lower temperatures.
Tim Folkerts says:
July 22, 2014 at 3:57 am
—————————————–
“Radiative gases cool the atmosphere rather ineffectively.”
False, radiative gases manage to emit to space most of the energy acquired by both surface and atmosphere every diurnal cycle. Only a little is emitted directly from the ground. Further, radiative gases effectively increase the radiative cooling ability of the oceans.
“The gases are chilly so they radiate poorly, so it is tough to push heat from the atmosphere to space.”
Again false. Smells like the old ERL argument. The strongest LWIR emissions in our atmosphere are from clouds radiating in 3D. Low cloud can have a radiating temperature of 10 degrees or more. Far more at cloud top during the heat pulse of condensation.
“The atmosphere cools the oceans, equally ineffectively.”
Again false. Average temps would be so far above 15C without atmospheric cooling it makes the entire idea of AGW ridiculous.
“Contrast this with the two-step alternative.
The sun heats the oceans.
Radiative liquids cool the oceans.”
It doesn’t work Tim. Empirical experiment shows ocean temperatures far higher than current if the oceans could only cool via radiation.
There is no way around it, climastrologists treated the oceans as a “near blackbody” not a “selective surface”. Therefore they got the equilibrium temperature of the “surface in absence of an atmosphere” completely and utterly wrong. (NO, don’t try “but the oceans would boil off again”, you know what is being discussed).
For AGW to be plausible, surface temps in the absence of DWLWIR and atmospheric cooling would need to be lower than current surface temperatures. In those conditions, surface temperatures would actually HOTTER than current temperatures. The net effect of our atmosphere (given 1 bar pressure) is surface cooling.
Are you seriously trying to claim that ocean surface temperatures would average lower than 15C in the absence of DWLWIR and atmospheric cooling?! Empirical experiment proves this wrong.
1) Kristian says: July 20, 2014 at 9:07 pm, Re: Tim Folkerts @ 6:49 pm, in part:
QUOTING TIM: “* Suppose i shine two identical flashlights at each other. If I understand your position correctly, then you would say that since the temperature is the same, there is not actually any “light” between them — only the “potential” for light. It would not be until I actually stuck my hand in to block the opposing beam that there would be “light” there.”
KRISTIAN’S RESPONSE: This is only a straw man, Tim. Again you conflate heat and radiation. You know better. Hence, I’m led to believe you do it on purpose. If the two flashlights are equally hot, then there is no HEAT flowing between them. None of the lights can thus directly make the other one even hotter. This doesn’t mean the flashlights don’t shine.
So Kristian, if the flashlights are shining in opposite directions is that actually light we can see, and are there photons travelling in both directions, (per the wave/particle duality theory)?
_________________________________________________________________
2) Further to my unanswered comment @ July 21, 2014 at 1:29 am & 2:00am to AlecM and Kristian
Let’s consider it another way; wavelength rather than the energy distribution in molecules in matter at a given T (average Temperature). The energy level of a photon (and its momentum>reaction force) is discreetly a function of wavelength>reacting reflectivity, and, for any given T of matter there is a wide distribution of wavelengths.
If there is a modest difference between a “hot” source and one “cold”, there will be a large coincidence of frequencies, and the “cold” source will include higher frequencies, (energy levels), than some in the hotter source.
Does this contradict Tim’s flashlight demonstration above? (including if one flashlight is brighter/hotter than the other).
In my 5:01 am, in item 1) please read ‘opposing directions’ instead of ‘opposite directions’.
To Tim Folkerts 3.39 am.
‘This is not about the atmospheric window. It is not about heat from the surface to the atmosphere. It is not about 26 W/m^2 of scattered IR. It is about ACTUAL IR to space vs the THEORETICAL IR to space if the atmosphere were suddenly magically made transparent to IR so that the entire surface irradiance could escape.’
If the atmosphere had no GHGs, no clouds or ice, but the Earth’s surface had the same SW albedo, using the flat plate absorber, hemispherical emitter concept, 341 W/m^2 would thermalise at the surface and 341 W/m^2 would leave as SW from the warmer surface.
Do the sums and mean surface temperature would by 4 to 5 deg C [Lindzen thinks a bit more]. So, the real GHE is about 11 K at present and it was ~2 K at the last glacial maximum, and it’s from clouds and ice; nothing to do with well-mixed GHGs or directly with lapse rate.
We put in the GHGs and the Earth settles to its new mean surface temperature of ~16 deg C. The surface emits mean real net 63 W/m^2. Most of this goes directly to Space without heating the intervening atmosphere. The rest of the 160 W/m^2 thermalised at the surface convects to various altitudes before being converted to IR which escapes to Space. Then we have the 78.5 W/^2 SW energy which is absorbed in the atmosphere. It starts off as heat and is converted to IR to Space. Hence OLR = 63 + 97 +78.5 =m 238.5 W/m^2.
Your view is that the surface emittance of 396 W/m^2 minus the 238.5 W/m^2 OLR emittance = 157.5 W/m^2 is absorbed in the atmosphere, in addition to the 97 + 78.5, a total of 333 W/m^2, is ludicrous because at the surface [396 – 63] = 333 W/m^2 is annihilated by the opposing Poynting Vectors in the atmospheric emittance to the surface.
That 333 W/m^2 does not exist as net IR or other energy. It is the potential energy flux from the atmosphere to the Earth’s surface if it were at absolute zero.
So, we now get into the cover-up of your amazing mistake. According to the 2009 Energy Budget, 238.5 + 333 = 5712.5 W/m^2 energy is created in the atmosphere by thermalisation of incident SW plus imaginary back radiation. This is far too much. So, what the modellers do (and I have talked to them) is to assume that because -18 deg C ‘is a single emission zone’, it has to emit the same up as down; Kirchhoff’s law of Radiation ultimately. The final sum for energy created in the atmosphere is 238.5 +333 – 238.5 = 333 W/m^2. 333/238.5 = 1.4: this 40% increases, a perpetual motion machine of the 2nd kind, provides the extra heating needed to create the extra latent and sensible heat assuming the GHE = lapse rate heating.
But that all fails because the emission zone is actually from 0 to 20 km in various IR wavelengths. -18 deg C is a virtual temperature; a flux-weighted mean with no physical existence. You can’t have ToA emitting negative energy (the two-stream approximation) to offset what comes from the surface and within the atmosphere so what you have left is back radiation. This is junk physics by junk scientists pulling a fast one; it must stop NOW.
571.5 W/m^2 NOT 5712.5 W/m^2!
Lindzen thinks the ‘341 W/m^2 no clouds or ice’ mean surface temperature would be ~-2 deg C.
The modellers also use double real low level cloud albedo in hindcasting, about 3-4% of 341 W/m^2, between 10 and 13 W/m^2 lower SW energy thermalised under clouds. this presumably fine-tunes the extra evaporation caused by 40% of 238.5 = 95.4 W/m^2 extra heating than reality.
Tim Folkerts says, July 22, 2014 at 3:39 am:
“How can a definition be “wrong”? They think this concept is useful, so they give it a name. That cannot be “wrong”.”
The concept is wrong, TIm. Giving a false concept a name is of course not in and by itself ‘wrong’. But the concept behind the name is wrong. Hence, the name is meaningless; it has no bearing on reality.
“(…) this concept of (surface irradiance) – (top-of-atmosphere irradiance) is quite meaningful!”
Tim, you’re once again (deliberately) conflating HEAT and a mathematically derived potential energy flux (the one out of two inseparable ones in a net energy exchange). The 240 W/m^2 average radiative flux out from the ToA to space is a HEAT FLUX. The 396 W/m^2 mean UWLWIR flux from the global surface of the Earth is NOT a heat flux. The first one is detectable. Real. The second one is not.
This is how it’s done correctly: 63 W/m^2 worth of radiative HEAT goes out from the surface; 240 W/m^2 worth of radiative HEAT goes out from the ToA.
Notice the difference?
“It is about ACTUAL IR to space vs the THEORETICAL IR to space if the atmosphere were suddenly magically made transparent to IR so that the entire surface irradiance could escape.”
This THEORETICal scenario of yours could not possibly come to be, Tim, and you know it. Because of something called conduction > convection. The solar-heated surface is directly convectively coupled to the atmosphere above it, regardless of whether it contains radiatively active gases or not. A surface with an atmosphere on top, ANY atmosphere, could never release all the energy it absorbed from the Sun back out as radiation. Not even close. Because it could never be a purely radiative situation.
Tim Folkerts says, July 22, 2014 at 3:57 am:
“Since there is little or no long-term change in the internal energy (ie temperature) of the atmosphere, heat can only be entering the atmosphere from the oceans as fast as the heat leaves from the top.” And again: “Since the heat leaving the oceans to the atmosphere is limited by the heat leaving the TOA (see step 2), the heat from the sun will warm the oceans rather well.”
Notice how Tim deliberately keeps moving on, ignoring main counterpoints to his position, simply singing lalalalala and restating his old, tired talking points as if new and fresh, as if established fact, as if never addressed and dealt with both here and other places (a hundred times over).
No, Tim. As usual, you’ve got it all turned exactly on its head. The only limitation to the radiation leaving the atmosphere from the top is the input from below. More coming in from below, more out as OLR from the ToA. Less coming in from below, less out as OLR from the ToA. This is what all available observational data from the real Earth system is showing us, Tim.
The Sun warms the surface, the surface in turn warms the troposphere, the troposphere finally sheds the appropriate radiation to space. And then the cycle starts again. This is what we SEE happening. Out there in the real world. Consistently. All the time. Never the opposite. You live in a bubble model world, Tim.
“We have bypassed the ineffective cooling by the chilly air high in the atmosphere, replacing it with a more direct and more efficient cooling straight from the surface to space. The more effective cooling means lower temperatures.”
It’s not ineffective, Tim. It’s exactly as effective as it needs to be to balance the input. The atmosphere would’ve been highly ineffective shedding Earth’s surplus energy (originally in from the Sun) to space if it DIDN’T contain radiatively active gases. It would STILL gain energy from the surface (the Sun would still shine and there would still be a transfer of heat from surface to atmosphere through the conductive/convective response). But it could not adequately cool by radiation to space. The Earth system would be much hotter and highly unstable as a consequence.
Kristian says:
July 22, 2014 at 8:17 am
——————————-
“Notice how Tim deliberately keeps moving on, ignoring main counterpoints to his position, simply singing lalalalala and restating his old, tired talking points as if new and fresh, as if established fact, as if never addressed and dealt with both here and other places (a hundred times over).”
No, no, no. It’s not “restarting the clock”! Tim Just has a very, very selective memory…
“No, Tim. As usual, you’ve got it all turned exactly on its head. The only limitation to the radiation leaving the atmosphere from the top is the input from below. More coming in from below, more out as OLR from the ToA. Less coming in from below, less out as OLR from the ToA. This is what all available observational data from the real Earth system is showing us, Tim”
Now you’re are just being unreasonably scientific…
I’m glad to see all the great points being made to discredit CO2/AGW. Unfortunately, some folks will NEVER get it.
geran says: July 22, 2014 at 6:54 pm
“I’m glad to see all the great points being made to discredit CO2/AGW. Unfortunately, some folks will NEVER get it.”
Really they are not that stupid! They are paid well, to promote the FRAUD, and profit!
AlecM, & Kristian, also maybe Ben, and Konrad
Further my: Bob_FJ @ July 22, 2014 at 5:01 am.
Herewith is my fourth demonstration that some elements in the thermal spectrum of ‘back radiation’, have higher energy levels than some elements in the spectrum of surface emissions. (According to Planck curves in the literature). Thus a small proportion of ‘back radiation’ has a higher potential than the colder elements from a warmer surface.
You have not responded thrice to such evidence, and as I understand it, you have claimed that there is no ‘heat transfer’ to the warmer surface from ‘back radiation’, despite a positive potential difference. (This does not alter the Maths of ‘net absorbed EMR)
Here follow a pair of Plank Curves falling nicely within the terrestrial IR range, but if you don’t like that source, you could study the second link giving some other examples:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/bbrc.html
Please have the courtesy of making a response.
AlecM, & Kristian, also maybe Ben, and Konrad
Further my 3:44 am
Please don’t obfuscate with the atmospheric absorption spectrum or that S-B radiation is hemispherically isotropic whereas ‘back radiation’ (from a gas) is more correctly spherically isotropic, not just downwards, (or DWLWIR as Kristian & Konrad like to call it).
Oh and it is predominantly lateral where not much happens; not in LTE parcels anyway. All such arguments could only speculate on the scale, but not the principle I’ve outlined.
Bob_FJ says: July 23, 2014 at 3:44 am
AlecM, & Kristian, also maybe Ben, and Konrad
Further my: Bob_FJ @ July 22, 2014 at 5:01 am.
“Herewith is my fourth demonstration that some elements in the thermal spectrum of ‘back radiation’, have higher energy levels than some elements in the spectrum of surface emissions. (According to Planck curves in the literature). Thus a small proportion of ‘back radiation’ has a higher potential than the colder elements from a warmer surface.’
Please have the courtesy of making a response.”
The others are likely giggling at “your” response.
How far beond a three sigma statistical noise, must we go before you will admit that all spontanious energy transfer between masses are “only” in the direction of the lower combined potential for spontaneity? Your statistical everything, is the largest deliberate error ever made by your esteemed arrogant academics. They truly cannot find their own gluteal muscles with one or more upper appendeges.
Bob FJ: Did SoD discuss the relative heat capacities of a -10C land or ocean surface and +10C overlying air?
As Dr Hans Jelbring has pointed out, there are times in the Arctic when the air temperature near the surface is raised by overlying cloud. This is not in doubt.
Will: Could I suggest you search for someone’s name and see what their previous articles are about before wading in?
e.g. https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/bob-fernley-jones-trenberth-trouble-the-radiative-question/
To Bob_FJ: it took me 3 years to satisfy myself that i knew radiative physics well enough to talk about it to others with some element of confidence. During that time I discovered that i was working in parallel with others, e.g. Claes Johnson. His explanation is harder top follow.
We have all gone back to Planck and have devised in our own minds, the bit of understanding he left out. To do that, i went through all his derivations until I knew it by heart, also the physical concepts.
The key part of this learning was that Planck only devised quantum theory to solve a mathematical problem. He was very unhappy in going from waves to particles. This means that the idea of particles spewing out of hot bodies then bouncing back from ‘filled sites’ is wrong. It’s waves, waves then waves, except at the ‘cavity’ where the interchange occurs between quantised sites in the dissipative oscillators and the Electromagnetic Continuum. You then have to impose thermal incoherence on the waves.
So, what do we have with your first figure? The peak is shifted according to Wien’s Law. Also, the frequency distribution is shifted to lower wavelength, higher energy as the source temperature rises. The former means that the amplitude of the difference of potential energy flux, the maximum energy the emitter could supply to a sink at absolute zero for a given wavelength, becomes higher as the difference of temperatures increases.
The opposing waves for a given wavelength combine to give: y = 2Ycold.cos ϖt.sin kx + (Yhot-Ycold).sin (kx + ϖt), with the usual nomenclature.
This is a travelling wave for a given wavelength with the difference of hot and cold amplitudes, transferring the real energy flux in the direction hotter → colder. There is no reverse transfer on average. Its average Poynting Vector is ε0.c. [Ehot – Ecold]^2/2. E is the peak electric field. It is superimposed on a standing wave with twice the amplitude of the wave from the colder emitter. It’s average Poynting Vector is zero. On top of this is a random oscillation about a mean of zero from thermal incoherence.
So, there can on average be no energy transfer from colder to hotter. There is no quantisation until the energy is transferred from the travelling wave to the empty energy level in the colder surface (or a GHG molecule which is part of a colder local Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution).
Where we have a planetary surface in radiative thermal equilibrium with a GHG-containing atmosphere, it’s a little bit more complicated. The self-absorbed IR bands have a short emission/absorption depth, approximately the same mean temperature as the surface. Because the activated molecules projected onto a plane are space filling, it emits and absorbs as a black body and its PVs exactly offset those of the black body surface for a given wavelength. That means there is no net PV,. no energy transfer.
However for the non self-absorbed bands, the emission/absorption depth is much higher, so the gas is on average at a lower temperature. The depth can be kms with substantial cooling. MODTRAN calculates it fine. For the atmospheric window, there is no emission or absorption.
CONCLUSION: there can be no back radiation; the surface radiates net energy at a rate determined by the operational emissivity [1 – gas emissivity]. For the Earth the mean is about 0.16. My idea is that energy transfer is mediated by quantum holes in the standing wave meaning that the cold body transmits information to the hot body so it dumps another quantum into the travelling wave when needed! This is work in progress….
tallbloke says: July 23, 2014 at 7:03 am
“Bob FJ: Did SoD discuss the relative heat capacities of a -10C land or ocean surface and +10C overlying air?As Dr Hans Jelbring has pointed out, there are times in the Arctic when the air temperature near the surface is raised by overlying cloud. This is not in doubt.”
“Will: Could I suggest you search for someone’s name and see what their previous articles are about before wading in? e.g. https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/bob-fernley-jones-trenberth-trouble-the-radiative-question/
Roger,
Thank you! I have looked, and have no problen with the BFJ analysis. I only disagree, with Bob’s conclusions, which heavily depend on the fictitious Schwarzschild two stream approximation. This can be more correctly described by Maxwell’s equations, with no need for spontanious energy transfer to any mass with higher energy potential! Are we having fun yet?
The two-stream approximation is an approximation, full stop. It goes very wrong in Climate Alchemy because they make an horrendous mistake, which is to assume there is a single OLR emitter to Space at -18 deg C. There is no such zone. OLR comes from between 0 and ~20 km. The high level emitters, the well mixed GHGs, do emit down as well as up, but the Down part is compensated by the lapse rate mechanism. To add it in twice is wrong.
Houghton stated correctly that there is no DOWN flux from ToA. What the Alchemists do is artificially to create a DOWN flux so it offsets exactly the UP flux to Space equal to the SW thermalisation in the atmosphere. That means the ‘back radiation’ becomes the heating:
Net atmospheric heating according to the two-stream approximation = 238.5 + 333 – 238.5 = 333 W/m^2. This is an increase of 40% over reality, a Perpetual Machine of the 2nd Kind.
It is Science fraud, pure and simple: time to stop the funding of these people until they come to heel and reject those who have been unprofessional by pandering to politicians for reward.
PS It all originated with Carl Sagan who got the (Venusian) cloud physics wrong. In this way he created a false upper atmosphere emitter which led him to believe the surface emitted as a black body when it does not. This is the same mistake the IPCC crew makes.
Sagan was a charlatan because he developed his career on this false physics; the IPCC are fraudsters in succession because no professional scientist or engineer can accept Sagan’s work, hotly contested in the 1960s by Russian physicists,
The cold war meant Sagan’s work was publicised by the US government for political reasons. The current fraud is based on that false physics.
Rog TB, Re your July 23, 2014 at 7:03 am
1) I did a Google search for ‘Planck Curve’ and then through their surprisingly lengthy catalogue of images, and found that the SoD version was the most convenient in that it was relevant as a nested pair of curves well within the terrestrial T range. At the same time I remembered that someone pessimistic of the issue had implied that SoD was a “naughty” place. Thus I gave some alternative Planck Curve references which indicated that the SoD version was probably OK, at least in concept. I’ve not had time to explore the SoD site, but just pinched the relevant image, so can’t comment on your other point.
2) Thank you for citing my article on the Trenberth Cartoon (paraphrased), and I see that Will has responded already……Wow
AlecM says: July 23, 2014 at 7:29 am
I’ve read your missive several times, and at the moment whilst about to retire for the evening with a glass of Shiraz, (in SE Oz), all I can say is:
WOT?
Give me time; I’ll try and comprehend better domani.
Bob_FJ says: July 23, 2014 at 9:05 am
AlecM says: July 23, 2014 at 7:29 am
(“I’ve read your missive several times, and at the moment whilst about to retire for the evening with a glass of Shiraz, (in SE Oz) “),
“all I can say is: WOT? Give me time; I’ll try and comprehend better domani.”
Bob Alec,
Here I sit with a pint of of Arkansas Muscedine, and a kitten that truly loves any attention. Life cannot be any better!
To Bob_FJ: it’s all very simple; mean net energy transfer from a warm to a cooler body is set for each wavelength by the travelling wave with amplitude = Yhot – Ycold. This is superimposed on a standing wave with amplitude equal to 2Ycold and which cannot transfer energy.
Additionally, the Yhot – Ycold travelling wave can’t transfer energy for low wavelengths for which there are no empty vibrational energy levels in the cooler body.
This is standard wave theory showing why ‘back radiation’ cannot exist.
As regards the Earth’s surface – atmosphere couple, there is no net energy transfer over all the self-absorbed GHG bands. There is energy transfer to non self-absorbed bands which have lower emission temperature because the absorption depth is by definition much greater.
There is also energy transfer in the ‘atmospheric window’ to the cosmic microwave background of Space which defines the temperature of interstellar matter.
The IPCC creates imaginary extra energy by claiming falsely that OLR comes from a single emitter which emits energy downwards from low to high temperature. Because this downwards energy transfer = OLR = SW thermalisation, it exactly offsets the real heating, leaving the imaginary ‘back radiation’ as the ‘heat source’ for the imaginary positive feedback.
No professional scientist or engineer accepts this as possible because it breaches the Law of Conservation of Energy, expressed as qdot = -∇.Fv, where qdot is the monochromatic rate of heat generation of matter per unit volume and Fv is the monochromatic radiative flux density.
It’s a clever sleight of hand, fraud, pea under the thimble designed to deceive the gullible.
Will J: Have you looked at Maxwell’s original equations, in quaternion notation, or at Heavyside’s recapitulation of them? I think some vector information may have been lost in the shift from Quaternion to ‘modern’ notation. This is something I haven’t had time to investigate, but may have important consequences for the Loschmidt hypothesis on the thermal gradient in the ‘equilibrium atmosphere’.
AlecM says: July 23, 2014 at 7:29 am
To Bob_FJ: it took me 3 years to satisfy myself that i knew radiative physics well enough to talk about it to others with some element of confidence. During that time I discovered that i was working in parallel with others, e.g. Claes Johnson. His explanation is harder top follow.
We have all gone back to Planck and have devised in our own minds, the bit of understanding he left out. To do that, i went through all his derivations until I knew it by heart, also the physical concepts.
The key part of this learning was that Planck only devised quantum theory to solve a mathematical problem. He was very unhappy in going from waves to particles. This means that the idea of particles spewing out of hot bodies then bouncing back from ‘filled sites’ is wrong. It’s waves, waves then waves, except at the ‘cavity’ where the interchange occurs between quantised sites in the dissipative oscillators and the Electromagnetic Continuum. You then have to impose thermal incoherence on the waves.
Alec,
I agree with all of the above. Planck did not express the energy correctly, but he did express the “action”, of the “integral of work over time” very precisely! AFAIK.
Some of your claims of energy exitance from the surface I must disagree with. Your use of the claimed by exitance from the surface claimed by the Trenberth cartoon is not, and cannot be correct. Time to measure, and throw away all Climatastroligst fantasy. Action is now claimed as “quantum” by arrogant academics who have not a clue.
To Will Janoschka: all the claims I have made about the net surface exitance aka emittance, is verifiable by using MODTRAN which is totally unbiased in its calculation mechanism!
Sorry ‘is’ should be ‘are’!
tallbloke says: July 23, 2014 at 10:23 am
Will J: Have you looked at Maxwell’s original equations, in quaternion notation, or at Heavyside’s recapitulation of them? I think some vector information may have been lost in the shift from Quaternion to ‘modern’ notation. This is something I haven’t had time to investigate, but may have important consequences for the Loschmidt hypothesis on the thermal gradient in the ‘equilibrium atmosphere’.”
Roger,
I have looked at the quarternions expression to the extent that a six DOF missile solution can have a 100:1 increase in computational efficiency using quarternions, rather than euler angles. However, John Poyntings carefull translation of Quaternion arithmetic to Vector arithmetic gives many insights into the details of EMR, never understood by the Russians. We now have phase array radar, and Doppler radar.
Will J: Thanks for that reply. I’d like to find a source for a layman’s guide to quaternions and Poynting vectors as they relate to the molecular-kinetic theory of gases rather than EMR. I know Maxwell originally developed his theory of gases from his theoretical study of particles in Saturn’s rings. I’m trying to trace backwards to the point where Maxwell shows (if he ever really did so decisively) that an equilibrium distribution of energy in an atmosphere subjected to a gravitational field will be isothermal. Could it be that somewhere in the transition from kinetic theory to statistical mechanics there is a glitch?
Poynting Vectors apply to all EM phenomena, not just IR. You can’t have an isothermal atmosphere – it’s because the density falls with altitude, hence pressure falls as well. That means a parcel of air does work as it rises, so it cools. The equilibrium temperature gradient is the lapse rate.
AlecM says: July 23, 2014 at 11:30 am
To Will Janoschka: all the claims I have made about the net surface exitance aka emittance, is verifiable by using MODTRAN which is totally unbiased in its calculation mechanism!
Alec,
All MODTRAN can ever do is calculate the attenuation of the amplitude modulation of some variable flux at some frequency, MODTRAN has no capability for determinating any attenuation of of average flux nor the the difference of emissivity of any surface at angles far from normal.
The climate astrologests application of LoTran, ModTran, or HiTran has no basis in any transfer of earth energy to cold space.
Hi Will: what MODTRAN does is to calculate the emittance of the GHG mixture as detected at any arbitrary plane, hence the individual Poynting Vectors (confirm this by putting just the single gas in the O2 N2 mixture).
It compares well with Leckner’s experimental data taking account of the fact that the latter are the internal emittance with full self-absorption whereas MODTRAN calculates the no-absorption Irradiance at the detector; about twice the internal level.)
If you subtract this from the .97 emissivity surface emittance curve, you get the net surface IR flux. It is the same as the experimental level. The programme is apparently based on some kind of look up table with 160 W/m^2 mean heat transfer from surface to atmosphere. Do the same at clouds to find out what drives them!
tallbloke says: July 23, 2014 at 12:01 pm
Will J: Thanks for that reply. I’d like to find a source for a layman’s guide to quaternions and Poynting vectors as they relate to the molecular-kinetic theory of gases rather than EMR. I know Maxwell originally developed his theory of gases from his theoretical study of particles in Saturn’s rings. I’m trying to trace backwards to the point where Maxwell shows (if he ever really did so decisively) that an equilibrium distribution of energy in an atmosphere subjected to a gravitational field will be isothermal. Could it be that somewhere in the transition from kinetic theory to statistical mechanics there is a glitch?
Roger,
Of course it could be, but that is fantasy, never associated with anythig observed in this “is”!
As far as quarternion and vectors there is no one that can come close to the understanding
of Dr. Maxwell, and his student John Poynting.
As far as the disagreement ‘tween Maxwell and Lowschmidt, both agreed that this is really wierd!
but neither would go out so far as to admit to an atmospheric, temperature, and pressure gradiant. while insisting that this atmosphere is both isothermal, and isobaric. Do you really think that each was that, stupid? Vast earthling cows to the rescue!
AlecM says:
July 23, 2014 at 12:49 pm
———————————-
MODTRAN was designed for simulation of IR opacity for the purpose of developing IR guided weapons and thermal detection of aircraft. It should not be used for determining energy transport within the atmosphere as it is essentially static atmosphere calculation. Our atmosphere is not static, an non radiative transports dominate below the tropopause.
Oh, and 0.97 surface emissivity? Forget that –
You need to measure effective not apparent emissivity. Background IR must be eliminated, especially for surfaces such as liquid water. If you can’t drop background to 3K then you are measuring apparent not effective emissivity. And for water you would need to be measuring a layer less than 100 microns thick unless you want interference from cavity effect.
Konrad: i am simply using MODTRAN to calculate the difference of Irradiance at the surface expressed as amplitude vs wavenumber. The results are close to those determined experimentally by FTIR spectroscopy.
This is not to be compared with more complex atmospheric modelling including the convective heat transport. However, it does show that there is near zero net IR emission in the main self-absorbed GHG bands.
This work shows that for the seas, IR emissivity is close to unity: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1256/qj.04.150/asset/200513161016_ftp.pdf;jsessionid=1987C97E29E24714464A6D87B10194A6.f03t04?v=1&t=hxyow95u&s=fb3d72b1c5b3d4c59e9f9f6487047871ce085c8d
AlecM says: . .
July 23, 2014 at 2:34 pm
Konrad: Ii am simply using MODTRAN to calculate the difference of Irradiance at the surface expressed as amplitude vs wavenumber. The results are close to those determined experimentally by FTIR spectroscopy. This is not to be compared with more complex atmospheric modelling including the convective heat transport. However, it does show that there is near zero net IR emission in the main self-absorbed GHG bands.
Alec the MODTRAN and any other Fortran something TRAN only calculates the attenuation of temporal or spatial modulation. The result due to the slow time constant of atmospheric re-thermalization of apoproximately 8 minutes. The various TRANs gove no indication of atmospheric attenuation of raiuant flux for time intervals greater than that 8 minutes, as the atmosphere proceeds to equilibrium where no flux is attinuated as per. GUS Kirchhoff.yu7
This work shows that for the seas, IR emissivity is close to unity: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1256/qj.04.150/asset/200513161016_ftp.pdf;jsessionid=1987C97E29E24714464A6D87B10194A6.f03t04?v=1&t=hxyow95u&s=fb3d72b1c5b3d4c59e9f9f6487047871ce085c8d
The “normal” emissivity of a water surface is quite high from 2-200 microns. The off normal reflectivity of that same water surface is quite high from 0.3 microns to 200 microns. There is no possible way that a water surface can be Lambertian in any part of the IR frequencies.
I know, picky, picky ,picky! Go recalculate.,
Will Janosshka: the non-Lambertian response is irrelevant. This is because for the same temperature, the opposing Poynting Vectors have superimposed on them thermal incoherency of +/- 4CY^2 where Y is the amplitude of the opposing plane waves at that wavelength and C is a constant. The direction of the vectors also change randomly. So, it all balances out!
The opposing thermally-incoherent electromagnetic fields sum to zero on average, so no net IR emission for all self-absorbed GHG bands…….
AlecM says: July 23, 2014 at 7:43 pm
Will Janosshka: the non-Lambertian response is irrelevant. This is because for the same temperature, the opposing Poynting Vectors have superimposed on them thermal incoherency of +/- 4CY^2 where Y is the amplitude of the opposing plane waves at that wavelength and C is a constant. The direction of the vectors also change randomly. So, it all balances out!
The opposing thermally-incoherent electromagnetic fields sum to zero on average, so no net IR emission for all self-absorbed GHG bands…….
Alec the radiative flux is not only limited by an opposing irradiance or field strength, but also by antenna gain, a reflective surface can emit or absorb nothing, independent of its thermal irradiance
Will: the measured mean IR emission is 63 W/m^2, 40 W/m^2 in the atmospheric window and the rest, as can be shown by MODTRAN, non self-absorbed H2O bands with low absorptivity adjacent the 15 micron CO2 band.
MODTRAN shows the same ratio 2:1, and similar absolute values (biased strongly to the high humidity, high temperature equatorial regions).
No-one except me appears to have thought out this, so I may be wrong, but the empirical data suggest that my hypothesis is correct. Is there an interaction between the water and the gas phase; remember, the surface of water is populated by hydronium ions, a 4th state of matter……
AlecM,
Thank you very much for your lengthy and impressive comments and there is a lot for me to chew over. I found your analysis of EMR standing waves eliminating back radiation very interesting but am surprised I have not come across it in the literature.
I wonder though about the effect of air being an absorptive medium, (and with the Trenberth 333 being maximum at the surface…. Not as portrayed in the cartoon), differences in wave amplitude and surface albedo.
My quick comment here is early in the day for me because I’m out shortly for the rest of the day.
AlecM says:
July 23, 2014 at 2:34 pm
———————————-
“This work shows that for the seas, IR emissivity is close to unity:”
No, that is for “apparent” NOT “effective emissivity”. There is a difference, a big difference.
0.97 is what you get when you measure “inside the Hohlraum” and also fail to account for cavity effect. Any attempt to use that number to determine the effect of DWLWIR on water or the ability of water to radiately cool in the absence of atmospheric cooling will lead to disaster.
AlecM says: July 23, 2014 at 8:19 pm
“Will: the measured mean IR emission is 63 W/m^2, 40 W/m^2 in the atmospheric window and the rest, as can be shown by MODTRAN, non self-absorbed H2O bands with low absorptivity adjacent the 15 micron CO2 band.”
Such has never been measured. You are using fake numbers from Trenberth’s cartoon. Using BRDF “measurements” EMR from the surface is only half of what you and Trenberth claim. About 13 W/m^2 to space and 19W/m^2 to cloud bottoms, all in the atmospheric window.
AlecM said
“The high level emitters, the well mixed GHGs, do emit down as well as up, but the Down part is compensated by the lapse rate mechanism. To add it in twice is wrong.”
I think that is the gist of my comments involving the adiabatic convective cycle which is a product of the gravity induced lapse rate.
The Down part is offset by a reduction in the rate of convective overturning such that it is negated by a slower return of kinetic energy (KE) to the surface for a net zero thermal effect at the surface.
In my comments elsewhere about the Trenberth energy budget diagram I pointed out that if KE is being returned to the surface via adiabatic descent then also adding extra DWIR constitutes double counting.
To Konrad: I shall follow up your comments.
To Bob_FJ: the reason the literature doesn’t include this is because Atmospheric Science and Meteorology teaches incorrect physics, specifically that an emittance is a real energy flux., only true for emission in the vacuum of deep space. Thus, the ‘back radiation’ idea is a bad scientific mistake which has persisted because it was the peer reviewed norm.**
As an engineer, I know for a fact that real IR energy loss is always << black body level and is coupled to convection etc. because the same vibrationally-activated surface sites can transfer the quantised energy to adsorbed gas molecules and liquid water molecules. Climate Science has completely missed out much of the existing literature, particularly the work on GHG emission by Hottell and Leckner, who pioneered the study.
Thus for hot-mll steel you need ~100 deg C for radiative loss to exceed natural convection. For hot-mill aluminium, it's about 300 deg C. This is embedded in the tables in standard handbooks of Heat transfer, e.g. McAdams, nowadays in computer packages.
As regards the ideas about off-axis water tending to be a mirror, i.e. low emissivity and absorptivity, all this does is to ensure that the EM energy from the gaseous emitter is biased to the normal! In other words, the emitter will become polarised. The real data show effective emissivity is near unity, hence this is used in the modelling.
**The incorrect 'back radiation' idea comes from meteorology which observed that clouds make the Earth's surface warmer. They thought it was because the black body clouds emit IR to the surface. This is wrong: what they do is to act as a higher temperature sink for net surface IR thus reducing surface IR energy loss; its temperature rises to ensure the sum of convection, evapo-transpiration and radiation is the same as before. This is a bad fsilure of observational science.
AlecM says: July 24, 2014 at 7:38 am
“As regards the ideas about off-axis water tending to be a mirror, i.e. low emissivity and absorptivity, all this does is to ensure that the EM energy from the gaseous emitter is biased to the normal! In other words, the emitter will become polarised. The real data show effective emissivity is near unity, hence this is used in the modelling.”
You claim real data! Who did the measurement? When? Where? What instruments were used to measure what? You seem to rely on fake atmospheric and surface models. Why do you claim a gaseous emitter from a water surface?
Will: I have come across papers claiming to measure the emissivity of seawater under various wind conditions. They are all in the region of 0.95-0.98. Konrad says this is ‘apparent’ emissivity and that the ‘effective’ emissivity is much lower – around 0.67 according to his experimentation.
Please use your original ID, I’ve edited the changed name.
AlecM said:
“to ensure the sum of convection, evapo-transpiration and radiation is the same as before”
with which I agree.
If energy to space is to match energy in from space over the long term there must be a thermostatic response to anything that seeks to disturb equilibrium.
I think we can merge evapo-transpiration with conduction and convection because all involve storage of kinetic energy (KE) as gravitational potential energy (GPE) for a period of time.
We can also split conduction from convection so that the basic scenario becomes this:
i) Energy passing through the Earth system can only be transmitted either by radiation or conduction.
ii) Any energy diverted to conduction is no longer available for radiation to space because convection then converts it to GPE which does not radiate.
iii) There is still a raised surface temperature (above S-B) but the additional surface energy represented by the higher temperature cannot radiate to space whilst it is locked into the process of convective overturning.
iv) Any increase in the radiative capability of an atmosphere reduces the speed of convective overturning and any decrease in the radiative capability of an atmosphere increases the speed of convective overturning.
The consequence is that the rate of convection holds the balance between radiation and conduction such that an increase in one gives an equal and opposite decrease in the other.
The variable that changes to accommodate the adjustment process is the total store of GPE within the atmosphere and GPE being non radiative it operates outside the radiation budget as a variable radiation sink.
If radiation to space from the surface and atmosphere combined rises above that which is arriving from space then convection decreases and some of its GPE is converted to to KE which prevents surface cooling.
If radiation to space from the surface and atmosphere combined falls below that which is arriving from space then convection increases to convert more surface KE to GPE which prevents surface warming.
If there is leakage from the adiabatic cycle from MORE GHGs then the increased loss of energy to space from within the atmosphere causes less energy to be taken back to the surface in the descent phase of convective overturning which should cool the surface but the potential cooling effect is offset by more DWIR from the gases to the surface for a net zero change in surface temperature at the expense of a change in the global air circulation pattern.
tallbloke says:
July 24, 2014 at 8:48 am
Will: I have come across papers claiming to measure the emissivity of seawater under various wind conditions. They are all in the region of 0.95-0.98. Konrad says this is ‘apparent’ emissivity and that the ‘effective’ emissivity is much lower – around 0.67 according to his experimentation.
Please use your original ID, I’ve edited the changed name.
Thank you. Kitten effect, she loves to do things with one stomp.
Normal (vertical) emissivity of water is very high. Almost tangent very reflective, notice that you can see the reflection of city lights from the bay at night. Water does the same thing in the IR. That 0.67 is a good estimate for fresh still water. Ocean is all over the place, with motion. Accurate IR BRDF is hard to do.
To Stephen Wilde: atmospheric science lost touch with reality 49 years ago when Sagan with Pollock put out a scrappy paper which started the whole GHE = Lapse Rate scam. 1981_Hansen_etal.pdf took this further, applying the same flawed logic to the Earth’s atmosphere.
That paper should never have passed peer review because the claim of a single -18 deg C OLR emitter at 5-6 km was made with absolutely no experimental evidence. Also, the maths used, equating the SW input to the atmosphere with OLR, whilst correct numerically, assumes as clearly did Sagan, that the emittance of a body is a real energy flux, rather than a potential energy flux, to be countered by other emitters providing Poynting vectors in the opposite direction and which combine as vectors.
So, we have had $160 billion spent on the climate scam, $35 billion on modelling, and that money has mostly been wasted. The IPCC should get 2% for spelling its name correctly, but no more. My aim has been to turn people away from this fake fizzicks. It’s starting to work!
PS as a process engineer who became a scientist, my roots are in practical measurement of coupled convection and radiation in the Chem Eng Lab at imperial College, repeating the experiments of the great physicists of the past. For 25 years or so we have trained new people into being technicians, unable to go back to first principles. I have built optical pyrometers from components for tricky emissivity curves. There is no way that any of the present crop of atmospheric scientists can compete with that kind of experience, not even Lindzen who was taught incorrect physics by Goody.
AlecM,
Re: Paraphrasing your; ‘standing waves’ stop ‘back radiation’.
I suspect that the climate system is so unstable and full of variables, such as reducing T’s and photon free path lengths with altitude, weather, and heaps more, that standing waves are highly unlikely.
Importantly, where are the boundaries between which the upwelling and down-welling EMR waves can resonate?
Oh BTW, complex interactions with the OTHER processes amounting to ~86% of the HEAT that leaves the surface per Trenberth cartoon?
PS: I don’t believe in harmful AGW and admire your enthusiasm for debunking it.
Bob: the ‘standing wave’ is a construct you get from assuming two opposing plane waves with the same amplitude interfere at a plane. When the waves have different amplitudes, you get a travelling wave carrying energy at a rate proportional to the square of the difference of amplitudes, superimposed on a standing wave of amplitude twice that of the smaller wave.
This is A-level physics. The way the atmosphere responds, with temperature gradients and differing ‘photon’ mean free path length is more complex, as is the maths. However, the same simple principles apply.
Mean free path of the quantised energy is determined by self-absorption, simple geometry. This is very important for non well-mixed water. Below a critical concentration for any wavelength, the energy shoots off to Space. This altitude starts at ~2.5 km. As altitude increases, the convective energy is transferred to progressively higher wavelength, higher absorptivity bands. Climate Alchemy imagines it is the stratosphere; it isn’t.
Well mixed gases like CO2 emit from the stratosphere because it’s warmer, but the emission is not self – absorbed and is superimposed on the spectral temperature set by the upper troposphere.
So, it’s all quite simple: with water vapour, convection ends when self-absorption ends, and that is determined by the concentration curve and temperature. Well-mixed gases do not emit to Space from the troposphere because they are always self-absorbed, so they have a hot ‘spike’ on a pedestal set by the upper tropopause temperature.
PS: there can be no ‘enhanced GHE’ but if there were no other process there would be the 1.2 K no-amplification warming from doubled CO2. There are other processes though which reduce the 1.2 K to near zero. They are in reality quite simple but the dimwits in the IPCC have said that no scientist on their payroll can think about them because the science is settled!
PPS Remember that there can never be any gas phase thermalisation of GHG-absorbed IR from an external, higher temperature source. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Tyndall Experiment, a wrong assumption.
tallbloke says:
July 24, 2014 at 8:48 am
———————————-
“I have come across papers claiming to measure the emissivity of seawater under various wind conditions. They are all in the region of 0.95-0.98. Konrad says this is ‘apparent’ emissivity and that the ‘effective’ emissivity is much lower – around 0.67 according to his experimentation.”
Roger, a slight correction. I only got below 0.8 with my experiment as I could only cool the “sky” down to -40C. The 0.67 figure is something found in older thermography texts and tables
I would also add that wind conditions can drop apparent emissivity of the ocean down near 0.8 at lower viewing angles.
It is the change in apparent emissivity with observation angle that should have been the big red flag for climastrologists. Blackbodys do not change emissivity with viewing angle.
But for water, the imbalance between absorptivity and emissivity is only half the selective surface effect. As shown by these two experiments, depth of absorption is also critical –
AlecM,
Might I further add that I share your repeatedly stated anger over Carl Sagan!
In fact I had a long email debate with my brother around two decades ago where he searched the British Library, and me my State Library in Oz, for various references, and when we referred to him as Satan.
You may recall that Velikovsky’s book “Worlds in Collision” (*?) was almost certainly an over-the-top hypothesis, (immediately condemned in academia by people who proudly declared that they had not read it). BUT, his many other books on Egyptology and whatnot were astoundingly difficult to debunk and were hushed-up. Although one book describing Earth’s geology and fossil stuff etcetera in revelatory terms (Earth in Chaos *?) was required reading in some universities back then. Apparently, Einstein and V were friends BTW.
May I recommend that you read Charles Ginenthal’s book “Carl Sagan & Immanual Velikovsky” (1995). It covers stuff about Venus and Satan’s whoopsies.
*? = From memory….. titles may be inaccurate.
AlecM,
And there I was thinking of retiring for the evening with a glass of Cabernet Merlot.
At a glance and very quickly I repeat what I wrote before with EXTRA emphasis:
Importantly, WHERE ARE THE BOUNDARIES between which the upwelling and down-welling EMR waves can resonate?
AlecM says: July 25, 2014 at 8:32 am
Bob: the ‘standing wave’ is a construct you get from assuming two opposing plane waves with the same amplitude interfere at a plane. When the waves have different amplitudes, you get a travelling wave carrying energy at a rate proportional to the square of the difference of amplitudes, superimposed on a standing wave of amplitude twice that of the smaller wave.
AlecM,
I agree with most all you say about EMR energy transport. Please engage in a discussion of your claim of “standing wave of amplitude twice that of the smaller wave.” No such has ever been observed for thermal wideband EMR. The amplitude modulation, independent of any flux or “carrier”, appears as a double sideband suppresed carrier transport. This is important to me, as only the modulation is absorbed by atmospheric gases, with no equilibrium, but never the flux. Thank you for any consideration. I have spent 45 years on this WTF over!
Bob FJ: Interesting. Ginenthal’s book is pricey on the secondhand market.
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=Carl+Sagan+Immanuel+Velikovsky
Bob_FJ says: July 25, 2014 at 9:29 am
AlecM,
And there I was thinking of retiring for the evening with a glass of Cabernet Merlot.
Bob, try a glass,or pint of Arkansas red muscadine, you will sleep well, then in the morning
get a different POV of what you were thinking!
Will; you know a lot more than me about the detailed physics. However, I’m an engineer and I can’t stand any physics which breaches Conservation of Energy unless it’s Fusion or Fission and mass changes as well.
As for the boundaries at which upwelling and downwelling waves interact, there are no upwelling and downwelling waves, only their vector sum at any point or plane.
Remember: qdot = – ∇.Fv is the Law of Conservation of Energy between the material and EM domains.
PS Any radiometer measures the mean Emittance (aka Exitance) of the EM sources in the view angle. This is because the metal case stops off the rest.
So, a pyrgeometer cannot measure the real energy flux; only the difference of two opposing measurements can do that.
Measure the surface Emittance to the atmosphere. Measure the atmospheric Emittance to the surface. Subtract the latter from the former and you get the net surface IR flux. Simples.
Rog, Re Ginenthal’s book,
It is available in digital form from Amazon U.K. (free Kindle download s/ware) for UKPounds 6.38 (or from USA $9.89). You can also look inside the book with a mouse click. Or, there are used paperbacks from UKP 22.84, although delivery cost if any not immediately evident.
I also recommended Velikovsky’s book,
Earth in Chaosshould be ‘Earth in Upheaval’ which is also available from Amazon UK (and with a look inside) at UKP 12.91 and also cheaper as paperback from UKP 7.22 maybe with free delivery…… and you can currently do a trade-in return up to UKP 1.79. (!?)As a quick chat, some of Velikovsky’s hyper-multidisciplinary work is profound and ignored/uncontested, I suspect because experts are over specialised and cannot allow other scientists from a different church to contradict their lifetime work.
For instance, he has published photos from a British museum in one of his books of some ceramic tiles from an Egyptian tomb that have the tradesman’s imprints on the reverse that are in Greek letters of a style from a much different time in history to the expert dating of the tomb. That’s just a small bit from his Egyptology stuff which is ignored by Egyptologists.
And, into more advanced science, as but one example, he determined that one of the gas giant planets (I forget which) must emit radio waves, long before it was found to be true by experts.
Will,
Thank you for your recommendation to consume up to a pint of ‘Arkansas Red Muscadine’ in order for me to have an enlightened POV upon arising from slumbers the morning after. That sounds interesting because I do admit to having an attitude discrepancy at morning-time.
Does it contain magic mushrooms or what? (Do you think it would be allowed through Oz Customs/Quarantine if I try to import some?)
AlecM,
I’ve just read through your recent comments again and am finding it all a bit incoherent….sorry, but that’s a pun.
Do you have any hard evidence for YOUR standing EMR waves; those thingies which do not have any resonant boundaries throughout an unstable and greatly varying medium through altitude and stuff?
How about a photograph of LWIR standing waves or sumfink?
I’m inclined to retire from this discussion because clearly your speculation is indestructible in your own mind. (Unless you have a photo whatever to convince me /jest).
Rog,
Ginenthal’s book is available as a digital download cheap.
I tried three times to post details in a comment here but it severally evaporated without explanation.
[Reply] Thanks Bob. Found it.
AlecM says: July 25, 2014 at 1:35 pm
“Will; you know a lot more than me about the detailed physics. However, I’m an engineer and I can’t stand any physics which breaches Conservation of Energy unless it’s Fusion or Fission and mass changes as well. As for the boundaries at which upwelling and downwelling waves interact, there are no upwelling and downwelling waves, only their vector sum at any point or plane. Remember: qdot = – ∇.Fv is the Law of Conservation of Energy between the material and EM domains.”
AlecM, Agreed!
I claim no knowledge of physics, why would I want to? I are also an engineer, and what I see from the Climastrologists makes me sick/aghast, perhaps both! The reason for my question about that standing wave or carrier is because I have observed it disappear. With a chopped IR source, and a bolometer detector backed by a flux-meter and variable temperature sink/source, I can synchronously demodulate the chopper signal to measure any path absorbance. At the same time I can with the flux-meter, and varying the sink temperature, I can have the Flux carrier be in either direction or none, all the time measuring the same modulated signal.
AlecM says: July 25, 2014 at 4:13 pm
“PS Any radiometer measures the mean Emittance (aka Exitance) of the EM sources in the view angle. This is because the metal case stops off the rest.So, a pyrgeometer cannot measure the real energy flux; only the difference of two opposing measurements can do that.Measure the surface Emittance to the atmosphere. Measure the atmospheric Emittance to the surface. Subtract the latter from the former and you get the net surface IR flux. Simple.”
Gee! Just like the real S-B equation tells you to calculate the one way flux!
Actually the two way pyrgeometer does not work either, because it has a very limited waveband, not even all of the 8-14 micron window. From the actual flux in or out they are calibrated against a black-body cavity. using the bb temperature and its own temperature. That actual flux is converted so it indicates the bb irradiance or bb temperature. If you were to measure the night-time downward radiance anywhere but in the two window bands you will find the same radiance as upward from the surface. Except for those windows the total upward flux is less than 60 milliWatts/M^2. In the windows it is 13W/m^2 to space and 19W/m^2 to the clouds. No actual flux from the surface is needed on this Earth. Atmospheric WV can do it all to space.
All is a planned SCAM.
Bob_FJ: there has never been any calorimetric evidence of ‘back radiation’. The only evidence the thermageddonists claim is the pyrgeometer, which measures atmospheric emittance, a potential energy flux. What confuses them is that emittance and real IR flux have the same units. The only time they have the same numerical value is when the emitter is in radiative equilibrium with a sink at absolute zero.
A rider to this argument is that the ‘forcing’ concept is highly misleading. Thus the mean SW ‘forcing’ of 160 W/m^2 reaching the surface is real thermalised energy. This is because the SW energy emitted by the surface to the Sun in that radiative interchange is next to zero, because the Earth’s temperature is low compared with that of the Sun.
On the other hand, the present mean LW ‘forcing’ of 333 W/m^2 is opposed by the 396 W/m^2 from the (16 deg C mean) surface, giving real net surface IR flux of 63 W/m^2. As for OLR, that is in radiative equilibrium with the cosmic microwave background of Space, and the latter’s emittance to the Earth is very low.
No professional engineer or scientist can accept the IPCC’s radiative and IR physics’ claims.
Bob_FJ says: July 26, 2014 at 6:53 am
Will,
“Thank you for your recommendation to consume up to a pint of ‘Arkansas Red Muscadine’ in order for me to have an enlightened POV upon arising from slumbers the morning after. That sounds interesting because I do admit to having an attitude discrepancy at morning-time.
Does it contain magic mushrooms or what? (Do you think it would be allowed through Oz Customs/Quarantine if I try to import some?)”
It has more resveratrol than other grapes. The vines are huge and grow up hardwood trees.
It is pro’lly sweeter than your Merlot. I like Mount Bethel, just doen the road.
http://www.mountbethel.com/MuscadineWine.htm
AlecM says: July 26, 2014 at 8:52 am, (Quoting his paragraphs in order):
1) ”Bob_FJ: there has never been any calorimetric evidence of ‘back radiation’. The only evidence the thermageddonists claim is the pyrgeometer, which measures atmospheric emittance, a potential energy flux. What confuses them is that emittance and real IR flux have the same units. The only time they have the same numerical value is when the emitter is in radiative equilibrium with a sink at absolute zero”.
Thank you Alec, but since you can only condemn established theory yet seem to be unable to provide any empirical evidence of your sceptical alternative of the significant existence of your IR standing waves. That is either with or without photons per the wave/particle duality theory, and as I said before; it’s all a bit like sawing sawdust. (ABLSS)
2) ”A rider to this argument is that the ‘forcing’ concept is highly misleading. Thus the mean SW ‘forcing’ of 160 W/m^2 reaching the surface is real thermalised energy. This is because the SW energy emitted by the surface to the Sun in that radiative interchange is next to zero, because the Earth’s temperature is low compared with that of the Sun.”
In your first sentence, the 160 reaching the surface is generally known at least by applied scientists (rather than physics academics) as EMR, and I’m unfamiliar with it being referred to as thermalized energy. My reading is that in this context, thermalization is more typically used to describe the process towards thermal equilibrium from higher energy molecules colliding with lower energy molecules, (including photon absorbing GHG molecules and allegedly non-photon absorbing molecules such as N2). However, putting aside the semantics, I understand what you mean, but see @ 3) below. (ABLSS)
I think your second sentence is a tad obscure, and surely the reason that the SW EMR is substantially absorbed by the Earth (or reflected) is because the Sun is at a very much greater T (potential) difference.
3) ”On the other hand, the present mean LW ‘forcing’ of 333 W/m^2 is opposed by the 396 W/m^2 from the (16 deg C mean) surface, giving real net surface IR flux of 63 W/m^2. As for OLR, that is in radiative equilibrium with the cosmic microwave background of Space, and the latter’s emittance to the Earth is very low.”
In your first sentence I agree that the net HEAT loss from the surface is 63. But, the issue is that the overwhelming majority of scientists including non-climate-alarmists* believe in the wave/particle duality theory of light because it does seem to be intuitively logical. For instance as in Tim Folkert’s example of two opposing flashlights with photons involved…. And, that there is absolutely no problem with photons being absorbed in receptive lower energy molecules within a colder target spectrum. (OK with Law 2).
* E.g. I’ve Boolean Googled; “standing waves” + “roy spencer” and other scientists such as Judith Curry, and the matter is only mentioned in their blog attached comments, most ardently by Doug Cotton everywhere, but contested by other commenters.
(ABLSS)
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Will Janoshka
I look forward to Alec’s response to your lab experiment. Do you have any comments as to how it might apply to a full column of air in the atmosphere? My concern is that the atmosphere is rather unstable with a lot of stuff going on. For instance, with increasing altitude, the IR spectra diminish, including the AMPLITUDE of all wavelengths. I severely doubt that there can be any standing waves in terms of significant duration/altitude span.
On a lighter mood, here’s some fun for you Will:
You know the mechanical analogy of two young girls setting-up a standing wave in a long skipping rope by coordinating their hand movements? Well one day, one of the girls was naughty and persuaded Grandpa to take one end of the rope. The tease was that he was aging badly in hand-eye coordination. What do you think was the outcome?
Oh well; a difficulty there I guess. No matter, let’s now get the two girls back together but give them a specially braided rope that is much thicker (stiffer and heavier) at one end than erratically towards the other, maybe even with a few knots. Can you figure out if they might set-up a standing wave and in what form it might be?
This is fun too; Willis Eschenbach’s “improved” version of the Trenberth cartoon:
Enjoy.
Will,
PS: Thanks for your separate advice on Arkansas Muscadine wine. Apparently it is available in the warmer eastern humid parts of Oz.
Before exploring further on obtaining supplies, (I don’t want to be embarrassed); could you please clarify how its name is properly pronounced. Does the weird Arkensaw (sic) W sound apply to the S in Muscadine?
Sorry,
In my 10.46 am meant to say:
And, that there is absolutely no problem with photons being absorbed in receptive lower energy molecules within a
colderhotter target spectrum. (OK with Law 2).With respect to standing waves of EM radiation,
A good example of this is the Laser Gyroscope.
Laser light (EM Wave, coherent) form a Laser diode is split, and sent down a clockwise coil of fibre optic cable. The other path of the split beam is sent down a separate anticlockwise coil of fibre optic cable.
Exiting from the ends of both cables, the two beams of light are focused on a spot (photo transistor)
Rotate the coils clockwise or anticlockwise and you get a visible ‘interference’ or ‘beating’ effect where the two laser beams move from in-phase to out of phase.
Counting the pulses allows one to determine how much the coils (airframe or hull) has rotated.
So EM waves to add and cancel, we use the effect in these gyros and rate meters.
How you can rationalise this to randomly scattered/in-coherent waves – I can not currently imagine.
I would think that general averaging would take place.