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Post by radiant on Oct 14, 2009 17:12:23 GMT
Radiant you have latched onto an untested premise in Hammer's study. Many studies are saying you cannot detect absorption by n2 or 02 or argon aside from small peaks. It is not Hammers 'premise' It was not Tyndalls 'premise' either. I agree we are talking about relative differences rather than absolutes but Hammer as a spectroscopist and inventor in the area of spectroscopy sounds like he should know because he is designing and i think involved in the manufacture of spectroscopic devices via Varian Australia A magnetically excited microwave plasma source for atomic emission spectroscopy with performance approaching that of the inductively coupled plasma Spectrochimica Acta Part B: Atomic Spectroscopy, Volume 63, Issue 4, April 2008, Pages 456-464 Michael R. Hammerwww.faqs.org/patents/app/20090059221
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Post by steve on Oct 14, 2009 17:36:01 GMT
Ultimately it seems what Hammer is saying is there is no energy being emitted from the area of the atmosphere dominated by CO2 as its too cold there.So what is the "CO2 funnel" that shows up in earth's emission spectra all about then? Its an absence of emissions at those frequencies. While I disagree that the CO2 will absorb at those frequencies, but emit only at some other frequencies, you have contradicted yourself as you originally said that no *energy* would be emitted from that "area of the atmosphere dominated by CO2".
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Post by radiant on Oct 14, 2009 17:51:13 GMT
Its an absence of emissions at those frequencies. While I disagree that the CO2 will absorb at those frequencies, but emit only at some other frequencies, you have contradicted yourself as you originally said that no *energy* would be emitted from that "area of the atmosphere dominated by CO2". Steve What is the C02 funnel? The only reference on the web i can find is via GLC to this page: www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page16.htmwhere this graph appears of the US standard atmosphere but the US standard atmosphere contains no water. I am assuming there is something a bit more authoritive on the subject you can show me please that does not involve simulations produced by the US Air force!
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Post by icefisher on Oct 14, 2009 18:04:02 GMT
Radiant you have latched onto an untested premise in Hammer's study. Many studies are saying you cannot detect absorption by n2 or 02 or argon aside from small peaks. It is not Hammers 'premise' It is definitely a premise. There is no testing of the premise in the discussion that follows. There is nothing unusual about that as almost every study done everywhere does the same thing many times over. Sometimes there are references to where the premise is tested but usually references are lacking unless its a key issue. I don't see how Kiwi's low level BB radiation of O2 to N2 as being particularly important to the point that Hammer is driving. Kiwi's low level BB radiation only matters on a global scale and its going to be invisible to all but the most sophisticated equipment. It was not Tyndalls 'premise' either. I agree we are talking about relative differences rather than absolutes but Hammer as a spectroscopist and inventor in the area of spectroscopy sounds like he should know because he is designing and i think involved in the manufacture of spectroscopic devices via Varian Australia The point I am driving is that practical considerations more often than not precludes the testing of everything. Hammer can build highly sophisticated IR devices all day long and never be concerned about whether O2 and N2 have sufficient IR emission capabilities to have an effect on global cooling. . . .simply because its a scale issue totally inapplicable to the stuff Hammer builds. For industrial purposes O2 and N2 emissions are insignificant. You have to get into an awful lot of it before it matters. The point being is Hammer makes a good living building practical equipment and the possibility of Kiwi being right does not change the practicality of what Hammer builds, its just something behind the scenes that is going largely undetected. I am also saying such off the scale issues is how you arrive at financial crises. . . .you can go decades and it doesn't matter until it matters. A financial advisor to an institution cannot afford to worry about such stuff or he will be out of a job. These kinds of issues are like how creation science at its most fundamental element is consistent with evolution. The difference here is there is a scientific inconsistency in suggesting the O2 and N2 cannot emit significant IR at any scale of significance. The answer seems obvious that at heretofore all practical levels of significance O2 and N2 emit insignificant IR. Here in this case with climate change, the folks that have jumped from skepticism and continued focus on trying to understand and assumed a lot are the AGW alarmists. . . .a lot like religious fundamentalists. The truth is though we all do it and ultimately having made the right choices is how evolution does work. Staying really practical allows you to focus on what is really important. Its beyond bizarre that we would chose for some ivory tower types dictate that to the rest of us as these guys for the most part are about as far disconnected from the practical as you can get. Bottom line is that understanding our globe is becoming an increasingly important thing. But thats true understanding not rushing to judgement and doing something even more stupid. Yes we need to continue research into some of these impractical ranges as the atmosphere represents a scale issue many factors of magnitude greater than anything that has been important in the past. If that were not the case, I tend to think this certain little fora would not exist.
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Post by radiant on Oct 14, 2009 18:20:43 GMT
Many studies are saying you cannot detect absorption by n2 or 02 or argon aside from small peaks. It is not Hammers 'premise' It is definitely a premise. There is no testing of the premise in the discussion that follows. There is nothing unusual about that as almost every study done everywhere does the same thing many times over. Sometimes there are references to where the premise is tested but usually references are lacking unless its a key issue. I don't see how Kiwi's low level BB radiation of O2 to N2 as being particularly important to the point that Hammer is driving. Kiwi's low level BB radiation only matters on a global scale and its going to be invisible to all but the most sophisticated equipment. It was not Tyndalls 'premise' either. I agree we are talking about relative differences rather than absolutes but Hammer as a spectroscopist and inventor in the area of spectroscopy sounds like he should know because he is designing and i think involved in the manufacture of spectroscopic devices via Varian Australia The point I am driving is that practical considerations more often than not precludes the testing of everything. Hammer can build highly sophisticated IR devices all day long and never be concerned about whether O2 and N2 have sufficient IR emission capabilities to have an effect on global cooling. . . .simply because its a scale issue totally inapplicable to the stuff Hammer builds. For industrial purposes O2 and N2 emissions are insignificant. You have to get into an awful lot of it before it matters. The point being is Hammer makes a good living building practical equipment and the possibility of Kiwi being right does not change the practicality of what Hammer builds, its just something behind the scenes that is going largely undetected. I am also saying such off the scale issues is how you arrive at financial crises. . . .you can go decades and it doesn't matter until it matters. A financial advisor to an institution cannot afford to worry about such stuff or he will be out of a job. These kinds of issues are like how creation science at its most fundamental element is consistent with evolution. The difference here is there is a scientific inconsistency in suggesting the O2 and N2 cannot emit significant IR at any scale of significance. The answer seems obvious that at heretofore all practical levels of significance O2 and N2 emit insignificant IR. Here in this case with climate change, the folks that have jumped from skepticism and continued focus on trying to understand and assumed a lot are the AGW alarmists. . . .a lot like religious fundamentalists. The truth is though we all do it and ultimately having made the right choices is how evolution does work. Staying really practical allows you to focus on what is really important. Its beyond bizarre that we would chose for some ivory tower types dictate that to the rest of us as these guys for the most part are about as far disconnected from the practical as you can get. Bottom line is that understanding our globe is becoming an increasingly important thing. But thats true understanding not rushing to judgement and doing something even more stupid. Yes we need to continue research into some of these impractical ranges as the atmosphere represents a scale issue many factors of magnitude greater than anything that has been important in the past. If that were not the case, I tend to think this certain little fora would not exist. Icefisher I dont know where you are going with this. In one of those links Hammer has designed a plasma device where nitrogen is the diluent gas and oxygen is the impurity he wishes to remove. If you want to measure the emission of a gas you often dilute it with N2. As i said we are talking about relative differences here. Kiwi is saying there are no relative differences worth mentioning because this thing he calls thermal radiation gets emitted by all gases in significant quantities. He is saying there is this thing called thermal radiation coming from n2 that is not associated with another thing from n2 that is measured by spectroscopy. Hammer is saying nothing can be detected Meanwhile my beginning point was to pick up on Professor woods idea from 1909 that a green house is warm because the gases of the atmosphere are such poor radiators of heat, which I found to be true for 99% of the atmosphere only and yet it is interesting.
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Post by icefisher on Oct 14, 2009 18:28:17 GMT
Its an absence of emissions at those frequencies. While I disagree that the CO2 will absorb at those frequencies, but emit only at some other frequencies, you have contradicted yourself as you originally said that no *energy* would be emitted from that "area of the atmosphere dominated by CO2". Good catch! I should have said "no significant energy". I think it raises some issues and its an issue that its not clear to me if Hammer addressed, namely the continually thinning atmosphere as you go higher despite the stratospheric inversion. Hammer does build a model on the transparent atmosphere theory. It should not be too hard to modify it to include a more inert gas radiating at BB radiation and largely getting the same result. . . .I would think. Ultimately its a budgeting problem. You make a budget and forget to include the property taxes. Things are going to go swimmingly until those taxes are due.
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Post by icefisher on Oct 14, 2009 18:46:45 GMT
I dont know where you are going with this. In one of those links Hammer has designed a plasma device where nitrogen is the diluent gas and oxygen is the impurity he wishes to remove. If you want to measure the emission of a gas you often dilute it with N2. A good analogy is the Star Trek story "Trouble with Tribbles". Where these absolutely lovable pets bring nothing but joy to the crew until they multiply so proficiently they practically destroy the ship. Scale is important and what is insignificant on one scale is not necessarily insignificant on another.
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Post by radiant on Oct 14, 2009 19:21:52 GMT
My comments in yellowAn atmosphere of only nitrogen and oxygen will have a strong Greenhouse effect. The sun will heat the earth surface and the surface will heat the atmosphere by heat transfer. The surface will be cooled by wind that heats the atmosphere. Warmer air will rise. The whole atmosphere will be heated. But during the night when radiation cool the earth surface will the cooling of the atmosphere be less efficient than heating. That is because the hot air will not loose energy by radiation and will not sink to the cold surface. It is impossible to cool the entire atmosphere from the bottom of it without clouds and radiation. The result will be a warmer atmosphere than the average temperature the radiation balance calculation for the surface would show. I'm on radiant's side in his discussions with Kiwistonewall. With the above though, what has been ignored is the effectiveness or otherwise of the "heat transfer" to the atmosphere.
What we need are simple experiments. How wide is a spectral line? Can we actually measure that? Or do we end up with a peak much wider due to the puny ability to measure the true width? Experiments are the only way to resolve this kind of thing. There is far too much modeling and approximations going on. Modtran does not even use high resolution spectroscopy. Why?
Much of the heat transfer from the surface to the atmosphere is done by radiative heating. The ground radiates, and much of the radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere near the surface by, principally, water vapour, but also by CO2, CH4 etc.
This sounds to me like a theory. Simple experiments would probably decide either way
If there were no greenhouse gases (by which I mean gases that absorb significantly in the wavebands emitted by the earth's surface) then the radiation emitted by the earth will escape to space. That is what cools the earth. Oxygen emits and absorbs at 60Hz, but the earth doesn't emit much at this waveband, so the oxygen has little effect.
Furthermore, because of the lack of greenhouse gases, the surface will not warm as much - it could be on average about 30C less (although the diurnal cycle will be more extreme). This is a simple application of the Stephan-Boltzmann equation to an object in equilibrium at the distance of 93 million miles from the Sun.
Yes it is a simple application of a law that involves idealised theoretical concepts to produce an answer of so many degrees that we often hear about. Once we add in the observation most of the earth is cooling via a surface layer of water or moist soil so that water is mainly 'the body emitting' conductively warmed on the earth side how does that change the simple result? Even if no atmospheric considerations are present the earth must be warmer surely? What is the temperature then? Further if the oceans can be penetrated to 50M to 100 M depth by sunshine but only cool at the very surface mm, this must change the way heat enters earth and then does not leave, which in turn must create a warmer earth even if no atmospheric considerations are given. What is the temperature then?
If you make it too simple you get a meaningless result. if you add in a minor piece of realism you get closer to the result that applies if the earths surface is not an idealised theoretical concept to get a temperature which is too low
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Post by radiant on Oct 14, 2009 19:34:35 GMT
I dont know where you are going with this. In one of those links Hammer has designed a plasma device where nitrogen is the diluent gas and oxygen is the impurity he wishes to remove. If you want to measure the emission of a gas you often dilute it with N2. A good analogy is the Star Trek story "Trouble with Tribbles". Where these absolutely lovable pets bring nothing but joy to the crew until they multiply so proficiently they practically destroy the ship. Scale is important and what is insignificant on one scale is not necessarily insignificant on another. I dont really disagree with what you are saying which is why i am all for experiments and observations rather than models of models and assumptions on assumptions. What strikes me about the new climate science of the atmosphere is how little experimentation seems available. Why cant we easily find spectrographs from the ground to the heights of the atmosphere for given water concentrations at different times of the year and so forth? Why do web sites use one 1974 satellite picture of the earths emission to compare to a computer simulation of the earths emission to validate the computer simulation
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Post by icefisher on Oct 14, 2009 20:03:37 GMT
A good analogy is the Star Trek story "Trouble with Tribbles". Where these absolutely lovable pets bring nothing but joy to the crew until they multiply so proficiently they practically destroy the ship. Scale is important and what is insignificant on one scale is not necessarily insignificant on another. I dont really disagree with what you are saying which is why i am all for experiments and observations rather than models of models and assumptions on assumptions. What strikes me about the new climate science of the atmosphere is how little experimentation seems available. Why cant we easily find spectrographs from the ground to the heights of the atmosphere for given water concentrations at different times of the year and so forth? Why do web sites use one 1974 satellite picture of the earths emission to compare to a computer simulation of the earths emission to validate the computer simulation I think the answer is politics. History has shown such disciplines as economics, sociology, ecology, climatology are not true sciences for the most part because a little investigation raises more questions than answers; something not desired with political fish to fry. Thus its the guys with answers and models and fancy presentations that win out in the battle for funding over real science. Once you really study the issue of "precaution" you will learn how easy it is to overdo it and never know you are. Life is an experiment and when you lose the freedom to make bad things happen you also lose the good stuff.
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Post by steve on Oct 15, 2009 9:05:25 GMT
While I disagree that the CO2 will absorb at those frequencies, but emit only at some other frequencies, you have contradicted yourself as you originally said that no *energy* would be emitted from that "area of the atmosphere dominated by CO2". Steve What is the C02 funnel? The only reference on the web i can find is via GLC to this page: www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page16.htmwhere this graph appears of the US standard atmosphere but the US standard atmosphere contains no water. I am assuming there is something a bit more authoritive on the subject you can show me please that does not involve simulations produced by the US Air force! [/quote] barrattbellamy is often linked to because it is an easily accessible image. Has it been check though? Here is a paper based on observations showing the "funnels" including the right hand part of the CO2 "funnel" shown in the barrattbellamy plot. Additionally, this paper claims to show that the differences between observations taken in 1970 and 1997 are matched to the changes in greenhouse gas levels. Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001) | doi:10.1038/35066553; Received 17 May 2000; Accepted 15 January 2001 Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997 John E. Harries, Helen E. Brindley, Pretty J. Sagoo & Richard J. Bantges So I think there is, as glc put it, a "co2 funnel".
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Post by steve on Oct 15, 2009 9:14:35 GMT
While I disagree that the CO2 will absorb at those frequencies, but emit only at some other frequencies, you have contradicted yourself as you originally said that no *energy* would be emitted from that "area of the atmosphere dominated by CO2". Good catch! I should have said "no significant energy". Thanks for the acknowledgement, but it is *not* a good catch! It is basic stuff! I have to go back to my first comment - consider Kirchoff. The amount absorbed is related to the amount emitted. The depth and width of the funnel *has* significance for this reason. Whether the amount is significant is a subjective matter. In my view, an apparently small increase of 3.7W/m^2 for a doubling of CO2 (which you'd hardly notice on the plot unless you measure it carefully) which may lead to 1.5-4.5C of surface warming *is* significant because in my subjective opinion I'd rather we didn't take such risks with our grandchildren's planet.
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Post by radiant on Oct 15, 2009 10:25:47 GMT
Steve What is the C02 funnel? The only reference on the web i can find is via GLC to this page: www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page16.htmwhere this graph appears of the US standard atmosphere but the US standard atmosphere contains no water. I am assuming there is something a bit more authoritive on the subject you can show me please that does not involve simulations produced by the US Air force! barrattbellamy is often linked to because it is an easily accessible image. Has it been check though? Here is a paper based on observations showing the "funnels" including the right hand part of the CO2 "funnel" shown in the barrattbellamy plot. Additionally, this paper claims to show that the differences between observations taken in 1970 and 1997 are matched to the changes in greenhouse gas levels. Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001) | doi:10.1038/35066553; Received 17 May 2000; Accepted 15 January 2001 Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997 John E. Harries, Helen E. Brindley, Pretty J. Sagoo & Richard J. Bantges So I think there is, as glc put it, a "co2 funnel". The Barratt Bellamy pages seem badly written using poor layout of spectra so to make it next to impossible to compare graphs. As for this paper in Nature, Have you read it? other papers available on line by some of the study authors of the same time show a very low resolution spectrograph and that horrible word 'modeling.' What is really needed is to know the actual area under the fine spikes using a much higher resolution device to arrive at a conclusion that means something in my view Alternately a simple experiment with the best quality spectrocopy on earth should give us information that so far seems lacking. I keep hearing that we need experiments 50 miles high or we need another planet to experiment upon so we have to make do with models or low resolution stuff from space I am sure many of these questions could be resolved just by pointing a high quality spectrograph at earth from different floors of a high rise. But surely there is a high resolution spectrograph on the space station?? On the other hand when i think about it we are attempting to do the impossible. From space the atmosphere twinkles and makes resolution of fine lines surely impossible to measure and there would be no point in looking for fine lines?
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Post by steve on Oct 15, 2009 12:09:40 GMT
The Nature paper takes observations from IRIS (flown in 1979) and IMG (on a Japanese satellite called ADEOS). It *compares* these with modelled spectra and claims to identify a signal of changing levels of CO2. I am not qualified to audit it, but the paper is out in the open for someone else to do so if it is garbage. Google scholar would give you a list of people who have cited or commented on the paper.
Recently I and others dug out papers measuring "back radiation" from the atmosphere because it was disputed that a warm air could receive any energy from cold air. I don't think they included spectral measurements.
I did once manage to find a spectrum of the earth's atmosphere as measured from the ground, but it took me a while. I found it in Google books in an engineering book looking at building design (nothing to do with global warming). In the book they reckoned they could see the water vapour lines, but any emission from CO2 was hard to identify as it would overlap with the strong water vapour lines.
I'd be interested if you could find anything better.
What is the theoretical spectrum of CO2 including the pressure and temperature broadening. The CO2 funnel is much wider than the resolution of IMG, which is quoted as 0.1-0.25cm-1.
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Post by radiant on Oct 15, 2009 15:52:39 GMT
The Nature paper takes observations from IRIS (flown in 1979) and IMG (on a Japanese satellite called ADEOS). It *compares* these with modelled spectra and claims to identify a signal of changing levels of CO2. I am not qualified to audit it, but the paper is out in the open for someone else to do so if it is garbage. Google scholar would give you a list of people who have cited or commented on the paper. Recently I and others dug out papers measuring "back radiation" from the atmosphere because it was disputed that a warm air could receive any energy from cold air. I don't think they included spectral measurements. I did once manage to find a spectrum of the earth's atmosphere as measured from the ground, but it took me a while. I found it in Google books in an engineering book looking at building design (nothing to do with global warming). In the book they reckoned they could see the water vapour lines, but any emission from CO2 was hard to identify as it would overlap with the strong water vapour lines. I'd be interested if you could find anything better. What is the theoretical spectrum of CO2 including the pressure and temperature broadening. The CO2 funnel is much wider than the resolution of IMG, which is quoted as 0.1-0.25cm-1. point 1. Your nature paper seems similar to this one by one of the authors. One of the issues raised is that the earths spectrum is so 'noisy'. Because of the 'noise' the data has to be selected and processed to get rid of the 'noise'. rose.bris.ac.uk/dspace/bitstream/1983/998/1/paper.pdf1. The spectrally resolved outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) is a measure of the cooling of the atmosphere to space and as such exhibits signatures which are characteristic of surface properties as well as absorption and emission by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.The comparisons are all undertaken on cloud free, ocean based spectra due to the difficultly in attributing changes in average spectra recorded over a variety of land surfaces and the need for thorough coverage and good spectrally resolved cloud models to attribute changes in spectrally resolved OLR which include the effects of cloud.One thing that comes to mind is that if it over oceans then there is only or mainly? water emissions going up? so you would expect a funnel where water does not emit if by funnel we mean absense of emission or low emission? either way i would like to see tyndall ideas about water emissions from earth being absorbed by water in the atmosphere expanded as it certainly sounds likely. What radiation is emitted by an ocean? what radiation is emitted by water? If water only emitts waters emission as lines then how able is c02 to absorb only those lines? Tyndall showed that hot water vapour emissions can be absorbed by C02 and hot C02 emissions can be absorbed by water but from that we dont know how many of the water emissions in the region of the C02 lines are transparant to C02 What i find amazing is the desparate lack of high quality data we can view via the internet on emission of these gases Yes i am looking for this kind of thing. Yes that funnel is wide but in terms of spectral lines the resolution is very poor it seems?
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