It’s always the same. A new paper adds one more magical fine-tuning-cog to the models and promises “more accurate predictions”. There are a million small cogs we can add and it takes years to show they don’t deliver. These wheels can spin forever. The real climate machine has a whole extra exhaust pipe to which the models are blind.
Why some climate processes are more effective at warming Earth
Conventional models assume increasing atmospheric CO2 warms the surface, then apply the feedbacks to the surface warming. But if feedbacks start up in the atmosphere instead, everything changes.
The assumption (bolded below) is the problem —
There are many processes which affect the surface climate: changes to the sun’s activity, to the cloud cover, precipitation patterns, or soil water content to name just a few. Currently climate scientists relate these processes by looking at how much they change the energy budget, described by perturbations in the radiative forcing. The existing assumption is that if a given process introduces a certain radiative forcing, then there will always be the same response in the surface air temperature. However, this assumption doesn’t hold for the temperature response on climatological scales because it neglects variations in the effective heat capacity of the atmosphere.
They are still focused on the effect of any and every “radiative forcing” on the surface of Earth. All “forcings” are not the same. It seems so banal — 2 extra watts in the upper trop is not the same as 2 watts on the surface. If the forcing occurs ten kilometers up, then feedbacks up there are what matter first. But this whole class of feedbacks don’t even exist in the GCM’s. If the extra energy just reroutes to space direct from the upper troposphere, who cares how thick the boundary-layer is?
The river of energy wants to flow to cold space. That’s “downhill”. Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It provides a path (call it a pipe) to space. Why wouldn’t energy take the shortcut?
Dr David Evans added in this class of feedbacks and fixed the basic model (that’s the conventional mental construct that generates the Global-Worrier-fear.)
A description of the minor cog below — Yada yada, deckchairs etc:
The effective heat capacity of the atmosphere is defined by the volume of air that is heated, which is described by the depth of the boundary layer. This is the layer of air just above the ground and it is essentially separated from the rest of the atmosphere. The depth of the boundary-layer can vary from just a hundred meters in very cold conditions to several kilometres in warm conditions. Because of these big differences in the effective heat capacity, the surface air temperature has a very different sensitivity depending upon where and when a forcing occurs. So the addition of an equal amount of energy across the globe means that the places with deep boundary layers will warm less than those with shallow layers, as there is a much greater volume of air through which that heat is spread.
This is the reason that some climate forcing processes are more effective than others at warming or cooling Earth. Those processes which act in the places and times that have shallow boundary layers will trigger a stronger temperature response.
REFERENCE
Richard Davy, Igor Esau. Differences in the efficacy of climate forcings explained by variations in atmospheric boundary layer depth. Nature Communications, 2016; 7: 11690 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11690
I must be wrong here: I was given to understand that a system such as global climate is typically non-stationary. I also know there are multiple definitions of stationarity; the one I learned in my Physics classes was that a stationary system will typically respond the same way to the same impulse, whereas a non-stationary will exhibit a random response to an impulse.
Help, please.
Best regards to all,
Vlad
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Apolygys Vladimir for hijacking your post but it’s probably the biggest announcement this year.
“We are going to cancel the Paris climate agreement,” Trump said on Thursday at the Williston Basin Petroleum
http://www.news.com.au/world/breaking-news/trump-would-approve-keystone-pipeline/news-story/3ad66f7f374ab34cddf3d1a48fd14a56
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I think this is even bigger news: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-27/mars-at-taile-end-ice-age/7448786. Clearly we have influenced even the climate on Mars.
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Obviously if you’re a climastrological Green, it stands to reason you can believe in little green men affecting the climate. We just can’t see them like the anointed ones can.
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Even bigger news:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/31704364/man-bitten-on-penis-by-python-in-toilet/
Snake bites trouser snake… c’mon! Does it get bigger than that?
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Siphon the python takes on whole new meaning…
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Both India and China are not taking too much notice in practical terms of the Paris agreement and Mr. Putin doesn’t believe in it as well, so if Donald wins and joins the club there aren’t many people left to save the planet from this alleged impeding catastrophe.
Thinking about military history and the climate, the various invaders of Russian territory Napoleon, the British in Crimea, and Hitler didn’t fare too well with those very cold winters.
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Alarmism assumes a deterministic climate; it is not; it is stochastic with variables ranging from super-novas, asteroid strikes, orbital variation, volcanoes etc; the effect of these, except a super-nova, have all been experienced on Earth and mitigated by the moderating effect of water which however has its stationary effect qualified by its form and distribution as in snowball Earth and an earth with and without poles. The climate of earth has been equivalent to a random walk albeit a tethered one where the moderating effect of water has varied greatly between parameters with a GAT temperature range of about 15C. Changes within this range have tended to be sudden and abrupt as described by Heinrich and Dansgaard-Oeschger events of varying severity. Historically the change of about 1C over a century has been of no significance compared to previous changes of up to 12C in 50 years or less. And all of that 1C change can be correlated with asymmetry in ENSO.
Alarmism understands none of this but proceeds, Camelot like, from a surreal base of stability as in the Hockeystick until it has been disrupted by human CO2 in the 20thC. This scenario has as much credibility as biblical genesis.
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Never hold an enquiry unless you know the outcome before hand….
Sir Humprey Appleby
“Yes Minister”
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“The effective heat capacity of the atmosphere is defined by the volume of air that is heated, which is described by the depth of the boundary layer. “
And the atmosphere’s volume varies with solar radiance changes, especially UV radiation, and as it does the size of earth’s atmospheric area that faces the sun varies. Oops would that make another feedback?
See http://www.seeker.com/earths-shrinking-atmosphere-baffles-scientists-discovery-news-1766491731.html#news.discovery.com
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And there are many other references offering other theories – another ‘work in progress’ until the figures are in and properly assessed. So much for this settled science.
See http://www.space.com/7685-earth-upper-atmosphere-cooling-dramatically.html for an early report…
From the main topic is why CO2 should deflect its IR downward to the smaller area of the lower atmospheric layers in preference to going outward to space? Settle ‘science’ believes it has the answers does it?
“The river of energy wants to flow to cold space.”
Cold space? No…
Jo, IR is just a band of frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum and like all such rays travel through space. The vacuum of space in and of itself has no temperature – neither hot nor cold, as IR requires matter (atoms and molecules) to interact with before ‘heat’, or the lack of it, is evident.
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Ah the technicality Tom. From a human point of view I get warmth from the sun, and “cold” from space as I supply it with my infra red and it gives nothing in return…
Photons surely flow in all directions, but more photons flow from the sun, and only a few flow from a near vacuum. The net effect is a river and in the end the destination for most is the vaccum.
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I agree with what you say Jo but the pedant in me nags…
… oh well as long as everyone understands that ‘space’ really has not a temperature but is a void through which electromagnetic energy (including infrared) can easily pass.
Vacuum flasks, don’t mention vacuum flas… 🙂
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tomomason,
I’m glad you mentioned vacuum flasks.
If CO2 causes positive feedback why don’t they make CO2 flasks?
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I dropped a vacuum flask once, and all the vacuum got out. I never did find out where it had all gone.
That is my intellectual contribution for today. Some of us have important tasks to avoid.
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Thank you for a laugh RW!
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Did you look in the Vacuum cleaner?
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Because that would cause runaway heating of the contents, and the flask would explode as the contents boil. You’ve been arguing about this for so long, yet you still do not understand the principles involved.
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The best use of ‘greenhouse gas’ effect is the much valued chicken oven as used all over Africa.
Now if this same technology was to be used at Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System then they could generate power 24/7 for free!
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Tom, if you keep this up you will force us to find dark matter!
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Jo is correct I think
Heat can radiate into the void (space)
But cannot travel by coduction
GeoffW
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Previous blogg
that should be conduction
GeoffW
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Well the sun warms both land and air, but only land warms the air.
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“The river of energy wants to flow to cold space.”
Even with conduction of heat, its net flow in theory ie more heat leaving the hot half and less coming from the cold rather than the cold attracting the heat. A bit too picky.
The IR headed down creates warmer air below which sends more up. IR headed up goes further and warms up colder air with emission ∝ T^4. How can the calculations come up with half gets back to the surface? Is the pea that emission is approx ∝T?
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tomoson
Thankyou yes “solar radiance changes, especially UV radiation”.
The UV goes through very big changes daily. A solar flare one day, less sunsposts another etc. There is nothing constant about the incoming spectrum even if TSI flukes it to remain the same, the incoming wavelength content varies. Frequency response varies the height of absorbtion from the upper atmosphere all the way down to 100’s of meters below the sea surface. Calculations that treat the frequency response as flat and constant to an also flat and constant TSI are worthless.
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….much as ‘global mean temperature’ 14C (range: -89°C to +58°C) while quibbling about unreliable and adjusted tenths of a degree that lie within the natural centennial variation of 0.98°C ± 0.27°C.
Only PC Politics.
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It is so frustrating, to have to come up with a working model of the planet from radiation to atmosphere and oceans, poles to the tropics, seasons and storms, just to disprove the proposition that increasing CO2 is increasing the temperature, when it is patently not true?
Now we have climate and the proposition that CO2 is changing the climate and creating extreme events when it cannot even change the temperature.
At what point did science become so corrupted that the unproven, the demonstrably wrong has to be disproven by creating necessarily elaborate correct models of extremely complex systems? How can we hope to get climates predictions right when the simple and very popular proposition that temperature would go up is wrong? It may even be a battle to stop the world temperature going down, as is obvious in the Southern Hemisphere.
This is such a massive waste of cash and human resources world wide to try to disprove something which was never proven. As for 350 full time Australian public service scientists in the CSIRO working exclusively proving man made CO2 driven Global Warming, at least you can say that for a cost of mere hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of precious man years of full time scientific research, they failed to prove it was true. That’s proof enough. Man made Global Warming and its misbegotten progeny Climate Change remains a political argument, never a proven science one.
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NY Times June 1988 when Hansen (NASA) peddled his politicized version of ‘science’ to the Senate.
Then in c2000 the UN defined ‘climate change‘ as ‘global warming’ embarrassingly failed to oblige.
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As I have said many times, the concept of feedback, as developed by Bode, and applied to the climate by Hansen and Schlesinger does not legitimately apply to a passive system like the climate. The climate is more like a passive RC (or RLC) filter and there is no powered gain in the system which Bode’s analysis requires. In EE terms, the Bode amplifier has an infinite input impedance and an output impedance of zero. It SAMPLES the input+feedback to determine how much to deliver to the output from an IMPLIED infinite source of power. The climate system ‘amplifier’ has a zero impedance input which CONSUMES the input+feedback to generate its output and this COE constraint has never been accommodated by either side. This is the reason why anyone can believe that 3.7 W/m^2 of incremental input can result in the required 16.3 W/m^2 of surface output corresponding to a 3C temperature rise. This failure in the consensus feedback model was obfuscated by Schlesinger who changed the Bode amplifier to generate temperature from power, which in fact is just the Stefan-Boltzmann relationship. His model assumes that feedback modulates the SB relationship in a manner other than modulating the effective emissivity. In other words, his analysis incorrectly assumes that feedback modulates the T^4 relationship between temperature and power.
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This paper also confirms the ambiguity in the definition of forcing and sensitivity, where the IPCC considers 1 W/m^2 of instantaneous incremental solar input arriving at the surface as being equivalent to 1 W/m^2 of incremental absorption by the atmosphere which also results in a 1 W/m^2 instantaneous difference at TOA. The difference being that incremental power absorbed by the atmosphere is roughly evenly distributed between eventually exiting to space or returning to the surface.
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Interesting comparison of lagged solar radiation and global temperature averaged over 11 Year periods.
This latest comparative data puts the notch theory into serious doubt and thus the general model into fundamental disarray.
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Ah! Silly Filly!
You’re the one with the REAL problem when you read papers from the likes of Patrick Michaels [link below at post # 10 ] who has dissected the role of modeling in climate science.
So it seems that you’re obsessive climate alarmist fixations are based on little more than a large swag of very dubious and unverified, unvalidated, unproven models, few of which ever come out with the same agreed conclusions on the climate.
Climate models which are now well proven to have almost no relationship to the real global climate and the way it acts let alone being able to predict what the real global climate, not the pseudo modelled climate will be doing over the next few months.
[ Patrick J. (“Pat”) Michaels (born February 15, 1950) is an American climatologist. Michaels is a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute. Until 2007 he was research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, where he had worked from 1980.[2][3]
He is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists. ]
——————–
As you seem to have avoided answering the last couple of questions I asked you, perhaps you might like to answer this following question.
It should be a very easy question for you to answer as it refers to the fundamental underpinnings of your entire obsession and belief in “global warming / climate change.”
Could you describe in your own words just exactly what you’re understanding is and what you’re belief is based on when you say you believe in [ dangerous? ] “Climate Change”.
I’m very interested in your reply because you see, I also believe in climate change.
And that “climate change” is very obvious to me as I have seen the climate around here subtly shift and change quite a number of times in my 78 years of living around this locality.
And I often read some paleo history and read of the massive changes in the global climate that have taken place innumerable times down through both paleo history and even a number of times down through the known 12,000 years of human history.
So Silly Filly, indulge me and give us your own personal interpretation of your belief and understandings of a [ catastrophic? ] “climate change” means.
Of course if you refuse or fail to be able to explain the “climate change” you believe in in your own words then you really don’t actually know what you are talking about or believe in or worse, just what sort of dangerous for you personally, climate change cult you have become a believer in.
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Patrick Michaels: Cato’s Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
[Media Matters as a reference? Good unbiased, politically neutral source there (not) Silly you have just pissed me off. No oats for you] ED
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All’s perfectly normal in Silly Filly’s warmist world!
Don’t even bother to make any attempt to refute Patrick Michael’s research into what has now become a climate modelling fiasco and debacle.
Just launch a full scale personal attack upon Patrick Michael’s character and his past science.
It was all just so predictable!
And the warmists wonder why the populace is switching off their cult despite the billions of the public’s hard earned dollars that have been thrown their way over the last two decades to pimp and promote their climate change cult.
With believers like Silly Filly, do warmists really need any more enemies? !
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Just to add, you could read a bit of this:
Global Climate Change Indicators
Might help you understand some of the climate realities as a consequence of AGW
[Silly, this isn’t a game of “my link is bigger than yours”. Provide a link and then add your own words to make a real comment otherwise you could just be a bot. ] ED
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But Sillyfilly does mention an eleven year cycle, presumably in relation to the ionosphere.
Perhaps this is preparing us for a significant revelation, that climate change causes sunspots!
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Climate change causes sunspots, about as plausible as Force X (or is it Forces N + D) or that the Notch exists.
19
It would appear that irony is lost on you … … …
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The problem with all of the above is that sunlight energy is not added equally across the globe. Consequently the real atmosphere is just the opposite of what Davy and Esau propose. The sun heats the Tropics much more than the Poles. The Tropics have a deep boundary layer and the places with a deep boundary layer are much hotter than the places with a shallow boundary layer (Poles).
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Yep, that sentence alone is enough to make the paper only useful in the outhouse, or to start a wood BBQ..
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Read it again, Andy. But this time, don’t take your finger off the screen. 😉
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“So the addition of an equal amount of energy across the globe”
Ok RW, I have read it again..
Its nonsense.
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But at least you tried – well done.
The point is that PeterC already highlighted the offending phrase. We all knew he was not taking it seriously. The important thought was that solar energy is evenly distributed in the models, and does not, therefore have any resemblance with reality.
Could that have been the whooshing sound that passed over your head?
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So the poles receive the same energy as the tropics.
Interesting concept.
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Yes they do. The angle of incidence means that less energy is absorbed.
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no, it means that the same energy falls over a much much larger area..
ie.. it receives less energy.
21
Peter your comment makes sense to me . . .
This discussion is essential to the understanding of the CO2 issue.
GeoffW
Geoff W
50
The models still claim and declare,
That the forcing which warms up the air,
In a given process,
Will respond nonetheless,
The same through the boundary layer.
190
Simple experiments (you can do yourself quite easily) show every time, that because CO2 is so heavy relative to the rest of Earth’s atmosphere, it falls to the surface and sits on the surface (where vegetation happens to have access to it and consumes it…another story too).
As most of the tiny bit of CO2 we have relative to rest of the atmosphere lies on the ground how can it possibly cause a “greenhouse effect” to warm the planet down there? Any CO2 present 10 kilometres up would have probably been blown up there by convection winds and would be so relatively minute. How could hardly any CO2 at high and higher altitude levels therefore possibly trap any heat under it, between where it is, and the surface of the Earth? End of story. CO2 has nothing to do with any ‘greenhouse’ effect on Earth.
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Interesting point Robert about the extent to which CO2 is mixed in our atmosphere.
Is there any empirical data showing greater concentrations of CO2 at lower levels? Most of what I’ve read indicates(assumes?) that atmospheric gases are evenly mixed.
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I thought that to. Are there any measurements? Is ther a gradient of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere?
It is known that concentrated CO2 from marsh gas and volcanoes can stay close to the ground for limited periods.
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It seems that marsh gas was responsible for the deaths of Dr. Bogle and Mrs. Chandler who were overcome on a riverbank after a party decades ago.
60
Aided by heavy breathing?
50
You have echod my own thoughts regarding the dispersion of CO2 throughout the atmosphere. Shouldn’t be to difficult to find out . . .
GeoffW
50
This is worth checking out, not my field but it seems obvious. Sometimes the simplest of answers are behind what the mainstream appears sometimes to make very complex for the sake of it.
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Also there is the problem of measuring CO2, especially at high altitude.
The Société de Calcul Mathématique SA Tools (Paris) points out that ‘The battle against global warming: is an absurd,costly and pointless crusade’ because you cant even measure CO2 accurately, let alone measuring for variations at high altitude. All we know for sure is that the percentage of CO2 in the air is minute, so how could it be doing what it apparently does on Venus where it is very high.
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This download pdf from SCMSA in Paris at this link explains the issues behind measuring CO2 in the atmosphere
http://www.scmsa.eu/archives/SCM_RC_2015_08_24_EN.pdf
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It is lower but it is rising.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n12/full/ngeo1626.html
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL064696/full
00
I have been carrying out computer modeling for over 20 years. To the extent that I had to become a fairly proficient program writer, coding is cut and dried. But our team had to allow for human psychology in the physical design of the program models because researchers commonly fall into the trap of making assumptions that form the basis of the model that appear good but are not proven.
Over and over again I have seen researchers, fail to prove their assumptions, but reaching the stage where they get so wound up in the ‘brilliance’ of their computer program that they start convincing themselves that their unproven initial assumptions underlying their computer models are based on fact! In these circumstances program modeling is useless for the intended predictive purposes.
This can only be overcome by going back to the basics of underlying assumptions and eradicating the overlooked error in them or even determining if the assumptions are even worth thinking about in the first place. Our modeling is unrelated to climate change btw, but the same research principles apply. We have worked hard to eradicate errors due to market requirements in our work.
In the commercial world, you don’t survive unless you are able to do this. ‘Climate scientists’ don’t have this ‘market forces’ natural selection working in their favour doing the same for them because they are politically funded to achieve the ‘flavour of the month’ answer that is politically required of them. They are too wound up in the ‘cuteness’ of their model to give due concern to the veracity of the assumptions underlying their model.There is no evolution in train with these people, forcing them to be accurate and the public have no understanding of this process going on with them whatsoever.
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Robert R
It is their “Mona Lisa” and you can’t question a brush stroke.
IIRC terms like “model enrapture?
60
Exactly Robert R., well said. This is what happened in climate.
20
CO2 is indeed well mixed in the atmosphere. At the scales of molecules, the atmosphere is like a particularly thick molasses to a CO2 molecule trying to sink.
Having said that, at regional levels, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere can and does vary a lot. So its locally well mixed.
10
Last night I was just doing a bit of roaming around the climate blogs and settled on Doug Hoffman’s The Resilient Earth blog for a read.
Hoffman’s blog is often good value reading as being a sci-fi writer as well as having a varied career in science and engineering and in business he often delves into the background of science particularly climate science from a different and skeptical viewpoint.
His latest blog article which is well worth a read as are his links if you are science orientated is titled Science Death Spiral where he delves into a recent quite comprehensive spate of papers including a paper published in “Nature ” on the profound problems that are now surfacing in science across nearly every discipline.
And then this morning I see that our hostess Jo has dissected yet another climate alarmist paper and shown that it has no more veracity or validity than just another bit of climate science click bait so as to ensure future funding for the authors.
The Resilient Earth blog article gives a number of links to the various peer reviewed papers reviewed ] that are tearing apart of what appears to be in the opinions of the science based authors of these papers, the current trends towards what is becoming for a large proportion of science, little more than a shaman chicken entrails reading type exercise being passed off as some sort of science.
[ “peer review” itself as currently done is coming under some severe and quite devastating criticism from a number of science quarters as well as being seen as increasingly irrelevant and is now being used by some reviewers to deliberately hold back some scientific research whose outcomes and analysis they don’t agree with, by enforcing the current “consensus’ on the science being reviewed ]
.
One of the links provided in The Resilient Earth blog and a paper I have read excerpts from previously is Patrick Michaels and David Wojik’s paper
Climate Modeling Dominates Climate Science
Some excerpts from this paper which says it all for validity of the current practices re the almost pathologically obsessive fixation on modelling in climate science follow;
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Many years ago, while attending a management training course in a very large company (top 5 world wide), the credibility of information sources was discussed at some length. The one source deemed by all the attendees to be most believable was computer modelling. This was at a time when computers were relatively new on the business scene and few had time to compare actual outcomes with computer predictions. One could say computers had an air of mysticism about them and they were treated more with the respect due to the infallible than to something merely processing data supplied by people and manipulated according to formulae and mathematics that were man made. It was as though computers were the the latest version of the crystal ball, but much more up to date. Ten or fifteen years later, the computer predictions could be easily compared with what actually happened and it could be clearly seen they were no more credible than any other form of prediction, even in the fairly tightly controlled business environment.
Since then “super computers” have come into existence to process huge amounts of data and with equally enormous numbers of variables considered. However large the computers are, and however much data they process, the input and processing (manipulation?) is still dependent upon people and still reflects the mindset of people. The quality of the output will always depend on what goes in and how it is processed. The old “GIGO”!
We started out with huge expectations for what we now consider the basic computers of the 1970’s and 80’s and treated them as almost infallible predictors of the future and that was later seen to be misplaced (wonder how many people lost fortunes based on these predictions). There has been, as yet, nothing to show why modern computer modelling is any better and should be accorded any greater credibility.
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Bruce J
Must have been a bloody long time ago or separate planet to my experience.
I got my introduction to modelling/simulation around the mid 1970’s and there was ample awareness of the dangers of “enthusiastic and inept” practitioners of same.
The TLA “DFS”* was alive and well
* “DFS” = data free statement
And I’m not disagreeing with your general observations either
40
Yep, Early 1970’s. Computer took up a whole floor in a Melbourne city building and less power than your smartphone.
20
“The one source deemed by all the attendees to be most believable was computer modelling. ”
Man, your companies really needs to learn some stuff about VALIDATED computer models …
and climate science computer “guesses”, which have absolutely FAILED any sort of validation.
Are they SERIOUSLY that naïve ?????????
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Well done, ROM! Thank you for that.
“To a man with just a hammer, every problem can be solved by a nail.”
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Just in case anybody has any doubts [ #6; cough! cough! ] about the rapidly increasing recognition of the scientific debacle that is called “climate modeling”, and by inference the potential collapse of even this very rotten climate modeling prop from the climate change alarmist’s aging and tired old vaudeville act, we have a senior IPCC climate modeling scientist, Edouard Zorita, wading in with his take on climate modeling.
From the NoTricksZone blog Dated 20th April 2016.
Profound Admission: New Nature Study Shows Models Still Very Embryonic, “Hardly Trustworthy” Says Top Climate Modeler
Various quotes follow;
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Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble,
Add eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat et cetera.
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Beth,
Are you any relation to Macbeth, by any chance?
60
Say, Rereke, what’s in a name? )
30
“All “forcings” are not the same.”
Jo, do you mean (a) “No ‘forcings’ are the same”, or (b) “Not all ‘forcings’ are the same”?
My training in formal logic leads me to read it as (a), but experience has taught me that grammatically and logically challenged Americans would mean (b).
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∀(a,b) ∈ Forcing×Forcing | a≠b • Strength(a)≠Strength(b)
40
I like the diagram showing heat escaping to space via the direct atmospheric window and also the indirect CO2 alternative pathway.
But should not the arrow connecting the surface and CO2 point upward?
40
.
Peter C @ #9.1.1
Re CO2 Atmospheric vertical profiles;
Carbon dioxide atmospheric vertical profiles retrieved from space observation using ACE-FTS solar occultation instrument
The last couple of pages of this paper show CO2 concentration and atmospheric mixing level graphs up to 22 kilometres with the CO2 concentrations along the bottom line.
There is a quite marked variation seasonally in those CO2 upper atmosphere concentrations where the seasonal changes in CO2 lag a couple of months behind the same seasonal changes at ground level.
When you have figured out what it this paper is trying to tell us I would be interested to see the layman’s version of the “Conclusions” and what they might mean re the CO2 levels at different and various heights.
80
Post # 13 [above] was supposed to be in reply to the questions asked at # 9.1 and #9.1.1 by Rollo and Peter C.
50
Ok ROM, I’ll have a go. The paper is basically reporting validation studies on estimation of CO2 content and its vertical distribution in the atmosphere using the satellite based ACE-FTS instrument. They conclude that the values derived from ACE-FTS correspond well to actual measurement with the exception that the size of the seasonal variation in the stratosphere may be overestimated by the satellite sensor. They suggest this may be due the the greater coverage of the satellite sensor compared to the aircraft based measurements.
They also compared satellite measurements to the results of two theoretical models of vertical mixing in the atmosphere. Again they found good correlation except that the models had trouble around the tropopause. They suggest that these results may contribute to improving the models although do concede that there may still be errors in the derivation of CO2 estimates from the sensor readings and continued checking is required.
Seems like good science to me. Extensive presentation of the data, models expected to fit the data and recognition that none of what they have done is infallible.
Its also interesting that they found a maximum variation in CO2 fraction of about 20 ppm over 22km of vertical atmospheric depth. Seems like the people who call it a well mixed gas are pretty close to the mark.
By the way, great rant the other day in the Oil and Gas thread. I enjoyed it.
60
Ahh! My science linguistics translator has come good once again!
Re the rant; If it had been video you could have got another good dose of my usual arm waving as well!
40
The molecules in liquid water are held together by relatively strong hydrogen bonds, and its enthalpy of vaporization, 40.65 kJ/mol, is more than five times the energy required to heat the same quantity of water from 0 °C to 100 °C (cp = 75.3 J K−1 mol−1).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy_of_vaporization
40
+1
30
There is some interesting stuff in this paper though. The authors are disagreeing with the assumption
and discussing reasons why it is invalid. That the effect of forcings is more pronounced where the boundary layer is low seems to me a no-brainer at least for near surface processes. They make the point that this extends to forcings such as the UHI. This is relevant to frequently expressed doubts as to the accuracy of arctic temperature measurements taken in close proximity to airports and settlements.
I found their figure 6 illustrating the effect of clouds on air temperature and heat content particularly interesting. They show cloud having a consistently (except the Sahara) negative effect on temperature except in the high latitudes ie. areas where the radiative budget is almost always negative. The effect on energy content is significant at low latitudes but much smaller at high latitudes. In the same figure the downstream plume from the Rockies is marked. Why? I have some theories but not much data.
The authors make the point that not all forcings are the same and that climate models are too simplistic. These are entirely reasonable points to make.
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Just to be clear, given ROM’s post at 13, the paper I refer to is Davey and Esau.
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From ages ago (Aug 1995) a paper called Line-by-line calculation of atmospheric fluxes and cooling rates: 2. Application to carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, nitrous oxide and the halocarbons
by S. A. Clough, M. J. Iacono.
From this paper is a graph that shows CO2 very active above the tropopause and virtually inactive below it. That is to say, at ground-level (everywhere below the top of the cloud-base) CO2 does NOT interact with IR energy (at CO2 absorption frequencies) as the sunlight at these wavelengths has been filtered out by the CO2 high above this altitude, in the stratosphere where CO2 is very active.
E.M. Smith (Chiefio) wrote a good piece on this back in 2012 that reproduce the S. A. Clough, M. J. Iacono graph as ‘Stratosphere radiation by species’
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Jo
O/T but different feedbacks and for your record
” jhuddles
May 27, 2016 at 1:41 am
“Coral reefs, which have featured a lot in recent press, barely get a mention.”
More to that than meets the eye
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/27/great-barrier-reef-axed-from-un-climate-change-report-after-aust/
Reply ”
Comment at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/05/27/claim-climate-threatens-the-statue-of-liberty/
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Energy Movement – Rivers – Infra Red and all that stuff.
My main view of all this is that the CAGW by MM CO2 Meme does not hold water quantitatively since Man’s contribution is swamped by water and Natural Origin CO2.
The warmers have seen the faults in their position and tried every indecent scientific obfuscation possible to cover up
AND THEY GOT AWAY WITH IT.
Energy always degrades to a lower level.
ie. it is NOT going to be able to go “upstream” back to Earth surface because on every incremental step back down the “energy” meets a higher level, becomes re-energised and turns around.
Only 10 km up we get down to minus 38 deg C and that is a temperature at which no one can survive long term
Not much farther out into interplanetary space we get down to just 1.6 C deg above ABSOLUTE ZERO.
Whether Earths stored energy (from yesterday’s solar Input) moves around by conduction, convection, photon movement or EMR, one thing is for sure:
IT WILL MOVE TOWARDS DEEP SPACE BECAUSE IT MUST FOLLOW THE TEMPERATURE GRADIENT. (or energy gradient)
KK
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The main point following the above is that we need to hold onto and treasure all the heat we have available here on Earth because the alternative, no heat, would be disastrous.
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Whenever I look up at a high flying aeroplane (just visible, with a vapour trail) I know that it’s at about 35,000 feet – and that the temperature outside that aeroplane is around minus 40 degrees Celsius.
Dangerous man made global warming? Don’t make me laugh!
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El Nino officially dead, Bureau of Meteorology declares.
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/el-nino-officially-dead-bureau-of-meteorology-declares/news-story/19e1c57babcaa5112df0854b06f23635
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from a biologist:
Jostled water molecules at 35,000 feet when they release infrared photons, do not emit these preferentially upward, do they? Don’t they emit long wave radiation in random directions?..and the reason it appears that it is lost into space directionally is because it cannot be absorbed and re-emitted by any other molecules, whereas when these photons go downwards, water molecules and other absorbing molecules at this lower level promptly re-emit the photons because they are warmer–owing to the lapse rate.
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