So much of the IPCC argument is based on uncertainty. Nic Lewis has been working rather tirelessly on improving climate science’s understanding of the observation based magnitude of warming from CO2. This time he teamed up with Judith Curry and published a new paper establishing a far tighter uncertainty range for climate sensitivity to CO2 based warming. The answers they show are substantially lower than the IPCC model based estimates and in my opinion substantially more credible. See Nic’s article describing their results at climate audit here.
the Air Vent 
Thank you, Nic Lewis and Judith Curry, for showing that climatology is compatible with the scientific method and intellectual integrity.
Unfortunately, that trait is necessarily richly rewarded in competition for research funds.
Correction:
. . . that trait is NOT necessarily richly . . .
Obama’s UN speech is not getting favorable reviews:
http://junkscience.com/2014/09/25/obamas-un-climate-speech/
Thanks to the power of TRUTH, The House of Cards Collapses:
http://centinel2012.com/2014/09/28/a-doj-original-series/comment-page-1/
Thanks to the keen analytical mind and persistence of Steven Goddard (aka Tony Heller), it appears now that definitive data has finally settled the AGW debate:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/the-definitive-data-on-the-global-warmingclimate-change-scam/
Now almost five years after Climategate emails surfaced, the future seems very bleak, . . .
but the Creator, Destroyer and Sustainer of every atom, life and world in the solar system will – in its own time – sweep away the force of darkness that engulfed the globe in 1945:
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-8355
I cannot say when, but ancient teachings and scriptures of various religions all tend to agree that “Truth is victorious, never untruth.”
Thanks to you, Jeff, and a few brave other souls like E.M. Smith, Professor Curry and Steven Goddard (aka Tony Heller), the curtain has finally been pulled on the postmodern Wizard of Oz:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/visualizing-how-corrupt-giss-has-become/#comment-439918
We don’t “have control, influence, or impact on the climate” for one key reason. The gravito-thermal effect (first explained by the brilliant 19th century physicist, Josef Loschmidt, and never correctly disproved by people like Robert G.Brown of WUWT fame) has been overlooked.
All the energy diagrams have major flaws:
(1) They imply that solar energy absorbed by the surface comes back out of the surface in the same region, thus playing a part in determining local temperature. That is simply not the case for more than half the surface which is the thin surface of the oceans in non-polar regions. That surface is hotter than the floor of the ocean, and so there is significant downward diffusion of thermal energy which then does not surface again until it reaches the polar regions. Furthermore, most of the solar radiation passes right through that thin transparent layer, warming lower regions in the thermocline from where the energy continues its downward trend.
(2) Back radiation only slows that portion of this ocean surface cooling which is by upward radiation. It does not slow evaporative cooling or upward conduction, diffusion and convection. Nor does it have any effect on the cooling caused by downward diffusion to the depths of the ocean in these non-polar regions where nearly everyone lives on land that is affected by nearby ocean temperatures. Nor does back radiation help the Sun to raise the temperature in the first place, as is implied in the way climatologists use the Stefan-Boltzmann Law.
There is obviously a huge amount of “missing energy” that must be entering the ocean surface. There is indeed, and it comes from downward diffusion (“heat creep”) which is restoring thermodynamic equilibrium, just as the Second Law of Thermodynamics says will happen. The energy diagrams don’t show this.
Jeff, I’m trying to reconcile what Robert G Brown (physicist at Duke) has said about the chaotic nature of climate with Nic’s work. I don’t pretend to be able to follow all of it, but it seems that these efforts which purport to estimate climate sensitivity have to make an assumption of linearity that Brown fundamentally rejects. [and perhaps i am using ‘linearity’ improperly], To state the question differently, Brown paints a picture of a chaotic system whose responses to forcings may vary dramatically depending on initial conditions (which are unknown), If true, attempting to estimate sensitivity as a constant would appear to reject Brown’s view of the chaotic system (or at least require the assumption that the system can be treated as linear over the range of time and temp involved).
Hopefully you can make some sense of what I am trying to ask and educate me. Thanks.
Or maybe a different angle — negative feedbacks. If climate is typical of most natural systems with negative feedbacks, wouldn’t its response to a forcing depend on relative positioning vis-a-vis its natural state? If so, it wouldn’t seem to make any sense to talk about sensitivity as some constant value.
Stan,
I’m not familiar with Robert Brown’s argument about the chaotic nature of climate. I did just do a search on his name and found that he said ensembles of models are statistically meaningless. While I appreciate his point that from a scientific perspective, the quality of averages and standard deviations have little meaning for models which are based on independent information, I believe he is incorrect in his absoluteness of his opinion. The trends in models are generally based on the big CO2 knob installed in the middle so the ensemble of models and the separation of observation from model means, are most definitely evidence that the central assumption is out of whack. The CI is an indication of how bad the assumption is. From a social science perspective, the central assumption of large CO2 warming is not independent. Rather than throw out the stats entirely from such ensemble based papers, perhaps he should reconsider his blanket statement from a social science perspective and consider what that means for the entire body of climate model work.
On your point of a chaotic climate, nothing in Nic/Judiths paper precludes a major unexpected pattern shift in climate response. It does make the assumption that in the observed timeperiod of over a century the climate reacted the way we have seen. Beyond that, they have really not made any conclusion regarding longer timescale chaotic climate. I’m no expert on the future but it is easy to imagine an ocean current pattern that can turn all of the warming we could hope for right on its head and send us into an ice age which our current understanding of CO2 warming could not hope to stop. With that recognition, there is obviously room for a middle ground of unexpected influences on temperature. (along the lines of Trenberth’s missing heat..It works in both directions.) If that is the chaos Dr. Brown refers to, I think he’s right.
“This is a hard problem. Not settled science, not well understood, not understood. There are theories and models (and as a theorist, I just love to tell stories) but there aren’t any particularly successful theories or models and there is a lot of competition between the stories (none of which agree with or predict the empirical data particularly well, at best agreeing with some gross features but not others). One part of the difficulty is that the Earth is a highly multivariate and chaotic driven/open system with complex nonlinear coupling between all of its many drivers, and with anything but a regular surface. If one tried to actually write “the” partial differential equation for the global climate system, it would be a set of coupled Navier-Stokes equations with unbelievably nasty nonlinear coupling terms — if one can actually include the physics of the water and carbon cycles in the N-S equations at all. It is, quite literally, the most difficult problem in mathematical physics we have ever attempted to solve or understand! Global Climate Models are children’s toys in comparison to the actual underlying complexity, especially when (as noted) the major drivers setting the baseline behavior are not well understood or quantitatively available.”
This is just part of a real long explanation.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/22/a-response-to-dr-paul-bains-use-of-denier-in-scientific-literature/
Stan,
Robert G. Brown, whom you mention, does not understand thermodynamics. His very weak attempt to refute the gravito-thermal effect completely overlooks the fact that the gradient is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium. If you add a wire between the top and bottom of a cylinder of gas, you merely make a different composite system which then has a new state of thermodynamic equilibrium, and certainly no perpetual cycle of thermal energy. As Loschmidt explained, the temperature gradient has a propensity to form in solids, liquids and gases, but it is reduced in magnitude by intermolecular radiation, and probably obliterated altogether with all the radiation in liquid water. It is also over-ridden by excessive absorption of new energy such as in the stratosphere and the ocean thermocline.
These are the facts (based on correct physics and empirical evidence) which smash the greenhouse radiative forcing conjecture …
(1) Gravity forms a temperature gradient (and a density gradient) in the tropospheres of all planets with significant atmospheres, including gas giants. This is a direct corollary of the process described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
(2) Back radiation can only slow radiative cooling back to the atmosphere. The thin surface layer of the oceans in non-polar regions also cools by non-radiative processes both into the atmosphere and, as usually overlooked, also by downward diffusion and convection which are both towards the colder regions found at the base of the ocean thermocline. That energy only gets back to the surface in polar regions, and so it does not affect the temperature of the ocean surfaces in non-polar regions – probably about half of Earth’s surface.
(3) Solar radiation cannot possible raise the temperature of that thin surface layer of the ocean to the observed temperatures, because over 90% of the radiative flux is warming layers below that, and you can’t double count it. You must only enter into Stefan-Boltzmann calculations less than 10% of the solar flux reaching the surface, which is about 10% of 161W/m^2 on average. In fact, that mean flux of 161W/m^2 would only support a temperature of about 235K even if the Earth were paved in black asphalt for which emissivity is 0.93. Check it with an on-line Stefan Boltzmann calculator. Back radiation cannot be added to solar flux when determining the surface temperature and, in fact, it does not penetrate warmer water by more than a few nanometres. Its electro-magnetic energy is pseudo scattered and is never converted to thermal energy in the warmer water.
(4) Empirical evidence proves the existence of the gravito-thermal effect, and it would warm the Earth’s surface to a mean of about 295K to 300K but for the fact that water vapour reduces the magnitude of the gradient (aka dry/wet adiabatic lapse rate) and leads to supported temperatures about 10 to 12 degrees cooler. These temperatures in the base of the troposphere slow down and even stop the surface cooling in the early pre-dawn hours, regardless of radiation losses which are balanced by “heat creep” diffusion and conduction back into the surface. These non-radiative transfers of thermal energy occur as a result of the Second Law of Thermodynamics as they are restoring thermodynamic equilibrium. They are most prevalent into the ocean surfaces during sunlit hours and especially on cloudy days.
Go away.
Assuming for the sake of argument that you are correct, why does the atmospheric temperature rise with height in earth’s stratosphere
http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter1/vert_temp_all.html
and on Titan above 50 km.?
http://storm.colorado.edu//~tfan/index.files/page0003.htm
The rate of absorption dominates and the slower process of diffusion is over-ridden.
Somewhere a rock has an empty basement.
Could someone help me out here? I have been trying to follow the logic and math of the ECS argument (lightheartedly), but I am obviously missing something conceptually.
All of the Global warming from the 1970’s to 2000 was due to CO2, but most of the warming has been sequestered deep in the ocean. We are just observing the tip of the warming iceberg that might take a thousand years to fully manifest itself and that is why it is so hard to come up with a good ECS number?
I am the anonymous above. Just getting back from sailing in the Bahamas and Caribbean (and taking temperature and radiation measurements).
My understanding is that heat of this magnitude absorbed in the ocean is never really going to manifest itself because the temp rise of the water is so small.
RE Jeff Id: Important aspect your notion above (3 at 10:30): “…..it is easy to imagine an ocean current pattern that can turn all of the warming we could hope for right on its head and send us into an ice age…”.
It might have even been tested by man, if interpret a text from A.J. Drummond, A. J., 1943, “Cold winters at Kew Observatory, 1783-1942”, Q.JoR.MetSoc, p17f, saying: “Since comparable records began in 1871, the only other winters as snowy as the recent three (1939-1942), were those of the last war, namely 1915/16, 1916/17, and 1917/18.” If war activities caused the same weather extremes, climate change may happen quickly.
I agree with you Jeff, but I think the ECS theory is that the heat comes back with a vengeance. I know, I know, face palm time.
Incidentally I have now taken hundreds of ocean surface temperature measurements at night with an IR Gun and have never seen the surface temperature rise due to increased clouds even though the atmospheric radiation increased by over 130 watts.
I think it is pretty clear evidence that the ocean surface increases its rate of evaporation in response to increased long wave radiation which is not capable of penetrating more than a few microns.
Wake up, snip Doug….repeat.
Others can see if they get emails of my commenst before Jeff removes them that he is chickening out because he has no answer to my points. [snip]
JEFF: You have shown yourself to be a propagandist for too long Doug. I spent months convincing you of things everyone else here already knew. It seems that over a year later you have accepted most of those points and I’m glad to see your message is changing to something different, but it is still flat wrong. Keep working on it and like I keep telling you ———- read more, write less.
I have not changed a thing in my “message” pertaining to radiation….[snip again] [Jeff -As I recall, you wouldn’t even admit bolometers existed when this started.. I seem to remember no such thing as back-radiation was a common theme per Claes Johnson or some such bullshit. You don’t have the physics chops to play here Doug. ]
OT: Jeff and others, if you ever wanted a chance to direct comments or questions to Ben Santer, this may be an opportunity. Can’t say he will stick around for follow-up, but Santer showed up to make a critical comment at WUWT (it does appear really to be him, judging from the detail in the comment and the specific anecdote related):
Ben Santer comment at WUWT
To other followers of Jeff: Note that he only ever writes in narcissistic tones that he’s right and I’m wrong. [JEFF- Doug, I spent months explaining to you in the past to very little effect. You can pretend it didn’t happen as you do with so much of physics, but it did. ]
You are so predictable Jeff – never able to discuss the thermodynamics. You run this blog as a propaganda site pushing the CO2 hoax and just snipping all arguments for which you have no valid answer or valid physics that rebukes such. Well you won’t be getting the $5,000 reward that way. Those who have read my book “Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All” realise it is correct physics therein – as you could see from reviews on Amazon.
Doug,
I spent months discussing thermodynamics with you. You have shown yourself incapable of grasping the most basic concepts or how your concepts differ from standard physics. Also, I don’t know what “reward” you are talking about but 5K isn’t a very interesting use of my time.
There was no discussion then about the critical issue of thermodynamic equilibrium and the consequent gravitationally induced density and temperature gradients.
If the Earth were covered with asphalt (emissivity 0.88) then all the Sun’s direct radiation with a mean of 161W/m^2 could do is raise the surface temperature to minus thirty five degrees C – yes -35C.
Then you say that the back radiation almost trebles the thermal energy delivered to the surface. So you get far more energy out of the base of the troposphere than you put in at the top, and 30% of that is reflected anyway. But unless the energy delivered to the surface were that much (and the ocean surfaces were not transparent) then your Stefan-Boltzmann calculations don’t explain the observed temperatures. They never could explain the temperatures on Uranus anyway – there’s different physics operating there you think. You are just so gullible Jeff my boy.
Why don’t you try leaving my comments intact and asking your disciples to argue the point with me?
And I Jeff have spent many thousand of hours studying and thinking about what really does explain all planetary temperatures. And my time is unpaid and my book left me out-of-pocket $3,000. I put my money where my mouth is. You put your mouth where the money is.
Well I own a “green” company and the very fact that I run this blog is a huge financial liability. A hell of a lot more than 3 or 5K. The fact that the climategate link was publicly picked up here first and that I was contacted by british press simply to out my name is enough risk for me. What I won’t do is stomp around selling fake physics to hopeful minds looking for a quick fix to the global warming nonsense our media subjects us to.
As always it seems, you need to read more, write less.
So you admit you make money from green energy which of course depends heavily upon maintaining the status quo. Try to prove your physics – step by step, and I’ll show you precisely the laws of physics which are violated in your fissics. Where is your study confirming from world temperature records that the greenhouse gas water vapour warms more moist regions considerably more than dry regions, as the radiative greenhouse conjecture claims? I have shown with valid physics why the very first assumption in the GH garbage science (about isothermal conditions) is wrong. Show me isothermal conditions in the troposphere of Uranus, for example. You’re all talk and no physics, Jeff. Your income depends on fake physics, as I have proved. There’s not a single point in my book which you have successfully rebuked with valid physics that you can show to be supported by standard statements of the laws of physics. .
“So you admit you make money from green energy which of course depends heavily upon maintaining the status quo. ” –NO
“Your income depends on fake physics, as I have proved” — NO
“There’s not a single point in my book which you have successfully rebuked ” — How can I rebut what I haven’t read? I’m not going to pay to read Douggie’s mathematically unintelligible ranting, who would?
One cannot make anything except fiction and computer programs that utilize fake physics. There are no physical items with objective existance that are based on fake physics.
Rob Ellison (on J Curry) writes “The physics is quite simple” and that epitomises the attitude of smug warmists and lukes who do indeed think it is quite simple, whereas in fact it’s not. Hardly anyone understands thermodynamic equilibrium and entropy, and so they lap up James Hansen’s (cum IPCC’s) school-boy “fissics” and think it’s all too simple.
Well explain with your “quite simple” physics why the temperature at the base of the nominal troposphere of the planet Uranus is hotter than Earth’s surface even though Uranus is nearly 30 times further from the Sun and displays no convincing evidence of any internal energy generation or long term cooling.
The correct physics which explains the observed temperatures throughout the Solar System has so far only appeared in two publications in the whole of world literature to my knowledge. Each of us wrote the same explanation independently around the end of 2012. The radiative greenhouse conjecture certainly fails dismally and cannot explain anything correctly because radiation into a planet’s surface (if there even is one) is not the primary determinant of the temperature at the base of its troposphere.
What Nick Lewis, Judith Curry and Jeff need to learn is that, whilst radiation does indeed transmit electro-magnetic energy, only some of that EM energy is converted to thermal energy if and only if the target is cooler than the source of spontaneous radiation. The thermal energy thus derived from EM energy is represented by the area between the Planck functions of the warmer source and the cooler target. And because SBL is based on the integral of the Planck function, this result is numerically the same as what has been used by scientists, engineers etc all along. All this was written two and a half years ago in my March 2012 paper.
Because of the above, only Solar radiation can play a part in warming Earth’s surface. But only a mean of 161W/m^2 reaches Earth’s surface, and that is nowhere near enough, especially when considering the thin transparent surface layer of the oceans in non-polar regions. The greenhouse conjecture is thus smashed and a totally different paradigm represents reality on all planets.
Your anticipated sceptical questions or remarks have already been answered/rebuked in my book “Why It’s Not carbon Dioxide After All” and/or my paper “Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.”
Back radiation penetrates barely a few nanometres into a water surface layer. That is because it is immediately re-emitted by molecules very close to the surface. It raises electrons between quantum energy states and they immediately emit their share of the overall Planck function for the water surface. The radiation “resonates” because it is indeed the same as radiation which the water can emit itself. But if any such radiation comes from a warmer source (very rare in the troposphere) that portion of its EM represented by the extra area between the Planck functions of the warmer source and cooler water would be converted to thermal energy because the water cannot emit such radiation at the frequency and intensity it received.
And don’t forget, even the Solar radiation does not explain the temperature of the thin surface layer of the oceans in non-polar regions. Most of the energy goes into deeper, colder regions in the thermocline, and then exits in polar regions. So the temperatures of the vast majority of the ocean surfaces cannot be explained by Solar radiation, let alone back radiation.
Jeff Id,
Please snip the two creep/kooks.
You and your blog deserves better.
Respectfully,
hunter
When you present valid physics which successfully refutes what I have written as a result of thousands of hours of research and original thought into all this, then perhaps I’ll leave this backwater blog. There are other busier blogs I write on, as well as over 150 Facebook climate groups. I appreciate the fact that Jeff stands to lose a lot when the hoax is exposed, but he got himself into his green company without due diligence in checking the validity of what is totally false physics on several counts. I take it you also have a vested interest in supporting the hoax.
Jeff – just as you were first with the climategate link, you could potentially be the first blog to acknowledge the validity of the gravito-thermal effect and the resulting “heat creep” downward diffusion and advection which supplies the necessary (and missing) thermal energy to planetary surfaces, like those of Earth and Venus, and you could be among the first to realise that the physics and the study of 30 years of temperature data from three continents (also in my book) are correct. They have stood the test of countless challenges this year on many major blogs and FB climate groups and no one has proved the physics I have presented to be incorrect,. You can see none of you readers, nor yourself, can do so. But I would suggest you make an effort to study and understand it first. I’m not interested in money for my book. I offer to post it free to you or anyone showing a genuine interest if they email me a postal address to its.not.CO2@gmail.com Only one other author has independently come up with the same explanation which gels with all temperature data throughout the Solar System.
Doug, The blog was popular at the time and the person who actually is responsible for what has become such a key event in government science picked here as one of the places to drop the link. Just like you getting through, the link dropped uncensored onto the internet and got noticed. I had very little do do with it but it is a non-zero risk for a business owner and that goes to the point of putting your money where your mouth is.
What I can’t figure out is why you believe you are the discoverer of the dry-adiabatic lapse rate, now inappropriately renamed gravito-thermo effect. I can’t really ask you though because I did take the time to discuss with you your ideas in the past and discovered the true depth of your physics understanding. It wasn’t pretty Doug. You became so upset at not being right that you even threatened to sue. My understanding is that you even got kicked out of the exclusive sky dragons club over it. Why do you expect me to keep trying to teach you?
” I appreciate the fact that Jeff stands to lose a lot when the hoax is exposed, but he got himself into his green company without due diligence in checking the validity of what is totally false physics on several counts. ”
No, no, no Douggie. Our company makes the worlds most energy efficient products in our class. We did it to save cost not CO2. Personally, I couldn’t care less about CO2 emission because I don’t beleive it is any danger whatsoever, but energy efficiency for purposes of cost is a fine goal. The fact that greens see it as a good thing with respect to CO2 is obviously not something I can control. Still, the left is extraordinarily vindictive against corporations they don’t like and a loud and at one time, popular, anti-green blog is definitely a liability.
So again we find you miss the point — how surprising.
BTW, this backwater blog isn’t being used but it is known and when I used to have time it had more visitors to than my hometown newspaper and it was a lot of fun. Lately, your influence has done nothing but damage to the blog. Hunter is right about snipping you. If I believed in supporting a skeptic message, rather than just telling the truth, you have done a fair amount of damage to rational skepticism as well. Although I never intended to support a message or a side, I still believe you have been an unfortunate jackass in any discussion.
You have hardly been repressed here. I believe the Air Vent probably gave you more actual engaged discussion time than any other internet outlet. From my opinion Doug, you have shown yourself to be a low-level thinker without the depth to speak at even the most basic levels of science. In addition, you are enough of a narcissist that you cannot admit error. Do bolometers exist that can measure temperatures below the level of the sensor? Were you right or wrong? The combination of your personality traits are actually scary as it makes you unpredictable. Didn’t you threaten to sue me the last time I showed you were wrong? As far as I know, you may even be prone to violence when people disagree with you. Is my family in danger from you or is this just your crazy internet personality? (douggie’s Id?)
Anyway, my recollection is that you live in Australia which is far enough from here that we may be safe.
Jeff,
Why allow the kooks and creeps so much room?
I don’t know.
Jeff Id,
Your transparency and honesty is what makes this blog so good. That certain kooks have abused those traits is unfortunate.
If a molecule has an upward component in its free path movement between collisions then some of the translational kinetic energy in that molecule (M.Cp.dT) supplies the additional gravitational potential energy (M.g.dH) that it acquires by virtue of its additional altitude. Vice versa for downward motion. Equate the two and you have the temperature gradient dT/dH = g/Cp which should not be hard to understand.
Because the laws of physics can be used to explain this gravitationally induced temperature gradient, the fact that the surface temperature of a planet is higher than the radiating temperature of the planet is fully explained (and confirmed empirically) by this autonomous temperature gradient.
[snip irrelevant and unrelated ghg comment – jeff]
I’ve asked this about 6 times now Doug. You have ignored my question. What makes your theory of the dry adiabatic lapse rate any different than the normal dry adiabatic lapse rate they taught us in college? Why do you think your version is new?
Well I answered, but it disappeared.
No you didn’t Doug. You have never answered my question.
I’ll try again …
Why is what I say new, Jeff? [because it is not called the gravito-thermal effect, it is called the dry adiabatic lapse rate. –JEFF]
The gravito-thermal effect was first explained in the 19th century. The resulting downward convection restoring thermodynamic equilibrium and supplying the missing energy needed to support planetary surface temperatures has only been explained in the 21st century by myself and, as I subsequently discovered, also by another author independently.
Not the answer. I asked what is the difference between your theory and the normal dry adiabatic lapse rate.
I’ll just copy yesterday’s letter which explains what’s wrong with the GH conjecture,
[snip — no you won’t, you must answer my question instead. You have not receive permission to pontificate simply because I responded.]
Your question was “Why do you think your version is new?”
My answer is: Because the temperature gradient does not form by way of direct solar radiation heating a planet’s surface and then warmed air rising, expanding and cooling as it does. My hypothesis explains that the gravito-thermal effect is itself a process (not a temperature gradient) occurring at the molecular level which leads to convection in all accessible directions away from a new source of thermal energy. If a planet has no surface (such as at the base of the Uranus troposphere) the difference is very obvious because convection goes upwards on the dark side and downwards from TOA on the sunlit side. The temperature gradient is restored and maintained as molecules interchange KE and gravitational PE whilst in free flight between collisions.
So you are stating that your idea is not new and are of the belief that Loshmidt had the right answer correct?
[snip again — non responsive — jeff]
Footnote: This comment will now be posted on about six other blogs quoting your question as I don’t like wasting my time on just one blog, unless you deign to run an article on the content of my book and not delete any of my comments thereon. I may do likewise with any future such questions and answers in the interests of disseminating correct physics and gradually wearing down the greatest error ever made since the flat Earth garbage.
[If you won’t answer my question, you should move on. It is a simple question to understand your position. If you actually have something to add, you can answer the simple question with two words instead of a non-responsive book. — Jeff]
Of course I answered your question. I have indicated Loschmidt was correct in numerous comments. [JEFF – you did not mention anything about Loschmidt in your reply, nor whether youo agreeed. You did NOT answer my question and I’m not going to read your endless blog spam for answers.]
[snip – not responsive or on topic.]
What is your point in asking such a question which I have answered in various earlier comments?
[Surprisingly enough, most readers don’t pay attention to you. Until today, I certainly haven’t spent even 5 minutes in the last 3 months trying to understand your comments. I’m bored so I’m asking very specific questions which require specific answers. If you don’t wish to answer, you don’t have to, but I’m not going to allow links to books or non-responsive comments copied from other topics.]
I find Loschmit’s argument intriguing. There is some serious fun in there but it is unrelated to GHG warming. We will have that discussion later if you can learn to answer specific questions.
You understand that Loschmidt’s gradient is caused by conductive heat transfer and is not directly related to convection right?
You asked: “You understand that Loschmidt’s gradient is caused by conductive heat transfer and is not directly related to convection right?”
Answer: Yes for solids. No for liquids and gases.
Footnote:
In physics “convection” means both diffusion and advection. I use the term in that sense.
The Loschmidt temperature gradient is totally and utterly related to the temperature of a planet’s troposphere, surface, crust, mantle and core, as I have explained. Read the comment I just copied from Roy Spencer’s thread if you want to understand why, or just read my book and save us both a lot of time.
[snipped remainder — I don’t intend to read off-topic bs comments copied from other discussions. If you cannot take time to discuss like a human, you are on your own. — Jeff]
A more detailed answer:
In gases: In the troposphere diffusion and advection (that is convection) form and maintain the gravitationally induced gradient. Being a slow process, the rate of absorption of new energy over-rides this in the stratosphere. The state of thermodynamic equilibrium has a g/Cp gradient in pure non-radiating gases like nitrogen and oxygen. But inter-molecular radiation has a temperature levelling effect. In the troposphere of Earth water vapour thus reduces the gradient by about a third in magnitude when the overall state of thermodynamic equilibrium is reached. The reduction in magnitude depends on the percentage of water vapour, so moist regions are cooler than drier similar regions.
In liquids: In the oceans there is a far higher concentration of water molecules and so inter-molecular radiation appears to obliterate the gradient.
In solids: Earth’s outer crust (say 10Km deep where bore hoies have reached) exhibits the estimated temperature gradient. In the mantle the specific heat becomes much larger due to the temperature, and this explains the lower gradient. It does not matter whether or not internally generated energy coming from mass supplies enough energy because the Sun’s energy will “creep” up the thermal profile restoring thermodynamic equilibrium if the core starts to cool.
Thus the Sun maintains all temperatures in all planets and satellite moons in the Solar System. The scalar sum of the angular momentum of the Sun and all the planets appears to regulate natural 934 year and 60 year climate cycles. [snip end nonsense again. — jeff]
So, since the discussion related to AGW is about gasses, do you agree that convection is so dominant in atmospheric energy transport compared to conduction in air, that conduction can be generally ignored for purposes of calculating the temperature gradient?
I don’t intend to refer you to irrelevant comments. I don’t write bs thank you, and there is a lot you could learn if you deign to try to understand what I have explained in great detail in the book which I would happily send you gratis if you send a postal address to email: [snip the rest – jeff]
[Doug, you do write BS quite regularly although you haven’t figured it out, however, that by itself doesn’t preclude any potentially correct points. So with that in mind, I have spent too much time trying to understand your argument and have patiently read it tonight.
You asked: “do you agree that convection is so dominant in atmospheric energy transport compared to conduction in air, that conduction can be generally ignored for purposes of calculating the temperature gradient?”
Response: Your terminology is not correct. Conduction and convection are both caused by transfer of kinetic energy during molecular collisions. In physics the process in solids is called conduction. In gases it is called convection which embraces both diffusion and advection. The only difference between diffusion and advection is that advection is diffusion which has accelerated to the point where actual physical motion can be detected because there is a significant net movement of molecules in all accessible directions away from the source of newly absorbed thermal energy
So, if by “conduction” you are really talking about diffusion and advection, then these are what determines the thermal gradient when thermodynamic equilibrium is approached as entropy approaches the maximum accesible limit.
If you have trouble with the use of these terms I’m sure Wikipedia could help at least with such basic physics.
Doug,
Seriously I didn’t expect you to resort to sophistry until much later in the discussion. Most I’ve talked to can understand the difference between conductive heat transport and convective.
Can you answer the question or not?
Regarding your snipping: The correlation of Earth’s climate cycles with the inverted plot of the scalar sum of the angular momentum of the Sun and all the planets is so absolutely and overwhelmingly statistically significant that you have no grounds what-so-ever for calling it nonsense. I added this plot to my earth-climate dot com website over three years ago.
“Convection is usually the dominant form of heat transfer in liquids and gases. Although often discussed as a distinct method of heat transfer, convective heat transfer involves the combined processes of conduction (heat diffusion) and advection (heat transfer by bulk fluid flow).”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convective_heat_transfer
Everyone needs to understand that, in the Wiki quote above, “heat transfer by bulk fluid flow” is not a bulk flow caused by an external mechanical energy supply.
[snip – no they don’t Doug. YOU need to understand the difference between convection and conduction. That is all that is required at this blog. JEFF]
You need to understand that at no point am I discussing forced convection such as any form of wind. i am discussing what physicists call convection (diffusion and advection) which is a conduction-like process the same as conduction in solids, but called convection in gases.
Convection is thermal energy (kinetic energy) transfer in gases during molecular collisions.
Any other heat transfer, such as when warm winds blow, is not convection. Molecules move between collisions at speeds of the order of 500 metres per second, which is orders of magnitude faster than any wind. Read what I wrote about diffusion becoming advection when it can be measured as actual net movement of molecules. There are still plenty of molecules moving the other way, and in all directions, but the new source of kinetic energy drives a net flow of molecules away from that source in all dircetions including those with downward components in their velocity vectors.
[doug, This is not a sane conversation. We have to step even farther backwards until you realize that the bulk movement of a gas — aka wind — is a form of energy transport known as convection. It carries far more heat in our atmosphere than conductive heat transport mechanisms related to the brownian motion of individual molecules. Just take a minute to look at the mean path length of an air molecule (any gas) and you will realize that the heat has to be “conducted” in order for it to travel. Why the hell does your argument require you to redefine convection and conduction? I’m really frustrated again. The conversation has just crossed into stupid land. –JEFF]
Nonsense Jeff. Show me any documentation in physics which says wind is convection. Besides, weather tends to cancel out over the whole globe. It is not taken into account in energy diagrams by K-T, NASA or IPCC.
Well go and edit Wikipedia, Jeff. I quoted what Wikipedia said about convection which is in line with physics usage of the term convection. Wind is erratic. It moves far slower than molecules which move at about 1,800Km/hr between collisions. Wind can be called forced convection but that is a useless term and may as well just be called wind. Wind disturbs thermodynamic equilibrium in some regions temporarily, but not to the point where the density gradient disappears altogether, nor the temperature gradient over a column of the troposphere.
Until your edit of Wikipedia sticks, Jeff, this discussion is terminated [snip]
[JEFF — It looks like it stuck before I even visited — Convection is the concerted, collective movement of groups or aggregates of molecules within fluids’ –sentence #1
—self snip —]
weather tends to cancel over the whole globe???? How does that relate to the concept of convection?
I was hoping to find some sort of common language such that you could change your pet theory 180 degrees – like you did last year after talking with me – but it is just a temporary diversion to keep me from actually doing productive work. I probably won’t have time for you tomorrow.
To clarify what I am talking about, what I call convection is an adiabatic process. There is a term “forced convection” which can be applied to wind and non-adiabatic bulk movement in a gas, but it is not usually used in physics. Only adiabatic convection (which as Wiki says includes diffusion) forms a temperature gradient as the state of thermodynamic equilibrium is approached. Wind mucks up the temperature gradient, but the gradient is restored autonomously in calm conditions as molecules dart about at about 1,800Km per hour. There is absolutely no way that the expected temperature gradient will evolve in a non-adiabatic process like wind, for the process described in the Second law of Thermodynamics is of course adiabatic. However, there will always be a propensity for the system to gain entropy and thus approach the environmental temperature gradient as it approaches thermodynamic equilibrium.
I did not change my position “180 degrees” on any climate related matter last year. I stand by ever word in my March 2012 paper and the paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures” written mid 2012 and my book written based on that paper and written late 2012. Nothing in those documents reflects anything what-so-ever that you influenced me to write. If you think so, quote chapter or section and paragraph. Nor will anyone change my position regarding downward convection which supplies the missing energy in lower planetary tropospheres, surfaces, crusts, mantle and cores, because there is just too much empirical evidence supporting my hypothesis on that.
if you ask questions I will answer them.
if you make assertive statements, I expect right of reply and my reply to stick.
It is pointless your reiterating the standard IPCC explanation of the radiative greenhouse, effect as I know in great detail what they claim and teach generation after generation of climatologists. I have studied climatology writings very, very extensively and I can pinpoint precisely where they are wrong. In fact I’ve done so in my book. .
No. Only adiabatic convection (which includes diffusion in physics) determines the temperature gradient in planetary tropospheres. Climatologists like to include wind, but physicists refer to any forced air movement like wind or pumping up a car tyre to be forced convection. Wind and any form of forced convection are of course not adiabatic processes. Hence the temperature gradient is disturbed (not created) by wind and it only gets back near the environmental temperature gradient in calm conditions. Warm wind can blow up the side of a mountain creating warmer than normal temperatures (temperature inversions) and Foehn winds at the top and down the other side. The temperature gradient can be significantly altered either way by horizontal wind from colder or hotter regions.
You make an assertive statement claiming I have redefined conduction and convection. No I haven’t. I’m happy with these statements …
“Thermal conductivity is attributed to the exchange of energy between adjacent molecules and electrons in the conducting medium.” (Source)
“In the engineering sciences, heat transfer includes the processes of thermal radiation, convection, and sometimes mass transfer” (Source) [Convection and mass transfer are different.]
“Advection is sometimes confused with the more encompassing process of convection which is the combination of advective transport and diffusive transport.” (Source)
“Convection is usually the dominant form of heat transfer in liquids and gases. Although often discussed as a distinct method of heat transfer, convective heat transfer involves the combined processes of conduction (heat diffusion) and advection (heat transfer by bulk fluid flow)” (Source)
.
Doug, if you review your history, I have let every “responsive” comment you have made stay on line here with perfect consistency. I have not snipped a single line of even nonsense when written in response to a question I asked. This is not a license to pontificate on CO2 warming.
Now you have written a complete book above, simply from your assertion that my use of the word “convection” was the wrong terminology. You have even asked me to provide you documentation that wind is convection,
“Show me any documentation in physics which says wind is convection” — doug
I have done so. You asked me to change wikipedia but you have found the definition was consistent with my terminology. Since that turned out to be unnecessary, let’s move on.
I will alter my question slightly as I am still trying to figure out your position and think I am getting closer.
Do you believe Loschmidt’s concept is diffusive transport related, not conduction related as my question incorrectly implies above?
Do you agree that convection, and in particular advection is so dominant in our atmospheres energy transfer that diffusive mass transport and conduction can be ignored?
or
Is it the diffusive energy transport the dominant factor in atmospheric energy?
—-
Please try to focus on the specific questions, I don’t mind discussing Loschmidt but these nonsensical sidebars are way too long for me to stay interested.
Q 1: “Do you believe Loschmidt’s concept is diffusive transport related, not conduction related as my question incorrectly implies above?”
A 1: Conduction and diffusion are both due to molecular collision. The term conduction is usually used for solids, so the Loschmidt (gravito-thermal) effect is due to adiabatic conduction in solids (such as the Earth’s crust) and in gases it is due to adiabatic convection, which includes the conduction-like process of adiabatic heat diffusion as well as adiabatic advection, but not forced convection.
Q.2 “Do you agree that convection, and in particular advection is so dominant in our atmospheres energy transfer that diffusive mass transport and conduction can be ignored?”
Q:3 “Is it the diffusive energy transport the dominant factor in atmospheric energy?”
A:.2 and A.3: You do not distinguish between adiabatic and non-adiabatic advection. So your question cannot be answered without significant ambiguity. But I will explain as follows: The temperature gradient (which determines the surface temperature) is itself determined only by adiabatic processes such as diffusion and adiabatic convection, but not by forced convection or advection such as wind. Wind (forced convection) disturbs the temperature gradient, whereas diffusion and adiabatic convection repair the temperature gradient. The temperature gradient determines a planet’s surface temperature and so the adiabatic processes (which proceed as per the Second Law and thus set the temperature gradient) have a dominating effect upon lower troposphere and surface temperatures.
. .
I don’t understand when advection is adiabatic or non-adiabatic, can you give an example of each?
PS I have never discussed diffusive mass transport. When I use the term diffusion I am referring to its use in the conduction-like process of adiabatic heat diffusion brought about by the transfer of molecular Kinetic Energy (translational, rotational and vibrational) during molecular collisions and similar processes. I am not talking about any process like chemical diffusion or any physical mass diffusion such as dye in water..
PPS It’s after midnight here, so over and out.
So when you come back, please answer my question.
q: I don’t understand when advection is adiabatic or non-adiabatic, can you give an example of each?
A: “An adiabatic process s a process that occurs without the transfer of heat or matter between a system and its surroundings” and so wind is not adiabatic because delivers matter into a system and also because it is driven by an external energy source that creates differing pressure in different locations due to topography and weather conditions. Wind mostly transfers thermal energy horizontally. It is normal in climate models to consider an “ideal” atmosphere or troposphere in which there is no wind and there is adiabatic convection, that being adiabatic thermal diffusion and adiabatic advection. Such advection is merely diffusive heat transfer that has accelerated to a level where net motion can be detected. (You’ll remember that I said weather conditions tend to average out over the whole globe, and so climate models ignore them and work with an ideal atmosphere.) Because the Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to an (ideal) isolated system, the process described in statements of the Second Law is an adiabatic process which redistributes energy in such a way that entropy never decreases. This leads to density and temperature gradients.
Doug, the question is simpler than that. I don’t need you to define adiabatic or non-adiabatic, I’m overly versed in the concepts. I need you to give an example of each such that I can understand your particular concept. You have given one, how about the other.
Wind is not adiabatic. Adiabatic advection occurs in the absence of wind in calm conditions. An example is in the air just above a solid surface which is heated by direct sunlight to a temperature that is sufficiently above that of the air so as to cause diffusive heat transfer to accelerate to a level at which net air movement can be detected.
Wait a minute, diffusive heat transfer accelerates until mass flow is detected? I’m unable to figure this out. Do you mean that “diffusion” is a mono-directional property? A wind away from a hot surface?
Adiabatic diffusive and advective heat transfer are basically the same process at different speeds. That’s why physicists call them both (adiabatic) convection. You need to think at the molecular level. The heated region has molecules “pushing” more molecules away from it than approach it because when a molecule with more KE collides with one with less there is a propensity (on average) for more movement away from the source of new thermal energy which we will assume disturbed a previous state of thermodynamic equilibrium. If you have, say, a small cloud absorbing solar radiation, convection can be away from that cloud in all directions. If you have a flat surface region convection will be mostly upwards in horizontal “sheets” rather than parcels, because nothing holds a parcel together – they are figments of the imagination.
So that is a yes?
(continued)
I have to go now for at least 8 hours, so I will provide more detail which should be sufficient to answer any more questions you may have and which I anticipate ….
In the context of adiabatic processes in an ideal atmosphere, the direction of convection (meaning diffusion and/or advection) can be downwards, even from a cooler region to a warmer one in certain circumstances. This is a critically important point, because that downward adiabatic convection (diffusion and/or advection) is what replaces any need for the supposed energy transfer by back radiation to the surface. You have to come to grips with the fact that the state of thermodynamic equilibrium has a temperature gradient equal to the environmental one. (This requires three chapters of explanation in my book.) As an example of downward adiabatic convection (which could be advection) suppose at dawn a region of the surface is at 10C and the temperature just below a cloud at 1Km altitude is 3C because the environment temperature gradient in that region is 7C/Km. We have thermodynamic equilibrium and no net heat transfer happens in any direction. Now the Sun rises but that surface region is in the shadow of a mountain, but not the cloud which thus warms to, say 7C before the sunlight strikes the surface. Now, considering a column of air from the cloud to the surface, because the state of thermodynamic equilibrium has been thus disturbed the Second Law tells us there will be a propensity to restore thermodynamic equilibrium with the appropriate temperature gradient. There will be convective heat transfer away from the abnormally warmer cloud in all (three dimensional) directions, including some with downward components in its directional vector. That downward convection is what keeps the Uranus troposphere hot at its base, and raises the surface temperature of Venus – and supports the surface temperature of Earth, all due to the Loschmidt effect.
For fuck’s sake Doug. I am asking a yes or no question. It certainly doesn’t take 8 hours to answer yes or no. Stop writing paragraphs, write a sentence.
Ok, since you are gone for 8 hours and I need to await your next bit of magic, let me point out a number of inconsistencies I am faced with in the meantime.
First, I need to identify the definitions of your personal terminology. For instance, gravito-thermo in your context vs the dry adiabatic lapse rate that the rest of human science must work with. Then there is the adiabatic transfer of energy. Your definition of adiabatic is completely inconsistent with the rest of us in science. No physicist or engineer can follow what you write because it is not consistent with our understanding. That is why you have gained no support for your pontifications. Adiabatic means a process in which no net energy is added to the process, it actually doesn’t really exist in the context of atmospheres. Adiabatic exists only in our minds as nothing is truly perfect, no perfect insulators, no perfect Rankine cycle stages etc…
Wind is the mass transport of a gas and in an atmospheric condition IS for all intents and purposes, adiabatic (standard definition). Adiabatic being properly redefined as no “significant” energy added (engineer/physicist standard definition). We know this for a lot of reasons, however you should recognize it because wind doesn’t heat up as its bulk motion slows down. You say wind is not adiabtic, so there is a difference in definition in your mind that the rest of us cannot parse. You are the individual who differs from the generally accepted definition.
Then you say the addition of energy from an outside source to a gas IS adiabatic. Solar heating of a cloud/surface causing expansion. This was repeatedly followed by an extraordinarily obtuse definition of gas expansion re-characterized as diffusion. A more significant muddle is hard to imagine. This concept is impossible to parse unless we invert the definition of adiabatic and fail to take into account your previous concept that wind is not adiabatic. Your own statements are not self-consistent and have no foundation in science. No foundation being defined as, no experiment, equation or syntax that correlates in any way to known science. That doesn’t make them wrong, it just means that you MUST define your syntax, recognize your inconsistencies with science, and address 100% of them in turn.
So then we come to your Claes Johnson replacement, Loschmidt. You have incorrectly attributed his temperature gradient to energy conduction, (mass related diffusion being redefined by you as having do do with collision)
I personally can’t find anything immediately wrong with Loshmidts gravitational temperature gradient in a gas. That is what is interesting to me. However, his temperature gradient is created by vertical motion of a molecule in a gravitational field. Not conduction or collision —simple vertical motion. I can’t find any difference between that concept and the dry adiabatic lapse rate(standard definition) except that temperature and pressure are so interchangeable that people have understandable difficulty parsing what caused what. Your idea that it should exist in a solid fails to recognize that unlike a gas, most heat transfer in a solid is by conduction (standard definititon).
All of that said, this conversation is impossibly difficult to progress forward — due to your continuous mis-definition of terms AND your inability to answer simple question as to your mis-definition, without writing a book on every point.
No to the first question,.because molecules can go in any direction after collisions, and so thermal energy transfers can go in all directions away from a heated source by conduction, diffusion or advection.
I gave you a link in this comment above to the definition of “adiabatic process” that I copied in that comment. Go and edit Wikipedia if you disagree. If matter is being added to a system it is not an adiabatic system, whether that comes from wind or an electric fan. At best wind can be called forced convection – just like air being pumped into your car tyres.
I assumed you knew that thermal diffusion transfers thermal energy away from a heat source by molecular collisions which are not creating a detectable net movement of molecules. Diffusion in gases is the equivalent of conduction in solids.
“Heat conduction (or thermal conduction) is the transfer of internal energy by microscopic diffusion and collisions of particles or quasi-particles within a body” [Source]
The formation of a temperature gradient is called the “gravito-thermal effect” in some of the literature. I prefer “gravitationally-induced temperature gradient” which is more descriptive of the process.
The solar heating of a cloud (or the surface) is the first process, obviously not adiabatic. Let’s say the Sun is setting and soon no longer heats the cloud. The second process is what then happens regarding adiabatic heat transfer and redistribution of energy which, in an isolated system, is the process described in statements of the Second Law of Thermodynamics with entropy increasing until thermodynamic equilibrium is attained..
If you had read my book you would realise that my explanation of the gravitationally induced temperature gradient (and the computation of such by equating kinetic energy gain with gravitational potential energy loss) is identical to that of Loschmidt. That’s how the gradient forms and it is important to understand that it does so because entropy is increasing until thermodynamic equilibrium is attained, just as the Second Law says will happen.
I have not said that the temperature gradient forms by diffusion. The gradient is of course due to the interchange of KE and PE in molecular free flight between collisions. That’s why we derive the gradient in a non radiating gas from PE = – KE so that M.g.dH = -M.Cp.dT giving dT/dH = -g/Cp in two lines. Note that the temperature and density gradients form simultaneously if, for example, you rotate a long sealed insulated cylinder from a horizontal to a vertical position.
Now, if we agree that the Loschmidt gravitationally induced temperature gradient is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium then I suggest you think about what would happen if a heating element in the top of that cylinder raised the temperature to, say, half way between the initial temperatures at the top and bottom of the cylinder. That’s what happens when that cloud is heated from 3C to 7C and it’s still 10C at the surface 1Km below..
REPLY — This might be the first comment you have left that I didn’t find massive things to disagree with. I don’t know if I disagree with Loschmidt’s gradient being something different from the dry adiabatic lapse rate. The equations are the same. I will read the other comments later but on skimming it looks like you had the definition adiabatic all screwed up again. Jeff
(continued)
Loschmidt was quite specific in saying that the temperature gradient also evolves in solids. [REPLY, It seems to me that rotational modes of excitation would transfer without loss (barring relativistic effects) in a gravitational gradient. The gradient would be reduced. The fact that there is a temperature gradient is not proof to me that we are seeing a gravitational effect on temperautre. There are obviously other possible causes -JEFF] It is apparent in the outer crust of Earth, and measured down to about 10Km in boreholes. Likewise it is below the surface of the Moon. Solids still have molecules which move a little between collisions. If that were not the case, conduction could not happen. The fact that the mean free path is considerably less in solids does not alter the mathematical derivation of the -g/Cp temperature gradient. I have explained how and why the cores of the Earth and the Moon are maintained at the temperatures that they are. [REPLY, you give yourself too much credit for this. It was Loschmidts theory. Unless you really did something you haven’t said yet. -JEFF]
You can argue all you like about wind and weather, but there’s hardly any significant effect from such in the 350Km high troposphere of Uranus which provides the best example in our Solar System of the gravitationally induced temperature gradient and the obvious need for there to be downward convection on the sunlit side to balance the upward energy loss by convection on the night side and radiation on each side.. [REPLY: the dry adiabatic lapse rate is another explanation Doug. I have written several times that it follows the same equation and everyone except you seems to realize it. These concepts that you are claiming are not new in any way I can see. – Jeff]
Regarding pressure and “what causes what” I have no difficulty understanding that the process described in the Second Law leads to a state of thermodynamic equilibrium which has a density and temperature gradient. Gravity acts on molecules, not on pressure. The pressure gradient is a corollary because pressure is proportional to the product of density and temperature. High pressure does not maintain high temperatures. It is high density and high temperature that maintains high pressure. [REPLY, you misunderstand me.]
PS Just to clarify this issue of diffusion and the temperature gradient, once thermodynamic equilibrium is attained, the gradient is maintained by the interchange of KE and PE in the free path motion of molecules and no thermal diffusion or advection occurs. We know, for example, that convection from Earth’s surface stops in the early pre-dawn hours. However, if the equilibrium is disturbed then diffusion of molecular kinetic energy in collision processes and some advection occur until the correct (environmental) temperature gradient is attained. In radiating gases the temperature levelling effect of inter-molecular radiation reduces the magnitude of the “dry” gradient, as is well known. [snip the last. non-responsive nonsense, the second sentence is illegible too but I’ll leave it as creative writing. The rest seems to be a loosely considered atmospheric stability so no argument there. JEFF]
To clarify the process I am discussing when I talk about diffusion, I quote firstly from Wikipedia’s Convection article: “Convection is the concerted, collective movement of groups or aggregates of molecules within fluids (e.g., liquids, gases) and rheids, either through advection or through diffusion or as a combination of both of them.” In that we are talking about heat transfer, that statement does not quite paint the full picture, because kinetic energy (which determines temperature) can move without needing all the molecules moving with it. On average a molecule may pass about 30 other molecules between collisions. So if one with higher KE gets in amongst others, that is a physical form of diffusion, but it may well head back after a collision. Furthermore, it will have imparted some of its KE to the “cooler” molecule, and so KE spreads out, even if the molecules don’t all spread out with it. This happens when thermal energy moves horizontally across your room from an oil-filled convection heater. Obviously not all the air is moving across the room. In fact you probably can’t detect any such movement, though there is a very small net movement away from the heater. The molecules themselves are travelling at about 1,800Km/hour between collisions.
This last comment is very much the Doug Cotton I’m used to. Diffusion is a mass transfer process and a rate of diffusion is defined by that mean path length you described and the probability of a return bounce. The other “diffusion” you describe where energy is conducted to other molecules by collision is a process called “conduction” we separated them so clever eh? That is what the rest of us call it so I suggest you adopt the terminology, it will help you sell your books. Also, you wrote 1800KM/hour between collisions a couple of times, your number is a bit off and those of us in the field refer to it as the speed of sound and it represents the average velocity of the molecules with Boltzmann or Maxwell both providing interesting equations for the probabilistic velocity distribution.
After reading all of this, it seems you have a tweaked up non-standard terminology for a concept which doesn’t seem to part from reality in its result. That is much improved from the discussions of radiation we had in the past.
So imagine a dry atmosphere with a stable dry adiabatic lapse rate and no wind. A pocket of air exists that is one degree warmer than the surrounding air at the same pressure. As it rises in a blob, it takes on no real energy from diffusion or conduction so it is basically adiabatic. It expands and settles at a new altitude and cooler temperature. Did the temperature cool from work done against the pressure during expansion or did it cool from work done against gravity from its linear velocity? Isn’t it interesting that the dry adiabatic lapse rate is the same equation as Loschmidt’s?
But lets get to the real question burning in the background, in three sentences or less how does the existance of the lapse rate (being the same thing created by either theory) disprove CO2 warming? PLEASE keep it to just a few pithy sentences.
This reference says the speed of air molecules is about 500m/sec which is 1,800Km/hr. Regarding your upward only convection, nothing keeps a “pocket” of air together. In any event, there’s downward conduction as well if you like to use that term for a gas. That’s why you need to think of the cloud example. Some thermal energy in that situation transfers downwards. If it did not do so, how would the state of thermodynamic equilibrium be restored and the environmental temperature gradient be corrected below the cloud? Likewise in the insulated sealed cylinder heated at the top? Likewise the thermal energy from solar radiation which can only raise temperatures less than 400K in the upper Venus troposphere – how does that thermal (kinetic) energy eventually get down and raise the surface temperature by 5 degrees over a 4 month period? It is not radiation from the colder atmosphere that raises the Venus temperature, nor is it the 20W/m^2 of direct solar radiation. How does the base of the Uranus troposphere stay hotter than Earth? Prof. Claes Johnson is still right. The electro-magnetic energy in radiation from a colder source does not get converted to thermal energy in a warmer target: Instead (as in my March 2012 paper) that EM energy just becomes part of the output radiation under the Planck curve for the target. You cannot count the flux from back radiation and add it to the solar flux in Stefan-Boltzmann calculations. If the Earth were fully covered in black asphalt (emissivity 0.88) then the 161W/m^2 of direct solar radiation could only support a temperature of -35C. It is downward convection including conduction* if you wish to call it that and thermal diffusion in a gas which supplies the energy required to support the surface temperature and maintain the gravitationally induced temperature gradient. This happens for one reason only – it happens because the temperature gradient is the very state of thermodynamic equilibrium which the Second Law says will evolve.
* The word “conduction” is usually used for solids and liquids. The Wikpedia “Heat Transfer” article originally read that “diffusion” can be used instead of “conduction” with gases. Perhaps “diffusion of kinetic energy” is more appropriate. There is always some diffusion in the process anyway, because molecules pass about 30 other molecules between collisions.
Hence, in one “pithy” sentence (supported by the above comment and the linked documentation) … :
Because the temperature gradient is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, a planet’s supported surface temperature is autonomously warmer than its mean radiating temperature, so warm in fact on Earth that we need radiating gases (mostly water vapour) to reduce the gradient and thus cool the surface from a mean of about 300K to about 288K, this being confirmed by empirical evidence (as in the study in my book) which confirms with statistical significance that water vapour cools rather than warms, all these facts thus debunking the greenhouse conjecture.
Ok so I assume you recognize that the “mean radiating temperature” is caused by GHG absorbing gasses emitting. If they did not absorb or emit long wavelength IR as in the case of a Nitrogen only atmosphere, the mean radiating altitude would be at the base of the atmosphere (ground). The Nitrogen atmosphere still has a temperature gradient, so that hasn’t changed, yet the ground level of the nitrogen atmosphere is the emission temperature of the planet such that energy is balanced.
Therefore, if we take this all nitrogen atmosphere and an identical GHG water filled atmosphere, the average emission temperature of both bodies would be the same such that energy out is the same. The GHG atmosphere emits from an altitude and the non GHG emits from ground and passes unimpeded through the transparent Nitrogen. The gradient (Loschmidt or otherwise) of the GHG atmosphere guarantees that the ground level is warmer than the average emission temperature.
Where is that wrong?
In theory there’s nothing wrong, but nor can you deduce sensitivity to water vapour from that, or even whether it’s positive or negative at current levels. Add a tiny bit of water vapour and the surface temperature shoots up quickly to nearly 300K. Add more and it starts to cool. Physical properties can vary from positive to negative in their sensitivity to another property. Water has maximum density at around 4C for example. So what is the sensitivity to each 1% water vapour? I say all the water vapour cools by about 12 degrees, and empirical evidence in my published study confirms this. The greenhouse conjecture postulates that it does most of “33 degrees of warming” so which is it? Surely this is a significant demonstration of what I say.in my book where I discuss the “pivoting altitude” which is the altitude (only around 3.5Km to 4Km) where half the outward radiative flux comes from above and half from below, including the surface. The thermal profile rotates about that altitude, thus keeping radiative balance with the Sun. Water vapour reduces the gradient by about 3 to 3.5C/Km, so that rate over 3.5 to 4Km gives about 12 degrees of cooling from around 300K.
We know water vapour reduces the temperature gradient. So consider water vapour levels in the range of 1% to 4% in the lower troposphere. Empirical evidence shows regions with 1% have higher mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures than those with 4% at similar latitudes and altitudes and more than 100Km from a large water body that may regulate temperatures. (That’s in my study.) We also know that the reduction in the gradient is less for 1% than it is for 4% water vapour, these being realistic extremes according to observation. So if the average is about 2% that would be about 15 degrees of warming for each 1%. Sketch the plot of temperature against altitude for these scenarios with 1% and 4%. How could there possibly be radiative balance if water vapour jacks up the surface temperature and reduces the magnitude of the gradient at the same time? There would be even more warming than 15 degrees per 1% in the upper troposphere because the gradient is less steep. That’s ludicrous! Radiative balance at TOA rarely gets out by more than 0.5%. This is such a glaring error in the GH conjecture that I’m astonished so many have been so seriously misled by so few.
Jeff, you know what they say, “If you can’t lick ’em join ’em.” Roger at Tallbloke’s talkshop is trying to work out how the gravitationally induced temperature gradient works, but with the mistaken concepts he and his mates have, they are not on the right track of discovering what I have called “heat creep” which is this combination of conduction, thermal diffusion, advection, convection (call it what you like) non-radiative heat transfer downwards to the warmer surface as it restores thermodynamic equilibrium. Hopefully you understand it now, but I’m happy to post you a free copy of my book which has the necessary diagrams if you email me a postal address its.not.co2@gmail.com
You could beat Tallbloke’s to the punch and be the first climate blog in the world with the correct physics that explains all planetary temperatures even down to their cores. I’d happily write an article and I can assure you 100% that I can respond to any objection or attempt at rebuking any of the physics. You must surely realise that water vapour can’t jack up the surface temperature while at the same time making the temperature gradient less steep.
Yesterday was a major turning point with John Coleman’s media publicity about AGW lies -see WUWT and PSI. Now is the time to capitalise on this, and I have brought it to the attention of dozens of Australian MP’s, some of whom have copies of my book and several other papers. I’m planning to get big companies to fund legal advice regarding possible class action against the Australian Government for lack of due diligence. If I can pull this off it may become world headlines.
Footnote: Your atmosphere devoid of water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane etc would only need ozone in the stratosphere absorbing and re-emitting some of the solar radiation in order for the surface temperature to be up around 300K. And remember there is absorption and emission in the thermosphere where the temperature is hundreds of degrees – far warmer than the surface. So you can’t attribute that 300K surface temperature to any particular GHG in the first place.
Ok so let’s not declare victory just yet Doug. I’m still trying to figure out your story and you have just done something I never expected. My comment above (October 23, 2014 at 2:37 pm) is an exact description of global greenhouse warming, backradiation, warming effects and everything included. All of the items you used to rail against, lumped into one comment, and you found nothing wrong with it. It seems to me that you have come a very long way indeed, but you have asserted repeatedly that your story has NOT changed.
So in my opinion, we should try to figure out what you think IS wrong with it. There has to be something or the argument you make against greenhouse gas warming is conceded lost. I used H20 instead of CO2 because it is less controversial but in your reply you have written a large number of assertions as to the effects of H20 that even climate models have trouble parsing and are actually confusing the story. So in the interest of understanding your story, same question with CO2 instead of H20. CO2 doesn’t experience the same phase changes in the temperature regime of your planet so it should sort out those other effects you describe.
—-
Therefore, if we take this all nitrogen atmosphere and an identical GHG CO2 filled atmosphere, the average emission temperature of both bodies would be the same such that energy out is the same. The GHG atmosphere emits from an altitude and the non GHG emits from ground and passes unimpeded through the transparent Nitrogen. The gradient (Loschmidt or otherwise) of the GHG atmosphere guarantees that the ground level is warmer than the average emission temperature.
What is wrong with that statement?
Doug, I am disappointed. I just snipped 3 non-responsive comments that had nothing to do with our finest on line conversation yet. Please continue to answer the questions. You cannot agree with global warming effects above and then tell me nonsense about why you have proven it doesn’t exist. Air Venters certainly cannot pretend it didn’t happen. We must resolve this before advertising your book.
Firstly, I don’t agree at all with your 10/23 2.37pm comment. I wrote quite specifically that “pockets” of air don’t exist because there is nothing to hold them together. Some molecules exit and others enter. And they don’t just “rise” either, because molecules go in all directions and so plenty of the molecules that were in your original “pocket” have gone downwards, passing on KE to some cooler ones below them – some of which then pass on KE to more molecules below them. That is the downward non-radiative process I am saying is restoring thermodynamic equilibrium and which it is vitally important to understand exists.
I don’t care whether you call the process conduction, diffusion, advection or what physicists use as an all-embracing term – “convection.” I have provided links that confirm convection includes diffusion. For example: “Convection is the concerted, collective movement of groups or aggregates of molecules within fluids (e.g., liquids, gases) and rheids, either through advection or through diffusion … “ [source] where it’s clear they are talking about heat transfer by diffusion. I’ve also provided a link to the term “thermal diffusivity.”
Now as to your GHG free atmosphere, there is no way you can prove that the surface temperature would be less than the existing 287.5K mean and thus prove water vapour or CO2 warms. You have forgotten that the flux you have assumed took account of the fact that about 30% of solar radiation is reflected by clouds, but there would be no clouds. So in fact something like 315W/m^2 would be the actual mean flux to the surface. Calculating the temperature correctly is no mean feat, as you should integrate over the whole globe using the T^4 relationship in the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. If you just assume that there is homogeneous solar flux on a flat Earth 24 hours a day then you get 287.5K from 315W/m^2 if you use emissivity 0.813 which may not be all that unrealistic. For example, this reference gives some emissivity values – note Basalt = 0.72, lime clay= 0.43, shale = 0.69, granite = 0.45, gravel = 0.28 fine snow = 0.82, soil = 0.38. I venture to suggest the surface temperature could indeed be 300K as I have been suggesting it would be before water vapour cools it. Until you determine the proportion of such materials on the Earth and do the full integration with a sophisticated multi-million dollar model that uses the actual mapped surface taking into account the latitude of the various materials etc etc you have absolutely no grounds for assuming water vapour (or any GHG) warms the surface You don’t even know for sure that a minute portion of the molecules in any gas in the periodic table would not be able to absorb some solar radiation and then warm adjacent molecules by non-radiative processes. In contrast, at least in the real world, I have produced a study showing water vapour cools. The full methodology and the data and source thereof are all in my book, so you or anyone can check such and/or do your own study trying to prove the opposite. Do you ever wonder why the IPCC has not published such a study? I suggest that whenever they try to do such they find water vapour cools and so they censor the study. But tell me if you can find one like mine but showing the opposite.
I recognize the difficult spot you are in here Doug but I’m not concerned about pockets of air right now or your water planet or the albedo of clay. I want to know about my two planetary bodies, both having temperature gradients in the atmosphere, both have the same average emission temp because they are the same albedo, and one having CO2 in the atmosphere one does not. Since the emission altitude is higher for the CO2 atmosphere, the atmospheric temperature gradient guarantees the surface is warmer than the mean temp.
You have agreed with the emission altitude, radiant temperature, transparency of Nitrogen gas vs CO2 and the atmospheric temperature gradient, how is the surface of the GHG planet not warmer per your theory?
In your two planetary bodies the surface temperature of the one with CO2 will be about 0.1 degree cooler for the reasons in my book, namely that the inter-molecular radiation between CO2 molecules works against the gravitationally induced temperature gradient and lowers it, just as happens with water vapour. There is no change in so-called radiating altitude and no change in the pivoting altitude (defined in a previous comment and in my book) because the whole temperature profile rotates about that altitude and the surface end (which supports the surface temperature) becomes lower. For water vapour it becomes about 12 degrees lower (from 300K to 288K) but for carbon dioxide it becomes only about 0.1 degree lower after allowing for a slight opposite effect due to the specific heat of CO2.
I don’t agree with ANY radiation calculations that supposedly calculate ANY planet’s surface temperature. That temperature is supported by the sloping thermal profile which is the state of thermodynamic equilibrium.
I calculate planetary temperatures correctly using only the data which gives me the temperature gradient and the radiating temperature.
Read that sentence again, Jeff. You continue to demonstrate to me that you do not understand the whole concept of thermodynamic equilibrium and the significance of the gravitationally induced temperature gradient that “obviates any need for concern over GHG” (as BigWaveDave wrote in March 2012 on WUWT Loschmidt thread – last comment.) .
In the comment just above I completely demolished the IPCC conjecture (and yours) that the surface temperature would be 255K in the absence of any GHG. And still you don’t get it Jeff. I have smashed the very first assumption in the IPCC explanation of the GHG and you pretend to ignore that and ramble on with your red herrings and absurd deductions based on the very assumption I have just demolished. You could have saved us a lot of time if you studied more carefully the various comments I posted that you deleted days or weeks ago. I have proved water vapour cools with empirical evidence. Do you get the significance of that? I support what I deduce from real physics with real world data. You and the IPCC don’t, and what’s more you deliberately avoid discussing it, let alone Venus or Uranus from which you could learn heaps.
Now it’s time to read my book, Jeff, wherein I have answered all your questions in advance and demolished any and all attempts to rebuke the Loschmidt gravitationally induced temperature gradient. Robert Brown’s attempt on WUWT was pathetic, showing a complete lack of understanding of thermodynamic equilibrium and how combined systems just move to a new state and stay there without any perpetual motion.
PS; I can demolish your “higher radiating altitude warms the surface” conjecture in one sentence …
On Uranus all the radiation is absorbed and emitted in the very uppermost regions of the atmosphere where it’s about 60K but that does not explain how the necessary thermal energy gets to the base of the Uranus troposphere and maintains a temperature of 320K there, and neither does a high radiating altitude explain such on Venus or Earth.
PPS The issue of the “radiating altitude” is discussed in my book and you can read that paragraph free with the ‘Look Inside” feature here See the paragraph starting in the middle of page 6.
Now you have contradicted your previous agreement but have provided new information as to where you contradict. I see several problems with what you have written. Each time you go against known science, it of course leads to questions. My questions are reasonable and I will continue to ask but you must recognize that you have contradicted your previoius opinion now.
First, your previous comment agreed that Nitrogen does not emit long wave ir radiation in this temperature range due to its nature. You also admitted that CO2 and other GHG’s do absorb/emit. Have I misunderstood you?
It’s quite intriguing watching your attempts at brain washing and manipulating what people say or write, Jeff. In that I know what the IPCC and climatologists “explain” probably in more detail than yourself I can anticipate almost every argument you put forward. You yourself have obviously been brain washed, perhaps through respect for your teachers / lecturers in the 1980’s I would suspect, and you are still gullible enough to lap up and believe in the errors of physics that pervade the whole GH conjecture. It should trouble you that real world data proves water vapour cools, but you are so set in your ways that you can blank that fact out of your mind and continue with your snipping ways eliminating comments for which you have no valid response. In complete contrast I answer all questions on every climate blog that I am aware of – but I may miss some of course, so any reader is welcome to draw my attention to such and I will go there and answer them as I have always been able to do, for the simple reason that I have put in so much time and thought that I now have a very satisfactory explanation of all planetary temperatures in atmospheres, surfaces, crusts, mantles and cores, and the processes which explain the necessary energy flows. You don’t have that Jeff, but probably for financial reasons, you don’t deign to be a student and learn. So that’s all I have to say, for it’s all in my book and always has been. There’s been no need for a second edition.
[REPLY: I only snip editorial bullshit from trolls Doug.I have seen nothing that I haven’t replied to myself but this isn’t about me is it…. This is about Doug Cotton’s own theory, which it seems not only contradicts known physics but contradicts itself as well. How about you answer the question instead of getting personal or are you thinking of suing again now that you are looking straight at a contradiction in your result?]
You hardly need to “teach” me what are considered to be radiating gases and what are not. As I said, it’s all in my book and I have explained why radiating molecules reduce the temperature gradient because of their radiating properties, and reduce the supporting surface temperature as a result. I prove what I say regarding water vapour using 30 years of real world temperature data from three continents. That’s the way science ought to be done. All you produce is your naive thought experiments based on false assumptions (such as the Earth;’s surface supposedly being 255K without GH gases) and you produce no empirical evidence what-so-ever that water vapour or carbon dioxide warm the surface of Earth, or Venus for that matter where CO2 has a significant cooling effect acquiring nearly all the incoming solar radiation.
You put forward an assumption about the surface being 255K without GHG and I rubbished it. Since you have not come back with a valid counter argument I rest my case.
[JEFF- perhaps you are afraid you will end up writing me a check for 5K so you won’t answer my question. I don’t want your money Doug, I free you officially from your offer. Now you can answer.]
replies are inline.
[snip — non responsive.]
The radiating molecules of water vapour also absorb a significant amount of incident solar radiation for which the photons have far more energy than those from the surface which it also absorbs. Carbon dioxide also absorbs incident solar radiation in the 2.1 micron band, and on Venus about 97% of the incoming solar energy ends up in carbon dioxide molecules rather than warming the surface by radiation. Nitrogen and oxygen do not absorb or emit much if any radiated energy, but they play a major role in slowing surface cooling by conduction at the interface with the atmosphere. The thermal energy they thus acquire (especially in the late afternoon and at at night) can subsequently be transferred by molecular collision to radiating molecules like carbon dioxide, water vapour and methane which then transfer thermal energy out of the atmosphere by radiating, thus acting like “holes in the blanket” and helping to reduce the supported surface temperature and reduce the insulating effect of the troposphere – just as water vapour reduces the insulating effect of double glazed windows.
Ok so in our CO2 planet example, we have absorbed and emitted energy at an altitude above ground. The average emission altitude on this world is higher than the emission altitude of the Nitrogen only world.
So from Doug Cotton’s own words we have the following facts:
1 the atmosphere of these planets each has a non zero temperature gradient
2 each planet emits at the same average temperature such that the radiative balance is maintained. The emission altitude temperature of both are equal.
Therefore, we must conclude:
3 The non zero emission altitude and non-zero gradient of the GHG planet means that the surface temperature is warmer than the temperature at the emission altitude.
Doug Cotton has proven GHG warming exists!! or maybe we will see something else/?
We have reached a stalemate because you are continuing your “argument” and questioning based on a false assumption which i have correctly refuted, and yet you have presented no valid counter argument.
i repeat: You put forward an assumption about the surface being 255K without GHG and I rubbished it. Since you have not come back with a valid counter argument I rest my case.
You have 8 hours to think about it. Good night from here.
Actually, I have not once written 255K in this thread, I see absolutely no rubbished assumption and I even disagree that we have reached an impasse. We have reached a point where your own facts contradict your stated conclusion that CO2 does not cause warming. You must come up with new facts or correct the record or concede that you have been wrong all along.
You have just proven global warming exists Doug – by finally agreeing with the basic radiative truths we are all faced with. The ones I have been telling you about for years now.
I will be curious if you can continue the discussion with any sort of reasoned rebuttal.
I quote you:
Jeff Id said
October 23, 2014 at 8:41 pm
Ok so I assume you recognize that the “mean radiating temperature” is caused by GHG absorbing gasses emitting. If they did not absorb or emit long wavelength IR as in the case of a Nitrogen only atmosphere, the mean radiating altitude would be at the base of the atmosphere (ground).
[Comment: It is usually assumed that the mean radiating temperature is 255K. Don’t be obtuse.]
[REPLY – I made no such assumption, and I did so with intent because I wanted to understand your theory rather than argue about some number. There is no water vapor on the planets we are discussing as I have repeatedly stated, therefore no refutation. In fact, the reply is such a non-sequitor, it should also be snipped but I am actually trying to figure out what you are saying. – -JEFF]
I quote my refutation:.
D O Ug. C O T To N. said
October 25, 2014 at 4:58 am
3rd paragraph …
Now as to your GHG free atmosphere, there is no way you can prove that the surface temperature would be less than the existing 287.5K mean and thus prove water vapour or CO2 warms. You have forgotten that the flux you have assumed took account of the fact that about 30% of solar radiation is reflected by clouds, but there would be no clouds. So in fact something like 315W/m^2 would be the actual mean flux to the surface. Calculating the temperature correctly is no mean feat, as you should integrate over the whole globe using the T^4 relationship in the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. If you just assume that there is homogeneous solar flux on a flat Earth 24 hours a day then you get 287.5K from 315W/m^2 if you use emissivity 0.813 which may not be all that unrealistic. For example, this reference gives some emissivity values – note Basalt = 0.72, lime clay= 0.43, shale = 0.69, granite = 0.45, gravel = 0.28 fine snow = 0.82, soil = 0.38. I venture to suggest the surface temperature could indeed be 300K as I have been suggesting it would be before water vapour cools it. Until you determine the proportion of such materials on the Earth and do the full integration with a sophisticated multi-million dollar model that uses the actual mapped surface taking into account the latitude of the various materials etc etc you have absolutely no grounds for assuming water vapour (or any GHG) warms the surface You don’t even know for sure that a minute portion of the molecules in any gas in the periodic table would not be able to absorb some solar radiation and then warm adjacent molecules by non-radiative processes. In contrast, at least in the real world, I have produced a study showing water vapour cools. The full methodology and the data and source thereof are all in my book, so you or anyone can check such and/or do your own study trying to prove the opposite. Do you ever wonder why the IPCC has not published such a study? I suggest that whenever they try to do such they find water vapour cools and so they censor the study. But tell me if you can find one like mine but showing the opposite.
My reply is inline again. You need to read more carefully Doug.
You have proven global warming exists by admission of the existance of a non-zero atmospheric temperature gradient, greater than zero average emission altitude for GHG and a non-changed average emission temperature. Air Vent readers all want to know what you want to change, retract, or explain such that Doug’s CO2 warming theory from his book doesn’t have to be erased.
Well what I am saying is pretty obvious. If the mean radiating altitude (without water vapour or any GHG) were at the surface, then the surface would still be at least the current temperature, though I say warmer at about 300K. Now that is very clearly quite contrary to the IPCC statement that the surface would have been 255K without GH gases and its temperature they say is raised 33 degrees by radiation from the GH gases when they are introduced and send thermal energy (they say) into the warmer surface to help the Sun raise its temperature..
So I’m glad to see you likewise refute the IPCC radiative GH conjecture. Why don’t you write a post doing just that? I’m glad we agree on that somewhat important point, and forgive me for thinking that you thought carbon dioxide and water vapour warmed the surface.
However, I would prefer to discuss the real world where we can (and I have) used empirical temperature records to show that more moist regions are cooler than dry ones. You would realise that the IPCC want us to be gullible enough as to believe water vapour warms by 10 degrees or more for every 1% in the lower troposphere. So again we agree that the IPCC got it around the wrong way altogether.
Now, if you’re still having trouble understanding my explanation of the temperatures and the required energy flows and energy balances on Earth and other planets, there really isn’t room here to repeat three or four chapters of my book, complete with diagrams which I can’t link here because you block comments with my URL’s in them. So you’ll need to read my book from here, and there’s plenty of time if you can download the Kindle version before I’m home from church in about 12 hours from now. But it’s 1.10am here now, so over and out.
Why did you change the subject? Of course the world is still warming long-term. See my March 2012 paper “Q.1 How do you explain the fact that the Earth has been warming?” in the Appendix. It won’t start 500 years of long-term cooling for about 100 years Natural 1000 year and 60 year cycles correlate compellingly with the inverted plot of the scalar sum of the angular momentum of the Sun and all the planets as shown on my earth-climate dot com site for the last 3 or 4 years.
Good night
First I didn’t change the subject even one time. The discussion has been very clear from my side and quite meandering and muddled from your own. I have repeatedly asked the exact same question and your answers have proven that the IPCC version of CO2 warming exists and I agree with them and you apparently — unless you would like to change your answer.
You answered above:
It may be helpful for you to consider the Earth or “current temperature” in your thinking, BUT, our hypothetical planets are not in any way related to Earth as there is NO WATER ON THEM. How you refuse to grok that is beyond me. So then “current temperature” has literally zero meaning. We are comparing two planets with identical albedo, one with a CO2 atmosphere and one with N2. You have admitted that the CO2 atmosphere has a higher average emitting altitude, you have admitted that the radiative cooling must balance inbound radiation such that the emission temperature of each planet is the same when viewed from space and you have admitted that the atmosphere has a non-zero temperature gradient. Therefore the ground temp of the N2 planet = the emission altitude temp of CO2 planet, and the ground of the CO2 planet must be warmer than the N2 planet. Standard basic IPCC theory that you agreed to above, apparently without recognizing it as standard AGW theory.
So my question still hasn’t changed, but I am getting the feeling that you don’t realize just how much of a pickle you have debated yourself into. You have just proven your own book 100% wrong in public debate per your challenge. I am quite charitably giving you a chance to correct your error but it is up to you to take that opportunity.
Copied from above —–
I recognize the difficult spot you are in here Doug but I’m not concerned about pockets of air right now or your water planet or the albedo of clay. I want to know about my two planetary bodies, both having temperature gradients in the atmosphere, both have the same average emission temp because they are the same albedo, and one having CO2 in the atmosphere one does not. Since the emission altitude is higher for the CO2 atmosphere, the atmospheric temperature gradient guarantees the surface is warmer than the mean temp.
You have agreed with the emission altitude, radiant temperature, transparency of Nitrogen gas vs CO2 and the atmospheric temperature gradient, how is the surface of the GHG planet not warmer per your theory?
Bill,
It is your site.
Please, for your sake shut down the pathetic spamming wack job. The jerkwad is killing this site. You deserve better. Come on. you make some of the best posts around. Don’t let a badly medicated (self Medicated?) twit ruin a site that played an important role in the push back against the climate obsessed. Do it for history if for nothing else. Hell, if Lewandowsky were observing this he might spin up some conspiracy to postulate that a certain Australian troll is really a true believer seeking to just kill off the site.
I snipped everything except the answer to my question.
It will be a pleasure to be able to read your thoughts with fewer distractions.
It’s no problem, Jeff. They are just comments that I’ve posted on half a dozen or so other climate blogs where they stick. [snip- I know and I wish you should quit wasting my time snipping your repeated comments. ]
Another copied comment of mine (from drroyspencer.com) will help you to understand Jeff if you read it before deleting …
[snip- I will not.]
Loschmidt’s work has much merit. Doug doesn’t explain it very well, alas, but I don’t think that means he is all wrong.
Of course, a world with a CO2 atmosphere would have a hotter planetary surface than one with N2. You create 2 radiating surfaces (a hotter one and a colder one). So the hotter one is hotter than the ‘average’. The surface is the hotter one!
The importance of the gravito-thermal explanation of lapse rate (based on a dynamic equilibrium where PE is interchangeable with KE) is:
a) The explanation is straightforward: m*Cp*dT = m*g*dz => dT/dz = g/Cp
b) It explains how energy is transferred both ways (from top to bottom and bottom to top): if the equilibrium state is disturbed, the system tries to re-establish equilibrium.
… and it explains this without introducing (shudder) ‘back-radiation’.
It is a relatively simple and complete explanation.
I rather like Loshmidt’s work on this but I believe he is wrong. I haven’t gotten my head around why yet but consider this problem..
Two gravitationally vertical cylinders filled with two gasses having a different Cp. The cylinders are perfectly insulated except at each end where each cylinder has a thermally conductive metal membrane whereby heat can transfer between them.
If the gradient exists without convection, the top has an energy transfer in one direction between cylinders and the bottom in the other. It is a perpetual motion machine.
I have other issues as well but I have to resolve this thermodynamic violation before I can consider the theory.