Greenhouse Effect

[sigurdur]

Aug 8, 2011 3:42:16 GMT richard said:

Aug 8, 2011 3:08:51 GMT sigurdur said:

Richard: You are correct. If you can help in showing how radiative energy is transferred, that would be most helpful. I was trying to do it in the simpliest possible steps.

All matter emits photons which carry the energy away. They bang into other atoms and those atoms heat up. Alternatively the radiation can be visualized as waves, but the same basic process applies.

Icefisher's hypothesis that radiation somehow knows the temperature of the destination, which could be many light years away, and refuses to start the journey unless the destination is at a lower temperature than the source, is just plain daft.

Yes, but he is thinking of convection, rather than radiation of energy. I would never call Icefisher daft. From what he was asking, he was really trying to understand this, and is having a hard time doing so.

That is why I brought up absolute zero. To be at absolue zero, there can be no energy exchanged. That is in effect what absolute zero is. I was trying to show that all matter radiates, but it is not infinite in value. It has to re-absorb to maintain a certain temperature. And the photons are only a unit of energy, they are not a unit of temperature.

I know my physics is old and rusty, was trying to demonstrate in a very simple term.

[sigurdur]

I wonder what Alice thinks of this?
Trbixler, be sure and offer her tea will ya? Keep the sugar and cream on the light side tho.

[trbixler]

Aug 8, 2011 3:42:16 GMT richard said:

Aug 8, 2011 3:08:51 GMT sigurdur said:

Richard: You are correct. If you can help in showing how radiative energy is transferred, that would be most helpful. I was trying to do it in the simpliest possible steps.

All matter emits photons which carry the energy away. They bang into other atoms and those atoms heat up. Alternatively the radiation can be visualized as waves, but the same basic process applies.

Icefisher's hypothesis that radiation somehow knows the temperature of the destination, which could be many light years away, and refuses to start the journey unless the destination is at a lower temperature than the source, is just plain daft.

Well Alice whispered to me secretly about a previous crisis involving UV. Of course I was unwilling to discount her insistence that there was more to know with all this energy transfer calculations and the the mere mention of photons and waves well she went off deeply concerned that maybe I had missed some facts. She left this link for me to study.

online.redwoods.cc.ca.us/depts/science/chem/storage/Schrod/

She said that she would return after I spent some time brushing up.

[magellan]

Aug 8, 2011 3:50:57 GMT sigurdur said:

Aug 8, 2011 3:42:16 GMT richard said:

All matter emits photons which carry the energy away. They bang into other atoms and those atoms heat up. Alternatively the radiation can be visualized as waves, but the same basic process applies.

Icefisher's hypothesis that radiation somehow knows the temperature of the destination, which could be many light years away, and refuses to start the journey unless the destination is at a lower temperature than the source, is just plain daft.

Yes, but he is thinking of convection, rather than radiation of energy. I would never call Icefisher daft. From what he was asking, he was really trying to understand this, and is having a hard time doing so.

That is why I brought up absolute zero. To be at absolue zero, there can be no energy exchanged. That is in effect what absolute zero is. I was trying to show that all matter radiates, but it is not infinite in value. It has to re-absorb to maintain a certain temperature. And the photons are only a unit of energy, they are not a unit of temperature.

I know my physics is old and rusty, was trying to demonstrate in a very simple term.

Sig,

Think about how convection works and then apply that to the troposphere

Ever wonder why the climate models fail to show a "hot spot"? What really does keep the troposphere at such a relatively stable temperature?

trbixler,
Is Alice getting help from men on the chessboard?

[trbixler]

So Alice told me in a quote
"Things on a small scale behave like nothing you have any direct experience about. They do not behave like waves. They do not behave like particles. They do not behave like clouds or billiard balls or weights on springs or like anything you have ever seen (Feynman)."

So I duly noted that while energy might be given up in quanta or in mutual mechanical exchange that I must keep track of both if I was to have any hope of making sense of what was being reported from observers using a looking glass of a particular design.

[icefisher]

I know my physics is old and rusty, was trying to demonstrate in a very simple term.

Mine is about 50 years rusty. I was told I was at high school level which isn't bad since thats all the physics I have had and it was 50 years ago.

I did score 97 percentile on the CA state highschool senior physics exam. I qualified for a scholarship but chose something else.

Bottom line is the trolls and scientists themselves cannot produce a shred of science in support of backradiation or its quantities.

Lets face it there is a major black hole a massive place of no accountability.

Fact is top echelon physicists are not in agreement.

But what does the warmist side whose side the burden of proof lie have for evidence? nobody from the warmist side has anything to offer and one cannot disprove the existence of something.

My accounting problem goes like this. The surface is some average temperature within 2 or 3 degrees of 15C. It radiates at some average radiation level within probably 10 or 15 watts of 385 watts. One cannot pin it down because average temperature does not equal average radiation.

I drew a diagram at the top of this thread that no warmist wants to address. It shows an inbalanced equation with backradiation drawn in. The correct figure would seem to be the surface radiates say 380 watts up. Cool CO2 may be there from night time cooling. Its say 15C and radiating up the equivalent of 239 watts adjusted by its emissivity factor (abef). It is absorbing 380 watts(abef). Now if it is also radiating down 239 watts abef its shedding 478watts abef and only receiving 380 abef. Under that scenario it should be cooling. But that makes no sense in the presence a warmer source.

Anyway instead of backradiation its receiving 380watts abef, radiating up 239 watts abef and the surplus of 141abef is warming the CO2 which in turn warms the adjacent gases.

When the CO2 reaches the temperature equivalent of 380 watts up radiation then there is no more warming of the CO2 but the system is in equilibrium with 380watts emitting from the surface, 380 watts abef being absorbed by the CO2 and the CO2 in turn emitting 380 watts up.

Now in a conduction model there will be some backwash that causes a slight warming of the surface. My guess its not 380watts abef as that is far too much and if that were happening there would be no watts to radiate upwards!

Now aha you say the CO2 isn't radiating 380 watts up its radiating 380 watts total, half up half down!

Well I had an exchange with Steve where he conceded the surface was radiating 380 watts up and 380 watts down for a total of 760 watts. Well we know that not right so to imitate the BB theory all the watts have to come out the same side. It happens because there is a resistance to going down everything below is as warm or slightly warmer and its all forced out the top.

Well yeah! So why isn't the same happening with gases? I mean gases actually have properties to resist such a gradient that is found in solids. Thats because gas molecules move around freely and much more rapidly than even in liquids which themselves makes a large cycle each day via convection.

The warmist jump in here and assume great differences between conduction and radiation with no evidence to support it other than the unsupported claim of warming calculated via numerology to figures that are shaky in the first place.

To an experienced auditor the number of apparent issues is huge!

Heat is flowing through the gas like water through a seive.

But why is there a big difference between the surface radiation and the TOA radiation? Good question! As an auditor I see a lot of accounts in dire need of good auditing.

There is the account I would entitle "average surface radiation". The means of calculating now using average temperatures is complete bunk! I did a guestimate sample of the problem earlier this week. Thats not an answer but it was designed to highlight the problem that needs resolving.

There is the account I would entitle "average surface temperature". The means of calculating this one for the purpose of calculating average radiation has its own problems. One might not need to audit this one if one goes a good job on the previous one. But the problem here is random sampling. Does the peak of Mt Everest have an equal opportunity for a weather station that the Dallas Ft Worth airport has? Obviously not!

There is the account I would entitle, how warm does a bad emitter get when an energy is input into it. Here we know for a given outside temperature and a given warming source inside of a set amount of watts, that if we put a poor emitting coating on the enclosure the inside gets warmer. Poor emitting nitrogen, oxygen, argon et al might be the actual greenhouse effect or a major part of it relative to
CO2.

There is the account I would entitle, what qualifies as a greenhouse gas.

Radiation law says all material either absorb, reflect, or transmit (via transparency) radiation. In fact all materials probably do at least two and sometimes three of those things at one time to some extent.

This account is an interesting one because its going to require a very careful "materiality" test. Materiality is where you worry about both the risk of one big transaction that could effect the financial report and very small numerous transactions that can do the same thing.

One of the gases we want to earmark as potentially important is CO2 and it only makes up .0004 of the atmosphere.

But for the other non-greenhouse gases look at water. Its transparent to SW, like our atmosphere. But hey all light is absorbed in a couple hundred meters! The same occurs in the atmosphere with outgoing radiation. Some of it is going to be absorbed by nitrogen and oxygen. I don't know the ratios but if Argon is a good example the ratio of CO2 effects to the non-greenhouse gases would be .0004*.1 to .99*.0003 that makes common air have 8 times the greenhouse effect that CO2 has. If true this would have a major impact on how much warming can be acheived by doubling CO2. Even with treble or quadruple positive feedback factors doubling CO2 might only produce .4 to .5deg C.

And there is the account entitled global warming from sequesterization of heat in the oceans. The oceans are 17degC on average. Average global is supposed to be 15C that suggests land must be quite a bit cooler making up about 1/4th of the surface. This might be geographic but it also might in part be due to poor surface emission efficiency keeping the surface of the water unusually warm.

Look at this for snow also. High snow reflectivity makes it a poor emitter for given temperature.

Look at this for any number of materials that the surface is made of, white sands in the desert for example.

And of course there is the conduction account. We know conduction is important as near surface air heats rapidly even in dry regions. Its not only cooling the surface but sequestering it in poorly emitting gases.

And of course there is the evaporation account. This is probably the biggest.

And look at convection. Convection accelerates warming of the atmosphere! But it does not reverse! It does not compensate by accelerating cooling like an efficient radiator will do.

I also have a real problem with declaring 396 watt average from radiation from a surface that is also shedding another 102 watts from evaporation and conduction that through convection rises away from the surface never to return. (or even if it does back radiate, how could more than half return?) The accounting here for "average" radiation is hokey! Average radiation calculations only apply when there is no other method of cooling.

Its pretty simple. Something that radiates at 396 watts is not going to keep radiating at 396 watts if it also gives off 85 watts in evaporation that physically rises out of Trenberths measurement zone.

Its going to cool period end of story. If you want to claim otherwise bring some evidence! Real world experiments!

Then of course the water vapor in the sky does reflect IR back after forming clouds. Clouds globally reflect 79watts of sunlight. Underside reflection is probably less because we think clouds generally have a cooling effect (but we probably shouldn't just assume it.

So how much will all this hack off the backradiation estimate of 333 watts? Who knows! But I am having trouble believing backradition amounts to much. And it seems all we have to support it is a cartoon depiction of a photon process purely postulated for its intuitive nature with no evidence of a backradiation effect beyond Santer fingerprinting statistics and Steves numerology, both probably begging the question by assuming backradiation fills a poorly documented void.

OK so I spilled my guts I have a lot of questions. But one thing for sure is I am daft for thinking radiation might sense a star light years away before emitting a photon at has to be one of the stupidest questions coming from somebody who claims the light from that star nets with radiation on the surface of this planet.

Stupid is as stupid does but the issue here is not whether there is a connection with distant stars the issue is purely what is the nature and power of that connection.

What would be more useful would be some clear well established answers to these many questions as opposed to insults, excuses, and made up stuff.

The photon model survives because it is simple and it explains stuff we do know. But the inverse is not true. We cannot use the photon model to prove stuff we do not know.

[trbixler]

Alice is looking for a resuscitator after today in a land that is looking even more curious than previously thought. The focus on AGW as opposed to the economy has her stumped.

[sigurdur]

The finances of the fine land seem to be tied to the iceburg that got in the way of the Titanic. The ripple effect, the lack of life boats, and the cold seas will make this a journey that many would like to forget, and wish they hadn't bought the kookaid...oh...I mean berth.

[throttleup]

Aug 8, 2011 21:25:33 GMT trbixler said:

Alice is looking for a resuscitator after today in a land that is looking even more curious than previously thought. The focus on AGW as opposed to the economy has her stumped.

... and a little bit ticked off too, no doubt! Go get 'em, Alice!

[steve]

Aug 8, 2011 2:26:03 GMT magellan said:

So now steve, our resident physicist and modeler, says convection doesn't transfer heat and radiation only transfers heat?

ROTFLMAO!!

W00t That's a good one steve. Where did you get your degree? And you are teaching students this stuff? Sorry, but since you've been telling icefisher over and over he doesn't understand "basic physics", this latest is over the top.

I haven't taken a physics class in 30+ years, so have an excuse, but even as Dr. Thermostat says I don't understand anything about physics, perhaps he could straighten this all out since he has a PhD and all.

magellan, you are lying about what I say in order to try and win an argument. You are a liar pure and simple.

[steve]

trbixler,

Rather than tell stories, why don't you just say what you are trying to say.

I'm still waiting for someone to show me how to fiddle the basic physics so that it prevents increases in emissivity/absorptivity from *tending* to increase surface temperature. Adding in a convection term that depends on the lapse rate sure doesn't do it unless I include a huge fiddle factor that requires convection to be strongly dependent on absolute surface temperature. Perhaps you could help with a clear exposition that doesn't rely on contorted fairy tales.

I note that icefisher *still* thinks that a material cannot radiate in the direction of a cooler material. Now I think they'd worked out that that could happen more than 50 years ago so given your level of education, the inability to understand this must be a reflection on the US education system!

steve (hoping in vain to come back after my holiday to something slightly more edifying)

[trbixler]

Aug 15, 2011 10:55:22 GMT steve said:

trbixler,

Rather than tell stories, why don't you just say what you are trying to say.

I'm still waiting for someone to show me how to fiddle the basic physics so that it prevents increases in emissivity/absorptivity from *tending* to increase surface temperature. Adding in a convection term that depends on the lapse rate sure doesn't do it unless I include a huge fiddle factor that requires convection to be strongly dependent on absolute surface temperature. Perhaps you could help with a clear exposition that doesn't rely on contorted fairy tales.

I note that icefisher *still* thinks that a material cannot radiate in the direction of a cooler material. Now I think they'd worked out that that could happen more than 50 years ago so given your level of education, the inability to understand this must be a reflection on the US education system!

steve (hoping in vain to come back after my holiday to something slightly more edifying)

So there was something wrong with the concept that both mechanical heat exchange and radiative heat exchange should be considered. Of course radiative transport is just that radiative but mechanical exchange involves transport. But what if some of the radiation encounters obstacles that adsorb the radiation then mechanically transfer the energy. Not to repeat the thought but gases expand when they are warmed and the corollary is true when they cool. Then repeating state changes adsorb or give off energy. Then repeating the n space model. And you think that I tell fairy tails when I suggest that it is complex? Further I tell fairy tails when people invent slab models and I have the temerity to suggest that they are not even a beginning of the requirements to actually solve a very difficult problem. The fairy tail is that some here believe that they really understand the earth's climate and can predict what is going to happen 100 years in the future.

[trbixler]

Greenhouse what greenhouse Mr. Green.

"The Tao That Can Be Spoken …"

"I have explained elsewhere what I have called my “thunderstorm thermostat hypothesis”. I propose that a combination of cumulus clouds and thunderstorms maintain the tropical temperature within a fairly narrow range. This is done by means of sequential thresholds which, when each is passed, marks a change into a different type of circulation.

In the morning, the sky is clear and the air is generally calm. When a critical threshold is passed, cumulus start to form. Each cloud marks the centre of a rising column of air. The surrounding air is descending to replace the rising air.

Note that this is not a negative feedback in the sense usually discussed. It is not dependent on the exact feedback from clouds and water vapor and whether it is positive or negative. Instead, it is a change between atmospheric quiescence and a defined circulation pattern containing rising air, clouds, and descending air. The net result is increasing wind, increasing evaporation, reflection of incoming energy, and surface cooling."

wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/14/the-tao-that-can-be-spoken/

[sigurdur]

wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/15/the-character-of-climate-change-part-1/#more-44982

This is an excellent post.

[magellan]

Aug 15, 2011 10:42:06 GMT steve said:

Aug 8, 2011 2:26:03 GMT magellan said:

So now steve, our resident physicist and modeler, says convection doesn't transfer heat and radiation only transfers heat?

ROTFLMAO!!

W00t That's a good one steve. Where did you get your degree? And you are teaching students this stuff? Sorry, but since you've been telling icefisher over and over he doesn't understand "basic physics", this latest is over the top.

I haven't taken a physics class in 30+ years, so have an excuse, but even as Dr. Thermostat says I don't understand anything about physics, perhaps he could straighten this all out since he has a PhD and all.

magellan, you are lying about what I say in order to try and win an argument. You are a liar pure and simple.

Hey stevie, all we need to do is go back to the discussions on convection and see how clueless you [and glc] are despite all your rhetoric on being so superior on "basic physics" You have told icefisher more than once he doesn't understand "basic physics". You stepped in it......big.