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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 75651 to 75700:

  1. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    muoncounter - the 51 % was after albedo of ~30% and atmospheric absorbtion of ~19 %. Please read this from the IPCC http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-4-3.html 1.4.3 Solar Variability and the Total Solar Irradiance 3rd paragraph "Between 1902 and 1957, Charles Abbot and a number of other scientists around the globe made thousands of measurements of TSI from mountain sites. Values ranged from 1,322 to 1,465 W m–2, which encompasses the current estimate of 1,365 W m–2. Foukal et al. (1977) deduced from Abbot’s daily observations that higher values of TSI were associated with more solar faculae (e.g., Abbot, 1910)." the solar insolation is certainly a vector quantity This link shows ~51 % solar irradiance reaches Earth. http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7f.html
  2. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Camburn#31: "S&P is just as valid as the last paper by Dessler. " Really? You're back to making unsubstantiated claims which are easily debunked. The only significant criticisms of Dessler were by Spencer (go figure!), Pielke and the latest Lindzen/Choi do-over; Lindzen didn't hold up that well. Pielke was taken down by the normally lukewarm John Nielsen-Gammon. On the other hand, S&B were criticized by Trenberth and a host of others. Spencer's track record makes his criticism questionable at best. His self-declared posture as a 'legislator' is what politicized this 'debate'. Blaming the Remote Sensing editor is akin to shouting 'We wuz robbed!' after losing a ball game. Yeah, it was the ref's fault. Or the wind was against us. Or the court wasn't level. Or something, just as long as it wasn't us.
  3. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Rosco#76 and beyond, Please stop insisting you are the only person who understands radiative physics. I'm willing to bet that everyone who has commented on this thread (except you) has seen the equations that go into those insolation curves. You did not discover that sine / cosine of the solar azimuth angle and latitude are involved. But in #80, you refer to sine and cosine of angles as 'magnitudes of vectors.' That would be a -5 on any physics test where I teach. As far as my backyard is concerned, reduce the emissivity to ~0.7 and see what radiative flux you obtain at an absurdly hot 326K. In winter, when my backyard air temp could go as low as 270K and the ground temp is closer to 288K, an emissivity of ~0.7 again matches the insolation of 270 W/m^2. Guess the sand and clay of my backyard aren't black body emitters; I'll have to sell the place. Please do some reading before you post your next 'definitely definitely the last post'.
  4. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Stephen Baines@29: S&P is just as valid as the last paper by Dessler. Both have problems, yet both were published. Hopefully, the process will work itself out, as it should. This is becoming pure politics, kill the editor type thing. Uncalled for and very very unprofessional.
  5. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Jonathon, Actually, the validity of the paper is in question. The peer-review process was not adequate in this case to note that the approach taken by S&B 2011 has already been called into question, and that those questions should have been dealt with before publication was allowed. The exagerration of the findings in the skeptic media poses a real problem for the journals appearance of credibility - which is critical to it's standing. Certainly, such a provacative topic should have received an extra thorough balanced review. That did not happen. That calls into question the mechanisms and vision of the editors at that journal. I think Wagner's statement may have saved the Journals standing, frankly.
  6. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Rosco, you still haven't gone and done the reading, have you? As someone said earlier, you're disagreeing with the stuff on just about the first page of a climatology or atmospheric physics textbook, yet you're utterly convinced you're right and everyone else is wrong. It's sad to see, really.
  7. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: IPCC SAR
    I think the point is that climate models are physical models (based on physics) as opposed to statistical models.
  8. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Wow. I was not expecting this kind of response. The only embarassment and ranting I found was from Wagner. While I do not claim to know his motives in resigning, it does give the appearance of "grandstanding." I admit to not having read the paper, but it does not sound like the validity of the paper is in question, but the idea that it contradicts Wagner's beliefs. I have seen several other papers that seemingly contradict another, sometimes in the same journal issue. This is nothing new. From what I have read, Wagner is not upset about the original paper, but the responses that it has drawn from others. Frankly, I am surprised that this paper has garnered such a notable response, from both those who support his conclusions and those who do not. I fail to see how this can be compared to cult leaders. Wagner does not seem to have made that much of an impact.
  9. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    I think you guys are reading too much into this dip. The wiggles in the SLR largely correlate with the ENSO cycles. The higher spikes are associated with El Ninos, witness 1998, 2003, and 2005. The dips occur during La Ninas, such as 2008 and 2011. The warming of the ocean surface results in expansion, while cooling leads to contraction. The changes in rainfall over land are small compared to the expansion or contraction of the ocean waters. Unless large scale glacial accumulation were to occur, the redistribution of ocean waters over land does not contribute significantly to teh SLR calculations.
  10. Anne-Marie Blackburn at 08:31 AM on 5 September 2011
    The Fate of Greenland: Exceptional Storytelling, Extraordinary Photography
    Thanks for this - another book to add to my long list of climate-related books
  11. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    The IPCC state in their scientific discussion that approximately 51 % of incoming solar radiation warms the surface of earth - it is not front and centre like Figure 1 but it is there. If you calculate 51 % of the solar constant and multiply that by the cosine of the latitude of where you live you arrive at the maximum irradiation for your home on a clear day at the summer solstice for where you live. You will see that this maximum energy corresponds to a temperature - calculated by Stefan-Boltzman's law - which is much more than recorded values. We all know heated air rises and is replaced with cooler air which is why (no matter how you believe the air is heated) the temperature never achieves the theoretical maximum. If you had a perfectly sealed greenhouse you would record a temperature inside it near to the theoretical maximum for the insolation minus some losses because there is never perfect transmission - there are always losses. That is what I have been saying.
  12. Tar Sands Impact on Climate Change
    Albatross @66 Given that more imports are at least a possible consequence of not developing the oil sands, the impacts of such oil imports are indeed relevant.
  13. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    All I am pointing out is in muoncounter's back yard the earth in the sun was emitting ~640 W/sq m at 123 F, the air around him was emitting ~565 W/ sq m at 109 F - these calculations are from Stefan-Boltzman's law used correctly. I don't know what temperatures you get in winter but if you convert them to Kelvin and calculate the radiative flux you'll see a huge difference - for example at 60 F (~288K)the radiative flux is ~390 W/sq m and for say 40 F (~277.6 K) the radiative flux is ~336 W/sq m. There is an enormous difference that cannot be explained by a "constant irradiation" model.
  14. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    As I understand it, Rosco, you keep trying to apply theory based on equilibrium temperatures resulting from radiation balance to scales of observation where equilibrium clearly doesn't apply and where a large number of variables besides solar radiation are important - incuding downwelling LW radiation, which you seem to believe does not exist. You then wonder why your simple approach gives you startling numbers for incoming radiation. What you are doing is trying to predict weather - using too few variables. At the planetary scale, things are simpler. The only way heat can be exchanged between a planet and the surrounding space is via radiation. That simplifies the problem to one of radiation balance. Simlicity is a good thing! Because solar inputs and LW outputs are not necessarily constant across the globe, a proper balance requires integrating gains and losses over the globe through proper averaging. Certainly, as Tom has pointed out, spatial variation in surface temp can influence the efficiency by which heat is shed to space, and therefore the equilibrium planetary temp. But, luckily, one need not understand what is happening at every point on earth to get a reasonable radiation balance for Venus.
  15. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Sorry I pressed submit accidentally I should have said the sine of the angle to the sun in the sky at any time is the magnitude of the vector of importance for insolation. The cosine of the latitude of where on earth you are situated is the magnitude of the vector of importance for insolation. The combination of the two gives a vector relating insolation to a point on earth but the problem is the sine value changes daily whilst the cosine changes seasonally.
  16. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Interesting graph and site - I liked the fact they use the sine and cosine of angles to break down non normal incident vectors into normal components to determine the value incident on a surface - I think I've seen that somewhere - I'll research the material provided on that site but according to Stefan-Boltzman 440 W/sq m is the radiative flux associated with a temperature of ~ 297 K or ~24 C or ~76 F ?
  17. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Rosco#77: This demonstrates exactly why you are wrong about using these peak temperatures. Put aside the fact that the ground was not at equilibrium (adjacent areas in shade had lower temperatures), hence there must be heat flow along this very local thermal gradient. At 30N latitude during August, I am basking in the glow of a mere 440 W/m^2. -- source To paraphrase, it would indeed be a travesty if you believed something had to account for the missing 200 W/m^2.
  18. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Oh and one more thing: does this now mean that the Jason/Poseidon sea level altimetry data is not part of the worldwide scientists' Global Warming Conspiracy/Hoax? Because I'd sure like to identify all the data that's untainted by research grant money.
  19. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    #1 MA Rodger, #2, critical mass, #3 Bern, etc. GRACE data is divided between land and water areas. Gridded land data by month can be found at ftp://podaac-ftp.jpl.nasa.gov/allData/tellus/L3/land_mass/ in various formats. Data is by anomaly in the equivalent of cm of water at the surface. Even a cursory summation of the data shows a lot more water on the land surface in March 2011 than in March 2010. After summing the entire globe by latitude and correcting for difference in area by latitude, I compute that roughly .41 cm of the .5 cm sea level change can be accounted for by hydrological storage differences between these months. In other words, the JPL/NASA article basically gets it right.
  20. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: IPCC SAR
    I have taken a gander at the Science of doom from time to time. so? Models either have a physical basis or they don't. But if you now understand that, fine.
  21. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Sorry - I didn't intend to post again. muoncounter measured 109 F air temperature - (~43 C or ~316 K) and 128 F ( 53.3 C or 326 K) on the ground. The energy flux associated with this temperature is ~640 W/sq m. You have just supplied some real data - the maximum temperature at your place that day required ~640 W/sq m. And presumably it built up during the day to a maximum in the afternoon and began cooling after the peak. Surely we can agree on that ?
  22. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Sphaerica @26, I concur-- I would not say "interesting" as Jonathon alleges, but a "predictable rant" from someone who is completely uncritical and unskeptical of Spencer and his real motives, despite a mountain of evidence that doesn't support his rhetoric and persecution complex. I wonder what Jonathon @25 honestly thinks about William's rant? I think that am now beginning to understand exactly how cult leaders manage to do what they do and why some people gravity towards them.
  23. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    25, Jonathon, I found nothing interesting there. It sounded like an angry denier who's been embarrassed by one of his own, and so angrily and defiantly wants to ignore the facts. He starts out by saying that the review process was fine and attacking the man who resigned (implying that maybe his term was up soon anyway, so it was an easy thing to do for show). He goes on to declare that the paper itself is both robust, and too minor to care about (despite the great brouhaha created on the Intertubes over it in denial camps). All in all, it's the same kind of fabricated, angry denial (this time denying that Spencer's paper is bad or that the resignation is in any way meaningful) that is demonstrated over the science or anything else. More of the same, clearly demonstrating what motivates those hypnotized by that particular belief system.
  24. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Here is an interesting take on the article and his resignation. http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=4311
    Response:

    [DB] You have an interesting definition of the word "interesting". Perhaps in the sense of watching a career's worth of scientific integrity go *poof* (a la Curry on RC).  One need read no further than the first sentence in your linked blog column to ascertain the patently transparent agenda of the writer.  Indeed, I stopped there.

    "Sad" is a better descriptive term of that rant.

  25. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    23, geraldwilhite, Looking around at when this has been done in the past, retracting a paper is not something you want to do lightly or without serious evidence. Remote Sensing can only make themselves look even worse by retracting the paper without serious, indisputable cause. Retracting this paper would just raise the hew and cry that the peer review system is corrupted by an old boy network that it trying to marginalize the skeptical position. Normal methods of doing science are fine in this case. Lots of invalid papers get published and then refuted by later work. They can let this happen with this one. It would be another thing if Spencer retracted it, but that obviously will never happen.
  26. The Climate Show 18: The Big Chill & The Big Fracking Issue
    Marcus: I don't care to watch tv, etc. In my offtime, I read. I am an Icelander by heritage, it is either cultural or somewhat genetic, in that as people from Iceland seem to enjoy knowledge. That is my enjoyment. And with my reading, if I could find a practical way to generate electricity from my own source, I would do it. I have investigated the bio and wind. Unless heavily subsidized, it is not practical. Raising food requires a lot of energy, it is a huge expense. Any way to reduce the consumption of energy or replace it with another source is an ongoing endeavor.
  27. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    Has Remote Sensing withdrawn the article? If not, why not?
  28. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Rosco#73: "I don't understand why everyone seems to insist I calculate some sort of average - I don't." The other day I measured 109F air temperature in my backyard; at the same time the ground surface (in direct sunlight) read 128F. You would use the maximum local transient (the area in direct sun changes during the day) temperature as the day's high? 109F was bad enough, but 128F? Why not record the temperature inside a car as the day's high? Or inside an abandoned refrigerator? Everyone's maximum temperature would vary depending on sun exposure and materials. That approach is just flat wrong; it is unbelievable that you don't understand something so straightforward. Recognizing that you may continue reading after your 'last post' and your 'definitely the last post,' there's no need of a reply. It is a shame, however, to encounter such rigid opposition to learning. In education, we advocate for 'life-long learning;' that requires a willingness to abandon preconceived beliefs. To be so clearly incorrect and yet remain unwilling to learn strongly suggests it is by deliberate choice. Sad, very sad.
  29. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    This seems very straight-forward. Water temporarily stored on the continent has to come from somewhere and eventually go back somewhere. That somewhere is the oceans; I believe the word cycle as in 'the water cycle' connotes a round trip. Here's an example of the unusual runoff conditions. Summary of Winter 2010-2011. The forecasted runoff for 2011 is 61.8 MAF, 249% of normal. This would be a record inflow runoff, exceeding the previous record inflow of 49.0 MAF in 1997. Jun 2011 data show the same multiples of normal. Isn't it nice to live in times that are 2 1/2x above normal? “Presently, almost three quarters of the automated snow measuring sites in Montana and northern Wyoming still hold considerable snowpack,” ... “In fact, some individual SNOTEL sites, especially the high elevation sites of northern Wyoming, reached this year’s maximum snowpack in the last two days of May.” Anecdotally, I spent a week along the upper Arkansas River in Colorado in early July. While not out of its banks, the river flow was torrential; all the locals could say was 'we've never seen it like this before.' Yet on high ground a mile or so from the river, the ground was parched and fire bans were in place. All the locals there could say was 'we've never seen it like this before.' That's an apt description of the new normal.
  30. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Lest we forget, SLR is not distributed unifomily throughout the world's ocean systems. A single graph of mean global SLR as shown in Firgure 1 masks one heck of lot of anomalies.
  31. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Hurrican Irene transferred one heck of a lot of water from the Atlantic to the northeast coast of North America. Does NOAA compute the total amount? The amount absorbed by the land mass? The amount returned to the ocean? How long does it take for hydrological system to return to equilibrium?
  32. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Two things leap to mind upon reading this: 1. NASA/JPL needs to use a different color scale in that "GRACE Shows..." graphic. In particular, there's an uncomfortable amount of area that's pegged up against the +0.05 dark blue end of the spectrum, with a lesser portion pegged by the -0.05 dark red end. You can't really tell how much extra water we saw in some areas. (I'm assuming that this is true, based on the conclusions of the article.) 2. Is this rainfall-induced drop in SLR another characteristic of our "new normal" state? Is it possible that we've added enough warming to the ocean, in particular, that normal cycles are enhanced enough to produce big enough swings in things like rainfall to cause dips (and surges?) in SLR?
  33. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Re #1: it'd be interesting to see the numbers for that figure, so they could actually be tallied up and the net change in water content of the continents worldwide determined. I know it'd be pretty rough, but considering the extremes of the scale are 50mm of water, and the change in global sea level is ~5mm or so, it might correlate quite well.
  34. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Norman#124: "I could agree to the first one (but the degree of influence is not so certain). The first being 'human influence on climate.' Norman, you've given a stock response phrase, more appropriate to the pages in the realm of the uncertainty monster. You brought up the contrail example; 3 days of only a change in the number of airplane flights produced a measurable change in a key climate variable -- the degree of influence is there for you to see. "Not sure about the GCR debate, looked into it some but not heavily." The point here is not the mechanism that stimulates high clouds; it is the existence of those clouds. Contrail-caused clouds had an effect; GCR clouds (if such actually exist, which I strongly doubt) would have the same effect. Svensmark's mythic effect is overturned on this basis alone. "Last one, the measurable effect of contrails is localized but it can imply clouds (Spencer) do play a significant role in Earth's energy balance." Yep, these data show that clouds can trap OLR, which is clearly a positive feedback. That is indeed significant. But Spencer's magic clouds are supposed to be a negative feedback, while Dessler finds positive feedback. What data did Spencer produce for the magic cloud argument? Norman, the picture keeps coalescing. It is time to abandon those who preach 'we don't know' and 'its not certain' as dead-enders. Take a sheet of paper and make two columns. In one, list the observations one has to reject in order to objectively say 'we don't know.' In the other, list the convoluted explanations needed to explain away those observations - and the supposed observations that support them. When you're done, you should have an approximate outline of the contents of this site. Rather than pick away at the evidence one bit at a time, look at the weight of the evidence. Can you really say with any objectivity 'we don't know'?
  35. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    Does anybody have any numbers to show the mass balance of missing water from the oceans equating to the net water left on the land masses? Given these massive rainfalls in Australia there is still a portion returned to the oceans by rapid river runoff and the rest absorbed in recharging aquifers, snow & ice etc and increased soil moisture.
  36. Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: IPCC SAR
    @Dave123 #28 Climate models are generally called "climate models," not "physical models." Let's leave it at that. If you have never done so, I suggest that you take a gander at the Science of Doom website.
  37. Journal editor resigns over 'fundamentally flawed' paper by Roy Spencer
    I am wondering if the professors decision was influced by a need to defend not just his journal, but open access publishing as a whole?
  38. NASA Satellites Detect Pothole on Road to Higher Seas
    This NASA article was also posted on WUWT almost as above. The map was omitted allowing it to be presented by their Willis (Eschanbach?) whose great contribution to the debate was to question whether the water had left the oceans for the continents:- "To do that, the above map would have to average a medium blue well up the scale … and it’s obvious from the map that there’s no way that’s happening. So I hate to say this, but their explanation doesn’t … hold water … I suspected I’d find this when I looked, because in the original press release the authors just said: “This year, the continents got an extra dose of rain, so much so that global sea levels actually fell over most of the last year,” says Carmen Boening. When people make claims like that, with no numbers attached, my Urban Legend Detector™ goes off like crazy … and in this case, it was right." So the map's not blue enough so NASA's lying, apparently. Good to see such precise analysis being deployed. And attaching the number "medium blue" to sidestep those Urban Legend Detectors - facinating.
  39. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    73, Rosco,
    I think the only relevant thing is the maximum at any time...
    You are wrong about this. Also, please notice how often you use the words "I think" and "I believe." These are fuzzy broadcasts of the fact that you don't know, but refuse to learn.
    I think people should discuss and argue their beliefs...
    If you want to do so, visit a site about religion. This site is about science, and as such it is about facts, not beliefs. You are entitled to your own beliefs, but not your own facts.
    ...and everyone should have a right to voice theirs.
    No. You do not have a right to broadcast misinformation here, any more than I have a right to walk into a classroom and teach children that mathematics is evil and the language of the Satan.
    PS - I don't believe in the flat disk model so I'm definitely not a flat earther.
    Yes, you do, and if you understood the math you'd recognize this. My suggestion... leave this site, stop posting, and surf the Internet under the assumption that there is something you really, really do not understand. Try to figure it out so that you can come back, apologize for your recalcitrance, and discuss things on the level of understanding that is appropriate to this site.
  40. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    127, Norman, I've been down this road before too many times in recent months with people who want desperately to find ways that the GHE is inconsequential, rather than wanting to understand it. They start with polite questions, but then when they hear the answers they refuse to accept them, dig in, and argue with Lewis Carrollian nonsense. The answers to all of your questions are readily available by studying the vast quantities of material available online, as long as you do so with an open mind and do not immediately dismiss everything you read that you dislike, or stop looking the moment that you find something that seems to appealingly agree with your own misconceptions. There is a lot of misinformation out there. You have to dig hard enough to get past your own misconceptions. I would suggest starting with Spencer Weart's The Discovery of Global Warming. But I'm not going to let this turn into an argument. You asked questions, based on some serious misunderstandings. I explained your mistakes. You have now come back with counterarguments, which tells me that you don't really want to learn and find answers to your questions, but instead wish to try to find ways to ignore known science, which usually happens through the selective, fuzzy mis-application of limited and unquantified science concepts (such as the guessed at effects of convection and conduction). Please notice in your own posts how often you say the phrases "I believe," "I think," "perhaps," "maybe," and "it might" and "I am not sure." You are never going to understand things if at these points you do not go and do some hard, open minded research on your own, rather than picking these random possibilities and then clinging to them as if they are facts that must be dis-proven to you before you will move on. If you honestly want to understand this stuff, please open your mind, read and learn. Put your energy into studying rather than posting. When something you read doesn't fit with something you think you understand, start from the assumption that you are wrong and that you have more to learn. I will not get into another climastrology debate here at SkS right now. I'm tired of them, especially the ones that center around "convection and conduction account for everything" (see the nonsense comments on other threads by Doug Cotton and Rosco). This particular flavor of cognitive dissonance has been getting really, really annoying as of late.
  41. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Schaerica @ 120 "As far as conduction and convection go, if that were the case, you would expect to see desert air being warmer than it is, and that is not the case. That isn't to say that it doesn't happen, but the reality is that heating through radiation is far, far more important and effective than conduction and convection in transmitting heat." It has already been experimentally proven that what keeps the air cooler than the hotter ground is convection. If you stop convection the air above the ground gradually warms to the ground temp. It was done using rock salt instead of glass for a greenhouse. Rock salt does not stop IR (it was thought that the air in a greenhouse warmed up because the glass allowed the short wave energy in but stopped the longwave from leaving). The rock salt greenhouse warmed similar to the glass one. The reason for the warming is because the barrier (glass or rock salt) prevented convection that would move the heated air up and replace it with cooler air keeping the overall air temp much cooler than the ground.
  42. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Norman "Why is it so hard to get good empirical data to prove the exact amount of greenhouse contribution of CO2?". Because you also need model disentangle the overlaps. The definitive paper is probably Schmidt et al 2010. And reading it will give you idea of complexity of question.
  43. Models are unreliable
    Thank you both. I've copied your replies back to the "The Conversation" and have bookmarked this thread for further reading. Great job!
  44. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    Despite the angst that seems to have developed I have enjoyed the intellectual stimulation. I think people should discuss and argue their beliefs and everyone should have a right to voice theirs. Definately the last post - hopefully not the military version. PS - I don't believe in the flat disk model so I'm definitely not a flat earther.
    Response:

    [DB] "Despite the angst that seems to have developed"

    Your conduct here is the intellectual version of poking a bee's nest with a stick.  That that activity generates a response you characterize as "angst" should be of no surprise.

    "I think people should discuss and argue their beliefs and everyone should have a right to voice theirs"

    This is a science website.  The conversations and dialogue center on climate science using logic and evidenciary chains.  Not fuzzy terms & beliefs & opinions.  Evidence-based discussions of climate science using peer-reviewed published studies from reputable sources.

    Given your persistence in avoiding using any of the latter some "angst" should be expected.

  45. Venus doesn't have a runaway greenhouse effect
    The last post. I don't understand why everyone seems to insist I calculate some sort of average - I don't. I think the only relevant thing is the maximum at any time as we all know things will lose energy and cool. I am simply trying to explain why it is possible that Venus when irradiated by the ~2640 W/sq m in the vicinity it occupies in space can have a blackbody temperature of ~464K - much lower than observed but also much higher than usually calculated. I have used the examples of the Earth and the moon to demonstrate because we have some reliable data for these. the graph of the moon above shows varying temperature over various latitudes and agrees with what I posted before the insolation varying as the cosine of the latitude. It also shows a maximum temperature of ~ 380 - 390 K as would be expected using the solar constant. I cannot see any flaw in this logic so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. The use of the sine and cosine to break a vector down into its normal and tangential component is well established scientific method.
    Response:

    [DB] "I cannot see any flaw in this logic so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree."

    The flaws in your logic, physics and math have already been pointed out to you.  That you refuse to accept that is telling.

  46. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Sphareica @120 Sorry for the confusion. I used the incorrect term in my discussion. It should be heat capacity of moist air vs dry air, not latent heat. The heat capacity of mosit air is greater than dry air. It will take more energy to heat moist air to a given temperature than dry air. I think your example would confirm this. Desert air warms much faster and reaches a higher peak temperature than moist air given the same energy input.
  47. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    muoncounter @ 116 "But you must admit some, if not all of the implications: - Human influence on climate is a proven fact. - High cloud cover can trap heat (contrails and the hypothetical GCR-nucleated clouds, if any exist, are both high cloud forms). - If sensitivity was small, why would there be any measurable effect of contrails? They are a small subset of the overall cloud cover." I could agree to the first one (but the degree of influence is not so certain). Not sure about the GCR debate, looked into it some but not heavily. Last one, the measurable effect of contrails is localized but it can imply clouds (Spencer) do play a significant role in Earth's energy balance. Here is a quote from an article: "Ongoing debate In a study published in 2004, for example, Minnis and colleagues reported that contrails are capable of increasing average surface temperatures sufficiently to account for a warming trend in the U.S. between 1975 and 1994. But some climatologists believe Minnis and his colleagues may have overestimated the contrail warming effect. Even if Minnis's estimates are correct, other climate experts feel that any warming from contrails is not something to fret about. In a study published in 2005, James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and colleagues ran models that increased the contrail coverage in Minnis's study by a factor of five. Even with this significant increase, Hansen's team found that global mean temperature change was in the neighborhood of 0.03°C (0.05°F)—a minute amount." Hansen believes it has very minimal effect on the global mean temperature. A cloudy day can cause significant temp difference in a local area but not effect the global temp much. Source article for above quote.
  48. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Sphaerica @ 121 CO2 and H2O absorption. The CO2 at 14 microns closes the window on H2O leakage. 4 microns looks like a solo CO2 peak but it is not as broad. "Your statement that the negative consequences of Global Warming would only take place near the surface is completely wrong. It affects the entire depth of the atmosphere, and it is in fact by raising the altitude at which the planet finally loses radiation to space that greenhouse warming really occurs." But what negative consequences would there be if the air 5 miles up raised temp by 10 C? Graph of atmposphere temps. (sorry I do not post graphs directly, I have tried without success) So from the graph I linked to, you go from -50 C to -40. How is that going to have a negative empact on life on earth? What would the negative consequences be that I am wrong about? "Your statement about individual O2 and N2 molecules becoming lighter and rising is flat out wrong. This does not happen. The parcel of air simply becomes warmer. It does not rise because the CO2 is well mixed, and the same thing is happening billions of times all around." From how you described the GHE in your 113 post your claim is that collisions with O2 and N2 are more frequent in lower thicker layers. This would mean that lower layers would be warming faster relative to the rate of collisions in the layers above. Being warmer than the air above the air below would then tend to rise.
  49. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    Sphareica @ 112 "But the answer to your question doesn't lie entire in those details, but rather that the processes of radiation, convection, conduction, molecular collisions, clouds, varying densities of air + CO2 + H2O, etc. lead to a far more complex scenario than your simple hot-in-the-day-so-stronger-GHE-in-the-day implies." It might actually be as simple as I suggest. As far as I can tell in your response I do not see how atmospheric complications would effect in any way the energy emitted by the hot sand as IR. I think it is straight physics there. Temperature of substance (hot sand) and its emissivity directly translates to energy emission via the Stefan=Boltzmann law that has been empirically validated. The hot sand will emit IR based upon its temp. It does not change its emission with the processes you describe. Only the sand temperature will change the emitted energy. In my example I am using the same place, so effects would cancel out. The hot sand emits much more IR than the cooler night sand. If you use the 140 F given above as a possible daytime sand temp and if the sand cools to 100 F by morning (I wish I has some real world sand temp samples, all hypothetical now). 140 F sand would emit 533 watts/meter using the Stefan-Boltzmann calculator (used emissivity of 0.76 for sand). The 100 F would emit far less 403 watts/meter. Lacking the interference of water vapor the CO2 in the air should be sending back much more radiation during the day as compared with the night as much more energy is going up. The effects you mentioned, why would they change from day to night? You would get more collisions during the day but it is not a one way process, the O2 and N2 atoms will collide with CO2, excite it and now it may emit a downwelling IR photon. I am not sure that you did demonstrate why the GHE would not be much greater during the day than at night at least in an overall general sense.
  50. The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
    119, Norman, Virtually all of your statements are incorrect. For the overlap between CO2 and H2O, see the graph below: Concerning temperature sensors and the CO2 contribution, no. Again, your model is too simplistic. Looking at only the CO2 emissions a few meters above the surface is like looking at the edge of a dense fog. It is not giving you anywhere near the full picture. Your statement that "warming by collisions would not return to the ground" is inaccurate because your model is inaccurate and too simple -- it's really neither right nor wrong, but just not a meaningful statement to make. Your statement about individual O2 and N2 molecules becoming lighter and rising is flat out wrong. This does not happen. The parcel of air simply becomes warmer. It does not rise because the CO2 is well mixed, and the same thing is happening billions of times all around. Your statement that the negative consequences of Global Warming would only take place near the surface is completely wrong. It affects the entire depth of the atmosphere, and it is in fact by raising the altitude at which the planet finally loses radiation to space that greenhouse warming really occurs. Again, your own model of what is happening is far too simplistic. I would suggest that you find some sources of information on molecular physics and more details on exactly how the greenhouse effect works. You have some rather simplistic misconceptions about the mechanisms involved. You will not be able to build an accurate mental picture, and structure valid understandings and arguments, until you correct these deficiencies.

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