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Climate_Protector at 12:03 PM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Another (maybe silly) question. Does anyone know the exact concentration of ALL greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? I remember something like 5% but am not sure ... Thanx -
Bern at 11:45 AM on 16 March 2011And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually
This article does seem to only consider the scenario of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melting in place - it doesn't mention the possibility of rapid break-up of parts of those ice sheets, with rapid sea level rise (SLR) as a result. Is this just scientific reticence at work again? I think it probably is - while there are some papers that predict much higher SLR by 2100, they're still, as yet, in the minority. Unfortunately, as Agnostic points out, Hansen (who is predicting SLR of up to 5m by 2100) has a bad habit of calling it correctly. One thing seems clear, though - the sort of SLR that is discussed in this article is probably going to be the minimum we'll have to deal with this century... -
Daniel Bailey at 11:44 AM on 16 March 2011It's cooling
Nice summary, Rob! Some February info from Hansen:
The Yooper
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From Peru at 11:40 AM on 16 March 2011Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
In the "figures" only appear drawings of a frog inside an ice cube:
with below written:
"Domain unregistered, To view, register at: bit.ly/imageshack-domain"
What is wrong with the figures? I hope the glitch is solved soon.
Moderator Response: [DB] An issue with imageshack (the host of the images).I'll see if I can effect a workaround.Fixed. -
Climate_Protector at 11:35 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
To Tom Curtis 534 - Yes, I agree with you! The question is (again) how can we explain the extra kinetic energy in the lower atmosphere, i.e. the greenhouse effect? There must be some sort of high energy storage in the atmosphere that is maintained by the absorption of heat by GH gases. At least, that's the logical conclusion (in my view) from the discussion so far ... Or, there might be another source of energy we have not considered yet. Is this possible? -
Riduna at 11:34 AM on 16 March 2011And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually
I think Jeremy Weiss underestimates SLR along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts this century by a factor of 2+ and that the situation confronting US coastal states is a lot more threatening than he thinks. After an admittedly crude analysis of the causes of SLR,, I concluded in a blog written last year (http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11179) that it could be expected to accelerate throughout this century, could probably rise by 0.9m. by 2050, by >2.5m. by 2100 and thereafter by about 2.8m per century. This assumes average global temperature rises by 5C by 2100 with larger polar amplification resulting in speedier melting of ice-sheet fringes and more rapid discharge from glaciers causing major embayments. Hansen (2011) predicts, (I suspect correctly) that by 2100 temperature is likely to have risen by as much as 6C. Were that to be realized, then all bets are off on SLR, other than it will be higher and faster. An estimate of 1m rise by 2100 seems very optimistic. There is no reason for confidence that major emitters of CO2 will curb their total emissions until there is irrefutable evidence of the harm caused by them. By then it will be too late. As an interim measure governments would be wise to plan on much higher SLR and an increased likelihood of them being accompanied by storm surges. -
Albatross at 11:21 AM on 16 March 2011Skeptical Science nominated for Climate Change Communicator of the Year
Ken and Rob, With respect to Ken, you clearly have little idea how science operates. My colleagues challenge every paper that I publish-- when the work is first submitted as a proposal, when it is a work in progress, when it is submitted for peer-review and even after it is published. We challenge each other (and share ideas)over coffee, over a beer, at conferences and in the literature. In fact, so deep is the passion and the curiosity of practicing scientists that it is almost impossible to put them in the same room without some or other (constructive) debate ensuing. However, unlike the partisan bickering, obfuscation and misinformation brought forth by "skeptics" (note the quotation marks), the dialogue that my colleagues and I share is almost always constructive and productive, i.e., it has value. True skeptics do contribute to the science, the same is almost always not true for self-proclaimed "skeptics" and contrarians. People who understand AGW to be a threat/concern frequently disagree and correct each other on these threads at SkS, for example-- although sadly most of our time is addressing the misinformation and obfuscation brought forward by the likes of BP. And it is my understanding that a lot of work goes on before a post is published to make sure the science is right. For the record, the true contradictions and incoherence and inconsistencies that you refer to seem to be almost exclusively the territory of "skeptics", those in denial about AGW and contrarians. Now of course you will most likely take issue with what I have said above, but I guess that is part and parcel of being a self-professed contrarian/"skeptic" ;) -
Climate_Protector at 11:10 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
I'd like to clarify why I thought that GH gases may also trap heat other than IR radiation: If you look at the Trenberth et al (2009) energy budget diagram (which Tom Curtis kindly linked to at 491), you'll see that the atmosphere absorbs 396-239 = 157 W m-2 of OUTGOING long-wave radiation. This flux is only 47% of the downward IR flux (333 W m-2) shown on the same diagram. So, 53% of the back radiation must be coming from other sources (solar, evapo-transpiration etc.) indicating that GH gases also trap other types of heat. Is this correct? This also makes me wonder, why the greenhouse effect is only attributed to interception of surface IR radiation, when more than 50% of the net energy input to the atmosphere comes from sources other than surface IR flux ... Is this a legitimate conclusion assuming that Trenberth's diagram is correct? -
Rob Honeycutt at 11:00 AM on 16 March 2011Skeptical Science nominated for Climate Change Communicator of the Year
Ken... Hm, so skeptics are performing a free service by challenging already well established and proven theories, and contributing to delayed action on what stands to be the most important issue that humanity faces? Not sure where the value in that is. -
Tom Curtis at 10:56 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
CP @531: Yes, that makes sense. But it is only another way of saying that the surface of the Earth (and hence the lowest portions of the atmosphere) have a higher temperature than you would expect from insolation alone, and ignoring any greenhouse effect. -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
CP @ 532 >kinetic energy of the lower atmosphere must higher than the kinetic energy corresponding to the absorbed solar flux, if the back radiation is indeed larger than absorbed solar flux. You cannot compare these quantities in the way you are attempting. Solar flux is a rate, measured as units of energy per units of time. The total kinetic energy of the atmosphere is the total amount of energy stored at a specific point in time. The total kinetic energy of our atmosphere is higher than it would be if the greenhouse effect was not present. This is because greenhouse gases slow the rate at which energy can be dissipated into space via thermal radiation (lower emissivity), resulting in more energy accumulating within the atmosphere. -
Rob Painting at 10:49 AM on 16 March 2011It's cooling
chudiburg - Further to Daniel Bailey's excellent explanation: We are in the midst of a strong La Nina event, a lot of the heat from the atmosphere is disappearing down into the oceans. See NOAA sea surface temperature map below:
This is part of an ongoing warm/cool oscillation of the climate that has been going on for millenia (at least). It's part of the "natural variability" that climate scientists often refer to. The only way heat can leave Earth is via radiation at the top of the atmosphere. ENSO events (El Nino & La Nina) just shuffle the heat around between the ocean and atmosphere. See discussion here: Global warming and the El Niño Southern Oscillation
There's no expectation that each year will be warmer than the previous one, but over longer time-frames we expect the atmosphere and oceans to warm as more heat is trapped by greenhouse gases. Therefore we should see the continual warming show up in long-term records. This is what we see when all temperature records are combined into one graph.
Hope this helps too.
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Ken Lambert at 10:48 AM on 16 March 2011Skeptical Science nominated for Climate Change Communicator of the Year
Rob Honeycutt #18 What the AGW (as opposed to GW) true believers should remember is that skeptics who point out weaknesses and contradictions in the AGW science on offer are performing a free service for everyone. If they make a good point which is not demolished in robust argument (they usually fizzle to an unanswered end thread on this site), then the proponents of the (usually) AGW science piece need to take the point on board and resolve the contradiction for all to see. This is the way of the tunneling toward the truth Alan Marshall. Without the BP's of this blogworld, the contributors to this site become spectators of a one way conversation. -
Climate_Protector at 10:45 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
To KR 526 - I understand your 'insulation' point. But insulation still works through increasing the kinetic energy of air. Which aspect of the atmosphere acts as an insulator? Are those the greenhouse gases? Do greenhouse gases also work to trap heat other than IR radiation? They have to in order to achieve the the significant warming of the surface above the black body ... -
Climate_Protector at 10:34 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Tom Curtis 529 - I guess I did not express myself correctly. I did not mean that "Earth's atmosphere's kinetic energy is large compared to that on the sun". I wanted to say that the kinetic energy of the lower atmosphere must higher than the kinetic energy corresponding to the absorbed solar flux, if the back radiation is indeed larger than absorbed solar flux. Does this makes sense? -
Climate_Protector at 10:28 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Tom Curtis, thank you. This helps ... -
Tom Curtis at 10:28 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
CP @523, very briefly because I am out of time: Radiation does not contain kinetic energy. However the Solar radiation is a function of kinetic energy on the surface of the Sun. That is much higher than that on the surface of the Earth, but because of our distance and the inverse square law, the portion of that energy that the Earth receives is very low. Further, because the Earth is a sphere and always half in darkness, the average energy per meter squared received on the surface of the Earth is only a quarter of that received by a flat plate perpendicular to the sun in the same orbit. So, the conclusion that the Earth's atmosphere's kinetic energy is large compared to that on the sun is unwarranted, and fails to account for the scaling factors. -
Daniel Bailey at 10:25 AM on 16 March 2011It's cooling
Re: chudiburg (145) That depends. As you note, it's too short to make any meaningful comparisons. Over a short distance, say 30 feet, a human can outrun a champion quarterhorse. Over a half-mile...not so much. Comparing temperature trends from short intervals is similar. Apples & oranges. Like comparing the weather from the last 2 days to that of the last 2 years. Sure, you can do it, but what's the point? We had the 17th-warmest combined land+sea temps in February in the instrumental record. That doesn't seem particularly cold, does it? And it wasn't hot everywhere nor cold everywhere. Here's January, normal reference baseline:
Here's January, last 30 years baseline (just the lifetime of your students):
Yeah, it was colder in the NH where most of the people live, but that would be ignoring the rest of the world that was warming.
Scientists are concerned with the long-term trend, which is up. That doesn't mean that every month is of necessity warmer than the previous. Weather, like bodily functions, happens. But over longer periods of time, it shows definite trends (let's also remove cyclical stuff like oscillations [which do not add or subtract energy from the system] and volcanoes):
That's why climate scientists use 30 years or more of cumulative weather trends to make their studies of climate. Because any trends emerge from the noisy datasets. Too short of a period of time, like a month or too, will typically contain too much noise in the data for any background signal to be seen. Like asking your students how much they grew yesterday, last week, last month, etc. Eventually any growth trend will be revealed.
[ Edit:
As a footnote, GISS typically updates its online data in mid-month for the previous month, which is why the above graphics only have January data. February should be available at any time soon, here.
In Climate Science, "The trend's the thing" (apologies to the Bard).
End Edit- ]
Hope this helps,
The Yooper
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Tom Curtis at 10:23 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Climate_Protector @524, in that case I cannot account for the low diurnal variation in back radiation. It may have something to do with your very high altitude, which means the back radiation comes from a greater thickness of atmosphere, and may have something to do with you location near the rockies (which contain a substantial storage of water). But I would be guessing if I gave any explicit explanation. (Science of Doom would probably be able to tell you why.) -
Tom Curtis at 10:18 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Climate_Protector, here are two charts of back radiation from particular sites. The first shows 14 days of back radiation measurements at Billings, Omaha in October of 1993:
Your will notice the range of the back radiation is around 150 w/m^2 over just a few weeks, and that on a single night it can be as much as 100 w/m^2. This is less than Mount Isa's, mostly because of differences in climate and surface cover(Mount Isa is semi-desert,Omaha is Prairie). Greater plant cover in Omaha means a high stored water content in the plants an soil, resulting in less variation in the temperature of the surface, which coupled with greater humidity in the atmosphere will account for most of the difference.
The second shows the annual variation at several sites at different latitudes:
Again there are significant differences in the variation depending on location and climate. The stark contrast between the tropical atoll, Kwajalein (which because of its effectively non-existant land mass will vary with changes in Sea Surface Temperatures) and that for the inland, and arid Boulder Colarado, is very informative. (I would have preferred a tropical comparison, but do not know the location of Tateno.)
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2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Climate_Protector - You might find Science of Doom's writeup on the 1st law of thermodynamics useful. One way to really visualize this is to think of the system as left-to-right. Sunlight enters from the left, heating the surface. To maintain conservation of energy in a steady state solution, the surface must dump that heat to outer space (far right). But there's an insulating atmosphere in between. The temperature that the Earth reaches is that which is necessary to pump 240 W/m^2 through the radiatively insulating atmosphere into space. Moving this energy through the atmosphere requires an energy differential! The Earth radiates 396 W/m^2 to the atmosphere (some 40 or so going straight through), the atmosphere acquires a temperature equal to the surface at the surface and radiates a large amount back down, and the upper colder atmosphere radiates 240 W/m^2 to space. It's insulation, pure and simple. And the more insulation between a constant input and a cold sink, the hotter the final temperature of the heated object. Total flow through the system is still 240 in, 240 out. There's just a buildup of energy at the thin link through the Earth/atmosphere interface. -
Climate_Protector at 10:11 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
To clarify regarding the back radiation I have seen. The flux changes little between day and night ONLY if you look at any particular series of 2-3 days, but it can fluctuate more than 100 W m-2 over the coarse of a season or a year. -
Climate_Protector at 10:06 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
To Tom Curtis 522 - I work in Colorado (far from any coast), and the climate here is relatively dry. The diurnal temperature range in the summer is about 10-13C, and the winter might be much higher or much lower depending on the frontal weather system we get. -
Climate_Protector at 10:02 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Was the air temperature proportional to the kinetic energy of air? I think Tom Curtis said that above. So, since back radiation is also proportional to temperature (somehow I think?), then would that mean that the kinetic energy of air is proportional to back radiation? If that is the case, then the lower atmosphere must contain kinetic energy that is larger than solar radiation, IF back radiation is really larger than the absorbed solar flux. This suggests that the atmosphere must be able to somehow store significant amount of energy. So, we come again to the atmospheric heat storage question. Correct? Something here does not add up - either we have a large atmospheric heat storage or the back radiation numbers must be wrong (or I'm profoundly misunderstand something). Do you agree? -
Tom Curtis at 09:57 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Climate_Protector @521, to evaluate your claim that back radiation at your location varies by no more than 40 w/m^2 from day to night, I would need to know the temperature range. However, two factors may be relevant. The closer you are to the coast, the smaller the diurnal temperature range, and hence diurnal range of back radiation. And the colder the climate, the smaller range in back radiation for a given range in temperatures. For instanct, a temperture range of 27 degrees (as in Mount Isa) but with the maximum equaling Mount Isa's minimum (0 degrees C) would only result in a 107 w/m^2 range in back radiation. The reported intensities in the diagram have significant margins of error (around 5% I believe), but are the best available estimates. -
chudiburg at 09:53 AM on 16 March 2011It's cooling
A quick question for all you ladies and gents with far more knowledge than myself. January and February of this year (2011) show a combined land and ocean temperature that is cooler than the past few years. I know that two months is much too short to make claims about trends, but I am just wondering why that might be. I am about to teach a unit on Climate Change and like to give updated temperature information to my students. I foresee this being a question I get from my students and I want to be prepared. Thanks -
Climate_Protector at 09:47 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
I see. So, most heat is storred in the oceans. That makes sense. It sounds like you all are telling me that there is no error in the reported intensities of back radiation, and that it is larger than the absorbed solar flux. Correct? I'm an ecologist and from working with observed met data (to drive my ecosystem models), I noticed that the diurnal variation in back radiation is much smaller than solar radiation. In fact, back radiation is nearly invariant (+- 20W m-2 or so) between day and night. This is true for sites in the NH. I'm bringing this up in response to Tom Curtis's remark that back radiation varies diurnally quite a bit. I've seen the opposite in the data sets I worked with ... Anyway, I understand that the lower atmosphere, where most of the back radiation is coming from, is heavily heated by the surface through surface-atmosphere exchange of various energies. But I'm still not clear what's making the temperature of the surface to increase beyond the black-body temperature. I guess this is the chicken-and-egg question; which is heating which? -
shoyemore at 09:29 AM on 16 March 2011Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
Chris G., The temperatures in the mid century period were not "record", but there was a handful of second-warmest and third-warmest months, as if a warming period had been "damped" in some way. The "cooling" was not reflected in any coldest-month records. This may reflect a warming period somehow modified by the presence of aerosols - the months' temperatures were in the upper rather than the lower range. I am considering how this might be converted into a rate estimate via some formal Bayesian way. Fig 2 is in industrial and healthcare monitoring knows as a "Cusum" chart which is demonstrated to be the type of chart most sensitive to a process change. As you see it dates the advent of late-century warming to 1957 - earlier than any other method. I am not over-emphasising that, as it still needs some investigation. Adelady, I think you get it. Lot of work still to be done. Thanks. -
Tom Curtis at 09:18 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Climate_Protecter @522, the back radiation is a direct function of the temperature of the lowest part of the atmosphere. Because the lowest part of the atmosphere is very close in temperature to the surface, and the surface is far hotter than it would be if there were no greenhouse effect, the back radiation is also very high. Absent the greenhouse effect, the surface IR radiation would equal the incoming solar radiation. The green house effect lifts that till it is much higher, and therefore the back radiation is higher. It is as simple as that. -
Tom Curtis at 09:14 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Climate_Protector @520, the atmosphere "stores" considerable heat both in the form of the kinetic energy of motion (temperature) and as the vibrational and rotational energy of molecules (specific heat). The amount stored as vibrational energy and rotational energy is always proportional to that stored as kinetic energy, ie, as temperature. The amount stored is very small, however, compared to that stored by oceans. The specific heat of dry air is 1.026 Joules per kilogram per degree Kelvin, while that of water is over four times that. Combined with the much greater mass of the ocean, this means the vast majority of thermal energy at the Earth's surface is stored in the Ocean. However, this is largely irrelevant to PhysSci's argument. The reason the atmosphere maintains a very high back radiation is because a very high energy flux into the atmosphere is maintained, both by energy transfers from the Earth (IR, convection and evapo/transpiration) and directly from the Sun. In fact, when one of those (the sun) is removed at night, the back radiation falls very rapidly unless either: 1) The surface IR flux is maintained at high levels by being over ocean; or 2) The humidity is very high (which increases the specific heat of the atmosphere) and there is a low cloud cover (which lowers significantly the average altitude from which the back radiation comes, and significantly increases the heat capacity of the source of the back radiation). Obviously, there is some regional geographic effects, with warm air over sea water at night helping maintain a higher night time back radiation on the coast than in the interior. All of this follows because the back radiation is simply the thermal (IR) emissions of the lowest kilometer or so of the atmosphere; and therefore fluctuates with the temperature of that lowest portion of the atmosphere. Because of this, back radiation can fluctuate by more than 145 watts per meter squared in a single 24 hour period (the calculated night/day variation for winter in Mount Isa, Queensland) even without major changes in weather.Moderator Response: This sounds like a good additional Argument for the Arguments list. John Cook, what do you think? -
Climate_Protector at 09:09 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
KR 521 - Thank you. I understand the surface fluxes and the TOA fluxes, but if the heat storage capacity of the atmosphere is tiny as you suggest, how we have such a large downward IR flux (larger than solar)? That's the part I do not quite get and that's why I suspect (personal opinion) that the proposed downward IR flux may be incorrect ... -
Chris G at 09:03 AM on 16 March 2011Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
LazyTeen, Nah. Unless you proposing that technicians have become less well trained over time, AND that the poorly trained ones are more likely to round up than down, then this is no cause for a systemic bias. Besides, satellite data show a compatible, positive trend in agreement with the thermometer data. So, you are worried that there is a systemic operator error bias that happens to coincide with a satellite bias, that happens to coincide with early springs, melting ice, etc. That falls off of the things I think are likely enough to worry about list. -
Chris G at 08:52 AM on 16 March 2011Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
Adelady, On the other hand, it could be completely uninteresting. The cumulative total of the Tmaxrecord - Tminrecord graph being flat tells us that they were equal during this period. The statement that there were no new monthly records, combined with the flatness of the graph indicate that there were no new monthly highs either. Which might be as simple as saying that the mean was traversing ground already covered, and variance about the mean was not greater than previously experienced. It would have been easier to see this if there were a graph of subtotals by interval. -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Climate_Protector - The thermal mass of the atmosphere is pretty tiny; about 4-5% gets stored as warming the land mass, and about 92% goes into warming the oceans. The atmosphere is pretty much a direct in-out of the energy stored, radiating out as much energy as it receives in IR (396 W/m^2), latent heat of evaporation (80), and thermals (17). But even a simple single-layer model will show this effect of high energy in the climate system - it has to be that high in order to put 240 W/m^2 back into space. So will a zero-dimensional emissivity model - surface emissivity is about 0.98 (almost a perfect black body), and to radiate the 240 W/m^2 received back to space would be at a temperature of about -17C. The top of atmosphere (TOA) spectra integrates to an effective emissivity of ~0.612 with all the absorption dips, and to put 240 W/m^2 into space the surface needs to be at about 390 W/m^2. -
LazyTeenager at 08:41 AM on 16 March 2011Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
H Pierce at #9 while the error issues and statistical issues you raised are important the way you have raised them is to general to be answered properly. However you seem to be forgetting that the whole point of taking average values is to reduce the errors regardless of the source of the error. Your weather noise idea appears to be wrong since it says that calculating an average can never produce an average temperature value with accuracy and resolution less than 0.5C. This is not true. On the other hand I do worry about manual measurements by poorly trained technicians introducing biases due bad rounding techniques. Your solution is a partial answer to that but I don't believe that it is adequate. -
Climate_Protector at 08:35 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Phil 518 - Yes, this makes sense. The question now is how much energy can the real atmosphere store (accumulate). It has to be quite a bit in order for the downward IR flux to exceed the absorbed solar flux. The atmosphere is pretty deep, so maybe it could store substantial amount of energy? I'm curious what others think? -
Phil at 08:30 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Apologies I got a cell formula wrong in the previous post; Bx=E(x-1) not D(x-1) -
Phil at 08:26 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Climate_Protector @517 My understanding (and I am not an expert on Climate) is that the fact that the downward flux is greater than the Solar input is due to heat accumulated in the climate system. You can see the results of a simple spreadsheet model of the longwave component only here. The numbers don't relate to Trenbeths diagram, I picked them so the calculation would reach equilibrium fairly quickly. Column A is somewhat badly named - it should be the amount of Solar radiation absorbed and re-emitted as longwave radiation. If you wish to replicate this, the cell formulae are: Cx=Ax+Bx Dx=Cx*0.4 Ex=Cx*0.6 Bx=D(x-1) and so this represents an atmosphere that radiates 40% of its longwave radiation to space and 60% back to the ground. I hope the spreadsheet is clear, towards the end I turn the Sun off, and calculate the time taken for the planet to dissipate the accumulated heat. At the end the energy in does indeed equal the energy out - which proves that I (and OpenOffice) got the sums right and that the model conserves energy. The main point is that, in this model at least, the back-radiation does indeed grow to be greater than the incoming Solar. As I said earlier, I'm not an expert so I would welcome corrections and clarifications ! -
adelady at 07:53 AM on 16 March 2011Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
Chris G. And we come full circle to my initial point. This looks like a promising start to an analysis which teases out more information than just the simple global average temperature. You often see denialist arguments along the lines of "There's no such thing as average temperature" followed by "It doesn't mean anything 'real' anyway". This approach looks to give us 'balancing' mechanisms. It's not just warmer or cooler. It's the discrepancy between record highs staying much the same while record lows increase or decrease. Or record highs are changing while record lows are not. And thereby gain some clues about what climate mechanisms are worthy of closer examination in some periods rather than others. In the end it may come down to something quite simple like industrial aerosols can suppress maximum temperatures but have little to no effect on rising (and therefore reducing record lows) minimum temperatures driven by another forcing, like GHGs. Or we may gain some other really new and surprising insight. A really useful tool, methinks. -
Climate_Protector at 07:40 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
I suspect that there is some kind of confusion with these energy fluxes. Yes, they claim these are based on satellite observations but they also admit that the accuracy of these measurements is quite uncertain. So, I doubt that the downward IR flux is in reality larger than solar flux. That does not make much physical sense to me, unless I'm missing something. -
Chris G at 07:10 AM on 16 March 2011Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
"However, it misses mid-century cooling, which did not generate any cold monthly records." That's very interesting. I'm trying to decide if it means anything. For instance, on the surface, it would mean that the cooling seen during that time was a result of lower high temperatures not associated with lower lows. What would cause that? Perhaps a reduction of energy loss forcing coupled with a slightly stronger reduction of energy gained. That would fit with an increase of GHG effect along with a slightly stronger aerosol effect, but that isn't the only possibility. IDK, but it might be easier to come to grips with Figure 2 if there were something like a bar graph coded for blue minimum records and red maximum records summed by decade. That might be kind of a bridge between totals for the interval and cumulative total. -
Climate_Protector at 07:08 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
If think PhysSci was talking about the downward thermal radiation from the atmosphere (rather than outgoing IR from the surface) that is larger than the absorbed solar radiation. Is this really true? If so, do the arguments presented at Science of doom still hold? -
scaddenp at 06:28 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
John Cook - looking through the arguments list, I dont find one for the "GHE violates the 1st Law of thermodynamics". This have been dealt with at Science of doom in some detail but perhaps a place-mark article in the arguments is needed for debate on this? Sounds like PhysSci is using this.Moderator Response: [Not John Cook] Concur. -
Rob Honeycutt at 06:23 AM on 16 March 2011Republicans to Repeal Laws of Physics
Dana... Admitting the planet is warming would mean abandoning some of their doubt driven tactics. These guys are in lockstep. They don't want to give even an inch, even if they're obviously wrong. Ultimately this is all going to work to their detriment as climate change becomes more and more obvious. But my take is, this all about delay. Every year legislation on carbon gets delayed is billions more in profits for the FF industry. That buys a lot of votes in Congress. -
dana1981 at 06:05 AM on 16 March 2011Republicans to Repeal Laws of Physics
Yes, you could argue that Waxman was doing the Republicans a favor by proposing this amendment. They could add it to the legislation to argue that they don't reject science, but still have justification to revoke the EPA authority on GHG regulations. Seems to me like this was a gift. Yet they couldn't even bring themselves to admit that the planet is warming. That absolutely cements the fact that they are anti-science. Heck, they're even anti-reality if they can't admit the planet is warming. -
Chris G at 06:04 AM on 16 March 2011Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
The implications of the data above are not easy to fully comprehend. On the one hand, if you overlay a number of wave forms, of various shapes and sizes, but with no overall trend, you would expect the rate of the incidence of new records to decrease over time. That part is clear enough. The cumulative graph would show an always positive slope, but where the rate of change of the rate of change was decreasing. Intuition tells me that it will be an asymptotic curve, but it might be logarithmic. I'm thinking there will be an asymptote because over time the range of possible values will be more and more thoroughly sampled. I'm trying to imagine what the graph would look like it there is some positive, linear trend, and also what it would look like with some positive, non-linear trend, either with positive second derivative or negative; so that I could overlay that with what the data look like, but it is not clear to me. In any case, there will not be an asymptote because the range of possible values is changing. -
Climate_Protector at 05:30 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
With regard to the greenhouse effect - I think it works very similar to an actual greenhouse. The atmosphere does act as blanket to reduce heat loss to space and the obvious fact to support this is that we have 397 W m-2 leaving the surface and only 239-240 W m-2 exiting the atmosphere. So, the difference is actually retained by the blanket (our atmosphere). It's a no-brainer ... Also, see this recent article by prof. R. Pierrehumbert from University of Chicago, who explains very well how the greenhouse effect works making the point that the atmosphere is analogous to a house insulation in the way is prevents heat loss. Now that's real physics! http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf -
Albatross at 05:10 AM on 16 March 2011Republicans to Repeal Laws of Physics
Dana @151, Goodness me, the Republicans cannot even bring themselves to agree that the warming is real, even without nary a mention of the word human or anthropogenic-- that is how deep their denial and delusion goes. The GOP are completely divorced from reality and the sooner the Demoncrats can communicate that to the people the better. This is very clearly about money and ideology for the GOP. Dark times. -
Climate_Protector at 05:08 AM on 16 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
To KR 455 - You make a very good point about SB law when applied to planetary atmospheres: An increase in greenhouse gases directly decreases emissivity by absorption band deepening and widening. This drops emitted energy to space. A lot of scientists do not actually understand that indeed adding more heat-absorbing gases actually REDUCES emissivity of the atmosphere. I only know a few scientists, who realize that. -
Chris G at 05:05 AM on 16 March 2011Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
h pierce, I don't think you are demonstrating a good grasp of statistics. First of all, the whole point of using statistics is when you know there is variance, or error terms, and you want to make a judgment of how likely the differences between groups or the pattern you are seeing is solely a result of the error terms. There is commonly a great assumption that error terms are neutral, and it can get tricky if there is a bias. However, a bias over the last 150 years has yet to be demonstrated to my knowledge. Watts came up with his proposed bias in thermometer readings over time, but I haven't seen that he has ever published (peer-reviewed) his results regarding the urbanization and paint change study I heard he was working on. Error terms don't accumulate in how they affect the mean or the variance; one bad reading out of a 100 remains one bad reading out of 100 whether there are 100 readings or 100,000. Re: "I see a lot of climate data where a few tenths of a degree C are deemed significant. This is nonsense. Unless you have at least ca 0.5 deg C change or difference, you are probably looking at noise." Sorry, but what you just said is nonsense. For instance, say I have two dice; one is true, and the other is not. Each die will only give me integers between 1 and 6. Yet, given a thousand rolls, if the mean of one is 3.49 and the mean of the other is 3.41, I could tell you with near certainty that the second one is not rolling true and is different from the first. There are thousands of thermometers each taking at least a couple of readings a day for decades; a few tenths of a degree difference is easily distinguishable from noise. Besides, there is nothing categorically different between a difference of 0.3, which you reject, and a difference of 0.5, which you accept, except the confidence level or number of readings required to reach that confidence level. Not that climate researchers always get the statistics right, but if they don't, it is a pretty good bet that some other researcher will look at the same data and call them out.
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