So PSI completely surrendered discussion of a highly emotional topic like…. thermodynamics after only a few days. It turns out that photons emitted from a cold body which then strike a warmer one, are the Kryptonite of the organization. A group so cocksure of itself that it would throw out an entire field of science based on its own superior scientific integrity and self-described intellect. Yet on all counts, they have failed to address any of the serious questions asked of their theory.
In the end, a simple question, a single one unanswerable by this group of people who have been so condescending, so self righteous, that they make Real Climate look humble and welcoming.
We have spent years listening to odd proclamations about the second law of thermodynamics. We have endured the extreme rhetoric against climate science. We have heard the absolute certainty of true zeal in their comments. PSI “science” is so distorted that many readers wonder why I would engage them at all. More faith than math in my opinon.
Why give them the credibility of a discussion here?
Because they have asked for an audience of science. A peer review of their work. Quite literally, I have been repeatedly asked to review their papers. Instead of a single paper, they got a little more than they bargained for. A chance to explain themselves, yet the group failed to understand the implications of the questions being asked here. That failure alone is enough to dismiss any further work on their part, yet they also failed to answer any simple questions of thermodynamics.
One last chance? Sure why not. Let’s make sure this backradiation duck is completely dead…
Lets say we have two perfect blackbodies, one at 100K, another at 200K. What happens to a single photon emitted by the cold body that strikes the warm one?
Rest in peace…
the Air Vent 
What sort of game is this Jeff? I answered the four questions yesterday and you deleted my answer.
Doug. First, you and others have made it clear that you don’t represent PSI. Second, I don’t recall any answers that I deleted. Put your answers up again on the correct thread.
I believe I have proved beyond reasonable doubt that it is the gravity effect which, in conjunction with natural variations in Solar flux reaching a planet’s atmosphere, determines that planet’s atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures. This is based on valid physics and is explained in my 20 page paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” which so far no one in the world has successfully rebutted, because when they study it they realise it is correct.
You could have found some of your answers regarding radiation already in my peer-reviewed paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” published on PSI and some other websites way back in March 2012. There you could have read about the “resonant” or “pseudo scattering” which physicists are now starting to call it, wherein electromagnetic energy in radiation is not converted to thermal energy in a warmer target, but instead supplies EM energy for some of the warmer target’s quota of SBL radiation. Hence that component of the rate of cooling of the warmer target which is itself by radiation is indeed slowed, because it converts less of its own thermal energy into EM energy. But the target’s temperature is not raised.
The surface of Venus cannot be raised to 730K with the mere 10W/m^2 of solar radiation reaching it. So the issue of slowing of radiative cooling is not relevant. What supports the temperature of the Venus atmosphere, and that in the Uranus atmosphere, and any atmospheres of any planets in the Universe, is the heat creep mechanism which is a direct corollary of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, as explained in my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” in the PROM menu at PSI. If you wish to argue about any PSI paper, you have only to write to the CEO with a detailed explanation, and a detailed reply will be forthcoming. I do not necessarily agree with everything in all papers on that site, and nor does everyone at PSI agree with my own. papers in the PROM menu are not to be considered the official viewpoint of PSI.
With regard to the GHE on Venus, you need to trust equations. You also need to stop using rhetoric that has no value in science.
I hope we can all agree that the temperature gradient in the Venusian troposphere averages 7.9 K/km as claimed here:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/doi/10.1086/149625
If you can set a boundary condition it is a trivial calculation to derive the temperature at any altitude in the Venusian atmosphere, Sagan knew what the Venusian cloud top temperature was but he did not know:
AAA – The relative abundance of CO2 and nitrogen
BBB – The altitude of the cloud tops
It turns out that the relative abundance of CO2 and nitrogen does not have much effect as the Cp for these gases is almost identical.
The only significant variable remaining is the cloud top altitude. Sagan based his calculations on cloud top altitudes of 44 km and 65 km.
We now know that the cloud top altitude is roughly 65 km so the corresponding surface temperature according to Sagan is 721 K. That is quite close to the modern guesstimate of 735 K:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus
All your protestations about what 10 W/m^2 can do are wasted verbiage. Until you can come up with a relevant equation I can’t take you seriously.
As thefordprefect says in a comment below (12 June) the temperature of the Venus surface has nothing to do with radiation. So he and I both agree that Jeff is wrong when he says it is heated to 730K by radiation from the Venus atmosphere.
I am quite aware of how planetary atmospheric, surface, crust and mantle temperatures can be calculated using about two-thirds of the -g/Cp value as the gradient. That is what my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” in the PROM menu at PSI is all about.
But what is also in the paper is an explanation of the physics involved, not only in setting the gradient, but also in transporting the thermal energy downwards towards the hotter surface by non-radiative process which are restoring the thermodynamic equilibrium which the Second Law of Thermodynamics states will evolve spontaneously.
I believe I have proved beyond reasonable doubt that it is the gravity effect which, in conjunction with natural variations in Solar flux reaching a planet’s atmosphere, determines that planet’s atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures. This is based on valid physics and is explained in my 20 page paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” (in the PROM menu at PSI) which so far no one in the world has successfully rebutted, because when they study it they realise it is correct.
It is totally inappropriate to talk about a single photon. What happens to a single photon striking water in a microwave oven? The question is pointless. We have to consider the waves of radiation which resonate with the water molecules so that they “flip” through 180 degrees with each half wave that passes at the right frequency to cause such resonance. In contrast, even though the Sun will heat an opaque microwave plastic bowl, the low frequency, low energy radiation in a microwave oven appears to pass right through the plastic and heat water on the other side. Why is it so? If the plastic were transparent in the normal sense then images could be formed on the other side and you have a new imaging device that will rock the medical world. Sorry it doesn’t happen that way. The radiation undergoes multiple “pseudo scattering” events and follows a random path through the plastic, with some coming out on each side. Back radiation does the same thing when it strikes the surface, and eventually comes out somewhere.
Now, you still have not explained how the thermal energy absorbed from some of the 3W/m^2 at the top of the Uranus atmosphere then makes it’s way down into hotter layers, obviously not by radiation but by non-radiative heat creep.
Answer the “pointless” question.
I’m not being drawn by red herrings. The issue of radiation absorption is, in my view, irrelevant to the temperatures of planetary surfaces. My reasons are in my latest paper.
How about you try to answer my question about how the Uranus atmosphere receives the required thermal energy in its depths, obviously not from radiation. The mechanism of non-radiative “heat creep” (as I call it) up the temperature gradient, based on the process in the Second Law is explained using standard physics in my February 2013 paper. Show me where that is wrong, because no one else in the world has been able to do so yet. That mechanism shows why planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and even core temperatures are what they are, and how they get the required energy mostly from the Sun.
Anyone who understands standard physics can answer my question. If you disagree with the standard than we should be able to determine both where and why. Then the discussion can begin. However, you have stated yourself that you don’t represent PSI.
PSI is unable to even begin the discussion. I believe it is for obvious reasons.
They have not even considered the consequences of their contradictory physics, and have no answer… If you ask me the same question, I can give you the answer, the math, the widespread consequences, and many examples. Lucia’s quesiton about shock propagation represents a whole level of understanding that nobody in the PSI group can even consider. There are specific calculations based on two way energy transfer that are very difficult to derive alternative explanations for.
PSI has nothing left……….
.
Jeff, how wrong you are! Anyone who seeks to build claims for a GHE based upon the supposed actions of a single photon is either ignorant of the fact that there is no evidence in science for the existence of single photons or is intentionally misrepresenting accepted physics.
To descend into make-it-up-as-you-go-along “science” about the notional actions of photons is the hallmark of true believers in a religious faith with whom it is impossible to use valid scientific arguments to falsify their greenhouse theory.
As Dr. Darko Butina (who recently had articles published on WUWT) says “This is because that theory is not based on science that deals with physical reality of our planet. It is based on a purely theoretical framework that cannot be validated by measurements and therefore cannot be falsified.”
This is exactly what makes the GHE pseudoscience, why it has various and inconsistent and even contradictory descriptions of itself depending on who you’re arguing with (sometimes a single person will even switch to conflicting arguments when one argument is shown wrong). This bait and switch ploy has been used both by Anthony Watts and Jeff Condon to duck the fact that PSI has called the bluff of Watts and Roy Spencer and produced an alternative earth energy budget that doesnt require the existence of any ‘greenhouse gas effect’ to make the numbers tally.
The very fact that Condon and Watts (and Spencer) are turning a deaf ear to this suggests it is they, not PSI. who are defeated in this debate.
I was done answering from before, but this is way too funny.
“no evidence in science for the existence of single photons”
Remember your hero Planck — http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/quantumzone/photoelectric2.html — this link should be at your level.
In college, we used photo-multipliers to count photons. That was a very long time ago. I think you need to call hamamatsu and let them know your new discovery:
http://www.hamamatsu.com/jp/en/product/category/3100/3003/3047/index.html
Jeff, you’ve just proved my point of how disingenuous it was of you to take this debate down the blind alley into the of discussing the behaviour of individual photons.
Have you ever seen a photon? Sent light to it which has then bounced back? How would you define the Physical Object “photon”? Where in the definition is written that you can localize it in space between source and detector? Does a position operator exist for a photon? Which is a photon’s shape? And its dimensions?
That you look to ridicule others for holding a different view about an area of physics not yet resolved simply betrays your anti-intellectual game.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am in that camp that argues that photons have no particulate existence in flight. There is no doubt that the energy of the photon, and its momentum and polarization etc still exist and can be measured. But it is only localizable at the time of creation and absorption.
Such that:
1. Photon emitted by atom
2. Photon’s energy momentum etc join field
3. Some time later, an atom absorbs a quantum
4. Photon exist only while absorption is happening.
All the dynamics are in the creation and absorption events. There are no free photons and to try to have a debate about the greenhouse gas theory using this as your foundation is absurd, unnecessary and a bait and switch tactic to get away from the real issue:PSI’s ALTERNATIVE EARTH ENERGY MODEL!
PSI has produced a model for an alternative earth energy budget that shows that all incoming and outgoing IR tallies without the need to factor in the proven tautology of a greenhouse gas effect. Because of the fact PSI has produced a model where all the numbers tally this then leads us to the conclusion that the GHE is a tautology because the issue of “net’ heating from back radiation equates to saying 1= 3-2 when all that needs to be said is that 1 = 1, or energy in equals energy out. But defenders of the GHE don’t appear to have heard of Occam’s Razor.
I don’t ridicule people for having a different view. I ridicule them when they refuse to acknowledge an error. There was nothing disingenuous about my attempt all you needed to do was answer a question. One regarding science that happens to represent a huge hole in your theories.
Regarding your planetary energy balance, I find the same error in many of your papers and it starts with the question bolded in this post. There is no sense arguing a bulk result if you cannot argue the basic assumptions.
“GHE is a tautology because the issue of “net’ heating from back radiation equates to saying 1= 3-2 when all that needs to be said is that 1 = 1” — this is completely false by the way.
John states that PSI has developed an “alternative Earth energy model” which indicates that the model only applies to Earth. We need yet another energy model it seems for Venus, and another for Uranus where there is no direct Solar radiation reaching down into its atmosphere.
By wave-particle duality, a single photon striking water in a microwave oven also can be viewed as a wave, so yes it’s appropriate to talk about a single photon. However, the heating doesn’t occur because of resonance. The heating occurs because the water molecule with a dipole moment aligns with the incident EM field. Also, if the bowl’s plastic material has a dipole moment it will heat up even without water. This is all standard physics.
No, a photon is a particle which travels from A to B via a probabilistic path which we describe with wave equations. It has no classical reality in flight. You cannot “view a photon as a wave”.
Actually, I do most often view them as a wave. Basically a ripple in spacetime frozen in a single dimension with a probabilistic interaction with matter. Not a shock wave, but a fractional oscillation of matter. In fact, all matter is a wave to me with nothing really being a particle. They say matter can be understood both ways, (particle or wave) but that is just a lack of understanding of the universe. Two particles cannot occupy the same space, means to me that particles are a representation of the finite resolution of stable waves in spacetime. We really don’t know the full basis and I am no expert on modern particle physics but it is fun to consider. The two-slit experiment is one of my favoites and worth googling if you are not familiar.
Bill’s comment isn’t perfectly accurate though. Heating by microwave is resonant with the dipole, but heating can also occur through other modes. My understanding is that energizing electron shells and subsequent collisions can even create heating. Mathematically, both the dipole and electon shells are forms of resonance. There are also other modes of resonance with most molecular bonds that can create heat.
pure bait and switch – address the alternative earth energy budget model that PSI has produced in response to the “put up or shut up” challenge set out for us by Roy Spencer and Anthony Watts. To continue to persist in ignoring that elephant in the room despite our good faith engagement with Spencer and Watts in that challenge suggests that you are intellectually dishonest.
I don’t want to belabor the point since it’s somewhat off track, but heating by microwave is not via resonance. The water molecules align with the EM field – negative charges attracted to positive field and then subsequently repulsed by negative field as the wave passes. Microwave ovens operate at around 2 GHz, which is hardly the resonance freq for a water molecule. As to wave vs particle, researchers have noted that experimental results can be explained either by viewing the something in the experiment either as a wave or as a particle, but not both at the same time.
BillK said: “the heating doesn’t occur because of resonance. The heating occurs because the water molecule with a dipole moment aligns with the incident EM field”
Well, Bill, that is precisely the resonance I am talking about. The water molecules “flip” through two lots of 180 degrees in resonance with each passing wave. If the frequency were significantly higher or lower, then no flipping water molecules would produce any flipping frictional heat – which is quite different from atomic absorption converting EM to thermal energy. That is precisely how and why the waves pass through opaque plastic containers, following a random path due to multiple pseudo scattering events – the Second Law prevents any heating.
But none of this has anything to do with the temperatures supported in planetary atmospheres, surfaces, crusts, mantles and cores by the gravity effect. So I’d rather keep to that topic.
Resonance: 3. Physics The increase in amplitude of oscillation of an electric or mechanical system exposed to a periodic force whose frequency is equal or very close to the natural undamped frequency of the system.
Theory destroyed? Why? Because you haven’t caught up with some of the latest things physicists like myself are saying?
Or because you lay down a challenge on your own obscure website which hardly any PSI members (out of 300) would even read, and you get an answer from me which uses correct physics, but then delete it and claim victory in the argument – totally disregarding the fact that your answers are already in PSI papers.
If you wish to prove them wrong, then refer point by point to what is in my two papers for starters, and attempt to demonstrate any errors using standard physics. Then write to PSI as would be the appropriate procedure.
The Second Law refers to an isolated system. A “system” in physics is a set of interdependent components. There is only one component in one way radiation. There is no interdependence linking any subsequent component whereby the assumed extra thermal energy deposited in the surface comes back out by non-radiative processes even days or months later.
I hope these four comments get to some of your readers by email before you delete them.
” website which hardly any PSI members (out of 300) would even read”
Just the CEO of PSI Doug.
Jeff, why are you lying? I never read your blog and have never had any interest in it. Please tell your readers the truth: the only reason I came over here in the first place is because you sent me an unsolicited email offering me a challenge. Your asked if we would come over here and set out in 300 words (no links) a basic explanation of PSI science that comports with standard (you said “classical”) physics. We did and you ignored our answers and pulled a bait and switch.
You did that by shifting the goal posts into challenging us to explain what individual photons may nor may not be doing! How pointless! That to us is as irrelevant in an applied science debate as asking us how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. As such, you have abandoned any pretence about wanting to stick to known and verifiable applied science which PSI members are leading experts with dozens of US and international patents.
Like Watts and Spencer before you, you have not sought to analyse what our science says, you only wanted to concoct a sham theoretical ‘debate’, shifting the reference frame so you could then declare ‘victory’ when we refused to go along with your bait and switch. Our alternative earth energy model stands pristine awaiting your analysis if ever you have the gumption to check it out.
Instead, all you have proceeded to do is to offer speculations as to whether it is possible for individual photons to perform some action or other. That, Jeff, is pure bait and switch and such conjecture is a contradiction of your stated original goal which was to keep within the realms of standard physics. In APPLIED physics the issue of the actions of individual photons is NOT settled science. As such, you have descended into engaging in hand waving speculations in one area of science (quantum physics) to prop up your speculations in another (atmospheric physics).
Well John, I don’t swear here but of you are so emotional about not being able to answer a single question that you would stoop to calling me a liar. You owe me an apology sir.
This is science, and in science you must defend your theory. I emailed you out of courtesy because I have been receiving dozens of regular emails from you on screwed up papers for a long time. I requested your best scientists and went right to the top of the organization to give them a chance. I also gave you a fair chance to defend yourself and you made false claims about “moving goalposts” as though that somehow gives you the ability to be correct in science.
Nobody in your group (except Doug) was able to answer the 4 questions, Joe Postuma attempted to combine them into an answer soup that at best required clarification. After all, he (and you) deny that your interpretation of thermodynamics is non-standard and that is a huge embarrassment for your group. I simplified the discussion to a single question, which is where your group needs to focus its energy on — Doug style — except that Doug and others need to recognize the consequences of the SINGLE question above.
Unlike Watts and Spencer, I have read much of your work (you have sent me a lot of emails) and have not found ANY papers which justify their silly global warming rhetoric which seems to pervade the entire body of sometimes contradictory “work?”. I have given you a chance to defend your group and you have failed miserably.
You are incorrect in your interpretation of basic Thermodynamics. Your interpretations are non-standard and would require a complete rewrite of most of physics. I would bet that 99% of third year engineering students could pick out the errors in your argument as well. Perhaps you should get one of them to explain the problem.
Science is science sir and you have been reviewed.
Jeff, more handwaving? That just doesn’t cut it. Just because you claim something is right or wrong doesn’t make it so. Your original question to us was:
“Define and describe the probability characteristics of Second Law of Thermodynamics as interpreted in classical physics”.
You then asked us about classical physics, we gave a perfectly good answer, and then you promptly switched goal posts, which is now familiar behaviour among GHE believers. But is it even a valid switch of goal posts? Isn’t everything quantum? The classical limit comes from a great number of individual quantum events.
You then followed up your shift of reference frames with another question:
“Let’s say we have two perfect blackbodies, one at 100K, another at 200K. What happens to a single photon emitted by the cold body that strikes the warm one?”
A PSI member replied:
“Two bodies, one 100K and another 200K: The hotter one heats the cooler one. The rate of heating is proportional to the differential in temperature between them, and this is the effect that the cooler body has on the differential, in that as it rises in temperature, its rate of temperature increase decreases until steady state is found. This does not mean that the hotter body must or has become hotter to heat the cool body, or that the cool body heated the hot body, etc. This post is related: http://climateofsophistry.com/2013/05/27/the-fraud-of-the-aghe-part-12-how-to-lie-with-math/ ”
In the link it is explained clearly that in radiative heat transfer, Q ~ σ(Th4 – Tc4). Hence the cold object, and all of its photons, let alone a single photon, are completely accounted for. The Tc4 term in the previous equation accounts for every single photon from the cold source, and it has the effect described in the reply. So why the question about the single photon? How is a single photon relevant? PSI can account for all of the photons from the cold source, and the equations show that the cold source does not heat up a hotter source.
A cold source does not conductively heat up a hotter source. A cold source does not convectively heat up a hotter source. The desire of GHE advocacy is to demand that radiation does not similarly follow the laws of thermodynamics as the other modes of heat transfer. This is one of the most remarkably curious state of affairs that science has found itself in. The three modes of heat transfer are conduction, convection, and radiation. These three modes obey the same limits described by the set of Laws of Thermodynamics. Radiation does not let cold things warm up hotter things. QED.
Now, when are you going to actually address PSI’s ALTERNATIVE EARTH ENERGY BUDGET???
Your PSI member answered my question by stating that there was no difference between PSI and standard physics. This is embarrassing for you because it either doesn’t recognize the difference through incompetence, sophistry or dishonesty. I believe it was the former.
How to lie with math was a perfect title describing the article. I read the whole thing and by the end there was drool forming at the corner of my mouth. More mixed up than a bowl of spaghetti.
But here we come to the important bit — ” PSI can account for all of the photons from the cold source, and the equations show that the cold source does not heat up a hotter source. ”
What happened to the cold photons which struck the blackbody?
“A cold source does not conductively heat up a hotter source.” — It does add heat just not as much as it receives.
“A cold source does not convectively heat up a hotter source.” — It does add heat just not as much as it receives.
A cold source does not radiatively heat up a hotter source. — It does add heat just not as much as it receives.
Three modes the same, all operating the same. Just as you should have learned in basic thermodynamics.
“Now, when are you going to actually address PSI’s ALTERNATIVE EARTH ENERGY BUDGET???” — When you show yourself to have a comprehension of the basics of standard thermodynamics, we can discuss your revised physics.
Jeff, you are truly intellectually dishonest. You play a stalling game with this nonsensical diversion into peripheral issues in the quagmire of particle-wave duality. I now suspect you do this bait and switch knowingly, to evade addressing the real issue: PSI has an alternative earth energy budget that shows inward and outward IR tally without the need to factor in the tautology of a supposed greenhouse gas effect.
Moreover, PSI’s earth energy model is (unlike your preferred GHE model) a true 3-dimensional model that treats earth as a rotating sphere, where sunlight melts ice, forms clouds and has all the concomitant albedo. Contrast our version to your flat earth fiction where there is no night or day, sunlight is so weak it cannot melt ice and thus has no liquid water or clouds, no conduction or convection.
You then HAVE to add a bogus 33 degrees K. to your fatally flawed model to achieve what PSI already has achieved by having the real physics starting point of a rotating 3D planet. And by performing this stunt you then have the temerity to insist PSI is abandoning accepted physics. No, Jeff, it is you and your ilk who have allowed yourself to be duped by a chimera fabricated in the mid 1980’s and given the ridiculous moniker ‘Greenhouse Gas Effect.”
Wake up and realize that if you wish to bury your head in the sand by refusing to address our alternative model, all you are doing is supporting a crass fiction (indeed possibly a deliberate fraud) that makes earth flat, allows no day/night or liquid water all for the effect of concocting a mythical 33 degrees of warming for a GHE that isn’t even needed.
This is ridiculous John. No particle wave duality is required for the simple question. At least you aren’t still claiming photons don’t exist.
You have only two choices, answer the question or cede the point. Our “Ilk” has hundreds of years of physics theory and experiment behind it. Should you take a crack at the answer, you should expect follow up questions if your theory leaves new holes in the laws of nature. Honestly, I was suspicious that your group was this poor at physics but had hoped for a truly interesting discussion by scientists who at least had a thorough understanding of the basics.
PSI is lost.
Jeff says: “This is science, and in science you must defend your theory”
Fine, Jeff – well defend your (or any) greenhouse and/or radiative forcing “theory” which, using standard physics, could possibly explain the increasing temperature of the Venus surface, which rises by about 5 degrees each 4-month long Venus day. Obviously this would require a net energy input – a fact we know because the temperature is rising. If the temperature is determined only by radiation, then that radiation would have to be at least 16,100W/m^2, which is far more than ever enters the top of the atmosphere after reflection, even during the middle of the Venus day. So your energy diagram would have to “explain” this generation of energy. If the absorptivity is considered < 1 then show the resulting surface reflection.
So, let's have the details, Jeff. You did say that anyone must be able to defend their theory. What is your theory and how do you defend it? Do you even dare to spell it out like the anonymous "Science of Doom" even though he gets it woefully wrong? At least we can see where he goes wrong where he claims that Solar radiation reaching the surface of Venus has a mean of 158W/m^2, when in fact it is more like 10W/m^2.
After all, if you can't defend your own "theory" then who are you to say anyone else's theory is wrong?
Jeff, the question you demand an answer for has been answered personally by myself. The EM energy in the photon is immediately re-emitted by the warmer target iff the photon has a frequency within the Planck curve for the cooler body, and all other photons of that frequency in total do not exceed the Planck function value at that temperature – which of course they won’t if the radiation is spontaneous and not man-made as in a laser.
Now, you answer the question about your “theory” and why you think your question about photons has anything at all to do with planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures – which my theory states are all dependent upon the gravity effect – something which I have supported with several strains of evidence in the Sections of my paper that outline such evidence.
I don’t think I have deleted many of your word sir. If you care to count the last couple of threads, my guess is that you have had MORE than me.
But you deleted the comprehensive answers I gave to your four questions in a comment posted roughly 10 or 11 hours ago. In any event, I have given you the gist of the answers again in the comments above, and pointed out in my February 2013 paper (in the PROM menu at PSI) why the whole issue of radiative forcing is irrelevant to the question of what supports planetary surface temperatures. This is a new paradigm shift in thinking, Jeff, and I’m the first to admit it is hard to shift people’s fixed ideas ingrained originally by the IPCC emphasis on energy budgets. Frankly Jeff, no one at PSI has fully understood “heat creep” yet, but nor has anyone successfully rebutted it.
I strongly recommend you read at least Sections 4 to 9 in the paper, because, if you take the time to understand it, you will suddenly realise how the energy gets down there on Uranus, and all such planets including much of the energy needed to support Earth’s surface temperature by heating the base of the atmosphere.
Be the first to really understand what I have written Jeff, because it is break-through physics, even if I say so myself. The paper is the culmination of thousands of hours of study and thought on my part.
I don’t recall deleting any non-repeated comments at all. Perhaps wordpress got it. Try again on the previous thread please.
I have re-written my reply and have it in my clipboard, but it seems to have gone into moderation. I tried posting on each thread.
It’s OK – I put my name at the end and you have obviously blocked comments containing such. It’s now below.
What is the frequency of the photon? I’m curious. I’ll settle for eV.
‘Tis a good question. PSI can’t even ask that.
You speak without any evidence, Jeff. Of course any physicist (including those who are members of PSI) knows that a photon is supposed to have a frequency, and that it’s energy is proportional to that frequency. But, in understanding radiation, you also have to understand it on a macro scale involving its wave nature as well, and the resonating processes that can occur with these waves. Microwave ovens heating water demonstrate just such a reason – the water molecules physically resonate with each passing wave of radiation. Now please read and study my comments here and the paper.
Radiative forcing (as described by the IPCC) is only a marginal effect. In fact it is not forcing at all, but merely a slowing of that portion of surface cooling which is by radiation. Non-radiative cooling accelerates.
But the key determinant of planetary surface temperatures is the underlying supported temperature at the base of the troposphere which is supported mostly by non-radiative transfers of thermal energy that was absorbed by the atmosphere. How else can you possibly explain what happens on Uranus?
How about you answer my question about Uranus Jeff, if you don’t deign to read my latest paper which provides the answer? Because, as far as I am concerned (and I’m not speaking for PSI) I consider all discussion about radiative forcing and greenhouse effects to be irrelevant to the issue of planetary surface temperatures.
The failure to answer the question about Uranus demonstrates the failure of the radiative greenhouse conjecture.
Answers to your 4 questions, not an official response from the CEO, John O’Sullivan, but my personal response based on my paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” which was reviewed by members of PSI and published on the PSI website (under “Publications”) in March 2012.
1 Define and describe the probability characteristics of Second Law of Thermodynamics as interpreted in classical physics using your own words. Demonstrable understanding of the standard version of the second law is important so that we have common ground.
The Second Law statements described a process in an isolated system whereby thermodynamic equilibrium evolves spontaneously and attains a state of maximum entropy among those states accessible to the system. It is important to note that a “system” in physics is comprised of either a single component or a set of components which must be interdependent.
2 Describe standard physics interpretation of radiation absorption from a cold to hot body.
Because the Second Law relates to a system, it must apply to the component which comprises radiation from a cooler atmosphere to a warmer surface because there is no dependency between this component and subsequent components which may transfer some or all of any extra thermal energy back to the atmosphere, perhaps by non-radiative processes. Hence, because there can only be a single component in this system, it must obey the Second Law so that there can be no thermal energy transferred from cold to hot by radiation. The electro-magnetic energy in the radiation is not converted to thermal energy, as is now recognised by many physicists. That is how and why the Second Law works for all one-way radiation.
3 Describe the PSI interpretation of the Second law highlighting differences in energy transfer from the standard interpretations.
My personal understanding is that outlined in Q.1 and, since that is what is in physics texts (and Wikipedia) I would assume most members of PSI would agree with standard physics. But I have not communicated with more than about 20 of the 300.
4 Describe the PSI interpretation of what happens to radiation from a cold to hot body, with focus on temperatures.
This is “described” in great detail in the above-mentioned paper, and the process of “pseudo scattering” is starting to be discussed among physicists. You would not have been taught it years ago. It comprises new understanding involving resonance and immediate re-emission of the electro-magnetic energy without its energy being converted to thermal energy in a warmer target. Because it supplies EM energy for some of the target’s quota (under its Planck curve) then the target converts less of its own thermal energy to EM energy, and thus its rate of radiative cooling is slowed. But because there is no conversion of incident EM energy to thermal energy (which could escape by conduction etc) there can be no effect on non-radiative cooling.
The above is factual, Jeff, whether you choose to believe it or not. I spent a long time researching the issue and writing the paper published in March last year on several websites, including tallbloke’s talkshop. I suggest you read the paper.
Doug, I realize you have your own theory about radiation. I have not engaged with you after your previous threats to sue me. What you don’t realize is that you were heading toward the description you have now attained – back when you were still claiming IR lasers didn’t work, bolomters can’t see cold and that there was no such thing as back-radiation.
I already knew you were heading this way back then, because it was the only path left. In short, you were steered by me, right here on this blog, right into the odd (and unworkable) thermodynamic corner you now find yourself in. From the description above, it looks like en bulk, you have actually described a system whereby backradiation has the same bulk magnitude and effect as mainstream climate science. As a hint, you should now stop thinking of the body as a homogenous consider those same black bodies on an atomic scale. Perhaps you recognize that some electrons are ground state and some are energized and some vibrational modes are energized while others are not. If so, you may note that each particle has no actual idea of what the bulk temperature of the rest of the body is and therefore no means to sort which photons should be rejected or not.
You have said your piece I think, I don’t wish to engage you on your theories again because you are already twisted up like a pretzel. It is really too bad that PSI can’t say theirs.
For nearly a year now I have been investigating the “new paradigm” and the February 2013 paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” is the culmination of that work. I am no longer discussing matters pertaining to what I consider the “old paradigm” relating to radiation. Radiation does not explain temperatures in the Uranus atmosphere. Radiation does not explain temperatures in the Earth’s crust or its mantle. Radiation does not explain temperatures in the Venus surface. Radiation does not explain temperatures in Earth’s atmosphere and surface. If it did, water vapour would have a huge warming effect, but instead it leads to lower mean surface temperatures.
The “new paradigm” is all about the thermodynamic equilibrium which statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamicsexplain will evolve spontaneously.
Your comment above just indicates to me you have no idea or understanding of what is in my new paper.
I will not be diverted any more by the red herring of radiation.
Where is your explanation of the Uranus dilemma. Have you noticed how no one on five climate blogs, including any other member of PSI, has been able to explain it, as I have?
If you “led me” to this explanation of the Uranus dilemma, and the Venus dilemma, then no doubt you can also explain these without resort to radiation calculations.
My final word on radiation and the “old paradigm” of radiative forcing and greenhouse conjectures was written in my paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” (March 2012) and that was inspired in part by the work of Prof Claes Johnson, not yourself Jeff.
But if you now agree with Claes Johnson, and if you now agree that back radiation can only slow radiative cooling of a warmer surface, not non-radiative cooling, and that each one-way passage of radiation can only transfer heat from hot to cold, and must obey the Second Law because it is not interdependent with any other component in the system, and that it thus cannot add thermal energy to a warmer target – well then I guess we agree. /sarc.
So you’ll have to understand my new paper in order to explain the Venus and Uranus dilemmas without resorting to radiation which cannot do the job.
.
Doug,
This thread isn’t about your paper, it is about a silly little photon bouncing from a perfect cold blackbody and striking a warm one.
In addition, it is obvious that planetary temperatures are in large part driven by long wave radiation from absorbing gasses. As you have correctly pointed out, pressure doesn’t do it.
The hot temperatures down in the Uranus atmosphere are most certainly not “driven by long wave radiation from absorbing gases” which are colder above them. That’s the whole point. That’s why we need the new paradigm which is all about non radiative processes as described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics..
The “silly little photon” issue is explained in great detail over several pages in my March 2012 paper. You don’t allow comments long enough to explain it here. It is not relevant to planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures which my second paper explains for the universe.
See this comment below.
In a nutshell ..
There are two limitations upon the temperature of a target to which spontaneous radiation can raise that temperature ..
(a) The temperature of the source of the spontaneous radiation.
(b) The radiative flux which the target receives from the source.
When considering back radiation (a) is the limiting factor. When considering what happens on the Venus surface, (b) is the limiting factor. The solar radiation received by the Venus surface is only about 10W/m^2 because only about 2.5% of the original TOA insolation gets through the atmosphere. (Science of Doom made a huge error in assuming 158W/m^2 reaches the Venus surface, quite contrary to measurements by Russian probes dropped onto the surface.) The Venus surface is thus not heated significantly by direct radiated energy from the Sun, and nor is it by radiation from the atmosphere. With only about 2,600W/m^2 of incident radiation at TOA even before reflection, how could the required 16,100W/m^2 of radiative flux at the base of the atmosphere come only from that far smaller incident flux? Energy would be created in the atmosphere.
Instead, what must happen on Venus, Uranus and other planets, is that some of the thermal energy absorbed in the atmosphere from incident solar radiation is spread out by diffusion and convection over a sloping temperature plane which evolves spontaneously in accord with the process described in the Second Law. This allows heat to “creep” up that thermal plane, because all it is doing Is restoring thermodynamic equilibrium which had been disturbed. The gravitationally-induced thermal gradient in effect traps energy that has been absorbed from the Sun over the life of the planet, and it maintains the temperature of the base of the atmosphere, which temperature then prevents the surface cooling too much at night, and allows the Sun to warm it by day when the radiative flux is of course more than the mean 24 hour value.
Jeff, my time Is short and I have business matters to catch up on and a meeting tonight. I also comment on Judith Curry, JoNova, Roy Spencer and PSI comment threads and forums, so I can’t spend much more time just explaining my papers to you and a few readers here. I have said all I can and wish to in various comments here. How about you take your time to digest this whole new paradigm in understanding planetary temperatures by studying what I have actually said in the comments and my two papers that I have referred to often.
A proper physics experiment will conclusively determine which perspective is correct. There can only be one answer. Why don’t climate scientists do physics experiments?
The study of moist and dry regions in the Appendix of my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” is a start. I am extending it to a hundred or more cities as time permits – because I’m not paid for this and, even though aged 67, have a young family with a wife and three school children to support. The GH conjecture expects water vapour to do most of that 33 degrees of warming (which gravity actually has more than done – probably over 40 degrees if there were far less water vapour) whereas water vapour causes lower surface temperatures because the temperature gradient is less steep. But you’d have to read the paper to understand.
Here are some Idid earlier:
http://www.climateandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-copper-iron-green-house-revisited.html
and the refe4renced posts at the start.
Because the results disprove what they claim – simple as that.
Here is a simple experiment you can perform to check them out.
You need an easy to read thermometer and a couple of spotlights – I used 150 Watt ones because they henerate a bit of heat.
Record ambient temperature and monitor it during the experiment with a second thermometer.
I placed spotlight 1 so that it heated the thermometer to a consistent 30 degrees C.
I then placed spotlight 2 so that it heated the thermometer to a consistent 36 degrees C.
Using standard climate science I say the thermometer bulb was emitting ~478 Watts per square metre at 303 K – 30 C.
Using standard climate science I say the thermometer bulb was emitting ~517 Watts per square metre at 309 K – 36 C.
Standard climate science says the temperature when both lights are on can be calculated by adding 478 + 517 = 995 Watts per square metre with a Stefan-Boltzmann temperature of ~363 Kelvin or about 90 degrees C.
That is complete BS.
I’ll leave it to those with enough curiousity to find what the final temperature is.
It can be calculated using real science just not the misinterpreted science used in climate science !!!
The theoretical answer I get using real science agrees with the experimental answer so I claim I can prove I am right.
Rosco said, June 30, 2013 at 4:49 pm:
– – –
Yes, this is the way they do it, after all. They find that the average flux from the Sun to Earth’s surface (168 W/m^2) could only warm it as far as -40 degrees (233K). Then there’s apparently this other, separate radiation flux coming down to the surface … from the atmosphere. This allegedly amounts to a whopping 324 W/m^2. But apparently, because so it is told, this cannot be directly added to the surface before we’ve subtracted the convective loss going from the surface (as if it were already in full operation before the first atmospheric flux ever struck the ground to warm it in the first place – in other words, seemingly the 324 can only replace it, not cause it). The convective losses amount to 102 W/m^2, so then you end up with a ‘net’ atmospheric flux to the surface of (324-102=) 222 W/m^2. This flux is claimed by the proponents of the radiative GHE to aid the solar flux in warming the surface. How? After all, it also is way to weak. 222 W/m^2 can only warm the surface to -23 degrees (250K). So how do you get the surface to reach a balmy average of 15 (288K)? Well, here’s the neat little trick they perform – Rosco’s trick:
You simply add the two fluxes together and get a higher temperature than either of them could generate ‘unassisted’ as it were. Easy peasy.
Two separate radiative fluxes from above to the surface, the solar flux (a numbing -40°C) and the atmosphheric flux (convective loss already subtracted (!?)) (a bone-chilling -23°C), and out comes … a combined flux producing a temperature of (168+222=) 390 W/m^2 –> 15 equable degrees.
Pure arithmetic and Stefan-Boltzmann, that is.
This is heavy atmospheric physics according to the insiders. State of the art scientific approach to a complex problem.
I’ve posed the following question in many different versions, multiple times on many occasions, but alarmists and GHErads alike only ever seem to have evasion and obfuscation tactics to offer when it comes to responding:
“Why do you count ‘168+324 -102‘ IN and only 390 OUT? Those 102 convective W/m^2 after all never had any place whatsoever on the gain/income-side of the account. No more so than the 390 radiative W/m^2. Their place are both firmly on the loss-side. A lazy glance at the energy budget diagram is all it takes to realise this. It is absolutely, unequivocally obvious that what the Earth’s surface does in fact gain from above is a total radiative flux of (168+324=) 492 W/m^2. Nothing more, nothing less. And at the same time it loses a (390+102=) 492 W/m^2 worth of total radiative+convective flux. Nothing more, nothing less. This would suggest a mean global surface temperature for the Earth of a sweltering 32 degrees Celsius rather than a mere 15 …
Could it have anything to do with the fact that you already know the mean temperature to be +15 and not +32, and that at the same time you absolutely refuse to see that the specified ‘radiation only’ Stefan-Boltzmann equation does not apply at all to a relatively cool object immersed in a medium like air at nearly the same temperature as the object and so stubbornly insist on using this known temperature as input to that very equation to come out with a ‘law-abiding’ emission flux of 390 and not the 492 W/m^2 required by the budget, leaving you in a bit of a tight spot out of which you could only shuffle your way by employing some artful, good old fashioned trickery?”
Heat is energy in transit? Yes / No.
I would suggest heat IS energy in transit, therefore heat and energy are two different things.
All things emit over all frequencies. The amounts emitted at differing frequencies vary with temperature, and the physical properties of the emitter, which in some cases “limit” the frequencies of emission.
What happens to a photon from a colder source? Good question. I think however the question is more complicated than it might first appear. What frequency (energy level) was it emitted at? I am not asking about the peak frequency of emission, but the actual frequency of emission of the photon in question. If lower than what it hits does it bounce off (back scatter) or does it lower the energy level of what it hits?
I agree of course with your first two paragraphs. If we had two bodies which were perfect blackbodies, radiating towards each other, then the radiation which corresponds to the area under the Planck curve of the cooler body merely resonates. Some physicists say standing waves are set up, but I don’t want to debate that issue. The result is the same.
The main point is that the electromagnetic energy just keeps going back and forth (like light reflected between two parallel mirrors) and none of this EM energy is converted to thermal energy.
The energy represented by the area between the Planck curves is that which does not resonate and so it is converted to thermal energy in the cooler body. Since SBL comes from integrating the Planck function, the radiation represented by the area between the Planck curves does represent the one way transfer of thermal energy from hot to cold, and does of course give the same result as the difference in the SBL calculations. But the big difference is that there is no extra thermal energy deposited in the warmer body, and so no extra energy can escape and warm other objects which then cool by conduction etc.
Doug writes – “The main point is that the electromagnetic energy just keeps going back and forth (like light reflected between two parallel mirrors) and none of this EM energy is converted to thermal energy.”
Exactly.
Which neatly puts the back radiation duck to bed Jeff. It has NO EFFECT at earth’s surface. Thermodynamics, that’s all it is really.
As Watts (a Christian preacher apparently) and Spencer (possibly a fundamentalist Christian) have recently found out one can not simply add radiative fluxes together. Religion and belief, often mixed together and usually felled by the scientific method….
Hmm, how does that thermos operate then?
Jeff Condon, I did a couple of simple plots, a few years back, along the lines of energy in, and energy out per square meter, per second. It is obvious that no back radiation heating effect of earth’s surface is required to explain earth’s surface temperature. I am on shift at the moment, but I will dig them out asap, unless anyone wants to beat me to it and post links to the appropriate images on my photobucket account.
Derek, I will be happy to look at your work. However, the backradiation is simply radiation heading downward. Since it does exist and is detectable, for it not to influence temperature, we need to figure out what happened to that non-zero energy.
LOL! I’m a Christian preacher? News to me.
Anthony Watts, are you saying you have never been a Christian preacher? If so, then please accept my sincere apologies. I would not want, and never knowingly, try to paint anyone, ever in a false light.
Nope, never have been, never wanted to be, never would be.
btw Anthony, can one simply add radiative fluxes together? This would appear to be the “mechanism” by which atmospheric back radiation supposedly heats earth’s surface, according to the consensus and main stream climate science skeptics. Which is why I ask you of course, as you are one of the most respected and influential main stream CS skeptics.
Derek,
Aside from Anthony’s answer – yes is mine.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/183228/electromagnetic-radiation/59916/Superposition-and-interference
Superposition and interference
When two electromagnetic waves of the same frequency superpose in space, the resultant electric and magnetic field strength of any point of space and time is the sum of the respective fields of the two waves. When one forms the sum, both the magnitude and the direction of the fields need be considered, which means that they sum like vectors. In the special case when two equally strong waves have their fields in the same direction in space and time (i.e., when they are in phase), the resultant field is twice that of each individual wave. The … (100 of 20,091 words)
In the below plot how many photons go to make up the 500W/m2 power of IR emission? Presumably there are a lot less solar photons than the 30C object. I genuinely think we do not know what goes on at this scale and so all explanations are just guesses. Our accepted best guesses may not be anywhere near the truth of the matter.
Climatology oversimplifies things down to this it seems to me.
When reality is probably more like this.
Sorry for the delay, but I have now found the plots I referred to. Thinking of a square meter of earth’s surface at any given time of day or night, on a per second basis, there are inputs and outputs of energy.
Inputs.
I have forgotten the input of the latent heat release of condensation for one on this plot. But, these plots were merely meant as starting points.
and,
Outputs.
I have omitted what is absorbed by life, or returned by life in these plots (GH and radiative equilibrium are there is no life on earth notions – what about the energy in sedimentary rocks, coal, etc, etc, etc..), but as I say these were only meant as starting points to try to understand better the thermodynamics of reality.
The main point that I think is shown is that no back radiation warming effect is required, either day or night to explain the temperature and how it changes on a per second basis per square meter of earth’s surface. When the above plots are considered whilst looking at the reality at earth’s surface then, I think it obvious that the notion of a GH effect is ridiculous. The below weather station is as good as example as any that GH effect “theory” has nothing to do with the reality in which we live.
http://www.milfordweather.org.uk/
I have asked on many threads but never had an answer for my 3 body problem – more sophisticated that a single photon!:
Place 3 (or for that matter 4 equally spaced bodies 1 light second apart in the centre of a 100% reflective evacuated sphere at -273°C (this of course is not really relevant as 100% reflective sphere will not radiate)
Each BB must radiate in the IR Range
Each blackbody has an initial temperature that is different to the others.
The interior of the sphere will contain IR from all BBs being reflected around until absorbed. It will also have all the shorter wavelengths reflecting around, but lets just limit this to just the IR which all the bodies emit.
slayer theory states that
“As a corollary, the absorptivity of spontaneous radiation from a cooler source to a warmer target must be zero” so this implies:
Some will not get absorbed because they originate from the coldest body
Some will get thermalized on the coldest BB but not on the Hottest BB.
some will get thermalized on warm and cold BBs
The source of the IR is not known (it has been bouncing around for over 1 second) it cannot be marked (not even by direction!) as originating from cold or hot (we are only looking at the long wave end of the BB radiation – not its peak)
When it hits any object it would have been in transit for at least 1 second.
What tags it Cold IR, Warm IR, or Hot IR?
What physical property of the BB allows each to know the source of the IR and “reflect” or absorb it?
This should be a simple question to slayers as they understand their own theories.
Please, slayers, help out by answering how the bodies know to absorb or reflect quanta of IR from a cloud of similar IR originating on different temperatured bodies.
Also of course there is no “area between the cold and hot BB curves” there is just quanta of energy bouncing around until absorbed or not.
I am not aware that there is a single Slayers theory as such. The Slayers and PSI is about discussion to improve understanding.
My understanding re cold and warmer photons / absorption / back scattering is that a colder photon is at a lower energy level (vibrational state) and that it simply bounces off a higher energy level body. BUT, I tend to keep out of such areas of discussion because at these small scales no one actually knows what happens, if we are honest with ourselves and each other.
Derek,
The math is more complicated than the pi/4 problem but it is known what happens to photons when they hit materials.
Here are some links you may find interesting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_%28electromagnetic_radiation%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturable_absorption
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-switching
Before saturation of a certain energy state, there is a probability of a photon hitting either an absorbing or energized atom. The atom absorption frequency is controlled by a large number of factors (think how chemical reactions can change object colors even though the same atoms are present). What usually happens to materials is that they become transparent when saturated, not sure of counter examples of this. It seems possible that some materials could absorb at a different band level but that isn’t really saturated is it? Saturation of the earth surface happens a very high energy level compared to that of global warming.
Just a cool example from one of the links – “Saturable absorption has been demonstrated for X-rays. In one study, a thin 50 nanometres (2.0×10−6 in) foil of aluminium was irradiated with soft X-ray laser radiation (wavelength 13.5 nanometres (5.3×10−7 in)). The short laser pulse knocked out core L-shell electrons without breaking the crystalline structure of the metal, making it transparent to soft X-rays of the same wavelength for about 40 femtoseconds.[13][14]”
If you think about the temperatures of the atmosphere and planet, we are very far from the saturation level. If a photon were to strike a single already energized electron field, it would likely pass through and strike the atom behind it and get another chance at absorption.
For those more interested, there is a decent link describing the microscopic processes of the index of refraction. I didn’t like the velocity of light wording but that is way beyond the scope of what we are discussing here.
Click to access Refractive-index.pdf
You know, Jeff, PSI needs more physicists. When you eventually realise I’m right about the new paradigm, you could help set the world on the right path and rid fears of CO2 by joining PSI and helping me to help other PSI members to get their physics right, reviewing each others papers etc. I’m the first to agree that many of them don’t really understand some aspects of physics. For example, I keep telling them that high pressure at the base of a troposphere does not provide the energy to maintain high temperatures there.
Jeff, you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join PSI, and they will complete your training. With your combined strength, they can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy…er, earth.
Use the farce, Jeff.
I’m glad someone noticed the Star Wars reference!
I laughed.
Ohio: How are you getting on with explaining the Uranus dilemma?
Brown hole theory gives a complete answer to the question.
POC: I’m not touching your Uranus dilemma. How are you doing at explaining how a thermos works?
The reflected radiation in a thermos slows radiative cooling, just like back radiation slows that portion (about a third) of the surface cooling which is itself by radiation.. Elementary my dear Ohio. I’ve been helping physics students with issues far more complex than this for about 50 years. So you and Jeff might learn more from me if you deign to read the following paragraphs and my two papers referred to therein.
Maybe you might like to “explain” how the opaque plastic in a microwave bowl can tell the difference between high frequency photons from the Sun which will warm it, compared with low frequency photons in a microwave oven, which do not warm it, but do still heat water on the other side. Don’t try to convince me that it is just transparent to the radiation which, if so, would pass through in a straight line like glass. If it did pass straight through you could make a fortune with a new safe medical imaging device. The answer is that the radiation is “pseudo scattered” in multiple events within the plastic, so it follows a random path and some comes out on each side without warming it. So too is backradiation pseudo scattered in the warmer surface. I wrote about all this in great detail well of a year ago in March 2012 in my paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” which you’ll easily find on several websites.
Two way radiation represents two components which are not interdependent. Hence it does not qualify as a “system” according to standard physics. Hence the Second Law of Thermodynamics (which in standard physics only applies to a system) cannot be applied to two-way radiation. It must, however, be applied to one-way radiation.
None of this has anything to do with planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures which I have explained for all planets with a totally different paradigm than radiative forcing or greenhouse effects, which very obviously do not control temperatures on Venus, Uranus or any planet, including Earth.
It’s all explained in my current paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” in the PROM menu at Principia Scientific International. Whether you choose to learn from that paper or not is of course your prerogative.
Microwaves work by creating an alternating magnetic field that bipolar molecules like fats, sugar, and water flip back and forth in. Other materials, like plastic, do not interact with the field, and metals reflect the waves.
I have been trying to wrap my head around Dougs thinking (sometimes I learn things by understanding mistakes) and think I have a possible explanation.
Doug thinks in terms of harmonics. For example lets say we have a tuning fork for C sharp and press G sharp on the keyboard. The tuning fork won’t respond to G sharp and Doug feels that EM waves work the same way, probably because he thinks that is the Green House theory, where CO2 molecules (tuning forks) catch the LWR and the non greenhouse gases don’t. He also thinks that ‘Heat’ is only produced by certain EM waves or photons. That is why he doesn’t think there is any back radiation, because all of the ‘heat’ producing waves get absorbed.
Maybe the ‘correct’ analogy to Doug would be a concert hall with a grand piano and a thousand C# tuners distributed around the hall. The volume in the hall when C# is played on the piano will be higher than when any other note is played, because of the resonance (back radiation) of the tuning forks in the hall. They seem to think that the tuning forks simply absorb and don’t re-emit (like sound deadening materials that simply absorb).
On the other hand, the warmists know that having a bunch of C# tuners amplify the initial volume and think that simply adding more tuners will increase the volume infinitely (Hansens boiling oceans). The Dragons seem to be the reciprocal of the warmers.
Patting myself on the back, now that I think I understand a little better especially the warmer position. : )
By the way anyone can test this with a single tuner and a keyboard, just by bringing the tuner closer to the keyboard after the note is played.
I have never ever said there is no backradiation. What I have said is in my two papers. Also please read this comment above.
This discussion is not related to the PSI disaster.
You have dramatically changed your tune Doug. Note — “or slowing the rate of cooling”:
So a year later you have realized that your original theory violated the most basic thermodynamic equations. Now you have adopted the new one, that I expected you would, where somehow blackbodies understand the area under the curve and “pre-subtract” energy such that they don’t make heat from backradiation. At least you dropped the stupid cutoff frequency. Interestingly, you have described a process whereby the cooler blackbody emits exactly the same amount less than it would had the radiation actually been absorbed. I have literally been waiting for an entire year to tell you that.
In other words, there is no bulk mathematical difference between your theory and bulk thermodynamics. Yet, on a quantum scale you have no description of how each atom knows when to absorb or emit. No theory which can predict which materials will absorb which frequencies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_band. Yet you are sure that your new bulk property theory is better.
Somehow, you need to figure out how to combine the properties of atoms with your new absorption theory. This has been well documented and well measured in optics. Start with the complex index of refraction and call me in another year.
And yes there is a difference, Jeff, with your “bulk” system. It’s explained in the last page of the March 2012 paper on Radiated Energy in the PSI publications menu. I repeat what I wrote above and which you still don’t understand …
Two way radiation represents two components which are not interdependent. Hence it does not qualify as a “system” according to standard physics. Hence the Second Law of Thermodynamics (which in standard physics only applies to a system) cannot be applied to two-way radiation. It must, however, be applied to one-way radiation.
But radiative forcing and greenhouse effect conjectures belong to the old 20th century paradigm which will inevitably take its place in history as the biggest, most significant scientific mistake of all time.
Planetary temperatures (above and below any surface) are supported by non-radiative mechanisms which accumulate and store Solar energy. They are not determined by instantaneous radiative energy balance. How on Uranus could the latter possibly be the case?
To Jeff and others:
For the last time, debate about radiation and what photons do or don’t do is totally irrelevant to the “new paradigm” which I have explained in my February 2013 paper, and which can be used to calculate temperatures in any atmosphere, surface, crust, mantle or core of any planet or moon in the Solar system for which sufficient data is available.
The new paradigm is based on the process of spontaneous evolution which is described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynnamics.
You are a silly man Doug. Your listening skills haven’t improved from a year ago.
And neither have yours. Climate is not about radiation or energy balance. It is about non-radiative processes supporting temperatures. That is why moist regions are shown to have lower temperatures than dry ones. You cannot produce counter evidence to my study in the Appendix which proves this with statistical significance. That is why water vapour cools, which is the exact opposite of what your old paradigm of greenhouse radiative forcing would like water vapour to do.
That is the craziest statement yet. I’m not going to read your studies at all until you figure out basic thermodynamics enough to have a discussion.
We have reached our old impasse. The last time, you considered my words and adjusted your paradigm, do it again and come back in a few months.
I figured out basic thermodynamics a long time ago, thank you Jeff. Things like the fact that the Second Law applies to a system. Things like the definition of that system which has interdependent components.
And the most important thing that I figured out nearly a year ago Is that the gravity effect is in fact a direct corollary of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, because that law talks about the very process whereby the gravity effect “evolves spontaneously” at th emolecular level in a diffusion process, just like the Second Law says thermodynamic equilibrium evolves spontaneously.
Then, when night becomes day on any planet, the thermodynamic equilibrium is disturbed and some absorbed thermal energy flows by non-radiative diffusion and convection up the temperature gradient towards warmer regions lower down in the troposphere. This “heat creep” mechanism explains all temperatures both above and below the surface of any planet.
So, I shall await your attempt to explain the temperatures on Uranus by any other process, and shall ignore your continued attempts to draw into discussion the red herring of radiation which, in my paradigm, does not force surface temperatures. How could it on Uranus, when there’s only 3W/m^2 mostly radiated back to space in the uppermost atmosphere anyway?
“That is why moist regions are shown to have lower temperatures than dry ones.”
I could leave a crude reply to that, but that would be below the belt, so I won’t
LOL.
A MAN who doesn’t think about sex all the time isn’t thinking. See “brown hole theory” above.
Nice reduction of the argument Jeff.
I’m pretty sure Doug has an incurable mental aberration, since he has to keep making up fake personae to get his “new paradigm” ideas “out there”. Why not simply put him in the troll bin and get your life back? That’s what I did. So did Lucia and some others that see him as a lost cause. It’s like living the life of Sisyphus with these guys.
[REPLY: I took him out of the troll bin for this discussion out of fairness. Your comment was trapped by some of the keywords.]
Anthony–
It’s mostly just the constant off topic interruptions that made me ban Doug/Doug-variousInitials/Doug-variousInitials-lastnames/Physics-of-Climate/Climate_Science_Researcher and all the other versions. But his theories are pretty hilarious. I downloaded “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” and nearly wet my pants laughing. His ‘proofs’ and theoretical developments start with restatements of what the 2nd law actually says. Given that, I’d like to see him do things like:
1) Derive the carnot cycle efficiency. (Find the efficiency of some other power cycles: Otto, stirling what have you.)
2) Derive the expression for speed of sound in air.
3) Compute the change in entropy in a balloon expanding at constant pressure.
4) Predict (or even just postdict) the change in temperature for hot water inside a thermos.
5) Explain how or why frost is more likely to form on the ground on clear nights rather than overcast nights.
6) Explain why even if the air temperature is 72F, I feel warmer in a room with walls that are 70F rather than one with walls at -40F. (Note: my skin temperature is higher than both 70F and -40F.)
It’s no wonder he wants to start with Venus or Uranus. Those cases have complications and everything is estimated. But if his notions are right he should be able to do simple problems and engineering applications where the only dominant issues are heat transfer, 2nd law and 1st law. He won’t be able to do these if he distorts the 2nd law of thermo too badly and he can’t hide his mistakes owing to issues like ‘gravity’ etc..
You just need to realise that the whole paradigm of radiative forcing and greenhouse effects simply cannot be applied to other planets and is thus not valid physics.
In contrast the new paradigm is based on non-radiative mechanisms which not only explain temperatures in all planetary atmospheres and surfaces, but also below the surface. Why, for example, is the core of our Moon so hot? How does the required energy get down into the atmosphere of Uranus to make it so hot.
None of this has anything to do with a day-to-balance energy balancing act.
You’ve only got 3W/m^2 reaching Uranus and that does not get beyond the very uppermost layers of its 20,000Km deep atmosphere, where temperatures near the centre are thousands of degrees. Why is it so? The explanation is in my 20 page paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” in the PROM menu at PSI.
That should read …
None of this has anything to do with a day-to-day energy balancing act.
As I’ll probably mention in the book I’ve started to write, this is where Jeff and climatologists get their physics in a muddle.
The Venus surface actually gains about 5 degrees during its 4 month day. Let’s say it goes from 730K to 735K. It certainly doesn’t happen in a day, but if it were to be heated only by radiation then it would have to somehow receive 16,100W/m^2 coming out of the base of the atmosphere.
That is far more than what reaches the planet, even before reflection. So if Jeff and Co were right, energy would be multiplied in the atmosphere. So they are wrong. and the whole “old paradigm” of radiative forcing and greenhouse effects is wrong.
So Jeff’s theory is destroyed. He says downward radiation from energy absorbed in an atmosphere will heat a planet’s surface. So he says that the Venus surface experiences a rising temperature each Venus morning due to downward radiation from the much colder atmosphere. It can’t be that from the Sun, because that’s only about 10W/m^2.
So it seems we need to go back to basics and teach Jeff about how the Second Law of Thermodynamics only relates to a system, and a system has a very specific meaning in physics – a set of interdependent components, or a single component. Well, there’s only one component here – radiation from the cold atmosphere supposedly building up to 16,100W/m^2 as would be required to make the temperature increase from around 730K.
No POC. “Jeff’s theory” or the “rest of us’s theory” is just fine. You are missing that “Einstein challenge” to find a physical observation to compel us to use a better system. It would suit you to note that Einstein’s matrix/manifold solution to orbits is largely ignored for the Newtonian orbits solution (except Mercury, of course).
Just twisting the “Second Law…” to suit a theory is just, well, twisted. There are plenty of “other” theories where extra planetary heat come from as well as falsifications. Tidal energies, field energies etc. there are many areas of study. Venus with a retrograde rotation and Uranus with, whatever that is, make poor analogues.
As we say in manufacturing, “Cute idea…whatever… bring it into production.”.
It is you who is twisting the Second Law. Furthermore, there isn’t enough radiative flux anyway. There is only 2,600W/m^2 before more than half of that is reflected back to space. But you would need 16,100W/m^2 if radiation is doing all the raising of the surface temperature. That’s a crazy idea to think it could.
So prove your point by constructing an energy diagram for Venus when the surface temperature is rising each Venus morning. Jeff can’t do it and neither can anyone if they use radiative flux alone. Don’t forget the temperature is going up. There is more energy going into the surface than coming out. There can be no greenhouse effect. There is only 10W/m^2 of direct Solar radiation getting through the thick (meaning high) and dense atmosphere. So “Science of Doom” calculations are way out when he uses 158W/m^2 – absolute garbage on his part, so don’t bother to link his pathetic “explanation” of Venus.
There is net energy going into the Venus surface because it is getting warmer. Its temperature is going up. Got it? It is NOT going up because of radiation from a colder atmosphere. You cannot twist the Second Law that much. The “system” is the Venus atmosphere on the sunlit side and the surface on that side. There is one way energy transfer which is increasing the temperature of the surface. It cannot be done by radiation. It can be done by “heat creep” about which you have no concept or understanding because you haven’t read what may well be the only paper in the world that explains the process – mine.
I HAVE NO TROUBLE EXPLAINING IT WITH THE “NEW PARADIGM” ABOUT WHICH YOU KNOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Doug your “new paradigm” has no “mechanism” by which PE is exchanged with KE for the object to have the correct temperature for it’s altitude / gravity field. I asked you back in January how does a molecule (of a buoyant gas). a rubber ball, or a rock “know” it’s own altitude exactly so that it can exchange the appropriate amounts of PE and KE to have it’s correct temperature according to the Loschmidt “gravity thermalisation theory” you describe???
You answered then, and have not expanded upon it understandably since that, it just happens…. In other words I should believe. In a private email between us I stated I do not knowingly just believe, ever.
The point of my question to you about a “mechanism” by which PE and KE are exchanged is that there is no, and no possibility of a “mechanism”, so there is no “theory”. In much the same way P/4 does not apply to earth constantly (day and night at earth’s surface prove that) or as an average (without removing the thermodynamics of reality), nor does atmospheric back radiation warm earth’s surface so there is no mechanism for the GH “theory” either, whether it be the consensus, or one of the many mainstream skeptic versions of it.
It seems “we” are surrounded by “preachers” of “faiths” with no “mechanisms” by which they could possibly work in the first place. That such “preachers” then tell us they are talking “science” is well, where “we” find ourselves at present, in a damned BIG PSEUDO SCIENCE MESS. It is all made so much more obvious when such “preachers” will not question the basis of their “faith”, but what we see is the “preachers” asking, demanding, or trying to bulldung people into simply believing is what we see over, and over again.
I suppose it is up to the individual to decide if they “buy” any particular “preachers” “faith” or not, and that is the need for PSI. Science truly is democratic, when done properly, pseudo science is POLITICS by any other name. Politics have to be removed from science, and at present PSI is the only option in this most important respect.
btw – Doug’s paper failed PROM at PSI…..
With respect, Derek, anyone who knows basic physics would think your question “how does a molecule (of a buoyant gas). a rubber ball, or a rock “know” it’s own altitude exactly so that it can exchange the appropriate amounts of PE and KE” to be very revealing of your lack of understanding of the force of gravity. Of course molecules acquire greater gravitational potential energy as they rise, and lose some when they fall between collisions. If I lift a heavy ten-pin bowling ball off the floor and place it on a table, how does the ball “know” it now has more gravitational potential energy than it had when on the floor? Well, it could always roll off the table and fall, gaining KE as it did so, and losing the extra potential energy I gave it when I used some of the energy from my food to lift it onto the table. High school physics has numerous exercises involving the interchange between KE and PE for objects in flight. By the way, Loschmidt was a brilliant physicist, well ahead of his time.
I sat down next to a large block of ice and I failed to get warmer. I am still liking the PSI theory as the better one.
Tom,
Don’t forget that the block of ice is shadowing you from the much warmer background. I bet you would find a 32 degree hunk of melting ice more comfortable to sit next to than a block of solid nitrogen.
Actually the ice block is to my left while the sun is to my right.
There are a lot of other things warmer than the ice in your backgroud Tom. Dirt, air, sky, buildings, trees, etc… These all emit radiation approximated by Planck’s law and most are warmer than ice.
Warmer than the ice, perhaps, but warmer than me. The idea that cooler bodies, warm a hotter body and make it warmer, is a rejection of Occam’s Rule. It is just too preposterous an idea. Any “heat” off a cold body would he neutralized in the air before it got to a warmer body. Plank’s laws work great in theory but the mixed atmosphere between bodies take PL’s out of a classroom blackboard theoretical reality. Then there is the absence of a sufficient mass in individual CO2 molecules (at 400 ppmv) to hold any measurable heat.
What is the point of the attack on the PSI position? Considering some of what Anthony, it hardly seem helpful in falsifying the AGW nonsense.
Tom,
You have proven my point without knowing it. Sitting next to a block of ice is cold. Opening the freezer, you feel the cold on your face without even having any wind.
Why?
Because the radiation from the colder object isn’t putting as much energy into your skin as the warm outer door of the freezer.
Imagine if the ice were minus 269 degrees celcius!! That would feel like sucking heat right out of your skin. That happens to be the temperature of background radiation in the universe. I would happily take that block of ice over dark cold space.
Would you prefer to sit by a block of ice at zero celcius or minus 269?
Which would feel colder?
Did the minus 269 block suck the heat from your skin or did it just emit less toward your skin?
To our human knowledge and for this discussion, there is no such thing as negative energy. Considering these questions, what do you think about PSI theory now?
What I see you saying is that the cold of space is drawing more warmth out of the earth than any CO2 molecules can ever radiate back. Ego, no CO2 greenhouse effect. That is what makes sense to me. Thank God for the Sun to warm the earth.
Drawing of warmth?
Hmm….
Space cold!!!!
How does nothing have a temperature?
Cold radiation from the freezer. Interesting notion. I thought -18C atmospheric back radiation is supposed to warm earth’s surface up to 30c from a solar induced -18C???
I see no evidence for such in reality.
http://www.milfordweather.org.uk/solar.php
In point of fact on almost any sunny day what I see is a surface temperature below what the solar induced temperature should be. No back radiation warming effect required apparently.
“Cold radiation from the freezer.”
Less radiation, not cold radiation. You need to study Derek. This is really basic stuff, if I made a post on the basics, would that help anyone here?
If anyone deserves the label of “deniers” it is these PSI crackpots.
You know, they are almost enough to keep the denier label from dying out. The crackpot label is still going strong though.
Jeff, you remember my shape pdf and thread. You all demolished me on it, or so Mostly Harmless stated was the case on a GWS forum thread recently. The point of the pdf was that I was questioning / trying to understand better the power of sunlight at the top of earth’s atmosphere divided by four. Since that pdf I now explain P/4 by two means, namely.
1) A torch CAN NOT illuminate all of a football at the same time. Day and night prove this is the case at earth’s surface. So, P/4 does not apply to earth’s surface.
2) One can cook a 4lb chicken in an oven for one hour at 200C, but one can not cook a 4lb chicken in an oven at 50C (or 62C – correct radiatively) for four hours (ie, P/4). You get two completely different results, and therefore P/4 as an average omits the thermodynamics of reality at earth’s surface.
It would seem I got a lot more from my pdf than you all did here because I first tried to understand and then questioned P/4. Here you all preferred to “demolish” me. Note, I questioned the idea, here attacked the man.
WHO IS IN DENIAL?
On this thread here is trying to get the same result in regard of back radiation, and it’s supposed warming effect of earth’s surface by attacking PSI rather than facing the actual facts of the physics.
I note a previous comment of mine has not made it to this thread. Is it stuck in a spam filter? Yes, the comment included the words preacher and faith, but that is the fact of the matter in regards of the continuing consensus and mainstream skeptics unquestioning belief in GH “theory”. I hope this blog lives up to it’s name as the air vent and this comment is not similarly “lost”.
Derek,
I found your comment in the filter, sorry for the delay, there is no intent to snip you. Lucia was in there also and I’m not even qualified to snip her.
There were serious problems in your article which I did warn you about. There is nothing wrong with being wrong in my opinion. It has happened to me enough here. What is most frustrating about this thread though, and what seems to be lost on many non-technical folks, is that we haven’t even reached the level of first semester thermodynamics.
I’m sure you are a good person but you cannot change the world if you don’t understand the basics and that is why nobody learned from your article and why PSI has shed all credibility. We really do understand more on this topic than those on the wrong side. It’s like telling your doctor that those red spots aren’t hives. Turns out, doctors have studied the f-ing hell out of them and know exactly what they look like, their implications, how the different medicines react with the cells and when you will recover.
If we were discussing some strange form of cancer, that would be different, but we aren’t so those who haven’t studied and practiced in the field of thermodynamics (like all of PSI) would do well to read carefully and try to learn.
Please check my reply to Tom above.
Thanks Jeff, will do asap.
I too have no problem with being wrong when I am shown to be. That is usually the time a learn the most. All to often one is not shown to be wrong though, one is “demolished”, or told one does not know enough, ie, ad homs, or arguments to authority, neither of which impress or persuade me. Even worse one is sometimes told to simply believe, which is a give away in my books, because it means do not question.
My recollection is that you were shown in that thread where your math was wrong. Being unconvinced by proper physics is a sign of non-leraning not one of a higher understanding. This blog is completely full right now with novices making silly proclamations, don’t fall into the trap.
“I’m sure you are a good person” Thank you Jeff and (genuinely) ditto.
Often times I feel that I am but a toothless Chihuahua amongst packs of blood crazed werewolves.
Given what P/4 actually is, the supposed warming effect of atmospheric back radiation at earth’s surface and the fact no one actually knows at the smallest levels what happens, so what are the physics, I think I will spend my time decorating. It is a far more productive use of my time. The biggest scam in human history will continue regardless, and that scam, to be clear, is the GH “theory”, and everything based upon it.
Here’s the threads:
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/12/19/fixing-the-basic-agw-calculations/
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/fixing-the-basic-agw-calcs-ii/
We come back later to find Derek hasn’t learned a thing.
Thank you for the links Carrick. I simply did not have the time to find them.
I think it fairly obvious I have learned, and have a far better understanding of what P/4 actually is and does. Would you agree?
I may not stand under the understanding you think I should, but that is a different matter, and not one of not having learnt anything.
It was fun to observe the discussion of single photons from a safe distance. Waves? Particles?
Even Albert Einstein had trouble with that. Fortunately, Professor Gilbert Stead explained it many years ago:
http://www.haverford.edu/astronomy/songs/cavendish/hv.htm
This should be sung to the rousing Welsh tune….”Men of Harlech”.
[snip: repetitive off-topic]
Jeff: Your answer “Because the radiation from the colder object isn’t putting as much energy into your skin as the warm outer door of the freezer” is not correct. Radiation from a colder object doesn’t put any energy into your warmer face. It plays a role, along with non-radiative processes of conduction and diffusion, in slowing the rate of cooling of a warmer body, in this case the outermost molecules of your skin which are not heated as much as the rest of your body by your natural body heat in your blood. Physics makes it quite clear that the rate of conduction also slows down as the temperature gap at the boundary gets smaller. So too does the process of diffusion across the gap between your face and the freezer. So your example does not prove that the cold freezer is adding thermal energy to your skin by radiation, or that (as you imply) radiation is the only player here. Nor is it at the Earth’s surface-atmosphere boundary. But none of this relates to what really determines planetary surface temperatures, namely the gravity effect.
Please have a look at this comment,
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/psi-theory-destroyed/#comment-95119
When your done, start answering the questions.
These are excellent question that you should be able to answer. If you can’t get these right, there are no reason at all to look at what you have written because the underlying physics foundation is then rotten.
Well I answered (6) in the comment to which you replied before you drew my attention to Lucia’s comment. These issues are red herrings as far as I am concerned in regard to what determines planetary surface temperatures. There is no Solar radiation getting through 20,000Km of Uranus atmosphere and heating the surface of its small solid core to about 5000K. It’s all done by gravity, but you won’t guess how the thermal energy gets down there.
The fallacy in Anthony Watts light bulb experiment
It is well known in physics that the presence of a cooler body can indeed slow that portion of the cooling of a warmer body which is itself by radiation. It cannot slow the other portion of cooling which is by non-radiative processes. Furthermore, radiation from the cooler body cannot add thermal energy to the warmer body, because its electro-magnetic energy is used for immediate re-emission of identical radiation, and that energy is not converted to thermal energy in the warmer target.
A globe may well be raised to a warmer temperature when a mirror reflects its radiation back upon itself, but the reason is not what you think – the back radiation is not adding thermal energy to the bulb.
Focus carefully on what I am explaining, because this is the solution to the dilemma.
Suppose the bulb is initially at [i]T[/i] degrees. Let’s say that electricity is capable of raising it to a maximum of [i](T + d)[/i] degrees. However, in the absence of the mirror, radiative cooling rates will indeed be greater than with the mirror in place. So its initial equilibrium temperature is [i]T[/i] and that is because it has cooled by [i]d[/i] simultaneously.
Now, with the mirror in place it will cool by less than [i]d[/i], and so it appears to warm above the initial [i]T[/i].
But the Sun cannot warm Earth’s surface to a mean of 288K, so all this is irrelevant.
Interaction between radiation and matter:
1. Reflect
2. Transmit
3. Absorb/ Transmit
4. Ignore (only applies to wives and girlfriends)
sorry
3. Absorb/Emit
Sorry – there are four processes:
1) Reflect
2) Transmit (in a straight line such that images can be viewed or created)
3) Partially absorb, meaning some of the electromagnetic energy is converted to thermal energy in the target
4) Pseudo scatter (as physicists now realise does happen) in which no electromagnetic energy is converted to thermal energy because the Planck curve for the cooler source is fully contained within the Planck curve for the warmer target, so that each can emit frequencies with intensities represented by the area under the Planck curve for the cooler body, and so these frequencies can resonate. This is what happens when low frequency, low energy photons in your microwave oven strike opaque plastic bowls through which they “wander” in a random path due to multiple pseudo scattering events. About half end up coming out each side, so we do indeed observe water molecules that can still resonate on the other side of the plastic because the pseudo scattered radiation retains the same frequency.
This will be as close as DC will come to admitting that an effect exists:
Now, with the mirror in place it will cool by less than [i]d[/i], and so it appears to warm above the initial [i]T[/i].
By “appears” he means “it actually does get warmer” as in the temperature increases.
And yes he accidentally accepted for a second that adding the mirror does result in a warmer object.
I say savor the moment, I fear it is fleeting…
[snip – unintelligible]
Correction – delete “in a vacuum”
Some other readers might be able to understand the comment you judged as unintelligible, especially if they have read and understood the valid physics in my paper. Why don’t you leave it to them, rather than snip all comments for which the truth is you really don’t have an answer?
[snip — Because the comment was that bad Doug. You have had your say haven’t you. While your argument is still incorrect, it is now complex enough that novices may be confounded by it. ]
Prove the argument wrong Jeff. I’m not interested in assertive statements. And if you think you’ve solved the puzzle of all atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures in some better way than I have, then I’m all ears for your conjecture.
Sorry – [i] should be and [/i] should be (They use different code on the PSI comments threads under the PSI articles.)
So the variables in the above comment should appear in italics such as (T + d).
In response to Lucia’s comment which insinuated that discussion of Venus and Uranus is irrelevant, I point out that my hypothesis is about atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures on all planets and satellite moons throughout the universe. It is strongly supported by all empirical evidence of which I am aware for our Solar system.
If a radiative forcing / greenhouse conjecture can be shown to fail on all other planets, then it is not a universal theory, and, in any event, also fails on Earth because direct Solar radiation cannot raise Earth’s surface to a mean of 288K, and neither can back radiation raise its temperature above the maximum temperature to which the Sun raises it in the first place.
When the Sun has heated the surface as much as it can on any particular day in any particular location, then when the surface radiates, it cools. If some of the energy in that radiation comes back again, it cannot raise the surface temperature back up again by more than the amount it cooled by. Elementary my dear Jeff, Lucia, DFT and all.
If there is continual power input to a surface, it’s temperature is NOT defined just by the power in, but by the combination of power in and the process of how the energy is removed from the surface. An insulated surface will get hotter than an uninsulated one for the same power in. How do you think a blanket warms you otherwise. Increasing insulation make the equilibrium temperature hotter. The greenhouse gas effect is complex due to radiation absorption and back-radiation, convection, evaporation, clouds, the lapse rate, storage, etc., and the combination of these factors has been discussed many times. The end point to take is that radiation absorbing gases will increase the surface temperature of planets compared to lack of such, even with the same mass atmosphere.
[snip – off topic]
A blanket doesn’t warm me. If it did I would then a few blankets would give me a fever above normal body temperature. The flux of inward power from Solar radiation sets an upper limit to the temperature of a planet’s surface, if radiation were the only source of such power. (But it’s not.) Radiation from a cooler atmosphere is not depositing any thermal energy into the warmer surface at all. All the electromagnetic energy in that radiation is used for immediate re-emission from the surface, and none of the electromagnetic energy is converted to thermal energy. You cannot prove this to be an incorrect statement. There is no known experiment published anywhere in the world which disproves what I am saying about such back radiation, and which I studied at great length before writing my March 2012 paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.” The energy which maintains most planetary surface temperatures gets into the surface as a result of downward “heat creep” which is a term I coined for the non-radiative process described in my February 2013 paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures.”
Come on Doug, be a scientist and try an experiment.
Wrap yourself up in loads and loads of blankets and see how long before you can’t stand it any more. Take you temperature at intervals. You seriously think it won’t change?
I had a long debate with PSI people at their website recently. I made a misstatement due to responding off the cuff rather than taking time to be careful (about time varying vs nonlinear), but corrected any misstatements later, so they have nothing to claim that I was wrong about. I concluded that they simply do not understand either radiation physics, or what is actually involved in the atmospheric greenhouse effect (I don’t like that phrase, but it is the common one used). Debating with them is a waste of time.
With some people it is more important to be right than finding the truth.
Doc,
I agree that there is a belief system in their hearts which is preventing communication. The debate though, gives thinking people room to look at the detail and make proper choices so I try to see it as a greater good.
I like the direction that the experiments are taking on Anthony’s blog.
Unlike Gore and Bill Nye’s laughable and even embarrassing to their own cause fake science experiments, it’s nice to have demonstrations that don’t depend on video editing to “demonstrate” an effect.
Do you really like Anthony’s amateurish attempts at physics? [snip – [snip myself with apologies] ]
Why is it that you like to use words like “stupid’ Jeff? Is it that you think it will elevate your own standing in the eyes of silent readers by putting down others? I respond to proper discussion based on valid physics, and comments like that are like water off a duck’s back. I defy you to correctly find any inconsistency with physics in my paper.
[REPLY: It really was that bad of a comment Doug and it is annoying re-reading the same commentary over and over. I was grumpy last night so am sorry I called it stupid, that isn’t fair to you. I will snip my own comment. BTW, You really don’t want me to review your “paper” Doug.]
By all means try to find fault in my paper, Jeff, but you’ll need to be very precise with your physics (as I am) and not just make assertive statements. You might do well to note all the empirical evidence supporting what I have written, because there’s plenty to demolish the “old paradigm” of water vapour and carbon dioxide producing warmer surface temperatures. Venus would have a hotter surface if its atmosphere were similar to ours, but without much water vapour. So too would Earth be hotter if we had, say, only 10% to 20% as much water vapour..
Doug, your idea of “precise” leaves a lot to be desired.
You have yet to “publicly” admit your numerous errors when you first came here or the corrections that this group has given you. I’m glad to see you have attempted to incorporate the corrections into your thoughts but consider that we are dealing with a person unwilling to admit previous egregious scientific errors on a large scale, how hard would you work to point out the same person’s new errors?
You have quite a bit of mea-culpa to go through before you go through what is clearly going to be your second round.
Either read the paper and refer to the physics therein, or admit you have no argument against such. I’m busy writing a book about it all now.
[As I tried to explain, teaching someone who refuses to admit error, is not really a good use of my time.]
Nor is it a good use of my time, or a good application of my 50 years’ experience in helping physics students, to waste my time teaching you, young Jeff. You can read it all in my paper if you deign to do so – it’s not hard for anyone with a degree in physics to understand.
I have not embodied any “corrections” of yours into my thoughts, Jeff. The arguments you made about microbolometers were rebutted in my March 2012 paper – see Appendix of “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.” Microbolometer sensors do not get warmed by radiation from a cooler source. That’s the lesson you failed to learn from me young Jeff. The sensors cool at a rate which depends on the temperature of the cooler source of radiation. Elementary physics, Jeff – First Year stuff (in Australian universities, anyway) which I help my students understand
Do you get it yet? Radiation from a cooler source can only slow that portion of the cooling of a warmer target which is itself by radiation. According to NASA net energy diagrams, twice as much energy is transferred from the surface to the atmosphere by non-radiative processes (which are free to accelerate) than is transferred by radiation. Then oxygen and nitrogen molecules also slow surface cooling very effectively, especially when the temperature gap at the surface-atmosphere boundary is narrow, as it usually is. Again, elementary physics of conduction and evaporation, Jeff. What is not so elementary, however, is the “heat creep” mechanism which I explain in my paper, that being the only such explanation of such of which I am aware in any paper published anywhere. It is not in your old First Year textbooks Jeff.
Leonard and others:
Don’t expect the PSI members who talk only about radiation to be on the right track. Planetary temperatures are determined by non-radiative processes responding to the process described in the statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics* in which thermodynamic equilibrium (requiring a temperature gradient due to isentropic conditions) evolves spontaneously. I’m happy to have a “long debate” about the gravity effect with you or anyone here.
* “Second Law of Thermodynamics: An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. Thermodynamic equilibrium has the greatest entropy amongst the states accessible to the system.”
So, for starters, you might like to address the issue I raised in this comment above.
All that Anthony Watts’ experiment, and Roy Spencer’s yet-to-be-done experiment demonstrate is the well known fact that radiation from a cooler body can slow the rate of cooling by radiation from a warmer body. The frosted glass in AW’s experiment is far cooler than the filament, so the temperature gradient is steep between it and the filament. Back radiation makes a small change in that gradient and the glass (an intermediate point on the temperature plot) ends up a few degrees warmer, but the filament may not be warmer at all. So what! (I hadn’t read the experiment in detail when I wrote the initial comment. I laughed when I did read it, as it is so primitive, and the deductions made are just so incorrect.)
Not only do I know that radiative cooling is slowed, but I also know how it slows that component of cooling which is by radiation without its energy being converted to thermal energy, and I have explained this in many comments on many climate blogs. The last paragraph of Section 5 of my “Radiated Energy” paper published over a year ago in March 2012 reads …
In fairness, there would be a slight slowing of the rate of cooling when the temperatures approach each other, because of the way in which the area between the Planck curves reduces. But this only applies to radiation, so evaporation and diffusion could easily compensate and it does not mean energy is added to the surface or the atmosphere.
Well, Jeff, in that the “topic” is PSI’s “Theory Destroyed” perhaps I can help destroy both their radiative greenhouse theory and anyone else’s theory which tries to claim that radiative forcing in any radiative greenhouse effect is the primary determinant of planetary surface temperatures.
Are we talking about climate, surface temperatures and all that? If so, are we talking about whatever may be the primary determinant of such climate, or are we talking about what I consider to be the red herring of what happens to back radiation?
If you are interested in getting to the bottom of what really determines climate – what really explains why moist regions are cooler (not hotter) than dry ones – what really determines how energy gets down into the atmospheres of other planets, as well as Earth’s, then you would have to allow comments about other planets, all of which help us to understand our own.
Maybe you should consider a thread on the gravity effect, or perhaps start with an attempted rebuttal of my paper on planetary core and surface temperatures. Either way I’m happy to contribute, but if the discussion is narrowed to photons striking warmer surfaces, then I’ve said all I need to in comments such as this above.
So Jeff’s conjecture that the greenhouse gas water vapour is the major player in sending photons back to Earth to warm it up, especially in moist regions, but not much in the dry deserts, has failed dismally, because, just like the photons that fail to warm the plastic bowl in his microwave oven, so too do the water vapour molecules fail to make moist regions much warmer than dry ones. Jeff forgot all about the gravity effect. He didn’t want to consider how the net radiative transfer of energy is upwards towards space in the Uranus atmosphere, so there must be a balancing net downwards non-radiative process transferring energy from cooler to warmer regions. I don’t imagine this comment will stick for long – Jeff will say it’s all bad – yep – all bad news for those who make a living from supporting the status quo.
I received today an unsolicited private email from one of your silent readers from the past, Jeff, and he sums up quite well your narrow viewpoint, so I’ll quote it and perhaps a few of your readers will receive it in their emails before you delete it.
“They are stuck on the idea that radiation physics is the necessary and sufficient explanation. In particular that radiation from a colder body can heat a warmer one (aka back radiation). There is no way they can be dissuaded from that position. They refuse to consider the full context of effects at work. All evidence will be distorted to fit their belief. The only point they see relevant for discussion is “how much?”
“A simple analysis of their proposed model: leads to the following: the energy of emitted radiation is no longer in the body from which it was emitted. Then if that self same energy has been absorbed in another body and “back radiated” to the original body, the most it can do is return the original body back to its original energy level. The temperature of a body is a function of the energy it contains. Hence, “back radiation” cannot add heat to anything – no way and no how. Both the first and second laws are observed.
“Their minds close to this simple thought experiment and can’t grasp an even more subtle effect. Radiation absorption/emission is a quantum energy level resonant effect. Only filled levels can emit and only empty levels can absorb. The radiation curve is derived from the filled levels. Only the levels of the radiation curve of the emitting body that are outside of the absorbing body can add energy to the absorbing body.
“Underlying this is a failure to understand the energy conversions taking place. Their simple minded equation is that IR is heat and heat makes temperature and all IR heats. That there are multiple energy conversion processes taking place is not allowed to enter their thinking. How then can they get as far as understanding that radiation absorption/emission is a quantum energy level resonant effect and that effect rules what happens to the energy levels of the bodies exchanging radiation? They can’t because it contradicts their closed belief.”
As you show no sign, Jeff, of wanting to read and understand my paper, I leave you now to enjoy the slightly cooling climate I predicted two years ago would continue until 2028. Then there’ll be about half a degree of warming for the next 30 years before 500 years of cooling sets in.
I received today an unsolicited private email from one of your silent readers from the past, Jeff, and he sums up quite well your narrow viewpoint, so I’ll quote it and perhaps a few of your readers will receive it in their emails before you delete it.
“They are stuck on the idea that radiation physics is the necessary and sufficient explanation. In particular that radiation from a colder body can heat a warmer one (aka back radiation). There is no way they can be dissuaded from that position. They refuse to consider the full context of effects at work. All evidence will be distorted to fit their belief. The only point they see relevant for discussion is “how much?”
“A simple analysis of their proposed model: leads to the following: the energy of emitted radiation is no longer in the body from which it was emitted. Then if that self same energy has been absorbed in another body and “back radiated” to the original body, the most it can do is return the original body back to its original energy level. The temperature of a body is a function of the energy it contains. Hence, “back radiation” cannot add heat to anything – no way and no how. Both the first and second laws are observed.
“Their minds close to this simple thought experiment and can’t grasp an even more subtle effect. Radiation absorption/emission is a quantum energy level resonant effect. Only filled levels can emit and only empty levels can absorb. The radiation curve is derived from the filled levels. Only the levels of the radiation curve of the emitting body that are outside of the absorbing body can add energy to the absorbing body.
“Underlying this is a failure to understand the energy conversions taking place. Their simple minded equation is that IR is heat and heat makes temperature and all IR heats. That there are multiple energy conversion processes taking place is not allowed to enter their thinking. How then can they get as far as understanding that radiation absorption/emission is a quantum energy level resonant effect and that effect rules what happens to the energy levels of the bodies exchanging radiation? They can’t because it contradicts their closed belief.”
As you show no sign, Jeff, of wanting to read and understand my paper, I leave you now to enjoy the slightly cooling climate I predicted two years ago would continue until 2028. Then there’ll be about half a degree of warming for the next 30 years before 500 years of cooling sets in.
“They are stuck on the idea that radiation physics is the necessary and sufficient explanation. In particular that radiation from a colder body can heat a warmer one (aka back radiation). There is no way they can be dissuaded from that position. They refuse to consider the full context of effects at work. All evidence will be distorted to fit their belief. The only point they see relevant for discussion is “how much?”
First, the email conflates the existence of radiation physics with the explanation for the magnitude of global warming. These are 100% separable concepts. The second sentence is an indication that the reader is a novice who doesn’t understand the second law of thermodynamics any better than yourself. The forth sentence about context, is written because of a failure of understanding of the first and second points made in this paragraph. The final sentence is accurate, how much warming do the known (and endlessly tested) properties of radiative physics create.
Your third paragraph appears to have no end quote but the situation does not represent any physical system which I can decipher. The conclusions are completely silly.
The fourth paragraph, however, is more interesting and I suggest that you Doug read it carefully. It fails only in the understanding (first) and logically (last) sentence.
““Their minds close to this simple thought experiment and can’t grasp an even more subtle effect. Radiation absorption/emission is a quantum energy level resonant effect. Only filled levels can emit and only empty levels can absorb. The radiation curve is derived from the filled levels. Only the levels of the radiation curve of the emitting body that are outside of the absorbing body can add energy to the absorbing body.””
First the paragraph is altruistic and like yourself, fails to connect the microscopic nature of thermodynamics with the bulk properties. The simple recognition that some molecular modes of the material are energy filled while some are empty are all that is required to recognize that absorption and emission can be well described with probabilities. This recognition means that energy from a cold body is sometimes absorbed into a hot body and other times reflected – depending on electro-magnetic resonance with the structure of the materials. This is standard physics. As evidence, note the measured dependency of emissivity on temperature in the standard physics of materials. Therefore claims that I/we don’t recognize quantum thermodynamics, is proof that the writer has failed to learn the basic principles of the same.
“Underlying this is a failure to understand the energy conversions taking place. Their simple minded equation is that IR is heat and heat makes temperature and all IR heats.”
IR is an electromagnetic wave. It is probabilistically incorporated into the materials it strikes like all electromagnetic waves. Therefore this statement does not represent standard physics, and has little meaning to me or anyone else here.
“That there are multiple energy conversion processes taking place is not allowed to enter their thinking. How then can they get as far as understanding that radiation absorption/emission is a quantum energy level resonant effect and that effect rules what happens to the energy levels of the bodies exchanging radiation? ”
This sentence is accurate in that the author does recognize the single item which you Doug previously misrepresented in truly embarrassing “cut-off frequency” fashion. There are multiple processes which probabilistically add to a sum. Therefore, it is up to this new commenter to tell us well experimented and highly studied people, just why this new thermal summation adds up differently from the understanding of the rest of the physics world.
Jeff has produced no valid physics in any of the above – [snip – tired of your pompous ignorance Doug.]
DJC
Please explain how a very thermally conductive sheet of grey painted (BB) copper, unheated, when placed in front of a body electrically heated with constant power can cause that body to warm?
http://www.climateandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-copper-iron-green-house-revisited.html
I will answer your question in a moment, but you first please explain what that has to do with planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures. Uranus is thousands of degrees hot down in the depths of its atmosphere. There must be net outward radiation from those depths, but the energy is known not to be coming from any internal energy generation. The energy in fact originally came from the Sun, but no Solar radiation can possibly get down there. Hence it got there by the non-radiative process which is explained in my paper, and which you will not read about elsewhere yet,, and which you will not understand until you understand the process described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In that process, as that Law says, thermodynamic equilibrium evolves spontaneously towards a state of maximum accessible entropy. Are you with me? That state must be isentropic, which means it must display a temperature gradient. Then, when new Solar radiation is absorbed in the uppermost layers of the Uranus atmosphere it disturbs the equilibrium, and the only way that equilibrium can be re-established is by some of that extra thermal energy moving downwards, that is from cooler to warmer regions.
Now, the electric current is only capable of raising the temperature of the body to a certain maximum temperature. (On Venus, the Sun can only raise the surface temperature to about 150K very roughly. On Uranus it cannot raise the temperature above absolute zero with direct radiation into the depths – because no radiation can get there.) Your object will be cooling at the same time that the current is trying to heat it, so it never reaches its maximum temperature. But, as I wrote in my paper over a year ago (March 2012) about “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” radiation from a cooler object is only able to slow that portion of the rate of cooling of a warmer object which is itself by radiation. So, when you introduce your grey sheet you do in fact reduce the rate of cooling of the electrical heated object, and the new equilibrium temperature is closer to the maximum temperature to which the current could heat it.
However, what determines Earth’s mean surface temperature is the temperature plot already established in the troposphere. It’s just a matter of where that intersects the surface. That then becomes the “supporting” temperature, basically a minimum that the surface would cool down to in the early pre-dawn hours on a calm night. Then the Sun can indeed add more energy the next day in some regions, because the supporting temperature may be only 278K to 280K for example. The Sun is not shining with a fixed low flux equivalent to 255K as a mean night and day value. In case you haven’t noticed, it shines more strongly upon you in the middle of the day. So temporary thermal energy explains weather variations, and oxygen and nitrogen molecules provide most of the slowing of surface cooling (by non-radiative processes) so we are not too cold in the evening, whilst radiation plays a small part in this too, mostly water vapour being the key player. But moist regions are not the warmest: they are the coolest because the primary determinant of surface temperatures is the underlying support temperature. That is lower in moist regions because the temperature gradient is less steep, and thus the plot intersects the surface at a lower temperature.
I shall copy these comments onto a new thread “Cotton versus Condon” on the PSI members forum, so my time is not wasted by Jeff deleting them.
I will answer your question in a moment, but you first please explain what that has to do with planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures. Uranus is thousands of degrees hot down in the depths of its atmosphere. There must be net outward radiation from those depths, but the energy is known not to be coming from any internal energy generation. The energy in fact originally came from the Sun, but no Solar radiation can possibly get down there. Hence it got there by the non-radiative process which is explained in my paper, and which you will not read about elsewhere yet,, and which you will not understand until you understand the process described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In that process, as that Law says, thermodynamic equilibrium evolves spontaneously towards a state of maximum accessible entropy. Are you with me? That state must be isentropic, which means it must display a temperature gradient. Then, when new Solar radiation is absorbed in the uppermost layers of the Uranus atmosphere it disturbs the equilibrium, and the only way that equilibrium can be re-established is by some of that extra thermal energy moving downwards, that is from cooler to warmer regions.
Now, the electric current is only capable of raising the temperature of the body to a certain maximum temperature. (On Venus, the Sun can only raise the surface temperature to about 150K very roughly. On Uranus it cannot raise the temperature above absolute zero with direct radiation into the depths – because no radiation can get there.) Your object will be cooling at the same time that the current is trying to heat it, so it never reaches its maximum temperature. But, as I wrote in my paper over a year ago (March 2012) about “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” radiation from a cooler object is only able to slow that portion of the rate of cooling of a warmer object which is itself by radiation. So, when you introduce your grey sheet you do in fact reduce the rate of cooling of the electrical heated object, and the new equilibrium temperature is closer to the maximum temperature to which the current could heat it.
However, what determines Earth’s mean surface temperature is the temperature plot already established in the troposphere. It’s just a matter of where that intersects the surface. That then becomes the “supporting” temperature, basically a minimum that the surface would cool down to in the early pre-dawn hours on a calm night. Then the Sun can indeed add more energy the next day in some regions, because the supporting temperature may be only 278K to 280K for example. The Sun is not shining with a fixed low flux equivalent to 255K as a mean night and day value. In case you haven’t noticed, it shines more strongly upon you in the middle of the day. So temporary thermal energy explains weather variations, and oxygen and nitrogen molecules provide most of the slowing of surface cooling (by non-radiative processes) so we are not too cold in the evening, whilst radiation plays a small part in this too, mostly water vapour being the key player. But moist regions are not the warmest: they are the coolest because the primary determinant of surface temperatures is the underlying support temperature. That is lower in moist regions because the temperature gradient is less steep, and thus the plot intersects the surface at a lower temperature.
I shall copy these comments onto a new thread “Cotton versus Condon” on the PSI members forum, so my time is not wasted by Jeff deleting them.
Now, the electric current is only capable of raising the temperature of the body to a certain maximum temperature. (On Venus, the Sun can only raise the surface temperature to about 150K very roughly. On Uranus it cannot raise the temperature above absolute zero with direct radiation into the depths – because no radiation can get there.) Your object will be cooling at the same time that the current is trying to heat it, so it never reaches its maximum temperature. But, as I wrote in my paper over a year ago (March 2012) about “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” radiation from a cooler object is only able to slow that portion of the rate of cooling of a warmer object which is itself by radiation. So, when you introduce your grey sheet you do in fact reduce the rate of cooling of the electrical heated object, and the new equilibrium temperature is closer to the maximum temperature to which the current could heat it.
However, what determines Earth’s mean surface temperature is the temperature plot already established in the troposphere. It’s just a matter of where that intersects the surface. That then becomes the “supporting” temperature, basically a minimum that the surface would cool down to in the early pre-dawn hours on a calm night. Then the Sun can indeed add more energy the next day in some regions, because the supporting temperature may be only 278K to 280K for example. The Sun is not shining with a fixed low flux equivalent to 255K as a mean night and day value. In case you haven’t noticed, it shines more strongly upon you in the middle of the day. So temporary thermal energy explains weather variations, and oxygen and nitrogen molecules provide most of the slowing of surface cooling (by non-radiative processes) so we are not too cold in the evening, whilst radiation plays a small part in this too, mostly water vapour being the key player. But moist regions are not the warmest: they are the coolest because the primary determinant of surface temperatures is the underlying support temperature. That is lower in moist regions because the temperature gradient is less steep, and thus the plot intersects the surface at a lower temperature.
I shall copy these comments onto a new thread on the PSI members forum, so my time is not wasted by Jeff deleting them.
“I shall copy these comments onto a new thread on the PSI members forum, so my time is not wasted by Jeff deleting them.”
The members forum should help you find one individual capable of answering the above question.
And where does your answer differ from mine already there in the first paragraph of #38? If it does vary, and if you do assume the radiation is transferring thermal energy to the hotter object, then your understanding of the physics involved is flawed. What happens is as in my point 4) in #28 which you perhaps failed to understand …
When radiation is not 1) reflected 2) transmitted 3) absorbed to become thermal energy
then it is …
4) Pseudo scatter (as physicists now realise does happen) in which no electromagnetic energy is converted to thermal energy because the Planck curve for the cooler source is fully contained within the Planck curve for the warmer target, so that each can emit frequencies with intensities represented by the area under the Planck curve for the cooler body, and so these frequencies can resonate. This is what happens when low frequency, low energy photons in your microwave oven strike opaque plastic bowls through which they “wander” in a random path due to multiple pseudo scattering events. About half end up coming out each side, so we do indeed observe water molecules that can still resonate on the other side of the plastic because the pseudo scattered radiation retains the same frequency.
None of this has much to do with planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures.
Sorry – my answer was in the first paragraph of #40, but #38 is far more relevant to climate.
Pls stop using your bogus example of a microwave oven heating water by resonance. The water molecules align with the EM field – negative charges attracted to positive field and then subsequently repulsed by negative field as the wave passes. Microwave ovens operate at around 2 GHz, which is hardly the resonance freq for a water molecule. Also, if the molecules in the plastic material in your famous bowl have a electrical dipole moment, the bowl will also heat up. If you want to use an example, at least get the physics right. And here’s a reference for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating. Not the most-solid source of info, but I found it in about 10 seconds. You can too. BTW, I notice you didn’t supply a reference for the pseudo scattering mechanism. Surely, at least one reputable physicist has published the theory.
djc:
Physics-o-Climate said June 11, 2013 at 6:56 pm
Now, the electric current is only capable of raising the temperature of the body to a certain maximum temperature.
—————-
tfp
If you prevent all heat loss then the maximum temperature is not limited!
————–
djc
radiation from a cooler object is only able to slow that portion of the rate of cooling of a warmer object which is itself by radiation. So, when you introduce your grey sheet you do in fact reduce the rate of cooling of the electrical heated object, and the new equilibrium temperature is closer to the maximum temperature to which the current could heat it.
——————-
tfp
What!! I do not understand!
My experiment was meant to simulate a bit of a steel greenhouse
– add a shell to a heated body and the heated body gets hotter but the emitted radiation stay the same. I think that this experiment shows that this is feasible.
You now say that this in fact is true because back radiation gets pseudo scattered from the hot object replacing the same quanta that would have been lost but now is retained.
This sounds as if this impossibly complex pseudoscattering (reflection by another name) would give results similar to conventional summation of energy in and out.
but
I cannot find a reference (other than PSI) to this pseudo scattering please give one.
(1) The process of pseudo scattering is physically quite different from the process of reflection. Reflection does not slow the rate of radiative cooling.
(2) The object heated by electric current would in no way emulate the Earth’s surface if it were somehow “perfectly insulated.” I was talking only in the context of it being free to radiate and conduct heat into cooler air around it. There is a limit for the temperature to which the Sun can raise a planet’s surface temperature by direct radiation.
(3) At night, when the Earth’s surface transfers heat by radiation to a cooler region in the atmosphere, the surface temperature is reduced in accord with the amount of thermal energy transferred. It would require an equal amount of energy to warm it back up to the temperature it was at before it radiated that energy to the atmosphere. As energy cannot be created in this process, it clearly follows that the temperature cannot be raised to a temperature which is higher than the original temperature. Why do you people have such trouble with such a simple concept?
(4) Radiation is not the primary determinant of planetary surface temperatures. If it were, then all the radiation from water vapour would cause ten times as much warming in one region compared to a region where there was only 10% as much water vapour in the air above it. This is not observed. We do not see some moist regions having their temperature raised 50 degrees above 255K, whilst dry desert areas have their temperature raised only 5 degrees above 255K. In fact, we see that moist regions have lower daily maximum and minimum temperatures than similar dry regions.
(5) The primary determinant of all planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures has to do with the gravity effect, but you would need to read at least Sections 4 to 9 of my paper, which I have no intention of reproducing here, complete with the necessary diagrams that should help you understand the non-radiative processes involved.
In this comment above, Jeff says “the reader is a novice who doesn’t understand the second law of thermodynamics any better than yourself.” In fact the author of the email is a long way from being a novice, but let’s focus on the physics. So, Jeff where precisely in my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” in Section 4 entitled “The Second Law of Thermodynamics” or the following sections can you demonstrate my lack of understanding of the Second Law and how it describes a process in which thermodynamic equilibrium evolves spontaneously towards a state of maximum accessible entropy?
Then in bold type you proclaim that I fail “to connect the microscopic nature of thermodynamics with the bulk properties.”
So where in Section 7 entitled “Explanation at the Molecular Level” do I fail to consider such?
Then you claim that, just because absorption can be expressed as a probability, some must be absorbed. Well, Jeff, probabilities can be zero. It Is not myself who spoke about cut off frequencies. Never have the words been used in my papers or articles. In you deign to read “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” you will realise that the probability is in fact zero because the Planck curve of the cooler body is fully contained within that of the warmer body, and so 100% of the cooler body’s radiation can resonate and thus 0% is absorbed in the sense that its energy is converted to thermal energy. I will say it one final time: the electromagnetic energy in spontaneous radiation from a cooler source is never, ever, ever converted to thermal energy in a warmer target. The measured emissivity is never measured in relation to back radiation striking a warmer target. You have no proof at all Jeff, and I defy you to perform or refer to any experiment which actually proves anything other than the well known fact that such radiation can only slow the rate of radiative cooling of the warmer target, which it does without any of its electro-magnetic energy being converted to thermal energy.
Finally, I repeat that your accusation that I represented the above as being due to a “cut off” frequency is incorrect. I recognised that Claes Johnson worked only with an approximation in which he assumed (as stated in “Computational Blackbody Radiation”) that the Planck curve was “strongly attenuated” or, in other words, virtually just a thin line. I went beyond this restriction as I saw it to be unnecessary and not representative. I saw that it was all about the radiation under the Planck curve (at all frequencies therein) which resonates with that from the warmer body. Hence, as in my March 2012 paper, the one-way energy transfer is represented by the area above that lower Planck curve – that is, the area between the Planck curves. This is what the author of the email is also talking about when he wrote “Only the levels of the radiation curve of the emitting body that are outside of the absorbing body can add energy to the absorbing body.”
Now, Jeff, it has not gone unnoticed that you had no response to his second paragraph, so try that now.
REPLY: Regarding the cutoff frequency, lets make this really clear. You are a liar Doug. It is you who is so narcissistic that you cannot admit error – ever. I don’t use the word liar very often because it is defined as deceit with intent. You are lying because you know that you have changed theory on this and it was due to conversations here, and that apparently hurts you personally so much that you cannot admit any part of it.
You treated us to your Claes Johnson nonsense here for days. On and on about cutoff frequency written by your hand on this blog. Like PSI, you were rightfully shredded here. Use the search bar and read your comments. You told us how any radiation above a below a nonsensical “cutoff” frequency couldn’t be absorbed. You told us that IR lasers couldn’t cut through metal because they would not add heat to the metal once they were below the cutoff frequency. Then you told us that bolometers don’t work for seeing temps colder than themselves because of the cutoff frequency. All 100% wrong and completely nonsensical and all PUBLISHED here by your hand.
After you were proven wrong, endless repetition ensued and I was eventually forced to snip everything you wrote until you disappeared from this blog. Now that you are back with a NEW theory, which being a reasonable debater is the next level of incorrectness you were being groomed into over a year ago, I also know the errors in it. You had two choices back then, take the “under the curve” approach which doesn’t violate bulk thermodynamic equations like your first stupid theory did (done right, it proves the magnitude global warming effects of CO2 BTW), or accept that absorption/radiation are known and functional micro-processes in thermodynamics. Both paths lead to acceptance of CO2 warming, while the second doesn’t violate well known physics equations for photon-electron interactions. You are completely unaware of these micro-equations existence at this point and it would make some good self-help reading for you. The first path, while incorrect, allowed you to continue your backradiation thermalization meme. Predictably you went the wrong way again, completely ignoring how much physics you otherwise violate.
But I’m not going to tell you any more about your new paper, because you are not honest, you don’t listen, and you are flatly as ignorant as a first semester engineer about properties of basic thermodynamics. Like before, you have again demonstrated that you don’t have a clue how many physical knowns your new “under the curve” theory violates and that is why I’m not going to review your paper.
All I said above is that I have not referred to a “cut off” frequency in my papers or articles, and that is not a lie, thankyou. (There are two papers and five published articles of mine on PSI.) I searched the text of “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics” and the words are not there.
I’m entitled to fine tune my thoughts on these matters, and that I did before writing the two main papers in March 2012 and February 2013. I have not in anyway dismissed the general concept of what Claes Johnson wrote. His paper Is cited in my March 2012 paper. It amounts to the same thing because of Wien’s Displacement Law. If the Planck curve for A is that for a higher temperature than for B, then thermal energy will be transferred only from A to B. The frequencies do of course have a distribution, but none the less, the mode determines which is hotter.
I’m really not interested in whether you are persuaded or not by the truth of the gravity effect, which WUWT has not disproved, as can be read in my rebuttal of that attempt to do so. I will not in anyway ever be coerced into changing what I have written unless and until I ever come to a different conclusion. My paper still stands in the PROM menu at PSI because of my scientific principles not to change it, as was demanded by a certain reviewer.
What I wrote about radiation in March 2012 I stand by. Not long after writing that paper, I started researching in detail the effect of gravity, and this year’s paper is the culmination of perhaps thousands of hours of research and thought about all temperatures, above and below planetary surfaces. I am satisfied with what I have come up with in the paper, and very confident it is correct, being backed up by my study of temperature data in the Appendix, which is being extended so as to be even more compelling.
I am not here to “listen” to the false physics with which you mislead your followers.
My case supporting what I say about you rests in your failure to answer numerous questions in my comments above – because they can only be answered with reference to the gravity effect.
“It is not myself who spoke about cutoff frequencies. ”
Lie
Still no explanation from Jeff of Uranus and all planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures forthcoming. No physics discussion – just talk about what was written the year before last.
Jeff obviously thinks Uranus temperatures at around 5000K don’t cool off by conduction, diffusion or upward convection because 3W/m^2 of incident Solar radiation (mostly sent back to space) somehow gets sufficiently magnified by an atmosphere it can’t penetrate anyway, and then wards of the torrent of heat flow that he would expect if gravity were not the key player.
And you don’t “know” Jeff why the gravity effect (which is what my current paper is all about – not radiation) is (you think) wrong. You just think Anthony Watts debunked it with a thought experiment which was seriously flawed, as explained in the last paragraph of Section 14 of my paper, which you can’t bear to read and thus discover your errors.
And you cannot answer the question about how radiation leaving the surface cooler, can then come back with more energy (you think) to heat it up more than the amount it cooled by when the initial radiation was emitted. This is the First Law Jeff, not the Second. You think energy is created and back radiation at night can make the surface hotter than it was when it emitted the radiation in the first place. And not even all the energy comes back anyway – not even half of it. Back radiation can never heat the surface to a temperature higher than the Sun can heat it. You have absolutely no evidence.
Furthermore, you think the greenhouse gas water vapour actually heats the surface quite significantly, far more so in moist regions than in dry deserts – quite contrary to my study of actual data for real cities.
You are unteachable, Jeff.
Bye.
Bye. See you in a year, or another minute.
So, in conclusion, if we just make a small modification to the email author’s first sentence, in order to indicate what I believe he meant, we could say that you and your merry band are “stuck on the idea that radiative forcing is the necessary and sufficient explanation.”
Sound like the IPCC? In their Glossary of Terms, under “Greenhouse Effect” we read …
“This causes a radiative forcing that leads to an enhancement of the greenhouse effect, the so-called enhanced greenhouse effect.”
It is NOT radiative forcing which is the dominant determinant of planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures. Rather it is a process involving gravity acting at the molecular level – a process easily understood using the same Kinetic Theory which Einstein and many since have used successfully. It’s all in my paper, if you deign to read it.
DJC
Hence, as in my March 2012 paper, the one-way energy transfer is represented by the area above that lower Planck curve – that is, the area between the Planck curves. This is what the author of the email is also talking about when he wrote “Only the levels of the radiation curve of the emitting body that are outside of the absorbing body can add energy to the absorbing body.”
———–
Hmmmm I though I understood what you were claiming until I read this.
I thought you were saying a cool body emits quanta. A warmer body will not absorb these cool quanta but will pseudo resonate them sending them out of the body. The resonating effect prevents the hot body send its identical quanta out thus allowing it to warm / cool slower.
However in the above quote you seem to be suggesting that there is a knowledge of the relative planck curves that determines whether they are absorbed.
If this is so then it falls foul of the three body ploblem.
i.e. a cloud of photons in a reflective sphere generated by 3 different temperatured black bodies. How does the hot BB KNOW that some photons of 10um come from an object with negative area between the hot body and cold body planck curve and some photons of 10um come from an object with positive area between the hot body and cold body planck curve?
As said many times there is no marker on a photon.
Also
I cannot find a reference (other than PSI) to this pseudo scattering please give one.
The “knowledge” is simply a matter of whether there is resonance or not. You could just as easily ask whether water molecules in a microwave oven have “knowledge” of the frequency of the radiation. All that happens is that they resonate with certain frequencies, and the manufactures know which frequency to use. In the three body problem the 10um photons are in different relative positions in the frequency distributions – that is, the Planck curves are different and so different frequencies (with different limits on intensities) resonate. You could have two violins in two orchestras each playing the same chord, but the orchestras as a whole could be playing totally different pieces, and the overall volume could be quite different.
Pls stop using your bogus example of a microwave oven heating water by resonance. The water molecules align with the EM field – negative charges attracted to positive field and then subsequently repulsed by negative field as the wave passes. Microwave ovens operate at around 2 GHz, which is hardly the resonance freq for a water molecule. Also, if the molecules in the plastic material in your famous bowl have a electrical dipole moment, the bowl will also heat up. If you want to use an example, at least get the physics right. And here’s a reference for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating. Not the most-solid source of info, but I found it in about 10 seconds. I’ve posted this before and you refuse to acknowledge the error.
I keep trying to explain to you all that radiation striking the surface of a planet has nothing much to do with climate.
It is the gravity effect which pre-determines planetary temperatures and establishes supporting temperatures.
The reason why water vapour cools (rather than warms) is because it brings about a less steep temperature gradient, and so the supporting temperature at the surface end is lower.
That is what my current paper is about – not radiation, resonance, pseudo scattering or areas under Planck curves.
Radiation slows surface cooling, and so do oxygen and nitrogen molecules by non-radiative processes. But this is only a marginal effect, because it is the supporting temperature which sets the limit on cooling each night.
Do you get it yet?
PS
DJC it is good that you reblog this on PSI unfortunately a login is required so do not expect many replies!
Perhaps the scientific community of PSI could publish a response that all can see?
You can debate the issue simply by registering free of charge, or you can comment on the public threads preferably under my article “The 21st Century New Paradigm Shift in Climate Change Science.”
When an ice cube is brought in contact with a griddle, the ice cools the griddle, not because it must—there is nothing in the concept of conservation of energy (COE) that prevents the griddle from heating the ice. Both substances, the iron in the griddle and the water in the ice, contain energy, lots of it, which can be transferred in both directions. Energy in the process of being transferred in that way is the meaning on heat.
It is the second law of thermodynamics (SLT), COE being a generalization of the the first law of thermodynamics (FLT), that stipulates that the likelihood of heat flow (energy transfer) from cold to hot is virtually zero “without something else happening” (as Rudolf Clausius put it), for example, a compressor acting on a refrigerant cyclically. Paradoxically put, not all possible outcomes ill be observed no matter how long one waits. That means, as Sadi Carnot was the first to suspect as long ago as 1824, that one MUST INCLUDE in the analysis some other variable to superintend so-called “heat flow.” We are also advised to avoid uncritically substituting “energy” for “heat” in describing a physical system. Only when talking about “energy transfer” are the terms synonymous.
The SLT was introduced into thermodynamics by Clausius in 1854, I believe, and to do so he defined a new state variable called the entropy (S) such that a change in the entropy of a system equals the heat flow per unit temperature; moreover entropy always increases in isolated physical systems (under certain, highly artificial conditions, entropy can stay constant), unless “something else happens,” which is as much as to say that the system is no longer isolated. Later Ludwig Boltzmann’s work in statistical mechanics revealed a beautiful relationship between the number of micro-states, say of an ideal gas, possible for a given energy (which in thermodynamics means a given temperature) and the entropy, which was to have far-reaching effects.
Although developed in the context of a physical theory containing only macroscopic state variables (S, T, V, P, etc), it became apparent after Boltzmann’s work that the SLT had vastly broader applicability. It is a highly unusual physical law, unique in that it focuses on what cannot happen in any isolated physical system, rather than describe what can. Perhaps everyone has heard the famous story of Arthur Eddington advising a bright young engineer who has in hand the designs for what he claims is an amazing new theory. After examining the young man’s work very superficially, Eddington realizes that it is a perpetual motion machine of the second kind and thus offends the SLT. He then says, more in sorrow than anything else, “Young man, if your device conflicted with Maxwell’s equations, I should say ‘Why not?’ If they contradicted the theory of relativity, I might very well think, ‘Every theory has a day of reckoning.’ But alas, if your theory contradicts the second law of thermodynamics, I fear there is no hope of its being accurate, none at all.’ And he sent the young engineer back to his slide rule.”
The important news here is that Eddington had only to understand ONE thing about the new device to discard it: Its operation violated the SLT. Given that, he cared not a fig for any derivation of any results based on any otherwise impeccable mathematics or physics. The SLT, it appears, holds an a priori veto power over the physics of all isolated systems, from which there is not even the faintest possibility of appeal.
All of which brings me, after some time, to my first substantive point, which is, Mr. Condon’s question may be like the young man’s amazing new device, there is no need to answer it if the physical system it applies to offends the SLT. All the burden of proof is on those proposing for whatever reason, be it ever so sophisticated, that a “cold photon” can heat a “hot photon” without “something else happening.”
When a photon with energy corresponding to a temperature less than the temperature corresponding to another photon—which clearly is the system that the question “What happens to a single photon emitted by the cold blackbody that strikes the warm one?” refers to—the “hotter photon” must become “less hot,” which is to say, “colder.” There is no need even to explain how that happens, which is not the same thing as saying it happens for no good and sufficient reasons. Or at least that is what I am proposing.
Second, the question of the net energy transport (i.e., net heat flow) in a system as complicated as the troposphere may require the use of so-called “collective excitations,” such as the phonons used to describe energy transport in solids, plasmons in plasmas, or holes in semiconductors. Such excitations—and this is tricky ground—have no actual existence as individual objects subject to individual scrutiny; and yet, viewed as a collective property—many prefer to say emergent property, but I don’t— namely, a quantized collective excitation of an entire lattice, a phonon is extraordinarily useful concept for describing a real solid, which is a quite complex accumulation of matter and energy.
Thus, perhaps Mr. Condon’s individual photons, cold, warm, and in between, traveling this way and that, should be replaced with collective excitations, for which a name is wanting, resonating in the lower troposphere, likely at low frequencies, but without violating the SLT. It might be a waste of time analyzing what effects an individual “cold photon” has on a “hot photon” when the two interact via quantum electrodynamics (QED). Let us call the proposed collective excitation a “climaton” (clumsy yes, but sometjing is called for). The question then is what are the behaviors of atmospheric climatons? Who knows? Of one thing, we can agree, I hope. Climatons will never violate the SLT, and will always act in isolated systems so as to transport energy from a blackbody at higher temperatures to one at a lower.
The Clausius statement of the Second Law belongs in the 19th century. Physicists now state it in the form you can easily find in Wikipedia* which says nothing about heat only going from hot to cold. But it can be deduced for radiation that this is the case, because gravity is not involved. But for non-radiative processes, gravity does act on molecules, and so kinetic energy does interchange with gravitational potential energy, bringing about an autonomous temperature gradient.
In Sections 4 to 8 of my paper I explain in great detail exactly how and why heat can flow up the gravitationally-induced temperature gradient in a planet’s atmosphere. This is the only way it can get down into the depths of the atmospheres on Venus, Uranus and other planets.
Now, as Carnot demonstrated, the Second Law can apply to a set of interdependent components forming a system. But it does not apply to any set of independent components.
So of course I agree with you, Joe on this issue of the “system” to which you refer (and to which the Second Law refers) and the onus would be on Jeff to establish interdependence of the components. Of course that cannot be established, because heat transferred one way is quite free to come back to a totally different region by a variety of processes – radiative and non-radiative. There is no mandatory interdependence between such components, so they don’t form a “system” as defined in standard physics (as Jeff must know) and so the standard physics applies, which states:
* Second Law of Thermodynamics: An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. Thermodynamic equilibrium has the greatest entropy amongst the states accessible to the system.
Being 1.05am here, it’s over and out from me.
Doug, personified: http://xkcd.com/386/
Yes – funny. But you, Anthony Watts, need to take a step backwards into reality. The models are wrong because the paradigm is wrong. Loschmidt was right after all. You, Anthony Watts tried to rebut the gravity effect with a thought experiment that assumed there would be a continuous energy flow if a wire were run up the outside of a cylinder of air which exhibited the gravity gradient, such as in Roderich Graeff’s experiments. But it would not, because the gravity gradient also occurs in the wire itself, just as it does in Earth’s solid crust and mantle – and in all planetary atmospheres. Surface temperatures are determined by this gradient and the need for radiative balance.
That leaves one thing to be explained – how the energy actually goes up the temperature gradient, because it has nothing to do with pressure which does not supply energy. The answer to this dilemma has been published in a comprehensive paper which you know where to find in the PROM menu at PSI.
I challenge you, Anthony Watts, to run a post on the paper which you can publish with a different title page, provided you allow me to respond to comments. I will not mention PSI, and the paper does not represent any consensus viewpoint among PSI members.
CORRECTION TO ABOVE:
When an ice cube is brought in contact with a griddle, the ice cools the griddle, not because it must—there is nothing in the concept of conservation of energy (COE) that prevents the griddle from COOLING the ice.
But the igloo keeps the folk inside warm.
Ah! Joe. At last a blog from which YOU cannot delete comments.
Perhaps you would like to give a slayer based physics descripion of what happens in my 3 body system:
Place 3 bodies 1 light second apart in the centre of a 100% reflective evacuated sphere at -273°C (this of course is not really relevant as 100% reflective sphere will not radiate)
Each BB must radiate in the IR Range
Each body in fact radiates photons of 10um etc. wavelength.
Each blackbody has an initial temperature that is different to the others.
The interior of the sphere will contain IR from all BBs being reflected around until absorbed. It will also have all the shorter wavelengths reflecting around, but lets just limit this to just the IR which all the bodies emit.
slayer theory states that
“As a corollary, the absorptivity of spontaneous radiation from a cooler source to a warmer target must be zero” so this implies:
Some will not get thermalised anywhere because they originate from the coldest body
Some will get thermalized on the coldest BB but not on the Hottest BB.
some will get thermalized on warm and cold BBs.
Most of the radiation will have been bounced off the sphere (you could even make the 100% reflective sphere be a randomly angled faceted polygon if you want to randomise the directions a bit more!) and its source will therfore not be known.
The source of all photons is not known (they have been bouncing around for over 1 second).
A photon cannot be marked.
Its direction does not lead to the source.
There is nothing that indicates it originated from cold or hot (we are only looking at the long wave end of the BB radiation – not its peak).
There is nothing that says it originated from a black body plank curve at all
When it hits any object it would have been in transit for at least 1 second.
What tags it Cold IR, Warm IR, or Hot IR?
What physical property of the Black Body allows each to know the source of the IR and “reflect” “pseudo resonate” with or absorb it?
What happens to all those photons emitted from the cold BB they cannot be absorbed on a hotter body.
They cannot even be absorbed on their source according to slayer physics!
When the bodies all reach a common temperature, they still emit photons, but now there is nowhere to go because slayer physics says that they cannot be absorbed on a body of equal or cooler temperature.
When you crack open the sphere is there a sudden burst of photons released!!!?
These isothermal bodies all emitting photons which cannot be absorbed of course must be loosing energy as each photon emitted caries away 1 quanta of energy from the body. ( A 10um photon carries 1.98645e-23kJ of energy)
In concequence they will reach 0K and the sphere will be full of photons just bouncing around.
Conventional physics says all photons will be absorbed on other bodies irrespective of temperature. Eventually they will all be isothermal. Each will still be emitting photons buit each will be receiving the same number of photons back. Isothermal , see?
Because the only means of transmitting photons out of the system to space is 100% blocked by the sphere the bodies will stay isothermal until the end of time.
“Ah! Joe. At last a blog from which YOU cannot delete comments.”
What does the emphasis on “you” mean? Why “At last”?
I’m fairly new here, so I also do not understand what “slayer physics” means.
Those questions to one side, the only substantive comment I have to add is that the interaction between a photon and a blackbody is—I think, though I’m open to correction—really the interaction between a photon and the gauge field of the fermions in the body. That field is itself, as I understand from QED, composed of virtual photons. So are we ultimately talking about gauge field interacting with gauge field. What need is there even to introduce the question of whether the virtual photons know the source of the so-called cold photon? It seems like an unnecessary complication. The difference in temperature of the blackbody and the photon is real (i.e., measurable), and, again as I understand it, the difference shows up in the transient energy/momentum (i.e., kinetic energy/momentum levels of bounded as to duration by the uncertainty principle) of the virtual photons. All that is noted, if that is the right word, is the difference during the interaction, not antecedent states.It is in the intermediate states of the Feynman propagators that energy is exchanged, analogous to heat flow, it seems to me, such that the blackbody is cooled. My knowledge of the interactions of electromagnetic gauge fields is strictly limited to what I learned in graduate school many years ago, and I admit that it’s quite possible I’m overlooking something here important here.
Apologies, but a bit more may be said in clarification of the foregoing. The difficulty I have with questions such as “How does a blackbody ‘know’ the source of an incoming photon of whatever relative temperature, higher lower, or the same?” is not simply that it is clearly a loaded question, hence, not really a serious one. Much more importantly, my qualms relate to something I tried to point out earlier, namely, the extent that the second law of thermodynamics (SLT) can be said to apply here, is the extent to which we are talking about “heat flow,” meaning energy exchange occurring DURING the interaction between the “cold photon” and (via its virtual photons) a warmer blackbody. Introducing an earlier state of the photon would seem to move the discussion outside the arena where the SLT is applicable, or even relevant, and is therefore something of an evasion. For earlier states of the photon–blackbody system, the first law of thermodynamics (FLT) certainly applies. But the most curious thing, I have always thought, about both heat and entropy is that unless they are changing (increasing–decreasing, inflowing–outflowing), they seem to have little physical significance! One takes cognizance of them only when they are in motion, so to speak, at which instant the SLT also applies. In the photon–blackbody interaction, as with the griddle–ice cube interaction, one half, the photon, gains energy and so is heated, and the other half, the blackbody, loses energy and so is cooled, meaning that the FLT is respected; but also, because it is the colder photon that is heated and the warmer blackbody that is cooled, the SLT is respected as well.
The problem I have always had with so-called back-radiation, and I am, again, entirely open to instruction in the matter, is that while the FLT is respected, the SLT seems not to be. Radiation from the top of the troposphere goes (one half of it) into extremely cold space, which present no problems; but the other half heats water vapor (also not a problem), and that in turn results in heating moist air near the surface, even though the water vapor at altitude is considerably colder than the moist air near the surface and appears to do so, moreover, as Clausius puts it, “without anything else happening.” The troposphere has become, somehow, more ordered, meaning a more pronounced temperature gradient from surface to the upper boundary layer, meaning, in turn, a more ordered troposphere, meaning that entropy seems to have decreased. What is the something else that happens? I really am open to learning what that is having no aim other that to understand what is going on.
Joe: Ultimately, the earth’s thermal system is receiving radiative energy from the sun’s surface, which is at 5500K, and transferring it to deep space, which is at 3K. That amounts to a lot of entropy increase of the universe. (I calculate entropy increase at a rate of about 3.2×10^13 W/K.) Any entropy decrease (higher organization) of the earth’s atmosphere that results is trivial compared to this, and so doesn’t come close to a 2nd Law violation.
For someone who is familiar with quantum electrodynamics, I’m afraid you really need to go back to basics on some simpler stuff. It is meaningless to talk about the temperature of a photon, so your idea that the “colder photon is heated and the warmer blackbody is cooled” is simply incorrect. Even with bodies, temperature is a macroscopic quantity, and there is a wide distribution of the kinetic energies for the molecules comprising the body.
The question “How does a blackbody ‘know’ the source of an incoming photon?” is a very serious one, and important, because it simply demolishes the case of anyone who thinks that a colder body cannot transfer any energy radiatively to a warm body. There is no good answer to it. An incoming photon of a given energy level could be one of the less energetic photons from a body of higher temperature, or one of the more energetic ones from a body of lower temperature. The receiving body has absolutely no mechanism for distinguishing between these cases. If it is a blackbody, it will absorb the photon in either case, increasing its internal energy by the energy of the photon (e = h * v).
And that’s not even to mention radiation produced by other mechanisms beside Planck (thermally generated) radiation. POC brings up the case of the microwave oven, without realizing that it destroys his case. (I have pointed this out to him before.) The 2.4GHz frequency coming from the microwave oven’s klystron corresponds to the peak frequency of thermal radiation of a body well below 1K (that’s one Kelvin). And yet it can boil water at 373K!
thanks for the reply. A couple of things. First, in my original comment I wrote:
“When a photon with energy corresponding to a temperature less than the temperature corresponding to another photon—which clearly is the system that the question ‘What happens to a single photon emitted by the cold blackbody that strikes the warm one?’ refers to—the ‘hotter photon’ must become ‘less hot, which is to say, ‘colder.'”
You will note the words “energy corresponding to a temperature” and the use of quotes each time the words “hot” or “cold” or their comparatives occurs when discussing a photon. There was a reason for that, which is because I am aware that the temperature of a single photon cannot be defined. The original question posed by Mr. Condon involved “a single photon,” so I felt obligated to continue the argument along those lines. By temperature of the photon, if it is still unclear, what I meant was the frequency (hence energy via the Planck equation) corresponding to a given peak in electromagnetic-energy density of the blackbody spectrum for a given temperature, which is the same for all blackbodies at that temperature, I believe. By “temperature,” in other words, I meant “peak energy.” I should have made that clearer.
Secondly, I see now what I was overlooking: by definition a blackbody absorbs ALL photons incident on it, which really was very stupid of me. Yet I still wonder: how well does the surface of the earth model a blackbody? Certainly a good deal, perhaps even most, of the radiation incident on it is reflected, which is where my ruminations on interacting electromagnetic gauge fields (i.e., photons, the gauge-field carrier) comes in. My analysis, for whatever it is worth, assumed that the incoming photon went unabsorbed and merely exchanged radiative energy with virtual photons in analogy to way that kinetic energy and momentum are exchanged in mechanical heat flow subject to the first and second laws of thermodynamics (FLT, SLT). Clearly it is a worthless argument when applied to a true blackbody. But what if the surface in question is not a blackbody? Even as I typed that, I thought I glimpsed an answer, namely, what matters in the case under consideration is the absorption spectrum in the infrared. I’m not a geophysicist, so I have no particularly useful understanding of the IR-absorption spectrum of the earth’s crust.
Finally, your clarification of the entropy question was very helpful. yet I wonder if it is not a little extravagant as an explanation. Would not the same figures that you cited apply to every last physical system on earth, including all refrigerators? That may be the case. It just seems to violate some principle of parsimony in explanation.
Anyway, thank you again and thanks to Mr. Condon, as well as to Mr. Cotton (is that right?) for taking a moment to address the speculations of an amateur. You have each given me a great deal to mull over. (Plus, I have my collective-excitation proposal to work out!)
Joe — A couple of follow-on clarifications. I think you are confusing yourself by going down to the level of QED unless you really have mastery of the subject. Frankly, you don’t even need to get down to the photon level. A true blackbody would absorb all radiation/photons that hit it, which makes it easier at the introductory level to explain or understand it. In the real world, most natural solid and liquid substances are “graybodies” in the far infrared part of the spectrum as they exchange Planck radiation with each other. Their absorptivity/emissivity is usually around 0.95, which means they absorb about 95% of the incident thermal radiation that hits them. But it really does not matter what the percentage is, as these bodies have no way of knowing what the temperatures of the emitting bodies are for any of the radiation hitting them.
With regard to entropy, the 2nd Law is universal, and must apply to any system you define. (It most certainly does not only apply to isolated systems, as our frequent commenter, who seems to regard Wikipedia as an authoritative source, believes. Isolated systems are simply a special case where you can set all the mass and energy transfer terms to zero.) In the case of a refrigerator, you are decreasing the entropy of the system for which you have made some colder and some hotter, but at the cost of increasing the entropy of a larger system (or of the universe, if that’s how you choose to look at it). This leads to the conclusion that there must be a definite minimum energy cost to do this.
Once you really wrap your head around the 2nd Law, you see its ramifications everywhere, and it becomes very much easier to understand all sorts of physical processes and their limitations. I think it’s worth the time to do so. I find it a very parsimonious explanation for these effects.
Curt – My argument, the presentation of which seems to have been quite muddled,is essentially an analogy between the exchange of mechanical energy, as in thermal conduction from one material body to another, and the exchange of electromagnetic EM energy among photons. Without belaboring the obvious, the exchange of energy between two (or more) material (massive) bodies of differing momenta is always such as to augment the energy of any body having less momentum before the interaction and decrement it for others mutatis mutandis; that is simply to apply the conservation of energy/momentum, and if we have ignored dissipation, i.e.,have stipulated that all interactions are elastic, there is no reason to invoke more than Newton’s Third Law in explaining the resulting energy–momentum distribution. By integrating under the curve of the energy spectrum, we can also, indirectly, count the quanta occupying various partitions of frequency.
Now, as to the case of photons emitted by a “graybody,” the energy distribution can, in principle anyway, be described by some partition function, as you have several times pointed out. The energies of some will be high and some low, but energy of the greatest number of them, I think, will fall “near to, meaning within, say, a standard deviation or so of some “peak energy,” which is to say, some frequency in the EM energy-density spectrum of which the peak is a function. Further, the “location” of that peak (i.e., its frequency) is parameterized by temperature (T), to say no more.
So then, I now ask, cannot the above partition of EM energy among the frequencies of the photons be considered analogously to the partition of kinetic energies, also parameterized by T, discovered in Maxwell’s velocity-distribution (MVD) for an ideal gas function? (That is NOT a rhetorical question, because, the analogy being faulty, the argument and conclusions that follow are invalid and false.) Also here can be calculated a mean kinetic energy among the ideal-gas molecules, which corresponds to the peak energy of the photons. Some molecules will be moving faster, some slower, with the possibility, perhaps, that not one moves at exactly the mean speed. By integrating under the curve of the MVD we can count the particles occupying various partitions of the velocity.
Now the picture I’ve sketched clearly is dissipation-less: all collisions are assumed to be elastic—I can’t imagine how one introduces friction at the level of molecules (van der Waals?)—but even so, we can know in advance that among the myriads of molecular collisions not one of them will exchange energy such that the lower momentum party to a collision is left with still-lower momentum afterwards, the higher with higher. If, with some license, we define a single such collision as “a system,” then it seems to me that we have here an example of the second law of thermodynamics (SLT) working, as ever, in tandem, yet independently, with the first law (FLT).
Continuing the analogy, when photons emitted by one graybody, with characteristic “peak energy” parameterized by T interact with virtual photons (the quanta of the gauge field) of another body also having a peak energy—such interactions, it must be stressed, are spatiotemporally bounded by the uncertainty principle but can, nevertheless, exchange energy and momenta with incoming quanta (photons—when, I say, that happens, some of the emitted photons will have energies in excess of the target body’s peak energy and some less. Those with greater energy CAN (though not necessarily) increase the internal energy of the target graybody and so “heat” it BY INTERACTION, and some will cool it. Whether or not the target is “heated” or “cooled,” it seems to me, is depends pretty much on the distribution as to energy of the oncoming photons, which is as much as to say, on the temperature of the emitter. The fact that later rather than sooner all will be isothermal is not a contradiction. Or am I mistaken here?
In that way, the photons absorbed and those that are not absorbed, but are simply reflected with or without phase change, say, can be sorted by energetics, without the need even to introduce a fanciful prior “knowledge” in the target. Only the SLT is needed, it seems to me, to superintend the vast collection of microscopic discriminations occurring here; which is to say that we know in advance that among the myriads of EM gauge-field interactions not one of them will exchange energy such that the low-energy party is left with still-lower energy afterwards, the higher with higher.
Now you’re quite right in suspecting that a demonstration of the relevant gauge-field dynamics governed by quantum electrodynamics (QED) is quite beyond me! So there are any number of quantum-mechanical effects, probably unknown to me, that could work their way into the calculation of the relevant QED Green’s functions and upend the apple cart quite.
Finally, you seem to have misunderstood what I was getting at about the parsimony. It wasn’t your fault. The remark of mine that you were replying to was far too elliptically expressed and should never have been submitted. If you have read the original post I placed here some two or three days ago, the first time I have commented here in years, it was I who introduced—or, rather, who reintroduced—an objection to AGW based spring from SLT considerations. So I am quite appreciative of its potency as an analytical principle. What I meant by an “extravagant” explanation was your using the entropy change of the entire earth–sun–cold space system to counter my reference to the apparent decrease in entropy that arises from a sharper (more ordered) temperature gradient in the itsy-bitsy lower troposphere. Now, it’s true that your explanation does provide that “something else” I keep asking for, yet it also seemed to me a bit like blasting a mouse with an elephant gun, which is why I added that it (the entropy change of the earth–sun–cold space system) could similarly be used to reconcile any physical system on earth, a refrigerator, say, that apparently decreased entropy. In a sense, the “Help! we’re all gonna die!” someday sense you’re correct. For being such good science, thje SLT broadly applied has always had an acutely barbed metaphysical stinger attached to it.
As the Good Book correctly points out, the evil of the day is sufficient unto itself.
Let tomorrow take care of tomorrow.
Thanks again for your attention to my wacky ideas. I for one, however, am within epsilon of the end of my rope. If you feel like responding, fine. If not, also fine. I don’t believe that I am up to another round.
Curt, very, very sorry. The sentence at the end of the first paragraph, namely,
” By integrating under the curve of the energy spectrum, we can also, indirectly, count the quanta occupying various partitions of frequency.”
belongs at the end of the second paragraph.
Joe — I think you’re getting closer, but I still see a couple of problems. First, you must keep separate the “macroscopic” and “microscopic” worlds in your thinking, especially about heat and temperature, and at the “microscopic” level, you must distinguish between interactions between multiple molecules and those between molecules and photons.
You are correct that kinetic energies of molecules of a substance at a temperature have a distribution about a mean. (The temperature is a direct function of that mean.) You are also correct that in collisions between molecules, the one with the higher kinetic energy transfers energy to the one with the lower kinetic energy. But think about the implication of these two ideas together. If you put together two bodies of similar temperature, almost half of the collisions will transfer energy from the colder body to the warmer body. But the fact that the warmer body witll transfer energy to the colder body in more than half of the collisions means that there is a net transfer of energy from the warmer body to the colder body.
The SLT is only true, therefore, in the macroscopic, probabilistic sense. (Although the probability of it going the other way in any scale we could measure is so unlikely that it makes winning the Powerball lottery seem like the surest of sure things!)
When you are talking about collisions at the molecular level, it is meaningless to talk about effects like elasticity and non-elasticity, friction, and dissipation. Those are also macroscopic effects. I remember an engineering professor of mine hopping all over a hapless student who talked about “heat” in the context of sub-atomic collisions – there is only kinetic energy of particles at that level.
You also must distinguish between intermolecular collisions and emissions/absorptions of photons by molecules. When a molecule emits a photon, it transfers an amount of energy e (= h * v, where h is Planck’s constant and v (nu) is the associated frequency) to the photon, which reduces its internal energy by the same amount. When a molecule absorbs a photon, the molecule’s internal energy increases by this same amount. This is true even if the incoming photon has a lower energy level than the average energy of photons emitted by molecules in bodies at that temperature.
Curious. I replied to this, but it seems to have not made it through to posting.
I will not repeat what I said. I doubt that I could remember it. It did conclude by thanking you and Mr. Condon and Mr. Cotton (is that it?) for taking time to correct my many confusions with respect to the back-radiation controversy.
Apparently this second law stuff is more confusing than I believed. The second law is a bulk property law which means it was developed to represent the bulk properties of a huge number of microscopic interactions. The “law” is not contradicted by individual interactions going the wrong way because en-masse, the result is always uni-directional. Therefore any photon can be and usually is absorbed by a hot body, the difference is that the hot body is emitting more photons so net flow doesn’t violate the second law, while individual transactions happen in both directions. En-masse, the laws of entropy between a hot and cold body are therefore conserved.
I was taught thermodynamics starting from a molecular level. We didn’t read the thermodynamic laws and work backward, perhaps this is the problem with some peoples interpretation. Once you grasp the microscopic, conduction, convection and radiation possibilities, the bulk property thermodynamic laws make perfect sense as an average of probabilities.
So you were taught from a molecular level. In other words, you were taught Kinetic Theory such as used by Einstein – as well as myself in my paper. Take a look at the section headings ..
“Section 7. Explanation at the Molecular Level.”
CONTENTS
1. Radiation and Heat Transfer
2. The Problems with the Greenhouse Conjecture
3. The Venus Dilemma
4. The Second Law of Thermodynamics
5. The State of Greatest Entropy
6. Quantification of the Thermal Gradient
7. Explanation at the Molecular Level
8. The Concept of “Heat Creep”
9. How Earth’s Surface Temperature is Supported
10. Laboratory Evidence for the Gradient
11. Planetary Evidence for the Gradient.
12. The “Pseudo” Lapse Rate.
13. Non-Radiative Heat Transfer Processes
14. Rebuttal of Counter Arguments
15. Support for the Mantle and Core Temperatures
16. Conclusions
17. Appendix – Study of Temperature / Rainfall Correlation
18. References
Jeff admits the blunder his physics teachers made …
“We didn’t read the thermodynamic laws and work backward”
That’s the problem, Jeff. You can’t deduce the Second Law from the Kinetic Theory you used.
You do in fact need to “work backward” and to accept the Second Law first and foremost as an over-riding restriction – as Joe explained to you.
It applies to a system. A “system” in physics is usually just a single process (like one-way radiation) but can be a set of components iff those components are interdependent.
You are misleading readers with your errors Jeff, and if I can’t point them out here, I will do so in articles and books and other climate blogs which will get wide readership. You need to apologise to your readers for your errors. Planetary surface temperatures are determined by the gravity effect, not radiative forcing, and you can’t prove me wrong.
I need to offer you am apology if you are not J. Postma of the blog climateofsophistry!! A blog where comments get deleted and never appear!
There are vastly more collisions between co2 and non ghgs – http://rabett.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/this-is-where-eli-came-in.html.
The top of atmosphere where the distance a photon travels is significant gives the radiating temp to space.
The surface collisions predominate in energy transfer but ghgs stil radiate on average 50% up and 50% down
I am not the gentleman you mention.
Cordially,
Joe S.
The whole IPCC concept of a radiating temperature which, when it happens to be found at some altitude supposedly means something about where all the radiation to space comes from is sheer garbage. Some radiation gets through to space from the surface. Hence some can get through from an altitude of 1Km. The highest percentage of water vapour may be at around 3Km, so plenty of radiation comes from there. The so-called “radiating altitude” has no practical application or meaning.
So you are saying that GHGs are not stopping all the radiation that it can “absorb”. I.e, a change in amount of GHGs will still greatly change the emitted radiation from TOA?
All radiation not in the absorption bands of GHGs will get to space from ground level in clear sky conditions ( there is nothing other than clouds and dust to impede them)
most radiation in the bands of GHG absorption will come from somewhere near TOA. below this level GHGs will transfere energy to non-ghgs by contact or emit a photon in any direction (approximates to 1/2 up and 1/2 down.). Obviously any emissions upwards may eventually escape it depends on the density of the atmosphere at that level.
Proof that upward flux and downward flux are comlimentary
from http://www.patarnott.com/atms749/powerpoint/ch6_GP.ppt
No. I’m saying that planetary surface temperatures are determined by the autonomous temperature gradient which evolves spontaneously in the process described in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I’m saying that radiation to the surface has nothing to do with such temperatures. For example, no radiation to the Venus surface can have sufficient flux to be causing its surface temperature to rise by 5 degrees during its day. This would require a net input of over 16,100W/m^2 which is far more than is entering the top of the atmosphere.
TRANSPARENT means rays pass STRAIGHT through – got it? Like X-RAYS. You could form an image.
Go and patent your new medical imaging device and make your fortune with microwave imaging.
Low frequency microwaves do NOT pass STRAIGHT through opaque plastic, any more than solar radiation.
please lokk at the video on this posting of a hand behind bubble wrap 4 layers and it is still well imaged! indicating that the IR has passed straight through – no resonance!
http://www.climateandstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/more-fun-with-thermal-imagin-camera.html
So the question “what happens to a single photon” can be easily answered. It just depends on whether it is among any that cannot resonate with the target it strikes. The reasons for not resonating can be two-fold …
(a) If its frequency is outside the range of frequencies of a cooler target – such as those frequencies at the very edge of the Planck curve if its temperature is not much hotter.
(b) It is among those photons which, at its frequency, represent additional intensity over and above what the cooler target can handle. (These photons are represented by the area between the Planck curves.)
If it cannot resonate in a cooler target, then, and only then, will its EM energy go through the rather complex energy conversion process required to convert it to thermal energy.
Oh dear, not so at all
a 6000K body will still emit photons at 10um
10um Spectral Radiance: 2.21259e+23 phot/s/m2/sr/µm
(5.03412e+19 photons/J)
a 100K will emit photons at 10um
Spectral Radiance: 3.38348e+16 phot/s/m2/sr/µm
(5.03412e+19 photons/J)
A 30K object will still emit 10um photons
Spectral Radiance: 89.035 phot/s/m2/sr/µm
(5.03412e+19 photons/J)
So in a field of objects with temperatures between 6000K and 35K there will be 10um photons from all objects.
WEhat magic sorts these into thermalise/resonate?
PS data from
http://spectralcalc.com/blackbody_calculator/blackbody.php
And nothing to do with radiation striking a planet’s surface has any significant effect on that planet’s mean surface temperature. You cannot prove that it does. What determines planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures is the gravity effect explained in my paper, which proves this fact beyond reasonable doubt.
Doug – I observe your paper has been in unapproved PROM status (red cover) for 4 months now. Even PSI physicists must object to approving it to blue cover w/o revision.
After reading and understanding your paper, I observe the atmosphere physics purported to be new in your paper is incorrect and what physics is correct has been around for half a century or more (see Goody&Yung 1964) so is not new.
Your theory of the gravity effect determining planetary temperatures is incomplete without surface energy balance (convective, conductive, and radiative). Your theory is demonstrated incomplete as it cannot compute Earth’s global mean temperature without prior knowledge of at least one of these:
1) Satellite (or radiosonde) measured mean global temperature and altitude
2) Thermometer measured global mean near surface temperature
3) Energy balance at surface including correct physics of radiative heat transfer
If the gravity effect DOES determine planetary atmospheric global temperature without any of those three as you write, I have not read anywhere on this site or in your paper where you show a determination of Earth’s near surface global mean based solely on gravity effect (i.e. g/Cp gradient). Show your work if you can do so since it is not in your paper.
Uranus and Venus deep atmospheres are so hot because their atmospheres are optically opaque unlike not so hot Earth’s atmosphere having globally less than opaque atmosphere looking up at clear sky from the surface.
Your points 1 to 3 are incorrect. I have, for example, used it to determine Uranus temperatures very accurately (312K at 350Km depth, compared with other estimates of 320K.)
The greenhouse conjecture needs the 255K figure derived from solar flux. I can use that too. And all I need is gravity and specific heat with atmospheric composition and height of atmosphere. From there it is such elementary geometry that it hardly needs spelling out
.
The atmospheres of Uranus and Venus are very different – Uranus is about 83% hydrogen and 15% helium, whereas Venus is over 97% carbon dioxide.
No planetary surface or deep atmosphere can be maintained at a hot temperature without a continual supply of some energy – otherwise it has had plenty of time to cool. Venus could cool to well below freezing point in a century or so without a Sun, seeing that is cools 5 degrees every 4-month-long night.
But its surface temperature rises by 4 degrees each 4-month day and that requires a net input of energy. If radiation alone were supplying that energy, then the flux would have to be over 16,100W/m^2 which is impossible because far less flux enters the atmosphere, and energy cannot be created. The solution to the dilemma lies in the “heat creep” mechanism in my paper.
The majority of energy balance at the Earth’s surface is actually non-radiative processes. These depend on the temperature gap at the boundary. No physics can use this information to determine the actual temperature of the surface. So, no, my theory does not need energy balance, because it is impossible to derive temperature from such. Instead it needs Solar flux to determine the overall level of the temperature plot, and then g and Cp and atmospheric composition to determine the gradient or pseudo lapse rate. The effect of water vapour can be determined from the study in the Appendix, and I make no apology for using real data, because you cannot do better by any other means. least of all by any greenhouse conjecture. Try using the greenhouse conjecture to calculate temperatures for wet and dry areas, and compare those for where water vapour is ten times as much in a wet area as in a dry area. You get garbage out from garbage in.
“I have… used it to determine Uranus temperatures…”
“…for Uranus it is 59K…” on June 8 at 9:00am “Problematic Science Incorporated” thread.
As I wrote, you started from knowing a prior Uranus temperature from elsewhere (TOA 59K) to get 312K at 350km depth. Therefore you needed prior knowledge of 1): Satellite measured Uranus temperature. You then applied a g/Cp gradient. The atmosphere gravity gradient method from a prior known starting temperature and altitude has been available for over half a century. Nothing new.
“The greenhouse conjecture needs the 255K figure derived from solar flux. I can use that too.”
See my 1) point is correct? Yes, once you are given 1) 255K satellite global measured at a certain earth altitude then the gradient g/Cp method works pretty close to get global surface T. This is well known. Nothing new.
Your theory of the gravity effect determining planetary temperatures is incomplete without being given a starting temperature. Your paper needs major revision to get approved to blue cover.
My 1to3 points stand as correct.
The calculations for the greenhouse warming of 33 degrees are completely fudged in order to coincide with estimated surface temperatures supposedly 288K. (Funny that satellite measurements of mean sea surface temperatures are six degrees warmer.) The calculations assume back radiation warms in the same way that solar radiation warms. They show such a warming effect to be still there even at night. They “forget” that when radiation leaves the surface the temperature of that surface drops. If you get back less radiation, the temperature cannot be raised above what it was. Unless the Sun can raise the temperature to a mean of 288K, and the sea surface to the observed 294K, then there is no point in discussing how oxygen, nitrogen and argon slow non-radiative cooling, and how water vapour etc slow radiative cooling.
Ball4 – I am the first to agree that the presentation of my hypothesis may leave something to be desired. Some have complained that (with 20 pages) it is too long. There will be a more comprehensive presentation in a book I am half way through writing, and there will be a significant extension of the study to include nearly all tropical cities for which data is available. And there will be examples of calculations. I know these calculations have been done by others, and I have cited such in the paper, but no one has explained how the energy rides up the temperature gradient.
So my question is, do you or do you not understand the process of “heat creep” and why it must be the source of the required energy for planetary surfaces – more obviously so on Venus?
“My theory does not need energy balance.”
So I see you have dispensed with the first law of thermodynamics. Nicely done!
No we don’t need a satellite measured temperature for Uranus. We need a measure of Solar flux at a certain distance, namely above Earth’s TOA, and then we calculate the flux at the distance of Uranus (about 29 times that of Earth from the Sun) which gives us the figure from which the radiating temperature of Uranus is calculated as 59.1K. The measurements confirm the hypothesis.
The same goes for Venus which we can calculate has about twice the Solar flux reaching it as does Earth because it is closer to the Sun. So from that we calculate the radiating temperature. No greenhouse calculation can do any better, and they are all fudged anyway, because it is not radiation which is heating the depths of the Uranus atmosphere – no Solar radiation gets down there.
Curt – I am not saying energy won’t be balanced. I am saying that knowing the quantities involved is irrelevant and of no use in determining the temperature. You could be told there was only a very small energy outflow from a vacuum flask filled with water, but you cannot calculate the temperature from that.
“We need a measure of Solar flux at a certain distance, namely above Earth’s TOA, and then we calculate the flux at the distance of Uranus (about 29 times that of Earth from the Sun) which gives us the figure from which the radiating temperature of Uranus is calculated as 59.1K.”
It doesn’t matter HOW you measure Uranus 59K. My point is your theory of gravity determining planetary temperatures needs the measurement of 59K to then compute the 312K at 350km depth from the g/Cp gradient. Simple energy balance theory does not need the starting temperature measured therefore it is more advanced than your paper.
Energy balance from measurements of net insolation, land/ocean, and atmosphere emissivity can compute earth’s global mean surface temperature of 288K. As well as that of Venus ~732K. Your paper isn’t yet up to that standard easily found in many text books based on 1st & 2nd law. Just look it up.
“So my question is, do you or do you not understand the process of “heat creep” and why it must be the source of the required energy for planetary surfaces – more obviously so on Venus?”
I do understand your attempt at explaining “heat creep”. As I wrote, I have read and understood your paper.
“Heat creep” is explained in your Sec. 8 by assertion. Your assertions are incorrect because the figure is incorrect. Each molecule has KE+PE = constant in a gravity field but temperature comes from an average over many molecules in a parcel and your temperature plot misses the correct eqn. for energy conservation in the parcel – gas enthalpy which is KE+PE+p*V, the conserved quantity of the parcel. This is so easy to see that your paper likely will not & should not get an approved blue cover without major revision of Sec. 8 to get the basic gas physics correct.
Get started on revisions making Sec. 8 basic gas physics correct, there is even more trouble I can see. Regard this as friendly, informed & critical advice/help/consulting if you really want to advance your paper toward approval.
Why do you turn my words ” calculated as 59.1K.” into “measure Uranus 59K” ?????
Well you try doing “simple energy balance theory” for Uranus. Remember to enter zero (0W/m^2) for the Solar radiation down there at the base of its theoretical troposphere.
The plain fact is that the only way which sufficient energy can get down into the depths of planetary atmospheres like that in Uranus has to be by non-radiative processes. The “heat creep” happens whether you think otherwise or not. In my Sections 4 to 8 I am basically using the same Kinetic Theory as used successfully by Einstein and many since. Of course temperature is a macro measure. Statistical mechanics shows us that we need a few pictograms of matter for temperature to be defined within 1% or better. What you say does not invalidate the physics outlined. It is in fact talking about the same macro process described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Heat creep is merely restoring a disturbed state of thermodynamic equilibrium.
On Venus, for example, the whole temperature plot must rise and fall by 5 degrees, so of course the supported surface temperature also varies accordingly. But most of the energy absorbed in the Venus day enters the atmosphere at high altitudes, and so of course some of it must flow up the temperature gradient simply because the gravity effect will maintain the same gradient and so the temperature plot in the Venus troposphere takes on a higher but parallel position.
“Why do you turn my words ” calculated as 59.1K.” into “measure Uranus 59K” ?????”
You measured it at Earth and adjusted the measurement to Uranus orbit.
“Remember to enter zero (0W/m^2) for the Solar radiation down there at the base of its theoretical troposphere.”
0 is speculation of course, no one knows how much solar radiation is deposited base of Uranus troposphere which is very complex but energy balance WILL work, it is the 1st law. Uranus should just be avoided until you can learn/explain/calculate the 288K mean surface T on Earth with energy balance & not just knowing the measured 255K and an altitude using the gradient g/Cp as in your unapproved paper.
“The plain fact is that the only way which sufficient energy can get down into the depths of planetary atmospheres like that in Uranus has to be by non-radiative processes.”
Not a plain fact. You miss Uranus generates internal heat and slowly accumulates it over eons in the thermally opaque atmosphere. Uranus also accumulates deposited solar energy down to some unknown level in the thermally opaque atmosphere similar to Venus opaque atmosphere where some small solar energy IS deposited at the surface.
“The “heat creep” happens whether you think otherwise or not. In my Sections 4 to 8 I am basically using the same Kinetic Theory as used successfully by Einstein and many since.”
“Heat creep” is physical, just not as you assert in Sec.8. Kinetic theory works for individual molecules, Einstein correctly used gas enthalpy to get the correct “heat creep” for a parcel of gas. Sec. 8 in your paper asserts incorrect amount of “heat creep” by missing the p*V term in gas parcel enthalpy. Need to fix it if you want just approval.
“What you say does not invalidate the physics outlined.”
What you purport to be new in your paper is invalid physics by simple text book theory (Sec. 8 is just plain wrong), where your paper asserts correct physics – it has been known for over half century.
“…but no one has explained how the energy rides up the temperature gradient.”
Energy rides up the temperature gradient by convective, conductive and radiative heat transfer. All these atmospheric processes are well explained in eqn. form tracable to 1st and 2nd law not just assertion in a myriad of sources over last half century. How could you miss them all? Wow.
“Try using the greenhouse conjecture to calculate temperatures for wet and dry areas, and compare those for where water vapour is ten times as much in a wet area as in a dry area.”
Well, you don’t define “greenhouse conjecture.”
Atmospheric radiation at the surface depends majorly on vertical vapor density (et. al. minor effects) and temperature profiles.
“The effect of water vapour can be determined from the study in the Appendix..”
The world record for lowest radiative flux coming down at surface from Earth’s T>0 atmosphere is unknown though a textbook I have gives a value of 130 W/m^2 in the Arctic winter. Look for low values of atmospheric radiation in cold, dry regions of the world which are deserts (regions of low precipitation not necess. high temperatures). Looking at climate data for the Sahara and Madison, Wisc., I see 20% less water vapor in Madison’s column on avg. than the Sahara and the min. temperatures are higher in the Sahara. You are more likely to find “desert conditions” (i.e. less water vapor in the column) in Madison than the Sahara even though the annual rainfall of 0.3in in Sahara is 100x less than Madison. Check it out.
How do you think anyone ever calculated 255K for Earth if no measurements were ever made of how strong the Sun’s radiative flux is? You are making a pointless point. The radiative temperatures for all planets are calculated using measurements of Solar intensity we can make at Earth’s TOA. Then we just adjust using the fact that intensity reduces with the square of the distance. Uranus is 29 times further from the Sun. Elementary.
The very fact that there is (very precisely) a -g/Cp gradient on Uranus is a clear indication of the gravity effect, because nothing else is there to cause it. Without it, the atmosphere would be very cold, and get colder towards the centre..
And, no, if you are one of those who believe radiation transfers heat up the energy gradient and somehow the radiation from the relatively cold atmosphere of Venus can actually raise its surface temperature by 5 degrees during each Venus day (that is, bring about a net energy input into the Venus surface) then I have to leave you to your misapprehensions which Joe pointed out most emphatically.
No matter what you think happens to photons, the Second Law of Thermodynamics stands fast and eliminates false conjectures about photons from cooler sources transferring heat in one-way radiation processes to warmer targets.
And it is not common knowledge that conduction (or diffusion in gases) can transfer heat from cooler to warmer regions, even though radiation cannot do so. Show me a physics text which actually says so.
Finally – where is the surface of Uranus? There is none at the base of its theoretical troposphere just 350K down. There is no Solar radiation reaching there either. So no surface warming gases that then rise by convection and supposedly create a “lapse rate” which Roy Spencer claims would not exist without a surface being heated and a tropopause being cooled and thus upward convection occurring. The gravitationally induced temperature gradient does not require convection or expansion or contraction. It happens spontaneously at the molecular level which, despite what you think, translates to the macro scale.
And in regard to temperature data, I am not interested in your anecdotal survey of just two regions. Although my study is of only 15 cities, the results are statistically significant. But, none-the-less, my book will include a far larger study of nearly every inland tropical city at up to 1200m altitude, with temperatures all adjusted to 600m altitude as in the initial study.
“How do you think anyone ever calculated 255K for Earth if no measurements were ever made of how strong the Sun’s radiative flux is?”
Doug – Your paper cannot calculate the 255K for Earth unless it is given that result; it is a step backwards and should not be approved. Yes, energy balance theory calculates global surface 255K by setting the emissivity of theoretical atmosphere to 0, with input of measured net solar, and measured land/ocean emissivity. Look it up. Your paper is less advanced than the most basic text book on the subject. The paper adds nothing new; g/Cp gradient has been around for more than half a century.
“And it is not common knowledge that conduction (or diffusion in gases) can transfer heat from cooler to warmer regions, even though radiation cannot do so. Show me a physics text which actually says so.”
Goody&Yung 1964 and many that follow. I already did so above, you demonstrate no ability to learn by just looking your answers up in basic text books. I see you will be shocked to learn the 2nd law is statistical; cool can actually move to hot in micro world (your “molecular level”) and perfectly consistent with macro 2nd law; just look it up – do a little more research. I (and others here) will explain in order to help you if you ask. Text books are written with many collaborators; it is ok to use a few – just be sure to thank Ball4 (and Curt and Jeff et. al.) in the preface/acknowledgment section. And get Sec. 8 corrected to what you have learned here.
“There is no Solar radiation reaching there either.”
Congrats – Doug does understand solar or any radiation is absorbed/emitted. Now look up energy balance theory in a modern basic text book and report back how it works in Earth’s system to compute the 255K and the 288K using 1st and 2nd law with measured input data. Then apply it for both Venus and Uranus, you will be shocked to learn it works there too! That’s why they call energy conservation a law of nature.
“I am not interested in your anecdotal survey of just two regions.”
It was random. That works for every similar region comparison when done correctly, it is the same science. Just be sure to get the science right unlike that for a gas parcel in Sec. 8 of your paper where an important basic text book term (gas enthalpy) is simply missed in your figure.
What magic? The number of seats in the football stadium. The gates close when it’s full house. Those photons which represent intensities above the Planck curve of the target cannot resonate, and they must have come from a warmer source. The Planck curve for a cooler body is always fully contained within that for a warmer body – that can be shown from the Planck function.
One 10um photon is exactly the same as another 10um photon and each caries exactly the same energy.
How does one body “KNOW” its planck curve.
How does it “subtract” another bodies planck curve.
The other body may actually be many, at different temeratures all producing exactly identical photons at say 10um. A difficult task sorting 10um photons at the speed of light.
perhaps you propose a douglas demon to sort them?
tfp: This is the internet age. Get with the times! Don’t you realize that every photon is like an internet packet, carrying detailed information as to its source that the receiving body can then interpret and decide what to do with the photon/packet?
The issues of what photons “know” – or your imaginings about such – do not allow you to dismiss the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Heed what Joe told you about this.
Radiation issues are not what determine planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures. It is the gravity effect and the mechanism of “heat creep” which do so.
What I can’t figure out is why POC/Doug is wasting his time on blogs with his discoveries. He has discovered that the gravity effect of the atmosphere is an ongoing power source of at least 150 W/m^2, and low-entropy power to boot. If I had discovered this, I would be quietly buying up cheap land, because I could generate a megawatt of electrical power on land of the area of a football field, with no fuel costs! I would also not have disclosed this discovery to anyone until I had patent applications filed in all important jurisdictions.
Prove your point with reference to what I actually have said, Curt. You are way off track in your understanding.
Planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures are determined by the gravity effect, not any radiative forcing or greenhouse effect. If radiation to the surface controlled climate, then water vapour would make the more moist regions far hotter than dry regions at similar latitudes and altitudes. That does not happen. In fact the reverse happens.
The gravity effect raises surface temperatures by over 40 C degrees, and then water vapour reduces the gradient and thus the supported surface temperature.
So why spend all this time and effort discussing carbon dioxide? It reduces the gradient in the same way that water vapour does – by inter-molecular radiation – but its effect on cooling is far less than that of water vapour.
What you are saying Curt is a complete misrepresentation of what I am saying, even though you probably don’t know it, because you demonstrate no understanding of the “heat creep” mechanism.
I don’t like being totally misrepresented like that Curt. You display absolutely no understanding of what is in my paper.
I estimate that carbon dioxide has a net cooling effect of about 0.002 C degree.
Planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures are determined by the gravity effect, not any radiative forcing or greenhouse effect. If radiation to the surface controlled climate, then water vapour would make the more moist regions far hotter than dry regions at similar latitudes and altitudes. That does not happen. In fact the reverse happens.
The gravity effect raises surface temperatures by over 40 C degrees, and then water vapour reduces the gradient and thus the supported surface temperature.
For details see my paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” where I believe I have presented sufficient valid physics and empirical evidence to prove this beyond reasonable doubt.
So why spend all this time and effort discussing carbon dioxide? It reduces the gradient in the same way that water vapour does – by inter-molecular radiation – but its effect on cooling is far less than that of water vapour.
The circus goes on and on and on and on and…….. Zzzzzzzzzz.
Why make such a big deal of what the PSI group thinks? because the real fight is against the AGW conjecture that has been promoted by the Media,a small circle of warmist scientists and the ignorant lemming followers of Dr. Hansen,Moron weeper Kibben and Doctorless Al $$$ Gore for YEARS and YEARS.The fight against long term damage to science by the U.N. backed IPCC and various governments who have gone batshit crazy over a trace gas and those individuals who are blatant liars and law breakers to continue their anti-carbon propaganda.PSI in contrast is quite benign in comparison
The PSI group main interest is to promote a certain position on the back radiation effect and little else while the warmist cabal wants to take over your life through regulations and laws in their insane attempt to stop carbon emissions.I think they are far more dangerous than the PSI people who have no intention of regulating your life by force or any other means to complel obedience to the warmist cult.They have a different view of backradiation than you and that is all it is.
The PSI members themselves do not accept the AGW conjecture either and that should be encouraging for anyone who wants this climate scam to dry up and blow away.Thus the nosepicking fight against them is not really helpful since the real fight is elsewhere.If you notice by now that Doug Cotton is the only one of the PSI group to promote some kind of No greenhouse effect position in many places on the internet where the others do most of it the PSI blog or at Joe Postma’s blog.They are for the most part not pushing their position onto others that much.
My suggestion is to drop this PSI obsession and get back to attacking the widespread AGW baloney and gain converts where it is most important.
My comment is in moderation?
What you say Sunsettommy is valid. I don’t represent any official PSI position as I made clear some time back. But the most compelling argument against AGW is the true one, which proves no greenhouse effect is controlling surface temperatures.
I have spent thousands of hours looking into what must really be happening in the universe regarding temperatures above and below planetary surfaces. I have found, beyond any reasonable doubt that I could have, that …
(1) The answer to the dilemma lies in understanding that the Second Law of Thermodynamics (in its modern form – not the simplified “hot to cold” Clausius statement) is talking about a process in which thermodynamic equilibrium “evolves spontaneously” and so too does an autonomous temperature gradient (at the macro level) in a vertical plane in a planet’s atmosphere, crust and mantle.
(2) The absorption of new thermal energy disturbs the thermodynamic equilibrium (which results in the temperature gradient) and the new energy spreads out by convection in all available directions away from the new source of energy, but flowing over the sloping temperature plane. So some energy can actually move from cooler to warmer regions provided that the process stops when a new thermodynamic equilibrium evolves. Thus heat from the Sun “creeps” up the temperature gradient in the atmosphere, and then further up the steeper temperature gradient in the outer crust, and even further through the mantle until, whether you choose to believe it or not, it actually supports the core temperature, preventing the core from cooling off, even on planet’s like Uranus where no energy is created in the core.
By the time you have studied information about several planets in the detail and to the extent that I have, you may realise that this has to be what happens on all planets, including Earth. It is not radiative forcing associated with any greenhouse effect which is the primary determinant of planetary temperatures – it is the gravity effect which holds down thermal energy absorbed over the life of the planet. Instantaneous radiative energy balance is not doing it, and never could.
Planetary atmospheric, surface, crust, mantle and core temperatures are not determined by (and cannot be calculated from) radiative energy budgets. In fact there is a huge effect caused by non-radiative processes. But there is no physical relationship that enables you to determine the temperature of a surface from just some information about non-radiative heat transfer. Furthermore, you can tell nothing from radiation either if significant energy is simultaneously being lost by non-radiative processes. At the very least you need information on temperature gaps at boundaries, because cooling processes are slowed as such gaps approach zero.
The whole of the pseudo physics of greenhouse effects and assumed heating of the surface by back radiation (or “radiative forcing”) is trying to utilise the Stefan-Boltzmann equation which only relates to bodies in a vacuum losing all their energy by radiation without any conduction or evaporative cooling. A planet’s surface is not remotely like that.
Just try explaining Venus surface temperatures with an instantaneous radiative energy budget! There is only about 10W/m^2 of direct Solar radiation reaching its surface, that is, less than a tenth of the amount received by Earth’s surface. So why is the Venus surface about 730K and how does it actually increase in temperature by about 5 degrees during the 4-month long Venus day?
Instantaneous radiative energy budgets don’t have built in storage factors – the energy flows are balanced autonomously, but there is a lot of non-radiative heat transfer happening on Venus, and you need to understand why, or you don’t really understand what happens on Earth either.
Ball4 advises that his two cities were selected at random. Well my 15 cities (and soon many more) are also selected at random and, as in the Appendix, clearly show with statistical significance that the more moist cities have lower mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures than the dry ones. Perhaps Ball4 could predict the outcome of the elections by selecting two people at random.
Ball4 also thinks it would be possible to determine that 255K figure without making any actual measurement of how much radiative flux the Sun actually sends us. Perhaps he thinks the figure would be the same if the Sun had only a tenth the power.
Then he thinks “the g/Cp has been around for half a century” is good enough to explain what he thought he remembered was in his 1964 text book where he thought it said heat can transfer from cold to hot by conduction and diffusion. Did it say in a horizontal plane or a vertical plane, and what limitations if any did it place upon such transfers? How about a quote?
Now he thinks we should be able to work out the Uranus temperatures by radiative forcing / greenhouse type model calculations. The only trouble is my friend that the data is all zero for incident Solar radiation down there in the depths of the Uranus atmosphere – oh, and you’ve got that 3W/m^2 (easily calculated) doing all the heating to 5,000K have you – what instantly all in a day’s work? I mean, that’s what energy budgets are all about – immediate results. The Earth is warm when the Sun shines, but zero K when it doesn’t, which happens each night. I know it’s hard to believe the Earth rotates and isn’t flat.
“….clearly show with statistical significance that the more moist cities have lower mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures than the dry ones.”
I made no claim about statistical significance, merely intuition has to be checked with accurate science. Remember you have to select your population beforehand then run the analysis. If you make sure Aoulef, Algeria and Tucson, Az. vs. Madison, Wisc. are on your disclosed a priori list, then I will volunteer to check your work.
“Ball4 also thinks it would be possible to determine that 255K figure without making any actual measurement of how much radiative flux the Sun actually sends us.”
No, wrong Doug. See Ball4 8:39am: “…calculates global surface 255K… with input of measured net solar..”
Still I see no calculation of surface global mean temperature from Doug w/o being given a T despite his claim “it is the gravity effect.” While modern text books show how to compute surface mean temperature 288K for Earth semi-opaque and Venus opaque atmospheres using 1st law energy balance consistent with 2nd law. Earth’s 255K results from the same equation with theoretical transparent atm. as shown in text books. Look it up.
“… where he thought (Goody&Yung 1964) said heat can transfer from cold to hot by conduction and diffusion.”
Neither Goody&Yung 1964 nor Ball4 make any claim of macro heat transfer from cold to hot. Text books treating micro 2nd law as statistical do make that claim (molecule level really not cool & hot) as well written by Curt 6/14 9:06pm. Learn it.
“… that’s what energy budgets are all about – immediate results.”
No, Doug misses so much despite his purported 1,000 hours of study. The most recent comprehensive study of Earth system energy budget covered the period March 2000 thru May 2004, temporal and spatial avg.d.
“Did it say in a horizontal plane or a vertical plane, and what limitations if any did it place upon such transfers? How about a quote?”
The plane doesn’t matter as much once the gas enthalpy p*V term is correctly derived and added to gas parcel internal energy (enthalpy) in the major revision needed to correct Doug’s Sec. 8. Once Doug does that, Doug will see Goody&Yung got it correct back in 1964. The quotation I will leave to your endeavor. Another 1 hour of work out of 1,000 won’t matter much.
The reason the plane matters so much in your sec. 8 is you make a big mistake about gas parcel internal energy (enthalpy). And that misleads you into your inaccurate claim “it is the gravity effect.” Molecular level energy is affected by more than PE+KE. I see no correct science surface temperature calculation w/o knowing a prior temp. and altitude from Doug as of yet. And no paper approval as of today, still red cover after 4 months.
“…you’ve got that 3W/m^2 (easily calculated) doing all the heating to 5,000K have you… in a day’s work”
No, wrong again Doug. Ball4 6/13 11:22pm: “(Doug) miss(es) Uranus generates internal heat and slowly accumulates it over eons in the thermally opaque atmosphere.”
Doug: “The Earth is warm when the Sun shines, but zero K when it doesn’t, which happens each night.”
The Earth is zero K each night?
That’s a whopper Doug. Don’t worry about that gaffe. Work on the major revision to correct your Sec. 8 that is needed to catch up to where Goody&Yung were back in 1964. Then see nothing at all is new in your paper. And especially not “it is the gravity effect.”
Your “whopper” Ball4 is to imagine that the atmospheres of Uranus and Venus are “thermally opaque.” How are you going to stop conduction and diffusion? Each has radiating molecules – carbon dioxide for Venus and methane for Uranus. Venus cools 5 degrees in the 4-month night. That’s hardly “thermally opaque.” Insulation would have to have been a lot better to keep it hot for the life of the planet.
Without a Sun Venus could cool 1,500 degrees per century – very roughly I agree as the cooling rate would slow – but time is no problem in the life of a planet.
But for the gravity effect holding in thermal energy, all planets could very easily have cooled.
We don’t even know if there really was initial heat – because I can explain all core temperatures as being supported by the Sun – which means they could have been heated by the Sun in the first place. As I just said, Venus would have cooled right down but for the Sun, and so too would have Uranus.
The selection process for the cities is described in the study. The expanded study will include virtually all qualifying cities in the tropics – there’s no cherry picking in either study. Try doing your own study – it’s not hard if you follow my guidelines.
You quote .”with input of measured net solar … and yet you try to say it is not measured. You are making a very strange point here indeed. How on Earth (or any planet) could one calculate the radiating temperature with knowing how bright our Sun is? Well its radiative flux I mean of course.
My calculations of the supported temperature are about 280K, this being the minimum (night) temperature in calm conditions. (I get this from calculating the true pivoting altitude at about 3.8Km, then using 255 + (3.8 x 6.6). I estimate that the Sun makes the maximum about 15 degrees hotter, so I take the mean of (280+15) and 280 and get 287.5K give or take, say 3 degrees. I agree that I should probably have included these calculations in the paper, and they may be added in the next revision version.
My main aim in the paper was to get across the general point that the gravity effect obviously can and does explain the fact that the surfaces of Venus/Earth are hotter/warmer than the radiating temperatures of these planets. I’m not the slightest bit interested in Earth’s energy budget, because it includes so much non-radiative energy transfer that it is quite impossible to calculate a surface temperature – well, calculate it honestly without fudging I mean. All the calculations you quote are fudged (See my comment June 15, 6.45am.) Modern text book are still “calculating” using the old 20th century greenhouse / radiative forcing paradigm which I have debunked.
The whole point is that the plane does matter. Non-radiative processes can only transfer heat from cooler to warmer regions when there is some vertical component in the direction of the heat transfer. And when this does happen, there are limitations imposed because of the -g/Cp gradient. Your misunderstanding of this critical point makes it clear to me that you misunderstand the whole paper.
Of course molecular internal energy can be affected by more than PE and KE. That is why the thought experiment specifically excludes chemical reactions and phase changes. There’s nothing wrong with doing so.
All the information I have read about Uranus indicates that it is unique in not generating internal heat, this being supported by the fact that there is no net outflow of energy observed. Given that only 3W/m^2 is received, it would have to be many thousands of W/m^2 of net outflow if internally generated energy were the reason for the high temperatures. There would be no mechanism for retaining Uranus or Venus or Earth’s heat if the gravity effect were not real. These planets would easily cool off to below freezing point at least (without a gravity effect) within 100 to 500 years. You are clutching at straws, and your last straw has been broken.
And yes, the Earth I live in receives zero Solar radiation at night. Hence the hidden Sun cannot be what is raising its temperature at night. All it can do at night is cool off, and that cooling grinds almost to a halt in the early pre-dawn hours mainly because the gravity effect is supporting the temperature of the oxygen and nitrogen molecules at the surface-atmosphere boundary. The “support” comes from all the energy in the atmosphere above, much of which can and does flow downwards by non-radiative processes, but never by radiative processes. There is absolutely nothing in the greenhouse models which takes into account the gravity effect supporting the temperature at the base of the atmosphere, and thus slowing cooling by both radiative and (even more so) by non-radiative processes.
Now, if I haven’t made myself clear, that’s just a problem with my explanation. It is not a problem with the physics which I certainly understand quite clearly myself. It is you who misses my point altogether, so let’s leave it at that because I can see you are unteachable and I am apparently unable to convey to you the very clear explanation which I understand myself. So it’s just a communication problem, and thus I think it would be best if you try to work out for yourself how the temperatures on all planets exhibit the -g/Cp gradient (reduced in magnitude by up to about a third due to inter-molecular radiation) and how they do so without any need for a surface or upward convection or tropopause cooling..
“How are you going to stop conduction and diffusion?”
Well, I can’t & I do admit I can’t stop convective heat transfer either. But deep space stops both conductive and convective heat transfer, only radiation gets out when the thermal opacity of Venus and Uranus atmosphere optically thins enough. The planet surface and deep opaque atmosphere temperature rises to the point of external & internal radiative, internal convective and conductive heat transfer equilibrium with deep space and the sun (with weather variations). Simple in/out energy balance consistent with 1st and 2nd law is able to compute the global mean surface temperature for both Earth and Venus et. al. using atmosphere emissivity correctly.
The gravity effect doesn’t “hold” energy, it does “hold” the atmosphere; an optically opaque atmosphere in the thermal IR bands can affect energy balance causing the surface temperature to rise to equilibrium.
“Venus would have cooled right down but for the Sun, and so too would have Uranus.”
Yes. Gravity would still exist. That dispenses with the incorrect claim “it is the gravity effect” based on incorrect assertions about total internal energy (enthalpy) of a gas parcel in Sec. 8 in a certain unapproved paper.
“…then using 255…”
See? You had to have been given the 255K. Energy balance equations calculate the correct mean surface temperature from measured input so don’t need a given starting temperature. They will be useful for exoplanets where no satellite or thermometer measured starting temperature is known – to which a g/Cp gradient could be applied.
“…the gravity effect obviously can and does explain the fact that the surfaces of Venus/Earth are hotter/warmer than the radiating temperatures of these planets.”
No, as you demonstrate your calculation has to be given a starting temperature from energy balance equations, thermometer or satellite measurements (my points 1,2,3 above). First principles do not need a starting temperature.
“Of course molecular internal energy can be affected by more than PE and KE.”
A good 1st step to acknowledge p*V term is not shown in your Sec. 8 which needs major revision for correct physics of gas parcel enthalpy
.
“It is not a problem with the physics…”
Yes, it is – you don’t get the gas enthalpy physics right in Sec. 8 so draw an incorrect CONCLUSION that “it is the gravity effect.”
“…work out for yourself how the temperatures on all planets exhibit the -g/Cp gradient..”
On that we approximately agree with nature. And that is a main point of your paper already shown by Goody&Yung in 1964 so your paper is certainly not novel.
See my final comment on the newer thread …
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/my-apologies-to-readers/#comment-95758
My response is in my paper.
My response is in Goody&Yung 1964. Your current unapproved paper contains incorrect gas enthalpy physics in Sec. 8 which causes incorrect CONCLUSIONS.
By the way, the NASA figure you used in Sec. 2 – that was put together as Fig. 1 for a high school level educational exercise in 2003. You may want to study up.
Click to access 62319main_ICS_Energy.pdf
Here is the original NASA caption for their energy budget figure actually used in YOUR paper:
Convection, evaporation, and radiation from the surface exceed the total amount of energy that was absorbed by the surface to begin with! This is impossible unless there is a missing element of the energy budget. In fact, there is: the Earth’s atmosphere contains water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gases, which absorb energy radiated toward space and then emit some to space and some back to the Earth’s surface.
Greenhouse gases are responsible for keeping the Earth’s temperature warm enough to support life as we know it. The exercises presented in the following pages are intended to explore what governs the amount of energy absorbed by the Earth’s surface and the important role of water in the Earth’s energy budget.
I do get gas enthalpy “right” thankyou. It’s you who doesn’t “get” how the gravity effect works.
You have completely failed to explain how the temperature of the Venus atmosphere rises by 5 degrees. It cannot be done with radiation, because radiation would have to exceed 16100W/m^2 when the surface is already 730K and starting to rise to 735K.
The Venus atmosphere is not thermally opaque by a long shot when it comes to energy escaping. It has over 97% carbon dioxide. (If I had Venus atmospheric gas in between dual glazed windows the insulation effect would be nowhere near as good as it would be with pure nitrogen which does not help radiate heat across the gap.) It is very easy for heat to be radiated from lower, cooler layers of the carbon dioxide Venus atmosphere to slightly higher warmer layers where it is re-absorbed and re-emitted on to higher layers yet. No radiation to lower warmer layers transfers any thermal energy downwards. All radiated heat transfer is to higher, cooler layers in the Venus troposphere.
Only “heat creep” transfers thermal energy (that has been absorbed from incident Solar radiation) to lower, warmer regions of planetary atmospheres and eventually to any surface, which will always be at about the same temperature as the atmosphere would have been in the absence of a surface.
The temperature gradient evolves spontaneously at the molecular level (as thermodynamic equilibrium evolves) regardless of whether there is a surface or not, and regardless of whether there is solar radiation reaching such a surface, and regardless of whether there is any upward convection. In effect, gravity holds in the thermal energy in any planet’s atmosphere, crust, mantle and core. It has nothing to do with radiative thermal opacity. Do you get it yet?
“You have completely failed to explain how the temperature of the Venus atmosphere rises by 5 degrees. It cannot be done with radiation, because radiation would have to exceed 16100W/m^2 when the surface is already 730K and starting to rise to 735K.”
Oh yes, let me tidy up that point. Venus’ global surface is spatially and temporally avg.d to ~730K. Just like Earth, Venus is not flat, it is round & and rotates – this is where the spatial and temporal comes from, simple geometry & diurnal.
This 730K doesn’t heat up or cool off when the sun comes up or goes down. However, yes, during Venus long night the sun goes down and a thermometer on the surface would show the respective diurnal effect which is then temporally avg.d. When sun comes up there is more radiation absorbed by the atmosphere and more deposited on the surface. The local thermometer goes up.
I don’t have or see your reference for the 5 degrees but I could buy some diurnal amount increasing local surface temperature when the sun comes up on Venus.
“I do get gas enthalpy “right””
No, you do not. Since you like to use wiki, a gas parcel is a homogeneous system with enthalpy H:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy
H = U + p*V = PE + KE + p*V
Again, parcel gas enthalpy = KE + PE + p*V
Your unapproved paper gas enthalpy in Sec. 8: H = KE + PE + 0.
Paper is missing p*V term.
The parcel’s internal energy bath of IR (plus visible et. al. freq.) photons and effect on p*V is completely missed in paper’s Sec. 8. This results incorrectly concluding: “it is the gravity effect.”
“The temperature gradient evolves spontaneously at the molecular level..”
Yes. g/Cp = gradient. No problem.
“It has nothing to do with radiative thermal opacity.”
If you mean by “it, the gradient g/Cp, right, “it” does not.
But this statement is a non-sequitur for the equilibrium surface temperature. You have computed the surface temperature with the gradient given a starting temperature. The starting temperature comes from proper equilibrium energy balance including conductive, convective and radiative heat transfer.
“All radiated heat transfer is to higher, cooler layers in the Venus troposphere.”
“The temperature gradient evolves spontaneously…”
Yes & Yes. The gradient starts from global temporal and spatial avg. surface about 730K and temperature reduces monotonically (except for weather variation) up through the tropopause, above that the atmosphere thins and additional exotic processes drive the gradient.
“Only “heat creep” transfers thermal energy…”
Yes, your “heat creep” up or down the Venus g/Cp gradient comes from combined conductive, convective and radiative heat transfer formulations. All math in Goody&Yung 1964.
“The Venus atmosphere is not thermally opaque by a long shot when it comes to energy escaping.”
Not at the surface! It is so hard for energy to escape the opaque near surface ~90bar atmosphere layer, the equilibrium temperature is driven up to 730K, this results with only a few W/m^2 deposited at surface over eons.
Venus atmosphere is completely opaque at surface (emissivity = 1.0) and optically thin at TOA where only radiative heat transfer allows energy to escape the system. Ref. Goody&Yung 1964 where it is shown energy escapes Venus in equilibrium with the sun.
“Do you get it yet?”
I get Goody&Yung 1964; I get your paper has wrong parcel gas enthalpy physics in Sec. 8.
The gradient does not “start” from a surface temperature on Venus or anywhere. It does not exist solely because of upward convection cooling off as it rises.
The projection of the temperature plot determines the supported surface temperature at whatever altitude there happens to be a surface.
There’s no surface for about 20,000Km on Uranus, so where does it “start.” You are assuming that the Venus surface is just somehow 730K to start with. You have not explained how the required energy gets there in the first place, and how sufficient energy keeps on arriving there to support such a temperature and the outward radiation it emits. It is not hard for energy to escape the Venus surface – there’s plenty of carbon dioxide at hand to absorb some and re-emit the thermal energy to cooler layers above. And it can easily escape by conduction to any slightly cooler atmosphere at the boundary, especially at night of course. None of the thermal energy can be transferred back into the surface by radiation, especially while its temperature is rising in the day.
Yes, you admit when the Sun comes up that more thermal energy is “deposited” on the surface. None of this is deposited by radiation from cooler regions of the atmosphere. It can only be deposited by non-radiative processes – conduction, diffusion and convection, the combination of which I have called “heat creep” for the convenience of readers of my paper.
The reason thermal energy can be deposited in hotter regions (that is, travel up the temperature gradient) is entirely – wait for it – due to the gravity effect maintaining and restoring thermodynamic equilibrium. It is not “driven up” by pressure.
The only radiative transfer of thermal energy is always (and can only ever be) from hot to cold. In general, in the Venus troposphere, that means upwards towards space. This has a levelling effect on the gradient, working against the gravitationally induced gradient that is due to diffusion and convection. Its all in my paper.
If I were to pinpoint your single biggest mistake it is in this sentence ..
“Not at the surface! It is so hard for energy to escape the opaque near surface ~90bar atmosphere layer, the equilibrium temperature is driven up to 730K, this results with only a few W/m^2 deposited at surface over eons.”
Pressure does not prevent thermal energy escaping. In fact it means there are more molecules colliding with the surface and “collecting” kinetic energy, especially at night. It is a fact that the surface does cool by about 5 degrees during the 4-month night. Many are surprised that it does not cool more, but that is because the whole troposphere also cools by 5 degrees at every altitude, so that is all that the total outward radiation to space can achieve in that time. But if the Sun were turned off, it could keep on cooling at about that rate and make everything far less hot even within 100 years.
Now, because it does in fact cool by 5 degrees at night, that represents a thermal energy loss which is quite substantial – not just a “few W/m^2 deposited over eons.” Empirical data – the real facts – demolish what you say.
Finally, and I mean finally from me, new energy equivalent to all that energy which left the surface during the night has to re-enter the surface the next Venus day, You seem to agree it comes from the Sun over a 4-month period. But if it were being deposited entirely by radiation, it would have to be at a flux of over 16100W/m^2 and should happen within a few hours. But the Sun is only delivering about 2600W/m^2 at TOA, even before more than half is reflected back to space. You cannot multiply the incident Solar flux to get it up to 16100W/m^2 now can you? And you can’t assume that just some of it is absorbed each day by radiation, because it would have to be delivered at 16100W/m^2 for there to be any increase in the temperature.
So all greenhouse/”radiative forcing” models which show Venus surface being heated by radiation alone (as in “Science of Doom” for example) are fudged and are disregarding the Second Law and magically multiplying energy.
Many thanks to our host for allowing this cryptic banter. It is fun. I feel like a kitten batting a fur ball back and forth between my paws. LOL. My other 2 choices are you know who in “Not Die Hard” or watching paint dry…easy choice.
“The gradient does not “start” from a surface temperature on Venus or anywhere.”
Just what temperature do YOU think the g/Cp gradient starts at surface ”from” if not the surface temperature? Anywhere.
“(g/Cp) does not exist solely because of upward convection cooling off as it rises.”
Right, temperature gradient exists due to conductive, convective and radiative heat transfer processes.
“The projection of the temperature plot determines the supported surface temperature at whatever altitude there happens to be a surface.”
Right, but only if equilibrium energy balance, thermometers or radiometers on satellites determine the starting planetary mean temperature to apply a gradient. Remember 1,2,3. See my 9:45pm post too.
“You have not explained how the required energy gets (to Venus surface) in the first place.”
Energy is deposited at Venus surface from the sun and builds up over eons in the opaque ~90bar atmosphere because it has a really hard time going anywhere esp. getting up the gradient by radiative, conductive and convective heat transfer warm to cold.
“It is not hard for energy to escape the Venus surface…”
Oh. Well. Let me explain AGAIN. In Venus near surface layer, the optical thickness results in emissivity = 1.0, as soon as radiation is emitted it gets absorbed AGAIN. Entropy increases, even more energy comes radiated in from sun, gets emitted and absorbed, over & over for eons – temporal and spatial avg.d sun never stops, clouds never clear. Surface temperature & entropy increases until forced into equilibrium around 730K. Entropy finally reaches steady state.
“None of the thermal energy can be transferred back into the surface by radiation, especially while its temperature is rising in the day.”
Say I am basking in the Venus sunshine, on the surface laying on my back shirtless watching the clouds. I can sure feel the sun on my skin. EVEN WAY MORE – I can feel the 730K 90bar atmosphere radiating 16 kilowatts IR at my skin.
Ok, Venus surface is a little cooler under my back than immediately next to me since is in my shade. I want to move over to a warmer spot. So I do. Are you saying the 730K atmosphere radiating 16 KW at the spot I was laying on will have “None of the thermal energy can be transferred back into the surface by radiation” and it will REMAIN cooler than the spot I am now laying on? No way, my former spot will go right back to equilibrium at a higher temperature by absorbing thermal energy from the atmosphere (and a little from the sun), conducting, and convecting even though the atmosphere is cooler than my former spot.
“None of this is deposited by radiation from cooler regions of the atmosphere.”
The 16kw of IR from the atmosphere does enable the temperature of my former spot to increase. The small amount deposited from the sun helps. Remember, it is 100% the sun doing all the heating. All the atmosphere and my former spot is doing is reaching equilibrium with the sun’s heating process.
“It is not “driven up” by pressure.”
Right. The p in g/Cp is not pressure.
“The only radiative transfer of thermal energy is always (and can only ever be) from hot to cold.”
Macro world, yes. Sound of bell ringing.
“Its all in my (unapproved) paper.”
No it is not, you make a big mistake in Sec. 8 and leave out the gas parcel enthalpy term p*V which serves to bring in the missing physics you need to line up with nature and Goody&Yung 1964.
In Sec. 2 you even use a NASA energy balance but neglect the explanatory caption because you don’t like it. Until that is correctly revised you make a big mistake saying “it is the gravity effect.” Remember = if no sun, “it is the gravity effect” cannot hold up the atmosphere as you so needlessly pointed out and btw agreeing with Goody&Yung 1964.
“Pressure does not prevent thermal energy escaping.”
It does due to density and increasing mass of infrared active gas over say 1bar to 90bar and slows down surface winds to a crawl compared to say Earth.
One last humorous thought. The Soviets, being so familiar with parachutes in Earth’s atmosphere, equipped the 1st Venera probe with a parachute for a soft landing. Telemetery inferences show parachute was ripped to shreds. Subsequent probes had no parachute, the landers simply slowed and plopped onto the surface in the dense high pressure.
“You cannot multiply the incident Solar flux to get it up to 16100W/m^2 now can you?”
The thermal energy collects over eons. The sun heats up the surface and the atmosphere. You can compute an approximate number of million years by assuming a mass in the opaque section of Venus atmosphere. Try it. Look up Goody&Yung 1964 if you get stuck.
“So all greenhouse/”radiative forcing” models which show Venus surface being heated by radiation alone (as in “Science of Doom” for example) are fudged..”
Venus system is heated (& cooled) by radiation alone; let me assure you no convective or conductive heat transfer fudged from/to the sun is remotely possible. Venus surface temperature results from conductive, convective and radiative heat transfer in equilibrium, forced system entropy in steady state.
Your statement “Yes. Gravity would still exist. That dispenses with the incorrect claim “it is the gravity effect”” displays a complete and utter misunderstanding of what I have said in my paper about how Solar flux sets the overall level of the temperature plot in the troposphere. For example, the whole Venus temperature plot (at least from surface to tropopause) rises and falls between parallel plots 5 degrees apart (maintaining the right gradient) each 4-month-long Venus day and night. If you turned off the Sun somehow, it would keep on falling, so that the really cold gases at the top would collapse as liquids to the surface, reducing the height of the atmosphere and thus allowing it to cool more, etc, etc, etc. You don’t think things through very well, now do you?
When you say your radiation calculations explain the surface temperature (supposedly keeping within the Second Law) then how does the surface temperature rise? I suppose you will say by net heat transfer from the much cooler atmosphere (supposedly opaque) to the far hotter surface. (LOL)
“If you turned off the Sun somehow, it would keep on falling, so that the really cold gases at the top would collapse as liquids to the surface, reducing the height of the atmosphere and thus allowing it to cool more, etc, etc, etc. “
Glad you needlessly pointed that out. I do agree.
“You don’t think things through very well, now do you?”
Only as well as Goody&Yung 1964 and more modern texts kemosabe.
“When you say your radiation calculations explain the surface temperature (supposedly keeping within the Second Law) then how does the surface temperature rise?”
Goody&Yung 1964 shows planetary basic mean surface equilibrium temperature rises either due to an increase in atmosphere optical thickness (emissivity), an increase in net insolation and/or an appropriate change in surface emissivity.
“I suppose you will say by net heat transfer from the much cooler atmosphere (supposedly opaque) to the far hotter surface. (LOL)”
No, it should be obvious to you the basic monotonically cooler atmosphere cannot heat up the warmer surface. Unforced macro conductive, convective, radiative heat transfer is always warm to cold. The earth system entropy is forced into long term steady state by the sun. The system does not evolve as a spontaneous system.
Yes well Goody & Yung got it wrong back in 1964. I do not respond to any calls to authority, sorry. I think about and evaluate the physics presented, no matter by whom.
The thermal gradient does evolve spontaneously The Second Law of Thermodynamics” reads:.
“An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. Thermodynamic equilibrium has the greatest entropy amongst the states accessible to the system.”
“Unforced macro conductive, convective, radiative heat transfer is always warm to cold.”
No it’s not the case for macro conductive and convective heat transfer in a vertical plane in a gravitational field. The proof that such heat can transfer up the temperature gradient is in my paper. It’s the only way that the newly absorbed Solar energy near the top of the Venus troposphere gets down to the surface each Venus day. And the process happens on all planets, because physics is universal. You haven’t learnt the most important point I make in my paper.
Here endeth the lesson.
“Goody & Yung got it wrong back in 1964…An isolated system, if not already in its state of thermodynamic equilibrium, spontaneously evolves towards it. Thermodynamic equilibrium has the greatest entropy amongst the states accessible to the system.”
You get it wrong in 2013, the Earth and Venus et. al. systems are not “isolated” as the systems are forced by the sun. Goody&Yung got that right in 1964. They got gas parcel enthalpy right in 1964 too.
Oh dear me! Your understanding of physics leaves a lot to be desired,
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolated_system
“The concept of an isolated system can serve as a useful model approximating many real-world situations. It is an acceptable idealization used in constructing mathematical models of certain natural phenomena; e.g., the Sun and planets in our solar system, “
“The concept of an isolated system can serve as a useful model approximating many real-world situations. It is an acceptable idealization used in constructing mathematical models of certain natural phenomena; e.g., the Sun and planets in our solar system, “
The Sun and other planets in union yes. Each individual planet, no…
Nonsense DFT. It can be applied to a system such as the Sun and Venus. How do you think physicists calculate radiating temperatures of planets if this could not be done with an acceptable degree of accuracy? Why would you imagine it necessary to postulate a system with the Sun and two or more planets?
It can be applied to a theoretical column of the atmosphere if you wish, or an “ideal gas” in order to derive, using Kinetic Theory, the Ideal Gas Law. There is a slight approximation inherent in Kinetic Theory, yes, but it is insignificant for the type of exercise used in my paper to demonstrate how the gravitationally induced temperature gradient evolves spontaneously. You would have a much harder time trying to prove the alternative – an isothermal situation.
You seem confused by the difference of an isolated system and a closed system…
It’s not myself who is confused. I gave you a link – go and read all of it, where it even tells you what the difference is. I am not talking about a theoretical cylinder of atmosphere which is receiving or losing energy or matter. If you wish, let it be at night – or in a well insulated sealed cylinder, as has been the case in over 800 experiments carried out in the last 10 years or so. The autonomous temperature gradient in a gravitational field is a reality, and you cannot prove it not to be.
So which is it? Your paper is not very clear. The individual planetary systems of Earth and Venus in physical reality are treated in your paper as:
1) Isolated systems, or
2) Non-isolated systems
And in your paper physical reality is treated as:
1) The earth system does not evolve as a spontaneous system, or
2) The earth system does evolve as a spontaneous system
Fill me in.
You display your lack of understanding when you refer to a “spontaneous system” whatever that is meant to mean. The Second Law talks about a process in an isolated system, and it is the process which evolves spontaneously. An isolated system can be as small as the proton and electron in a hydrogen atom. Boltzmann developed his H-theorem using equations based on an assumed isolated gas system. All this you could have read in the linked article.
One of these days, Jeff and all of you will realise that the gravity effect is a reality, and provides the only correct explanation as to how incident Solar energy absorbed in the uppermost layers of Uranus, Venus and even Earth, makes its way downwards, by non-radiative processes, flowing up the sloping thermal “plane” as gravity restores thermodynamic equilibrium, which the extra energy disturbed – just like gravity smooths out the ripples made by a stone in a pond. The temperature plot (or “plane” in 3D) pre-determines the supported surface temperature, which is close to the mean daily minimum temperature at night. And that is why surface cooling slows almost to a halt in the pre-dawn hours.
Goodbye.
“A process which evolves spontaneously… whatever that is meant to mean.”
Can’t even make clear your own paper. Remember spontaneously is the basis of your unapproved paper as you write: “…the type of exercise used in my paper to demonstrate how the gravitationally induced temperature gradient evolves spontaneously.”
And then we are treated to:
“…the only correct explanation as to how incident Solar energy …makes its way downwards, by flowing up the sloping thermal “plane”…”
How’s that again? Something goes downwards by flowing up? Your paper is unapproved for good reason. Just make sure students get gas enthalpy correct and do not walk up the down staircase or go “In the Out Exit”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_the_Down_Staircase
CONCLUSION
The process described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics allows us to use Kinetic Theory to prove that Loschmidt was correct about there being an autonomous temperature gradient in a gravitational field.
This gradient gives us a straight forward explanation of the observed temperature gradients in the atmospheres, crusts and mantles of all planets and satellite moons where applicable.
There is thus no raising of surface temperatures being done by back radiation, because gravity has already done so. Water vapour reduces the gradient, and so leads to lower supported surface temperatures on Earth, as is observed.
PSI papers and articles which attribute surface warming to radiation rather than the gravity effect, are indeed thus debunked.
There are now five pages of these comments stored for posterity on the members forum thread “Cotton versus Condon on ‘The Air Vent'” and so that’s probably enough for all 300 members, and future ones, to have a good laugh. I may quote some of the misunderstandings of my paper in a book one day.
Jeff Condon said, June 7, 2013 at 1:32 pm:
“”A cold source does not conductively heat up a hotter source.” — It does add heat just not as much as it receives.
“A cold source does not convectively heat up a hotter source.” — It does add heat just not as much as it receives.
A cold source does not radiatively heat up a hotter source. — It does add heat just not as much as it receives.
Three modes the same, all operating the same. Just as you should have learned in basic thermodynamics.”
How did we get to this peculiar state of affairs where the most basic of thermodynamic concepts – ‘heat’ – is simply and complacently turned into the precise thing that it is defined not to be? At what point was ‘heat’ allowed to move in both directions between a warmer and a cooler object? At what point did we, without hesitation, get to equate ‘heat’ with each of the individual radiation fluxes in the inferred two-way radiative exchange between them? How did it come to this? Think it through, folks …
OK, let’s try this wording:
It [the cold source] does transfer energy conductively, just not as much as it receives.
It [the cold source] does transfer energy convectively, just not as much as it receives.
It [the cold source] does transfer energy radiatively, just not as much as it receives.
Kristian is right. Curt thinks radiative transfer of electromagnetic energy is a “conductive” process. (LOL)
Lesson 1 in thermodynamics, Curt: Conduction happens when molecules physically collide. Radiation can happen even in the near vacuum of space where there’s not a great proliferation of molecules.
You expose your lack of knowledge and understanding of physics by the terminology you use.
Since when has electromagnetic energy been equated to thermal (kinetic) energy in molecules? (Actually, I know the answer – since climatologists with about one year of physics education, started to invent their pseudo physics.)
What none of you appears to realise yet is that radiative forcing has no effect on surface temperatures. It is the gravity effect which does.
I have no more time to teach you about this – in fact I have physics students to teach now who pay me well for such.
Goodbye, all.
And therein lies your answer. “A cold source does not conductively/convectively or radiatively HEAT UP a hotter source.” Because the (‘net’) transfer of energy always goes from hot to cold systems. This is the ‘heat’ and it always goes ONE way only, from high to low temperature.
Condon says “does add heat”, Curt. That implies the cold object is able to ‘heat’ the hot object, just not as much as the hot object ‘heats’ the cold. Herein lies the flaw (confusion? deception?). As soon as you stop conflating ‘heat’ and ‘energy’ (energy is NOT in itself heat) you see it all so much clearer.
A cooler object does radiatively influence the cooling rate of a warmer object (the rate of radiative heat transfer from warm to cool) as long as the warmer object is actually cooling/losing internal energy, i.e. it is no longer supplied with heat from a specific heat/power source. Then you have Q/A = es*(T_h^4 – T_c^4). It does so because the temperature gradient, and thus the radiation gradient through the radiative field between the two objects is made more or less steep by the effective temperatures of the respective objects. It is comparable to a current flow across a potential (voltage) differential, a convectional flow across a pressure/density (and/or temperature) differential or water flowing down a hill (across a gravitational differential, potential/kinetic energy components).
Consider for instance the global surface of the Earth. There is no radiative ‘heat’ coming down from the atmosphere to the surface. The atmosphere is NOT a separate heat source for the Earth’s surface. Its ONLY heat source from above is the Sun. The global radiative heat flux between surface and atmosphere goes UP. The Earth’s surface is a heat source to the atmosphere. Period.
According to the ‘Trenberth & Kiehl 1997’ budget diagram, the surface on average, globally and across the diurnal cycle, gains 168 W/m^2 worth of heat through solar radiation. And that’s it. The inferred ‘back radiation’ (DLR) flux of an alleged 324 W/m^2 cannot be ADDED to this, because it isn’t a heat flux. Apples and oranges. If anything it needs to be SUBTRACTED from the ‘forward radiation’ (U or OLR) flux of an alleged 390 W/m^2. Then you get an upward radiative ‘heat’ component from the surface of 66 W/m^2. (Of this, the atmosphere absorbs 26 W/m^2. 40 go straight to space.) And that’s it. The surface on average loses/gives away 66 W/m^2 worth of radiative heat. Hmm, but wait a minute. The surface at any time gains an evened out flux of 168 W/m^2 of radiative heat from the Sun, but manages to rid itself of 66 W/m^2 only. How, then, can the global surface NOT heat up? Because the global surface of the Earth is not a black body in a vacuum. It lies at the bottom of a massive sea of air called the atmosphere. As soon as the vacuum is replaced by a medium like air, the object immersed no longer needs and is no longer able to shed all its absorbed heat through radiation only. Because a certain part is always carried away by convective processes. And lo and behold, it just so happens that at Earth’s surface 102 W/m^2 are lost by way of convective heat transfer (conduction/convection and evaporation). Let’s see: 66+102= 168 W/m^2. We’ve got HEAT BALANCE!
So, consider this: The Moon’s mean global surface absorbs and emits a radiative heat flux of about 298 W/m^2 (global albedo ~0.13). Balance. The Earth’s mean global surface absorbs a radiative heat flux and sheds a total radiative/convective heat flux of 168 W/m^2. Balance. The lunar flux is 77 % larger than the terrestrial one. Our atmosphere radiatively deprives on a daily basis our global surface of 44 % of its potential heat from the Sun (were it without an atmosphere, like the Moon). The surface then simply takes the heat it gets (168 W/m^2) and balances it with an equal loss.
So, the Moon’s surface gains 77 % more radiative heat on average than the Earth’s (according to T&K97), yet its mean temperature is about 90K (!) colder.
Our atmosphere in other words sure makes a huge difference. The elevated surface temperature of our planet above that of the Moon’s is simply NOT accomplished by restricting outgoing radiative heat. The atmosphere rather, in pure radiative terms, acts to relatively cool the surface. Disregarding work, only (the transfer of) ‘heat’ can heat (or cool) a system.
When broken down to individual transactions, heat is energy Kristian but its definition in old thermodynamics books leaves people confused. They don’t teach thermo well apparently. Work can actually be done in all directions and it is only by probability that the bulk laws of “heat” and “work” are guaranteed to be unidirectional. From Wiki –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat — ” The origin and properties of heat can be understood through the statistical mechanics of microscopic constituents such as molecules and photons. ”
What we are dealing with in the atmosphere is often defined in terms of heat in Joules (energy) but is actually “power” in Watts (energy per second). What we have is an inbound energy from the sun warming the atmosphere and the earths surface. The atmosphere itself is comprised at least partially of IR absorbing gas, which does emit radiatively in all directions. One potential direction being generally in the direction of the gravitational gradient (a.k.a. downward). This radiative energy strikes the surface of the planet (or a lower altitude atmospheric absorbing molecule H20, C02 etc.), is absorbed, and adds to the energy of the planetary surface (temperature) which, also based on probability of course, may then be re-emitted/conducted back into the atmosphere. The combination of these effects means that the energy (not power} collects generally into the lower layers of the atmosphere. The net result is a time delay in energy (not power) release from the Earth’s surface meaning that there is a buildup of warmth in the lower atmosphere. This delay caused by backradiation, in the case of the atmosphere, is characterized en bulk by the subtracted component T_c in the equation Q/A = es*(T_h^4 – T_c^4) .
Jeff,
You forgot to include the rest of that wikipedia paragraph you quoted. It says: “For instance, heat flow can occur when the rapidly vibrating molecules in a high temperature body transfer some of their energy (by direct contact, radiation exchange, or other mechanisms) to the more slowly vibrating molecules in a lower temperature body.”
Heat flows from hot to cold only. Except when external work is performed to reverse the flow.
The wiki link says very clearly: “Heat flow from hotter to colder systems occurs spontaneously, and is always accompanied by an increase in entropy. (…) The second law of thermodynamics states the principle that heat cannot flow directly from cold to hot systems, but with the aid of a heat pump external work can be used to transport internal energy indirectly from a cold to a hot body.”
Also: “Heat in physics is defined as energy transferred by thermal interactions. Heat flows spontaneously from hotter to colder systems. When two systems come into thermal contact, they exchange energy through the microscopic interactions of their particles. When the systems are at different temperatures, the result is a spontaneous net flow of energy that continues until the temperatures are equal. At that point the net flow of energy is zero, and the systems are said to be in thermal equilibrium. Spontaneous heat transfer is an irreversible process.”
‘Heat’ is ‘energy’, Jeff. You’re quite right. And no one is claiming otherwise. ‘Energy’, however, is NOT automatically or in itself ‘heat’. That’s what you seem to be claiming.
‘Heat’ is energy in transit from a hot to a cold system.
Jeff Condon said, June 18, 2013 at 3:13 am:
“The atmosphere itself is comprised at least partially of IR absorbing gas, which does emit radiatively in all directions. One potential direction being generally in the direction of the gravitational gradient (a.k.a. downward). This radiative energy strikes the surface of the planet (or a lower altitude atmospheric absorbing molecule H20, C02 etc.), is absorbed, and adds to the energy of the planetary surface (temperature) which, also based on probability of course, may then be re-emitted/conducted back into the atmosphere. The combination of these effects means that the energy (not power} collects generally into the lower layers of the atmosphere. The net result is a time delay in energy (not power) release from the Earth’s surface meaning that there is a buildup of warmth in the lower atmosphere. This delay caused by backradiation, in the case of the atmosphere, is characterized en bulk by the subtracted component T_c in the equation Q/A = es*(T_h^4 – T_c^4).”
Only it isn’t. This is simply the claim made by the hypothesis of the radiative GHE. The dogma, so to say. It takes only a cursory look at the global energy budget, though, like I presented above, to show that there is no such ‘delay’ or restriction. The radiative restriction is on the INCOMING. The radiative GH warming is a purely theoretical concept. A construct. There is heat balance at the surface. 168 IN, 168 OUT. Radiatively, this would induce a global average emission temperature of -40 degrees (233K). Radiatively, that would suffice to attain balance. Convectively, though, it would not. So the surface temperature of the Earth needs to rise to get the convective engine to run at an adequately efficient level to rid the surface of the absorbed solar heat fast enough.
That’s your atmospheric greenhouse effect.
Kristian,
You are forgetting that both hot and cold bodies are comprised of particles of differing kinetic energies and electrical excitation levels. Individual thermal transactions between hot and cold lumps of matter move in all directions but the net is in one only. Thermodynamic laws are very specifically probabilistic bulk behaviors and are not absolutes which give a uniform direction for 100% of the quantum energy transactions between two bodies. Searching google for statistical thermodynamics is a good place to start for you.
One problem often seen in this strange discussion is the definition of “heat” as Carrick has repeatedly pointed out. I have spent a number of hours this morning trying to put together a post on the founding concepts of thermodynamics. Perhaps you can learn from it because your argument goes against literally hundreds of years of science and would turn Clausius in his grave. It isn’t only me you are disagreeing with.
Not only does the second law not apply in the manner you have characterized, a brief review of history shows that Clausius never intended that it should. I find it rather amusing that people will stomp around declaring this “AGW convenient” misinterpretation of thermodynamics when those who founded the science centuries ago were so specific in defining how thermodynamic laws applied to bulk materials having a distribution of thermal energy states. The discussion leaves me wondering just what the Boltzmann distribution means to people who make this trivial cold-hot argument.
Kristian – “The radiative GH warming is a purely theoretical concept. A construct. There is heat balance at the surface. 168 IN, 168 OUT.”
The total mass of Earth’s atmosphere is 5.3 x 10^18 kg which is about 1 millionth of the total mass of the planet (5.97 x 10^24 kg). For you to conjecture there is only net solar 168 W/m^2 coming in to Earth’s surface, it must mean you conjecture this huge air mass which is clearly T>0 radiates, convects, conducts nothing (i.e. 0 W/m^2) towards Earth’s surface.
This conjecture is clearly at odds with “All matter with a temperature greater than absolute zero emits thermal radiation” in text books. How do you support your conjecture the thermal radiation, conduction, convection from this huge 5.3 x 10^18 kg mass is purely theoretical?
Jeff Condon said, June 18, 2013 at 7:18 am:
Right. A lot of words there.
So what is ‘heat’ to you? And what is ‘heat’ to Clausius? Would he consider Trenberth’s inferred IR fluxes of 324 W/m^2 down to and 390 W/m^2 up from the global surface each to be ‘heat’ fluxes? Or would he consider the ‘transfer of heat’ between the two ‘systems’ to be 390-324= 66 W/m^2 going UP?
Jeff, all you need to know to see that there is no radiative GHE is:
1) There is heat balance at Earth’s global surface, 168 W/m^2 coming IN and 168 going OUT, the incoming being severely restricted from reaching the surface by the presence of the atmosphere, and
2) The inferred 324 W/m^2 downward radiative flux from the atmosphere to the surface is NOT a ‘heat’ flux, it could NOT be added to the radiative heat flux from the Sun, it could only be subtracted from the upward radiative flux from the surface to obtain the UPWARD radiative ‘heat’ flux (what you might call ‘the net’), i.e. the 324 W/m^2, even if it were to exist, would NOT add ‘heat’ to the surface. The atmosphere is NOT a separate heat source to its own heat source, the surface.
Kristian,
It simply is not possible for there to be no radiative GHE. Far too many devices and experiments rely on the specific concepts of statistical thermodynamics for it to be false.
Since it is you claiming that the radiation from the atmosphere cannot come back to the surface, what happens to it? Does the atmosphere not emit radiation? The whole concept you are presenting appears only fractionally thought through. I have two entire centuries of science which support backradiation, if you want to overturn it, you have to be able to start by answering the question in this headpost.
I can’t resist joining with Kristian in exposing Jeff’s “pseudo” physics to his blind followers.
Jeff really displays his lack of understanding of the Second Law and the physical definition of a system. He talks about radiation to the warmer surface supposedly transferring thermal energy (which is physically impossible) and then that energy coming out by conduction, for example. He writes: “The combination of these effects [sic] means that the energy (not power} collects generally into the lower layers of the atmosphere.”
Well, Jeff, the events (one radiative and one non-radiative at a later time) are in no way interdependent components of the one system.
The Second Law applies to each in this case. You cannot excuse the Law on the grounds that the “net” effect of the two events is “hot to cold” because the Second Law can only be applied (and has to be applied) to each single component such as the independent components you are talking about.
The combination of the two components does not constitute a system (which by definition must have interdependent components) and so the Second Law cannot be applied to the combination. You might as well try to convince me that water runs uphill to a lake, because it then runs further downhill on the other side.
Jeff also talks about heat as is if were a property of a body (such as the oceans) like energy can be. Well, seeing that he likes to quote Wikipedia, try reading what it says about heat here. I quote the third sentence: “Heat is not a property of a system or body, but instead is always associated with a process of some kind, and is synonymous with heat flow and heat transfer.”
Wow Doug. How many incorrect statements can you cram into 200 words.
You really should be listening with something other than your keyboard.
Jeff Condon said, June 18, 2013 at 5:08 pm:
“It simply is not possible for there to be no radiative GHE.”
The Earth’s surface with an atmosphere on top of it is not warmer than it would be without that same atmosphere on top of it because of the radiative properties of the atmosphere. Radiatively speaking, our atmosphere acts to relatively cool the surface, because it prevents about 44 % of the potential radiative heat coming in from the Sun from ever reaching it. The heat gain of the surface is purely radiative and it is much smaller on average on Earth than on the Moon. The heat loss of the surface, partly radiative, partly convective, is simply a function of this heat gain, working to balance it. And it does. 168 in, 168 out. The purely radiative restriction is on the INCOMING, not on the OUTGOING, Jeff. The only effect that diminishes the outgoing radiative heat loss flux is the convective heat loss component, which wouldn’t be there if there were no atmosphere. But put together, the radiative+convective components neatly balance the incoming radiative heat from the Sun.
The radiative GH warming effect is imaginary.
“Since it is you claiming that the radiation from the atmosphere cannot come back to the surface, what happens to it? Does the atmosphere not emit radiation?”
This is nothing but a strawman, Jeff. I’ve said nothing about radiation from the atmosphere or to the atmosphere or anywhere, going up or down or to the sides. I’m only talking about what’s relevant, what you (and physics) call ‘net energy flux’ between two systems of unequal temperature, better known as ‘heat’. Heat is the energy actually observed to be transferred from the hotter to the colder system. The ‘net’. It always in nature only goes this way. It is unidirectional and irreversible. The transfer of ‘heat’, not radiation, is what increases or reduces internal energy (of a cooler or a warmer system respectively), having thus the ability to change their temperature.
For this reason, it is totally irrelevant what happens to an inferred radiative flux down from the atmosphere to the surface, because this would only be the lesser part of a conceptual exchange of IR waves through a radiation continuum between the two systems, being governed and constantly and instantaneously impacted by the specific temperature/radiation gradients across it, always on average opposed by a larger (and equally inferred) flux going the other way, resulting in a ‘net’ energy flux – heat going from the warmer surface to the cooler atmosphere. The surface loses energy by radiation to the atmosphere, it doesn’t gain energy. That’s what ‘heat’ is all about.
Ball4,
From the viewpoint of thermodynamics, there are 168 W/m2 in and 168 W/m2 out. The surface temperature is given only by this power and the insulation effect of the atmosphere (with GHG). Backradiation, backconduction or backconvection have no thermodynamic meaning.
Those who tried to size the furnace of a building modeling insulation panels by a heating power have gone bankrupt long ago.
Phi – Your statement “no thermodynamic meaning” does not in anyway raise a physical objection to all matter with T>0K will radiate thermal energy. Nor does it in any way raise an objection to a body having physically conducted in thermal energy does not physically conduct it out. Same for convective heat transfer, no objection raised.
Those who sized furnaces did not model insulation with heating power, they sized furnaces for amount of insulation. With little home insulation, they upsized the home furnace. Yes, some went out of the furnace business, not a one for the reason you mention.
There is no fundamental objection. It’s just that these concepts are at best useless and in practice they are sources of errors. So Ockham razor.
The modeling of an insulation by a heating power (or a forcing) is one of these errors.
Phi – Agreed, good. But my experience reading the texts shows these concepts are not useless, in fact the concepts do remarkably well compared to what nature figures out from nature’s own measured input.
The top post title tears down only. I am irritated whenever someone tears down but does not put up. Our host writes “…trying to put together a post on the founding concepts of thermodynamics.”
That would be a good one to put up & contribute. If not, I’ll work to put up something in a day or so showing how, once posters here can accept matter with T>0 will always radiate thermal energy, a set of balanced convective, conductive, radiative earth global spatial and temporal heat transfer numbers look. These obtain both the 288K and the 255K. Just textbook stuff, many have the means to beat me to it, but few seem to want to get them out of the library, too much work or inability to read them I guess.
” top post title tears down only. I am irritated whenever someone tears down but does not put up”
I’m not familiar with your handle but have “put up” many times on this issue as well as many other issues. Other people are typically welcome to post here as well but if it is garbage, it will get shredded just like it would if I did the same.
Some examples:
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/a-simple-word-experiment-proves-radiative-effects-of-co2/ – very simple
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/radiative-physics-simplified-ii/ — redone out of need
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/it-is-what-it-is-and-the-god-of-physics-will-have-it-no-other-way/ –grumpy but with basic thermo calcs included
Aw geez, my bad, excuse please. Your stuff is great science, no irritation for me. It does put up; I was only trying to provide support for your work on a post on the fundamental thermo. Then contribute on that thread. My poor limited wording, on a slow connection today but that’s not a good reason for bad editing on my part. Fired my editor.
Kristian – consider absolute zero.
Reply to host June 18 at 1:58 pm & Kristian 2:43 pm & Phi 12:39 pm:
Ok, back up to i-net standard speed. I read thru our host’s 3 past post links, thx. Agreed, as your simple basic calc.s show, the mean T=255K earth satellite measured emission altitude is raised well above thermometer mean ground level T=288. Trying to teach why this textbook stuff happens to Doug is futile. Going over it again is useful, I find stuff I missed the 1st time.
2009 3rd link: “It’s a big internet so this must be done somewhere…”
Yes, right here; is this lead author familiar?
Click to access 1981_Hansen_etal.pdf
(1-albedo)*So – 4*sigma*Teq.^4 = 0 is both your’s and Dr. Hansen’s basic, simple energy balance formula (1) for a planet. It is just 1st law consistent with 2nd law:
Energy flux density into planet system – energy flux density out of planet system = 0 in equilibrium.
*******
Here is a more general formula expanding on Hansen’s (2) and your (4) showing the L&O (Le) emissivity and atm. emissivity (Ae) included as a variable after Bohren 2006 text, solved for Teq:
Teq. = [(1-albedo)*So/ 4*sigma*(Le-Ae/2)] ^ 0.25
Doug won’t get that, it is from a textbook. Anyway, this textbook put up is interesting because as a 1st cut if you round up the L&O emissivity of measured ~0.96 to 1.0 this becomes spreadsheet easy as there are no other formulas needed (for the transmissivity of water for example) and this formulation teaches much using Excel:
Teq. = [(1-albedo)*So/ 4*sigma*(1.0 – Ae/2)] ^ 0.25
Set So=1365.7 W/m^2 measured after Trenberth, albedo=0.3 measured, atmosphere emissivity Ae = 0 (transparent), find Excel calculates Teq=255K for a transparent atmosphere so emitting level at surface.
We know the real global mean atm. emissivity lies between measured approx 0.7 in arctic and 0.95 tropics, if you want to duplicate Trenberth 2009 balance, set mean global Ae=0.793:
Teq. = [(1-albedo)*So/ 4*sigma*(1-0.793/2)] ^ .25
Find Teq = 289.1K for a semi-opaque earth atm.
Find global temporal and spatial UWIR from surface = 396
Find similar DWIR from atm. without LH or thermals, or sun absorption = 157
Add in the 80 LH dumped into atm., the 17 thermals dumped into atm., and the 78 dumped into atm. from sun + 1 missing – these return back to surface in equilibrium not to space and find the total Kristian termed “downward radiative flux from the atmosphere to the surface”. Kristian used 235-67=168 from Trenberth 1997, it is updated to 239-78=161 in TFK09 and all consistent with 2nd law.
157 + 80 + 17 + 78 + 1 = 333
QED & TFK09 compliant Teq. = 255K & 289.1K calculated earth energy balance workout I mentioned to Doug in futility. That’s my textbook level put up, I think it extends your 3rd link a bit. Blame any typo.s on my fired editor.
NB: Kristian – I did not use the “heat” word even once! Well, once now. Use it as little as possible –never as a noun (caloric theory is out), sometimes as an adjective: heat transfer = energy transfer resulting from temperature difference. Reduce confusion esp. on blogs. Anybody writes “heat rises spontaneously”, put them on ignore, discussion will be futile.
All basic physics and a fine demonstration. My frustration is that there are too many folks on the internet who think your basic calcs violate the 2nd law or that they don’t exist. I literally get mad at the ignorance or the gamesmanship of people who don’t have one damned clue what they are talking about.
This simple demonstration conflicts with everything PSI has ever written yet they don’t have the wits about them to even notice the conflict. They will spend years writing paper after paper “proving” this calculation wrong and never even consider what it means to the single question in this headpost.
Thanks, appreciated.
“…too many folks on the internet who think your basic calcs violate the 2nd law or that they don’t exist.”
Agreed, proper explanation is futile in some hard cases. In this work out, the surface is always warmer than the atmosphere at any level up to TOA so heat transfer = energy transfer resulting from temperature differences is always getting cooler due the g/Cp gradient, 2nd law compliant hot to cold. Always in macro case
.
Dr. Hansen seemed in his right mind in 1981 paper, after that some screws came loose. As you write, need tightening first.
Oh, and I really avoid Hansen at all costs. I don’t trust anti-industrial zealots so I have to check everything he writes and it takes too much time.
Ball4,
Yes, perfectly. You properly use the concept of backradiation in a static case. We can do exactly the same exercise for the insulation of a building and assign a forcing to each insulating panel in a static case.
Where this does not work at all is when you change one or the other component (roof insulation or CO2 concentration). In this case, you change the distribution of all flows, and all gradients. The notion of forcing no longer has any meaning.
This is why an effective theory of the greenhouse effect should move from the unnecessary concept of backradiation.
I can’t follow your argument at all. If you have backradiation, how do you get rid of it?
Jeff Condon,
Backradiations are a model of what we see and what we understand at a level not affected by thermodynamics. At the macroscopic level of thermodynamics, backradiations can be used but they can not be independently observed. Qb = s * Tc ^ 4 is an expression that you can not prove unlike Q = s (Th ^ 4 – Tc ^ 4). This does not mean that it is a mistake but it is a pointless distinction at this scale.
The use of the concept of backradiation to describe the greenhouse effect is not an error in itself. The problem arises when we forget that emission and absorption are not distinct macroscopic phenomena. We can’t, in particular, impose conditions only on backradiations (forcing is a stability constraint set on the sole backradiations).
This error leads to many others as the necessity of the absolute stability of the gradient or as the forcing calculation depending on the impossible thermalization of CO2 added (no conduction is a postulate) .
” At the macroscopic level of thermodynamics, backradiations can be used but they can not be independently observed. ”
I don’t know who told you that but it is completely false. Radiation is observable off of any non zero temp object. It is real, observable, measurable, and is an absolute known quantity in physics. Hell, if backradiation weren’t observable, I don’t even know how an incandescent light bulb would work.
Thanks for interesting conversation.
11:59 “…backradiations can be used but they can not be independently observed.”
12:42 “…but it is completely false.”
I would submit not completely false because at some point on the way to counting all the radiation being transferred between two objects (say the UWIR and DWIR) you will run into Maxwell’s Demon. I can’t separate out the atm. DWIR and cook my dinner tonight for free but the opportunity would be there if not for the Demon. The flows can’t be fully separated. This drove Maxwell into a lot of work trying to prove it but he never solved the dilemma he posed.
I also submit this is why the debate on pyrgeometer measurements happens. Basically these devices are trying to measure the UWIR and DWIR separately which by defn. of Maxwell’s Demon, can’t possibly be done. However engineers have devised a way (the internal thermometer & lens physics) to do the job well enough to be useful.
Ball,
It is completely false to say backradiation cannot be observed and it has been done many many times.
I’m not sure what you mean by Maxwells demon because it is an entirely separate issue. Cooking your dinner with down welling radiation is difficult because uniform light from a huge solid angle cannot be concentrated to a brighter spot, but you can keep your dinner warmer than it would be without it.
I’m trying to work out your Maxwell comment. Linear electromagnetic propagation allows the separation of light from the sky and light from the ground. Electromagnetic superposition means that the paths don’t change direction. It isn’t like they are all mixed together as a gas. Light from the sky came from the sky.
I’m confused.
“…you can keep your dinner warmer than it would be without it.”
Yes & yes, observed. Global avg. observed about 33K. But at 333 W/m^2 if I could separate total DWIR (incl. the LH & thermals and absorbed sun coming down too) from UWIR, then it seems something like a 300 Watt light bulb which gets plenty hot might be available for cooking on a 1m^2 grill. The problem is The Demon can’t exist, means no separating DWIR out from the UWIR to my cooking level advantage, so yeah, net my dinner only gets 33K warmer global basis, which does save on furnace bills over no 33K observed.
Just think how much less debate about the 333 if we COULD all cook with it.
Pyrgeometers are remarkably able to do the separation but still, the net result keeps them uncooked.
It is so hard to see why the Demon is defeated, Maxwell could not do so theoretically. IIRC Maxwell’s Demon that could separate DWIR from UWIR was finally proven out of existence in the early 50’s – what should be obvious is a tough theoretical proof that took like 60 years to figure out.
“I’m trying to work out your Maxwell comment.”
All we get that is useful is the 33K yet there is 333 total DWIR and even more 396 UWIR. These are big numbers that if could be made useful i.e. sorted out then we would be able to conserve much more resources. Unfortunately, the demon that could do this, expired.
Maxwell’s Demon was conceived by Maxwell to do just that, allow the speedier molecules thru its trap door and reject the slower ones; just close the door when they came by. This would allow cold to move to hot without using up energy. At conception, Maxwell thought it would be easy to prove his demon right out of existence due to just saying that violates 2nd law in unforced system. But that proof was so hard, it took some 60 years to get it done. The demon outlived Maxwell. They thought they had it defeated a couple times but not fully until 1950s.
The interesting story is told well here, this bend in the climate road helped me a lot:
“If you want to know what’s happening in the physical world, you’ve got to follow the heat.”
I can separate upwelling IR from downwelling IR by using an actively chilled bolometer cup that has a window. Pointing the window down, picks up upwelling IR, pointing it up picks up downwelling.
What is wrong with that?
Jeff Condon,
“It is completely false to say backradiation cannot be observed and it has been done many many times.”
Yes, it is completely wrong and this is obviously not what I said. I wrote:
“At the macroscopic level of thermodynamics, backradiations can be used but they can not be independently observed.”
They can be observed and even measured as has pointed out Ball4.
“What is wrong with that?”
Nothing wrong with instrumentation. Same as pyrgeometers in practical use, yes, the instrumentation can be made to be useful to detect DWIR and calibrated to roughly measure at many sites daily. You can’t precisely measure each of the gross amounts (333&396) w/o calibration factor; I would think if you could, you could then make these energy flux densities useful since there would be evidence they can be separated resurrecting the demon.
This along the lines that caught my interest in Kristian 6:41am writing the DWIR is only theoretical: “The radiative GH warming is a purely theoretical concept. A construct.” but we know the atm. mass T>0 must radiate so DWIR is physical. Then Phi 10:14am: “Backradiation…no thermodynamic meaning.”
No meaning because the physical DWIR 333 or UWIR 396 can’t be made useful or directly measured (hence the pyrgeometer internal thermometer for the calib. circuit).
I am going to guess, but I don’t know for sure, maybe other instrumentation experts here might know for grins, what you are measuring is only the useful amount (the part of the global 33K at your location). Then calibration circuit adjusts for readout. Interesting to learn more. I’ve read thru the pyrgeometer physics & spec. detail & that is where my guess comes from. Have not ever looked into “actively chilled bolometer cup w/window.” Maybe check your spec sheet, see what they explain.
What is the readout you measure for each? Maybe check against nearest NOAA site at same time.
Phi,
So you have changed your mind?
Ball4,
“No meaning because the physical DWIR 333 or UWIR 396 can’t be made useful or directly measured”
But you can see the instrument making the measurement? How does a calibration thermomter in your instrument mean that your instrument is not measuring directly? I know of no instruments which aren’t calibrated.
“I am going to guess, but I don’t know for sure, maybe other instrumentation experts here might know for grins, what you are measuring is only the useful amount (the part of the global 33K at your location). ”
This one I have for you. The instrument measures the total. In a room temp object, you are right that the background material of the device must be subtracted but that is easy enough, its emissions are known. The face still receives the background of the instrument body plus whatever comes through the window the difference in radiation from the expected zero K reading becomes the output.
Actually, that is why I gave my example an actively low temp cup with a sensor in it. It eliminates some of the confusion if the instrument isn’t sending IR into itself.
Jeff Condon,
“So you have changed your mind?”
No, what makes you think that?
Everything is in the word “indenpendently”.
So you can have an instrument which warms by impact of back radiation creating a resistance change or perhaps an electron is released by the radiation creating a current – we agree on that right?
What more is needed before the radiation exists as a physical photon?
“I know of no instruments which aren’t calibrated.”
Yes of course, oops – my new editor is looking nervous. Maybe I could improve & use the word “null” circuit. The difference here in separating the 333&396 conundrum is the pyrgeometer pointed up trying to get a reading on the 333 DWIR uses the thermometer inside to null out the effects of the 396 coming up from the surface (in the back door so to speak) and puts that info. into the calib. circuit for the readout.
Any help?
“…the difference in radiation from the expected zero K reading becomes the output.”
Yes, that seems to be what I am trying to write if only my editor was useful, ha. This seems to mean the bolometer is not measuring separate flux densities either.
Do you concur if your instrument actually is separately measuring the 333&396, then this is evidence the flux densities can be separated? Can you think of a way to do that knowing the details of your bolometer?
Ball4,
It seems like we are mostly in agreement. If the instrument case were chilled to a negligible temp – say 3K – then background radiation could be negligible and subtraction would not be required. Directionality of aiming would provide the signal differentiation between up and down welling radiation. If the same answer were achievable by subtraction using a thermometer and known emissivity of a higher temp instrument body, I would contend that the instruments are equivalent.
I’m not that familiar with the pyrometer argument. I saw it going on somewhere and just moved on.
5:36pm: Concur.
Jeff Condon,
I do not see where you’re going. You still detect a net flow. Q = s * (Th ^ 4 – Tc ^ 4). You minimize Tc which allows you to get Q close to Qh but not to Qc (backradiation).
Phi,
How come you don’t get this? You minimize Tc, and point the instrument at the sky Th, which IS basically 100% backradiation.
6:32am – Tc represents the 100% DWIR (not Th) since global sky is always cooler than global surface Th due g/Cp gradient. Doesn’t change your point though, your chilled bolometer (or an unchilled pyrgeometer) instrument can detect the net IR incoming usefully enough by approx. nulling the opposite flux pointed up or down.
Your point (and 5:36 pm point) makes it easier to see why they even need to chill the IR detectors in space instrumentation to near 0K as possible (with evaporating volatiles until they are used up) improving incoming IR detection.
Jeff Condon,
I understand what you want to demonstrate. You define globally backradiations as all radiations coming from the atmosphere and directed towards the surface. You observe and measure them. I have no problem with that. But to achieve this, you must use Q = s (Th ^ 4 – Tc ^ 4), pass backradiations in h and minimize Tc. Qc, defined as the transfer of heat from the cold source to the hot source remains unobserved independently.
Ball4,
I didn’t put enough detail in the explanation because Phi was discussing the cold sensor. I believe I have used the equation correctly when the sensor is the cold body. Again, this was done to simplify the problem so that we can find agreement.
Phi,
First, I was trying to figure out if you agree that the downward photons from the atmosphere exist, which it appears you agree with. Second step is the one Ball4 recognized, is that a calibrated warm sensor which is hotter than the atmosphere, also measures the same values. Of course the only meaning which can be taken from this is that the photons from the cold atmosphere are still impacting the warmer sensor body and therefore are observed. If you agree with this, then I don’t see any difference in our opinions.
Ball4,
Chilling of detectors is necessary to reduce noise on the signal, especially in the high sensitivity detectors. Bolometers can measure significantly below sensor temperatures without cooling but the farther down they go, the worse the signal quality.
Phi 8:29am – “Qc, defined as the transfer of heat from the cold source to the hot source remains unobserved independently.”
This shows the issue with the word “heat” and observation shows whole organizations arise in combat.
Better to try & not use the word “heat”, it takes some effort to banish it but reduces word based blog combat thermo.
Try “Qc, defined as the energy flux density from the cold source to the hot source remains unobserved independently.” Would be better thermo. and minimize the blog combat. Yes, the total DWIR energy flux density 333 remains unobserved independently as does the 396 yet they can be approx. measured by instrumentation nulling the opposite energy flux density with proper temperature measurement.
Some irreverent comments on “heat”, i.e. word jazz:
• Heat doesn’t flow. Implies heat was at point A and goes to point B. But “heat” as a noun went out almost 2 centuries ago (the caloric theory, heat as a fluid existing in a body). Vestiges still exist as in we still avoid too many calories or we have to go the gym.
• Same reason heat is not “energy in motion” notwithstanding a famous 1857 paper by Clausius “The Nature of Motion which we call Heat.” Have to live that one down. Bohren 1998: “By a strange and subtle alchemy, that which does not exist (heat) is transformed into that which does (motion).”
• Heat is sometimes said to be absorbed or emitted. What about “heat radiation”? Is that a special radiation with the unique capability of heating bodies? No, radiation of any frequency is capable of heating given sufficient power or given the body illuminated is suitably chosen.
“Heat” word is much misused and a largely & amazingly unnecessary term. This adjective use is sometimes ok (though can be avoided) wherein “heat transfer” means: energy transfer resulting from temperature differences.
One grows up learning from experience about the summertime hot “heat radiation” from the asphalt parking lot or beach sand so don’t go barefoot ALL the time. This has to be first unlearned in your HS or college intro. to thermo. class and THAT seems simple but it is not easy.
” Yes, the total DWIR energy flux density 333 remains unobserved independently as does the 396 yet they can be approx. ”
How did we get back to this? We have observed the photons coming downward. What is not independent about that? What measurements are MORE independent than that?
Jeff Condon said, June 19, 2013 at 3:16 pm:
“I can separate upwelling IR from downwelling IR by using an actively chilled bolometer cup that has a window. Pointing the window down, picks up upwelling IR, pointing it up picks up downwelling.
What is wrong with that?”
There’s nothing wrong with that. You will simply not measure a positive influx of radiative energy from the atmosphere until your device is cooler than the atmosphere. Then you measure energy coming in, i.e. heat. You always physically measure/detect the heat flux. That’s what directly induces the negative or positive voltage. You always calculate the individual fluxes from this and the temperature of the device. They’re conceptual fluxes. The heat flux is physical.
So, if your device is cooler than the object pointed at, there will be incoming heat, positive voltage induced. If your device is warmer than the object pointed at, there will be outgoing heat, negative voltage induced. Then there are formulas ‘built into’ the device for how to deduce the inferred individual fluxes from this particular result.
Jeff Condon,
I’m uncomfortable with the notion of photons in a problem involving thermodynamics.
Ball4,
Thank you for correcting my error energy / heat.
Kristian,
You have your own theory, which is much farther outside of the mainstream than the people I was discussing with. Your concept of what is “heat” appears irretrievably confused and I cannot decipher your description of the instrumentation. Your concept of a “conceptual” vs “physical” flux goes against all of known science. If you wish to discuss these issues, you have got to start at a basic level and explain how those chilly photons “know” if they are conceptual or not. Then we can discuss the details.
Perhaps you should start with your definition of heat.
Phi,
Photons are a means of transmitting radiative energy and are a key aspect of thermodynamics. How does our comfort with that come into play?
Kristian 9:55am: “You will simply not measure a positive influx of radiative energy from the atmosphere until your device is cooler than the atmosphere.”
No. Pyrgeometers are not cooler than the atmosphere in which they operate. Yet they can measure atmospheric DWIR at many different sites by engineers properly nulling the UWIR with an internal thermometer next to the thermopile. I know scientists argue with this being precise so there’s that.
“The heat flux is physical.”
No. Try the energy flux density is physical, heat (noun) is not physical; the caloric theory expired long ago.
“..there will be incoming heat…”
Try there will be incoming energy flux density.
“..there will be outgoing heat…”
Try there will be outgoing energy flux density.
“..there are formulas ‘built into’ the device for how to deduce the inferred individual fluxes from this particular result.”
^Ding.^ Formulas from the thermometer in the pyrgeometer. Wired into the circuitry.
Jeff Condon,
Radiative fluxes are a key aspect of thermodynamque, not photons. Photons are only a modeling of radiative fluxes constructed to account for specific phenomena. We can easily solve all the problems of thermodynamics without them. So, again, Ockham’s Razor.
9:35am: “How did we get back to this? We have observed the photons coming downward. What is not independent about that? What measurements are MORE independent than that?”
The concept of independence just hasn’t taken root yet, think it would if you can find time to read that book. Let me try again, poor editing and all.
What is observed is a full bath of mixed photons (or bath of radiative fluxes per phi). An instrument can’t be made that can independently tell which amount is coming down or going up except the net flux, similar the global 33K which is all that is observable or useful in your chilled bolometer or NOAA unchilled pyrgeometer than CAN be made to work close enough to be useful.
If you could make a pyrgeometer or bolometer without the need for the approx. internal nulling of the radiation coming from the backside, then that would violate 2nd law as we know it. This is what they finally proved formally in 1950s, the 2nd law finally withstood the demon concept that would independently allow separated measurement and usefulness of the full 333 and 396.
If that demon instrument existed, I could use it to eliminate the propane tank & refill charge in my outdoor grill and just use the ~300 watt light bulb full DWIR by demon sorting of the bath (to separate downward IR or just upward IR of which there is more). But I can’t and never will based on the 1950’s formal proof even though the 333 is right there & observed so close I can touch it, but I can’t use it independently, can only use the net.
Ball4,
The reason the concept of independence hasn’t taken root is because you are incorrect. For example:
“An instrument can’t be made that can independently tell which amount is coming down or going up except the net flux, similar the global 33K which is all that is observable or useful in your chilled bolometer or NOAA unchilled pyrgeometer than CAN be made to work close enough to be useful”
This is inaccurate. I started with the cold sensor example because that is the simplest form. No radiation from the direction the sensor is not pointing. It is easy to see that there is no mixing demon preventing observation of radiation. Then I stepped into the warm sensor and a differential emission is required to give directionality of measurement. The differential emission still requires the sensor to be impinged by 100% of the radiation signal in the direction the sensor is pointing, because were any part blocked, the signal would be lower. Therefore the backradiation is still 100% observed and 100% separable from ground radiation. This is verified because you get the same exact result with either sensor example.
It isn’t a Maxwell demon situation because the photons DO have directionality and are already sorted by the god of physics. Were they not sorted by direction, electromagnetic superposition would not exist and that would indeed be a true demon.
—–
In your propane tank demon, the molecules are in random direction. That situation is not at all the same as electromagnetic radiation.
Phi,
We are talking about blackbody radiation. It would be interesting to see the simpler derivation of the blackbody curve without Planck’s constant.
Jeff Condon,
You’re probably right, my argument was awkward. That said, a photon is a model that escapes to common sense. You can not apply to it the logic you use to retrieve lost golf balls.
Same comment about your response to ball4 regarding the independence of backradiations. The fact is that you never directly detect independently Qc.
A small addition. If you could apply the logic of golf balls to photons, you should be able to design a device that detects the incoming photons directly through their direction. If you succeed, it would be really annoying because it would invalidate the second law of thermodynamics (as Maxwell’s demon).
I draw from this two things:
1. Whichever way you consider the problem (thermodynamics, optic or technical) you can not demonstrate the independence of backradiations.
2. We must be wary of analogies (photons – golf balls).
Phi,
That is where my point is going to. The receipt of energy from a photon from a cold body to a hot one, whether it heats or not is not a violation of the second law when we realize that each body is a conglomeration of huge numbers of atoms at different energy states. A de-energized atom in a hot body is no different than a de-energized one in a cold body. They have no idea what their sometimes energized neighbors are doing anyway. Therefore, the situation is that heat energy moves in both directions in a bulk body hot-cold, cold-hot. Energized atomic states do always find de-energized ones to transfer to but there are a lot of both available in the earth’s surface and atmosphere so heat moves in both directions between both bodies. No second law violation. There is a ton of supporting math and experiments to this statement in physics and it isn’t controversial or even moderately contested.
Jeff Condon,
Here, I agree with you, I hope. Because I have a little doubt on the problem of dependence. But you are optician, so I guess we do agree.
Ball4,
I’m sorry for the poor details. If you place an IR photon sensor of any configuration at the bottom of a cup (perhpas the bottom of a thimble) and the thimble is actively chilled to near zero Kelvin, then radiation from directions OHTER than the open end is near zero. No radiation from any other direction can pass to the sensor, so this scenario effectively eliminates any problems with disambiguation of where the IR came from.
The actual type of sensor is not important for the discussion as they all detect some fraction of thermal radiation (photons). The detected fraction remains pretty constant over the temp ranges we are discussing so there is a calibration multiplier.
The cold example is given for clarification. Once we agree that in practice, IR photons will strike any object in their path and are often absorbed regardless of the receiving object’s temp, we can discuss the room temperature sensor (thimble) and how it reacts. In practice, you can determine how much IR the warm body of the thimble adds to the sensor, measure and subtract, still recognizing that the IR from the open end also adds to the sensor. We know from superposition that the open end of the thimble hasn’t slowed Its acceptance of IR, so the final result from the two situations is that the output is independent of sensor temperature meaning that temperature didn’t affect the flow of energy (heat transfer if I may) from the background to the detector.
The dependence of emissivity on temperature of a material is an interesting expansion on this discussion.
Phi,
If you have the patience, lets not rely on my optical experience as an authority for a resolution. This is a useful conversation being read by more than just a few people and this conceptual issue is a very serious discussion in the wider public view of global warming. Can you pose a question which I must explain?
Reply
6:43 pm – Concur with all of that cold example stuff. But I don’t see it kills the demon. Maxwell knew all that.
“…we can discuss the room temperature sensor (thimble) and how it reacts.”
Here’s the room temperature issue in your example as I see it: the 333 entering the top would be made usable with the thimble held near 0K. You could easily expend the required energy once to chill the thimble. If the demon, sitting on the back of the thimble, uses keen eyes & nimble fingers to sort out all the 396 energy flux density bath from heading toward the back of the thimble, all the 333 becomes useful as long as the demon lives, no more energy is required to hold near 0K.
The road to prove with eqn.s how this demon must expire is explained in the book. The first solution IIRC found the demon dies from overheating (this was ~1917). A way around that was found, the demon was resurrected for ~12 years when it was killed off by entropy (needs to acquire info. on the speed & direction – only direction for photons) but later resurrected even from that argument.
The eventual solution was that the demon must drown in garbage*. This was a colloquial way of writing a complex solution. Might have to look up the paper that finally did the deed on the demon, you’ve got me interested in details but I’m tripping for a couple days. The book doesn’t explain the details, just the history. Think I read it in a night or two.
This might be easier to see with conduction, which we all agree there is no perfect insulation (Maxwell well knew). Can you prove that mathematically? Neither can there be a perfect demon but proving it is very tough.
*Reminded by wiki page: Demon on the thimble has to acquire so much information that it fills the universe and either drowns or some MUST be erased but information is impossible to destroy w/o entropy going down. Goodbye drowned demon, backside starts getting the 396.
Phi,
If you have the patience, lets not rely on my optical experience as an authority for a resolution. This is a useful conversation being read by more than just a few people and this conceptual issue is a very serious discussion in the wider public view of global warming. Can you pose a question which I must explain?
Yes, sorry. To try to be clear, I’ll start from the beginning.
1. The radiative effect of greenhouse gases is not a problem for me, which I doubt, it is the use of the concept of GHG forcing. In my opinion, there are several manner to demonstrate the inanity of this concept. I use here the one that goes through the inutility of the notion of backradiation.
2. GHG forcing is based on the notion of backradiation. It has the dimension of backradiations and can not be conceived outside of this framework.
3. Any modeling of the greenhouse effect should verify the laws of thermodynamics.
4. Backradiations can not independently verify the laws of thermodynamics (or be observed independently when they are defined as Qc).
5. It follows from the previous point that backradiations represent an unnecessary modeling in the context of thermodynamics. An effective model of the greenhouse effect must be possible to be described without the need for recourse to that concept. And so without recourse to the notion of GHG forcing.
6. The modeling is based on the principle action – feedback where action is forcing. The model does not allow do without the action, so the forcing. It therefore not verify the previous point.
I mentioned optics because it is a way to demonstrate that emission and absorption are geometrically inseparable.
Phi,
Ok so lets see if we can move a little closer together on our opinions.
Start with 2 things we agree on – GHG forcing is based on atmospheric backradiation which is simply radiation from a warm gas in thermodynamics. The word “back” is not necessary but is descriptive when the radiation travels opposite the net energy flow. We know from Planck and Stefan Boltzman, and experiment, that non zero temp objects radiate electromagnetic energy in quanized packets (photons). We know that directionality of emission is random. We know from the principles of superposition that the light continues in a straight line until it intersects with matter – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superposition_principle. Light going downward will definitely continue downward. We agree that with a cold sensor, this light can be detected.
Agree?
Number 3 – I agree completely.
#4 – This I desagree on. There is no violation of any of the laws of thermodynamics. Warm bodies are comprised of huge numbers of particles at a wide variety of temperatures according to the Planck curve. The average temp is the body temp. Were radiative emissions from the cold atmosphere absorbed by individual atoms that were hotter, you would be right, that is a violation of the second law. Fortunately, energized atoms become individually transparent when the photon’s energy level is full and the radiation will simply wiggle the electrons with its electromagnetic field and continue on its way deeper into the body until it finds an un-energized atom. This same process happens warm to cold and cold to warm so no violation. Probability of absorption/emission determines net flow. This is, to my knowledge, the standard physics explanation.
As to being observed independently let’s again start with what I think we agree on. First, we agree, a cold detector can detect “back”radiation and calculate its magnitude. We also have agreed that we can build a warm detector with calibrations of its body temp that gives the same output as the cold one. From that point – You seem to be saying that the calibration of emissions from the sensor body (essentially a subtraction) means that the sensor itself is not independently measuring back-radiation. I am saying that the sensor body is receiving the backradiation in full according to the process of #4 and for that not to be the case would take a substantial re-write of the interaction of light-matter physics.
I can conceive of a device which may resolve this disagreement. What if we have a near zero Kelvin cup that surrounds all but one side of a black thermometer such that radiation can only enter one end of the device. The thermometer is heated to a fixed temperature 373K or 100C and emits radiation according to that amount. It doesn’t receive any radiation from the walls of the container so that “calibration” is unnecessary. We have already agreed that this thermometer will receive energy according to Planck’s law, because we subtracted the energy of the walls from the room temperature example above.
Since we have agreed on the equations and the magnitude of absorption/emission, would you agree now that this device represents an independent measurement of back-radiation?
Before answering, if the standard radiation equations don’t apply here, or the device doesn’t work, we will need a whole new set of equations to define radiative physics.
Point 4, so, of course.
First, there is no need for new equations because it is precisely the one that we can directly verify that leads to question the independence of backradiations Q = s * (Th ^ 4 – Tc ^ 4 ).
You must understand that I do not doubt of the existence of backradiations nor that they satisfy the laws of thermodynamics.
Exactly what I say is that we can go without the notion of backradiations lossless. We can do without because we can not observe Qc = s * Tc^ 4 (even if your device measure what you call backradiations, it approaches Qh = Th * s ^ 4) or verify the second principle without taking into account the main flux.
I told you that the model by photon embarrassed me, was that it is not necessary when you solve the equations of transfer even if it has been introduced to calculate the parameters used. I do not have a problem with your particle description but it does not help us when we are at the level of thermodynamics.
Optics allows us to prove that each emission ray (angle) match absolutely a ray of absorption. This means that there is no conceptual thermodynamic difference between conduction and radiation.
Net flux is enough, distinguish two fluxes adds nothing.
Even if you stand to the independence of backradiations, you can not help but reconnect the link at the critical moment of observation, verification.
You can perfectly build model of the greenhouse effect that distinguishes backradiations but it will be invalidated if you fail to also describe it with the sole net flows.
Phi – “Where this does not work at all is when you change one or the other component… problem arises when we forget that emission and absorption are not distinct macroscopic phenomena”
I would submit small perturbations of 1 global climate parameter in this workout will be ok to a small degree, not agree with “not work at all”.
For a very, very stable system, like a civil airliner w/auto-pilot selected in “off” mode or the earth global system, control system theory shows applying a “small kick” to one parameter of a stable system means you can still learn something about the nature of the system output.
Apply small enough kick to the rudder or the aileron in no-autopilot mode civil airliner and the yaw, roll oscillations’ damp out quickly back to stable flight (like from a wind gust). Herein all the feedbacks are modeled fairly well.
Granted, in the earth system the feedbacks are debated all the time, they are unknown yet this basic textbook simple workout does go a ways down the road to learning something new about the stable system in question, global climate.
Example: Small “kick” the albedo from 0.3 to 0.31, find the new equilibrium for Teq. = 288K a variation of only 1.1K down. Would the other parameters be affected? Gross global sun, no. Global L&O emissivity? Probably not much. Global atm. emissivity? Well, maybe – there might be a bit less water vapor in the air. So kick that Ae down a bit to 0.79 from 0.793, Teq. = 287.9K.
UWIR = 389.39 down from 396.
DWIR = 153.81 down from 157.
Net 235.58 down from 239 W/m^2.
153.81 + 80 + 17 + 78 + 1 = 329.81 down from 333.
Would the 80 & 17 change? Yeah, but I submit by very small amounts since so stable, your guess good as mine.
I submit those are small enough changes that one might learn numbers about climate change more than not doing & understanding this basic stuff.
Humorous point: turn off the auto pilot in say a SR-71 in cruise and kick the controls. Catastrophe. Happens quick. The earth climate is more stable, more like a civil airliner in stable cruise than an SR-71. Reason: To survive SR-71s long term, need to avoid Mach 3 missiles.
Ball4,
This is not quite the problem I have in mind. Using the concept of GHG forcing means that the addition of CO2 has no effect on the gradient. This is obviously false, changing the gradient is a first order effect. By analogy with the insulation of a building it’s like to say that doubling the insulation of the roof alone does not change the flow of heat through the roof.
Regarding albedo, the problem is different, it acts on SW and therefore on heating power. Forcing in this case is quite suitable.
“..concept of GHG forcing..”
I have a problem with that in much that I read, it is used a lot. Sort of convention unfortunately. However now that we have an equation to discuss, note the L&O emissivity (1.0) and atm. emissivity are on the RESPONSE side of the equation. The outgoing side (here the denominator).
Teq. = [(1-albedo)*So/ 4*sigma*(1.0 – Ae/2)] ^ 0.25
My view infrared active gas (IRG) is not a forcing. IRG modifies the response. IR gas alone cannot increase the temperature of the total atmosphere (force an increase like the sun) but added IRG can raise the surface temperature and lower the temperature same time at great height same amount conserving energy.
I picked albedo to modify in the equation (the power input side) but it is the same as giving a “kick” to the atm. emissivity (on the response side). A response side “kick” will change the surface equlibrium temperature (Teq.) also.
In real life, all these kicks happen in real time, maybe different sign, can’t pick them out as yet. Maybe someday. You know – after all the polar bears go extinct, LOL.
Phi 3:34pm points out I “kicked” the power side. Here’s an interesting note. Eliminate my albedo kick 0.3 to 0.31 and just “kick” the atm. emissivity down from 0.793 to 0.79, woo ha, plants & ocean caught up & sequestered more CO2 IRG than humans produced.
Teq. goes down 0.2K from 289.1 to 288.9.
UWIR = 395.04 down from 396.
DWIR = 156.04 down from 157.
Net 239, unchanged from 239 W/m^2.
156.04 + 80 + 17 + 78 + 1 = 332.04 down from 333.
Since the forcing side did not change, the net remains unchanged, all else reduces.
Altering Ae, you change the amount of energy passing through the atmosphere. It is a marginal effect expected from adding CO2.
Ball4 said, June 18, 2013 at 10:08 pm:
“NB: Kristian – I did not use the “heat” word even once! Well, once now. Use it as little as possible –never as a noun (caloric theory is out), sometimes as an adjective: heat transfer = energy transfer resulting from temperature difference. Reduce confusion esp. on blogs.
This is exactly the problem. It is NOT applying the concept of ‘heat’ that has gotten people confused into thinking that the atmosphere might provide energy capable of raising the temperature of Earth’s surface. It can’t, and it doesn’t. If you rather adhere to a strict ‘heat’ budget for our planet, everyone will immediately understand that this notion is hokum and see intuitively what really and physically is going on.
So, no. Use the term ‘heat’ more. In fact, use it all the time when discussing transfer of energy between objects. Then the concepts will all become so much clearer and easier to grasp. Because it is actually pretty simple. The confusion arises specifically from using two-way radiative fluxes side by side with actual heat fluxes. They’re NOT the same thing. They’re apples and oranges. Only ‘heat’ can heat (or cool) (although I kind of agree with you on the ‘don’t use the term as a verb’ argument).
Kristian 9:44am: “Only ‘heat’ can heat…”
Oh man. Unless you can make the switch to the more physically correct energy flux density instead of the word “heat” befuddlement and combat thermo. will continue to be the result. I ask you to join my movement to eliminate “heat” term from thermo. discussions unless word combat is actually desired.
I will try three more irreverent comments on “heat” after Bohren 1998, see what you think.
• There is no such thing as the amount of heat in a body. You can revert to the caloric theory but I predict only befuddlement and more combat thermo. will result. Show me some heat as a noun.
• Consider two alternative ways of describing adiabatic combustion of hydrogen mixed with oxygen in an insulated, sealed container: 1) the temperature is higher following combustion, 2) heat is generated. Notice the difference between these two descriptions. The first is a concrete statement about a measurement directly made with thermometer. The second is abstract, invoking a hypothetical quantity that can at best be inferred indirectly only from temperature measurements. Which description do you prefer?
• Get a small plastic bottle. Put a couple spoonfuls of water in there. Put in a thermometer where the water covers the bulb. Put on pair insulating wintertime goose down gloves. Let the water and bottle come to equilibrium with surroundings. Measure the temperature of the water, cap the bottle, and shake it for all you are worth. Don’t stop until you are dripping with sweat. Uncap the bottle, take a temperature reading. Find it a fractional degree higher? If not, pour out a little water, repeat shaking more vigorously, for longer time. Here is an example of the temperature of water increasing with no added heat, so it is incorrect to write: “Only ‘heat’ can heat”.
The caloric theory existed when the prevailing theory of matter was particles held motionless under mutually repulsive forces. The triumph of the kinetic theory of matter is not that it established heat as motion but that motion at the micro scale is ceaseless and breathtakingly fast vs. a sluggish NBA or NCAA hockey or even youth softball playoff game.
Dear me.
Don’t listen to me, Ball4. Take it from the people who write textbooks on the subject.
From ‘Fundamentals of Thermodynamics’ (2009) by Borgnakke & Sonntag:
“If a block of hot copper is placed in a beaker of cold water, we know from experience that the block of copper cools down and the water warms up until the copper and water reach the same temperature. What causes this decrease in the temperature of the copper and the increase in the temperature of the water? We say that it is the result of the transfer of energy from the copper block to the water. It is from such a transfer of energy that we arrive at a definition of heat.
Heat is defined as the form of energy that is transferred across the boundary of a system at a given temperature to another system (or the surroundings) at a lower temperature by virtue of the temperature difference between the two systems. That is, heat is transferred from the system at the higher temperature to the system at the lower temperature, and the heat transfer occurs solely because of the temperature difference between the two systems.”
“Heat, like work, is a form of energy transfer to or from a system. Therefore, the units for heat, and for any other form of energy as well, are the same as the units for work, or at least are directly proportional to them. In the International System the unit for heat (energy) is the joule.”
This is their definition. The physical definition of ‘heat’. And it is my definition.
Yes, Kristian 10:44am, textbooks ARE good. The word heat is sometimes useful as in properly employed by your textbook example clip which uses “heat” carefully & correctly as an adjective in as I’ve written heat transfer: energy transfer resulting from temperature differences.
Your text book example does not use heat as a noun (never do that in thermo.) as clip correctly writes as I did: “It is from such a transfer of energy that we arrive at a definition of heat.”
However, even the adjective use of “heat” can be avoided to reduce combat thermo., just always take pains to write: “energy transfer resulting from temperature differences instead”.
You might go over some of your posts and do that as an example, I predict word combat and befuddlement will reduce as a result. You will join the mainstream & the discussions improve.
Like I said, Ball4. I agree to a certain extent on the ‘verb’ usage. I’ve used it here simply to make a point. I have never and never will use the word ‘heat’ as a property of a system, like ‘the heat of a system increases’.* Heat is distinctly a ‘transfer of energy’ between systems, like the surface and the atmosphere. This has been my point from the beginning: The atmosphere does not transfer heat (‘net energy’) to the surface.
*In this sense, the term OHC (‘Ocean Heat Content’) is thermodynamically confusing. The ocean (or any system) does not contain heat. It transfers/loses heat to the atmosphere and gains heat from the Sun.
Hehe, well, I now see how I might confuse the situation. It’s subtle, but important, I agree. The ocean transfers heat to the atmosphere, but it loses internal energy in the process. The Sun transfers heat to the ocean, but the ocean gains internal energy in the process.
So, I should have been more precise. It doesn’t change my point, though.
12:15pm: concur. Here’s a fun exercise now that Kristian et. al. have tuned up on the meaning of the word “heat” as adjective only in clipped text: google “Ocean Heat Content”. You will find a host of scholarly articles (even!) and of course blogs talking about the subject.
Yet the ocean, like any thermo. body, contains no heat (noun). As you write, what they mean is the ocean has a huge content of: energy transfer resulting from temperature differences.
Ripe opportunity for some thermo. word combat elsewhere, better discussions if reduce it here.
Yes, Ball4. But my point is that the opposite state of confusion is worse. If you never apply the term ‘heat’ but always rather the term ‘energy’, also when it comes to transfer of such between systems of unequal temperature, like the surface and the atmosphere, then there is no way to clearly distinguish between what energy that can actually raise the internal energy content, and hence raise the temperature, of the separate systems and what energy that can’t. This is an essential distinction. By erasing it, you create, advertently or inadvertently, a space where everything appears to go. And this is precisely the space that the idea of the radiative GH warming effect is taking advantage of. It thrives specifically on completely blurring that crucial distinction.
So you have a radiative energy flux of 390 W/m^2 going up and a radiative energy flux of 324 W/m^2 coming down.
How are people that are not aware of the strict physical definition of ‘heat’ going to understand that the 324 W/m^2 flux to the surface does NOT bring ‘extra’ energy (is NOT a ‘separate/independent’ flux of energy) to the surface, and thus does not raise the internal energy content of the surface? Because it clearly looks as though you can ADD this flux to the solar flux. That they’re equivalent. And the radiative GH warming effect hypothesis and its proponents also seem to claim just that. If you only knew the definition of ‘heat’ I (or rather Borgnakke & Sonntag) gave above, you would see at once that this idea is simply unphysical. You can not consider the 324 flux down independetly from the 390 flux up. They’re two sides of the same coin, that is, the same inseparable and continuous IR energy exchange between surface and atmosphere, the result of which is a spontaneous ‘net’ flow of radiative energy (‘heat’) UP from the surface to the atmosphere (and space).
You cannot ADD the 324 to the solar 168!!! You must SUBTRACT the 324 from the 390! To get the radiative ‘heat’ flux between surface and atmosphere. The ‘net’. And it goes UP.
This simple thermodynamic fact is what I am trying to convey to Condon here (and also Willis Eschenbach at WUWT, which, like all GHErad proponents, seems to possess a severe blind spot on this particular issue).
2:01 am: I don’t buy it Kristian. For instance, you write:
“…also when it comes to transfer of such between systems of unequal temperature, like the surface and the atmosphere, then there is no way to clearly distinguish…If you only knew the definition of ‘heat’…Borgnakke & Sonntag”
Borgnakke & Sonntag: “Heat is defined as the form of energy that is transferred…”
Sooo…. Joules is defined as the form of Joules that is transferred…
How does that possibly add clarity? Clearly distinguished? Hardly.
“…flow of radiative energy (‘heat’)..”
Heat doesn’t flow except when it was a fluid in bodies, the caloric, nothing in your clip says it does, energy flows.
“..the radiative ‘heat’ flux between surface and atmosphere..”
The energy flux density between surface and atm. Discuss in that form with our host, then I bet he gets what you are trying to convey if it does make physics sense.
Please, Ball4, now you’re just being puerile. It’s you that add confusion to this subject. It’s perfectly simple. Heat only goes one way. From hot to cold. That’s all you need to know. Neither of the inferred radiative energy fluxes (324 and 390 W/m^2) are ‘heat’ fluxes. In this setup, the ‘net’ of the two is what makes up the mean radiative heat going out from the surface: (324-390=) -66 W/m^2, in other words heat LOSS for the surface to the atmosphere (26 W/m^2) and space (40 W/m^2).
You quoted Borgnakke & Sonntag thusly: “Heat is defined as the form of energy that is transferred…” and you claim that this does not add clarity. Of course it doesn’t add clarity. It’s not the full quote. The full quote reads:
“Heat is defined as the form of energy that is transferred across the boundary of a system at a given temperature to another system (or the surroundings) at a lower temperature by virtue of the temperature difference between the two systems. That is, heat is transferred from the system at the higher temperature to the system at the lower temperature, and the heat transfer occurs solely because of the temperature difference between the two systems.”
It can hardly be misunderstood.
But if you still want to misunderstand, Ball4, then I can add this quote from wikipedia on ‘Heat’. You could and should read it in the context of the quote directly above:
“Heat in physics is defined as energy transferred by thermal interactions. Heat flows spontaneously from hotter to colder systems. When two systems come into thermal contact, they exchange energy through the microscopic interactions of their particles. When the systems are at different temperatures, the result is a spontaneous net flow of energy that continues until the temperatures are equal. At that point the net flow of energy is zero, and the systems are said to be in thermal equilibrium. Spontaneous heat transfer is an irreversible process.”
That same article also states the following:
“To change the internal energy of a system, energy must be transferred to or from the system. For a closed system, heat and work are the mechanisms by which energy can be transferred. […] When energy is transferred to a body purely as heat, its internal energy increases. This additional energy is stored as kinetic and potential energy of the atoms and molecules in the body. Heat itself is not stored within a body. Like work, it exists only as energy in transit from one body to another or between a body and its surroundings.”
You increase the internal energy of a system (under normal conditions raising its temperature) by transferring HEAT to it (or by doing work on it). In nature, this energy must come from a system hotter than the first system.
How hard is this?
Kristian – Taking me to school on the caloric theory isn’t going to improve your communication to those discussing modern thermo. Demonstrated by:
“Joule is defined as the form of joule that is transferred across the boundary of a system at a given temperature to another system (or the surroundings) at a lower temperature by virtue of the temperature difference between the two systems. That is, joules are transferred from the system at the higher temperature to the system at the lower temperature, and the joule transfer occurs solely because of the temperature difference between the two systems.”
I was being kind in the clip. Clearer now? No. In modern times, just use energy in joules, there is no heat in the atmosphere to pour out as a fluid.
It’s you that add confusion to this subject. It’s perfectly simple. Joules only go one way. From hot to cold. That’s all you need to know. Neither of the inferred joule fluxes (324 and 390 W/m^2) are ‘joule’ fluxes. In this setup, the ‘net’ of the two is what makes up the mean joules going out from the surface: (324-390=) -66 W/m^2, in other words joule LOSS for the surface to the atmosphere (26 W/m^2) and space (40 W/m^2).
Joules are mean?
This is what modern physics hears when you write heat as a noun. See the problem our host and I have communicating with you using heat as a noun? If not, keep digging, this one translates well:
“Joules in physics is defined as joules transferred by thermal interactions. Joules flow spontaneously from hotter to colder systems. When two systems come into thermal contact, they exchange joules through the microscopic interactions of their particles. When the systems are at different temperatures, the result is a spontaneous net flow of joules that continues until the temperatures are equal. At that point the net flow of joules is zero, and the systems are said to be in thermal equilibrium. Spontaneous joule transfer is an irreversible process.”
That same article also states the following LOL, not so well:
“To change the internal joules of a system, joules must be transferred to or from the system. For a closed system, joules and joules are the mechanisms by which joules can be transferred. […] When joules are transferred to a body purely as joules, its internal joules increases. This additional joules is stored as kinetic and potential energy of the atoms and molecules in the body. Joules itself is not stored within a body. Like joules, it exists only as joules in transit from one body to another or between a body and its surroundings.”
You increase the internal joules of a system (under normal conditions raising its temperature) by transferring joules to it (or by doing joules on it). In nature, these joules must come from a system hotter than the first system.
How hard is this? Not hard just silly & not very clear. For clarity of communication around here, use energy term in today’s physics world, not heat as a noun. Heat content is zero in the atmosphere; energy content is not zero at least in modern times.
Ball 4
I think I see your difficulty.
You think that the internal thermal energy(sometimes called heat) of a body is exactly the same as chemical energy or electrical energy and so on.
Since they are all measured in Joules are they not almost identical quantities?
Emphatically no !
The internal thermal energy is randomly allocated between particles whereas all other energy types have a more ordered structure.
It is easy to turn 100 Joules of electrical energy into 100 Joules of thermal energy.
It is impossible to turn 100 Joules of thermal energy into 100 Joules of electrical energy.
The most advanced power stations can only manage about a 40% conversion at best.
The reasons for this can be found in the theories of thermodynamics.
The Second Law based on the work of Carnot and Clausius explains the phenomena and is fully set out in all introductory Thermodynamics Textbooks
Bryan – More word jazz. Here’s what you wrote translated to SI units of energy:
“(Ball4) thinks that the internal thermal joules (sometimes called joules) of a body is exactly the same as chemical joules or electrical joules and so on.
The internal thermal joule is randomly allocated between particles whereas all other joule types have a more ordered structure.”
There are joule types? Continuing to translate Bryan:
“It is easy to turn 100 Joules of electrical joules into 100 Joules of thermal joules.
It is impossible to turn 100 Joules of thermal joules into 100 Joules of electrical joules.”
Hmmm, see the issue more clearly? 1st law says you better conserve joules. This is improved w/o heat as a noun, now I read & interpret you efficiently. Do you see now some is good science, some not so good using “heat” so thermo. combat erupts not science. Drop the heat noun and come into the modern world where your communication on thermo. topics will be improved, more efficient, less wasted joules.
Ball4
You can wrap yourself up in ignorance if you like or you can do yourself a favour and read a physics textbook as it explains the Second Law.
Click to access Chapter_19_WOLFSON.pdf
Kristian, you say:
“You cannot ADD the 324 to the solar 168!!! You must SUBTRACT the 324 from the 390! To get the radiative ‘heat’ flux between surface and atmosphere. The ‘net’. And it goes UP.”
Right answer to the wrong question. Of course, if all you are considering is the exchange between the earth’s surface and the atmosphere, it is (390-324)=66 from the earth’s surface to the atmosphere.
But when you are looking at the total energy balance at the earth’s surface, you MUST add the 324 from the atmosphere to the 168 from the sun. Of course, you must then subtract out all of power fluxes leaving the surface, including the 390 radiative. And if you want, you can take the difference of 390 and 324 longwave power fluxes first, and just consider 168 shortwave input from the sun, 66 net longwave out, and 102 other out to get the balance. But that is just a matter of which order the calculations are done.
But to answer the important question — can the downward longwave radiative flux from the radiatively active gases in the atmosphere contribute to the energy balance at the surface, even though the atmosphere is at a lower temperature — the answer is absolutely yes. If you have trouble with this, you can consider it simply to be reducing the net longwave outward flux.
But no matter how you look at it, it alters the energy balance at the surface compared to the case where there is a radiatively inactive atmosphere (let’s say just N2 and O2) at the relevant wavelengths. This means that the earth’s surface must be warmer so that its losses are increased enough to restore the balance.
Curt 6:52pm: Concur; your comment not using “heat” even once. Nice job.
******
Bryan 6:41pm – I searched your link for the word “heat”; here is 1 example I found: “net heat absorbed-namely, 240 J – 100 J.”, here is another: “It extracts 100 J of heat.” In each and every statement so far as I can find anyway, the text agrees 100% with me, the SI unit of heat is Joules. Can you find a quote where that is not the case? I can’t.
If I had my computer replace every instance of the term “heat” with the term “Joules” that text agrees with me 100%. Find me a place it does not agree with me. Cure my ignorance. More clips:
“If offered a joule of energy…”
“The quantity of energy hasn’t changed…”
The text even contains the exact definition I posted a couple times, heat term properly used as an adjective:
“Heat is energy that’s flowing because of a temperature difference…”
I agree, the text context uses that definition 100%! And the text agrees 100% with what I posted with this statement:
“Important heat-transfer mechanisms include conduction, convection,
and radiation.”
Where is your beef exactly? (by quote clip, page or paragraph number please)
NB: You won’t find “heat content” at all in the text, only “energy content” p.322.
Curt said, June 22, 2013 at 6:52 pm:
“But when you are looking at the total energy balance at the earth’s surface, you MUST add the 324 from the atmosphere to the 168 from the sun. Of course, you must then subtract out all of power fluxes leaving the surface, including the 390 radiative. And if you want, you can take the difference of 390 and 324 longwave power fluxes first, and just consider 168 shortwave input from the sun, 66 net longwave out, and 102 other out to get the balance. But that is just a matter of which order the calculations are done.”
No, Curt. You can NEVER add the 324 to the surface energy budget. Because this inferred flux does not add energy to the surface, it does nothing to increase its internal energy. Why? Because it’s the LESSER part of a conceptual exchange of radiative energy between surface and atmosphere. It is thus always simultaneously, instantaneously and continuously being countered by a LARGER (and equally inferred) upwelling flux, resulting in a (‘net’) radiative LOSS to the surface.
What you’re doing is mixing system interactions into one mishmash. There are two separate system interactions going on here: Sun->surface and surface->atmosphere/space. It is of paramount importance to keep these apart in order to be able to understand what is actually going on, what does what, in the Earth system. What you’re doing is muddying the waters.
The Sun is the heat source (the hot reservoir) of the Earth’s surface. Therefore it transfers heat (168 W/m^2) to it, warming it. The surface in turn is the heat source of the atmosphere, the atmosphere, like space, functioning like the cold reservoir(s) of the surface. Therefore the surface transfers heat (66+102= 168 W/m^2) to them (atmosphere/space), warming the atmosphere, not so much space 🙂
I cannot for the life of me comprehend why this is still such a hard concept to grasp. It is thermodynamics at the most basic level.
“But to answer the important question — can the downward longwave radiative flux from the radiatively active gases in the atmosphere contribute to the energy balance at the surface, even though the atmosphere is at a lower temperature — the answer is absolutely yes. If you have trouble with this, you can consider it simply to be reducing the net longwave outward flux.”
That’s the point. They aren’t reducing the ‘net longwave outward flux’, that is, the radiative heat going out from the surface. The radiative heat going out from the surface simply is what it is, reduced only by the fact that the surface isn’t a black body in a vacuum radiating all its absorbed energy to surroundings at 0 K. It lies at the bottom of a massive sea of air. There will be convective losses. And these take up a major portion of the job that radiation would’ve done all by itself without an atmosphere present. So with an atmosphere on top there simply is no need and no means to radiate away all the energy absorbed. 66 W/m^2 simply is the radiative component (39 % according to T&K97, 32 % according to Stephens et al. 2012 (52.4 out of 165 W/m^2)) of the total surface energy loss. If there were no atmosphere, that component would have been 168 W/m^2 (or rather 298 W/m^2, like at the lunar surface), that is 100 %.
My point is this: With an energy gain of 168 W/m^2, the mean global surface temperature of the Earth would’ve been -40 degrees (233K), had it been a black body in a perfect vacuum. That would’ve been the exact temperature for the Earth to be able to emit 168 W/m^2 of radiation back out to space and maintain flux balance.
On the real Earth, the situation is no different when looking purely at radiation. The surface gains 168 W/m^2, so it needs to shed 168 W/m^2 also, to be at balance. Radiatively it could’ve managed this without trouble at a steady temperature of -40 degrees. Not so convectively and evaporatively. The surface could not keep up with the absorbed solar flux at a temperature of 233K because it could not get rid of the energy conducted as heat to the adjacent air fast enough, because the upward acceleration of warmer air (buoyance) at -40 degrees would be too slow. You would need kinetic energy to build. Same with evaporation. The surface could not lose energy fast enough from its waters/ices at -40 because there would simply be no evaporation, no loss by way of latent heat transfer, forced by the atmospheric weight (pressure) on the ground. So (kinetic) energy would build inside. And temperatures would rise as a result. The weight of the atmosphere would demand this higher temperature from inducing a saturation (dew) point above the waters/ices far too low at -40.
“This means that the earth’s surface must be warmer so that its losses are increased enough to restore the balance.”
Exactly! Only it’s got practically nothing to do with restriction to radiative energy loss. It’s got most everything to do with restriction to convective/evaporative energy loss.
So in fact, ‘The Greenhouse Effect’ is rather aptly named after all. It describes the atmospheric warming effect pretty well in that it acts quite like a real greenhouse, only the surface convective losses are not restricted by glass plates but by the sheer weight of the atmosphere (its mass times Earth’s gravitational acceleration).
Ball4
Read section 19.4 of link above.
To sum up.
All energy is measured in Joules.
Not all Joules are equal in their ability to perform thermodynamic work in a given situation.
No physics textbook will say heat is transferred spontaneously from a lower to a higher temperature object.
In the case of a purely radiative transfer of energy between a higher temperature object and a lower temperature object.
1. Photons are emitted and absorbed in both directions.
2. Energy is transferred in both directions
3. Heat transfer is a one way process always spontaneously from higher to lower temperature objects.
Radiation does not “carry” any “thermal energy” because it transmits electro-magnetic energy. When will people come to understand the difference?
The Sun’s radiated electromagnetic energy is converted to thermal energy in the far cooler surface. Back radiation’s electromagnetic energy is carried by waves that have far too low a range of frequencies and intensities for their EM energy to be converted to thermal energy in the warmer target.
Microwaves in your MW oven are also at far too low a frequency to warm anything by atomic absorption, so they are pseudo scattered and follow a random path through opaque plastic bowls without warming those bowls. But the Sun’s radiation would warm them. All that microwaves can do (if they are at the right frequency to resonate with water molecules) is to cause those molecules to rotate with each passing wave, generating thermal energy from a friction-like process that is nothing like atomic absorption.
Bryan 3:57am: Mostly concur. You brought your A game to that comment, no use of heat as a noun. Sec. 19.4 does differ with your statement: “Not all Joules are equal in their ability to perform thermodynamic work in a given situation.”
Strictly, this is not true. All joules are everywhere and always equal, there are no joule “types”. What the section says is that your ability to do work with the joule depends on the temperature difference. Not all temperatures are equal in ability to perform thermodynamic work in a given situation. Temperatures are in K and energy content in joules. The more K I have (1000K vs. 300K) the more useful work I can do with the precious joule in a difference of T situation; still it is impossible to convert all the internal joules of a system to useful work.
I am in nit picking mode, this is not strictly true either: “3. Heat transfer is a one way process always spontaneously from higher to lower temperature objects.” Only because you left the term “macro” out of your comment.
I carefully read thru the statistical treatment in the text but this is just a superficial thermo. stat. text, they left out discussion of the micro. world statistical possibilities of spontaneous energy flux both ways. Every Gibbs paper I have ever pulled, starts out limiting discussion to macro. world. Luckily for Gibbs, in the macro. world temperature (and pressure) is an avg. so the precise details of individual collisions are not relevant esp. for an atmosphere. What is important is the behavior of the ensemble of collisions i.e. the macro.
Kristian 3:55am: “There will be convective losses.”
Convective losses to where? Certainly no convective loss to deep space – no winds in space, only radiative loss.
Globally there are convective gains by the surface exactly equal to the global convective losses; globally convection doesn’t affect global mean surface temperature b/c no convection gets to the cold reservoir of deep space.
KT97 shows 24 convective energy flux density up absorbed by atm., and 24 down from atm., absorbed by surface. No convective effect on global atm. near surface temperature.
Kristian 3:55am: ”It’s got most everything to do with restriction to convective/evaporative energy loss.”
These are not lost forever from the global surface; KT97 shows the 102 globally lost from surface are returned in same quantity 102 to the global surface as they cannot get to the deep space cold reservoir.
Only radiation 235 gets out to the cold reservoir and is lost to the global system. The same net amount 235 being gained by the global system from the sun as evidenced by 4bln years of LTE.
These amounts are measured during the ERBE time period 1985 to 1989; the amounts differ a bit depending on time period in question. TFK09 shows the CERES time period March 2000 to May 2004.
Ball4,
“These are not lost forever from the global surface; KT97 shows the 102 globally lost from surface are returned in same quantity 102 to the global surface as they cannot get to the deep space cold reservoir.”
“Teq. = [(1-albedo)*So/ 4*sigma*(1.0 – Ae/2)] ^ 0.25”
Caution, all this concerns only a small part of the mechanism of aditional greenhouse effect. Convection is actually a decisive factor.
Phi 2:35pm – Sure, convection is a decisive factor locally. Not globally. That Teq. you clip is global surface atmosphere mean. Convection and LH can only be surely decisive globally if they can lose energy to outside the system, to space. They cannot, all their up energy transfer is deposited in the atm., that’s why the KT97 and TFK09 (and update) show the respective up arrows terminating in the atmosphere.
157 + 80 + 17 + 78 + 1 = 333
For a small perturbation, what happens if somehow the 17 goes to say 18 globally? Up and down. History indicates the system will adjust, stay in balance and by the eqn. you copy, Teq. won’t change measurable amount. Le and Ae are unaffected (i.e. no emissivity change). The gross solar won’t change.
I say no measurable albedo change (for net solar) but admittedly that is speculation. Your challenge is to build a solid case the global albedo will decisively change due to increased convection up and down and by how much (and even the sign!). To date, AFAIK this is the type of science work yet to be done. Though I can’t possibly track all the developments.
Some current limiting factors: albedo has been tracked only a short time, the satellite period. Do we even measure global convection? How does TFK09 get the 17? (Re)-read the paper and/or cites. Start to build a case there. Maybe someone has started. You know, for a $multi-million NSF, NSA, NASA… contract.
Ball4,
No. Convection is a global decisive factor. What you do not understand is that the aditional effect act not primarily by a reduction of the dissipation window.
KT is a static representation irrelevant to what is the aditional greenhouse effect.
Phi 4:05pm – Global convection up and down is decisively considered to get the total 333 balanced correctly, right? The 17 shown up in TFK09 as thermals and down again as 17 in the term that must not be used:
157 + 80 + 17 + 78 + 1 = 333 W/m^2 energy flux
Convection is not separate term in the Teq. equation which is system energy flux balance.
Were global convection leaking energy flux outside the system to space , the system balance eqn. would need to include it as another term. All I can see global convection mainly affecting Teq. is thru albedo, the 0.3 changing the input power or forcing side term. The global response side of Teq. is unaffected (no change in the 1.0 or Ae in denom.). Mostly TFK09 treats thermals (their SH) as a small residual with small 2 W/m^2 absolute errors, not worth expending a lot of fixed $ contract time detailing for Teq. balance.
This is why having an eqn. to discuss helps focus.
Ball4,
The whole business is that there is no known equation for this problem. I propose the following expression:
Ts = L * P + (P / sigma)^0.25
Where P = ((1-albedo) * So) / (4 * (1 – alpha)), Ts is surface temperature, alpha reflects the window dissipation and L is a mysterious factor.
The additional greenhouse effect occurs mainly in L and very few (negligible?) in alpha.
Well, it was not very good. I correct:
Ts = P * (1 – alpha) / K + (P / sigma) ^ 0.25
P = So * (1 – albedo) / 4
So: sun
Ts: surface temperature
alpha: dissipation window
K: the mysterious factor taking into account convection
Is that better?
Phi – Neither make any sense to me because convection doesn’t cross the conventional control volume (CV) being placed around TOA and the dirt/water surface. So it doesn’t count for the energy in – energy out balance. Convection dumps all its energy into the atm. & only radiation can make it out across the CV.
Synopsis of my 6/18 10:18pm post, ref. Dr. Hansen 1981 paper (et. al.) for that CV, key assumptions being earth radius much, much greater than the 1st layer of atm., atm. emissivity=0, surface emissivity=1.0:
(1-albedo)*So – 4*sigma*Teq.^4 = 0 planet equilibrium, compute Teq. = 255K.
Ref. Bohren 2006 text shows how to add the non-zero atm. emissivity Ae and find:
Energy in – energy out = (1-albedo)*So – 4*sigma*(1.0-Ae/2)*Teq.^4 = 0
Solve for Teq.:
Teq. = [(1-albedo)*So/ 4*sigma*(1.0 – Ae/2)] ^ 0.25
For Ae = .793, find Teq. = 289.1K after Trenberth 2009 input.
To the extent global convection affects global albedo, can convection affect the balance.
Ball4,
No, no, radiative equilibrium only allows you to get the temperature of 255 K. What happens below depends on other relationships. The purely radiative does not allow you to calculate the temperature of your living room, why on earth do you think it allow to calculate the surface temperature ? You should enrich your equations with other fields of physics.
Kristian said
June 23, 2013 at 3:55 am
Wow. You have an amazing ability to pack so many fundamental errors into such a short post.
“You can NEVER add the 324 to the surface energy budget. Because this inferred flux does not add energy to the surface, it does nothing to increase its internal energy.”
Sorry, you MUST add it into the surface energy budget. Otherwise you are “disappearing” this power flux, so you have a gross 1st Law violation. Going back to our host’s original question, what happens to this energy that you are blithely ignoring? How does the surface “know” it should somehow reject this power flux, while accepting others.
“What you’re doing is mixing system interactions into one mishmash. There are two separate system interactions going on here: Sun->surface and surface->atmosphere/space. It is of paramount importance to keep these apart in order to be able to understand what is actually going on, what does what, in the Earth system.”
All of these flows are additive. That is what the concept of energy conservation requires. When you define a system, e.g. the earth with a boundary at its surface, you add ALL of the energy inflows, and subtract ALL of the energy outflows, and the net result is the change in internal energy of the system. Energy accounting is just like financial accounting — your bank account balance reflects all of the income streams and outgoing payments, from whatever source. Take any engineering thermodynamics course, and this kind of energy balance accounting is the first thing they teach you.
Where it is important to break things up is to look at 2nd Law issues. As we note that the warmer surface is transferring more energy to the cooler atmosphere than the atmosphere is to the surface, there is no 2nd Law violation.
You totally misunderstand the role of convective losses to the atmosphere. If the atmosphere had no radiatively active components (say, N2 and O2 only), it would have no ability on an ongoing basis to take energy from the surface, because it would have no way to transfer that energy to the external universe. So if we had 168 W/m2 (or 168+67=235 W/m2 if we allow that this atmosphere would absorb no solar radiation), then once the atmosphere reached the same temperature as the earth’s surface, it could no longer absorb any energy from the surface, and the earth’s surface would reach a temperature where it would radiate away all of the solar power received directly through the atmosphere to outer space.
When you consider the effects of conductive/convective and evaporative losses, you simply get the sign wrong. At your 168W/m2 solar power flux density, the earth’s surface that could ONLY radiate heat away would equilibrate at 233K for 100% emissivity, as you note (or at 235 W/m2, at 255K or -18C). If it had other modes to transfer energy out, it would equilibrate at a lower, not higher temperature.
Or at our present conditions, with an average 390 W/m2 radiative losses from the surface, we also have the 102 conductive/convective losses, and the 66 evaporative losses from the surface. Without these additional outflows from the surface, the earth’s surface would have to be significantly warmer than it is to reach equilibrium with only radiative losses.
Then you make the egregious mistake of invoking the atmosphere’s weight as an ongoing power source to the earth’s surface. The weight is a force, not power. For this force to provide power, it must act over a distance, that is, with velocity. Hydroelectric power is generated from falling water in this manner, but the atmosphere has already “fallen” to the earth’s surface, so it cannot supply any more power from its weight.
Ball4,
This point is also very interesting, it shows how the official theory is damn bad. As it is not possible to obtain the surface temperature radiatively, it uses the lapse rate which is the product of convection while maintaining the purely radiative relations. It is a chimera.
Phi 11:32am – “why on earth do you think it allow to calculate the surface temperature ?”
Because I just did – both for theoretical transparent atmosphere and the real one. A control volume around my living room for energy accounting includes conductive & radiative transfer for sure, gas line in, water lines in, electric lines in, telephone & internet lines in and by convection due some hard to find drafty leaks too. Even I’m radiating, so food in.
Urge you to follow up & read the ref.s. Nothing new or even very complicated. Only radiation gets in/out to space. Earth isn’t connected to utility services. Admit I ignored the ~0.1 W/m^2 from earth internal energy flux density and the warm blooded radiating food energy so there’s that.
Ball4,
No, you did not calculate the surface temperature. See Manabe 1964. Your method does not work. As I wrote in my previous message, the official theory is compelled to use the lapse rate for the surface temperature.
With regard to your living room, the accurate calculation of the temperature actually requires the consideration of radiative phenomena but this represents only a very marginal effect.
A heater tempers your living room and essentially loses heat by conduction. The Earth’s surface is heated by the sun and loses its energy mainly by convection.
Phi – “No, you did not calculate the surface temperature.”
Yes, I did. Exactly the same as Manabe 1964 using fundamental radiative equilibrium.
Manabe 1964 computes surface temperature by detail integration which is more precise for earth (semi-opaque atm.) and has to be used for Venus (opaque atm. at surface). With avg. global cloudiness (my .793), Manabe 1964 computes 286.9K for surface mean in radiative equilibrium.
With 2009 updated numbers for the period March 2000 to May 2004, I find simple, basic radiative equilibrium computes 289.1K surface mean. Over that ~45 years, these amounts agree with the (mostly land surface) thermometer field remarkably well.
Radiative balance works in Manabe 1964 and in Trenberth 2009. For the detail reasons why, I urge you to read Bohren 2006 text p. 33. It won’t work alone in my living room.
NB: The gradient can’t be used alone for surface mean. Need a mean temperature at h=0 or any other troposphere height with the gradient (y=mx+b concept).
Ball4,
Manabe 1964 finds for Ts purely radiative 332.3 K. I don’t know how you tuned a wrong equation to get your numbers.
The gradient is obviously used with a Ti at hi, what is also implicit in my equation : Ts = P * (1 – alpha) / K + (P / sigma) ^ 0.25 which has the advantage not to be a chimera.
Ok, I get your confusion Phi. Manabe 1964 & prior work cited found their earlier analytical integration suffered from too hot at surface (the 332.3K) and too cold upper troposphere from observed unless they allowed for “atmospheric motion in the computations.” To improve their analytical equilibrium integration is what they term “convective adjustment.” So they called the prior work “pure radiation.” This is not to be confused with natural observed radiative equilibrium shown in Trenberth 2009.
Note my Ae = 0.793 is a mean measured from instruments looking up from the surface natural environment and is in between tropics at 0.95 and arctic at 0.7, cloudy & clear sky. So my workout (following Bohren 2006) includes natural observed “atmospheric motion in the computations” and thus already contains “convective adjustment” comparable and just like Manabe’s surface mean 286.9K.
Your formulas are trying to modify the Manabe 332.3K with “mysterious” K factor and alpha: dissipation window to apply the “convective adjustment.” I get it. But those parameters are just heuristic (a chimera if you will), not fundamental principle with measurements as in Bohren 2006 p. 33.
Ball4,
The answer is at the bottom of the thread.
Curt,
I can scarcely believe you just wrote that post you just did. Ditto on the wow. I hardly know where to begin. How is it possible for a grown man to play so childish a game? I expect you to be fully aware of the level of nonsense you’re spouting here, Curt. If not, I feel sorry for you.
“Sorry, you MUST add it into the surface energy budget. Otherwise you are “disappearing” this power flux, so you have a gross 1st Law violation. Going back to our host’s original question, what happens to this energy that you are blithely ignoring? How does the surface “know” it should somehow reject this power flux, while accepting others.”
Have you perchance ever heard of the arithmetic binary operation called SUBTRACTION? Seems like you haven’t. How am I ‘disappearing’ power fluxes (power fluxes that are made up to begin with) when performing this quite simple calculation: 324-390= -66 W/m^2 ?! The -66 W/m^2 being the mean global radiative power flux actually LOST by the surface upon IR exchange with the atmosphere. THE HEAT going from surface UP. If I disappeared the downwelling flux, there would only be the 390 going up. If I disappeared the upwelling, there would only be the 324 going down. Well, there isn’t. There is the 66 going UP.
“All of these flows are additive. That is what the concept of energy conservation requires. When you define a system, e.g. the earth with a boundary at its surface, you add ALL of the energy inflows, and subtract ALL of the energy outflows, and the net result is the change in internal energy of the system. Energy accounting is just like financial accounting — your bank account balance reflects all of the income streams and outgoing payments, from whatever source. Take any engineering thermodynamics course, and this kind of energy balance accounting is the first thing they teach you.”
No, Curt. All of these flows are NOT additive. That’s exactly where the confusion arises. The ‘324 down’ and the ‘390 up’ are NOT fluxes independent from one another. You can’t look at one without including the other. They are nothing but the two conceptually inferred counter-fluxes making up ONE HEAT FLUX going from the surface UP. This heat flux is all we ever really see, Curt. The one we detect. It is the only flux that matters. That is relevant. That is able to do anything, to change the internal energy content of the systems involved. To increase or reduce their temperatures.
Blending separate systems like this into one really shows how you don’t get even the most basic thermodynamic concepts. Read aloud, Curt: ONLY HEAT TRAVELS ACROSS THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN SYSTEMS OF DIFFERENT TEMPERATURES. HEAT IS THE ONLY THING YOU CAN ADD OR SUBTRACT when it comes to internal energy (-> temperature) of thermodynamic systems (disregarding ‘work’) (check out ANY textbook on the subject for confirmation). For the surface of the Earth, you ADD the solar heat flux coming in and you SUBTRACT the terrestrial radiative heat flux going out. Jeez.
“You totally misunderstand the role of convective losses to the atmosphere. If the atmosphere had no radiatively active components (say, N2 and O2 only), it would have no ability on an ongoing basis to take energy from the surface, because it would have no way to transfer that energy to the external universe.”
What would happen if the atmosphere didn’t allow the surface to rid itself of absorbed solar heat through conductive/convective means, Curt? Energy would accumulate. The surface/subsurface has a thermal mass. It can store energy. It would get hotter. By necessity. To restore a thermal gradient surface-atmosphere. Convective heat would once again be transferred to the atmosphere. The atmosphere would get hotter as a result. It would thus expand. And so on.
Don’t go there, Curt. There is very little point in entering the purely hypothetical realm of ‘what if there were no GHGs in our atmosphere’ besides trying to escape direct confrontation with what’s actually going on in the real world. There are many things to consider in such a scenario. The above are just a few. Most would give rise to higher or equal temperatures to what we experience. But it’s all purely hypothetical involving a highly complex set of interacting processes. And it doesn’t concern at all the real Earth system that we live in. GHGs are coolants, not heaters. Like you say, they carry conductive/convective/latent energy constantly brought from the surface to the atmosphere away from the atmosphere to space, they don’t ‘trap’ it or ‘slow’ its release, they facilitate it. N2 and O2 if anything are the gases doing the ‘trapping’ of energy …
“So if we had 168 W/m2 (or 168+67=235 W/m2 if we allow that this atmosphere would absorb no solar radiation) (…)”
So we’re still free to keep the clouds and the ice, then … You know, H2O in liquid and solid form.
“Or at our present conditions, with an average 390 W/m2 radiative losses from the surface, we also have the 102 conductive/convective losses, and the 66 evaporative losses from the surface. Without these additional outflows from the surface, the earth’s surface would have to be significantly warmer than it is to reach equilibrium with only radiative losses.”
What?! The 102 W/m^2 represent the total conductive/convective/evaporative losses (sensible+latent heat transfer). The 66 W/m^2 is the radiative loss. The 390 W/m^2 is … nothing. It’s a made up flux. Calculated simply from assuming the Earth’s surface acts just like a black body in a vacuum radiating to surroundings at 0 K and from knowing its mean global temperature, 288K. S-B equation.
Once again: 102+66= … wait for it … 168 W/m^2. 168 IN, 168 OUT. Balance.
This is so easy, Curt. So basic. So elementary. You don’t need the 390 and 324 fluxes. They’re just put there to twist people’s perception of what’s actually going on. To make them confound individual, opposing energy fluxes in an exchange with the ‘net’ of the two, the heat. The one that really makes a difference. The one that’s actually physically detectable. All you need is the ‘net’ – the 66 W/m^2 of radiative heat flux going UP. Why this insistence on arbitrarily complicating things with postulated, impotent (pointless) individual fluxes in a conceptual continuous energy exchange between two systems at different temperatures, when all you need is the ‘net’, the heat? This has been my point from the start.
“Then you make the egregious mistake of invoking the atmosphere’s weight as an ongoing power source to the earth’s surface. The weight is a force, not power. For this force to provide power, it must act over a distance, that is, with velocity. Hydroelectric power is generated from falling water in this manner, but the atmosphere has already “fallen” to the earth’s surface, so it cannot supply any more power from its weight.”
Hahaha! This simply takes the cake! Do you have a special desire to come off as a fool, Curt? One starts to wonder.
‘Invoking the atmosphere’s weight as an ongoing power source to the earth’s surface.’ Say what?!!!
The surface gains energy from the Sun. It warms up. It needs to shed the energy back out. Being immersed in a medium, this energy will to a large extent be carried away from the surface first by conductive heat transfer to the nearest air molecules and then by concective flow out/up towards cooler/less dense regions. I guess you’re familiar with the natural phenomenon called ‘buoyancy’, Curt. The weight of the atmosphere is a downward force acting on the surface. The buoyancy of a parcel of air is an upward force opposing this downward force. Its magnitude depends on that parcel’s density compared to the surrounding air. If it’s lower, it will rise. To lower the density of a parcel of air just above the ground you would normally heat it. The upward acceleration of this parcel of air, then, depends on the force acting from above (the atmospheric weight) … and the temperature -> density of the air. That means, a greater downward force from above (greater atmospheric weight) requires a lower density and hence a higher temperature (a higher level of kinetic energy) to maintain the same upward acceleration as with a smaller downward force (a lighter atmosphere). So, our surface could not, at -40 degrees (233K), with our particular atmospheric weight, shed energy as fast as it received it from the Sun, because the upward acceleration of the conductively heated air adjacent to the surface would not at all be high enough. So the surface temperature would need to rise. Energy would accumulate. Because it could not escape at an adequate rate.
It’s all about keeping the atmospheric circulation going. The convective engine.
The atmospheric weight RESTRICTS FREE CONVECTIVE (AND EVAPORATIVE) HEAT LOSS FROM THE SURFACE, Curt. And hence forces it to raise its temperature (kinetic energy level) to where it can balance gain with loss. It doesn’t provide any power to the surface. No one ever even hinted at that being the case. That is simply one of the lamest strawmen I’ve seen.
Sorry, I should’ve said above: “That means, a greater downward force from above (greater atmospheric weight) requires [a higher temperature (a higher level of kinetic energy) to acquire the same density gradient between parcel and surrounding air] to maintain the same upward acceleration [for the parcel] as with a smaller downward force (a lighter atmosphere).” Subtle, but important modification.
Phi 5:21pm, 5:24pm – You are still a bit confused on Manabe 1961 and Manabe 1964 terms vs. Trenberthian.
“You can not use the (Manabe 1961) purely radiative theory to get surface temperature.”
Apparently true, at least since Manabe’s pure radiative theory of 1961 work produces an incorrect gradient shown in 1964 Fig. 4 and too hot mean surface T. Their prior 1961 work using “pure radiation” somehow completely disregarded natural convection’s affect on the gradient resulting in the 332.2K surface mean and a too cold troposphere. This 1964 work forces their integration to follow the natural 6.5 K/km gradient to correctly obtain 286.9K surface mean including the natural “convective adjustment.”
Your confusion is Manabe 1961 pure radiative theory with incorrect gradient is NOT Trenberthian radiative equilibrium because Trenberth’s follows 6.5K/km gradient as it is all naturally observed (well, maybe except for the missing 1, LOL).
“Your equation is tuned accordingly…”
Not at all, it uses natural, measured, observed input after Trenberth 2009. There is no tuning term, nothing heuristic – no K factor, no alpha. My simple, basic work out (after Bohren 2006 p. 33) completely & naturally includes the Manabe 1964 “convective adjustment” to arrive at 289.1K because I use as input the 0.793 atmosphere surface emissivity measurement mean that is observed naturally – thus it follows the natural gradient of 6.5K/km of Manabe 1964, NOT the incorrect “pure radiative” gradient of Manabe 1961.
Well, ok, since I don’t understand P and K and alpha, they appear heuristic. P appears to have the units Joule-Kelvin^3 in one of your 9:16am eqn.s and energy flux density (W/m^2) in the other. K & alpha units depend on which of those. And if K can ever be 0, then you can conclude anything you want.
Kristian 5:57pm: “The ’324 down’ and the ’390 up’ are NOT fluxes independent from one another.”
Basic radiative physics shows these fluxes ARE completely independent and combine to form a bath near the planet surface in which thermometers are hanging about 1.5m AGL.
All bodies T>0K radiate. The earth is a body T>0 with 1 surface; this body radiates 390 towards space. The atmosphere is a body T>0 with 2 surfaces; this body radiates/convects/conducts 324 toward the earth body surface and radiates 235 towards space.
The KT97 cartoon is pretty clear.
Ball4,
You use an equation based on a purely radiative physics with a fudge factor to correct for convection and you find it suitable?
The purely radiative model is not compatible with an empirical gradient. And that’s all.
P is obviously in W/m2, I do not see where you get another unit.
I would add that Ti = P / K + (P / sigma) ^ 0.25 is the equation commonly used for sizing furnaces in intergalactic vessels and no traveler complained of incomfort. You find it in all good books on this branch of aeronautics.
Phi –Show me the fudge factor! The simple, basic, slightly rounded balance is suitable as a learning tool for small perturbations. Three things.
1) The equation I use includes natural convection in the standard global atm. The So, albedo are spatial and temporal avg.d over March 2000 to May 2004 after Trenberth. The surface emissivity is a bit rounded up to 1.0 which simply means the eqn. for water transparency is reduced out to complete reflectivity; you could rightly say that is an issue but a small one (0.96 rounded to 1.0). The atm. emissivity is within surface measured limits. This is not a no-convection model. Again, urge you to see details why not by checking the ref. Bohren 2006 p.33.
2) Convection is an internal control volume process; the convective energy does not cross the boundary so there is no explicit convection term in the balance. With natural convection, the satellite measured albedo is 0.3.
3) Boltzmann’s constant (so named despite having been introduced by Planck) “sigma” has units Joules/Kelvin. The second term in your Ti has to have units of Kelvin. For that to happen, it has to be (Joule*Kelvin^3 / J/K) ^ .25 = (Kelvin^4) ^.25 = Kelvin.
Intergalactic vessels? Ok, provide me a good ref. in the branch of aero. using your Ti formula w/page number.
Ball4,
The fudge factor is of course Ae.
Item 1. You can obviously use this formulation for a static case (fixed CO2 concentration). No problem with that.
Item 2. Ts is an internal parameter and nonetheless the one of interest.
Item 3. Sigma is in W*m^2*K^-4.
Intergalactic vessels. The equation is almost identical for bus. But you will find it more certainly in a book of Building Physics, sometimes in a slightly different form.
Sorry, sigma=5.6703E-8 [W*m^-2*K^-4]
Phi 9:13am –
1. Good, no problem now. Ae = 0.793 is from 1 linear eqn. solved for 1 unknown after Trenbeth 09 makes known mean albedo, mean So, mean Teq. and rounding up the surface emissivity to 1.0 in a certain long observation period. It is not a fudge, a bodge or anything of the sort, it corresponds to measured earth data. Again, see the ref. for details.
The static case is very, very stable. You can learn much about that sort of system with small perturbations. Say, Ae going to .79 from 0.793 and/or albedo going to 0.31 from 0.30.
It is simple, basic, you can’t use it for large perturbations to predict the weather next January 15 or even tomorrow.
2. The internal T(p) i.e. T(z) can come from g/Cp approx. or environmental lapse or ideal, exact poisson eqn. once you have Ts (i.e. Teq. near surface where thermometers hang) value from simple balance eqn.
3. Doesn’t change P is in Joule*Kelvin^3 which aren’t all SI base units so just might work around to W/m^2 – I’ll let you show the work whether it does or not.
Ball4,
1.
Ae is a fudge factor because it appears in an equation based on a purely radiative model of atmosphere while its value reflects non-radiative phenomena.
A model that does not allow the change CO2 concentration is certainly very interesting, but not really ideal in the case before us!
2.
The gradient used is empirical.
3.
I don’t know what micmac you do with units, it’s so plain:
P [W*m^-2]
sigma [W*m^-2*K^-4]
(P/sigma)^0.25 [K]
Kristian:
When Jeff started this line of posts about a month ago, I posted a comment on the ridiculousness of trying to discuss thermodynamics with Slayers. You can find it here:
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/a-real-challenge-to-psi/#comment-94699
In reviewing that post now, I realize that you have lived up (down?) to basically every issue I brought up in that comment.
Inability to define systems and subsystems rigorously? Check. You can’t separate out the earth+atmosphere system as a whole, and just the earth (at its surface).
Inability to perform a proper energy balance for any of these systems or subsystems? Check. You laughably claim the 324 W/m2 downward longwave power flux magically disappears (I guess into Doug Cotton’s resonant fog or whatever.)
Inability to analyze the power exchange between two bodies when one of them has a separate power source? Check. You are absolutely unable to comprehend the difference in the power exchange between two bodies when neither has a separate power source (when the warm body gets cooler and the cool body gets warmer) and the case where one of the bodies as a separate power source (when the presence of the cooler body – as opposed to an even colder body – leads to a higher temperature of the warmer body).
When an inconsistency in their arguments is pointed out, a claim that the person who points it out is inconsistent? Check. You don’t accept that the downwelling long wave radiation from the atmosphere can add to the internal energy of the earth’s surface. That leaves you with a huge power imbalance at the earth’s surface. You claim that this can be made up by the weight effects of the earth’s atmosphere. Whether you realize it or not, and no matter how much you try to deny it,implicit in this claim is that this weight can make up for the power imbalance by transferring power to the earth’s surface. It is, of course, a ridiculous claim. But it is your claim, not mine. You just cannot comprehend the ramifications of your arguments.
I could go on, but it is pretty pointless. I do teach this kind of systems analysis at a major university. From time to time, I have to sit down with a student, usually one well more capable than you, that they are just not capable of comprehending the subject material, and would be well advised to pursue a less rigorous course of study.
Kristian 3:55am: “…a conceptual exchange of radiative energy between surface and atmosphere.”
The radiative exchange between surface and atmosphere is entirely physical not just conceptual because all bodies with T>0 radiate. See Bryan’s 1. & 2. And, for the macro world, 3.
Ball4, I said
“Not all Joules are equal in their ability to perform thermodynamic work in a given situation.”
You commented
“Strictly, this is not true. All joules are everywhere and always equal, there are no joule “types”.
This is incorrect, as this example shows
For the photoelectric effect the frequency of the photon is all important.
For photon energy with f > threashold freqency for the work function electrons are emiited.
For photon energy with f < threashold freqency for the work function no electrons are emiited.
So for lower frequency photons no work is done in this case even for very large quantities (or large number of Joules) of such photons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_function
Bryan 12:55pm – The word “joule” is not even found on that page. You will have to try more google fu. Translating into units (you can tell this is my preferred method of parsing a new scholarly science paper, I also first look for possibilities of divide by zero):
For photon joules with f > threashold freqency for the joule function electrons are emiited.
For photon joules with f < threashold freqency for the joule function no electrons are emiited.
So for lower frequency photons no joules is done in this case even for very large quantities (or large number of Joules) of such photons.
I can parse in no way this makes incorrect “All joules are everywhere and always equal, there are no joule “types”.” Wiki:
One joule in everyday life is approximately:
• the energy required to lift a small apple (weighing 100 g) vertically through one meter.
• the energy released when that same apple falls one meter to the ground.
• the energy delivered by a 1 watt solar panel every second.
• the energy transfer required to raise the temperature of 1 g of water 0.24 °C.
• the typical energy released as heat by a person at rest, every 1/60th of a second.
• the kinetic energy of a 50 kg human moving very slowly (0.2 m/s).
• the kinetic energy of a tennis ball moving at 23 km/h (14 mph).
Since the joule is also a Watt-second and the common unit for electricity sales to homes is the kWh (kilo-Watt-hour), a kWh is thus 1000 (kilo) x 3600 seconds = 3.6 MJ (Megajoules).
Ball4
You are a hopeless case.
I have given you textbook links that say not all Joules of energy are equal.
The most obvious being 100 Joules of thermal energy cannot be losslessly changed into 100 Joules of electrical energy.
100 Joules of electrical energy ( high quality energy).
100 Joules of thermal energy (lower quality energy).
All this leads to the Second Law for an explanation
Read section 19.4 of link above.
The textbook link states that the Quality of Energy is as important as the Quantity of Energy
Further the example of the photoelectric effect where endlessly supplying millions of Joules in the form of low frequency radiation will not induce electron flow but a single Joule of higher than threshold frequency radiation can allow electron flow.
There are endless examples of the difference between energy quality allowing processes and prohibiting others.
Your replies are increasing obscure and hard to follow.
Bryan “…losslessly…”
A new word appears, you are making progress. Still, I maintain all joules are equal, no text book link you have provided shows they are not.
Ball4 said
” I maintain all joules are equal, no text book link you have provided shows they are not.”
Read the first three paragraphs of 19.4 of the link I gave you;
Click to access Chapter_19_WOLFSON.pdf
This link flatly contradicts your statement.
You either;
1. Are too lazy to read plain English .
2. Cannot read plain English
3. Just having a laugh, by seeing how far you can spin out an untenable position.
Bryan 3:47pm: Need to read the text to the 4th paragraph, you didn’t bring your A game this time. I’ve already answered once before but I did re-read what you asked. Quote clip 4th paragraph:
“Anything you can do with a joule of energy, you can do with the work.”
“Anything” in context means all joules are equal. Now, as the first 3 paragraphs indicate “Not all temperatures are equal in ability to perform thermodynamic work in a given situation.”
This is what I wrote 11:35am. Re-read my comment as I did for you. Can you re-consider your writing: “Not all Joules are equal in their ability to perform thermodynamic work in a given situation.”?
Pop quiz: Which one of these is the text teaching us:
1) “Not all temperatures are equal in ability to perform thermodynamic work in a given situation.”
2) “Not all Joules are equal in their ability to perform thermodynamic work in a given situation.”
Clearly, 1) is the correct answer from Sec. 19.4 paragraphs 1-3. The text teaches 2) is not strictly correct from the Sec. 19.4 paragraph 4 quote clip above.
Ball4 said
” Now, as the first 3 paragraphs indicate “Not all temperatures are equal in ability to perform thermodynamic work in a given situation.”
You are still refusing to admit that the textbook paragraphs are about the different qualities of energy whether measured in Joules or not.
Who exactly are you trying to kid?
You are now getting confused (or trying to confuse others) by equating thermal energy directly with work.
To show what further nonsense you spout
Temperature is not involved in every energy transformations!
1. What temperature does one hundred Joules of work have?
2. What temperature does one hundred Joules of electrical energy have?
Yet we know that the electrical energy can be turned into shaft work with almost 100% efficiency
The particular temperature does not arise.
So much for your comprehension!
Now on the other hand as the textbook clearly spells out
For thermal energy to be turned into shaft work the temperature of the source and sink are of the upmost importance.
More heat can be transferred ifrom source to sink if the temperature difference is greater
If the sink is at 270K
Then of the 100J transferred from 300K a small fraction will be turned into work.
If the sink is at 270K
Then of the 100J transferred from 3000K a much larger fraction will be turned into work.
I have now spent more than enough time trying to educate you.
I have provided you with a textbook chapter and with a large selection of examples to test your comprehension.
Read the chapter carefully and try all the problems.
Some of them you may find difficult but with a little extra effort you will get through.
You must make some effort yourself if you hope to make any progress
Bryan 7:02pm – I read thru each of the problems actually – it is my habit with a new text, mentally forming a plan to solve them, none of them looked to be very difficult, this is an elementary text. I admit they ARE talking about the temperature effects on the 1 joule of energy quality, why didn’t you ask?
Here, look at Fig. 19.13. See that top block. That’s where “Anything you can
do with a joule of energy” can be done. As you move down along the arrow, see the effects of temperature. That’s all we are discussing. Pretty elementary. Not talking the quantity of energy (1 joule), it is all about the quality. Calm down. Both of us get a better understanding, it is ok.
Kristian, Prof Clas Johnson and myself have all have answered Jeff’s question about what happens to back radiation.
It is well known (and used in thermodynamics for over a century) that it slows the rate of radiative cooling of the warmer surface. Nothing more, nothing less. It supplies electromagnetic energy to the surface which is immediately re-emitted as part of the SBL quota of EM which the surface can radiate. So the surface is not using its own thermal energy for that EM energy, and so it cools more slowly. But it is not transferring the equivalent energy out of the surface. That is why only the difference represents the actual transfer of thermal energy. And that is what has been used in calculations by scientists and engineers for over a century.
Because the electromagnetic energy in the back radiation is not converted to thermal energy in the surface, the rate of non-radiative cooling of the surface is not affected. All this was explained in my March 2012 paper.
You cannot calculate what the surface temperature “ought” to be just by knowing the outward radiative flux, because the non-radiative flux dominates and transfers about twice as much thermal energy from the surface to the atmosphere.
The autonomous temperature gradient held in place by the force of gravity is what determines the supported surface temperature. Neither Jeff nor anyone in the world so far has been able to provide an alternative explanation for the observed temperatures in the atmosphere of Uranus and other planets.
Kristian is right on some points, namely that the atmosphere only sends electromagnetic energy to the surface and it does not transfer heat to warmer regions of that surface.
However, the surface is not always the main source of thermal energy for a planet’s atmosphere. It has very little effect on higher layers. On Venus the surface of the small solid core is very roughly 20,000Km below TOA, so it could hardly be the source of energy for the base of the theoretical troposphere where it is 320K at about 350Km below TOA. There is no Solar radiation reaching down through these 350Km. All the mere 3W/m^2 is absorbed in the uppermost layers.
But the atmosphere on Uranus has got its thermal energy from the Sun over many years and it has stayed hotter and hotter the further down you go. This is not due to any internal source of energy or any long term cooling off from initial temperatures. All the energy has come from the Sun over the life of the planet, and gravity sets up a temperature gradient which is accurately determined by -g/Cp (within ~5%) and thus maintains higher temperatures in the depths. So too on Earth.
“Venus” should be “Uranus” – it’s late at night here – good night!
Even as of today, Principia Scientific International is still publishing an article “The Anthropogenic Global Warming Controversy” which refers to an article by Claes Johnson in which Claes quite incorrectly describes how thermal energy moves downwards in an atmosphere. I have added four comments pointing out the error, and written to Claes (copy John O’Sullivan) pointing out the error. The last of my comments on the PSI thread sums it up, and it’s worth repeating here …
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that thermodynamic equilibrium will evolve spontaneously. In a gravitational field this thermodynamic equilibrium (with greatest accessible entropy) is isentropic. Hence, disregarding chemical and phase changes, the total of the gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy in any small region (even a few pictograms of the atmosphere) will tend towards homogeneity at all altitudes in calm conditions. This can happen by diffusion (conduction between molecules) without any convection. Because PE varies, so will KE, and thus there will be an autonomous temperature gradient.
Thermal energy flows over a sloping temperature plane in a gravitational field in all accessible directions away from any source of new energy which disturbs thermodynamic equilibrium. That, in effect, is what the Second Law says will happen. This is how the base of the troposphere stays warm and supports the surface temperature.
In summary, PSI (and Claes Johnson) are right in saying what I say in my “Radiated Energy” paper of March 2012 about radiation from a cooler blackbody not transferring thermal energy to a warmer blackbody. But they are wrong in endorsing an article such as today’s, which cites what Claes Johnson has said about non-radiative heat transfers in planetary atmospheres.
Ball4
“To improve their analytical equilibrium integration is what they term “convective adjustment.””
So we are in agreement on this point. You can not use the purely radiative theory to get surface temperature. You must also take into account convection. Your equation is tuned accordingly and is wrong because convection is proportional to P.
“But those parameters are just heuristic…”
Precisely not. P * (1 – alpha) is the energy passing through the atmosphere and K is the conductance.
Sorry, the correct sentence should rather be something like : [your equation] is wrong because the tropospheric component of Ts is proportional to P.
Let’s consider some facts. Is the Arctic warming? Yes, like everywhere else, with a long-term trend for 500 years rising out of the Little Ice Age at the rate of about half a degree per century, due to turn to cooling at least within 200 years. But is there a hockey stick? No.
In fact the Arctic is no hotter than it was in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s.
Is there a super-imposed 60 year natural cycle that caused all the alarm during the 30 years of rising prior to 1998? Yes.
But it’s all natural – every bit of it. And it’s nothing whatsoever to do with carbon dioxide, radiative forcing, back radiation, greenhouse effects or any such travesties of physics.
I say that unless you can actually PROVE what you claim then anything you say is merely your opinion and not science at all.
Feynman said – “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
I’m say that there is experimental evidence to suggest that photons from emitted by cold objects DO NOT induce any observable thermal effect when encountering warmer objects !
As evidence suggesting that this is a real observable effect I cite Pictet’s “reflection of cold” experiment performed centuries ago and my own experiments.
There are 2 experiments which show that it is highly unlikely that radiation works in the way you think it does !
I suggest you show an experiment that supports your way of thinking !
Remember – even Einstein did not think we understand radiation.
Prove what you assert – I claim I can PROVE what I claim by simple experiment.
I can’t understand you very well but I can tell you that chucking radiative emissions from cold to warm bodies would require a huge rewrite of modern physics and thermodynamics.
Pictet’s cold reflection is a particularly interesting example that is easily explained in modern physics. It took me a while to figure it out (a long time ago), but it makes perfect sense now. It is simple to understand that placing a thermometer at the second focal point of a mirror with a cold source at the first, creates a large solid angle of low emission toward the thermometer. Rays from the surrounding environment are blocked by the mirror and replaced with lower energy rays from the cold source.
On the topic of cold to hot thermal effects, a bolometer is a temperature sensing device which focuses light onto a thermometer. A bolometer which measures objects colder than itself is an absolute proof of the effect. There are many in production today!
No Jeff. A bolometer measures the rate at which its sensor cools when the object is at a lower temperature. Radiation from a cooler source can only slow that component of cooling which is itself due to radiation. There are other non-radiative cooling processes in action in Pictet’s experiment.
[REPLY: Doug, you are wrong again there is no “rate” involved, the bolometer is a black body sensor which changes resistance with temp. What is frustrating is that you drop these ignorant, 100% un-researched opinions everywhere and won’t even spend 5 minutes reading about the instruments themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolometer
Do you know what a wheatstone bridge is?
I have proven you wrong on this so many, many times. Starting with the fact that they actually exist and ending with how they work. Willful ignorance of reality is no way to live. ]
Yes, it measures its own temperature using change in resistance – so what? It can just as easily measure its own rate of cooling from such temperature measurements, and it does. Don’t worry – I have done the research – now you need to.
Anyway, enjoy reading how a recent article on PSI has been rubbished by yours truly and others. Go to my climate – change – theory (dot) c o m website (leave out spaces) and then to the page with screen captures of deleted commnets. Note that Monckton also pointed out errors by Alberto Miatello, PSI new “expert”/sarc
Doug, You have not done the most basic work yet. You need to answer the basic questions of thermodynamics which PSI’s fake theory creates and they create a lot more than they answer. It is a fake theory because each of you has a different reason for saying the same thing.
It is an incorrect theory because it is debunked by the fact that the bolometer sensor has no idea which photons to reject and which to accept. Just what does happen to that photon in the question above?
[snipped again. I’m tired of your spam loser.]
Yawn….
Dear rock, how do you know your own altitude?
The answer is – It does not. The rock only “knows” in which direction it will fall, and at what rate of acceleration. It can not possibly “know” how long it will fall for.
Gravity alone does not explain the lapse rate.
Bye bye “Loschmidt”.
Well I can’t leave a comment at the insane asylum for some reason. Perhaps Kenji will lend her login to me.
haven’t had a blog war in a long time. Perhaps later tonight!
They’re letting me post for now, although they often remove my comments.
If Postma can refer to a post of yours from 2013, I can refer to one of his from the same year:
http://principia-scientific.org/introducing-climate-pseudophysics-a-phun-physics-challenge/
It’s an unbelievably stupid post that shows he can’t understand that an unpowered device will attain a steady state temperature equal to ambient, or that the steady state temperature of a powered device must be above ambient so it can reject power to ambient. Two of the most basic concepts in thermodynamics, and he gets them totally wrong!
PSI is funny because it’s a whole group of morons who aren’t bright enough to know they’re dim. It’s a bit like kicking puppies but with the craziness going on in the world, I could use a good outlet.
Jef, It’s been passed on to me that you’ve made your new ‘blog war’ comment here – an old thread from 2013 in reaction to a new PSI post. I recall that back then we had the ugly sight of Spencer, Watts et al with their ‘put up or shut up’ anti-science challenge when Watts did those ‘experiments’ to prove the GHE. Nowhere then or since have you lot refuted the alternative energy balance diagram we put forward.
Surely, if you lukewarmists destroyed us PSI ‘morons’ years ago why revisit the corpse?
All the best,
John: If you’re going to refer to something you posted 4 years ago, it’s only common courtesy and common sense to provide a link to the post. Why haven’t you?
Above, I posted a link to Joe Postma’s post from that year. Do you agree with his assertions that it’s ridiculous to assert that an unpowered device will attain a steady state temperature equal to ambient, or that the steady state temperature of a powered device must be above ambient? Is that what your “alternative energy balance diagram” shows?
Um…. I’m reliving because the reply is in reference to the link from a brand new march 27,2017 psi post … that I um …. replied to … right here in this thread….. where it showed up.
wow.
I suppose that what you are implying is that since PSI wasn’t destroyed in the interim years(i.e. the originators failed to learn thermodynamics), that I somehow should have looked more closely at a bunch of improperly designed thermodynamic experiments/models to prove them wrong to the same thermodynamic morons who didn’t get the basics the first time?
What is the point of it. You don’t know thermo, it baffles you, it ain’t my fault! It is also not my responsibility to teach it to you but even if it WERE my responsibility to teach it to you, I would refuse because you are a student who will not listen. Education is a two way street John, and you have stopped receiving.
https://climateofsophistry.com/2017/01/06/slayer-live-webcast-there-is-no-radiative-greenhouse-effect-jan-10-10am-mst/
https://climateofsophistry.com/2017/02/07/slayer-youtube-how-the-flat-earth-error-occured/
https://climateofsophistry.com/2017/02/10/absorption-spectra-are-not-greenhouse-effects/
Climate alarm, climate science, the radiative greenhouse effect…literally flat Earth physics! LOL
I guess you guys should study up and add the radiative greenhouse effect to the things that prove that the Earth is flat!
http://www.atlanteanconspiracy.com/2015/08/200-proofs-earth-is-not-spinning-ball.html
Education is a gift to be accepted.
Rembrandt:
Some people get entertainment from the train-wreck lives of celebrities. I get entertainment from train-wreck technical presentations from people who have absolutely no clue about the subject. Joe Postma is one of my favorite sources of this entertainment. He rarely disappoints.
In the post I linked above, he thought it was absurd that an unpowered electrical device would achieve a steady-state temperature equal to ambient, whatever ambient was. He also thought it was absurd that the steady-state temperature of a powered electrical device must be above ambient, so it can transfer heat to ambient equal to the input power. These are completely trivial concepts that he cannot comprehend at all!
In his presentation from your first link, he reaches the conclusion (second-to-last slide, IIRC) that that rate of heat transfer Q from the sun to the earth is zero, because the earth is in (roughly) steady-state condition. I almost fell off my chair laughing at that one!
He makes a big deal of the strawman issue that the simple conceptual diagrams illustrating the earth’s various power flows use average values — he calls this the “flat earth” fallacy. If he had any experience in thermodynamics, he would realize that virtually everyone uses average values to get a first approximation, then go on to get more precise.
Joe is absolutely wrong when he asserts that the detailed climate models use the “flat earth” average. They have many problems, but not this one. Most update about every 15 minutes, and go through the trig to figure out the insolation for each grid square for that period. You can look at the source code of several of them to see this!
In arguing against the “flat earth” averaging, Joe demonstrated that he doesn’t even understand how his oven works (I’m not going to track down the link). Any gas or electric oven works by on/off control with a duty cycle, something he asserted was absolutely not the case.
I don’t see how anyone with the slightest technical sense or knowledge can take the guy seriously.