The idea of starting a new climate blog was introduced by bender on ‘Unthreaded 26″ at Climate Audit”.
One of the nice things about Climate Audit is the rapid discussion and the mild amount of editing. At the same time, Steve M likes many discussions to stay on topic, so as to focus on the actual scientific and statistical arguments being made in climate change.
This post is to solicit ideas for what people might want in such a climate blog. So far, on Climate Audit I’ve read that people want a place to discuss:
- Thermodynamics of climate.
- Policy implications.
- Go off on political tangents.
- Some way to permit odd ball comments to be sent to a timeout thread instead of being deleted. (This would require programming.)
I have no idea what some of these things mean, but it’s probably possible to get something going that complements existing blogs.
But, what I’m thinking is that I could invite 2-3 co-bloggers, and get some discussion started.
Consider yourself invited to speak!
Thanks, lucia.
1. There seems to a strong demand for two-sided discussions of atmospheric ‘thermodynamics’.
2. Similarly, there is a lot of interest in climate models. However, the knowledge of these models is pretty limited for most of the folks on CA, so the bilateral discussion may not be very symmetric.
By the way, I am assuming that the comments here are not publicly posted. I don’t want to hurt anyones feelings.
The comments are public. I can make a private blog, but that would require having everyone log in and only be able to view comments only after logging in. Then, I can’t let a zillion folks read though.
I also have the power to edit. 🙂
I would want to have a few co-bloggers. Possibly people who would write a short conversation provoking post once a week, and step into comments. People who accept a rather broad range of points of view would be good. You seem like a good one to me, but other people could be good too.
As for some commenters, Kim suggested a “time out” thread– I could write a WordPress plug to make it easy to transfer some topics to a time out thread, or a particular thread. I sort of like that idea because it make a record of the comment, but takes it out of a full conversation when it’s distracting.
Hi Lucia
Thanks for sparing the time to set this up.
I would suggest:
1 A political aspect area.
2A CO2 debate.
….when you hit the tab ket or backspace it posts??????
3 A thermodynamics debate.
Hope this is helpful
MarkR
Hmm… I wasnt aware of the tab feature. Let me try it. Mine didn’t post when I hit tab or backspace. I’ll fiddle and see if I can find other issues with this theme.
Some things I think the “global warmers” should know for a fact:
1. “Global temperature” is not meaningful. It doesn’t exist. Saying you can measure it or model it is stupid. Anyone who thinks it is meaningful doesn’t know the first thing about thermodynamics.
2. People who think climate is a time average are clueless. It’s a spatial average. Global climate change refers to changes over the whole globe. Any moron should be able to understand this.
3. The so-called “precautionary principle” is totally false logic.
4. The so-called “positive feedbacks” in the climate models (GCMs) are in reality all negative feedbakcs. Clouds are water, which is a negative feedback that keeps the planet cool. That’s why deserts are hot and coastal areas are not.
CoolThoughts,
Right now, I want to discuss how we might want a blog to run:
Number of authors? Topics? Moderation policy? Etc.
I know I will be wanting to avoid words like “moron”. 🙂
Could – could something really, really sinister like what the SFGate had going be worked up?
To wit:
This has the effect of passifying the ‘crank’ poster, while it seems that the body of the rest of the site are ignoring him (her?) at the same time … TRULY sinister!
Yes. That could be done. It would rely on cookies. I’ll see if a plugin already exists.
Another thing that could be done is individual visitors can be given an “ignore” option. If you click it, all comments by a particular poster would be hidden.
The only difficulty with this feature is I might need to figure out how to do it while still being able to use the cacheing feature to save CPU.
This may require thought. . .
Ah yes, sometimes termed ‘Bozo’ filters; they are nice for keeping the S/N ratio high when one doesn’t have the time to pore over everything, and of course, they can be turned off to allow reading all comments in a thread.
Maybe it should be termed something other than ignore though; perhaps termed a ‘level of Q’ control; Q as in the ‘Q’ factor (where Q denotes quality) as in qualifying the ‘Q’ of a coil (or resonenat circuit), something the EE and Physics types can appreciate.
Oh, and one more thing: how about a hidden rating system whereby posts can be uprated – but the results would be known only to *the system* and then the ‘level of Q’ could be set (adjusted individually, in decentralized fashion via cookie values) until the desired ‘Q’ (and corresponding higher S/N ratio) is reached?
Just thoughts; I’ve been on sites where posts could be down or uprated, and the values are public, but sometimes it seemed to be a blatant popularity contest … the idea here would be a low key S/N ratio improvement system for those times when one doesn’t have a lot of time to pour through everything.
I’ll see what I can find in the way of plugins. But guess what? You can help. If you see a feature at a WordPress blog, give me that blog URL. Then, I can drop a question at the blog and find the plugin!
I can write plugins, but it’s always easiest if they already exists and I just install.
Oooh ooooh ooh!
Don’t forget my hobbyhorses that I make Steve suffer regularly 🙂
Chaos
Self-similarity/Long term memory in climate statistics
If you’re willing to wait 5-10 years I can write up some nonsense on these topics.
Chaos is a popular topic that seems to be bandied about regularly.
I know little about chaos and even less about climate and chaos. However, if you suggest a some article that is easily accessible that discusses this topic (from either pro-AGW or anti-AGW points of view) I would read it.
Ideally, I would want to read both, and possible give my reflections and then invite comment.
Hi Lucia,
I’m an avid lurker at CA, but rarely post, mostly because I can’t add anything to the scientific debate. I do have quite a range of ideas on the policy side though, but as we know, Steve Mc isn’t too keen on those… 🙂
Can I suggest that one important policy area which does need discussion is this: how do we provide a face-saving solution which allows AGW proponents to climb down safely from the worst excesses of catastrophism? I think that, regardless of your view of the scientific issues involved, the more far-flung predictions of melting ice-sheets, temperature increase of 6 degrees and so forth are not helpful. And furthermore, if it turns out that temperatures now start falling over the next few years, what with PDO changes, solar minima and other interesting phenomena, there is a big danger that the general public deems all climate studies, or worse – all science – complete rubbish. And that I think would not be a good scenario.
So – is it possible to construct a climate policy/theory/agenda which would be acceptable to the AGW’ers, while allowing the rest of us (that is, our taxes) to get on with solving problems that really need solving, like malaria, malnutrition, clean water supplies and so on – rather than chasing after an impossible goal of “climate control”?
That, I think, would be a worthwhile field of debate.
AGN
Olive branch not possible as long as opposing views are this entrenched. Look at Middle East. Be realistic. Long road home. Worth discussing though.
CoolThoughts:
1. Agreed, there is no such thing as a “global temperature”. We can only sample various locations at a moment in time.
2. Incorrect. It is both spatial and temporal, it’s not an either or. The accepted definition of climate is the average condition of the weather at a place over a period of years.
3. Immaterial. Doing expensive things “just in case” as the only reason is bad policy, but doesn’t preclude doing something if it makes sense anyway. What is illogical about foresight planning, risk prevention, and cost effectivness in the context of policy decisions in the face of a lack of certainty?
4. Too simplistic to say all things considered positive feedbacks are negative ones. Clouds can reflect sunlight or let it through, hold in mositure or let it out, create rain that absorbs heat during the process or doesn’t. And why an area is cool or not depends a lot upon the amount of moisture in the air, not just clouds (or lack thereof).
I would like to have a category titled “Financial Implications”, wherein two main threads would be: What is this hysterical AGM going to cost me personally out of my wallet?, and: How hysterical do you have to be to maintain funding for your pet research projects? Maybe they could be called “Financial Cost of Climate Hysteria”.
All good thoughts. Can anyone suggest people who might like to address financial implications?
I’d really rather not use tendencions terms like “hysteria” for many reasons. In any case, there are costs associated with mistakes made in either the pro-AGW or anti-AGW direction.
On the face saving issue…. I don’t think there really is one. In climate, temperature data comes in one day at a time. This is slow compared to the political time scale.
In politics the overwhelming majority of people just remember themselves as having always been right. With regard to climate change, this will be easy.
Hi Lucia,
I think you’re wrong – there ought to be a backlash of biblical proportions when the public works out that all the carbon taxes, additional costs of carbon permit trading etc etc was all for a fiction – but I fear you may be right… 🙁
AGN
Here’s you olive branch:
Let policy follow science: Tie a carbon tax to actual warming
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1203/p09s02-coop.html
Here’s a question which I do not recall being asked anywhere: If the AGW science is all settled according to the climate researchers, how can those very same climate researchers (you know who) continue to justify applying for further funding? Shouldn’t they be returning money about now?
Who’d a thunk it:
Kevin Rudd recoils from climate change pledge
Peter Jean
December 07, 2007 12:00am
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd last night did an about-face on deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, days after Australia’s delegation backed the plan at the climate talks in Bali.
A government representative at the talks this week said Australia backed a 25-40 per cent cut on 1990 emission levels by 2020.
But after warnings it would lead to huge rises in electricity prices, Mr Rudd said the Government would not support the target.
The repudiation of the delegate’s position represents the first stumble by the new Government’s in its approach to climate change.
Just DAYS ago the news reports were “Australia signs Kyoto agreement”
Hi lucia,
thanks for creating this thread (even though I’m finding it several weeks later through a link at Climate Audit). I think an area for people to discuss the things Steve M wants to stay away from is also useful. I am however, going to promise to stay away from political threads as I admit I’m one of the few (although I suspect there’s a lot more like me) liberals who have become skeptics of this whole thing. As Steve noted once: It’s not just a Left/Right thing.
Hi Terry. We don’t have much of a group yet, but, at least for now, I want to see what topics people want to discuss. 🙂
Good initiative Lucia. Lets go! Start some new threads on the topic suggested above, and it will (like CA) sort itself out.
OK, I gotta ask my question here, also, since nobody at RC or CA has answered it, in my opinion.
Water vapor is the most important “greenhouse gas.” I believe that the “settled science” statistic is that it accounts for 80 % of GHG effects.
There’s at least 4 times as much water vapor in the air over water at the Equator than in the air in Iraq in the summer.
According to the settled science, GHGs help warm the planet by emitting IR to the surface.
Then why is the MINIMUM temperature at low elevations in Iraq in the summer about the same as the MAXIMUM temperature over water at the Equator?
I’d like to suggest a topic: History and Climate Change. I’ve been reading about the Norse in Greenland as an example of what not to do if your climate shifts drastically.
@jae:
Jae,
I’m not a climatoligists, but generally speaking the following factors are important when comparing temperatures over water vs land at the equator and in the northern hemisphere in the summer:
1) Water in the upper layers of a body of water mix and water has a large effective thermal mass. In contrast, land does not mix, and can only tranfer heat downward by conduction. Only the very few upper feet of the earth experience noticable temperature swing, but given the same 12 year cycle and same with the same amplitude in forcing, temperatures do not swing as much as much over the ocean as over land.
So, if you had picked Iraq and a point at similar latitude but over the ocean, this factor would tend to explain why the land over Iraq was hotter than over the ocean during the summer.
2) During the summer, the sun shifts toward the north. Near Jun 20/21, it shines directly over the tropic of Cancer, at a latitude of 23 degrees. Here a map. Bagdad is near 33 degrees; the equator is at 0 degrees. I think (though I am not sure) this means that near the solstice, Baghdad receive more hours of sun than the equator.
3) Some of the low lying regions in Iraq are either flanked or surrounded by mountains and the weather patterns often cause the air to travel over mountains before arriving in the hot desert in Iraq.
There are some other factors associated with a tendency for air temperature to rise over all as it flows up over mountains and then flows back down to lower eleavation.
The increase in temperature — and drop in absolute humidity– both arise because when air rises to climb mountaints, the temperature drops. (Thermal energy converts to potential energy.) When the temperature drops,water rains out, and for a short while, thermal energy is lost at constant temperature. The condensed water is left in the mountains, and the air temperature drops less than it would have if it has been dry. Then when the now dry air travels down the mountain, the potential energy is converted to thermal energy. But, since no water was evaporated into it, the air temperature is higher than it was before it went over the mountains.
So, mountain ranges often have “hot/dry” “cold/wet” sides, with the dry side on the downwind side of the mountain.
So, those are three reasons I can think of why the low lying, no-mountains regions in Iraq are warmer during summer.
Of course, I could be incorrect, but I know each of these three mechanisms are observed in other places. They would seem to apply to Iraq.
Lucia: forget about the over water and the latitude. I used the highest temperature for the entire year at the Equator and compared it to the summer in Iraq. Rather than over water, consider any wet area on land near the Equator. The MINIMUM temperature in Iraq in the summer is still about as hot as the MAXIMUM temperature in the tropics ANY time of year. I’m trying to find the most humid hot spot I can (highest level of GHGs) to compare it with very dry spots (lowest level of GHGs). The question is this: if GHGs heat the planet by radiation, why aren’t the humid areas (very high amounts of GHG) MUCH hotter than the dry ones (low amounts of GHGs)? They are actually much cooler. Does negative water feedback completely overwhelm the radiative effects of the water vapor in humid areas? Or is this radiative explanation for GHG warming a crock?
Jae– What do you mean “forget about latitude”? Aren’t you comparing Iraq and the equator precisely because the equator is at a different latitude than the equator?
I suspect the number of daylight hours during June-July is greater in Iraq than on the equator. The temperature of the earth lags a bit, but basically all other things being equal, more daylight hours leads to more heating.
It’s fine to keep asking your question, but have you looked at the explanation involving air masses traveling over mountains at all?
That theory explains why, at similar latitudes, hot & dry are strongly correlated. It’s the similar principle involved in designing dehumidifiers, and so seem widely applicable. It also explains why it rains on rainy sides of mountains etc.
Maybe you should examine the conventional explanations first and make sure they don’t explain what you see?
jae
The three primary reasons, in order of importance are, in my opinion:
1. Cloud cover. There is much less cloud cover over a sizable dry region, and any humid air that comes into the region evaporates before clouds can form. Clouds provide the best ‘sunshade’ available.
2. Rain originating in the colder levels of the troposphere. Humid and warm regions see precipitation, often every day in the afternoon. There is quite lot of ‘cold capacity’ in raindrops vs. air. In dry areas like Iraq, or Arizona, it rains only rarely.
3. Humid areas see a lot of evaporation, which sucks up quite a bit of sensible heat as latent heat of evaporation. Dry areas see much less.
I guess I’m not getting my point across here. That seems to be my chronic problem on this subject. What I am interested in is an empirical demonstration of the “greenhouse effect”(i.e., radiative heating caused by those molecules which can absorb and emit IR). If the “greenhouse effect” works, then why can’t we see it working more in extremely humid areas, since there is such a large amount of “greenhouse gas” (water vapor)? Shouldn’t those areas with the most “greenhouse gases” be HOTTER, not colder, than areas with low volumes of such gases? Where is the empirical evidence of this radiative heating effect? Do clouds overcome it?
jae– Three questions ending with:
Are those rhetorical?
I think the answer to this question is “no”.
If you have a theory for why it should be “yes”, I’m afraid you will need to explain it in some detail. This will probably require you to present a rather formal coherent analysis. Posting in comments will never suffice.
You will, at a minimum, need to start yourself a blog where you can post a series of articles with a minimum of 4 page long posts discussing the various steps in demonstrating why the answer should be “yes”.
No you are not getting your point across. Asking people what appear to be obscure rhetorical questions in blog comments will neither communicate your theory (or point) nor prove that theory or point. It will certainly never cause anyone to understand what the theory or point might be.
Setting up a blog is easy. You can set up a free one at WordPress. After you do so, you can organize a bunch of posts that might better let people understand whatever theory you are trying to explain.
jae.
I think we have been over this before…
At lower levels (up to the cloud-tops), the GHG effect is short-circuited by the water-vapor latent-heat cycle.
The GHG effect, if it exists, operates at altitudes near the tropopause, far above the surface levels you can characterize as “dry” and “humid”. The fact is that it is extremely dry at the tropopause, whether you are over Biloxi MS or Tucson AZ.
Lucia: I’m not forming a theory; I’m looking for an empirical demonstration of an established theory–the “greenhouse effect.” If it exists, it seems to me that the answer should be yes. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. What are greenhouse gases supposed to do? Keep us warmer than we would be without them. How do they do that? The conventional answer is that they radiate IR back toward the surface. If this is how it works, why aren’t they (water vapor) irradiating more back to the surface in soggy Guam than in arid Bakersfield CA? I would be warmer in Bakersfield which has almost no greenhouse gas in the air in the summer than I would be in Guam, with so much water vapor in the air that it’s almost raining all the time. Why? CO2 is a “greenhouse gas” and IPCC tells us that doubling it will result in an additional 3.7 w/m^2 radiation at the surface. It’s only 0.03 % of air, whereas water vapor in the air over Guam is at least 50 times that much. Why doesn’t the water vapor add 3.7*50 = 185 w/m^2 more energy in Guam than in Bakersfield?
jae–
Those who propose and believe in the theory do not claim the feature you suggest.
Maybe you wish they would make this claim so you could prove them wrong, but they don’t make this claim.
To prove AGW wrong, you must disprove things the theory actually predicts.
If you want to understand why Guam has Guam weather and Bakersfield has Bakersfield weather, you should enroll in class on meteorology. After that, when you understand why Seattle, WA has moderate rainter weather, and Yakima, Wa is dryer and and Pasco, Wa is quite dry and a local hot spot, you might be able to understand this whole hot/dry cold/warm thing. (You’ll also learn about clouds in the tropics, and large scale phenomena like the intertropical convergence zones.)
Pat: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect. “Given the temperature at the emission level of the infrared flux escaping to space, one then computes the surface temperature by increasing temperature at the rate of 6.5 °C per kilometer, the environmental lapse rate, until one reaches the surface. ” The emission level they are talking about is about 5 km in the models. That is the average level at which more radiation supposedly leaves to space than goes toward the surface. Why doesn’t the addition of water to the atmosphere increase IR opacity and do the same thing?
jae
Yes, if you believe that, there may be an issue.
However, if you look at the IR spectra from Earth, it appears that the CO2 15u radiation is emitted at about 225K, which is -48C. The tropopause is at about -50C, so it seems to be coming from a lot higher than 5km.
The rest of the IR tends to be from water vapor at surface-type temperatures. There are 3 plots, from over the Sahara, over the Mediterranean, and over the Antarctic. The plots are about the same around 15u, but the water vapor emissions are from about 35C higher from the Sahara than from the Med. The Antarctic has much lower water-vapor emission temperatures, as you would expect.
In summary, the IR spectra don’t agree with the wiki 5 km claim.
Why doesn’t the addition of water to the atmosphere increase IR opacity and do the same thing?I’m not sure waht you mean by “do the same thing”.
Pat: “Why doesn’t the addition of water to the atmosphere increase IR opacity and do the same thing?I’m not sure waht you mean by “do the same thing—.
What I mean is that HOH is also a greenhouse gas. So why wouldn’t it be acting just like CO2, relative to “forcing.” In fact, it should be acting 50 times stronger in humid areas, due to its concentration there. But it is not; otherwise very humid places would be much hotter than very dry places. The reverse is true; the dryer places with little GHGs in the air are much hotter than the humid places with great amounts of GHGs in the air (same latitude, elevation). Either I’m really dense, or the radiative theory of greenhouse gases is flat out wrong. But if I AM that dense, I would sure like to know where I am erring.
jae, this is my opinion, not necessarily consensus. I just got back from a dinner party, so don’t hold me to it.
The reason they are not equivalent is that GHGs operate (if at all) at very high altitudes, because at lower levels, the higher-frequency IR radiation is absorbed and thermalized before it can get out of the atmosphere, anyway. Water vapor, however, is absent from the air at these altitudes.
As I said in my previous post, at the high altitudes necessary for radiation to escape, the humidity at the surface has all been frozen out (something which doesn’t happen to CO2).
Your error is that you are thinking “humidity” as it exists near the surface where we live, whereas the GHG effect occurs at around 12-15km and -50C where conditions are totally different — there is close to zero water because it has been frozen out of the air, irrespective of whether it’s above Biloxi or Tucson.
To remove an ambiguity in the last post, the one sentence should read:
Water vapor, however, is absent from the air at the high altitudes near the tropopause.
Pat: there are two things wrong with what you said. First, the models use an average height of 5 km as the level at which the bulk of the radiation either goes to space or goes down. Second, water would not even be acting as a greenhouse gas (as it is defined by the consensus) under your scenario. Ironically, though, I think your picture is more accurate than IPCCs!
Por favor – could we get wider text/comments block please?
I’m getting/feeling a little claustrophobia, lucia, by being ‘hemmed in’ by the narrow column structure!
(On further thinking … maybe it’s just me. Using Opera 8.5.x here, ’cause I like some of the built-in features that enable power-surfing without requiring a lot of down-loaded addins like the other freeware browser …)
PS – Is it possible to post images/graphics here? (Haven’t tried, thought I would ask since I’m here asking other things.)
jae
As I said, I thought that it may not be the consensus position.
It hinges, I think, on the interpretation of the IR spectral intensity data as truly representing the temperature of the emitter. If that is so, then it seems clear that the 15u emission is coming from the tropopause where there is almost zero H2O. There are other arguments, based on expected residual IR absorption at 15u from water vapor, that support that. The linewidth seems to be in agreement with it, also (though I haven’t looked at it in detail).
I have to admit that I am a bit of a skeptic regarding the GHG effect. Like Steve M, I would like to see a clear analysis of even the ‘bare’ CO2 effect, never mind about the effect ‘dressed’ with H2O positive feedback. Perhaps there is one somewhere, but I haven’t seen it.
If anyone knows of such, I’d appreciate a link.
Pat: In my opinion, the reason this gets so “cloudy” is that the radiation shown by MODTRAN, HIGHTRAN, etc. clearly does exist. The molecules are surely “trading” radiation. But I think that radiation is just an inherent property of the gases at a given temperature and that it doesn’t “add” heat somehow, causing a “greenhouse effect.” Maybe it could if the air were absolutely stationary, but convective forces are so strong that I think the wash away any of these effects. I wish I could prove this beyond doubt, but I can’t. I keep trying…If that earns me the title of “crackpot” by the elitists at CA, so be it.
There is no doubt that the final transfer of energy from Earth has to be radiative.
?? No convective effects?? Think about being in an airplane at 5 km when clouds are present. It doesn’t get smooth late in the day, in general, until you get more than twice that high. I agree that there is no doubt that the final transfer of energy has to be via radiation, and I agree that, on average, that begins at about 5 km. I just cannot see how radiation causes a greenhouse effect. If it does, well, we are back to my first posts about the difference between deserts and humid areas, and why it is colder in the humid areas, despite the tremendous quantity of ghgs there. I guess we’ve reached a stalemate here. Thanks for your interest and patience, though.
Yikes!
Did my wish come true (w-i-d-e-r text/text box – thanks Lucia)?
Let’s try posting an image, using the usual anchor tags:
paragraph on causes of glaciation per TEXTBOOK OF GEOLOGY, Longwell, Knopf and Flint 1932
Slight oops … show just the image this time:
Paragraph from “TEXTBOOK OF GEOLOGY, Longwell, Knopf and Flint 1932”, titled the “causes of glaciation”.
(validating two functions: 1. the use of tinypic facilities and 2. posting images here)
Jim… I think I need to do something to make images show. I’ll do it… later. (It’s the holidays. for now, I can manually make them show. 😉 )
Hmmm.. that’s not the right anchor text for images. I need to edit this template, but first I wanted to see if the overall template is suitable for this type of blog. (My knitting blog gets accessed by load of people with slow connections etc. So, the prefect template really does depend on topic!)
I’ll be modifying this, but I think this general template is better than the previous selection.
Well … that didn’t seem to fly. Diagnostic info – the <img src= … > code doesn’t show up the html ‘source’ file (served up from the server, transferred via HTTP and finally arriving on my PC) either.
Another try, and based on what appeared a couple of posts ago this simple link to the image should work:
Paragraph on causes of glaciation per TEXTBOOK OF GEOLOGY Longwell, Knopf and Flint 1932.
blockquoted text:
Ah – no rush! I see you posted while I was composing! (Sorry – all this testing is the engineer in me showing through! Test enough times with different parms and we eventually find what works!)
I have a Ph.D. in ME. I understand…. The testing is great for a variety of reasons. That said, the solution to the issue raised will occurr…. later. 🙂
BTW. I can infer some of the issues. We want:
a) images,
b) wider and bigger text boxes.
& etc. 🙂
So, test away! It’s a good thing because some of the solutions required either a) installing plugins (by me) or b) communication(by me.)
I just need to know which things people want!
So that accounts for your grasp of, and attention to, detail!
You learned well, grasshopper.
Anybody know why ukweatherworld is unreachable?
http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk
I tried pings (etc) locally and through a remote proxy – all I can determine is: “It’s dead Jim”!
(HTTP access attempts get a connection refused message.)
It seems to be back!
Comment 346 on Unthreaded at CA:
“The LOWS in low-lying cities in Iraq are nearly as high as the HIGHS anywhere in the humid tropics. If the greenhouse effect works, why isn’t it the other way around?
Well, clearly, it’s a puzzle~
Why are low lying cities hot? Why aren’t cities in the mountains hot? And why does it tend to rain in the mountains? (Recall, you rejected the whole “some desserts are hot because air traveling up over mountains and then back down gets hot and dry idea.â€)
And why aren’t cities in the Southern hemisphere hot in june-aug? (After all, you previously waved away the “there are more hours of sun in the north during the summer and the sun is over the tropic of cancer in June†bit with a “forget about latitude†issue.)
And of course, why do deserts even exist? And why are there so many at ±30 degrees latitude? (After all, the Hadley cell is known to exist, and the down coming leg happens to dump hot dry air on Iraq, which is near 30 degrees. But, evidently, you’ve rejected this as a contributing factor to the hot weather in Iraq in summer. )
People have been describing mechanisms to you over and over. Yet, somehow you wave every possibility without even considering whether it might be true.
Here’s my question for you Jae: You keep saying this “mystery†of hot summers days in low lying areas in Iraq is a problem for the theory of AGW.
Now, I’ve got to ask this: If the greenhouse does NOT work, why are low lying cities in Iraq hotter than the equator in summer?
To make sure we truly understand why this happens if water does not act as a GHG please explain the other linked mysteries things.
For example sure to explain
1) why are cities in the mountains cooler than low lying cities at similar latitudes on the dry side of mountains?
2) why does it rain a lot in the tropics?
3) why do deserts tend to form at ±30degrees latitude? (That is: near Iraq.)
4) Why is Iraq hotter in jun-aug than in dec-feb. (And why it’s low-lying areas hotter than the equator only in the summer, but not in the winter. )
After you’ve explained each separate thing– the high/low, the 30 degrees, the summer/winter issues, then explain
1) why low lying cities in Iraq are warmer than the equator in summer without any effect of GHG’s.
2) And then why the action of GHG’s would change all this.
Since SteveM, doesn’t want you to discuss your own theories here, I think you should:
* create a blog. (Free ones available at WordPress.org)
* document your explanation in some detail (figures showing effects of heat flux, convection etc.) Math. Equations.
* when you are finished, drop the link to the explanation so we can read it.”
WOW.
1.) I haven’t rejected most of the ideas you presented here. Many of them undoubtedly play a role, and maybe they explain it all. But C02 accounts for about 0.03 % of air. Water vapor in humid areas accounts for about 2.5 % of the air, or 83 times as much as CO2. Assume for now that HOH vapor is just as good a greenhouse gas as CO2. If CO2 can “exert” a greenhouse gas heating of 1 w/m^2, why doesn’t water vapor exert a ghg heating effect of 83 w/m^2 (which would be 20 percent as powerful as the sun)?
“Now, I’ve got to ask this: If the greenhouse does NOT work, why are low lying cities in Iraq hotter than the equator in summer?”
I don’t know. There are very few greenhouse gases in Iraq in the summer, so how can the heat be the result of GHGs?
“* when you are finished, drop the link to the explanation so we can read it.”
Much of this is here. http://www.esnips.com/web/climate
Lucia,
Thanks for taking the time to give this a try. It might be a reasonable idea to snip comments here and use them to create trial posts and threads.
JAE,
Could you consolidate your theory into a 2-3 pager and see if Lucia would put it up as a post? Every time I believe that I understand your points they seem to drift away in followup comments.
how come the oceans are not in the air?
Indeed it is; the traceroute seems to end IIRC at the same place where it exits an alter.net node and enters a server ‘cloud’ (beyond which things disaapear without showing the IP I was tracing) .. so I reckon they had server farm issues with that domain name.
Rick: I’m not pushing a theory with this stuff. I’m just wondering why some things don’t seem to mesh with the “radiative-convective” theory that the climate scientists use to explain how CO2 increases the warmth of the atmosphere. Just questions, that’s all, at this point. I do have an alternative theory, but I would be very hard-pressed to convince anyone, since I can’t even get many to seriously consider the questions above. Lucia has a very good point about the Hadley Cells and the position of the great deserts. That explains well WHY the deserts are there, and it partially, at least, explains the high temperatures (compression and drying). However, it doesn’t explain why it is hotter in Scottsbluff Nebraska in July than at more humid areas further east at the same latitude and elevation. And it doesn’t explain why temperatures are not higher in the tropics, due to the “greenhouse effect.”
mosher, since the air is an ocean, of sorts, they are.
Can we speak of Wien’s Law yet, of spectral curves and all, along with the transmission, absorption *and/or* reflection properties-
-yes, where the atmosphere is not transmissive it must, in part, be absorptive or reflective, just as electrical filters, filters can be relective (S11=magnitude 1 at rejection frequency) or absorptive (S21=magnitude 0), in the various bands/wavelengths that gases ‘block’ or become interactive-
of this gas cloud that surrounds the earth?
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Can we start from the very beginning and consider:
(1) a planet (or moon) with *no* atmosphere and desribe the thermal environment (temperature) of the surface (or any objects suspended above it)
(2) add in the atmosphere with varying constituent gasses; this is where MODTRAN and HITRAN can be of use, since these describe the ‘openings’ in the spectra from microwave frews through far and near IR to visiable spectra and how quickly energy from a given black body (say, the surface of our test planet) allows electromagnetic energy (near and far IR, microwave, etc) ‘leaks’ off into space.
I would also enter into the record that which we have easily at hand in the way of both microwave sounding uints (MSU) sensors as well as the full spectrum of satellite (near and far) IR sensors in their several bands –
– these give easy evidence of the transmmission ‘windows’ in the atmosphere so one can witness wither land temperature, say, or the temperature of the ‘water vapor’ as it reaches various ‘heights’ and is ‘seen’ by sensors in the 6.7 micron band (normally considered an aborption band, but it also emits at the top).
Witness:
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/satellite/
Choose ‘Water Vapor’ from the radio buttons (the programming environment in Windows Forms calls those ‘radio buttons!) on the left; what is seen is the temp of the top of the water vapor present.
We have much ground to cover in this area.
I am going to object here, on this site, to the use of the term “greenhouse effectâ€, and instead use diffrent descriptive terms, since this I do not think does justice to the function of the atmosphere thermally.
An atmosphere with EM (conside from just over DC to over ‘Blue Light’ like us RF types like to descibe wideband RF circuits!) transmissive ‘holes’ and with blocking or re-radiative segments in the spectra that influences the temperature of the planet it surrounds needs its own name. Later we can consider convective effects, water vapor phase change etc.
Jim: here’s a name for you: Heat Storage Capacity.
re: 67
that’s a powerful picture.
Lucia, thanks for making this place. I promise I won’t say much. 🙂 Plan on reading a lot though and I am glad you are getting some input jae!
Happy Holidays to you all!
Lucia, you may want to rethink this “free for all” policy. Looks like we’re doing the same Humpty-Dumpty “when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean” stuff we were doing at CA.
Over on ukweatherworld, Charles (cba) has been doing some work with a one-dimensional atmosphereic model using MODTRAN/HITRAN database of spectral transmissivity –
http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=17622&start=161
– but my thinking is his graphical output does not quite account for the plentitude of ‘lines’ in the spectral graphs he shows … the intergration he performs to calculate TOA (top of atmosphere) radiation is probebly correct, but the graphs are a little spikey and do not allow for the presentation of the resolution that HITRAN has (I’m presuming a little bit here, based on previous reading of his posts).
Jae:
WV causes both evaporative cooling and GHG effects. The problem is where. Evaporative cooling is concentrated strictly at the surface. GHG effect of WV is mashed all over troposphere. IPCC defines climate forcing (W/m2) at the top of the troposphere, where most of convective and latent heat transfer stops. It is simplified concept, which allows to use classic radiative balance calculations. Now the real mystery is how GCM infiltrate this GHG effect on the top of the troposphere down to the surface (and sideways).
Since Earth does not experience run-away WV feedback heating, it is logical to postulate that energy required to evaporate 1 ton of water is at least no less than what GHG effect this one ton of evaporated water causes (equilibrium is strong function of surface temperature). Again, evaporative cooling is confined strictly at the surface, so it would be logical to agree with you that water evaporation causes predominantly cooling effect of the surface and adjacent air layer.
Where I am wrong?
So, is this so much hand waving in the calculation –
– or are the effects of the the individual widening and narrowing of certain ‘aperatures’ (if you will) due to gases/water vapor (due in large part to altitude) taken into consideration in fine detail?
(I’m thinking they are.)
Observation:
If one looks at the Wien Displacement Curves for various temperatures lower K (Kelvin) temperatures (e.g. 288 K) like those found on the surface of the earth, one sees where the Wien curve begins to ‘peek’ or bridge over certain areas ‘blocked’ by either CO2 or H2O (in/near the usual wavelenghts bands like 15 um, 4.3 um etc), so there does not seem to be any complete blocking of spectral transmission taking place that won’t at some point become inconsequential; a rise in temperature of the ‘radiating’ BB at the surface and the Wien curve can be seen pushing above and beyond the ‘sucked-out’ portions of the radiating curve.
Ground to TOA (top of atmosphere) Calcs
Calculaitons by cba (Charles) looked to yield somewhere around a .7 deg C temperture increase for a doubling of CO2 from present.
This was using a simple one-dimension model from ground up theough 50, 60, 120 KM at ome point I think, using the xxTRAN databases.
http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=17622&start=161
Funny how XXX-the-arrogant….
Edited: Jae: No name calling.
74, Jim: what role does convection play in all these XXXXX calculations? Is it ignored?
—
Edited: I permit any topic, but please avoid calling things Pie-in-the-sky.
@Jae–
Of course this isn’t explained by Hadley cells. This is explained by the fact that Scottsbluff NE is in the rainshadow of Mountains. The weather is dominated by that– so read the “mountains” bit.
The locations further east get a larger fraction of air that hasn’t just passed over mountains. For example, Iowa is nowhere near any mountains.
None of what you discuss at esnips negates the theory of global warming.
Even if the extra heat at the tropics goes into evaporating water, that water eventaully condenses. When it does that heat is added to the atmosphere and heats the air at the point where the water condenses. So, the heat is still added.
@Larry– I’m pretty much going to let people write what they want to write and read it at least for now. This will run at least through the holidays.
Yes. That means that lots of stuff will be nonsense. But if that keeps the nonsense off CA, I think that will help Steve. Meanwhile, I’ll hunt around for a plugin to deal with ranking comments etc. I’ll also be writing more formal posts later on, and decreeing some rules. But for the most part, I’m going to tolerate a lot without necessarily endorsing anything.
Bear in mind: I think AGW is probable. So, for that reason, the nonsense here isn’t as much a problem for me.
@_Jim– I have no trouble with people using the term Greenhouse. It is widely known that “the greenhouse effect” is not a good term as far as describing the physics. But, the word is used nevertheless. So… I’m not going to monitor the word so much at least for now.
That said: If I see specific words tend to lead to ad hominems, attacks etc. I’ll add them to a spam filter, or something. I can code enough to do all sorts of bizarre stuff once I know what I want to do.
@Jim: I don’t know anything what-so-ever about Wien’s law. Feel free to talk about it now. I’m going to go see what I can do to accomodate letting people insert figures. (Or, right now, if you just add the link, I can just edit the image to show, but there will be a lag time. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve after all. Still, there isn’t much traffic yet, so I can can edit individual posts.)
See my #68:
Let’s not ‘bite off’ more than we can chew on the first go-round; some of the concepts and factors involved are going to be non-obvious and buried in technical terms the first time, so let us get those understood first.
Convection causing boundary layer mixing and sensible heat transfer to higher levels in the troposphere, considertion of a phase change of water vapor to liquid water and the release of the latent heat of evaporation; I don’t want to consider all that just yet …
I have seen what I thought were doubts expressed about surface level radiative cooling after the sun went down (the reason your car gets all ‘dewed up’ sitting uncovered in the driveway when the sky was clear!)
No problem (he says chomping at the bit, anxious to post some graphics!)
Oh, I don’t want to trouble you at this point (THAT will come later!)
Oh, on the ‘greenhouse’ term, I don’t want to find myself using it … it seems to be more of a marketing term meant for easy sale to the general public and I would like to move (myself) a little past that point.
No problem (he says chomping at the bit, anxious to post some graphics!)
Oh, I don’t want to trouble you at this point (THAT may come later!)
Oh, on the ‘greenhouse’ term, I don’t want to find myself using it … it seems to be more of a marketing term meant for easy sale to the general public and I would like to move (myself) a little past that point.
No problem (he says chomping at the bit, anxious to post some graphics!)
Oh, I don’t want to trouble you at this point (THAT may come later!)
Oh, on the ‘greenhouse’ term, I don’t want to find myself using it … it seems to be more of a marketing term meant for easy sale to the general public and I would like to move (myself) a little past that point.
PS I had a little trouble with this post – this marks the third submittal.
@Jae–
With regard to the esnips article:
Watts are not units of energy. They just aren’t.
As before at CA, you are interchanging watts and power. It’s more than just using the wrong word, you narrative makes it clear you are interchanging the two.
I know one thing for sure: I will be inserting “watts are not energy” on any comments that try to claim watts are units of energy. I’m also not going to take any argument seriously if they are based on simply mixing up power and energy.
@Jae–
So far all I’m getting is:
You can’t explain why low lying area of Iraq are hotter than the equator during the summer under both these conditions:
* CO2 plus H2o feedback do not cause AGW and
* CO2 plus H2o feedback do cause AGW.
Becaused Iraq is hotter, because you can’t explain the reason at all, based on not being able to explain the difference at all, you conclude CO2 and H20 Feedback don’t cause global warming.
(This, of course, makes no real sense, since you can’t explain what happens with or without CO2 and CO2 makes no difference to any argument you advance. )
No problem (he says chomping at the bit, anxious to post some graphics!)
Oh, I don’t want to trouble you at this point (THAT will come later!)
Oh, on the ‘greenhouse’ term, I don’t want to find myself using it … it seems to be more of a marketing term meant for easy sale to the general public and I would like to move (myself) a little past that point. I’m looking for a better term, jae suggested one above, too.
(Trying to post this again!)
Help! I’ve fallen and gan’t get up! (can’t seem to get a post through the spam filter)
Do < sup > < /sup > tags work? I tried earlier, didn’t seem to … (just nagging for another feature!)
“Of course this isn’t explained by Hadley cells. This is explained by the fact that Scottsbluff NE is in the rainshadow of Mountains. The weather is dominated by that– so read the “mountains†bit.”
Lucia, you are making this a very hostile site for me. If that’s what you want, then quit advertising this site as an open forum.
Have you ever been to Scottsbluff, NB. What mountains are you talking about? The Rockies? They are 150 miles to the west. A “rainshadow” 150 miles away. NOT. I spent a lot of time there, Lucia.
81: Lucia: I can’t understand what you are trying to say. Please calm down.
“Watts are not units of energy. They just aren’t.”
You are correct. I should have put watt-hr in these places. But 1 watt is equal to one watt-hour, numerically, despite what you may have read on CA. So it really makes no difference. One watt = 1 joule/sec = (1 joule/sec)(3600 sec/hr) = 3600 joules/hr = 1 watt-hr. IOW, 1 = 1. Why is this so hard to understand?
Edit: The argument for why watt-hours are the same as watts is beyond wrong.
Lucia, if you are going to run this blog, you should not be so hostile to divergent opinions. Otherwise, it is a joke.
“Let’s not ‘bite off’ more than we can chew on the first go-round; some of the concepts and factors involved are going to be non-obvious and buried in technical terms the first time, so let us get those understood first.”
OK, let’s follow your program here and see where it leads.
Jae– How is 150 miles to far to be in the rain shadow of mountains? Are you under the impression rain shadows only extend 5 miles? Or 10 miles?
Des Moines is far to the east of the Rockies and out of the rainshadow. Parts of Western Nebraska are not.
As to the forum: you may discuss what you wish. It’s open.
However, you can’t call people names, or refer to other people’s theories as “pie in the sky”. I’ll delete name calling. I will do this for everyone.
Had someone called you a name or referred top your theory as “pie in the sky”, I’d edit that too.
So far, no one has called you or your theory names, so I haven’t edited their comments.
Also, if a theory is based on mixing up units of power and energy, I’m going to point that out. I’ll do the same for any obvious mixing up of units.
======
@83– I am perfectly calm.
I’m trying to summarize what you seem to say to see if I understand it. You summarize it yourself this way:
So, as I see it what you are telling us is:
a) You are not advancing any theory.
b) You are asking us questions.
c) You ask us why Iraq is hotter in summer because, presumably, this puzzles you and you do not know.
d) humidity and aridity is somehow involved in these questions and in the non-theory.
e) You suggest your inability to explain why Iraq is hotter than the equator during the summer is as proof that AGW doesn’t happen. (Admittedly, this would contradict a, since the idea that this proves AGW doesn’t happen is, itself, a theory. )
That’s more or less as much as I get of the various collections of comments.
So…. is that about right?
If that’s not about right, you really are going to have to do what I suggested much earlier on:
Get a wordpress blog. Write posts laying out your argument, interlacing figures, equations etc. That way, people can have some chance of understanding the point you are trying to make.
The alternative of trying to make a point by asking rhetorical questions doesn’t work because no one can possibly figure out what point you are trying to make.
“e) You suggest your inability to explain why Iraq is hotter than the equator during the summer is as proof that AGW doesn’t happen. (Admittedly, this would contradict a, since the idea that this proves AGW doesn’t happen is, itself, a theory. )”
With all do respect, I think jae, like some of the rest of us is trying to discover why so much power is given to a tiny little gas in our atmosphere called CO2 , and if this theory (that comes from computer and laboratory) pans out at all in the REAL world. The fact that you can list all the mechanisms (or mountains if you will) that make Iraq hotter helps on the path to this discovery. I don’t think jae is completely unaware as to why Iraq is hotter, and doesn’t have a concept of distance or even geography, but he does want to find out where AGW that is supposed to be happening right NOW fits in.
Keep in mind, I live with a published, just as smart as anybody here, environmental scientist who thinks we could double and or triple the CO2 content of the atmosphere and it wouldn’t matter much He feels other forces are more important, like mountains water, the sun, orbit : tilts and wobbles, and always have been.
And sorry, you do sound a tad hostile and it doesn’t really feel at all like an “open forum”. I know, I have run one myself for a couple of years. And the fact that Steve Mosher and Larry are here taunting shows me Emotional IQs or (lack there of) is a real thing we can measure too.
@weilrocks– I am trying to understand what jae is trying to say.
I’m fine with Jae wondering about the importance of CO2. But what he is doing is asking questions about why certain places are hotter that others, and at particular times of year.
Initially, he only named these generally. However, when pressed, he has named two places: Lowlying areas in Iraq in summer, compared to the equator, and Scottsbluff NE, compared to parts further east.
In each case, we know why these places are hotter.
How does AGW fit into these answer? These places are hotter than the alternates if there is AGW. These places are hotter if there is no AGW.
As far as I can tell, these answers have nothing to do with AGW.
If that particular answer sounds hostile, I don’t know how I can word it otherwise.
here is a good source for you jae. get this book.
I’ll lnk one page
link to book
Thanks steven. That should be a great resource for someone who wants to understand why some places on the planet are hotter or colder than others.
another taste
link to book
Hey Lucia good morning.
I see what you mean, I think the “How does AGW fit into these answers” is not formulated yet (in jae’s mind). Give him the benefit of the doubt. He has been participating on CA a long time and I don’t think he is afraid to be wrong or afraid to make a mistake either. In my experience he’s a good guy. Something about the AGW and the green house theory just doesn’t sit right with people, at least the ones I am around..geologists and environmental geologists-maybe it’s physical geologic evidence over evidence coming from computer runs- physical over metaphysical type “thinking” or something like that… so people come to conclusions in different ways. do keep trying to understand and I don’t oppose you or anybody correcting what you think is said or formulated is wrong either. This is what science is all about.
Preview would be my friend!
hope that makes sense!
Thanks for the link, mosher.
As Larry pointed out at CA, ceteris paribus is a big issue here. I can control some variables, like latitude and elevation, as I’ve done over at esnips, but I cannot really control all but one in order to study its effect (cloud effects are an especially important variable that I can only semi-quantify by looking at solar insolation). But the proponents of AGW theory have the same problems, which is one reason the theory is not falsifiable. It just seems to me that the effect of GHGs (mainly water vapor) should be so large that it overwhelms other variables, if it is that important. There are 83 times more GHGs in the tropics than in the desert. Why isn’t it hotter in the tropics? Is the GHG effect in the tropics overwhelmed by clouds and the negative feedback from water evaporation?
Preview is coming Weil– Actually, what I’m trying to add is a feature that lets you edit your comments.
Lucia:
“Bear in mind: I think AGW is probable. So, for that reason, the nonsense here isn’t as much a problem for me.”
Since this is a free-for-all, and since you opened that can of worms, let’s be a little more precise. I believe that what you’re trying to say with that statement that you believe that it’s probable that the “A” element in AGW is significant enough to require remedies. Please correct me if I’m reading too much into that.
Assuming that I got that right, this segues into the whole discussion of remedies, which I think is what the real fight is about. We can talk all day and all night about the defects in the case for AGW, but the only reason why this is of any interest to anyone outside of a small circle of climate geeks is that it proposes to lever huge resources.
I believe that’s why CA has attracted so many engineers. It’s the engineers who realize the impracticality of the proposed “solutions”. Replacing incandescent bulbs will make a tiny dent in power demand, but barely measurable. Wind and solar will only be cameo players until a practical system of mass energy storage is devised. Biofuels will destroy the environment by agricultural overproduction, and make food unaffordable for most of the world in the process. And cap-and-trade, if implemented by the UN will become nothing more than oil-for-food rev. 2.0, by which UN kleptocrats can make themselves billionaires.
In short, I see no practical remedies proposed. Lomborg’s right. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen, and the resources would be better deployed on coping strategies, regardless of the cause.
89, is “beyond wrong” one step wronger than “not even wrong”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
Judith Curry provided some very insightful information over at CA on the Blog Management thread. She may have finally answered my question. Gotta think about it.
I think you are reading too much into this. What I mean is that temperatures have increased, and I think people have caused a non-negligible portion of this increase. What we should do about it is a separate question.
I do support alternative energy including nuclear, and have done so since the late 70s when I enrolled in college.
But, since I do believe that warming has occurred, it’s global, and people cause a non-negligible portion, and will say so, I don’t feel any need to suppress opposite opinions.
I think we can discuss any an all opinions. If over time, someone proposes a crackpot opinion, I see no harm in that. This is a blog– if we can’t discuss crackpot opinions, including showing their warts, where can we discuss them?
That said, there will be no rule requiring anyone to fail to point out serious flaws in opinions– provided you don’t just say “That’s a crackpot opinion!” Say what’s wrong or ignore it!
BTW: I installed a plugin to break comments into pages. Let me know what you think.
“I think you are reading too much into this. What I mean is that temperatures have increased, and I think people have caused a non-negligible portion of this increase.”
That kinda depends on what “non-negligible” means, which in turn depends on consequences. If it can be shown that there will be no serious consequences from a 10-degree increase, then 10 degrees is negligible. So it all hinges on things apart from the actual greenhouse theory and the temperature record.
This is why we really can’t talk about the IPCC WG1 topics without also talking about WG2 and WG3. Everyone’s focused on WG1, when the others are actually more important, and quite possibly more flawed, as well.
She may have finally answered my question.
jae, I sure hope so.
Pat, 107: Me too! 🙂
jae, you don’t seem to have a specific problem, at least not with thermodynamic propositions. You seem to have a problem in the way you dodge the good information that people give you. Andrey Levin has answered your question. lucia has answered your question. Judith Curry has answered your question. Every time you get a question answered, you back-pedal and change the question. You are the source of your own frustration.
HOH does different things in different places. It causes both positive and negative feedbacks, and whether it is a NET positive or negative depends on where you are on the globe and what part of the atmosphere you are talking about. In general, you have to distinguish between an *effect* and a *net result*. Otherwise you will continue to confuse the two. In some experimental setups an effect will dominate to explain a net result. In other experiments, there are more than one effect contributing to a net result. In those cases you can not judge whether an alleged effect is present until you control for the other effects. You can’t insist that not de done – it’s part of the analysis!
You will contine to frustrate yourself if you keep switching the experiment (the treatment vs. control comparison) every time someone gives you an explanation for how a given effect contributes to a given net result.
So far, there is nothing elitist in this assessment. It is purely observational.
The question is: why do you exhibit this kind of dodgy behavior? Maybe it is because you are a hardcore denialist. Maybe you are in total denial about how greenhouse effects operate and about how OHO can behave somewhat like OCO in some circumstances. If so, then just admit it.Edit:I’m trying to create guidelines while still letting people debate ideas. Please try to avoid applying words like “dodgy” to people’s behavior or labeling them.
Larry: You are right if one portion off IPCC theory is flawed then all of IPCC theorys are wrong. Where do you find 10 degrees?
If jae is a denialist, what we will find is that Judith Curry has not answered jae’s question. At least not to his satisfaction. Because he will change the experimental setup (locations of cities A and B or weather balloons C and D) and then claim that Judith’s explanation does not answer this NEW question.
And around it goes. “See how the global warmers can’t answer my questions? No matter what question I pose to them they have to invent a post-hoc explanation.”
The inevitable consequence is an interminable frustration with greenhouse theorists who, from his persepctive, are forever dodging the issue. (Trouble is, he is the one continually moving the target around.)
This is my prediction.
Dodgy? Only in that I dodge from one part of the planet to another. The same fundamental question has always been asked: “Why is it ALWAYS hotter in dry places than in wet places, at comparable latitudes and elevations?” I am an agnostic (and denialist is a very poor choice of words, IMHO). Until the zealots can prove their hypothesis in a clear manner, I will probably continue to be agnostic. If you believe in the Global Computer Models, you will believe in anything, IMHO. And as Larry B essentially said, I think, it should be an academic question, anyway, since (1) we reall cannot do anything about it, especially if China and India will not cooperate; (2) it will cause much more pain to try to “do something” than ignoring it. Also, Lucia et. al. have not ANSWERED my questions. They have posed POSSIBLE explanations. Judith may have answered it though.
Mike it was a hypothetical. I don’t think you followed the argument. The argument was that x degrees is a problem only if it can be shown that it creates unacceptable consequences. We can’t say a priori what x is, without an honest analysis of the consequences.
It follows from that that without an honest and accurate analysis of consequences, we can’t tell whether 1 degree or 3 degrees or 5 degrees is, to use Lucia’s word, “negligible”.
111, indeed. Judith didn’t even answer his question (which had to do with deserts), but it’s convenient now to pretend that that was a useful response.
Then, he’ll drag out the “greenhouse is heat capacity” thing again. I’m glad that Lucia drew the line at watts = watt-hours. That’s downright psychedelic.
jae, my “elitist” opinion is that you are definitely no crackpot. (imagined mosh to bender: “Don’t insult the crackpots.”) You are a lazy dog. (I know, I know: “don’t insult the dogs” 🙂 )
@Larry:
When I say “negligible” I mean that neglecting an effect would make no difference to an answer. So, say the “A” in AGW 1C. The temperature change has been 100C and we can only measure to 2C anyway. Clearly, the “A” part would be negligible, because we really can’t tell anyway and it’s probably less than rounding error.
I contrast, if the A part were 20C, the A part is not negligible. It is enough that to explain the answer, we probably need to account for it.
If the A part were 80C out of 100C, it would be dominant.
I think the “A” is probably not negligible in this sense.
The only thing “not neglibible” means is “can’t be neglected”. It doesn’t say whether it’s dominant or just big enough to not neglect. That leaves a lot of room.
BTW: If you all want to quote, you can now click on text in a comment and drag. The quote will appear in the comment box. Give it a try.
Meanwhile, those celebrating, I wish you God Yul!
lucia, would be interested in hearing your story about your estimate of thermal time constant.
116, By that definition, I don’t think there are very many people who would disagree with you. It would be difficult (but not impossible) to put together an explanation for why the overall effect would be hiding under the noise level. You’d have to have a negative feedback close to 1. That’s as unlikely as a 20 foot sea level rise.
This just illustrates why it’s so important to define our terms. I believe most people are more concerned with the question of what the consequences are going to be than the question of whether or not there’s a discernible signal.
114: Larry, you obviously don’t understand my question. Judith does. It’s about ghgs, not deserts.
Merry Christmas to all!
Merry Christmas Everybody!
_Jim
Too much noise – already!
Thinking today, the operative word to describe the action of both wv and CO2 in the matter of ‘keeping the earth warm’ (I notice we have not taken the basic first step outlined much earlier; I don’t think there is a chance to get these basic concepts locked in without going through a logical process that starts at the beginning and proceeds towards complexity, but I digress) is:
“backscatter”
Yes, backscatter, defined here for one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter (I come to the term backscatter via RADAR and other RF applications BUT it has a much wider applicability across the sciences).
Backscatter – the reflection of waves, particles, or signals back to the direction they came from. Including longwave IR from 288 deg K sources (e.g. earth surface).
Another way of characterizing the atmosphere (gaseous blanket surrounding earth) and its performance in the EM (Electro-Magnetic) domain is measure it in terms of its:
‘reflective’ (expressed as S-parameter magnitude values: S11=0< … 1 while S21=0 … <1)
and
‘absorptive’ (S-parm values: S11=0 and S21=0 … <1)
and
‘transmissive’ (S-parm values: S11=0 and S21=0< … 1)
nature in regard to gaseous’s blanket’s EM filtering ability across the complete radiative spectrum (from above ‘Blue light’ to near ‘DC’) from both the sun and from the earth (as a BB radiator); Otherwise (editorial now) how are we to make the jump into the ‘hyperdrive’ of understanding all affecting factors (including clouds/convection, solar wind and high energy particles, as well as man’s influence on this gaseous blanket that surrounds our earth) without some grasp of even the basic EM properties of this atmosphere (Hmmm … I may choose to use the term ‘gaseous blanklet’ to describe our atmosphere with a thermal ‘twist’ to it.)
Okay, Merry Christmas to all!
(Let me now press submit and see if Lucia will considers this input for other than a ‘route to null’ or the great bit-bucket in the sky!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsAbKc2LKwM&feature=related
make whatever associations you feel are warrented
RE 93. Taunting? I’m not taunting anyone. I gave Jae a link to a fine classic work by Geiger. Why? because jae has some interesting questions about local effects and nobody gets more local than Geiger. It struck me as work that would engage him, at once detailed
and theoretical.
If jae and I can share a text we can talk. Same with you and I welickrocks. If we can
share a text then we can talk, otherwise I reserve to engage in random fruitings
and enjoy myself at least.
@Larry–
And yet there is so much debate about whether or not there is a discernible signal. 🙂
In all honesty, there seem to be people denying there is a discernable signal. There also seem to be people seem to be insisting that, not only is the “A” signal dominant, but that this is known beyond all reasonable doubt. There also seem to be people insisting that even if there is doubt, we must act as if there is none.
So, in reality, I suspect we can get arguments about everything.
You guys are trying to find controversial claims at Jae reasoning and confront it. Try to separate rational grain from his explanations, because IMO it is worth discussing. My understanding of what Jae is trying to explain is as follows:
At tropical and near-tropical regions availability of water to evaporation (ocean and wet land surface) projects negative feedback to any external radiative forcing, resulting in decrease of max daily near-surface regional air temperatures. No more no less. And it is pretty obvious to me that it is right.
Lucia, do you agree with this narrowed Jae’s claim? Or it is mountains, inversion, intervention, Hadley cells, Al Gore visit effect, etc.?
PS, CoolThought: you can count me as hardcore AGW (Climate Change) denialist for any detectable climate anomalies. The only exception is substantial increase in atmospheric CO2, which I find extremely advantageous for Earth biosphere for me and my kids (not invitation to discussion). I am trying hard to insulate this POV from my thoughts on thermo elementary.
>
Sure, HOH is a GHG. But unlike OCO it is not only a GHG. Because it can exist in three phases simultaneously (gas, liquid, solid) it is also implicated in a massive hydrological cycle which is a powerful negative feedback on Earth’s climate. But the fact of the latter does not rule out the former. (Take note jae!) And it certainly does not disprove that OCO is a GHG. Nor does it disprove the GHG effect in general – which is what jae has tried to argue in the past. If he wants to argue instead that the negative feedback component of the HOH cycle is of over-riding importance (compared to a weak GHG effect of OCO or HOH or CH4, etc) then that kind of argument is qualitatively acceptable, but will require numbers. In which case we will all want some popcorn.
No. The only thing I see that Jae has shown is the thing we all already know:
When we heat is applied over bodies of water, some of that heat goes into evaporation, and some into temperature rise. When it’s applied over dry areas, it only goes into temperature rise.
This is one of the many factors involved in why humid areas are not quite as hot dry areas at equal latitudes.
This is not a negative feedback, and happens both in the presence and absence of any greenhouse effect.
All that happens when you heat over the ocean is this:
1) Some of the heat at the surface causes evaporation instead of temperature rise.
2) That hot moist air rises and cools.
3) The water condences and it rains. The air aloft then is just as hot (or hotter) than it would have been had it been dry when heated at the surface.
4) The air over the equator moved poleward, hits the downleg of the Hadley cell, and now it’s hotter than ever in Iraq.
So, once again: The reason it’s hotter in Iraq is exactly the same with or without greenhouse effects of water.
So, there is no negative feedback. What happens with GHG’s is at the equator, the surface air gets little hotter and the humidity increases a little. Then, aloft at the equator, the air gets much hotter. Then when that air arrives in Iraq, it’s hotter that it would have been.
The planet is still heated. No negative feedback.
For negative feedback, you need to discuss radiative properties of water vapor. Jae hasn’t discussed these yet.
Do you have the link to the comment where she answered your question. I looked on unthreaded, but didn’t see it quickly.
@Jae– Yes. Many Steppes are in Rain Shadows or very near them. (There isn’t a bright line dividing the “in/out” demarcation.)
From some class somewhere:
Rain Shadow
Jae, water can exert negative feedback wherever it exists in significant quantities, but it doesn’t exist in significant quantities at the top of the troposphere, so CO2 can do its thing there without ‘interference’ from water vapor.
Judith also included the poles, which is true (though there isn’t much solar warming there).
Lucia: it’s on the Blog Management thread.
Jae– All I see are graphs showing humid places are generally cooler than dry places at similar latitudes and altitudes. But no one is disputing that. We know this frequently occurs for the same reason rain shadows occur. So, unless you’ve done something to quantitatively account for how deeply places are inside rain shadows, there is nothing further to explain.
Oh– also, the fact that evaporative cooling can occur doesn’t mean there isn’t more heat added somewhere. It just means the heat went into evaporation. Later, when that water condenses, it releases the latent heat and heats the air wherever it happens to condense.
But OCO doesn’t appear to be “doing its thing” there, either, according to the latest research by Christy’s group? It’s not happening in the mid troposphere, either. Why? Could it possibly be due to a flawed theory of how greenhouse gases work? That’s what keeps intriguing me. The UA work is about as close to falsification of the theory as we can see, so far. You gotta wonder, don’t you? If you don’t wonder, maybe you are not approaching this from a scientific perspective?
Yes, but think about where this happens. Except for dew, it has nothing to do with your comfort.
So all steppes are in rain shadows???
BTW, what do rain shadows have to do with warming, anywat? Please explain YOUR theory.
Lucia, have fun…..[munching popcorn…]
The troposphere is around 16 km high at the equator, with the temperature at the tropopause around –80 °C. At the poles, the troposphere reaches a height of around 8 km, with the temperature of the tropopause around –40 °C in summer and –60 °C in winter.
Therefore, despite the higher surface temperatures, the tropical tropopause is much cooler than at the poles.
Sorry, Lucia, but you are delusional. Learn about principle of Le Chatelier before applying numerical solutions of analytically insolvable equations to draw qualitative conclusions.
@Andrey– What numerical solutions have I applied to any insolvable problems?
Lucia: thanks for the diagram. I agree with all that, and it offers a partial explanation for some places, though not all. Notice how cool it is where all the greenhouse gases are? Where is the greenhouse gas effect here? That’s all I’m wondering about.
Evaporative cooling doesn’t stop working because of GHG’s. If GHG’s caused extra heating on the “cool / moist side” of the mountain, all you would see is the temperature on that side would rise a bit, and more water would be evaporated. So, on the diagram, you might see the Dry Bulb temperature or 21C and the wetbulb 13 c instead of 20C and 12C.
Now this somewhat hotter air climbs up the mountian and cools. I’m not going to do the math, but let’s just say it cools to -1C instead of -2C Water condenses or freezes and falls on the mountain side. The air is now dryer, and travels down the mountain.
When it reaches the bottom, it is hot and dry– but say 29C dry bulb with 5C wet bulb instead of 28C/4C. (Disclaimer: I did not do the math to pull up the correct corresponding wet bulb or dry bulbs. I just added 1C on both sides of the mountain as an example.)
You can do the math for this problem. It’s just an adiabatic expansion on the way up. You need to account for the water condensing (as you would in a dehumidifier.) Then, you do the calc for an adiabatic compression on the way down.
So…. you see… either way, you get hot/dry on one side and cool/moist on the other.
The key thing is the existence of this correlation alone tells us practically nothing about whether or not GHG’s are acting anywhere. It’s expected to exist regardless.
So… if you think there is some information about AGW in that data, you need to do a heck of a lot of very sophisticated work to explain why. Because: Yes there is a correlation. Yes, it’s expected. It’s expected with or without any GHG type effects!
I hope I’m not being a pest with this, but watching this exchange reminds me of an old joke about a person asking a pilot why they take polar routes, when the polar route is obviously longer on a 2d map. The pilot explains in very careful detail why the polar route is actually the shortest on a spherical surface. The person then asks why they take the long route, when the shortest route is a straight line.
I wish you well Lucia, I don’t think you can give a right answer to someone who seem intent on asking the wrong question.
So all arid areas, including the Great Plains are hotter, due to rain shadows? With the winds being predominantly northerly?
Larry et al, its pretty obvious that the lot of you “men online” here just don’t like jae.
jae, keep picking away at those micro climates. None of your questions are wrong. I have a normal, pretty darn manly, off to work earth scientist, who is open , passionate and hones with me right now that says so. (These other guys need to get a life)
pretty hard to find the AGW “signal” anywhere around here were we live. Record low temps in our So Cal area (next to the ocean) and still holding. 2001 winter temps were the record low of all time (since records kept). If that doesn’t matter some how, we don’t no what does. Cheers!
sheesh, typos “passionate and honest” and of course “we don’t KNOW what does”
Another little thought experiment. You’re in Scottsbluff, NB in July bucking hay bales. It’s noon and 90 F. You get a thunderstorm which raises the RH by 10 percent. After the storm passes it still doesn’t go above 90 F, despite the addition of all that water vapor in the air (ghgs). Why? Where’s the greenhouse effect?
Rocks, thanks. I realize that I may be wrong, here. Sometimes I’m dense, and it takes me a long time to “come around.” But I gotta persist until I figure it out. And I enjoy the banter.
Hey, we do like jae. He’s kinda cute with his strongly-held positions. We would ignore him if we didn’t like him.
However, we also appreciate logical, flexible thinking…
Let’s take Scottsbluff, NE as an example of a Great Plains city. I am basing my choice on your suggestion.
Here is the windrose:
Notice the wind rarely comes from the north. Rather, the two most frequent wind directions are NW and ESE.
When the wind come directly from the NW, it has just descended from mountains, and continues descending as it travels from the corner of Wyoming to Scottsbluff. So, with regard to the isentropic compression aspect, one would expect the air mass to tend to get dryer and hotter as it travels toward Scottsbluff.
From google maps
When the wind comes from the ESE, it travels more or less from MO or Iowa which are at higher elevation than Scottsbluff. The air travels over dry parts of Kansas. In either case, the general tendency is for the elevation to mostly drop as the air travels toward Scottsbluff. With regard to the isentropic compression argument, the air will get dryer and hotter as it travels to Scottsbluff.
In the event that the air should come from the north, it will sometimes pass over that tall bit in North Dakota, dropping out more water. (Though, this is a small tall bit.) But, in anycase, the air rarely comes from the north, so that doesn’t matter much.
In the event that the air comes from the west or south west, it has traveled over mountains. Therefore: hot and dry.
In fact, there is almost no path to Scottsbluff where air does not undergo an adiabatic compression before getting there. The issue is not “was water squeezed out by an adiabatic compression”, it is “How much water will be squeezed out.”
Yes. The dry parts of the prairies tend to get air that has been adiabatically compressed and is hotter and dryer than the surrounding areas, in part, because of this effect.
jae, good, We like the banter too. LOL
The Earth IS really made up of micro climates after all, and we find it interesting that folks get their pants in a knot when you focus in on it-right or wrong, “silly to do so” or not. We went to see family on the island of Oahu over thanksgiving. We drove around the island a couple of times while we were there, and experienced several different climates- desert, rain forest, tropical beach, etc in less then a couple of hours, even in the span of minutes too, so we were talking about AGW and and all this while we were there.
@weilrocks:
Do I look manly?
No, Lucia, I didn’t mean to include you in the lot, that’s why I said men in the first place. Unless you want to be included in the not liking jae bunch? LOL
@Weil– I’m the one contradicting jae most often, so I just wondered if you were suggesting your husband was suggesting I was doing that because I am a manly man. 🙂
By the way people, if you want to quote something from a comment, select the text with your mouse. Then click outside the selection. The quote will get shoved into the comment box. Very handy. 🙂
Lucia, I dunno, he was reading the “denialist” “lazy dog” jibs and jabs kinda comments here, with only an assertion of “we know better then you do” elite type tones, but then the same lot appealing to someone else like Judy Curry or to M.Simon over at CA to answer jae’s “silly” questions..and so following the talk from CA to here and noticing the “lot of men” comments toward jae we make the observations.
You take the time to banter, not bash and provided a place to have the conversation in the first place. 🙂
@weilrocks– Oh shoot. I missed the “lazy dog” bit. I’m trying to insert “don’t do that please” things.
That’s what I get for speed-reading the comments while laced with “Christmas cheer”.
I’m trying to get preview to work today– and also get quicktags working.
I also need to figure out if the comments displaying the way they do works well with caching. (I don’t cache yet because I don’t have tons of traffic yet.)
Er, you better check your elevations. Scottsbluff is about 1200 meters and Des Moines is 294.
Re the “lazy dog” bit, I admitted I was one to bender once. 🙂
@152 Pat:
That’s good 🙂 I don’t see any strongly held positions in jae’s comments though..just picking away and curious type comments. Unless you mean in the overall AGW thing being “real”? Heck, the data sucks! Yay I can say it! LOL SteveM has snipped me when I have over at CA.
My husband is gone to work now, but he says maybe some parts of the Earth are warming yes, yet some might not be at all-and we can’t know if what we see happening now is “abnormal” and make claims as if it is no matter the CO2 content in the atmosphere. You can’t look at past climate and temperatures that closely and on top of that he is a wobble-guy…the earth’s wobbles small and large-he’s studied some pretty trippy stuff about them and the “dance” going on in the universe.. they are key and you can see their imprint and pattern down to the molecular level as well as on a bigger scale. (I hate trying to explain on behalf of his brain, but I swear the scientists I have spoken too, the folks he hangs out with are way more broader in thinking and CO2 is way too simple to be the powerful light switch some claim it is)
“CO2 is way too simple to be the powerful light switch some claim it is)”
Maybe I shouldn’t say it like that. Its more like “C02, that tiny small amount of gas in our atmosphere” (even if it is tripled) might not be that powerful light switch (for that whole Earth and its -climates-) some claim it to be”
If that’s as sophisticated as your argument gets, don’t get upset when you’re not taken seriously. I don’t give Gore a pass when he says things that overly simplistic, and I’m not going to give anyone else a pass, either. That may be your intuition, but that’s not a scientific argument.
Ha ha! I beat him to the punch. 😉
@Jae– Good gracious. I looked at the topo map. Scottsbluff is basically surrounded by higher elevations with a river running through it.
Yes, the airmasses are generally compressed as the get to Scottsbluff. Are the compressed all the time? No. But you are supposedly looking at correlations, so what happens on average matter.
As to the wind direction in Scottsbluff, the wind direction is channeled. The windrose tells us almost nothing about the prevailing motion of weather masses (which is generally westerward over most the US). Though, you are correct that the elevation drops toward the east, that doesn’t affect Scottsbluff, because the airmasses likely never really come from the east. Survade winds can be channeled when coming from the south. (Winds are channeled by building in chicago. We can have local north/south winds down major streets when the prevailing wind aloft is westerly.)
As for the rain to the east: There is still some isentropic compression as we go east toward DesMoines. So, to an extent, things would dry out. However, we get big excursion– and in the Chicago/ DesMoines area, we get a lot of rain or snow when gulf air hits polar air. It’s difficult for htis gulf air to travel against the western tendency of weather in over the continent, so it can’t get to eastern Nebraska.
Jae: this effect exists. It’s rather pointless to simply ask questions rather than knuckle down and see how much of the correlation you found is explicable by known factors.
I’m taking you at your word that you really want to understand this. If that is true, what you should do is:
a) enroll in an introduction to meteorology course that covers the relevant thermo and/or
b) contact the local climatologist in key hot/dry cold/moist areas, and ask them why these locations are hot and dry.
Otherwise, if your position is nothing more than an endless stream of semi-rhetorical questions, you will find that no one takes your position seriously. This will be in part because
a) You periodically say you have no theory. This means there is no position to be considered, really and
b) Because whatever your position might be is opaque.
You will also then do some analysis yourself to see if the accepted explanations explain the data.
Only after you have shown that widely accepted explanations of weather do not explain the correlations you found (which are expected to exist under normal weather models) will you get anyone to think that data says anything novel.
In the meantime, people will say: Yes, that data looks exactly as I would expect.
The difficulty is that she is not picking away. She is just posting curious types of comments.
To pick away, she would have to provide explanations for the data she thinks she has. She repeatedly says she has no theory.
If she has none to explain what she sees, then there can be no picking away.
OK, let’s say you are correct. Now where does the “greenhouse effect” manifest itself? It doesn’t have a stronger effect than the factors you have listed? It should still be hotter where it is wetter, if the greenhouse effect is being described correctly. Why isn’t it?
Lucia, you talking to me? My theory of what?
Fractals on grains of sand showing all kinds of things, even rain and or orbital patterns?
Here’s a scan of a graph of CO2 concentrations that was cited in my husband’s thesis. We scanned the page from this other paper. We’ve shared it before. http://i13.tinypic.com/6xj7rzc.jpg
That’s the world where I am coming from. That’s what you guys are arguing with jae about..that little tiny spot near 0 on that graph. And when I look at that graph, I think about how many times the earth’s climate has changed from warm TO cold and visa versa during that tiny little amount of time near 0 on that graph when CO2 was in larger amounts in our atmosphere and how many times maybe in a 50, 20, 100, 1,000 year time span (who knows) climate looked just like now from the plains to the poles if we took a snap shot. That’s why it is interesting to look at mirco climate and also wonder why CO2 or the Green House effect is being sold to the public the way it is right now. You tell me.
@Weilrocks,
I’m responding to your comment about jae.
As to the “She isn’t picking away”, I was contradicting your suggestion that she is picking away.
I used “she” because I assumed based on your husband’s theory about the guys not liking jae that jae is a woman. The theory seemed to be one of sexism? Or something else? (I really didn’t get what was supposed to be causing the dislike of jae according to the theory you posted, other than, possibly sexism.)
Anyway, I know you and I are “she’s”. I know Pat is a “he” because I asked him. I’ve assumed Larry is a “he” because Larry is usually a man’s name in English. “Jae” is not a name I recognize, so I’m going by the apparent theory of sexism toward Jae’s views? Did I misunderstand the theory of why “the guys” supposedly don’t like jae?
Geez. LOL..jae is picking away..at the micro climate. That’s what I meant. Larry SteveMo, bender…are the “guys” picking on jae. I am assuming bender is a guy…
Never mind. LOL There’s a bunch of people being rather rude …didn’t mean it to sound sexist, (they are thumping their chests a bit) at jae, and my husband said outloud “they just don’t like him” from reading the comments.
jae it sure feels hotter where it is wetter. Aren’t you more likely to get heat stroke in the jungle when it is really hot, more than in the desert when it’s really hot at the same temp? The “dry” heat compared to the “moist” heat? Sort of like the wind chill factor makes the temps seem colder then they are on the thermometer.
LOL. I’m a he, for the record. Not gay, either.
Ok… so … I see we are going forward on the premise that, you no longer dispute the well understood mechanics, which is this:
When air undergoes an isentropic expansion, and water condenses, and then it undergoes an isentropic compression, it becomes hotter. When a geographic location is located where air arrives after climbing over mountains and coming down or on the downleg of any isentropic compression, the location will be hot and dry.
So, when examining surface temperatures on the world, hot and dry are expected to be positively correlated. This will occurs in the presense or absense of GHGs.
This is the current premise– according to the first sentence in you paragraph.
Why do you ask in this context?
It has nothing to do with the “hot is dry” “cold is wet” association which is due to the application of the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The GHG was not involved in this demonstration. Asking this question is sort of like establishing that the US is in North America and then asking “So, then who invented spaghetti?”
Is this a question? Why would GHG’s have a stronger effect on the local temperature of air climbing over tall mountains or even high hills? Or air rising thousands of meters as when circulating in a Hadley cell?
Is this an answer to your own rhetorical questions? Followed by another question?
The effects you conceded in the first sentence of your paragraph already explain the data that you find puzzling. That effect is a consequence of first and second laws of thermodynamics, and not any GHG effect. The 1st and 2nd laws are well accepted. So, in that sense, there is nothing left to explain.
That is: nothing to explain unless someone advances a theory that the effect of GHG should countervail these somewhat local effects (with local covering areas as large a Nebraska, the Sahara or Iraq.)
As far as I am aware, no one other than you has suggested the GHGs should countervail these effects. So, if you have a theory, then it is up to you to show this matters.
If, you switch back to, you don’t have a theory: then if no one has a theory suggesting that GHG’s have such a strong effect as to counter the rainshadow effect, than no-one needs to disprove the non-theory.
Basically: No one (other than you) suggests GHGs have the effect you suggest. If you are suggesting it, it’s up to you to prove it.
173, Rocks: Yes, it FEELS much hotter when it’s humid, for at least two reasons. Water vapor has a high heat capacity (double that for N2 and O2), so when you get “hit” by a water molecule, you can get more heat. Also, and probably more important, the water vapor in the air inhibits your natural perspiration cooling system from functioning. In dry air, the perspiration can easily evaporate, which is a very strong cooling mechanism.
lucia: You got me off on a tangent with your explanations of why it’s hotter where it’s dryer. The factors you listed are certainly part of the explanation. I really don’t care WHY. What I care about is why it’s not as hot in humid areas where there is 4 times as much greenhouse gas in the air (water vapor) than there is in the dry areas. Why doesn’t the so-called “greenhouse effect” make it much hotter in the humid areas (same latitude, elevation)? If I understood Dr. Curry correctly, it may be because after a certain humidity is reached, all the IR wavelengths that water vapor can absorb is absorbed, so additional water vapor can’t absorb more and doesn’t add to the greenhouse effect. But if this is true, I don’t dig the water vapor feedback thing, except possibly where humidity is quite low (near the poles, e.g.). I’m about to give up, because you just don’t seem to understand the question.
Jae. You specifically asked me to explain this so I did. If Judy has explained your other question, that’s great.
So, I take it you know both understand why hot&dry are positively correlated (with or withoug ) GHGs. And you also know why the GHG effect doesn’t over ride this, based on Judy’s explanation. Right?
Ran out of popcorn, as predicted 🙂
Well… at least I showed you a pretty picture right after you started munching! 🙂
Correction. I like jae. Just as I love my lazy dog. 🙂
What kind of scientist is incapable of distinguishing between global versus local effects? I suppose that is just an alarmist device?
No. Let’s look at it this way. Remember Hanson’s (maybe it was Gore?) figure showing hundreds of lightbulbs covering the earth to represent the energy coming from CO2? Picture a lightbulb every square inch in the desert for the energy coming from water vapor. Now compare this with 4 lightbulbs every square inch in humid areas. Shouldn’t it be hotter in the humid areas? Is the ghg effect less strong than the effects you described? Is it a puny effect?
my children are hearing floods, heavy rain, hurricanes “extreme weather” growing deserts, rising ocean.. so it sounds to me like the Green House Effect affects the climate! 😉
177 Jae what about the height of the sky? which it mentions here:
“The troposphere is around 16 km high at the equator, with the temperature at the tropopause around –80 °C. At the poles, the troposphere reaches a height of around 8 km, with the temperature of the tropopause around –40 °C in summer and –60 °C in winter.
Therefore, despite the higher surface temperatures, the tropical tropopause is much cooler than at the poles. ”
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/education/secondary/teachers/atmosphere.html
The green house roof is peaked and lumpy apparently-like all things in nature. 😉
spell check doesn’t recognize tropopause. is it a new word?
affect/effect maybe that is the question? Where does the GHE manifest itself?
1.Effect: Something brought about by a cause or agent; a result.
2. A scientific law, hypothesis, or phenomenon
3.The condition of being in full force or execution
1.Affect; To have an influence on or effect a change in
2. To act on the emotions of; touch or move.
3. To attack or infect, as a disease
Jae. Let’s be completely clear about this one tiny but extremely important point. The GHE is not exclusively a local phenomenon. It can, and usually does, release the heat away from the humid area. I’ve told you this before. Lucia has told you this before. I’m sure several others have. It isn’t a localized surface phenomenon.
And it doesn’t even matter that a photon from the surface is absorbed near the surface. That molecule can and usually does reemit. So forget the greenhouse effect as a local effect. For that matter, you don’t even know the optical length in the desert. It will probably surprise you how short a distance it is to the first water molecule. Even in the desert, you have thousands of ppm of water in the air.
And don’t forget the Arrhenius (logarithmic) dependence, either. The first little bit of any GHG does a lot more than the last bit, so the difference in absorbence between desert air and tropical air isn’t that great.
You’re not going to see the effects of humidity near the surface, and to the extent that you do, there won’t be a dramatic difference between deserts and swamps.
In fact, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_humidity
At 40 C (104 F), 100% RH is 50 g/kg. So if the desert air is 10% RH, that’s 5 g/kg, or 5000 ppm. Quite a bit more than CO2. So yes, jae, there’s water greenhouse effect in deserts. A lot, as a matter of fact.
Let’s try that at the poles, now. Look at the chart for -20C (a warm day at the poles). Now you have about 1 g/kg for saturated air. Quite a bit drier at the poles than in the Sahara. How you like them apples?
And at the tropopause, we have about -50C, which means a hell of a lot less HOH than at even the polar surface.
186, very true. Which makes for a very complicated system, where most of the material is near the surface, but much heat is still transported by convection of vapor and a evaporative/condensing system. And this mechanism bypasses the greenhouse.
But Arrhenius once again equalizes things, and makes the high concentrations at the surface less important, and the low concentrations higher up more important.
Bottom line, it’s a mess. It’s not at all obvious how it all works out.
187
Yes, indeed.
My picture of the system at the moment is that water-vapor heat transport and cloud-cover dominate up to the cloud tops (or to about 25,000 ft for CAVU conditions), while the CO2 GHG effect is significant only above that (if at all — I still haven’t seen a convincing analysis of it).
Through most of the IR spectrum from Earth there is quite a bit of emission from the water vapor at lower altitudes, and some (but a lot less) emission from -50C CO2 through the 15u partial window in the HOH spectrum.
So jae may have a point. However, I’m still working on an understanding of the whole thing.
Remember also that the density keeps dropping as you get higher, so there’s less of everything way up there.
I would think that modeling the upper layers is a relatively straightforward process once you have good composition data. There are no fluid mechanical issues up there, for one thing. The ugly part is the troposphere. That’s where all the interesting and not very predictable stuff happens.
Larry
The point I’m trying to make is this:
1. The energy is ultimately lost by radiation.
2. Therefore, the IR data measured from space is the critical information,
3. That shows that the vast majority of the IR seen by the satellite is from lower-altitude emission, apparently from water, vapor or clouds (outside of the poles).
4. There is a little IR from upper-altitude (-50C) CO2, but it appears to be small compared with the IR described in #3 above.
Based on this, you have to wonder if CO2 is at all important.
I wasn’t aware of #3. Am I understanding correctly, that the satellites are detecting most radiation from low, so that we can say with confidence that the mean free path of a photon in the upper atmosphere is pretty long? How do they determine the altitude from which a particular photon came?
I don’t know what you mean by “localized phenomenon” here. If you are talking about the eastern half of the USA, compared to almost all the western half, then yes, it’s localized. 🙂 I agree that the IR may all be “used up” by the amount of water vapor present over deserts and that any extra beyond that doesn’t do anything (kinda what Judith Curry was saying, I think)(like the logarithmic effect of additional OCO). But then the notion of “positive water vapor feedback” from the heat supposedly retained and emitted by CO2 won’t work, except where there is very, very low humidity (the poles and TOA?). BUT, what about what the satellites are showing. Why aren’t the mid and upper troposphere warming as much as the surface (let alone, MORE). Why is the so. hemisphere getting colder? The GHG theory does not seem to be working.
191 Larry
They compare the intensity distribution in wave-number with that of a black body at several different temperatures to indicate the emission temperature. Assuming that is reasonably accurate (and I am still trying to determine that), this then gives a good estimate of the altitude.
If I can figure out either (a) how to post an image here, or (b) remember where I got the image from, you can see what I mean.
test
What lucia was saying about compression and adiabatic heating certainly plays a role in some places. However, I think the real trump card is the amount of solar radiation that reaches the surface. It’s about twice as much in the dry areas in the summer. In the humid areas, much of the insolation gets trapped by the water vapor and clouds, or gets reflected to space. Is that negative feedback? I think so. And I think that reinforces what Lindzen and many of the climate scientists are saying.
12/165
mr welikesrocks says: maybe the same kind of scientist that can’t keep from talking about plate tectonics when they are talking to you about earthquakes?
Larry and Pat, now you’re really talkin!
Just some stuff/trivia mr.welikerocks says matters to the conversation:
there would not be any atmosphere on earth without gravity and the atmosphere is trying to escape into space -and new atmosphere is being created at the same time every day.
“Incidentally, the name greenhouse effect is a bit of a mis-
nomer. The name comes from botanical greenhouses, usu-
ally built mostly of glass, which keep the air inside them
warmer than it would be otherwise. These greenhouses trap heat simply by not letting hot air rise, which is very different from the way infrared absorption traps heat and
leads to the “greenhouse effectâ€in planetary atmospheres.”
(But you knew all that)
This article linked below is where I got that quote above and also put something else into perspective for me at least, it says if you had a globe of the world on your desk, the atmosphere would be about as thick as a dollar bill if you draped one over that globe.
Planetary atmospheres:
http://dipastro.pd.astro.it/planets/barbieri/schneider/astronomia/CosmicPerspective_Ch10.pdf.
Also, stratospheric stuff and the “tropics” for you jae:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_stratospheric_warmings
and here:
Quasi-biennial oscillation or QBO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QBO
…surfing on from above I found a comment by Lindzen about the tropical/equator sea surface temps. He said there is evidence that the sea surface temps around the equator haven’t changed much at all in billions of years. I lost where I read that though. I will keep looking…
Since the Zamboni went through CA, anybody up for a continuation of the discussion on sequestration?
192, First of all, you have to stop confusing feedback with greenhouse effect. You’re scrambling all of these different things together, and then wondering why none of it makes any sense.
Carbon sequestration can be discussed here.
Thanks for the links, WLR. The quote above is interesting, and I hope you can find the citation. It sounds reasonable to me, since I wonder if the tropical temperatures can really get much higher, due to all the water that has to be evaporated to do so. When they go slightly higher, it just rains more. I could see how they could get lower, though.
191 Larry
Regarding the graphs of IR emission that I referred to, they can be found posted by Hans Erren (post 253612) at
http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=16928&start=81
So the idea is that you match the segment of the curve to the known temperature at that elevation, and that gives you the elevation?
??. If you have water vapor feedback from increased CO2, that feedback has to act via the greenhouse effect, no? If there is already sufficient HOH in the atmosphere to absorb all available IR (at the correct frequencies for HOH), then how can it get hotter by adding additional water vapor? If you DON’T have sufficient water vapor to absorb all the IR, then why isn’t the greenhouse effect stronger in humid areas than in deserts? (If it was stronger, then the humid areas would be at least as hot as the deserts, no?)
So … jae … got it figured out yet? Where’s the lively banter?
spam filter has me, arrrggggh
jae’s post for today disappeared bender.
Larry refers to it on page 9 #2.
I saw it this morning.
Applicability to argument: jae’s contention that hot, dry areas experience higher temperatures on account of the reduced H2O (do the <sup> tags work yet Lucia???) available.
Background; set the stage, tie into the conscious stream of contemporaneous thought –
Andrey:
Lucia:
Let us examine a brief period in history which I lived, not quite a decade ago in the year 1998; we also set a record in my immediate area (broke old record on 6 May 1998 of 95 with new figure of 100 deg. F).
Texas was experiencing a bit of a drought, which lead to less water available for evaporation. Since this included a goodly portion of central Texas we can eliminate the effects of adiabatic heating due to mountains in the immediate proximity.
I extract this paragraph summarizing the event (I will place a link further down for those more interested in this event):
Source of above extract: http://www.met.tamu.edu/met/osc/tx/maybul98.html
Pat:
Pat, I need a clarification, or I may drift to assume ‘the worst’ as the saying goes. Maybe I missed the original reference and lost context (it looks like, perish the thought, that the ‘thread’ numbers got jumbled!)
I think people may be prone to assume that radiative cooling during half the diurnal cycle is not a serious ‘contender’ in the heat movement business!
crickets
replies to comments at CA:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2517#comment-183797
#446 I’m not taunting. I’m genuinely curious to know what he’s learned.
#447 I did not know there was a posting problem.
#448 CA is the wrong forum for thermo speculation.
182 Larry
I believe so. The tricky bit is going from the IR to temperature, I think. For the broader spectrum, I think it’s straightforward, but the dips are trickier.
If there is a small section of the spectrum which is lower, it seems to me it could be two things: (i) the radiation is coming from a colder part of the atmosphere, or (ii) the absorptivity, and thus emissivity, are low in that wave-number range.
I tried to liven things up a little by getting Gunnar over here, but he didn’t take the invite.
test
You taunt Gunnar, but he at least he understands that (1) temperature is meaningless, and (2) climate is spatial, not temporal average. From these basic misconceptions all your mistakes about GHE descend. If he were here he would eat you for lunch.
Actually, no. He was arguing the opposite. But that was on one day. Maybe he was arguing what you’re arguing on another day.
One of these days he’s going to start arguing with himself.
This thing on?
testing testing 123
Due to a spam karma malfunction (caused by my using default setting for the snowball effect), some frequent commenters got “auto-spanked”.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have SpamKarma running, and auto-spanking deleted everyone of jae’s comments in a way I was unable to retrieve. (I am not happy wiht SpamKarma!)
I set the snowball effect to permit 20 comments a day (the default is 3!), and turned on Akismet so that, at least, when auto-spanking occurs, I can retrieve the comments!
I’ve also whitelisted the IPs for all frequent commenters.
Anyhow, 188 (Gunnar), that was the opposite of what I heard. Maybe he argues the opposite depending on who he’s arguing with. Maybe one of these days he’ll start arguing with himself.
I’m still getting espanked.
I seem to have recovered Jae’s comments– how I do not know. I don’t know quite why Larry’s comment hung up, but it was in the Akismet queue. I’ve recovered, and I’ve got all frequently commenters in the IP whitelist.
I’ve fixed “snowball” to stop getting suspicious when someone comments more than 3 times in 3 days. (It’s up to 20 comments for 1 day.)
Anyway, give it a try. If you have trouble, email me at lucia # thedietdiary.com Only… not the # 🙂
One more test…
Glad you got the blog fixed. Didn’t matter much, since I have 6 grandchildren here (oldest is 12) and there hasn’t been much time for this frivolity.
Let me take a different tack here. Doubled CO2 is supposed to emit 3.7 watts/m^2 (which BTW is also equivalent to 3.7 watt-hr/m^2 ENERGY 🙂 ). Now, the total insolation reaching the earth in mid-latitudes averages about 9 kwh/m^2/day in the summer and about 4.5 kwh/m^2/day in the winter. This is equivalent to 9,000/24 = 375 watt-hr/m^2 and 4,500/24 = 187 watt-hr/m^2 in summer and winter, respectively. So I am being told that doubled CO2 will contribute anywhere from 3.7/375 = 1 percent to 3.7/187 = 2 percent of the total energy at the surface. That is, 0.05 percent of the atmosphere would contribute 1-2 percent of the energy?
There is about 6 g/m^3 water vapor in the air above very dry places. This is 1/3 mole and translates into 0.74 percent of the air volume = 7400 ppm. In moist places there is about 20 g/m^3 water vapor—about 1.1 mole/m^3 or about 2.5 percent, or 25,000 ppm water vapor. Now, if CO2 contributes 1-2 percent of the energy at the surface, am I to also believe that the other 98-99 percent of the energy is from the greenhouse effects of this water vapor?
If I am to believe that, then how much energy does each gram of water vapor contribute toward this greenhouse effect, and why is’nt more contributed in wet areas than in dry areas? Is the amount of water vapor above the deserts (7400 ppm) enough to absorb (and re-emit) all the IR available (proper wavelengths, of course), so that the extra water vapor in humid areas makes no difference to the greenhouse effect?
And if that is true, how do you get a “postitive water vapor feedback” from adding CO2?
Jae:
I’m not going to check your numbers specifically, but why would this be the slightest bit surprising about this, if true?
I have no idea what you are to believe. Why don’t you tell us what you believe and explain why you believe it?
Did I misunderstand you when you previously told us you accepted Judy Curry’s explanation of this? And other people’s explanations?
If you don’t accept her explanation, could you tell us what you believe and why you believe it?
Is the amount insufficient to do this? If not, could you explain why not?
If all what is true? You asked a series of rhetorical questions without providing any answers with no conclusions.
If you have a theory, opinion or sort of explanation or claim about something, advance it. Then explain to use why you think the theory is true.
That will be a lot less confusing to people trying to understand what you are trying to discover or even ask.
Jae. You need a tutorial on the earth’s energy budget. Wiki will probably do. Nobody ever, ever said that all heating, or even a large fraction of heating is due to the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect, including all of the water and CO2 and cats and dogs raises the temperature about 30 K, or about 10%. The other 90% is direct heating from the sun. This is basic stuff.
Hey guys, my understanding is that The GHE doesn’t create heat. The GHE is like a blanket on your body that traps the heat of your body. The blanket isn’t “warm” your body is. GHE is not making heat, it’s trapping heat and that heat comes from the sun and the Earth itself. It’s a porous thing, not “roof” of a building like a green house. Water is the only reason we have weather, and gravity is the only reason we have an atmosphere at all. Water is responsible for 90 plus percent of the GHE.
Remember jae, there’s more plants in the tropics then in the desert too.
Pat, Larry,where is the GHE supposed to take place in the atmosphere? Troposphere? Stratosphere? I am reading conflicting comments on the internet about that.
226 welikerocks
Mostly the top part of the troposphere, for CO2. There is plenty of water-vapor up to the top of the clouds (say, 25000 ft for CAVU days) so, below that, WV blocks pretty much everything without help from CO2 but for a bit of a dirty window at 15u.
But then to uglify things, IR can be absorbed, reemited, and absorbed again. So it’s not straightforward where you will actually get the heat from a photon, and quite likely you will get it in several places.
In humid areas, it’s even more complicated, because low level heating will cause evaporation, which will transport the heat up and away. It my be released when the vapor condenses 10,000 feet up and 1000 miles downwind.
Thanks, Pat. I can’t even imagine how cold that is up there, and how they can see any flux in temperature at all when they measure all this temperature and action up there.
And yes Larry, it’s like a soup. (The whole universe looks like soup to me)
jae (wow 6 grandkids!)For what its worth, you might not be expressing yourself the way they like it, but I think I understand what you are questioning and trying to “look” at. That’s why we say keep picking at the micro climates here or in your head.
Mr.Welikerocks doesn’t like the GH theory much and he’s even debated J. Curry and bender about it on CA way back when, top that off we are freezing right now seriously! at times 10 degrees below the normal, in fact all over the country it’s the same story ..I know I know. Weather not “global temp”..but Mr. Welikerocks thinks global ave temp isn’t a real thing either and he is mad that people are actually dying in this cold and not a peep from the climate folks about it.
sorry for the blabber! Have a good night!
OK, I’m getting somewhere. Now, is the amount of HOH vapor over the deserts enough to give the full 30 K?
@weikrocks– It’s not a matter of jae not expressing himself the way we or I would like. It’s a matter of not expressing himself in a way I understand.
Jae asked a series or questions with interlaced answers (maybe). Were there questions he is asking? Or were those just rhetorical devices? Where there answers? Was a premise advanced that I could either agree with or disagree with?
Or… were those just question?
If those were questions: I don’t know the answer because I’m not sure I even understand what he is asking. If he advanced some premise, I don’t know what it was.
So… if he could repeat? Possibly avoiding the rhetorical questions? (If they are that.)
Or, if he really has a question, maybe start with one question, and stop. Wait for an answer to that question. Avod the temptation to suggest his own answer, which he then seems to tell us is a bad answer, and prompts his own next question.
How is anyone to answer the questions? Or if the aren’t questions, figure out what he’s trying to suggest as a theory?
Do you have a reference? From what I understand, e.g., Soden and Held 2000, the CO2 increases opacity to IR, such that the zone where there is a balance of radiation up vs. down, changes from 5 km to 5 km plus about 100 km. That’s mid-troposphere.
Lucia: they are true questions, not rhetorical musings. I’m trying to understand better how the greenhouse effect is supposed to work. Larry obviously understands the questions.
heh heh, solid entertainment
thank you lucia
Darnit, in 232, I meant from 5km to 5 km plus 100 m.
@Jae–
Well, then I’ll await his answers! Bender, would you like to share my popcorn?
I give up.
Like I said: “error-laden”, entertainment.
Bender and Larry: Those comments are very helpful. Thanks.
Jae–
What full 30K?
And, do you think HOH vapor over the desert should be enough to give this “full 30k” whatever this “full” value might be? And assuming it does, then what about the effect of HOH over Chicago, does that add or subtract from the full amount? Will the wind blowing affect the effect of HOH on the full 30K?
Lucia, it’s 33K:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
In other words, if you did the black body calculation of the temperature of the earth’s surface, you come up about 33 degrees short.
I’m just waiting for someone to say “wait a minute, 33 C is 91 F!!!”…
@Larry–
But I still don’t know what jae is asking. Why should the 33K be due only to the area over deserts? Is that what he’s asking? Or, something else?
It read like you gave up. I think jae is going to have to elaborate more. (I keep encouraging jae to tell us what he thinks happens instead of asking questions we aren’t sure we understand.
The series of questions isn’t getting anyone anywhere.
232 jae
If Sodden and Held say that it is fixed between 5 and 5.1 km (which I doubt), then they are wrong. It depends on the dew-point and the surface temperature. The Co2 does not contribute much opacity where there is significant water vapor. Read Curry’s post again.
Coolthoughts:
We already went through all of that. I was under the distinct impression that after the discussion of rain shadowing, the hadley cells etc he revealed,
Since he explicitly said he doesn’t care why deserts are both hot and dry, if “Why are deserts hot” is jae’s real question he is going to have to say so directly.
Then, I can just post links back to the relevant answers in comment, and once again suggest he take an introductory course in climatology.
jae,
1. The 33K is the global atmospheric GHE.
2. Regional terrestrial departures from the 33K augmentation are to be expected as a natural part of terrestrial climate – including things like H2O cloudiness, precip, fog, ice, albedo, etc, etc.
3. On top of that are the expected seasonal and daily variations – which also differ among locations.
I’ve said it a dozen different ways and you still don’t get it. What is the problem? Does your head not allow for both space and time? Are you in such a state of denial that you will try to deconstruct anything and everything in order to get the GHE to zero out?
@bender–
The reason I’m confused by jae’s question was that yep… the 33K is global. Yet, he is asking a local question. So, I was wondering if the “the full 30K” was something else.
That would be the only way for his question to make sense particularly in the context of previous discussion.
After all, I think he already told us he understood and accepted that the Hadley cells and rain shadowing happen and can make local places haotter. He already seems to have read Weilrocks discussion of the huge number of microclimates in her part of the world.
So, why would anyone ask if the HOH over deserts explains the full 33K for the whole world? Or even ask if they “carry their weight” when looked at using area averaging?
The “windows” for radiation may be hotter or colder some places than others. But the air in “the house” circulates vigorously, so if net radiation increases, the air in the whole house gets warmer!
You are all misinterpreting jae.
His question is: “if GHE exists, why are deserts hotter?” His logic is as follows. The alarmist warmers assert that GHE is a major positive contributor to temperature at all scales, from global to continental to regional to local. That dry deserts are hotter than humid coastal cities proves that H2O is a weak “GHG”. It maybe even has a net *negative* feedback effect. Water is always cooling. Given the physics that H2O vapor is a stronger and more abundant GHG than CO2, then the total effect of all CO2 must be REALLY small.
You are trying to make jae look like a bonehead, but you are the dishonest boneheads because you don’t read his words. You shamefully take them all out of context.
Water is magical.
I know. Been there, done that. Until you realize that the presence of an atmosphere causes heat to move around in ways that are hard to predict and counterintuitive, you’ll continue to insist that the GHE should totally localized.
245,
It’s possible that globally it all comes close to zeroing out. It’s not possible that it’s going to zero out everywhere. This isn’t even a reasonable denial strategy.
Larry R. — Now now. Behave.
OK, maybe I’m nuts. Coolthoughts is right that water is “magic,†and with that comes mysterious. First this GHG robs the surface of a tremendous amount of heat through the latent heat of vaporization. Then it begins absorbing IR in the atmosphere, thereby creating a greenhouse effect, which presumeably causes more heat retention than the heat lost by evaporation. According to the climate modelers, increases in GHGs increases the opacity of the atmosphere, relative to IR, thereby decreasing heat loss. They quantify this decrease in heat loss as a “forcing.†So for 2 X CO2, you get a forcing of 3.7 w/m^2. What I’m trying to get a handle on is just what is the forcing factor for water vapor and how much water vapor is necessary to produce the full greenhouse effect, but I guess we can’t know that. The concentration/heat retention relationship should be a logarithmic relationship, just like CO2. So at some point an increase in water vapor become essentially ineffective, relative to absorbing more IR. Say you have a “blanket†of water vapor over dry areas (Western US) of x thickness. Then you have a “blanket†of water vapor of 3x thickness over humid areas (Eastern US). WHATEVER causes the dry areas to be hotter than the humid areas (adiabatic compression, more solar radiation, etc.) appears to overwhelm the effects of the extra water vapor in humid areas. It looks like the ghg effect of water vapor peters out before a layer of thickness x is reached.
If there is an abundance of water vapor beyond the point where all the IR is absorbed, then what is the role of CO2? There are not many wavelength bands that CO2 absorbs that are not taken by water or water vapor in some form (including dimers, trimers, etc). So I also can’t figure out how adding CO2 can make a difference in the greenhouse effect. I especially can’t see how the extra forcing can produce a positive water vapor feedback, when there’s already an excess of water vapor.
BTW, the mixing lucia talks about is on a longer term scale; the ghg effects should be seen daily as the sun rises and falls.
Ok, jae, I think that here you have stated your position the most clearly, and future discussion should be based on the paragraph.
As far as the first sentence goes, you are forgetting your own thesis, that water-vapor is carrying heat up to the cloud tops (where latent heat of condensation is released). The CO2 thing, if it exists, is the partial blocking of the process whereby that heat, already transported to say 20,000 ft by wv is then transported by IR radiation the rest of the way to the stratosphere, and beyond.
253, Pat: See http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/reference/bibliography/2000/annrev00.pdf
pages 446-448. Can you provide any references?
And that link demonstrates exactly what?
THat the “forcing” is coming from about 5 km, not near the stratosphere, where Pat thinks.
Ooops, excuse me, Pat. You said 20,000 FEET. That’s not far off.
254 jae
Please point me to the page where there is the piece you want me to look at, or quote it here on the blog.
I don’t have time to read through it for something unknown you want me to see.
Pat, jae is referring to Fig. 1 p. 447.
#257 another error. just sayin.
Let’s understand what they mean when the say the forcing is at elevation x. That’s the elevation that they can use in an overly simple model to give the same overall results as if they were able to properly integrate the forcing, which in fact is distributed throughout the atmosphere. It’s a type of mean that is a useful thing to use in modeling, but it’s not a magic height where all of the photons suddenly turn into heat.
What again was the question?
jae’s mistake is trivial. He was only trying to be helpful in correcting Pat’s summary of jae’s hypothesis.
The question is very simple. jae accepts the EBM concept of a global greenhouse effect yielding some approximate 33K. But if H2O is truly a positive GHG, then where is the estimate of the LOCAL-scale GHE? If you tell me that the positive local-scale GHE is miniscule compared to the negative effect of H2O moist convection, then why should I have any confidence that the global-scale GHE is as strong as the alarmists say it is? Held & Soden (2000) themselves say that they are quite apprehensive about the amount of uncertainty on the estimate of climate sensitivity. Read the paper, Pat, it’s worth your time for that line alone. jae and I happen to share H&S’s skepticism.
The magic blue planet can never go runaway. Gaia’s moist convection is eternal.
What we have here is a failure to communicate…
Actually, jae and CoolThoughts, the “hot desert city” and the “cooler coastal city” you have been discussing do indeed show a “LOCALE-scale GHE”. It can be seen in the daily temperature range (the daily high minus low).
Take, for instance, Phoenix, Arizona versus Savannah, Georgia. During the summer, Phoenix experiences a daily temperature range of about 30 degrees versus only about 18 degrees for Savannah. The (generally) low relative humidity of Phoenix allows much greater radiant losses at night and higher insolation at the surface during the day — hence, a substantially greater range of temperatures. That’s the GHE in action — locally.
Cool, thanks for the pointer.
jae
First, Sodden and Held say the effective temperature of emission corresponds to 5 km above the surface on the average, which averaging includes days when the clouds form a low layer at say 0.7km.
Second, they do not say that the source of the emission is CO2, and in fact it’s not. There is usually plenty of water-vapor still at 5km, and that is where most of the emission is both (i) coming from, and (ii) being blocked by wv. Read on, to the the sentence “Most photons…are absorbed…” (Have you forgotten your view that wv is the important GHG?)
We were discussing the area where CO2 is the main factor in blocking emission, and that is up high enough for wv to be in short supply, near the top of the troposphere.
My link is the post from Judith Curry which you said you understood, where she talked about the polar and upper-troposphere. As I said here earlier, read the Curry post again.
I will try to summarize my view of the situation:
1. Water vapor is the dominant heat-transfer mechanism below the cloud tops (or maybe 20,000ft on CAVU days). It carries heat up, mostly by latent heat, to the level where it condenses or freezes out. CO2 is a negligible factor in this region, because (a) wv dominates as a GHG and (b) the wv heat transport mechanism short-circuits any CO2 radiative blocking.
2. Above this, at levels closer to the tropopause, there is negligible water-vapor (it has condensed or frozen). Here, the dominant heat transfer mechanism is radiation (there is ‘no’ wv and little convection above the tropopause). The heat brought up by the water-vapor process is now radiated in an extremely dry environment, so there is “no” water-vapor GHG effect and only the CO2, etc. GHGs are able to trap the shorter-wavelength IR corresponding to vibrational modes (as opposed to long-wavelength IR absorption by translational modes, which all molecules participate in).
BTW, I am not convinced that CO2 is an important factor. I am saying that, if it is, it can only be so in the upper half of the troposphere (or, at the surface, at the poles where it is also very dry, but here there isn’t much heat to be transported).
*I can’t preview this, so reserve the right to edit it if necessary.
Re #252
“There are not many wavelength bands that CO2 absorbs that are not taken by water or water vapor in some form (including dimers, trimers, etc). So I also can’t figure out how adding CO2 can make a difference in the greenhouse effect.”
Until you get rid of the misconception in the first sentence you won’t either.
An observation for jae (and recall I agreed with you re: it never goes above 33C in the humid tropics when humidity is near 100%)
Here in Perth, Western Australia we have a typical mediterranean climate – hot and dry in the summer. Sun comes up = warms up quickly; sun goes down cools down quickly.
Except when it gets very hot (40C+). When its very hot it’s generally humid as well. This is where we differ from the humid tropics, because we have high humidity with clear skies. I’m guessing here, but it may be because the humidity is restricted to a relatively narrow band close to the surface. And note, I am not confusing temperature with sensible temperature.
Boxing day was a typical hot, high humidity day – 44C and humidity up around 80%. Come the evening, I was struck by how little it cooled off. Still 30C+ the next morning. Only when the humidity dropped did the temperature.
Thinking back, this is a typical pattern for our weather. What I think it means (and I am by no means sure of this) is that the 33C ‘limit’ is due to clouds and convection in a deep column of humid air. When the humid air column is short (shallow) the water vapour GHE predominates and the 33C ‘limit’ is easily exceeded.
267, Phil. OK, but 3.7 watts/m^2 worth for 2 X C02?
Philip B, 268: Amazing. The humidity must not be coming from the soil in this case; it must be coming from the ocean?
Pat: but at these levels, doesn’t the radiation escape to space, not back to earth?
BTW, Pat: The absolute humidity averages 5.65 g/m^2 in Barrow AK, 71.3 N. Lat. in July. This is about the same humidity as the deserts have. Avg. July temp. = 4.1 C. The solar insolation at the surface is 6.9 kwh/m^2/day, about the same as Miami in July. I don’t know what all this means, but it is very interesting. Gotta think about it.
I’m not sure what point you are trying to make, now. I guess about half of the radiation not at the right absorption-line frequencies can escape and the other half stays in the troposphere. So…?
272
Why are the humidity data surprising? The desert has very low relative humidity and the Alaska coastline has high relative humidity. Not surprising.
The insolation data are a bit surprising, if correct. If your figures are correct, I guess it probably means (a) that Barrow has very long days in the summer (up to 24 hrs at the N pole, of course), (b) that Miami gets a lot of cloud cover.
What about the turbulence? or is that factored in already?
I am trying to picture the Troposphere being twice as high at the equator then it is at both the poles while reading what you guys have to say. Wrapped around a sphere, in my head it has sort of a 3d diamond shape? (I know I am weird)
Does this page help anyone? Seems thoughtful, but I have no idea if the math and reasoning is correct:
http://brneurosci.org/co2.html
it was updated Nov 2007
25 welikerocks
Above the cloud tops there isn’t as much vertical convection, so that I don’t think it is usually much of an issue at the top of the troposphere, except for large thunderstorms (which can even penetrate the tropopause).
I don’t have a feel for how much turbulence comes from horizontal winds. Of course, the air is much less dense near the tropopause.
I think of the the thinning of the troposphere at the poles this way. The tropopause can be “defined” as the -50C level, so it is not surprising that it takes less altitude to get to that mark via lapse rate from a surface at say -15C than from a surface at +15C.
276 Thanks so much Pat. I am still trying to wrap my head around all this. Especially the numbers. I have no experience at all in thinking with numbers, let alone with kelvin and all that. When I ask my husband about it, he says “they don’t know squat” (for certain and for sure) about these regions of our earth)- maybe good guesses, but it’s really too hard to measure with great accuracy and all that. As a scientist, he’s keeps a healthy “awe” factor going about our dynamic planet-kind of like jae does. He was a surfer back in the day, so “it’s so narly!” might be said when he describes things. LOL
I found this comment from poking around the NASA pages yesterday (you know why, lol) “Under Ask a scientist” (re: tropics and deep convective cloud towers):
Q: I have to ask about the data set that shows the heat radiation from Earth into space. It is a color coded graph and the colors are watts per square meter. What I wonder about is the scale going from 85w/m2 to 350w/m2. Since the coldest temperature on Earth is about 225 kelvin which is about 150w/m2 how can a 85w/m2 area exist? Is there is something wrong with the calibration? I think it should start at 185w/m2(~235k) the higher end seems about right.
–Jim, U.S.A.
2001-11-03
A: Dear Jim,
The coldest surface temps (antarctic winter) reach about -70C or 203K: but even this doesn’t set the low end. The coldest objects on the planet are not at the poles but in the tropics! Deep convective cloud towers can reach 17km altitude and temps of 190K. This is why the fluxes can go so low. sigma T^4 of 190K is about 75 W/m^2. Note that 0.5% of the tropics is covered by clouds of 205K or colder temps, so while 190K is extreme, 225K is way to warm.
sorry so long winded again!
Rocks,that’s a great article. For one thing, it derives the 2.5 degree increase from CO2 in a straight-forward manner (no climate models). It also predicts that very dry areas should see more warming than humid areas. I wonder if anyone has checked whether dryer areas are indeed warming faster.
jae, I know I keep saying this, but right now my thermometer outside says it’s in the 30’s F! around 36° I live in Southern California, which is really mostly desert despite the sprawl of people and buildings. Seriously, its 10 degrees below normal “lows” and several degrees below normal highs around here right now, and no one seems to care! Just like last year too (my plants totally froze that I’ve had for years) Then my home page reports it’s 44° for my zip code which doesn’t match my outside temp measurement-it never does! That really bugs us!!
Rocks: it’s the same here in So. Oregon. Cold and considerable snow, which is unusual here for this time of year.
jae:
The Atacama Desert in Chile? Really dry there. Scientist use that area to learn about living on Mars (I believe)
Rocks: and interesting quote from the article you linked:
“CO2 is more evenly distributed than water, so if CO2 caused warming it would have a proportionately greater effect in areas where there is little water vapor (such as deserts and in very cold regions), while in areas with a lot of water, the effect of CO2 may be insignificant compared to the effect of water vapor. This is one of many factors that mitigate against the idea of a “climate catastrophe.” ”
That agrees the concept that there is “more than enough” water vapor to absorb all the IR in the humid areas.
We are having our normal wretched winters in Chicago. We always get periods of extra-cold interlaced with extra-warm. I’d need to read summaries to know if it’s worse than normal.
So far, it’s not the winters of 77-78 or 78-79. I have had to shovel.
Now, I’m going to go sew a dress so I can party no New Year’s.
jae, Our hot humid days (in Perth) are always when the wind is from the northeast. I.e. from the interior, which is mostly arid. In simple terms the winds have blown over 3,000 kms of mostly desert. The humidity clears when the wind shifts and comes off the ocean. So how come these NE winds are humid you ask?
I am not sure if this is a general pattern or not, but there have been recent unusual rains in the interior (I think this just accentuated the effect over Christmas and gave us 44C rather than 38C to 40C we normally get with these winds). So the winds are blowing over relatively moist ground. What I think is happening is that initially dry winds pick up surface moisture and form a shallow humid layer close to the ground, which produces a potent GHE but doesn’t produce convection and clouds.
Our climate is similar to Los Angeles and the winds I describe are comparable to Santa Anna winds. Wikipedia confirms what I suspected, which is that the Santa Anna winds are hot and dry because of the mountain’s adabatic effect (and not because they blow off the desert). We don’t have the mountains, hence our winds are hot and humid.
So Lucia doesn’t knit, but she does sew.
Sure, run modtran for the tropical atmosphere for example:
560 ppm CO2 -> 286 W/m^2 to space
280 ppm CO2 -> 289.2 “
286, as long as we all understand that modtran is blissfully unaware of convection, evaporation, etc (totally aside from feedback, which is yet another issue). That’s a good number, it just doesn’t mean what a lot of people think it means. It’s not a rigorous calculation of the exact effect of doubling CO2. It errs on the high side, since convection bypasses the greenhouse.
Lucia, I have a good friend that lives in Itasca. I have never been there in the winter though, just summer. How is the dress coming? I am just learning to use my sewing machine. All things cut in a straight line I can make, like curtains or pillows. I made polar fleece wraps for Christmas presents. Maybe a dress someday!
#287 My husband said something funny today. I told him how Coolhead said “water is magical” in one of the comments here and he said “it is! Water makes beer and water makes blood” LOL
PhilipB I live really close to the city of Santa Ana, I am in the “OC”.
Hope you all have a nice New Years Eve and all that! (I think my husband is going to OD today on football) Cheers.
@Jae–
The skirt has 16 separate panels….
I knit, sew and crochet. I just don’t knit here. I have a knitting blog, but it’s neglected. Example of entries:Sockulator Socks.
The dress is shaping up nicely. It’s stupendous in fact. Since the skirt has 16 gores, it’s a bit time comsuming.
?? 16 embroderies of Al on the skirt?
I mentioned that my 12-year-old grandson was here for the xmas vacation. He and his family live in Sammamish, WA, near Seattle. It was heartening to hear him say that his science teacher was giving both sides of the AGW debate, and he told them to “make up their own mind.” Of course, I said nothing 🙂
292 lucia
I’m pretty sure that jae was pulling your leg, yanking your chain. Sometimes I think he is yanking our chains most of the time re GW.
Lucia
Pat K
If jae hadn’t said something I would have. Like, “16 gores Lucia? How inconvenient!”
I do think yanking chains is a good thing re anything to do with GW science. I am in awe of you guys, and all the math and thinking you do BTW. I think its a matter of earth in a computer verses what the real earth actually is like-pick at those micro climates jae!-because that is what the earth really is after all. I don’t think jae (or anybody) wants to yank chains on purpose or “just for fun”. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.
SteveMac has put up a cloud topic. someone there put up this link:
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=148
familiar names posting comments there, and one, Pat Frank gives a talk that sort of echos what I am trying to say about GCM’s and the real world.
Lucia, that’s a great dress! You guys in Chicago still get dressed up. Here it is “California Casual” 24/7. An outfit from Old Navy or Jack’s Surf Shop with UGGs or flip flops can transition into “evening wear” most days!
I had no idea what “gores” were. I guess I would have called them “flutes.” Anyway, it looks like a beatuiful dress, and I’m double-amazed that you are MAKING it, in this day and age. My mother used to make dresses, but I’m surprised to see someone doing that now. I thought only the Chinese knew that art form now.
Hey everyone, Over at this thread:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2540#comments
We were having a lively discussion of climate sensitivity. Care if we move it here?
@Andrew– The difficulty is that many of the discussions here have been specifically banned! (The why are deserts hot, had too much thermo etc.)
Even on unthreaded, SteveM doesn’t want people to advance their own theories. So, these sorts of things get deleted.
I’ll leave them up! 🙂
Okay, well, it was benders idea, not mine.
Oh– Sorry. I misread. You can move it to my blog. I mis-identified ‘here’ and thought you meant: “can we move it to ‘the link you provided’ like”– meaning back to Climate Audit!
Yes, you can discuss whatever you want here at Rank Exploits.
Speaking of over there, Judith Curry posted a very good comment on feedbacks, that’s germane to this discussion. Here’s an excerpt:
Okay, not exactly sure how to do this but, in the discussion on climate sensitivity, several people mentioned positive feedbacks for which they believe there is good evidence. But why do you think there aren’t negative ones, which cancel the positive ones out, even partially? Or do you think there are negative feedbacks that only partially, but not completely, cancel out the positive ones. What makes you think that it is one way or the other? This is a question for anyone to answer, but I’m especially curious as to why Arthur seems sure they add up to a big positive. Is my assessment of your view wrong, Arthur? Please correct me if I am.
I have no strong feels as to whether the feedbacks are all positive or negative, but so far I haven’t seen convincing evidence one way or the other, which makes me swing with Occam’s Razor, and lean towards at most a small positive, but more likely negative. Why does it seem like such a difficult question?
Andrew – ok, we can discuss here, though it would be nice to have a dedicated thread on “climate sensitivity” or something like that – lucia?
The water vapor feedback is relatively easy for the climate modellers – but it depends on relative humidity arguments that depend on steadiness or changes in wind patterns etc, so not entirely trivial.
In any case, if there’s any increase in water vapor from increasing temperatures (and the default here is that there should be, unless proven otherwise – in fact that increase has already been observed), then there’s an additional greenhouse component from that water vapor because of water’s intrinsic greenhouse effect.
The latent heat transfer that’s been discussed at climateaudit (and here?) does exchange heat between different layers of the atmosphere and so has an impact, but it’s well-handled by simple models and doesn’t negate the greenhouse trapping from the water vapor.
Increasing water vapor also means a likely increase or at least a change in cloud cover. That provides a negative feedback during the daytime (the cloud albedo effect, reflecting away incoming light) but a positive feedback during the night (clouds trap heat too). On balance it seems to be slightly negative, but significantly less than the basic water vapor positive feedback.
The other feedbacks we discussed earlier were:
* snow/ice albedo: this is almost certainly a small positive, as increased temperatures mean decreased snow/ice cover.
* natural CO2 feedbacks – the carbon cycle changes with increasing temperature (and increasing CO2 levels) – some of this is negative: increased plant growth under some conditions for instance. But the dominant modes again appear to be positive: ocean absorption decreases with increasing temperature, fires increase, etc.
* natural methane feedbacks – warming tundra releases methane, etc.
The last two are not included in climate models generally because the models set the GHG levels to see what happens under those conditions. So those positive feedbacks, if significant, would give temperature increases even beyond the IPCC estimates.
One thing I’m pretty sure of is that water provides an overall negative feedback at the surface, due mainly to the large amounts of energy required for vaporization. This energy does not raise temperature, until the water condenses and gives that energy back to the atmosphere, which generally occurs way above the surface. I still think this negative feedback is ONE of the reasons (besides adiabatic compression) that dry areas are hotter than humid areas in the warm months (not in the cold months, because there are really few dry areas in the cold months). See: http://www.esnips.com/web/climate BTW, if adiabatic compression were the dominant factor, it should be warmer in areas where such compression occurs, even in colder months, and I can’t find evidence of that.
Thanks, Arthur. However, I still feel that the question of negative feedbacks has not received proper study. Obviously the positive feedbacks you described make sense, and you even seem to have mentioned some negative ones. Here’s another question: How likely do you think it is there are ones that we haven’t considered, positive and negative? Oh, and I would of course like to know how those feedbacks add up, if you could guess/calculate.
Any time there is an increase in temperature, there has to be an increase in water vapor, if water is available for evaporation. But it appears that all the greenhouse effects from water vapor are exhausted after a certain level of water vapor is reached (all IR in proper wavelengths is already absorbed). I don’t know what that level is, but I do know that the maximum temperatures over water in the tropics, where there is a LOT of water vapor, appears to be about 33 C.
Jae, if I understand you correctly, your saying that water vapor should saturate, in which case the feedback grows more slowly as the concentration increases?
Okay, this doesn’t need to be here. Please delete it.
Crossing my fingers that the edit works this time!
Jae, Lubos did a pretty good job of explaining the logarithmic dependence in terms of applying multiple coats of paint to a window. His site is here:
http://motls.blogspot.com/
You can search for the post from several months ago.
301 Andrew
Here’s what I said on the CA blog:
212 Arthur Smith
But it’s well-established that without water vapor’s greenhouse effect, we would have a planet at least 20 degrees C colder than now. Do you disagree with that? Unless there’s some water vapor level below which the net greenhouse forcing is negative, above which it’s positive?
I can’t make sense of this. Do you mean the opposite?
I would say that it is quite likely that the overall effect of water vapor is positive (i.e., warming) at low levels and negative at high levels. At low levels, there is little cloud formation and precipitation, so the sunshade effect and evaporative/precipitation cooling are ‘missing’, and the GHE may dominate. At higher water-vapor levels, the GHE is optically saturated (so the positive GH effect ends) and negative effects dominate: clouds form (screening the insolation) and rain falls, driving the latent-heat cycle.
The latent heat of the water vapour is converted to sensible heat in the atmosphere through vapour condensation and this condensed water is returned to the surface through precipitation.>/em>
It is worth noting that this precipitation is invariably quite a bit colder than the surface/lower-troposphere, and a lot of sensible heat is required to bring it up to temperature, before latent heat of evaporation is even involved.
It seems to me that this effect is often overlooked in discussions of the cycle.
You know this discussion of negative feedback from clouds fits very well within the new J Curry thread on CA.
Jae (#305) – as Larry implies (#308), there is no saturation; the effect increases logarithmically because there is always some layer of the atmosphere where the pressure is low enough that more water (or more CO2) makes a difference, and that leads to warming of everything underneath.
It does sound like this discussion would be better over at climateaudit under the new “Spencer cloud feedback” thread, unless we get a custom thread here (and it sounds like Lucia’s busy today?)
By the way, if we’re hand-waving about the cold temperature of rainwater or other latent heat effects, what about the gravitational energy? After all, those falling raindrops release their kinetic energy to the atmosphere through air resistance, and to the ground when they hit. Or there’s the osmotic energy associated with the salt-free nature of falling rainwater: that energy is released at the point where rivers meet the sea, or where raindrops hit the ocean. Those return a portion of the lost latent heat to lower layers of the atmosphere or to the surface again.
Of course, you can calculate all those numbers and find that the gravitational and osmotic contributions are relatively small. Same with the latent heat issue – calculations show what its effect is, and it doesn’t negate the greenhouse warming associated with water vapor.
Pat (#309) – yes, I had that backwards.
Clouds provide positive feedback too though – they act as LW absorbers as well as increasing albedo. Anyway, as you say, this discussion really belongs back on the climateaudit thread.
Ah yes, I’m looking at that thread right now Pat. Unfortunately, I’m still have trouble grasping it, so here’s my impression so far:
The papers link here seem to indicate that cloud feedback is very complicated and difficult to understand. Questions have been raised as to the extent and even sign of the effect.
If this assessment is right, it wouldn’t surprise me, sense I don’t seem to recall anyone ever claiming to understand clouds well, though they sometimes behave like it, given that it would, I think, produce large error margins in their predictions that they don’t present to people.
312 Arthur
Good, I thought I was getting stupider….
It’s true that clouds do absorb IR as well as reflect visible. I believe that they behave very differently between night and day, something that people seem to neglect in their big-picture averaging.
Andrew.
Yes, you have it right — the understanding of clouds is pretty primitive, especially since some of their effects partially cancel, so the values are probably quite critical for understanding the net effect.
water vapor is positive feedback yes. but clouds are strong nonlinear negative feedback. people talk like these things are independent. nonsense. they are coupled, through earth’s hydrological cycle. today’s GHG wv is tomorrow’s ice fog. therefore, as usual, jae is correct. gaia’s magical moist convection will always protect us from alarmist runaway nightmare fantasies.
It sure looks like this is happening to me. If it happens for CO2, at 500 ppm, I don’t see why it wouldn’t happen for HOH way before 17,000 ppm!
Arthur, 311:
This whole thing bugs me, because if what you say is true, humid areas should be a LOT hotter than dry areas (similar latitudes and elevations); whereas, the opposite is true. I don’t think you ever actually get a “warming” underneath; you simply slow down the transfer of the energy to space. That’s what’s wrong with the AGW warming hypothesis. It seems to effectively ignore convective and heat storage effects and posit this “forcing” mechanism, which I think is bogus.
That’s a little silly and unconstructive, Arthur. If the “rain” came down as parcels of gas, you might have a point. But water drops don’t follow any gas laws, and you know that.
To call latent-heat effects “hand-waving” is also silly. The are an important and well-calculated part of the system. And if you calculate the effect of the cold rain, you can easily get from 1″ of rain
about the same sensible cooling of the surface as
CO2 warming for 2 days.
And we know how much you guys catastrophize over that!
Pat, I told you so. We’re not making any progress.
Hee hee, I knew jae would eventually come around to *his* senses. Atta boy. Never give in.
Gettin’ too quiet here. Here’s something to throw rocks at:
COULD THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT BE DUE SIMPLY TO HEAT STORAGE PHENOMENA?
ABSTRACT
An energy/mass-balance model is presented to account for the greenhouse effect. It is demonstrated that daily temperatures in July and December at a wide variety of locations can be understood by considering only the amount of solar energy used by photosynthesis and the amount of heat stored by the air column. The temperature at a given location is determined primarily by the amount of solar insolation that reaches the surface. The amount absorbed directly by the air column is much smaller, but is also significant. The energy from this insolation heats the air and water vapor in the air column. It is demonstrated that first 5-7 km of the troposphere has plenty of heat capacity to store all the heat generated by solar radiation during the day in July. In December all the heat can be stored in an air column that is about half that high. Thus, the natural greenhouse effect can be explained simply as the capacity of the air column to store heat. This is similar to the construction of a home with thick concrete walls to retain some heat at night. Under this concept, all gases are greenhouse gases, to the extent that they store energy. Water vapor is the best one because it holds twice as much energy as N2 and O2, and it helps thermalize the N2 and O2. This explanation of the greenhouse effect does not contradict the radiative models, insofar as they explain the average temperature of the Earth and measure the amount of radiation that occurs. However, there is no need to invoke special infra-red “convective-radiative†models to explain how the greenhouse effect works. Since CO2 is present at such small concentrations and has a very low heat storage capacity, it plays an insignificant role in storing heat. Therefore, it has a negligible greenhouse effect.
Forgot the link for details: http://www.esnips.com/web/climate/
Jeez…
The greenhouse effect has a definition. If that “heat storage” thing goes on, fine, but it’s not the greenhouse effect any more than a doorknob is a trailer hitch.
jae
I congratulate you on getting your hypothesis down in on paper in an orderly manner.
It can now be considered seriously, and questioned and analyzed.
It is of course rather controversial but I for one am willing to consider it seriously. One issue will be getting some quantitative estimates from you, and I’ll give some thought to a set of questions. (However, I’m going out tonight, so don’t hold your breath.)
A second issue is of course the question of how the energy from each day’s insolation is removed from Earth. Your thesis is heavy on storage but it cannot just store heat — it has to get rid of it, too.
The so-called “greenhouse effect” does not exist, and this proves it. So-called “heat storage effect” is sufficient to explain the observations. No additional radiative mechanisms are required. The rule of parsimony therefore suggests we do away with this unnecessary cog.
Coolthoughts, apply the principle of parsimony to itself.
Also, no one paper necessarily proves anything, so I’m skeptical that this does so.
jae that’s why I mentioned turbulence to Pat K. Seriously.
The way I see it (and I asked my husband about it) this process is on going (no beginning or end in human terms) and new atmosphere is created every day. There are molecules going up because they are so light and coming down (in freezing temps) because they are heavier and gravity pulls them down. the turbulence of all that also takes energy, it cools warm-molecules because it takes more energy to store the heat swirling around like that. Doesn’t convection mean circulation? the dictionary says :
“(meteorology) the vertical movement of heat or other properties by massive motion within the atmosphere
I hope I express this correctly.
I found this article I think it fits!
“The Faithful Heretic
A Wisconsin Icon Pursues Tough Questions”
“Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology—now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences—in the 1970s he became the first director of what’s now the UW’s Gaylord Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. He’s a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor—created, the U.N. says, to recognize “outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement of the environment.†He has authored five books and more than 230 other publications and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world.”
What Leads, What Follows?
We ask Bryson what could be making the key difference:
Q: Could you rank the things that have the most significant impact and where would you put carbon dioxide on the list?
A: Well let me give you one fact first. In the first 30 feet of the atmosphere, on the average, outward radiation from the Earth, which is what CO2 is supposed to affect, how much [of the reflected energy] is absorbed by water vapor? In the first 30 feet, 80 percent, okay?
Q: Eighty percent of the heat radiated back from the surface is absorbed in the first 30 feet by water vapor…
A: And how much is absorbed by carbon dioxide? Eight hundredths of one percent. One one-thousandth as important as water vapor. You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide.
full article here: http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/may/may07.html#1
Rather difficult to do that unless it’s convecting at such high velocities that it gives huge Doppler shifts.
Larry R. December 31st, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Jeez…
The greenhouse effect has a definition. If that “heat storage†thing goes on, fine, but it’s not the greenhouse effect any more than a doorknob is a trailer hitch.
Well Larry. How about this analogy. You have a green house covered with glass. You also have a large number of heat pipes connecting the inside of the greenhouse to the outside world.
Assume the temp in the greenhouse is 315K and the outside temp is 290K. Would the green house be hotter if you removed the heat pipes?
Now if atmospheric calculations don’t fully account for the heat pipe nature of water vapor will the results be a higher or lower temp than predicted?
328: Phil: Maybe I’m nuts again, and please tell me what you think. It looks like you really understand the physics here. The problem that I see with the radiative theory in AGW is that it does not EXPLAIN anything, relative to changes in temperature. The amount of radiation is simply a function of the EXISTING temperature of the gas. IOW, at 300 K, CO2 and HOH will radiate a certain amount of IR energy at certain frequencies. So what? If the sun heats the molecules to 310 K, they will emit more IR. It’s a fundamental REACTIVE property of the critters and is a measure of their temperatures and concentrations. How do you get from there to somehow “adding” energy to the system. When you do IR spectroscopy, you don’t worry about the IR generated by the compounds somehow “cascading” to add more IR to the analyte.
here’s two more links that may be helpful/interesting for jae and or everyone:
It’s a message board talk a few weeks old at the scientific american web site http://science-community.sciam.com/thread.jspa?threadID=300005164&start=15
which talks about:
“The region of ‘Doppler broadening’ spectra.
The region of ‘collision” and
“The region of ‘continuum absorption’ spectra. In the lower atmosphere, molecular collisions become so common that the relevant energy levels of the different TYPES of molecule, whether “greenhouse” or non-“greenhouse”, overlap. Here, infrared radiation is intercepted when ANY bulk molecule is hit by ANOTHER bulk molecule at the same time as the infrared photon is passing. The vast majority of these collisions involve nitrogen, oxygen and argon. These interceptions produce so-called Ben Reuven spectral profiles (we cannot call them lines because they are so spread out). The “greenhouse” gases play essentially no role in these processes.”
where I found this too:
Atmospheric Continuum Absorption
http://physics.nist.gov/Divisions/Div844/facilities/isam/isam.html
oh boy.
328, uh, no. You’ve just revealed that while you know a thing or two about radiation, you know nothing about transport phenomena.
Let me preemptively explain. This is a simple concept. Fundamentally, GW is a heat transfer problem. Heat moves by three mechanisms; convection, conduction, and radiation. In the atmosphere, conduction is negligible (Lucia, you know this stuff pretty well, so please criticize if you think I’m rounding any corners). Convective heat transfer is a simple concept; if you move a parcel of air from the surface to the upper troposphere, its enthalpy moves with it (even as its temperature drops due to expansion). When that happens, radiation in the troposphere becomes differentially reduced, since the heat from the surface has already been removed from the surface and deposited in the upper troposphere without having to face the resistance to heat transfer that the greenhouse gases provide.
As I said, convection provides an alternative “short circuit” around the tropospheric greenhouse. This is why the GCMs matter. It’s not a simple radiation problem.
And Quote from a link I added pages ago here http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/education/secondary/teachers/atmosphere.html
The troposphere’s thermal profile is largely the result of the heating of the Earth’s surface by incoming solar radiation. (husband said you all should remember the incoming stuff is going through all these levels of the atmosphere before it hits the earth’s surface too)
It goes on to say:
Heat is then transferred up through the troposphere by a combination of convective and turbulent transfer. This is in direct contrast with the stratosphere, where warming is the result of the direct absorption of solar radiation.
And, putting a link to the meaning of enthalpy that Larry mentions (seems to apply really to closed systems that are at constant pressures according to some of these dictionary entries??):
http://www.answers.com/topic/enthalpy?cat=health
Also I found this webpage regarding gravity:
Gravity Waves in Weather, Climate, and Atmospheric Chemistry: Issues and Challenges for the Community
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:7uYIUzsPOpYJ:www.tiimes.ucar.edu/events/documents/gw-WhitePaper.pdf+Voigt%27s+formula+in+the+atmosphere,+middle+atmosphere+dynamics&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us&client=firefox-a
Atmospheric gravity waves exist by virtue of the stable density stratification of the atmosphere under gravity. Disturbances to a balanced state can result in excitation of
atmospheric gravity waves with a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Horizontal wavelengths range from kilometers to thousands of kilometers, and periods range from the Brunt-Väisälä period (approximately ten minutes in the troposphere) to the inertial period, which is infinite at the Equator and 12 hours at the poles. Gravity waves can occur at all altitudes in the atmosphere and are important for several reasons: They can transport energy and momentum from one region of the atmosphere to another; they can initiate and modulate convection and subsequent hydrological processes (e.g., Mapes 1993); they disturb the smooth, balanced state through injection of energy and momentum into the flow; and, when the waves break, turbulence hazardous to aviation is generated and chemical species are mixed. These wave breaking processes occur globally and significantly affect climate of the mesosphere and stratosphere.
Rox, what I was describing is an imaginary “parcel” of air, which is a closed system. Think of it as so much air with an invisible imaginary balloon around it. As it rises, the balloon expands, but it remains a closed system. You have to make these kinds of models up to be able to apply any kind of analysis to the atmosphere. Note that I didn’t say how big the “parcel” is.
And Enthalpy takes into account the effects of pressure change, which is what you want to do in that kind of analysis.
Larry there is no reduction of driving force, ir radiation leaving the surface if it’s in the absorption band will be absorbed by the available greenhouse gas molecules regardless of their direction and speed of motion.
335 Larry, thank you. I realize I am probably mucking up the conversation with my comments, and I sure appreciate the time and I know I am in way over my head… and so on lol. But I have to say, I can not see how scientists can know even a tiny fraction of what goes on up there in our sky for sure from models and from what I’ve been reading, and reading at CA. I am not saying give up or they don’t, just I can’t see it myself.
My knowledge of transport is quite adequate thank you, I wonder about yours however! By what mechanism do those rising greenhouse gases lose their ability to absorb radiation?
@Jae– I’m just back from an out of town New Years Eve bash, and the Illini are playing in the rosebowl.
I’ll try to explain the difference between a transient heating problem and a steady state heating problem tomorrow in a blog post. (It will require writing an equation.)
Generally speaking though: Both the heat capacity is important in a transient problem. In a steady state problen, the heat capacity doesn’t matter.
I’ll show a semi-quantitative solution for you with some sketches and a curve.
I’ll also look at your Esnips article.
(Oh– after the whole endless party/ sewing / football/ eating thing is over, I’ll organize a few threads with titles so we don’t have this whole big single thread!)
337, when the net driving force is reduced in the direction of what it would be without the additional greenhouse gas. I don’t know if I can simplify the explanation any further. If the heat is transported from the surface to the tropopause by a mechanism other than radiation, then the lapse rate is reduced, and there’s reduced radiative transport in the troposphere. Above the troposphere, modtran is probably pretty close. But without being able to quantify the convection, we can’t know the exact effect of a particular GHG increase, because it’s not a pure radiative problem. And convection will always reduce the effect of ghg increases.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with the processes involved!
You have a completely flawed concept of what’s happening.
Explain how a calorie on the surface convects anywhere.
You’re still not getting the concept. It’s unbelievably simple. Every calorie that’s lifted by convection is one less calorie that moves by radiation. That reduces the temp difference.
Think resistors in an electrical circuit. Less current means less voltage drop.
Go Illini!!
If I can jump in, here’s another way of looking at it. The issue is getting heat energy up to the tropopause, so it can be more readily radiated from above the blocking effect of the higher density of molecules in the lower- and mid-troposphere. The GW thesis is that CO2 molecules absorb the energy and thereby hinder that process.
If there is another very-efficient means of getting that the heat energy to the tropopause, then any blocking action of the CO2 in the troposphere is short-circuited and reduced. For example, any photon absorbed at mid-troposphere by a CO2 molecule is first turned into higher kinetic energy of the N2 molecules, which is higher temperature, and which is then transferred to the troposphere, and the CO2 effect is negated.
In summary, you are both correct. Phil is right that CO2 molecules are still absorbing radiation, but Larry is right that convection will still take that energy up to the troposphere, anyway, so there is no blocking.
Which is completely untrue, the radiation heat transfer is not reduced by convection.
But the critical point is that the more convection you have in the troposphere, the less net heat transfer occurs by radiation, and the less effective the greenhouse gases in the troposphere are at hindering heat transfer. Which in the end is all greenhouse gases do; they hinder heat transfer. And of course, they’re still totally effective above the troposphere. I have never said that there is no greenhouse effect. Just a mechanism in the troposphere that reduces it below what the totally radiative calculation would give, to an extent that’s difficult to quantify until the GCMs can be regarded as reliable.
Phil:
Yes, BUT somehow that sure doesn’t translate to increased temperatures, or the tropics would be much hotter than they are, given all the GHGs there. Temperatures in the tropics seem to be limited to an average of about 33 C. What is the explanation for that? And consider a clear day, not a cloudy one for this thought experiment. Water vapor (or any other gas) at a temperature of 300 K emits a characteristic amount of radiation. But it doesn’t “feed on itself” or cause “forcings” like the AGW proponents posit, IMHO.
[Gunnar mode on]
It’s the first law. If you have x watts of heat to move from the surface to the tropopause, and y watts are convected, the amount moved by radiation is x-y.
[Gunnar mode off]
Right, the gases just keep irradiating, according to their temperature. But the HEAT is being removed constantly by convection. Otherwise, we would fry very quickly.
Jae:
Think ocean breeze in tropics
When the breeze stops it does get warmer.
Mike D:
Yes. Less convection, no? But why doesn’t it get anywhere near as hot as Phoenix, AZ?
GHE does not exist. If it did, then tropics would be warmer because they clearly have more H2O. Deserts are hotter, but drier, therefore GHE does not exist. That GCMs do not reflect this means they are dead wrong.
Interesting discussion continues here – I certainly don’t agree with everything posted, but don’t have time to respond to all. I thought I might be able to help with “coolthoughts” question (?) #353 though…
Two things to keep in mind when you compare deserts and tropical oceans:
* what is the annual mean temperature of a desert, including night time and seasonal change? Is it actually any hotter than the equivalent average for a nearby ocean? Do you have numbers?
* even over the driest desert, water vapor is typically still around 10% relative humidity. Since the radiative effect is logarithmic in the GHG concentration, instead of a factor of 10 difference in warming you have only an incremental change of a few degrees that would even be predicted (and the issue of local heating is complicated by convection and other heat transport mechanisms as has been discussed in other comments here, issues significantly more relevant for local temperature than for global means).
What I think is happening is Larry I might be using biology “enthalpy” definitions, not the “use” of enthalpy or “use” of the concept when it applies to the climate system:
http://www.answers.com/topic/enthalpy?cat=health
I think Lucia is going to straighten this out when she has time!
Why are deserts hot? Jae, maybe you should ask, why are deserts cold at night?
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Why_are_deserts_so_hot.htm
Deserts reflect only about 25% of radiation from the Sun and consequently the high rate of absorption means they can get very hot.
From the link above:
it has been estimated that the Sahara Desert actually loses more infrared radiation than it gains solar radiation from the sun.
Location in the chronic high-pressure climate belts is what makes deserts. Most people know that high pressure tends to bring clear skies and lack of precipitation. These “desert” belts lie in two zones, roughly between 10° and 30°, on either side of the equator.
It is all about atmospheric pressure/dry air, and wind/rain shadowing etc but the most important thing: having -no-water- because some deserts are very cold and dry not just hot. And water vapor is THE greenhouse gas.
a place climatologists call absolute desert which happens to be next to he Pacific ocean: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0308/feature3/?fs=www3.nationalgeographic.com&fs=plasma.nationalgeographic.com
Desert islands are very rare.
Arthur I don’t think Coolhead and jae are comparing deserts to tropical oceans. They are comparing desert temps to temps for places closer to the equator or more tropical.
Some scientists, like Lonnie Thompson (and his tropical glacier ice cores) claim that the tropics will be what warms up “first” according to AGW theory, I do believe.
I clicked the link; that gave the definition of enthalpy used in physics, chemistry and engineering.
Are we back to “why are deserts hot?” again? Jae– I thought you accepted that deserts that were near the ‘downleg’ of the Hadley cells and/or in rain shadows of large mountains were both hot and dry for those reasons. Naturally, they are particularly hot during their “summers”.
So, the desert Southwest is hotter and dryer than the equator, on summer days because a) it’s in the downleg or the Hadley cell (the desert belt) b) in a rain-shadow thereby getting air that was isentropically compressed, AND c) it’s summer and the days are longer near the tropic than the equator. Or, have you found lots of deserts that are hotter than the equator in Scandinavia or the Yukon?
You seemed to accept these as reasons why low lying regions in Iraq were hotter than the equatorial locations over the ocean during the summer.
Just asking the same question over and over isn’t going to change the answer.
If you no longer agree with the physical arguments provided before, why not engage them?
353, 354: Coolthoughts says:
Arthur says:
I would not say GHGs don’t exist, but you have the point I’m trying to make. If they exist, they act just like CO2, relative to the logarithmic relationship between absorption/emission and concentration. Thus, the effects of additional water vapor must become minimal after about 10 percent humidity is reached. Otherwise the tropics should be hotter than the deserts (DESPITE the adiabatic compression phenomena lucia discusses).
Yes, Lucia, I agree with you on these phenomena. My only point in bringing it up again is explained above. Evidently the compression effects are stronger than additional greenhouse effects, once the humiditiy levels reach those of the deserts. And they are at that level or above over nearly all of the globe. Even Barrow, AK.
Coolthoughts: While I said below that I think GHGs exist, I question just how they work. There is no question that they absorb and emit IR, unlike the rest of the air. However, I think there is a question about whether they function “as advertised.” I see no evidence for any kind of IR “forcing” mechanism, which leads to higher temperatures. They might just serve to absorb IR and help thermalize the rest of the air, thereby effectively acting as a heat storage system. Hence, my little essay on esnips.
Rocks:
Some are, some aren’t. Remember, the MINIMUM temperature in the 30 degree lat. deserts is almost as high as the MAXIMUM in the tropics. One reason is adiabatic compression (as lucia says). More importantly, there are few clouds in these deserts, and the solar radiation is extremely intense–about double that in the tropics.
BTW, thanks for the info on the monster desert in SA. That is an extremely high desert, with permafrost at 5 km. That desert seems much like the polar deserts, and it should be warming rapidly if CO2 has significant effects. I wonder if any temp. data are available.
Yes. Locally, the compression effects result in quite noticable temperature changes that exist year round. The compression effect in the rain shadow example is several degrees. This is certainly more than the roughly 1C increase in the GMST in the past century.
This effect happens whether or not the GHG’s “work”. So, deserts will continue to be dryer and hotter in the presence of climate change.
Lucia said:
“I clicked the link; that gave the definition of enthalpy used in physics, chemistry and engineering. ”
Yeah, that’s why I put the link. Larry mentioned burning of calories earlier on.
I think we getting to the IPCC version of the GH/AGW theory et al now. I now know why it is still a theory from what I’ve read
Interesting comment on JunkScience webpage: Greenhouse gases do not emit energy in the same bandwidth in which they absorb energy and thus emissions from carbon dioxide are not absorbed by carbon dioxide.
Could matter later to the debate if true 😉
here’s the page:http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
Luciaaa, I’m not talking about the 1C increase supposedly due to AGW. I’m talking about the strength of the basic greenhouse effect. It looks like it is not even as strong as the adiabatic compressive effects and low cloudiness that characterize these deserts and rain-shadows. That is, unless the full greenhouse effect is already “felt” at humidities below 6 g/m^3.
Jae writes:
“I’m talking about the strength of the basic greenhouse effect. It looks like it is not even as strong as the adiabatic compressive effects and low cloudiness that characterize these deserts and rain-shadows. That is, unless the full greenhouse effect is already “felt†at humidities below 6 g/m^3.”
Not the full effect, but most (about 85%) of the 33 K effect is still “felt” at low humidity.
From this realclimate post (which I believe misrepresents the cloud issue a bit, but that’s another matter), removing all water and clouds from the atmosphere reduces the total greenhouse effect to 34% of normal, so you have 10 K of warming with no water whatsoever.
Then, playing around with the interactive MODTRAN code, it looks like the impact of 10% water vapor on IR transmission is 78% of the effect of 100%, so very roughly 18 of the remaining 23 degrees would be there even with 10% relative humidity.
That leaves just 5 degrees C difference in greenhouse effect between 10% humid air and 100% humid air. That’s plenty small enough to be overwhelmed by the other effects that have been discussed.
If they say that they’re wrong! Unfortunately that’s true of much of the discussion here!
Jae– I’m not getting what you are driving at by trying to discuss microclimates.
If the GHG’s do increase the temperature in the tropics, summer days will still be hotter and dryer in deserts like those in Iraq and Arizona than in the tropics.
All that happens is this:
GHG’s cause the air in the tropics to be hotter and hold more water than we would expect in the absence of GHG’s.
When the hotter- moister air rises, it expands isentropically and cools, the water condense out releasing the latent heat to the air. When the dry air descends, it compresses isentropicaly and heats up. It heats up more than it cooled on the way down.
So, when GHG’s “work”, there is still a strong tendency for the climate to be hotter and dryer in areas that are in a rain shadow or on the “down” leg of the Hadley cell.
It doesn’t matter if the GHG effect is strong or weak. There isn’t any possibility of one effect canceling out the other effect.
If anything, if you add more heat to the tropics in a way that increases the dry bulb temperature, the hotter air can hold more water vapor. If you repeat the thought experiment with the air having a higher absolute humidity, the temperature increase in the deserts should become more noticeable.
Why? The temperature increase at the end of the expansion-condensation- compression cycle is due to the condensation occuring at the end of the expansion. The more water the air holds in the tropic, the larger the temperature increase!
When considering local climate, you need to remember that air moves. Quite vigorously.
Rox – calories are a unit of energy; heat specifically (like BTUs). They’re not specific to biology. I would have said BTUs, but I wanted to be metric for the benefit of our international readers.
The minimum temperatures in deserts are not perpetually hotter than the maximums near the equator.
It’s January. It’s currently quite a bit cooler in Arizona than Hawaii. Today even in El Salvador, where I was born, and, let me assure you, it gets hot in El Salvador. (BTW, it’s cooler at higher elevations than lower ones.)
It’s currently hotter in Boa Vista & Manaus, Brazil than in Arizona!
Of course the cloudless skies in Arizona also cause the temperature to soar during the day, particularly during the summer. The low humidity also results in high radiative losses at the night. That’s why deserts have very large day/night swings.
Clouds do have effects on climate, but this doesn’t mean the GHG’s can’t lead to an increase in GMST.
Unfortunately you appear to be beyond hope because you won’t listen!edited
Phil… be nice.
This blog permits pretty much anything goes, but I’m going to enforce some degree of good manners.
I’m planning to explain the heat capacity thing to jae– though I seem to have the flu. (And I’m looking up unicode for equations.)
I’m trying to read what he’s written up so I can write something that uses language he is familiar with, and that, possibly captures some of what he thinks he sees in his comment. But, in my opinion, to correct misconceptions, we must first understand what people think. So… yes, we will read errors here.
@Jae–
The link you gave doesn’t go to anything matching the abstract you posted. It goest to the old article that where you use watts (a unit of power) to describe energy.
Could you give the link to your new theory so we can read it.
Lucia, FWIW, you have some sort of blogadd or something that prevents the blog from completing loading unless I hit stop. The little firefox spinner just spins and spins and spins.
I forgot to say “in the summer.” And I think you know that.
The swings are large for ALL arid areas, not just deserts. This is due to more irradiation (fewer clouds) AND the lack of water vapor to store some of the heat from the day.
I think you are putting way too much emphasis on adiabatic compressive heating and not enough on solar insolation (lack of clouds). Comparing locations in western USA with ones at similar latitudes and elevations in the east demonstrates to me that the ghg effects of water vapor do not “trump” simple solar insolation when it comes to temperatures. I refuse to believe that all this is due to compression due to rain-shadows. I’m looking for some type of evidence that the greenhouse effect works as hypothesized. Water vapor stores heat well, because it’s specific heat is twice that of N2 and O2. It also absorbs/emits IR. That doesn’t mean it “heats” the atmosphere in any way.
The link is here: http://www.esnips.com/web/climate See the 1/31/07 post.
Again, substitute watt-hr for watts in those columns in the spreadsheets and discussions. As I said many times before, I should have put watt-hr there, instead of watts. It doesn’t matter to the calculations, since the NUMERICAL VALUES are the same. 1 watt is equivalent to 1 watt-hour, numerically.
@Larry– Dang! I thought the spinning was just my bad comcast. I added 1 adsense ad to test it. I would have thought their ads would load!! Sheesh….
(I’ll check the code just in case I did somethign stupid.)
370, Arthur. Thanks! So we should possibly see a little “positive water vapor feedback” in deserts and near the poles only?
Now, there’s a real helpful statement.
Jae–
Your analysis has a fundamental problem, you entirely neglect the amount of heat lost at night.
Thank heavens all the heat stored in the atmosphere and the ground is not lost by radiation to space at night. Otherwise, nighttime would be mighty cold.
The fact is, you need to balance incoming radiation and outgoing radiation to understand the quasi-steady problem.
Heat capacity is important when studying transients, but it drops out of steady state problems– and the greenhouse effect is a steady state issue. (Granted, we never really reach steady state– but the underlying idea is steady state.)
Trump? Who said anything about trumping insolation?
If we turn the sun off, the earth will become a ice-covered frozen mass. The atmosphere with or without CO2 has a modifying effect.
CO2 has an effect on the radiative properties of the planet. But if there were no insolation at all, this would hardly matter.
Lucia: the idea is that the amount of heat gained during the day is lost at night, not ALL the heat present! You start the day at, say, 20 C and build up to, say, 30 C. At night you go back to 20 C again; you don’t go back to 4 K.
To WHAT? I’m listening, but not believing all I “hear.”
Granted, indeed.
Jae– what mechanism would result in re-radiating precisely the amount of heat gained during the day at night? Why go back to 20C? Why not 19C? Why not 21C?
Why not, after several years, eventually reach a point where it’s 25C at dawn, with a 10C gain to 35C at night?
To get the correct answer, you need to actually account for how much energy is lost at night. This depends on the surface temperature, and is affected by H2O, CO2. The night time effects of H20 are very important. (A fact that is very obvious in Chicago winters, where most of our coldest days happen when the air is dry and lots of heat is lost at night. The temperature drops less when the skys are cloudy.)
The same mechanism that everyone uses; convection and radiative losses to space. I’m not suggesting that any of that is wrong.
Yes, I agree.
If you agree the night time radiation matters, then you need to do half of radiation problem.
Your current analysis attempts to look at radiation coming in and then has a magic “flush all radiation that came in today into space at night” button.
That’s not what happens.
If you really want to obtain a steady state solution by solving the transient and taking the limit that time -> infinity, then you need to
a) Do the transient problem correctly,
b) Run you computation out for years
c) See what happens to the temperature over time.
Then, you’ll need to do this with and without GHG’s.
And… then if you do things correctly… you’ll have a simple climate model!
If you try to account for all important effects, you’ll have a GCM! 🙂
How many people have to tell you this is baloney before you’ll reexamine your assumptions?
Isn’t that what the GCMs have, in essence? If not, then there’s a drift one way or another (in addition to the drift caused by seasonal changes).
Why don’t you just try converting 10 watts power to the watt-hour energy equivalent? I’ll bet you come up with 10 watt-hr.
No, because 10 watts isn’t 10 watt hours any more than 10 horses is 10 railroad ties.
Jae:
GCM’s don’t magically flush away energy at night or at any time.
I would’t be at all surprised if GCM’s show perpetually oscillating temperatures at the pseudo-steady state.
Many systems involving flow are stochastic in nature and at best achieve statistically stationary conditions; at no time does the solution become truly “steady”. Climate involves flow, adding in heat transfer, cryo-physics etc. adds complicting factors– none of which will make the non-steady proble truly steady. But, it might be stationary.
Still, the idea we call “the greenhouse effect” is defined based a “steady” or at last “stationary” idea.
Larry: Just sit down and do the calculations. 3.7 watts of power is equivalent to 3.7 watt-hr energy.
Edit
Jae– No. 3.7 watt-hr of energy is not equivalent to 3.7 watts of power. It is also not equivalent to 3.7 hours.
“Many systems involving flow are stochastic in nature and at best achieve statistically stationary conditions; at no time does the solution become truly “steadyâ€. Climate involves flow, adding in heat transfer, cryo-physics etc. adds complicting factors– none of which will make the non-steady proble truly steady. But, it might be stationary.
Still, the idea we call “the greenhouse effect†is defined based a “steady†or at last “stationary†idea.”
Yes. I get around the continual fluctuations by using 30-year monthly averages. I’m not trying to predict tomorrow.
Ok… so the quasi-steady doesn’t bother you.
Now, treat the problem as quasi-steady and take the magic “eject energy into space at night” button out of your thought-experiment.
Then, accounting for clouds, radiation, convection or whatever you think dominant, see where the temperature returns during the day.
Note: If you come even remotely close to correct, you should be able to predict the hottest day in summer and the coldest in winter. Then, you can explain why these don’t occur at the solstices.
Why not use the proper units, Joules?
1 watt-hr. = 3600 J
That’s fine, too, if you want to express the energy in joules.
Jae, how many miles per hour is 30 miles?
412 Phil
I’m guessing here, but I think they may be talking about the difference in linewidth between a CO2 molecule at 1000mb and one higher up at about 500mb, say. The pressure-broadening is different.
The next part of the sentence should include the phrase “some of”, though.
Larry, I think you are having trouble with the watt-hour unit, because, as Phil kind of implies, it’s an odd unit. It is an energy unit DEFINED by the US power industry as 1 watt power over a duration of 1 hour; i.e., 1 joule/sec over 3600 sec = 3,600 joules. I should probably use joules, as Phil suggested, to avoid confusion. I am just used to the watt-hr lingo, because the data I have for solar insolation is provided in kwh. You get into rather large numbers using joules. For example, the average daily insolation in Daggett, CA in July is 10 kwh/m^2/day, which is the same as 36,000,000 joules/m^2/day.
That is simply not true. The watt is not defined as a watt over an hour, not by the electrical utility industry, and not by anyone. If you insist, then provide a link to that definition.
Jae: Larry and I would not be giving you grief over this units issue if you used watt-hours properly, to describe energy. You are using then to describe power.
Watt-hours is not a unit of power.
However, if you wish to use joules, that’s ok. Big numbers are not a problem: 36,000,000 joules in 36 MegaJoules, which you may write as 36 MJ.
Neither Larry nor I will have any problems with the largeness of the “mega” number as long as you don’t start claiming people can say things like:
36 MJ = some number of watts.
The dimensions on the two sides of an equality must match.
I don’t know if you mis-match them in an EXCEL spreadsheet. You mismatch them in your narratives. Could you please just go fix your narrative to say something correct, show a sample calculation, before asking us to trace through calculations in an Excel spreadsheet to see if you screwed something up?
Giving people EXCEL spreadsheets is nice as an extra step, but it doesn’t replace actually explaining your calculations so a person knows what you intended to do.
?? Er, please show me where I did this.
As I have mentioned several times, I MISLABELED some column headings in some of the spreadsheets. I inadvertently used the term w/m^2, when I meant to type w-hr/m^2. I should probably pull them off and fix it but I’m too lazy. So sue me.
While on the subject of mislabeled column headings, I also labeled the insolation columns for July and Dec. as kwh. It should read kwh/day. There are probably some other mistakes, also. But the calculations are correct, AFAIK.
In your November 10, 2007 article, you say
See
http://www.esnips.com/web/climate/
I pointed this out long ago at climate audit. But, all you want to do is explain that watts are watt-hours.
Obviously, no one is going to sue you for mislabling or making mistakes.
That said, you want us to plow through your spread sheets, you must fix your column headings and your narrative explaining what you did. I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel justified in not being willing to guess what the column headings should be and guess what you mean by a watt-hour or any other unit you use incorrectly.
If you want people to understand what you are trying to say you need to fix these things.
OK, my humble apologies for typing “watts” instead of “watt-hr.” I’ll fix the column headings and text when I get a chance.
410, Arthur: You linked to RC, regarding the GHG effect with no water. I can’t find such info. in that link. Is there another link? BTW, I think RC’s bit about “taking all the water out of the air and letting it refill (with a climate model)” and the short “residence time” of water are red herrings. That cannot be done and does not happen in the real world. When it rains, the water vapor is not all removed from the air column. Plenty remains and is always there (so residence time is a bogus idea). There is always a considerable amount of water vapor in the air everywhere. The dryest places on earth rarely go below 10 percent RH.
Jae (#445)
Re the realclimate link here. Look at the table midway down the page. It shows “fraction LW absorbed” in the middle column, for different atmospheric constituents removed. These are calculated using the “radiation code from the GISS GCM” – i.e. it’s the radiation (LW only) part in one time step of the climate calculation under fixed conditions, not actually running the model to see what happens in future starting from those conditions.
With none of the constituents removed, you get 100% of the standard greenhouse LW absorption. With “All” removed you get 0%. Now look at the line “H2O + Clouds” – 34% of the usual effect. That’s what you get for LW absorption for an atmosphere with no water and no clouds.
The “residence time” of water is a completely different issue. It’s a simple relationship that depends on, to first order, the ratio of the total amount of water in the atmosphere to the rate at which water evaporates and precipitates out. It has nothing to do with removing all the water vapor from the atmosphere, it’s just the comparison of a total quantity with a rate (sort of like comparing energy with power) – take the ratio and you get a time. For water in the atmosphere, that time is 10 days: every 10 days enough water evaporates to completely replace all the water vapor in the air.
The ratio for CO2 is quite different. With this first-order calculation you get about 10 years, not 10 days; more importantly, the rate of emission and absorption of CO2 are different so that it is still accumulating. The expected small negative difference between emission and absorption for CO2 even if we quit all anthropogenic emissions is where you get the 100-year+ residence times for some of our CO2 increase.
Thanks, Andrew. I didn’t study the table enough. I am very wary about this whole presentation. First, it’s based on a GCM, and who knows how accurate that is. Secondly, I can’t see any rationale in the “residence time” argument. There is ALWAYS water vapor in the air. Why does it matter how fast it is replaced, as long as the concentration stays the same? If the concentration stays the same, the GHG effects of the water vapor stay the same. And the demonstration of how long it takes to replace the water vapor if it is all depleted? It is never all depleted. When it rains, the RH is 100 percent up thare. So what’s the “depletion” story all about? As I said before, the water vapor level rarely goes below 10 percent in the dryest areas on earth (Certain African and Asian deserts). In almost all areas it’s at least three times that for the daily LOW. What are those guys trying to say, anyway? They are not really addressing the GHG effect of water vapor like they set out to do. They certainly don’t address just how much water vapor it takes to absorb all the IR that is “absorbable” by HOH. It seems to me that they got lost in tangents. Smoke and mirrors. Would appreciate your perspective.
The bottom line to all this is that there is not ONE SHRED of empirical evidence for the AGW hypothesis of CO2-caused warming. There are only computer models that are based on computer-based radiation models, which are based on questionable physical assumptions (see Gerlich an Tseuchner’s article, e.g.), for which there is also no empirical evidence. They have model outputs that are treated as data for input into another model! It is circular reasoning to the extreme! Where’s the beef?
Like I said. Pure entertainment. From the laziest dog I ever met.
Although I am learning good things through the incredibly patient efforts of Lucia and Arthur Smith.
@Jae:
Arthur’s definition of residence time is the standard definition for residence time in science and engineering.
There is nothing in the definition that requires the water to ever be squeezed out.
It’s similar to Scwartz’s use of response time for the climate. He estimates a response time of 5 years (I get longer). We don’t need the planet’s temperature to drop to 0K to estimate a response time or to make responise time for climate a meaningful quantity.
Response time is a measure that describe how quickly a system responds to a step change in conditions.
On Arthur’s discussion of the effect of H20 on radiation: It’s not necessary for the earth’s water vapor content to reach zero for physicists to know the radiative properties of dry air. You were asking questions about how much effect water has. Discussing the effects of dry air, slightly moist air etc. addressed your question.
As far as I’m aware, the effect of H20 on radiation he gave does not come from a GCM. It comes from some radiation computation.
Lucia: I know what response time is. I just don’t see how it has anything to do with GHG radiation, since there is always plenty of moisture in the air. You don’t have to have the same molecule in the air at all times, if it’s replaced by another one that carries on the same radiation dynamics.
Yes, bender, they are being incredibly patient, and I really appreciate it. Glad you are enjoying yourself. Get some more popcorn.
Other than you, no one said response time affects GHG radiation. Not here. Not at Real Climate.
You introduced the issue of response time into the discussion of radiation in comment comment 445.
That’s why Arthur started his comment to you with ‘The “residence time†of water is a completely different issue.’
I would like to make here a (corrected) point that I made on CA, since it tends to support some of what jae is saying:
I have a different issue with the argument which Dr Annan’s email presents.
The Stefan-Boltzmann equation is fairly straightforward (notwithstanding the albedo uncertainty), but it seems to me that the interpretation should be quite different. The temperature Te is calculated as -18C, 33C below the assumed surface temperature of 15C.
However, the jump to assuming this is all due to GHG effects is a very large logical jump to my mind.
I would argue that the -18C is the result of the following:
On the average, the radiative emission is from an altitude of about 5km, 15,000ft, where the temperature is -18C*. How does the thermal energy get there? By convection and the water-vapor cycle.
This interpretation is so obvious, it is hard to see why AGW supporters ascribe the 33C to GHG, without argument from other scientists.
What am I missing?
*The average is biased by the T^4 dependence and the average position of the emitters is higher than that (because the lower-temperature molecules are emitting appreciably more than the lower-temperature)
I don’t know. I always need people to sketch diagrams for me, and for some reason, I never find these. Is there an analysis that shows the fluxes so I can have a look. (I’m full of cough medicine, but I know I can look at pictures and think later.)
455 lucia
The emitted flux needed to balance the incoming flux is that which corresponds to a black-body emitting at 255C, or -18C. That much is clear, even to someone enjoying the alcohol in cough mixture!
The AGW proponents ascribe the difference between that and the 15C surface as “the GH effect”.
I am saying that the radiative emission is not coming from the surface but from the troposphere above the surface, at the -18C level on the average.
It’s very simple (even to….) and very believable, if you remember that there is a conveyor belt carrying heat energy up to that level non-radiatively. This is, of course, known as convection and the water-vapor cycle, which are very active between the surface and the -18C level.
In terms of a picture, think of a non-radiative flux from the surface to the 5-10km level, and then a radiative flux from there to the stratosphere and beyond.
453, lucia:
I’m confused again. Can you interpret this for me then (from the RC tome):
“While water vapour is indeed the most important greenhouse gas, the issue that makes it a feedback (rather than a forcing) is the relatively short residence time for water in the atmosphere (around 10 days). “
Pat: isn’t that just what Soden and Held (and all the climate modelers) saying?
Jae (#457)
This is something beyond what I was referring to that realclimate thread for – you were asking about the GHG effect under specific conditions of CO2 and relative humidity (dry vs wet conditions), which the table in that post tells you about.
But what they’re talking about in the paragraph you quote is something different – the question of causation. A “forcing” is a cause, while a “feedback” is an effect of that cause, along with the changes in radiation and temperature.
In a model you could “force” water vapor down to 10%, or up to 100% relative humidity, or even down to 0% if you want, because you’re just dealing with a set of equations that describe the radiation balance under those conditions. But if you actually ran a climate model (or the real world) starting from one of those conditions, the residence-time argument tells you it would revert to the average relative humidity within some small multiple of 10 days, because of the high rate at which water evaporates and precipitates on Earth.
The short residence time is also why water vapor levels vary so widely around the globe – if it stayed in the atmosphere for a year instead of a week, water vapor would be much more uniformly mixed.
But actually, this is not exactly why water vapor is a feedback rather than a forcing – the realclimate quote you give has some justification, but it’s misleading. The real reason is the underlying physics of water in the atmosphere. If humans started pumping water vapor out into the atmosphere at a huge rate similar to what we’re doing with CO2, say 10% of the natural water cycle (which would require a really enormous quantity of energy, by the way!) then we could indeed raise water vapor levels in the atmosphere through anthropogenic means, and that would indeed be a “forcing”, not a “feedback” at all.
But that water vapor would not accumulate the way CO2 does, because the natural processes that take water out of the atmosphere scale up with water vapor concentration so the same 10-day cycle would apply however much water we added to it. The same is true, by the way, of some of the long-lived greenhouse gases (methane for instance) – no matter how much methane we add to the atmosphere, it gets removed just as fast as any other atmospheric methane through the chemical reactions that burn it to CO2 and water. So cutting back on methane production will produce a response within decades (the natural residence time for CH4). That’s why we’re already seeing some years with a decrease rather than an increase in CH4.
Also, the ten-day residence time applies to the troposphere; water hangs around longer in the stratosphere, and there is a small forcing due to anthropogenic sources adding water vapor to the stratosphere. But it doesn’t accumulate.
On the other hand, the natural processes that take CO2 out of the atmosphere are different. CO2 is not removed by atmospheric chemical reactions or through any sort of condensation (at Earth temperatures), but through surface processes in biology and the oceans. These do not scale directly with atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and so have not been able to keep up with our added CO2 emissions. So the CO2 concentration keeps going up – and will be high for centuries to come unless we figure out some other way to get rid of it than the natural processes we have now.
So realclimate’s claim that the residence time was directly relevant is wrong – however it’s indirectly relevant in that the shorter the residence time, the more absolutely quantity of the gas humans have to emit to maintain a higher atmospheric level. So practically speaking, gases with short residence times are almost sure to be feedbacks, not forcings…
The primary heating of the surface is by incoming solar, IR from the surface is then absorbed by gh gases and the lower atmosphere warms up. The temperature profile you get from this is unstable and convection redistributes the heat to give you the lapse rate up to the tropopause. If the gh gases weren’t present you’d get radiation out into space, no heating of the atmosphere and a surface temperature of ~255.
Arthur, methane has another wrinkle, if we add too much of it the residence time goes up! The reason is that the main way that CH4 is removed from the atmosphere is by reaction with the OH radical which is in limited supply so above a certain [CH4] OH becomes the limiting factor. The other factor is that when CH4 is removed it is converted into CO2 which is of course still radiatively active. So releasing CH4 is like releasing ‘super CO2’ which converts to normal CO2 with a half-life of about 7 years. Methane is also believed to be the main source of increased water vapor in the stratosphere.
You can get an estimate of this from MODTRAN.
With a US standard atmosphere with no clouds for simplicity you get:
Surface T 288K outgoing radiation 258.7 W/m^2
At the same T with no water you get 303.7 W/m^2 which implies a surface Tdrop of 14ºC to give the same outgoing radiation.
The same calculation with CO2 removed give 286 W/m^2 which gives a Tdrop of about 8ºC
Jae: You said most recently:
Real climate says:
You both seem to agree there is water in the air. They say water is not a “forcing”. In the sense that it is not a forcing, water has ‘nothing’ to do with GHG radiation.
The water is always there.
However, water does affect the radiative balance. If, for example, we do something that has the effect of increasing the air temperature, (like increase CO2, or get closer to the sun) we might then expect that the amount of more water may evaporate and the total amount water in the atmosphere will increase and then the water will affect the radiative properties of the atmosphere. If the increasing water traps more heat, temperatures will rise further. That’s a positive feedback
On the other hand, if we do something that has the effect of increasing the air temperature, (like increasing CO2 or moving away from the sun,) the air will cool a bit. Then, water will condense out, and subsequently lower the amount of humidity.
Because the time constant for water is very small, we expect this effect to be almost instantaneous.
Notice that in all cases, there is plenty of humidity in the air. That said, “plenty” is not enough to make the radiative properties constant as we vary the amount of water in the air.
Arthur ran the Modtran calculation and gave you bounds. In the range of water vapor contained in the atmosphere, the radiative properties of water will affect the amount of heat trapped.
If you neglect the water entirely, you will get an incorrect answer on the radiative properties for the atmophere.
The G&T paper is junk, I’m not surprised you’re confused if you read it!
If you want to see the evidence for CO2 warming take a look at a satellite measured IR spectrum for the earth and you’ll see a large chunk of flux missing at the CO2 15 micron band, the temperature of the surface has to increase to make up for deficit.
Arthur: thanks for that explanation. But in view of that discussion, then how can “positive water vapor feedback” be an additional “forcing” which further raises the temperature?
460 Phil
Thanks for the response.
The truth of that depends on whether you consider water-vapor to be a ‘greenhouse gas’. It seems to me that low-altitude, pressure-broadened water vapor alone will block pretty much all the IR (except a little bit in the 10u region) up to mid troposphere.
Why is it necessary to bring in CO2?
Phil,
I’m sitting here with a copy of “A climate model primer” by Henderson-Sellers and McGuffie, 1987. It was given to my husband by a co-worker a long time ago.
Is MODTRAN what would be called a “radiative – convective” model for radiation transport? I googled a bit; mostly found instructions on how to use it. That small amount of physical discussion I found seems to indicate it’s a “radiatin-convetive” type model.
460, Phil:
I agree with this, of course. But isn’t one big function of the GHGs to thermalize the rest of the atmosphere? The N2 and O2 molecules are not at 255 K, while the GHGs are at 288 K. How much of the available energy “trapped” by the ghgs goes into this thermalization?
Well, I’m not qualified to say whether or not it’s junk. That’s a pretty broad statement.
Relative to the large flux missing around the 15 micron band–Has this missing flux increased since the satellites have been measuring it?
Jae–
Are you conceding the flux is missing around the band? 🙂
If it is missing, what is your explanation for the missing band?
lucia: of course, I am; and CO2 is likely responsible. I have no problem with the OBSERVED radiation spectra, contrary to what you must think. Hmm, and those satellites must be able to tell us just how much water vapor it takes to obliterate the flux from the water absorbing regions of the spectrum?
Jae:
I just wanted to see if anything can make you concede that CO2 actually has an effect on radiation. So, I’m taking it you have conceded that CO2 causes that gap in the radiative flux?
If you are curious, you could even try to get the data and analyze it. While you are at it, you could find the answer to your question about whether or not the satellites show more CO2 being blocked. 🙂
Of course water vapor is a gh gas but its concentration is dependent of temperature (it also blocks less of the IR than you think). If the CO2 isn’t around the temperature is significantly lower and therefore the water vapor drops ……
As far as I’m aware there hasn’t been a satellite mission over that period with the necessary accuracy to determine that (in fact it would need a series like MSU). Such earth observation missions have become a low priority at NASA. One was built and was scheduled for launch about 4 years ago but its launch was cancelled.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5134022.stm
Yes although it’s rather more difficult, since rather than a well defined band the H2O spectrum is composed of a wider spread of distinct individual lines (like comparing a picket fence with a door).
lucia, I’ve never questioned that CO2 has an effect on radiation. I’ve questioned what effect this effect has on temperature. Because of the complexities of thermalization and the fact that O2 and N2 also absorb/emit IR (see Tom Vonks posts on CA), is it possible that the gap is compensated by increases at other wavelengths?
So you agree that the effect of the ghgs is to increase the earth’s surface temperature by ~33ºC, good.
Yes the ghgs do thermalize their absorbed energy with the rest of the atmosphere, how much depends where in the atmosphere they are. Near the surface ~100%, in the stratosphere ~0%. Their net effect is to reduce the outgoing radiation which means that the surface temperature increases to compensate. Increased ghg concentration in the stratosphere means that Tstrat will decrease as has been observed.
Of course it’s increased at other wavelengths, that is the gh effect! However to increase at the other wavelengths the incident flux must change i.e. go up, which means the surface temperature goes up.
Vonk’s post about N2/O2 absorption are a red herring (they don’t suddenly appear/disappear in response to CO2 concentration).
Jae– I haven’t read Tom Vonk’s post. Jae, could you be a dear and drop the link?
Yes it is Lucia, in the sense that it includes the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere which is set by convection.
Thanks Phil. Now I have a qualitative understanding of what that does.
473 Phil
Now that’s an unsupported assertion. I am not disagreeing with it, just examining some basics, but what is the direct evidence for that?
lucia: see: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2528#more-2528 Especially # 57, but also 32 and 39. It look like Tom really understands the thermo, and he has some BIG criticisms of the assumptions made in deriving even the 3.7 watt/m^2 “forcing” for 2 X CO2.
Check out my comment 462 for the spectroscopic evidence.
Next look at the ‘missing’ outgoing IR due to CO2, if that isn’t missing the earth is losing more radiation than it’s receiving, it must cool down.
If you’re questioning the drop off of WV then check out the Clausius Clapeyron equation.
Can’t we at least get a handle on how much IR is blocked by very low humidities (over deserts) vs. by very high humidities (tropics)?
Testing…
Overly gregarious spam filter, it would appear.
484 Phil
No, I wasn’t referring to the vapor/T thing, just the lower-temperature assertion.
In the calculation you cite in 462 (for which I thank you), what level of water vapor is used? What pressure?
If the concentration of CO2 goes up, the concentration of other things (i.e. GHGs) must go down. Therefore warming caused by CO2 will be offset to some degree by cooling from other GHG reductions.
This is how Gaia saves us from burning up. Everything is connected to everything else. Only in silly GCM world are things disconnected from each other.
490 Cool
A change of 100ppm in CO2 makes a significant change in the concentration of the other GHGs? Come on, a 1 in 10,000 change in an already very small amount of (say) methane is worth mentioning?
Better put some more water in that hookah…..
451, yeah. It’s amazing what you can learn from a mass balance.
The pressure at the surface is set at 1 bar, the water vapor in the ‘wet’ calculation was 7.5 mbar.
Here’s the result of two MODTRAN calcs only difference being a 10 fold reduction in H2O.
Surface T 308K, H2O 2.2mbar: Iout, W/m^2 = 339.75
Surface T 308K, H2O 22 mbar: Iout, W/m^2 = 301.1
No clouds in both cases. Shows the rapid cooling at night in the desert.
?? How does that show rapid cooling at night? It compares 3.9% RH with 39% RH. It looks like it also shows a REVERSE ghg, in that you lose more heat through radiation when there is LESS moisture. Shouldn’t the higher moisture hold in more heat?
I don’t understand what you’re getting at, the higher moisture content case loses less heat so radiation heat loss is higher in the dryer case.
It shows you lose more heat when the air is dry. In contrast, you retain more heat when the air is wet.
So, it’s showing GHG type effects.
Jae, you’re confusing a heat screen with a heat sponge. Different concept entirely.
496, Phil: OK, I was looking at it the wrong way. Now, we have more heat escaping in the dryer area. So, again, let’s look at Western USA vs Eastern USA in July. More heat escaping at lower humidity in the West, but average temperatures in the West are still higher (similar altitudes, elev.). WTF?
Jae, Lucia already explained all of that. This is pointless going around and around like this.
Then go away. So far, I refuse to agree that lucia’s explanation covers ALL of the Western USA.
I isolated one variable for you, the effect on radiational heat loss of humidity under a cloudless sky, there are obviously other effects that influence the temperature actually achieved on the ground. I’ve seen reports of temperature drops of as much as 20ºC during a solar eclipse in a dry area of California compared with ~7ºC in the east, that’s the way to do a controlled experiment.
That I believe. Insolation at the surface is the most important determinant of temperature. Humidity is next in importance.
How do you define ALL of the west?
I never said ALL the west is rainshadowed. Many people consider Minn, Missouri and Iowa, west, as these are west of the Mississipi river. I don’t claim these areas are rainshadowed by the Rockies. Are any of your hot/dry examples in Minnesota? Iowa? Are they hot and dry?
So far, every specific example of a “hot/dry” area you have named is either clearly in a rainshadow or clearly in the desert latitudes or simultaneously in both.
As for the Western US, yes, much of it is rainshadowed. There happen to be several tall mountain ranges on the western half of the continent.
The various rain shadows include the areas just east of the cascades but not yet rising up into the next set of mountains. (like much of central WA and OR. I once lived in Richland WA. It’s dry.) Rainshadows also exist east of sierras, east of the Rockies and east of various mountain ranges that run north south.
The desert region is near the 30degree latitude region. When a spot is both east of mountains and in a desert latitude it gets might hot and dry. Let’s see… what might that include?
The strength of the effect obviously varies with the height of the mountains, distance from the mountains and prevailing winds.
You aren’t required to accept this explanation. But it’s sufficiently widely understood that failing to account for rainshadowing in that spread sheet of yours, or in examples you give to prove your “hot is dry” theory, is going to cause many to say ‘Yes, that’s due to the rain shadow effect.’
Let the record show that Lucia explained it.
lucia: I don’t care if you want to maintain that any area in the USA which is arid is in a rain shadow and that’s why it’s arid. Whatever. Such areas also tend to be hotter than humid areas, due PRIMARILY to more solar insolation at ground level and to less negative feedbacks caused by evaporation and clouds. Some of the heat may be also be due to adiabatic warming. Whatever, I still think that, if the greenhouse effects of water vapor are as strong as many people think, the effects of all the water vapor in the East should at least create/store as much heat as WHATEVER creates the excess heat in the West.
Yes jae. But other people don’t think GHG’s would could the moist areas to be hotter than the dry ones. The only think that water vapor tends to increase the forcing function by an amount dQ. But, that doesn’t mean the a large portion of (Q+dQ) can’t go into evaporating water– just as (Q) goes into evaporating water.
It’s not as though the extra forcing dQ is orders of magnitude larger than Q. According to the proponents of AGW, we’ve increased the planets surface temperature by about 1K so far. And the sun acounts for what 255K already? (250k? I don’t know these numbers!) And withouth the “A” part of GW, we get 33K of greenhouse warming.
So, no, the effect of CO2 or water is not so huge as to overwhelm the basic effect of the sun!
lucia, 57: ?? As I understand it, the ‘greenhouse effect’ is supposed to add about 33 C. That’s a big dQ.
Not in the context of 288K.
Precisely.
Part of Jae’s argument appears to be that it seems to hime the water vapor effect, if it exists, should overwhelm the baseline effect we would see with the sun only. But, the water vapor effect is not as strong as the effect of the baseline effect of the sun, so, he concludes effect must not exist.
The difficulty is absolutely no one claims the water vapor effect is as large as the baseline for the whole sun. 33K << 288K. And the 33K is not due solely to water! Arthur ran some bounding calculations for you jae.
gawd. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
I’ll try again:
GHGs add 33 C to earth’s temperature.
Water vapor is the dominant GHG which supposedly causes most of the average T increase of 33C.
There should be a larger increase in T in areas with more water vapor than in areas with less water vapor.
It doesn’t look like this is happening.
Why?
BTW, 33 C is still a big dQ, relative to 288.
It’s barely 11%.
Jae– If you want to make your case for your theory, you need to write a real document, include equations etc.
You admit to being too lazy to do it. That’s fine. But you can’t expect others to get all excited about your musings and dig in to translate it into something that might be meaningful.
We have other things to do–like pursue our own interest or knit our husbands sweaters.
I thank the angels in heaven that this garbage is not on CA. Don’t say I didn’t tell you so. You guys are saints.
I’ll save jae the trouble:
“shut up bender.”
“you think you’re so smart.”
etc etc
No, bender, just go away, if you are so offended. What are you, a machocist? Or just an egotist? What is your payoff, anyway?
What THEORY? I’m trying to figure out the GHG THEORY. Explain it to me, please. Perhaps bender could even add something substantive, instead of offering only pap and insults?
Payoff? I’m like you. I’m a teacher. I learn to be a better teacher by understanding what it is that blocks learning. And I must say I learn a lot from you.
jae, GHE has been explained to you many times from many angles. And here you are asking AGAIN?! AFAICT the only barrier to your understanding is your refusal to understand. There is a word for this …
All: please just answer 512 for now, please.
bender: the explanations don’t agree with empirical observations, which is bugging me. Also, I don’t believe that is the real payoff here.
bender: I’ll help you here: mockery is a real bad technique for teaching, learning, conversing, understanding, communicating, or self-fulfillment.
I know from experience how frustrating an argument with jae can be, but he asks a good question which hasn’t been answered:
It’s a difficult question, that needs thought. Off the top of my head, I get the following thoughts:
1. When humidity is low, more humidity is a positive (i.e., warming) factor relative to average temperature. When it gets to higher levels, there is more than enough to do the GHG thing and it becomes a negative factor, by forming clouds and producing precipitation.
2.When temperatures are high, the higher capacity of hot air to hold water means that clouds form much less often, and precipitation is rare.
3.What lucia said: rain-shadow areas are also areas where the air is heated by descent, so hot and dry go together.
♦33 C greenhouse effect? I don’t think so. There is a 33 degree difference between the earths temperature and the temperature a black body in the earth’s orbit would have. But without an atmosphere the earth would not be a black body. Has anybody actually calculated an estimate of the temperature of the earth without any atmospheric effects? With six months of darkness and no horizontal heat flow through the atmosphere I imagine the temperature would drop to near absolute zero at the winter pole. Would the no atmosphere earth have a temperature of 255 considering that radiation emitted varies as the fourth power of temperature?
Pat Keating, did you find an explanation of saturation yet?
Doug– But with regard to applying Stephan-Boltzman, it seems to me the isothermal isn’t that poor approximation.
If your concern is that we can’t use T4, with a constant T, we could apply T4(r,θφ) and integrate.
But if first substitute an average temperature and a deviation, like this:
T= Te+ T’
After averaging, the odd products will mostly cancel (due to symmetry) and we get to leading order
T4=Te4(1+ 6 (T’/Te)2+(T’/Te)4)
I live in Chicago, and our temperatures vary bewteen 0C and 30C. So T’/Te) is about 0.05. That’s probably about a typical variability for this latitude.
When I insert that into the equation, I get about a 1.6% difference for Chicago’s contribution.
I suppose you could do the problem for the whole earth, weighting for areas appropriately. But it doesn’ seem likely your going to explain the 33K.
Doug
I’m not sure what you are referring to — can you remind me?
Without an extensive investigation, I have come to the conclusion that the
grey-body objection is not valid. If the Earth is a grey body, it will of course emit less efficiently, but absorptivity and emissivity are tied together, and both sides of the S-B equation are reduced by the same factor. So you still end up with 255K.
However, because of wv absorption in the lower troposphere, most of the escaping IR photons are emitted from higher altitudes, where it is cold. So 255K may be the “average” temperature for the photons which actually get out of our atmosphere.
I just have a hard time believing that the air is in an overall constant state of decent during the whole summer in the Western USA.
Doug: there is a lot of horizontal heat flow poleward, and there is no place that is dark for 6 months.
It doesn’t have to be. If the prevailing wind is from the west, the rain shadow lies east of the mountain range. The wind is out of the west most of the time, so the rain shadow and descent are operative most of the time. When the wind is from other directions, things change.
For example, Washington DC is in the rain shadow of the Appalachians. They are low, so the effect is weak, but it’s there. DC gets most of its rain when the wind is from the East.
Who said anything about a constant state of descent? Aren’t your hot/dry cold/moist your associations correlations (a type of average) in the first place?
The prevailing wind direction over the US is from the west. East of large mountain chains that run N/S, (like the Cascades, Rockies, Sierras etc), air masses arriving over the central plains will have often just traveled over mountain peaks, and will now be descending along the terrain that is, generally, dropping in elevation.
So, yes, the air masses are, on average, “descending” and converting potential energy (&ro; g h) into thermal energy as they travel across the western states.
This happens most of the time, because the mountains are always present and, at all times, the elevation of the terrain generally descends from west to east over the central plains.
There are, of course, updrafts and downdrafts locally (I believe Pat uses these when flying? But these mostly average out over the central plains. So, the updrafts and downdrafts aren’t particularly relevant to the issue of overall rain shadowing in the more northerly portions of the western portion of the plains.
(In the desert southwest, there is an additional generally down welling due to the Hadley cells. So, that area get a double whammy from the air flowing over mountains to the west and downwelling. This can really boost the temperature. This makes these areas especially hot and dry relative to other places.)
If past behavior predicts current response, you will now make the point that these places are also sunny, which makes them hotter: Everyone agrees with this.
You will likely also point out that, in the plains, all this energy goes into dry bulb temperatures, where as over the ocean some would go evaporate water, and so would result in higher web bulb temperatures, but not dry bulb temperatures. Yes. Everyone agrees with this. But, as I explained, this still heats the atmosphere on average because that moist air rises, the water condenses out, and due to the principle of conservation of energy, the heat is transfered to the air at that location. So, on average, the planet’s atmosphere is elevated even if evaporative cooling moderates the dry bulb temperatures immediately near the surface of the ocean.
In general, your arguments seem to consist of “I don’t believe.”
It’s acceptable for you to not believe these things, but you should hardly be surprised if those statements don’t suddenly cause people to share your lack of belief in commonly recognized physical processes that are described — with pictures– in Wikipedia, and online tutorials for introductory meteorology courses.
A) Winds blow from the west.
B) Several very, very tall montain chains run N/S on the.
C) Isentropic expansion of moist air concenses out water, when this is followed by an isentropic compression, the air is heated.
D) This affects the climate of the central plains, making it hotter and dryer than other geographical locations at similar elevation and latitude.
This likely explains most, if not all, of your correlation. If you think these don’t explain the climate of the western states, and you want other people to believe your theory about heat capacity, you will need to do work to show otherwise.
And please, don’t respond once again that you don’t have a theory. You are telling people over and over that what you posted a Esnips has explanative value. Models that claim to explain phenomena are called theories. I realize that, for some reason, you wish to use the Socratic method and prove the explanative value of your theory by posing questions, but that doesn’t turn your theory into a non-theory. It just means you would rather try to prove your theory using the Socratic method.
OK, lucia, I’ll not disagree with this, because it really doesn’t really matter to my overall question, which is how the greenhouse effect works. Back to 512, please. Does the rain shadow effect over-shadow the greenhouse effect caused by water vapor?
I guess you are right about the theory part, in that I’ve postulated a rather different view of the greenhouse effect.
No the rain shadow doesn’t overshadow any greenhouse effect. Given the mechanism involved in rain-shadowing, the two would work together, in a somewhat additive nature, likely making the hot/dry cold/moist correlation somewhat stronger, in the manner I explained earlier.
What I am observing might be explained as follows: Any additional “greenhouse heating effect” that is caused by the high amounts of water vapor in humid areas is balanced by the energy taken by photosynthesis and by negative feedback from clouds. This would fit my observations, but it also puts “positive water vapor feedback” into question.
Let’s look at the objections in comments 524, 535 and 527. Lucia, I never expected to find that the total error was 33 C, however the errors might add up to 10% or even 20% of that, perhaps more. By the way, I didn’t realize there was a Chicago down near the Gulf of Mexico where it never got much below freezing on a cold January night.
Pat, unless I am mistaken the albedo varies with wavelength. Since the earths surface absorbs both long wave and short wave but only emits long wave, the incoming albedo and the outgoing albedo are not guaranteed to be equal. We also have the horizontal movement of energy by ocean currents, even without the atmosphere. The albedo of the area where this heat was absorbed by the earth could be quite different than the area it is emitted. Other changes would include a significant change in albedo due to the absence of clouds, a large increase in IR radiation from the sun reaching the earth’s surface along with the UV that is now blocked in the stratosphere. How much difference will the sum of all these influences have? I frankly don’t even have a decent guess. But if it is significantly different than the 255 accepted figure it could raise a large question about our understanding of the processes that go on in the atmosphere.
Jae, the last time the north pole received direct sunlight was Sept. 20 or 21st. Well assuming it was a clear day. The next time will be the first clear day which occurs on March 20th or 21st or thereafter. sounds like six months to me.
Doug–north pole–yer right for a very small area.
@Doug– Yeah. You got me on the lows. It is more like 0F. {blush} So, do the computation with T’=25 C. What do you get? 5%?
Look, I’m willing to believe there are issues with using Steffan-Boltzman. There are certainly plenty of places to quibble. What’s the albedo? Isn’t the body really grey?
But what’s the point of complaining about the isothermal assumption when you know including the correct numbers appear to make almost no difference in that regard?
You seemed to be suggesting the isothermal issue was the major contributor to 33K, leaving nothing more to explain, and consequently the whole GHG issue is a red herring at its core.
If that’s not what you mean, then elaborate and let us know.
Given that I get roughly 5% for Chicagos contribution, I find it difficult to believe integrating over the entire planet would result more than 5%-10% of the total. But, if someone got the data and did the calculation, I’d change my mind. Meanwhile, I’m going with the back of the envelop estimate of 5% of the 33K = 1.7 C could be due to the invalid isothermal assumption.
The remaining 31C or so are due to something else. (Or, someone has to do the tedious computations to show it’s due to the isothermal issue.)
Relevant post on the James Anan thread at CA:
Gary says:
January 5th, 2008 at 4:28 am
Wow, 2 days and 286 responses. This has really stirred up the engineers and its about bloody time. What are they teaching in climatology nowadays? I don’t know James Annan but he gets a fail in engineering heat transfer. Tom Vonk #199 is right on the money, average radiative temperature is only equal to the surface temperature for an isothermal surface. A simple one page spreadsheet will reveal that for a sphere the spatial average temperature for an average insolation of 250 w/m2 is about -6C not -18C so just correcting the maths removes 12C from GH. Also when heat is transferred from hot spot (tropics) to a cold spot on the same surface it will raise the spatial average temperature but the average radiating temperature will remain the same.(one temperature drops , the other gains but both have to rise again to satisfy the solar equilibrium)
#202 what is so physically special about 3km being the radiating determinant. It looks suspiciously like it was chosen because the model could not match the insolation at higher altitudes (ie no physical basis). My own model based on sound chemical engineering principles had the same problem until I discovered the extreme sensitivity to the lapse rate (ie humidity)Just small changes gives large changes to upper troposphere radiation.
Chemical engineers really need to get involved in this debate.
Not for a grey body, which is what we are talking about.
Is the Earth a grey body? No, but the issue was greyness. Once you get away from that, it gets much more complicated than a post on a blog can cover.
I would emphasize again the last point I made in the other post:
496, which is not incompatible with the greenhouse hypothesis (and I have no clue what that Neil guy was talking about with the “GHE causes the radiating temperature to go down” line).
But Lucia, your back of the envelope calculation is for the earth WITH an atmosphere. What I want to know is the calculation WITHOUT the atmosphere and it’s related effects such as cloud albedo, evaporation, solar IR and visible absorbtion etc. I think it is obvious that the daily high Chicago temperature in late June will be much higher because of the increased insolation. However the daily low temp will be lower without the greenhouse effect and the occasional cloud. The seasonal variation would also be larger IMO. Both differences would need to b calculated for the earth to find the true effect of the atmosphere. And don’t forget about the other differences that I’ve mentioned. If I’ve satisfied Lucia, I will go back and remind Pat about saturation, and follow that up with a look at jae’s obsession. Don’t worry about your mistake, Lucia. It’s so very easy to make an error when you mix up units. (hint, hint) (memo to self: triple check units, some eagle eyes and sharp minds are now just waiting for you to make a mistake.)
Pat, the average temperature for photons escaping Venus is apparently 238K. This large discrepancy from the blackbody temp is due to the very high albedo. The average temp of photons escaping earth will be lower than 255K because of the earth’s average albedo of .31.
I’m not sure what you are saying. The albedo has already been taken care of by the factor (1-a) in the S-B equation.
Incidentally, I was a little sloppy in my English. My post should have said: “So 255K may be the “average†temperature for the molecules emitting the photons which actually get out of our atmosphere.
I know little about Venus, so will pass on that.
But the earth does have an atmosphere, which results in massive heat transport whether or not there is any GHG effect.
If your idea requires us to ignore the convective effects in addition to possible GHG effects, where are we.
I’m not concerned about goofing up an error in quickly written blog comment. You pointed it out, I admitted it was a goof, and I corrected. The isothermal assumption is still pretty good and relaxing it makes very little difference in the result.
If mistakes in blog comments could change physics, physics would become very odd, very fast.
OTOH, your desire to ignore convective mixing which clearly exists and has nothing to do with GHG’s makes no sense. Convection happens. The wind blows. Heat is transported from the equator to the poles by this mechanism. And this heat transport affects the radiation problem just as much as it would in any engineering HVAC problem.
Yes the 33K calculation is for a planet with a transparent atmosphere.
For a planet without an atmosphere e.g. the Moon you’d assume a Lambertian distribution.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LPSC99/pdf/1892.pdf
Now for something completely different. Since you invoked the “N” word over at CA,
I think one of the reasons why people see the carbon cap-and-trade advocates as unserious is the fact that the technology that we know how to do now that will take most CO2 production offline in the shortest time with the least money spent is considered unspeakable by the policy types. I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, I’ll believe that Gore et. al. are really serious about GW when they’re prepared to get behind a crash program of replacing coal plants with nuke plants, not only in the Western world, but in China, where a new coal-fired plant comes online roughly once a week. Only then will we start making up for lost time in the development of this technology.
If we hadn’t have committed technolocide 40 years ago, pebble bed reactors would be old-fashioned, and we’d be running thorium-based molten salt reactors right now, producing a small fraction of the waste that uranium reactors currently do, and practically no plutonium. It’s a travesty that we and the rest of the world continue to build these rod-type reactors that have changed little since the 1950s.
544: Right on!
jae here is an opportunity for you. Use the equation in the paper referred to above and calculate what the maximum temperature should be for your various land stations without any atmospheric effects. I think you will find the tropical atmosphere’s contribution to thee temperature will be very interesting, even shocking to some people.
Why am I interested in the earth’s temperature without any atmospheric effects. Because it may be possible to falsify a greenhouse gas theory without waiting a century. The IPCC has presented a theory of how various atmospheric factors influence temperature. Does this theory give us a reasonable answer to the observed temperatures of the earth today? To answer that question we need to know what the temperature would be without the atmosphere. If somebody developed jae’s observations far enough t put numbers to them, then they would give a very different temperature distribution for the temperature differences contributed by the atmosphere than the IPCC version.
Doug: You’ve kinda lost me. With the heterogeneity displayed by the earth’s surface, especially water, how could that formula apply?
@Larry,
That we committed technocide on Nuclear reactors is a tragedy. That we haven’t solved our clean up problems is a tragedy.
But yes, the only way out of the CO2 issue is Nuclear. I’m for all all sorts of alternative energies, but wind and solar aren’t going to do it. The rivers with elevations change are already dammed, so we aren’t going to get more hydro.
Not only that, but hydro has its own environmental issues, as do wind and solar (and especially biofuels!). Environmental groups are suing wind power projects as we type. We need to face the fact that there is no such thing as zero impact, and manage the impacts like adults instead of petulantly saying “no!’ like 2-year olds.
Jae, #553, use the surface albedo for the typical surface at the weather station. There is a list available of typical albedos, I believe in one of the references bender recommended to you on CA unthreaded. If you can’t find it let me know and I’ll look it up tomorrow. Adjust the latitude for the earth’s tilt. The formula won’t work for oceans and lakes but should give us an close idea of what the daily high would be without any atmospheric influences. I think you will find a big difference between different places and different seasons, but there will be a definite pattern.
Lucia, have you seen emc2fusion.org?
What I think is interesting is that the enviros are trying to get the dams torn down, put taxes on OCO, they are against nuclear power. They have absolutely no “solutions” but pie-in-the-sky junk like alternative fuels and a “hydrogen economy.” The fools should be stripped of their SUVs.
Doug, I’ve seen the material on the Bussard reactor, and I myself am unqualified to comment, but physicists who are say it’s snake oil. The path from here is to liquid salt fission reactors, and eventually to thorium cycles. If you want the ultimate in safe reactors, google the Rubia reactor. I don’t think the Rubia approach (which is rather expensive) is justified, but it at least is a concept where you could literally pull the plug on the fission reaction.
Aha, I think I finally got my question about water vapor absorption answered over at CA on the IPCC Forcing thread, Comment 28:
“#3 to Steven McIntyre:
Before you go in the subject of ’saturation’ I have the following comment:
Saturation is a wrong term in this connection. Saturation occurs when a very strong laser beam is going through a volume of absorbing gases. The radiated energy fluxes from the Earth are weak and can not cause saturations effects. An excellent (a simple) textbook description of this can be found in “The Quantum Theory of Light†by Rodney Loudon (Third edition, Chapter 1 and 2). At the same place a detailed and clear description of the absorption process can be found together with expressions of the important attenuation coefficient.
Another and a more fruitful way to describe what is going on in an absorbing media (with weak incoming energy fluxes) is to consider the atmosphere as a ‘blotting paper’ in the frequency space. The thickness of the blotting paper in a certain frequency range is determined by the density of absorbing lines, the density of the absorbing gases and the extend of the gas layer (the height of the atmosphere).
The blotting paper of water vapour is fairly thick even at very moderate concentration (>1000ppm), and has only few holes in the Planck radiation spectrum of the Earth at standard temperature, which means that most (if not all) of the emitted energy flux is absorbed. Only in frequency areas where water vapour has no absorption lines, other absorbing gases can trap the emitted photons from the Earth. The CO2 blotting paper is not as thick as the water vapour’s, due to the concentration (300-600ppm) and it absorptions lines is overlapping those of water vapour, and has beside, large holes in the frequency space. Even if CO2 has concentration of 1000ppm or more it would not matter: The available energy flux can’t be absorbed twice!
Now, if this explanation is acceptable (and can be proved rigorously; what I think it can and is working on) the climate has been in balance with the water vapour content most of the life span of the Earth, and CO2 is only an additional player which content does not matter at all, even at very high concentrations.”
Edited: I added a link to the comment.
Answered maybe, but unfortunately it’s flat out wrong!
Jae– could you provide the link? I found this comment 28 on IPCC forcing. But that’s not what you mean.
@Phil–
Could you elaborate? I know nothing about the radiation line for CO2 and H2O, so I don’ know.
I’m tempted to open a threads specifically on the Tsurface-T issue so I can add images and put a very simple top of the fold article. However, I admit to not having looked at this much.
But I figure if you and Pat comment, my simple minded stuff could help people crystalize their thoughts. (It would help me with mine.)
561, Phil: Maybe so, but forgive me for not just taking your word on this, LOL. Steve Mc is gonna provide some more real interesting info. on these topics, and I’m waiting for that before saying much more.
I’m in the process of preparing an exam so responses are rather terse but here goes:
The power absorbed is given by I1-I0= I0((10^-A)-1)
A is absorbance = abs coef*conc*length
So once A gets large (bigger than ~2) there is no measurable change in power absorbed, this is referred to as saturation.
However because the absorption lines have finite width saturation in the center doesn’t mean saturation in the wings and so increased concentration can lead to further absorption even though the center is saturated, I’ll send you something in more detail later.
Jae– I know nothing about these particular saturation bands, but wouldn’t it be possible for you to look them up? You seem to think it’s key to supporting your theory.
Meanwhile, I am left tingling with anticipation, because you are telling me you predict that if someone looked it up, it would prove your newly proposed theory.
Shouldn’t you be the one who is eager to look it up?
lucia: I haven’t really thought much about how this all relates to my “theory.” The “greenhouse effect” is just a topic of great interest to me. I would really like to figure out just how it works. The info. that Steve Mc is providing may be extremely helpful in that regard.
Thanks. FWIW I ask for details, I never mean “right now”. This is a blog. Anytime is fine.
Sorry too much haste, should be 10^A.
But apparently were prepared to take the other guys word for it because it matched your preconception!
Yes, Phil: my preconception got in the way. We will see how it all pans out….
Phil., I seem to recall reading several places, including RC, that it’s not that simple, because even if the atmosphere is opaque to a particular wavelength, energy still gets through by reradiation and reemission. You get a bucket brigade effect, even though the odds of complete absorption are high in a short distance. So according to them (Weart?), saturation never happens completely.
Comment 186 at CA on IPCC Irradiative Forcing #1 Thread is very relevant to my “findings:”
“http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2560#comment-191295:
January 6th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Your observation that increased humidity reduces the amount of solar radiation incident at ground level should not lead you to conclude that more water vapor will not have an increased impact on the greenhouse effect.
The fact that the additional water vapor is blocking the IR from the Sun also means that it will cause more scattering of the IR photons thermally radiated from the Earth. This does lead to an increased GHE.
I don’t think that the thermal IR makes up for a 10% decline in the visible light radiation that is several times more energetic than thermal IR. If you fly across the U.S. as much as I do you can tell how the reflectance increases on humid days over the desert.
I don’t know what the balance is but what I do know is that it is largely ignored and I can measure it. We are adding bolometers to our large solar installations and we will add temperature sensors as well so that we can see if there is a correlation between this decrease and temperature.
Data rules.”
Here’s a post discussing some physics related to this whole “saturation” issue.
radiation balance
The overlap of the CO2 ad H20 windows and their relevance are discussed.
Lucia: the way I’m understanding Arne Skov Jensen over at CA, there is not really a “saturation” the way I was visualizing it. There is a complete absorption of IR at some level of water vapor, but the IR bands are never totally saturated, because the molecules just keep re-irradiating. If I understand what he is saying half of the photons are going to space and the other half are causing the greenhouse effect. Once you have a certain amount of water vapor (he uses 1,000 ppm as an example), all the IR is absorbed by the water vapor. If you have more water vapor, you still absorb all the IR, but you don’t get any more back to the surface than you do with only the 1,000 ppm, even though there’s a lot more IR flying around, because it just keeps getting absorbed by other water molecules. ?? This makes good sense to me and could explain why you don’t have any more of a greenhouse effect in very humid areas than you do in dryer areas.
As I indicated earlier this was incomplete and I would complete it later. I’ve ran a short simulation for an individual gaussian line which I’ve sent to Lucia to try to set it up on here. Reradiation happens but typically at high altitude, also water vapor is convected above the lower, dense part of the atmosphere and if it forms clouds can radiate blackbody radiation which can be absorbed by CO2 at higher altitudes.
Larry R #559 is there anything online about the errors in the Bussard process?
I suspect what is missing are a number of features of the atmosphere which are not being accounted for at all or not being accounted for properly.
For example, take the earlier question about a mass of warm air being transported from a tropical region to a polar region resulting in an average or mean value which would not change. When thermal convection lifts the warm air to high altitude and cools it in the process, it is also being transported across the top of a supercell such as the Hadley cell. In doing so, it loses thermal energy by many means, especially radiation. What is missed, however, appears to be the roles of such major features as the jet streams, frontal activities between supercells, and assorted other phenomenon disregarded or poorly parameterized as being mere weather.
Also poorly handled by the GCMs and parameterizations are the unique roles of landforms, particularly mountain ranges, in altering adiabatic rates of air masses at varying rates; biospheric influences upon maritime albedo and atmospheric gas concentrations; and intra-tropospheric inversion layer compositions and effects upon humidity, adiabatic rates, aerosols, and albedo.
Doug, go to motls.blogspot.com, and search for bussard. There was a thread there, where it was discussed at length.
D Patterson-
Yes: In some models, major features like Hadley cells, jet streams etc. aren’t accounted for at all. In GCM’s, these are accounted for in principle.
These features arise from known climate dynamics, they are large scale coherent structures, at least qualitatively these structures should manifest themselves in 3-D computations.
That is to say: If a 3-D model is remotely decent, people should be able to look at the output and say: “Hey! Look, that’s a Hadley Cell! And there’s a jet stream!”
I’d certainly be suspicious of quantitative predictions from models that didn’t qualitatively capture these things.
But then, I’m always suspicious of models in any field. (But I also support the need for models. I just think models need to be fully tested against good empirical data. )
As to GCM’s themselves, I’m pretty darn sure the models capture Hadley cells at least qualitatively. I have know idea about the jet stream. I know that the GISS II model did not capture El Nino/ La Nina back in 1988, because one of Hansen’s papers said it didn’t.
I haven’t read enough papers to know any more than this.
Isn’t anyone going to throw rocks at my greenhouse theory? http://www.esnips.com/web/climate
@Jae–
I thought we already threw rocks. Isn’t that the theory with the magic “flush exactly the amount of heat accumulated during the day each night giving no physical explanation for why?”
I clearly need to add stuff to the sidebar. I’ve started to post “baby food” posts, so that as we go forward with explanations, we can link back to the totally elementary stuff and show where different approximations are made, where they aren’t made and how they fit.
Given the qualitative arguments against the GHE we see, I figured there was a need to break things down and start at the very beginning. The radiating isothermal ball problem.
Obviously, that analysis doesn’t prove or explain anything. It just shows that we are trying to explain 33K in warming even before we get to the EGHE.
lucia: The physical explanation is very obvious: the sun goes down and that’s the amount of energy that is lost to space. If you did not lose that amount, the next day would be hotter (which sometimes occurs and explains the winter to spring to summer transition). If you lost more, the next day would be cooler (which sometimes happens and which explains the summer to fall to winter transition). But on average, during a given month, the amount gained during the day is the amount lost at night. Simple energy balance. I could put all kinds of knobs on it, one for a cloudy day, one for a rainy day, one for a hazy day, etc., but this is a simple 30-year average.
@jae–the sun goes down and that’s the amount of energy that is lost to space.
Sorry, jae, but sunset is not a physical mechanism for heat transfer.
You need to explain the heat loss from the planet (or at least the location) using conduction, radiation or convection. Also, if you use conduction or convection, you need to realize that heat arrive at the new geographic location.
Convection can explain it all to about 5 km. Just like opening the doors in your greenhouse at night. Above that, radiation to space dominates.
@Jae– Your theory relies on a very precise amount of radiation and convection to flush away exactly the amount of energy accumulated.
So demonstrate there is exactly the correct amount of convection and radiation, no more, no less.
If you do, then you will have a theory that doesn’t rely an apparently magical assumption.
lucia: when you think about it, it’s no more magical than the prevailing GHG theory, which is reduced to assuming some type of “average” radiation balance at some “average” height, at some “average” relative humidity….It makes total sense to me that you have to lose about as much heat as you gain each day. I see no alternative to this nightly loss of about as much heat as was gained during the day, since otherwise, it would either keep getting hotter, or keep getting colder. Of course, this does happen when the seasons change. And there are many day-to-day fluctuations caused by fronts, thunderstorms, etc. The radiative hypotheses really say the same thing, but they have a slightly different mechanism.
Hey guys, I have been waiting to ask this question somewhere-on CA or here. It might be a dumb one. I think I brought it up once before. The troposphere’s main heat transfer mechanisms are convection AND turbulence. Correct? I think someone said there’s not that much turbulence higher up in the atmosphere so it doesn’t matter to the debate-or something like that. But I just can’t picture our atmosphere as a calm un-moving thing.
How do the models handle the turbulence?
I’ve been reading, and it doesn’t seem all that straight forward.
See here:
“Stanford University’s George Papanicolaou Seeks Order in Turbulence”
http://www.sciencewatch.com/interviews/george_papanicolaou.htm
Under this question:
Has computer modeling actually allowed for any true understanding of turbulence theory, or has it been simply a tool to help model empirical problems?
He says:
In the atmosphere, for instance, turbulence manifests itself on scales from millimeters and centimeters to meters and maybe even tens of meters. So how much energy does each scale carry in a typical developed turbulence? How does the energy distribute itself among the various scales? That’s a very essential question. Is there a universal law that describes this?
Kolmogorov did a simple dimensional analysis and came out with the so-called “five-thirds law,” which says that there is an intermediate range of scales—in which, as the length of the scales decreases, the energy decreases—and that this cascade of energy has a universal character. The 1950s and 1960s saw a flurry of physical experiments in which discrepancies in this law were found. For the past 20 years, people have been simulating the problems on the computer to see if Kolmogorov was right, or if the researchers proposing heuristic improvements based on experiment were right. That has been extremely fruitful research. And it’s now a benchmark problem. Every time a new supercomputer comes out, people immediately test what it will do for the turbulence problem.
@jae–
Well…. getting hotter if there is an imbalance of energy is part of the EGHE claim. And that’s what we are arguing over isn’t it?
You’re theory doesn’t say so, but, your justification for the “magic flush energy at night button”, is a corellary of the assumption the GHE effect doesn’t exist and so the EGHE effect can’t either.
But, you have worse problems. It is an empirical fact the earth has warmed and cooled during different periods of time. Getting hotter or colder is claim for any theory explaining why the earth did this. You’re theory not only can’t explain that, you admit it can’t explain why the average temperature varies during seasons.
I’m a big fan of simple 1-D models that ignore fronts, weather etc. to explain big picture stuff, but those models don’t claim to compare Chicago to Phoenix. They only claim to get the average temperature from the whole planet.
I’m a big fan of simplification, but if you apply conservation of energy including the transient behavior, and you need to describe the transent during the night in equal detail as you describe the transient during the day. If you apply radiation coming in from the sun, you need to include a sub-model to predict the rate of radiant heat loss from the earth in equal detail.
Rox – turbulence isn’t a heat transfer mode, it’s a convection enhancer. It makes convection more effective.
Troposphere is substantially less turbulent than the lower atmosphere; that’s one of teh reasons jets like to fly way up high in the sky. If you fly lower, you’ll experience more bumpiness.
But “calm” is not “unmoving” and “less” is not “no turbulence”.
Turbulence tends to be generated in high Reynolds number flows in regions with high shear or where density gradients are high and convectively unstable. Both can occur in the lower atmosphere for reasons that are understood.
The tropopause isn’t convectively unstable. Since it’s far from solid boundaries, I suspect the average shear rate is generally low.
GCM’s parameterize the heck out of turbulence. I know all use a turbulent boundary layer model near the surface. As far as I can tell, they use some rather simple, low order, turbulence parameterizations higher up in the atmospheres.
I don’t know how well these parameterizations match reality in a GCM applications. On the one hand: If I had to design a GCM and run it, I too would use a turbulent boundary layer model and simple lower order parameterization higher in the atmosphere. I’d do this because there is no practical alternative; the computational requirements of GCMs are too great to do otherwise. (When Papanicolaou discusses turbulence models or computer programs comparing results to Kolomogorov’s result, I don’t think he means GCM’s. But, I could be wrong on that.)
So, I guess I’d say, GCM’s are probably as good as we can do given computational limitations. That doesn’t answer the question skeptics want answered, which is “Just how good or accurate are they?”
Huh? You obviously don’t understand what I’m trying to say. I did explain all that; look at the December numbers cf. the July ones, e.g. I’m saying that this IS the GHG. I don’t think there is an EGHG, unless it is caused by the Sun.
Jae– Explain why the coldest day of the year is not the winter solstice. Explain why the hottest is not the summer solstices.
Explain why dawn on day 2 is not the same temperature as day 1 if all the night heat is flushed away with a magic button as you assume. Explain why the temperatures at dawn on day 3 is the same as day 2 is not the same as day 1 with your magic button. And why isn’t dawn on day 180 the same temperature as day 1?
I know– it’s because you the button on and off inconsistently and with no explanation whatsoever.
The magic flush heat at night theory you apply to individual days does not explain the seasons. You just chose to not work through the consequences of your assumption and just blank out your memory when looking at the data.
The data contradict your magic flush button.
Lucia: You are trying to make this far more complicated than I intend. My exercise is not meant to represent a detailed climate model that predicts climate variations. I’m simply trying to ACCOUNT FOR the heat that the earth receives and loses, ON AVERAGE, during the selected months of July and December at selected locations. Of course there are lags, and jet streams, and all sorts of climatic factors that cause large daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly variations. I’m simply looking for an explanation of the “greenhouse effect” that doesn’t rely on all IR radiation by IR-absorbing gases, because I think all those radiation mechanisms are very minor, compared to convective effects. A lot of what Tom Vonk has said at CA supports this view, IMHO. The radiative hypotheses that are being discussed over at CA cannot address the factors you listed, any better than my hypothesis. For example, how do THEY explain why the hottest day is not the summer solstice? How are they any better in explaining the “greenhouse effect” than my explanation is?
Jae, I don’t see how yours explains the greenhouse effect at all.
To explain a ‘greenhouse effect’, you first need to explain what temperature these places would based on the radiative balance alone. That needs to include: heat arriving from the sun. Heat lost by some recognizable physical mechanism. Calculate a temperature based on that model
Your model accounts for heat received by the sun, and then has a magic flush button.
You describe temperature variations during the day, but you don’t calculate the average temperature for the day. Why isn’t the average at each location 33K lower? Or 33K higher? Or just shifted some constant amount from the current average?
To explain the greenhouse effect, you need to determine what the average temperatures should be.
This is called “reverse engineering,” I guess. I have explained why the temperatures are what they are. The Sun heats ALL the gases in the atmosphere every day, and they lose about the same amount every night. I explain the 33 C by the same mechanism that everyone else does: a blackbody at the average temperature of all these gases would irradiate as though it was 33 C higher than without the gases. The mainstream GHG hypothesis is completely silent on the role of N2 and O2 on temperatures, and this bugs me. The energy to heat these gases has to come from somewhere. It comes primarily from the IR energy that is absorbed by HOH and OCO. Those molecules “steal” that energy that is supposedly being radiated back to earth.
Larry R. 581 I went to Lubos’ blog but only could find two short posts and only one had comments (2). Have you any other suggestions?
thanks guys-about my question.:) Hang in there jae.
It’s not silent on the subject, it’s a basic tenet of the theory. Incidentally they don’t steal it, they borrow it since at 250K the Boltzmann distribution gives ~2% above the energy of the first excited stated of the CO2 bending mode. So high in the atmosphere the CO2 can pick up enough energy to emit @15 micron.
Can you point to some discussions on this?
Phil: I didn’t think so, LOL.
Re 619
Should be in any description of the process, it’s been discussed in CA and RC many times.
It’s even in Wikipedia:
Greenhouse_effect
“thus carbon dioxide molecules can absorb IR radiation. Collisions will immediately transfer this energy to heating the surrounding gas.”
OK, I guess it is “mentioned,” although that does not explain how the sharing of all that energy might affect the GHG effect. How high in the atmosphere? 2% isn’t enough to cause much heating.
The GHG effect is a result of how much IR fails to leave the earth’s atmosphere, CO2 acts as an absorber up to the lower stratosphere by when the atmosphere is thin enough for IR from CO2 to escape into space. The 2% refers to how much of the CO2 retains enough energy to emit a 15 micron photon when in collisional equilibrium at the ~tropopause, after a photon is emitted the CO2 molecule is free to be collisionally activated again,. At lower altitudes the heat exchanged from the CO2 is redistributed by convection (it’s the main way that the energy is transferred to the atmosphere from the surface).
Yes, I know. But tell me how this relates to GHE. I think the radiative theory of GHE effect is mostly baloney, due to LTE and convection. Everyone is assuming black bodies for gases, which is totally wrong, as far as my understanding goes. Read Tom Vonk’s posts on CA. I think he really understands thermo (I’m certainly not an expert, so I have to pick my favorites 🙂 ) Nobody has yet explained to me in a satisfactory manner why the average temperatures in humid areas (e.g., the tropics) seldom, if ever, go above 32-33 C, despite all the GHGs there; whereas, the average temperatures in dry climates are often WAY higher than that. I’m basicall an empiricist, and I want to see some solid evidence of a GHG effect. Where is it?
I think the GHE in humid areas is being absorbed by a black hole of logic originating at jae’s home office. I mean, it just makes sense.
Have a nice day, bender. 🙂
Who’s assuming that the gases are blackbodies? Why do you think I posted MODTRAN calculations a while ago, they certainly aren’t BB calcs?
Phil:
Are you sure of this?
Yes, 100%!
Jae– Modtran definitely does not treat gases as blackbodies! This isn’t even a subtlety.
lucia: OK, but how do you know this? Have you seen the code?
MODTRAN would be trivial if it treated gases as black bodies. There would be no absorption spectra. Put on your thinking cap. What’s the wavelength of black?
jae. No. I haven’t seen the code. I’ve read theory descriptions of how these calculations are done.
So, basically, I know Modtran doesn’t do this the same way I know GCM’s don’t model gas flow as bigham plastics. They just don’t.
LarryR: Uhhhhhhhhh, you are correct…