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Comments 101201 to 101250:
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muoncounter at 06:19 AM on 19 December 2010The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
#271: "Backyard Science: " Maybe AwoL missed the infamous Dr. Spencer experiment and subsequent articles, which were mentioned back at comment #70 and probably don't need further rehash. An interesting thread, though, might be 'What goalpost moves are required when a denier has to argue with another denier's results?' -
RW1 at 05:46 AM on 19 December 2010Lindzen and Choi find low climate sensitivity
If the cloud feedbacks are indeed positive and inline with the IPCC model predictions of about a 3 C rise in temperature from a doubling of CO2 (a 3.7 W/m^2 gross increase in radiative forcing; 1.85 W/m^2 net), then why doesn’t the same proportional amount of positive feedback amplification lead to 16+ C rise in temperature when the net albedo adjusted incident solar power at perihelion is about 14 W/m^2 higher? Instead, average global temperatures are actually colder at perihelion in January then at aphelion in July. What is so special about 1 W/m^2 of additional power from CO2 that it’s at least 5 times more powerful than 1 W/m^2 of additional power from the Sun? -
DSL at 05:03 AM on 19 December 2010The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
Ok, AWoL. You come up with an initial design for a set of experiments, and then open up the design to the community and we'll adjust as necessary. Then we'll do them. So let's see some design statements. Might a pyrgeometer be involved? Maybe John should have a new thread on this: "Backyard Science: Providing Evidence for the Layman when Established Science Just Isn't Good Enough (or is thoroughly corrupt or too obtuse or whatever)" -
Phil at 04:30 AM on 19 December 2010Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
Jeff, @6 Yes CO2 is linear, although, thanks to zero-point energy, it will be vibrating in all 4 modes, including the bends, even when "unexcited"; so maybe Roberts picture isn't too bad... -
Daniel Bailey at 03:54 AM on 19 December 2010Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
Re: Jeff T (6) You can see 3D visualizations of the different modes of the CO2 molecule, including bending mode, in my comment here. The Yooper -
Philippe Chantreau at 03:37 AM on 19 December 2010The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
AWoL, you misinterpret what you read. As KR pointed above, Damorbel agreed to ALL the components of the GH effect. Yet he argues against what comes out of that effect. Fortunately, we don't need arguing about that (or much of anything else for that matter) since the result of that effect is well accounted for by both line by line radiative transfer models and observations. There is an abundant litterature treating of IR radiation at the surface, in the bands of GH gases. Ultimately, this is the real proof of the existence of the GH effect. If there was not a GH effect theory, we would have to come up with an explanation for that downwelling IR radiation and it would have to account for the fact that it is in the bands of the GH gases. Asd for your concept of how scientific results should be released, your own inability to sort out among what you read here indicates how bad an idea that would be. -
Alec Cowan at 03:36 AM on 19 December 2010Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
@ RSVP #5 "How does a packet of energy that raises the troposphere's temperature, also raise the temperature of the Earth's surface or ocean waters?" Are you trying quantum mechanics now? Is it the "same packet"? -
Alec Cowan at 03:28 AM on 19 December 2010Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
@ Karamanski #7 You may be mixing up radiative energy that is absorbed by an specific layer with all the radiative energy that crosses that layer. Similarly a sunbeam in the room warms the hand you interpose but not the air. -
Karamanski at 03:12 AM on 19 December 2010Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
If the second mechanism that causes stratospheric cooling results from the absorption of infrared in the troposphere, leaving less to warm the stratosphere. Would this only hold true if the planet was in energy imbalance? Because if less radiation reaches the stratosphere, that means the planet is absorbing more radiation than it absorbs; thus the planet would, in my mind, continue to accumulate heat unless the stratosphere warmed back to its previous temperature. If the planet is to maintain thermal equilibrium, how does stratospheric cooling allow the infrared radiation from the earth to match the incoming radiation from the sun when we experience global warming? -
Jeff T at 02:54 AM on 19 December 2010Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
Robert, Thank you for taking the time to write this description. It is useful, but there are some minor errors that should be corrected. I think CO2 is a linear molecule; Fig. 2 shows it bent like H2O. Temperature is a measure of random energy. To be more precise requires a discussion of entropy, which is too much depth for this post. The random energy can be translational, rotational, vibrational or radiative. In a polyatomic gas (like CO2, O2 or N2) at low temperature, most of the random energy is translational and rotational kinetic energy. At higher temperature, a larger fraction of the energy is vibrational. That fraction depends on the characteristic energies of vibrations of the molecules that the gas contains. As figure 2 shows, collisions change translational energy into vibrational and vice versa. A vibrating molecule is in an excited state. It can change to its unexcited state through a collision or by radiating the energy away as light. The characteristic vibrational energies of O2 and N2 are relatively high; they are not excited by collisions in earth's atmosphere. CO2's characteristic energy is lower. Its vibrations are excited by collisions in the atmosphere. -
michael sweet at 02:52 AM on 19 December 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Actually thoughtful, I looked more at ground source heat pumps at your suggestion. I had thought that a buried heat exchanger was the most expensive part of the system. It turns out in my area people use wells for water supply. I already have two wells on my property! I will be costing out the system to see if I can afford to change before next summer. -
RSVP at 02:37 AM on 19 December 2010Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
How does a packet of energy that raises the troposphere's temperature, also raise the temperature of the Earth's surface or ocean waters? Afterall, hasnt it been said that all this extra energy is accumulating in the oceans and raising water temperature? If that little bit more of IR gets absorbed at a lower altitude due to the extra CO2, this should raise its kinetic energy or that of the gases around it,... in which case the work is done and accounted for... end of story. How can it then do "double-time", going off and warming other things? -
Daniel Bailey at 02:31 AM on 19 December 2010Greenland Ice Sheet outlet glaciers ice loss: an overview
Keep a weather eye on SST's around the Antarctic Peninsula and the Pine Island/Thwaites Glacier areas. The Climate Progress article I linked at the end of the post shows much warmer SST's have been present around the ice shelves in those areas. Some breakup could be expected as a result. The Yooper -
muoncounter at 02:28 AM on 19 December 2010It's CFCs
Lu 2009, full version in pdf, postulated that ozone loss is driven by that other catch-all of CO2 deniers, the much-maligned cosmic rays. Here's their prediction: The intensity of cosmic rays is still peaking in 2009, so we should expect to observe one of the deepest ozone holes over the spring Antarctica in 2009-2010. The data for the Antarctic ozone hole are available here. Sept 2009 had a max hole area of 24 million km^2, smaller than nearly every prior year back to 1992. Sept 2010 was 22.2 million km^2. The ozone hole is shrinking during peak cosmic ray intensity? Ooops. That their mechanism turned out to be incorrect makes further predictions suspect: The CRE-driven ozone depletion is expected to decrease after 2010 due to the CR cycles, but the EESC will keep decreasing ... . If the above observation is confirmed, then we expect to observe a continued decrease in global surface temperature - 'global cooling'. That is, global warming observed in the late 20th century may be reversed with the coming decades. Indeed, global cooling may have started since 2002 ... This is supposed to be credible? -
Daniel Bailey at 02:22 AM on 19 December 2010Greenland Ice Sheet outlet glaciers ice loss: an overview
Re; michael sweet (20) Not speaking for Dr. Pelto on this one, but consider the primary mechanism for ice-loss of an outlet glacier: The Jakobshavn Effect. Increased SST's will enhance loss at the calving front due to increased melt, thinning and calving. As the loss exceeds replacement by downslope transport of ice, the calving line then retreats upslope. Most Greenland outlet glaciers are still at or relatively near their grounding lines (think terminal moraine for a terrestrial glacier). What happens as the calving front retreats upslope is the ice tongue retreats into deeper water, ungrounding the ice front. Without the resistive stress of the grounding line, more of the glacier floats and then picks up speed in the downslope direction as the loss of resistive stress is propagated upglacier. If warmer SST's persist, expect greater calving (even in the absence of warmer air temps). Air temps above 0C will drive surface melt and percolation of water from the surface through moulins, driving heat downward into the heart of the ice mass. Hope this helps, The Yooper -
michael sweet at 02:02 AM on 19 December 2010Greenland Ice Sheet outlet glaciers ice loss: an overview
For the last month the temperatures over southern Greenland have been 10C above normal see this reanalysis by NOAA. The ocean temps appear to be about 5C above normal. Much of southern Greenland has been above 0C for weeks. Sea ice around southern Greenland is much reduced. How will that affect the glacier flow this year? Dr. Pelto: thank you for your very well informed comments. It is always interesting to see what professionals are thinking. -
muoncounter at 01:56 AM on 19 December 2010Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
#105: See comment re CFCs here. -
Riccardo at 01:53 AM on 19 December 2010The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
AWoL do you think that whoever comes with such a misunderstanding/misinterpretation of a century old science, scients should start from scratch to demonstrate something so well known? Are you asking scientists (or anyone else) to go back to the 18th century? The reference community of scientists is that of other scientists and none of them would make such weird claims. -
kdfv at 01:52 AM on 19 December 2010It's cooling
#85 Thanks for the reply. It was from thread 78 above. I should have put it at the start of my bit. Not used to this site yet. -
Alec Cowan at 01:47 AM on 19 December 2010Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
@ HumanityRules If CO2 raises from 100 to 1000 ppMILLIONv ceteris paribus -even where the stratosphere 'is'- then it becomes "less rarified" by a factor of about 1.0009. Surely you understand that someone having total assets of 1000$ is poor and won't become rich when he has 90 cents more. -
Riccardo at 01:46 AM on 19 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
Doug Mackie I was not aware of the potential use of human respiration emissions in such a way. Luckly, no one dared to use it. -
AWoL at 01:19 AM on 19 December 2010The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
That was an interesting exchange between damorbel and the home team, which, as evidenced by the language of archiesteel, claims a victory, complete with disparaging remarks. However as far as I am concerned the verdict was "not proven". And that seems to be the case amongst experts at the highest level, judging by the exchanges I have read about so far. Surely if both sides are as sure as they claim to be in their interpretation of the physics of the atmosphere, isn't it possible to set up a handful of experiments( the details of which have been agreed by both parties) and run them( irrespective of the fact that they have been done before and the results of which are thought to be highly predictable)? And see what happens. A few simple controlled experiments would end all this obfuscation. One of the conditions is that the results be released over the internet, immediately they become known.ie no interpretation for the general public and absolutely NO peer-review.Isn't THAT "Science in action"? Only then will the layman have something solid on which to base an opinion. -
HumanityRules at 01:15 AM on 19 December 2010Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
Thanks there seems to be a possible inconsistency in the KE method based around these statements "Now imagine that CO2 molecules are injected into the atmosphere causing the concentration of CO2 to increase. These molecules will then collide with other molecules....." "...in the rarefied stratosphere will simply be radiated out of the stratosphere" With this new higher conc. of CO2 then the stratosphere has actually become less rarified (is that right?), there's more CO2 around to absorpted IR. There must be more absorption of IR at this higher CO2 conc with a subsequent warming associated with that. In simple terms why are there more molecules to collide with each other but not more molecules to absorb IR? One other question early on you write "The former dominates..." What do you mean by that? It's effect is the main cause of the cooling trend in the stratosphere? -
Tom Curtis at 01:05 AM on 19 December 2010Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
1) Yes. 2) The concentration relative to N2 and O2 is the same, ie, about 380 parts per million by volume. However, the atmosphere is much thinner in the stratosphere, so that there is much less CO2 overall. -
Sarah at 00:57 AM on 19 December 2010A new resource - high rez climate graphics
Very nice images. I'd like to see one illustrating time scales. When people say (correctly) that the climate has always changed, they seem to imagine that humans have been around to see multiple ice ages, sea level fluctuations, and 1000 ppm CO2 around 55 Myr BP. From our human time scale (one lifetime each) it's hard to grasp the difference between 1000 and 1,000,000 yrs, let alone imagine 55 Myrs. I remind people that civilization really only started with the invention of beer 10,000 yrs ago. So any climates before that are beyond human experience. -
muoncounter at 00:14 AM on 19 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
#40: Yooper, you and I apparently misspent our youth in much the same way. Although The Hollow Earth (fact or fiction?) would explain why the Arctic ice is melting -- heat from the internal sun!
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oamoe at 23:26 PM on 18 December 2010Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming - Revised
Nice Article. Two questions: 1)What happens to the thermal IR radiation from the Earth's surface that is absorbed by CO2 in the troposhpere. Is it lost to N2 and O2 via collisional deactivation, increasing the kinetic energies of these molecules? 2)What is the CO2 concentration in the troposphere relative to the stratosphere? -
wingding at 21:40 PM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
the simplest counterargument (one that everyone can understand the logic to) is that if the Earth's orbital decay is sufficient to cause 0.8C/century warming we would have been a ball of ice 2000 years ago -
actually thoughtful at 19:21 PM on 18 December 2010Renewable Baseload Energy
Quokka - You have, again, failed to read and/or comprehend my post. I am speaking of solving heating and cooling issues - not microgeneration of electricity. This is the verboten 40% of energy use which no one is willing to speak of. We have the technology, now, to make virtually any/every building a net zero or net positive building. Delaying action locally in the vain hope of an organized centralized response seems at best silly, and it is possibly criminal (how will future generations judge us?) This doesn't mean I am against nuclear or centralized PV/CSP/wind/wave. Rather, all the above, as much and as fast as possible. But you are missing the powerful behavior change that local control over energy provides. When people control the means of (energy) production - they modify their behavior to maximize overall system performance. We find, again and again, that what is missing from the energy markets is information. Information about the true cost of carbon, real-time, actionable information about energy usage, and a sense of control over production. Solving one or more of the information deficits will take us much further down the road to a systemic solution than a nuke plant here or there. In my view, we need a systemic solution, not a different brand of band-aids. -
polderjongetje at 19:04 PM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
a bigger solar disc should have effects on solar eclipses (not being total anymore), and several ancient monuments like Stonehenge should have to be rebuild -
nigelj at 18:52 PM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
The irony is there is an orbital change of some sort thats been going on for the last 1000 years that should currently be causing a cooling, cant remember or find the paper someone may know. -
RobertS at 16:57 PM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
Isn't the Earth-Sun distance increasing due to tidal forces (and to a smaller extent solar mass loss)? -
dana1981 at 16:32 PM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
The simple counter-argument is that if global warming were due to a decaying orbit, it wouldn't have accelerated rapidly over the past 30 years. It would be an extremely slow, constant rate of warming, not a sudden rapid acceleration. -
Henry justice at 16:11 PM on 18 December 2010Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
I thought the residence time for atmospheric CO2 was verified as about 5.4 years as determined in this article: Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2. Also, in another article: What is the Major Culprit for Global Warming: CFC's or CO2? It's stated that CO2 played hardly any role at all in the global warming since 1950- 2000 and blames it on CFCs. It's also stated that we are facing several decades of global cooling beginning in 2002.Moderator Response: See the post "CO2 has a short residence time," and comment over there. For the CFCs topic, comment on that post, not this one. Off topic comments usually are deleted after one warning. -
Doug Mackie at 16:09 PM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
Rob @36, I did this in 2006 in Eos (the newspaper of AGU). The editor and I had a ball with this one. It was sent out for peer review with one reviewer genuinely unsure what my intent was. It was hacked down from a much longer original. I begin with the observation that enteric methane is included in Kyoto and move on to suggest that therefore the US should call for the inclusion of human respiration CO2 in Kyoto as it would do relatively more damage to creditors like China. The saddest thing I found was that there are 40 nations with total population 750 million (12% world total) and total GDP 370 billion 1995 USD (i.e. 1.1% 2006 world total) where the population respire more CO2 than they release from fossil fuels. I had a couple of follow up emails from folk who appeared to umm bat for the other side and were put out to find it wasn't something they could use.Moderator Response: [muoncounter] fixed link See also our Does breathing contribute to CO2 thread -
Daniel Bailey at 15:43 PM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
Re: DSL (38) 1. If the semi-mythical car for the mythical date had a ragtop... 2. Would that be waste heat then from the car's engines? ;) Still think it's Scooter (Phil Rizzuto) doing the play-by-play. The Yooper -
Daniel Bailey at 15:33 PM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
Re: muoncounter (39) Ah, the misbegotten jewels of an ill-spent youth...still have the likes of Graham Hancock and Von Daniken in the ready-at-hand arsenal with the offspring of Howard and Burroughs not far behind...(Pellucidar anyone?). Speaking of tipping one back, don't mind if I do. Febrile mind, here I come... The Yooper -
archiesteel at 14:48 PM on 18 December 2010It's the sun
@TheCaz: in the absence of any evidence that there were similar "uncouplings" in the Holocene, we cannot assume there were. Thus, it's not the sun. It's CO2. -
muoncounter at 13:28 PM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
#34: "the moon is in the 7th house and Velikovsky's Jupiter will collide with Mars... " Hey, Velikovsky sightings are your beat, especially after you challenged someone over those 'In Search Of' clips. -
DSL at 13:12 PM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
Yooper, you've completely failed to take into account the heat and water vapor content of that exhalation. I like to use the Saturday Night analogy. Imagine a car (station wagon, circa 1975) parked out on the cliff overlooking town. It's Saturday night (winter), and the glass windows are rolled up on the car. Normally, the GHG content of the car's atmosphere would be at 280ppm (because Anthony can't usually get a date). However, tonight is special. The atmospheric CO2 and water vapor content inside the car is rising rapidly. Longwave radiation emitted from the surface of the heat engines inside the car is being absorbed more and more by the GHGs, and the radiative pathway is getting longer and longer. The interior of the car begins to heat up. The dashboard figure at the north end of the car begins to melt. The back window, at the south end of the car, begins to ice over--except at the edges, where the car's interior material is soaking up LWR and transferring it conductively into the glass. The car begins to rock in an almost Milankovitchian rhythm. Precipitation begins to drip off of the dome light and other features (after all, the troposphere can't expand in this simulation -- no analogy is perfect). Suddenly, at the tipping point for runaway heating, mitigation occurs! No--it's not what you're thinking. A police officer throws a door wide open, and the car's atmosphere quickly returns to pre-date temperatures. Will the police ever throw our collective car door open, or are we completely . . . -
Steve L at 12:09 PM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
My skin is starting to sag and I'm getting shorter. Therefore gravity is increasing. I know my skin and height are good proxies because they are responding as predicted for an increase in gravity. Note that I get shorter at night and my skin doesn't get less saggy during the day, both of which contradict predictions of the decaying orbit idea. -
Rob Honeycutt at 11:47 AM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
Daniel... I'm almost ashamed to admit that in response to denier claims I've actually done rough calculations for how much CO2 is exhaled by humans. Suffice to say even that didn't satisfy those whom I was trying to convince. But maybe it had an impact on someone else reading the comments online. //sigh// What's the saying? If you wrestle with pigs you only get dirty, and the pigs generally enjoy it. -
Daniel Bailey at 10:28 AM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
My pet theory is that the extra air exaled by all of those extra people (try graphing population, CO2 and temps some time) adds to the mass of the Earth. This, coupled with the GHG effect of the literal Anthro CO2, is driving up temps in lockstep with population. Feels good to finally let that out... -
Daniel Bailey at 10:19 AM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
@ muoncounter: Next you'll be tellin' me that the moon is in the 7th house and Velikovsky's Jupiter will collide with Mars... -
Ron Crouch at 10:15 AM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
The writer is relying upon instinct as opposed to empirical evidence. But instinct can be fooled. I have supplied a link to a documentary that looks at climate change issues from an Inuit perspective. More than one elder notes the belief that the planet has shifted on it's axis, and some cite reasons. Insofar as the observation that the sun now sets in a different place, this is explained by the fact that the atmosphere is warmer and thusly refracts the sun's rays differently. There are other examples in this documentary that illustrate the breakdown of instinct's. This certainly doesn't provide an answer to your question John. I do hope it sheds some light though. Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change -
Alec Cowan at 09:55 AM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
So Immanuel Velikovsky would be sort of the patron saint of this sound theory. I wonder why all the supposed physical phenomena behind these theories resemble something devised by Ming the Merciless, evil ruler of Mongo. Epistemological hedonism? -
It's the sun
TheCaz, Sorry I pointed you to the wrong section, the paper does go on to detail a solar activity proxy as you discovered. -
TheCaz at 09:41 AM on 18 December 2010It's the sun
The paper goes on to model solar activity based on proxies, and that is the best we can do right now. OK.Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Apologies; I thought that the Beer et al quote I cited made that clear. I will try to be more explanatory in the future. -
TheCaz at 09:35 AM on 18 December 2010It's the sun
I read the article, but unfortunately, that figure still does not answer the question, for two reasons: (a) the time scale makes it impossible to see the holocene in detail, and (b) it compares temps with insolation (angle and distance from the sun) and assumes a constant solar activity. I was asking specifically about solar activity (not insolation). But the paper does give something of an answer elsewhere. It says before the launching of satellites, solar activity could not be measured. So that is the answer I was looking for - "We do not know." The paper says the sun has activity cycles, but then assumes those cycles are regular. The author uses this to exclude solar activity variation as causative in the long term. We now know this is incorrect. In fact, the graph at the top of this page shows that solar activity (11-year averages) has varied over the past 130 years. -
muoncounter at 09:24 AM on 18 December 2010Debunking this skeptic myth is left as an exercise to the reader
#30: "we'll be there in 80 centuries" It will be sooner than that, I fear. The rate of orbital decay will accelerate as we draw closer, as this theory (if I may call it that) suggests that the sun's gravitational field overwhelms the earth's magnetic field (in previously some unknown way). This is groundbreaking stuff; if this guy is right, he's got a lock on the Nobel (in literature, if not physics). We'll be looking back on 2 or 3 deg C of warming as a pleasant day at the beach. I suggest hoarding large blocks of ice (I hear there's a big one floating off Greenland) as a refuge of last resort.
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