Arctic Ice

[zaphod]

Also, don't forget that the Sun MUST cool and eventually all the ice will come back. Unless, of course the Sun has nothing to do with climate....

[mkelter]

Jul 11, 2013 23:21:06 GMT icefisher said:

. . .Ocean science is very young and the PDO was only first recognized in science in 1996. We have a lot to learn.

IPCC got started in 1988. Global Warming science is only eight years older than Ocean Science and those guys will tell you they know everything.

[thermostat]

Jul 8, 2013 9:30:23 GMT graywolf said:

It may be more serious than that thermos? We have seen sea ice areas that once nurtured ice turn into the exact opposite and now we may be seeing weather patterns that used to 'help' maintain ice levels now helping denature the winter ice into a form easily destroyed by short spells of warmth ( weather certainly not uncommon over the Arctic summer even beyond 80N?)

The upcoming flip in the AO to something more like what have have become accustomed , post 07', will give us a proper chance to both see large areas of the basin and how quickly the ice is responding to the sun's input?

Some of that mangled ice reminds me of the ice left on the Beaufort side after GAC12 and we all saw what a couple of days sun did to that? We are a good 3 weeks closer to peak insolation than that ice so can we dare hope it will maintain or do we concede we have further large losses to come over very short spans.

How will many of the posters here respond to 2013 reaching parity with 2012? Even now we are hearing how ice levels will 'maintain' this year and not fall into the top 3 lowest years?

The other major point to remember is that both 2011 and 2012 were 'average' weather years ( unlike 07' which, as we all know, was a 'perfect Storm' of melt conditions). This year has seen the 'mix ' of weather favour a very slow melt start but all that time the ice was being conditioned, in the central 'hard to melt' area of the pole, for rapid melt. The other Areas that we have become accustomed to melting out completely may be a tad slower this year but past years has seen then with open water for over 4 weeks of the season?

The 'records' do not look to 'time' but merely 'open water'?

EDIT: Well that did not take long? 2013 just did another 'million week' so now pips 07' for the record with it's current 7 weeks worth of 1 million losses.

graywolf,

It is quite obvious to anyone with an open mind that the condition of the Arctic Sea Ice has fundamentally changed over the past 10+ years. Obviously, there is a lot less total ice up there than there used to be. A lot of ice has melted, thus, given physics, a lot of heat has been added to the system. (That's just physics.)

Now, as you point out, the system has been altered and it now behaves in a different way than what has been observed before. We are currently observing that in real time as the 2013 melt progresses. The melt year started out with unusual low temperatures and unusual low pressure systems over the Arctic Sea. Historically, one would expect to finish such a year with highly extensive sea ice area and extent. In contrast, the present 2013 outcome, as we pass the middle of the melt, is totally unclear.

We just observed how weather affected the early melt. Weather will continue to be important. The effect of ice thickness will be interesting to see next.

[graywolf]

I think it's a 'no brainier' to see how 'ice condition' can have a major impact on how that ice behaves over an 'average' melt season ( not a 'perfect storm' of melt conditions?). If you 'denature' the ice before allowing it to melt it will react differently to a similar original thickness of ice that has had nothing done to it?

We all know from our own observations that 'slush' on water melts far faster than contiguous ice cover? It is almost like saying the mechanical weathering of the ice is equal to a certain amount of thermal forcing, that being equal to how much 'less' energy is needed to allow melt out. that change of surface area to mass must be a linear plot of speed of melt at 'X' degrees C?

Anyhow, Crackopalypse smashed the pack leaving weaknesses that PAC13 was able to exploit allowing large area of the Central pack to become far more susceptible to melt?

As such instead of 'preserving the pack under cold ,snow and cloud some amount of 'preconditioning for melt' was going on and we have been seeing this increasingly become apparent by the rapid 'catchup' 13' is doing to the years that had a far more 'speedy' start to the melt season. The question is 'was the damage enough to have 2013 overtake all other years?'.

At present the distribution of 'high concentration' ice places far more in areas that have a longer melt season ( not above 80N) so we may even see this have impact with the 'hard to melt' central region being so weakend by PAC2013 that we see early low concentration there that will then be joined by the natural melt out of the high concentration peripheral areas?

I believe if 2013 is to break any records it will be down to the fatal wounding of the central pack under PAC13. The rest of the season ( average ) is easier to foretell as we have seen a run of 'average summers' bring us near , or to, new record losses.

If 2013 now sees AO-ve for the rest of the season it will become another 'Average summer' split between low and high pressure dominance. We saw what GAC12 did to weak ice and we have now seen what such LP bashing has done to start of the season FY ice?

[Andrew]

Jul 11, 2013 23:21:06 GMT icefisher said:

Jul 11, 2013 21:45:59 GMT throttleup said:

Rhetorical Question: If the big El Nino of 1998 was ultimately a cooling event...

[warm water --> warms air --> convects upward --> radiates to space --> leaves the planet]

... then why can't a "melting Arctic" be a cooling event? Or can it?

Thats pretty near to the theory I have been advocating lately.

I really don't know to what extent greenhouse gases play into any of this other than note that greenhouse gases are capable of slightly warming the planet by providing a mechanism for heat to be transferred back to the surface each night when the air, by virtue of cooling more slowly, is warmer than the surface.

But besides water vapor there is not much heat capacity in CO2 so its difficult to say if these gases play a big role. The problem in detecting that is water vapor is more complex. Cooling causes condensation and clouds which literally clouds the entire issue of the greenhouse effects of water vapor.

It is a given assumption that to the extent that El Ninos warm the climate they also accelerate cooling but it may be muted again by clouds.

I think the ice is the key to the approximate 66 or 72 year ocean cycle.

Fact is the mass of the ocean is much cooler than the surface of the ocean and the bottom of the oceans are in contact with a source molten rock from the core of the earth.

The only physical mechanism that can enable this is convection. The bottom of the oceans warm from contact with the core (through a large insulating field of rock) and that creates convection. Convection needs water to replace the convecting water so cool water settles to replace the convecting water. But that is not sufficient to keep the oceans colder than the surface.

Another possibility is super cooling at the poles sinking and diffusing through the lower ocean. Science has already identified that saltwater can be supercooled to a minus 3 or 4 degree C without freezing by exposure to the wind in cold regions (poles or near poles) of the planet.

The ice cap could act to moderate the convection like an eskimo's igloo.

This year we are seeing the absence of even arctic climate amplification. Hadcrut 4 must be causing fits for its advocates. But thats typical when somebody is wrong, they keep looking for that confirmation bias and continually erode their own position.

Obviously, the missing heat (lack of arctic amplification) did not create the higher volume of ice this year in the Arctic though Numno or Graywhale may want to convince you of that.

Ocean science is very young and the PDO was only first recognized in science in 1996. We have a lot to learn.

I see the many months of my life that i spent attempting to educate you were entirely wasted.

How many times does it have to be explained to you that a cold atmosphere is perfectly capable of keeping a warm surface warmer exactly like the cold men keep the warm woman warmer.

[icefisher]

Jul 12, 2013 11:07:48 GMT Andrew said:

Jul 11, 2013 23:21:06 GMT icefisher said:

Thats pretty near to the theory I have been advocating lately.

I really don't know to what extent greenhouse gases play into any of this other than note that greenhouse gases are capable of slightly warming the planet by providing a mechanism for heat to be transferred back to the surface each night when the air, by virtue of cooling more slowly, is warmer than the surface.

But besides water vapor there is not much heat capacity in CO2 so its difficult to say if these gases play a big role. The problem in detecting that is water vapor is more complex. Cooling causes condensation and clouds which literally clouds the entire issue of the greenhouse effects of water vapor.

It is a given assumption that to the extent that El Ninos warm the climate they also accelerate cooling but it may be muted again by clouds.

I think the ice is the key to the approximate 66 or 72 year ocean cycle.

Fact is the mass of the ocean is much cooler than the surface of the ocean and the bottom of the oceans are in contact with a source molten rock from the core of the earth.

The only physical mechanism that can enable this is convection. The bottom of the oceans warm from contact with the core (through a large insulating field of rock) and that creates convection. Convection needs water to replace the convecting water so cool water settles to replace the convecting water. But that is not sufficient to keep the oceans colder than the surface.

Another possibility is super cooling at the poles sinking and diffusing through the lower ocean. Science has already identified that saltwater can be supercooled to a minus 3 or 4 degree C without freezing by exposure to the wind in cold regions (poles or near poles) of the planet.

The ice cap could act to moderate the convection like an eskimo's igloo.

This year we are seeing the absence of even arctic climate amplification. Hadcrut 4 must be causing fits for its advocates. But thats typical when somebody is wrong, they keep looking for that confirmation bias and continually erode their own position.

Obviously, the missing heat (lack of arctic amplification) did not create the higher volume of ice this year in the Arctic though Numno or Graywhale may want to convince you of that.

Ocean science is very young and the PDO was only first recognized in science in 1996. We have a lot to learn.

I see the many months of my life that i spent attempting to educate you were entirely wasted.

How many times does it have to be explained to you that a cold atmosphere is perfectly capable of keeping a warm surface warmer exactly like the cold men keep the warm woman warmer.

Back with that stupid strawman again?

Shades of the blanket warming the dead body!

I am not going to start over with that. If you want to resurrect where that argument ended at where you could raise the temperature of the surface of the earth with 10 one atom thick shells of full one way glass gases to about 1500F be my guest.

I think we ended there with me pointing out that was ridiculous. G&T made the same claim.

I would suggest that if you want to continue with that discussion the most direct route would be a fundamental proof of the concept.

You should be able to construct in space a light gathering mechanism, a well insulated box with an IR opaque glass cover and heat a thin strip of metal in the box to about 300F with a single glazing of glass. I don't think you can get over 250F which would be the equilibrium with the box pointed directly at the sun in high earth orbit. . . .I contend the glass cover will only reduce the temperature you can achieve. . . .perhaps in a very minor way but it will not produce your greenhouse effect. Now if you could do this I would become convinced but I am not going to be convinced to just join a club. In my view the greenhouse effect is not necessary to explain why the surface is warmer than the average insolance it receives suggests it should be. I think it is instead its closely linked to the heat capacity and emissivity of the atmosphere and operates via gravity, conduction and/or radiation, convection, and the diurnal cycle. I further believe if any of those elements were absent the system would not operate. The heat capacity and emissivity of the atmosphere establishes bounds within which how much warming you can achieve. As it is high temperatures are a lot cooler than they would be without greenhouse gases and low temperatures are a lot warmer. I think if your greenhouse theory were real both would be warmer.

It is the fundamental problem that first made me question the greenhouse effect in the first place. It strongly suggests that Trenberth's budget is very wrong because the surface never rises above 56C in a world that should hit 123C. Add in 33C greenhouse effect suggests 156C highs (record temperatures). So the only thing that can account for that is about 2,000 watts of convection. Since thats more than the surface ever receives it seems every bit as implausible as your multi-shell model of the greenhouse effect.

Fact is its amazing how many people ascribe to this. I was eager when I heard dozens of scientists were collaborating on a response to G&T. I thought maybe at last some gems would emerge that had eluded me and would bring me into the greenhouse fold. But no instead they all just milled around and acted like a typical unruly blog, exchanging dogmatic comments, and never produced anything in support of the greenhouse model. At that point I figured I had enough evidence to discount the greenhouse effect as nothing more than a religious belief. Humans have an absolute propensity to substitute dogma for ignorance. It actually takes training for most to develop a skeptical attitude in general. You have to be disciplined and insist on evidence for every claim you are going to "officially" endorse (I say officially because even I don't do it until I am invested in some way as it takes a real effort to avoid dogma).

My prediction is that in 400 years scientists will be looking at today's scientists like a bunch of blood letting doctors without a holding a clue. One has to worry though about what dogmatic beliefs they will hold.

In the meantime perhaps you could drop the holier than thou attitude and stop constructing strawmen or moving the goal posts. I addressed the issue of objects with heat capacity in my original post so either you are too stupid or too much of a prick to realize that an argument of a man with heat capacity warming a woman does not serve to cut at all into my argument.

[Andrew]

Jul 12, 2013 22:38:15 GMT icefisher said:

Jul 12, 2013 11:07:48 GMT Andrew said:

I see the many months of my life that i spent attempting to educate you were entirely wasted.

How many times does it have to be explained to you that a cold atmosphere is perfectly capable of keeping a warm surface warmer exactly like the cold men keep the warm woman warmer.

Back with that stupid strawman again?

Shades of the blanket warming the dead body!

I am not going to start over with that. If you want to resurrect where that argument ended at where you could raise the temperature of the surface of the earth with 10 one atom thick shells of full one way glass gases to about 1500F be my guest.

I think we ended there with me pointing out that was ridiculous. G&T made the same claim.

I would suggest that if you want to continue with that discussion the most direct route would be a fundamental proof of the concept.

You should be able to construct in space a light gathering mechanism, a well insulated box with an IR opaque glass cover and heat a thin strip of metal in the box to about 300F with a single glazing of glass. I don't think you can get over 250F which would be the equilibrium with the box pointed directly at the sun in high earth orbit. . . .I contend the glass cover will only reduce the temperature you can achieve. . . .perhaps in a very minor way but it will not produce your greenhouse effect. Now if you could do this I would become convinced but I am not going to be convinced to just join a club. In my view the greenhouse effect is not necessary to explain why the surface is warmer than the average insolance it receives suggests it should be. I think it is instead its closely linked to the heat capacity and emissivity of the atmosphere and operates via gravity, conduction and/or radiation, convection, and the diurnal cycle. I further believe if any of those elements were absent the system would not operate. The heat capacity and emissivity of the atmosphere establishes bounds within which how much warming you can achieve. As it is high temperatures are a lot cooler than they would be without greenhouse gases and low temperatures are a lot warmer. I think if your greenhouse theory were real both would be warmer.

It is the fundamental problem that first made me question the greenhouse effect in the first place. It strongly suggests that Trenberth's budget is very wrong because the surface never rises above 56C in a world that should hit 123C. Add in 33C greenhouse effect suggests 156C highs (record temperatures). So the only thing that can account for that is about 2,000 watts of convection. Since thats more than the surface ever receives it seems every bit as implausible as your multi-shell model of the greenhouse effect.

Fact is its amazing how many people ascribe to this. I was eager when I heard dozens of scientists were collaborating on a response to G&T. I thought maybe at last some gems would emerge that had eluded me and would bring me into the greenhouse fold. But no instead they all just milled around and acted like a typical unruly blog, exchanging dogmatic comments, and never produced anything in support of the greenhouse model. At that point I figured I had enough evidence to discount the greenhouse effect as nothing more than a religious belief. Humans have an absolute propensity to substitute dogma for ignorance. It actually takes training for most to develop a skeptical attitude in general. You have to be disciplined and insist on evidence for every claim you are going to "officially" endorse (I say officially because even I don't do it until I am invested in some way as it takes a real effort to avoid dogma).

My prediction is that in 400 years scientists will be looking at today's scientists like a bunch of blood letting doctors without a holding a clue. One has to worry though about what dogmatic beliefs they will hold.

In the meantime perhaps you could drop the holier than thou attitude and stop constructing strawmen or moving the goal posts. I addressed the issue of objects with heat capacity in my original post so either you are too stupid or too much of a prick to realize that an argument of a man with heat capacity warming a woman does not serve to cut at all into my argument.

[Andrew]

Jul 13, 2013 6:52:18 GMT Andrew said:

Jul 12, 2013 22:38:15 GMT icefisher said:

Back with that stupid strawman again?

Shades of the blanket warming the dead body!

It is not a strawman

And the blanket placed on the dead body causes the surface to be warmer because the body is warmer inside and acts as a heat source for the surface which is losing heat less quickly while blanketed.

All of this has been explained to you endless times and you still cannot understand it.

It is not a question of my being holier than thou. You just refuse to learn, and you have a reading and memory problem too, I never ever said the blanket could warm the dead body, and that has been explained to you and Magellan about 20 times.

The presence of the blanket added to the cooling body causes the surface to be warmer than it would be if the blanket had not been present, until the dead body is the same temperature as the surroundings.

As i explained dozens of times all the thought experiments and actual experiments i did were all based on the same simple principle that a colder body can cause the surface of a warmer body to become warmer if they both exist in a colder environment than the colder object

No goal posts were changed. No strawmen were erected.

And it is pointless wading thru your theories. You need to come back to basics and learn how to think clearly.

[icefisher]

Jul 13, 2013 6:56:50 GMT Andrew said:

Jul 13, 2013 6:52:18 GMT Andrew said:

It is not a strawman

And the blanket placed on the dead body causes the surface to be warmer because the body is warmer inside and acts as a heat source for the surface which is losing heat less quickly while blanketed.

All of this has been explained to you endless times and you still cannot understand it.

Nope I always understood it. You originally said you would "warm a dead body" by throwing a blanket over it. Only about 500 posts later you realized your mistake and started saying "warm the surface of a dead body". The dead body does not warm but a blanket can affect the distribution of heat in the body. Big difference!

It is not a question of my being holier than thou. You just refuse to learn, and you have a reading and memory problem too, I never ever said the blanket could warm the dead body, and that has been explained to you and Magellan about 20 times.

My recollection was Magellan said you could not warm a dead body by throwing a blanket on it and you contested his statement. Now you are nitpicking trying to avoid accountability for your mistake.

The presence of the blanket added to the cooling body causes the surface to be warmer than it would be if the blanket had not been present, until the dead body is the same temperature as the surroundings.

Yes you finally learned that. But you never did get that the true case is "it might warm the surface". It will not warm the surface of a body in all cases.

As i explained dozens of times all the thought experiments and actual experiments i did were all based on the same simple principle that a colder body can cause the surface of a warmer body to become warmer if they both exist in a colder environment than the colder object

The problem I see is the greenhouse effect if it exists warms the body. Not just the surface.

Additionally, a blanket and any insulation slows cooling. Having been in construction for more than two decades I think I know that Iceskater.

So a blanket (and so does the "Man") by virtue of having ability to create a temperature gradient in its bulk can slow cooling.

Remove the bulk down to a single atom I would contend that insulation value approaches zero you contend it is capable of increasing the heat by 50%. I say bunk!

There is very little CO2 in the atmosphere (less per square meter surface area than Mars which does not have a greenhouse effect).

So it really doesn't matter what you thought you were arguing. If what you say is true about your thoughts at the time, the fact is you were just blabbering like a bonehead about irrelevant stuff. I can accept that.

So yeah you were trying to teach us to be boneheads too huh? I can accept that also.

Now can we get beyond this bonehead discussion about blankets and men and talk about the greenhouse effect? This effect that has no warmth but warms warmer objects, this effect that has no bulk to insulate but insulates. This effect that the proponents of slide back and forth between sending energy to the surface and blocking energy from the surface without warming and uses one concept to foil arguments against the other concept.

[magellan]

Jul 13, 2013 9:43:32 GMT icefisher said:

Jul 13, 2013 6:56:50 GMT Andrew said:

It is not a strawman

And the blanket placed on the dead body causes the surface to be warmer because the body is warmer inside and acts as a heat source for the surface which is losing heat less quickly while blanketed.

All of this has been explained to you endless times and you still cannot understand it.

Nope I always understood it. You originally said you would "warm a dead body" by throwing a blanket over it. Only about 500 posts later you realized your mistake and started saying "warm the surface of a dead body". The dead body does not warm but a blanket can affect the distribution of heat in the body. Big difference!

It is not a question of my being holier than thou. You just refuse to learn, and you have a reading and memory problem too, I never ever said the blanket could warm the dead body, and that has been explained to you and Magellan about 20 times.

My recollection was Magellan said you could not warm a dead body by throwing a blanket on it and you contested his statement. Now you are nitpicking trying to avoid accountability for your mistake.

The presence of the blanket added to the cooling body causes the surface to be warmer than it would be if the blanket had not been present, until the dead body is the same temperature as the surroundings.

Yes you finally learned that. But you never did get that the true case is "it might warm the surface". It will not warm the surface of a body in all cases.

As i explained dozens of times all the thought experiments and actual experiments i did were all based on the same simple principle that a colder body can cause the surface of a warmer body to become warmer if they both exist in a colder environment than the colder object

The problem I see is the greenhouse effect if it exists warms the body. Not just the surface.

Additionally, a blanket and any insulation slows cooling. Having been in construction for more than two decades I think I know that Iceskater.

So a blanket (and so does the "Man") by virtue of having ability to create a temperature gradient in its bulk can slow cooling.

Remove the bulk down to a single atom I would contend that insulation value approaches zero you contend it is capable of increasing the heat by 50%. I say bunk!

There is very little CO2 in the atmosphere (less per square meter surface area than Mars which does not have a greenhouse effect).

So it really doesn't matter what you thought you were arguing. If what you say is true about your thoughts at the time, the fact is you were just blabbering like a bonehead about irrelevant stuff. I can accept that.

So yeah you were trying to teach us to be boneheads too huh? I can accept that also.

Now can we get beyond this bonehead discussion about blankets and men and talk about the greenhouse effect? This effect that has no warmth but warms warmer objects, this effect that has no bulk to insulate but insulates. This effect that the proponents of slide back and forth between sending energy to the surface and blocking energy from the surface without warming and uses one concept to foil arguments against the other concept.

what's the difference between a blanket and a sheet of glass?

In September 2011, I was called a simpleton for asserting that scientists made direct similarities between the atmosphere and glass greenhouses. Having compiled a list of sources, I posted them with quotes.
solarcycle24com.proboards.com/post/73807

From the post, click on the links below and note how many have disappeared. Even Green Peace deleted it. Only a few remain. Is it just a coincidence they disappeared? Maybe someone finally put the word out they were promoting junk science. That the "hot spot" is not observed in the troposphere over the equator is enough evidence for me to conclude something is very wrong with the whole concept of the "greenhouse effect" as presented by referring to it as "trapping" heat. Temperature trends should increase with height according to the "theory", yet no such phenomenon has been observed. In fact, according to the thermometrists, the surface is warming faster than the troposphere; an upside down greenhouse effect.

Woods Hole still has the picture of the car with the windows closed being heating by the sun and erroneously comparing it to how the surface of the earth is warmed.

Now explain to me, in detail, how it is a waste of time. You can't find a replication by any source to validate Arrhenius? It's always fun when people use the same talking points. The Woods experiment was precisely to refute the notion the earth's atmosphere behaved like a "real glass greenhouse". In fact, it was an experiment that tested the hypothesis of how a real glass greenhouse works. You doubt me?

From the Woods Hole Research Center:
www.whrc.org/resources/primer_greenhouse.html



Is that the correct description of the "greenhouse effect"?

"Trapping heat" from both government, NGO, science and education outlets.

earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/rotary/global_warming/03.shtml

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas – it traps heat radiation that is attempting to escape from Earth.

archive.greenpeace.org/climate/science/reports/climatefaq.html

Similarly, the earth is surrounded by a blanket of gases. This blanket traps energy in the atmosphere, much the same way as glass traps heat inside a greenhouse. This results in an accumulation of energy, and the overall warming of the atmosphere. The 'greenhouse effect' is the popular expression for the above process.

www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/caer/ce/eek/earth/air/global.htm

Think of the earth as being inside a giant greenhouse. The gases act like a greenhouse's glass walls -- they keep heat from escaping into space, and the earth stays warm.

Try this easy experiment: Take two jars and put a teaspoon of water in each jar. Put a lid on just one jar. Place both jars in a sunny spot. After a few hours, check on the jars. You'll see that the open jar hasn't changed, but the closed jar will be steamy and hot inside. What happened? The heat from the sun could not escape from the closed jar.

www.theweatherchannelkids.com/climate-code/climate-close-up/greenhouse-gases/

What is the Greenhouse Effect? The greenhouse effect is a process that helps keep the Earth warm enough for people, plants and animals to live on. Think of the Earth like a giant greenhouse. Imagine the Earth’s atmosphere like the glass of a greenhouse. Both the gases of our atmosphere and the glass of a greenhouse trap the sun’s heat energy inside keeping the temperature balanced; not too hot or too cold. This is why some of the gases in our atmosphere are called “greenhouse gases”.

And a long list I've collected over time from previous posts on this subject. Now you're going to say with a straight face the Woods experiment is a waste of time? You are a dope. Read the following then come back and tell me there isn't a relationship between the "greenhouse effect" and a real glass greenhouse. It is not just an analogy; it is based on how Tyndall and Arrhenius et al described it.

Prove me wrong.

Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences
In a greenhouse, visible light (e.g., from the Sun) easily penetrates glass or plastic walls, but heat (in the form of infrared radiation) does not. The greenhouse effect refers to the physical process by which atmospheric gases allow sunlight to pass through but absorb infrared radiation thus acting like a blanket trapping heat.
www.bigelow.org/virtual/handson/greenhouse_make.html


The U.S. government's Environmental Protection Agency
The energy that is absorbed is converted in part to heat energy that is re-radiated back into the atmosphere. Heat energy waves are not visible, and are generally in the infrared (long-wavelength) portion of the spectrum compared to visible light. Physical laws show that atmospheric constituents— notably water vapor and carbon dioxide gas—that are transparent to visible light are not transparent to heat waves. Hence, re-radiated energy in the infrared portion of the spectrum is trapped within the atmosphere, keeping the surface temperature warm. This phenomenon is called the "greenhouse effect" because it is exactly the same principle that heats a greenhouse
www.epa.gov/ne/students/pdfs/activ13.pdf

Fort Lewis College, Colorado
This partial trapping of solar radiation is known as the greenhouse effect. The name comes from the fact that a very similar process operates in a greenhouse. Sunlight passes relatively unhindered through glass panes, but much of the infrared radiation reemitted by the plants is blocked by the glass and cannot get out. Consequently, the interior of the greenhouse heats up, and flowers, fruits, and vegetables can grow even on cold wintry days.
physics.fortlewis.edu/Astronomy/astronomy%20today/CHAISSON/AT307/HTML/AT30702.HTM


Planet Connecticut.org
Glass is transparent to sunlight, but is effectively opaque to infrared radiation. Therefore, the glass warms up when it absorbs some of the infrared radiation that is radiated by the ground, water, and biomass. The glass will then re-radiate this heat as infrared radiation, some to the outside and some back into the greenhouse. The energy radiated back into the greenhouse causes the inside of the greenhouse to heat up.
www.planetconnecticut.org/teachersadministrators/pdfs/lesson1.pdf


United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Greenhouse gases make up only about 1 per cent of the atmosphere, but they act like a blanket around the earth, or like the glass roof of a greenhouse -- they trap heat and keep the planet some 30 degrees C warmer than it would be otherwise.
unfccc.int/essential_background/feeling_the_heat/items/2903.php


NASA
The "greenhouse effect" is the warming of climate that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space. Certain gases in the atmosphere resemble glass in a greenhouse,
allowing sunlight to pass into the "greenhouse," but blocking Earth's heat from escaping into space.
www.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/service/gallery/fact_sheets/earthsci/green.htm


NASA
Why is this process called "The Greenhouse Effect?"
Because the same process keeps glass-covered greenhouses warm. The Sun heats the ground and greenery inside the greenhouse, but the glass absorbs the re-radiated infra-red and returns some of it to the inside.
www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Lsun1lit.htm


NASA
A real greenhouse is made of glass, which lets visible sunlight through from the outside. This light gets absorbed by all the materials inside, and the warmed surfaces radiate infrared light, sometimes called "heat rays", back. But the glass, although transparent to visible light, acts as a partial barrier to the infrared light. So some of this infrared radiation, or heat, gets trapped inside.
www-airs.jpl.nasa.gov/News/Features/FeaturesClimateChange/GreenhouseEffect/


Dept of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland
A real greenhouse is enclosed by glass walls and ceilings. Glass is highly transparent in the visible wavelengths of the sun, so sunlight freely passes into the greenhouse. However, glass is highly absorbing in the infrared wavelengths characteristic of emission by earth's surface. Therefore, the infrared radiation emitted by the surface is efficiently absorbed by the glass walls and ceiling, and these surfaces, in turn, radiate energy back into the interior of the greenhouse, as well as outward to the environment. But clearly, a large portion of the infrared radiation from the surface does not pass outward from the greenhouse, and the equivalent energy is contained within the greenhouse environment.
www.atmos.umd.edu/~owen/CHPI/IMAGES/grnhs1.html


How Stuff Works
Light passes through the glass into the greenhouse and heats things up inside the greenhouse. The glass is then opaque to the infrared energy these heated things are emitting, so the heat is trapped inside the greenhouse.
home.howstuffworks.com/question238.htm


Enviropedia.org.uk
Greenhouse gases like water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide trap the infrared radiation released by the Earth's surface. The atmosphere acts like the glass in a greenhouse, allowing much of the shortwave solar radiation to travel through unimpeded, but trapping a lot of the longwave heat energy trying to escape back to space. This process makes the temperature rise in the atmosphere just as it does in the greenhouse. This is the Earth's natural greenhouse effect and keeps the Earth 33°C warmer than it would be without an atmosphere, at an average 15°C. In contrast, the moon, which has no atmosphere, has an average surface temperature of -18°C.
www.enviropedia.org.uk/Climate_Change/Greenhouse_Effect.php


University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Physics Department
Greenhouse gases act as a blanket. Some of you may wonder how a green house takes solar energy and turns it into thermal energy. A good example of this is something you can observe every day in the summer in you own car. It happens when you leave you car in a sunny parking lot with the windows up. The solar energy is passing through the glass and is heating the cars interior. What’s really happening is the short wave infrared waves are going in and are turning into long wave infrared waves, which cannot escape.
ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/102spring2002_Web_projects/C.Levit/web%20page.html


Climate.org
Fortunately, much of this infrared radiation is absorbed in the atmosphere by the so-called greenhouse gases, making the world much warmer than it would be without them. These gases act rather like the glass in a greenhouse, which allows sunlight to enter, provides shelter from the wind and prevents most of the infrared energy from escaping, keeping the temperature warm.
www.climate.org.ua/ghg/ghgeffect.html


State of Utah Office of Education
On a global scale, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and other gases present in the atmosphere are similar to the glass in a greenhouse. Ultraviolet radiation from the sun (having a short wavelength) can pass through the glass. Once inside the greenhouse, the ultraviolet radiation is absorbed by soils, plants, and other objects. Upon absorption, it becomes infrared radiation or heat energy having a shorter wavelength. Because of this, infrared radiation cannot escape through the windows. The windows act
like a large blanket in which they reradiate the infrared energy back into the greenhouse. This phenomenon naturally causes the overall temperature within the greenhouse to increase.
www.usoe.k12.ut.us/curr/science/core/earth/sciber9/Stand_6/html/1e.htm


G.H.P. Dharmaratna, Director General Department of Meteorology
In order to understand the greenhouse effect on earth a good place to start is in a greenhouse. A greenhouse is kept warm because energy coming in from the sun (in the form of visible sunlight) is able to pass easily through the glass of the greenhouse and heat the soil and plants inside. But energy which is emitted from the soil and plants is in the form of invisible infrared radiation; this is not able to pass as easily through the glass of the greenhouse. Some of the infrared heat energy is trapped inside; this is the main reason why a greenhouse is warmer than outside.
www.lankajalani.org/Publications/Paper%20-%20Impacts%20of%20Climate%20Change.doc


Weather-Climate.org
This warming effect is called the "greenhouse effect" because it is the same process as that which occurs in a greenhouse on a sunny day. The glass is transparent to short-wave radiation but absorbs the outgoing long-wave radiation, causing a rise in temperature inside the greenhouse.
www.weather-climate.org.uk/04.php


Eduhistory.com
The glass used for a greenhouse acts as a selective transmission medium for different spectral frequencies, and its effect is to trap energy within the greenhouse, which heats both the plants and the ground inside it. This warms the air near the ground, and this air is prevented from rising and flowing away. This can be demonstrated by opening a small window near the roof of a greenhouse: the temperature drops considerably. Greenhouses thus work by trapping electromagnetic radiation and preventing convection.
www.eduhistory.com/greenhouse.htm


Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Overview: Carbon Dioxide is identified as “greenhouse gas” because of its ability to trap heat within earth’s environment. ...Explain that the greenhouse effect works in a somewhat similar -- but not entirely the same -- way (see teacher notes and background supplement sheet for more information). The sun’s rays pass through the atmosphere and warm the surface. The earth emits some of this energy back into space (like heat from a campfire). But gases such as carbon dioxide and water vapor (in clouds) absorb much of this energy and send it back to earth. People have come to call this process the “greenhouse effect” because it reminds them of how actual greenhouses, which are made out of glass and grow plants, let the sun’s rays in while trapping much of the radiation that would otherwise
escape.
www.letus.northwestern.edu/projects/gw/pdf/C09.pdf



So, let's hear your rendition of how a "real glass greenhouse" works!

[icefisher]

Woods eliminated backradiation as the source of the heat in the greenhouse. Yet this prima facie evidence is rejected in favor of a religious belief.

A professor in northern California a few years ago made an attempt to falsify Woods. He constructed a similar experiment and demonstrated that the "glass covered" greenhouse warmed a great deal more than the "IR transparent covered" greenhouse.

But it was simple to see how he accomplished it. Woods used glass (opaque to IR) and rocksalt (transparent to IR of similar conductivity and thickness. The northern California professor substituted saran wrap for the rocksalt. Saran wrap is less than a half mil thick less than 5 ten thousandths of an inch. 1/4 inch glass is about 500 times thicker. The thermal conductivity of saran wrap is about 1/3rd that of glass. The net conductivity difference is huge, the saran wrap can conduct far more heat than a 1/4" pane of glass.

It seems we are giving morons PhDs these days. You get a PhD simply by staying in school and you never fail because, gee thats psychologically damaging.

______________________

I really don't know the answer. Perhaps there is some floor greenhouse effect that all objects start out with. It seems it should be an easy experiment. Just do Woods over using two vacuum filled greenhouses to eliminate the conductivity and convection effects.

If you do solar design you learn that on a clear day just about anywhere in the civilized world you can get between about 1100 and 1250 watts/m2 of solar energy on an optimally tilted solar panel. If there was no atmosphere you would get as much as 1365 watts. But 1100 watts equates to a surface temperature of 100C (212F), enough to boil water if you have no energy losses. So of course its very difficult to boil water under the sun and you clearly cannot do it in common atmosphere as you cannot completely control conduction losses on the surface of the planet.

But greenhouse theory states that if you radiate it away from a surface you will warm the surface if anything absorbs any of the IR photons. At 1100 watts, the feedback should be 550 watts. Well that sums to 1650 watts so in an experiment on land you should be able to heat a thin piece of metal in this box well past 100C. 1650 watts equates to 140C or 284F.

So why has nobody done this? Is it because every attempt has failed?

As a space experiment you could control it better you could well insulate the back plane of the box and then apply a 99.9% reflective coating on the bottom to radiatively insulate the bottom of the box facing away from the sun to cut losses down to a maximum of about a couple of watts.

On earth with a Cloud Nine type chamber you could do the same by suspending the box in a vacuum. But one would think that would be overkill since the greenhouse effect is hypothesized to be 50% and all you really need to do is demonstrate a warming over the theoretical maximum dependent upon the amount of radiation received. In other words if somebody did this on earth and actually achieved 123C (which is what the surface should be in the presence of a 1366watt/m2 light source without any atmosphere blocking of incoming in space) even without good controls (like actually metering the incoming). I would be convinced of some robustness of the theory.

It is well documented you can get 1100 watts just about anywhere on the surface of the earth with the panels titled correctly. So all one needs is careful controls and enough insulation to avoid the loss of 550 watts. R-2 insulation anyone?

You could also preheat the box so as to not have to wait for the box to warm up, and you get several hours of full 1100 watt sunlight with simple solar tracking technology keeping the box correctly oriented to the sun.

So what I am saying is if you want to falsify Woods and you think you can then freakin do it! But instead we get smoke and mirrors and lame brains trying to sell thick atmospheres as blanket equivalents of a greenhouse effect that requires no thickness according to their own depictions of the effect (like Iceskaters multi-shelled model of one atom thick shells).

The whole enchilada is based upon a cartoon of photons utilized as a visual aid to discuss physical issues different from the alleged greenhouse effects. Its precisely a semantics problem where words and symbols are given new meanings, not based on science but based upon a cartoon invented to teach a different topic.

Whats next? Is Michael Mann going to form a mind meld with Bugs Bunny and start spouting new physics commandments? Gee I guess he may already be doing that!

[Andrew]

Jul 13, 2013 17:38:15 GMT magellan said:

Jul 13, 2013 9:43:32 GMT icefisher said:

Nope I always understood it. You originally said you would "warm a dead body" by throwing a blanket over it. Only about 500 posts later you realized your mistake and started saying "warm the surface of a dead body". The dead body does not warm but a blanket can affect the distribution of heat in the body. Big difference!



My recollection was Magellan said you could not warm a dead body by throwing a blanket on it and you contested his statement. Now you are nitpicking trying to avoid accountability for your mistake.




Yes you finally learned that. But you never did get that the true case is "it might warm the surface". It will not warm the surface of a body in all cases.

I learnt nothing other than you and Icefisher will go to extraordinary lengths to refuse to learn anything.

Even the simple principle that the inside of a hot egg is heating the colder surface was too complicated for you.

I got involved because one of you decided that Roy Spencers ice box thought experiment was impossible. Months later you were still going endlessly on about how i was changing the goal posts.

No goal posts were changed. You two just have a reading and learning problem where you have a tendency to get foul mouthed rather than focus on the issues in a clear thinking manner.

[magellan]

Jul 13, 2013 20:27:14 GMT Andrew said:

Jul 13, 2013 17:38:15 GMT magellan said:

I learnt nothing other than you and Icefisher will go to extraordinary lengths to refuse to learn anything.

Even the simple principle that the inside of a hot egg is heating the colder surface was too complicated for you.

I got involved because one of you decided that Roy Spencers ice box thought experiment was impossible. Months later you were still going endlessly on about how i was changing the goal posts.

No goal posts were changed. You two just have a reading and learning problem where you have a tendency to get foul mouthed rather than focus on the issues in a clear thinking manner.

You are God. You know everything. You have never been wrong on anything.

There, hope your ego wasn't damaged too much.

I stated a simple fact that is easily provable by the data. There is something seriously wrong with the GHE theory as it pertains to the idea of a hot spot in the troposphere; heat is not being "trapped" as countless references stating is the main tenet of AGW. Roy Spencer points it out constantly.

Also, I don't know who you directed your reply to, but my beef with Roy Spencer was the use of an IR thermometer to measure an IR spectrum they are not capable of detecting. I never said he was right or wrong on the other stuff.

And the reason for my close attention to the "hot spot" began with John Christy in the documentary 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. At about 15:00 into the video, he talks about how simple the theory is and that it isn't working.

[Andrew]

Jul 13, 2013 23:10:54 GMT magellan said:

Jul 13, 2013 20:27:14 GMT Andrew said:

I learnt nothing other than you and Icefisher will go to extraordinary lengths to refuse to learn anything.

Even the simple principle that the inside of a hot egg is heating the colder surface was too complicated for you.

I got involved because one of you decided that Roy Spencers ice box thought experiment was impossible. Months later you were still going endlessly on about how i was changing the goal posts.

No goal posts were changed. You two just have a reading and learning problem where you have a tendency to get foul mouthed rather than focus on the issues in a clear thinking manner.

You are God. You know everything. You have never been wrong on anything.

There, hope your ego wasn't damaged too much.

I stated a simple fact that is easily provable by the data. There is something seriously wrong with the GHE theory as it pertains to the idea of a hot spot in the troposphere; heat is not being "trapped" as countless references stating is the main tenet of AGW. Roy Spencer points it out constantly.

Also, I don't know who you directed your reply to, but my beef with Roy Spencer was the use of an IR thermometer to measure an IR spectrum they are not capable of detecting. I never said he was right or wrong on the other stuff.

And the reason for my close attention to the "hot spot" began with John Christy in the documentary 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. At about 15:00 into the video, he talks about how simple the theory is and that it isn't working.

Magellan,

My interest was in the observation that *no* knowledgeable person is going to dispute the idea of the life giving qualities that water vapour provides because of the way it interacts with infra red to enable a warmer planet, where a colder atmosphere is part of a system that enables a warmer surface. Expanding that basic idea to include complex theories is not what was interesting me.

I was imagining that anybody would be able to follow what i was saying and realise for themselves that the GHE is real and it enormously benefits life on Earth.

During the conversation i had with Icefisher, Icefisher spent a great deal of time telling me that Magellan had proven I was wrong. I did my best to interact with you, but you were not interested in listening, and kept telling me how i was changing the goal posts.

No goal posts were changed and all the observations and experiments I made were all linked to the simple beginning observation that a cold atmosphere is capable of causing a hotter surface to be warmer, providing space is colder than the 'cold' atmosphere.

The whole thing was so simple and yet months of my life were wasted while i imagined eventually somebody was going to learn something they would find interesting and useful to them.

[Andrew]

You guys are rambling again

Even the wiki climate terrorists recognise that the green house effect has nothing to do with a greenhouse

And the temperature gradient of a dead body or egg is irrelevant to the GHE. The relevant fact is the core of an egg is heating the surface and the sun heats the surface of the earth, therefore if you slow down the cooling of either surface it becomes warmer.

The way you guys talk anybody would think this was hard.

The surface of any heated object that has reached equilibrium will become warmer if you slow down the rate of cooling. There is no ifs buts and maybes about this.