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From: Bill Ward on 18 Dec 2008 02:38 On Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:11:34 +0000, Don Klipstein wrote: > In <pan.2008.12.10.17.12.59.237655(a)REMOVETHISix.netcom.com>, B. Ward > wrote: >>On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:25:46 -0800, bill.sloman wrote: >> >>> On 9 dec, 18:07, Bill Ward <bw...(a)REMOVETHISix.netcom.com> wrote: >>>> On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:26:15 +0000, Don Klipstein wrote: >>>> > In <pan.2008.12.01.17.08.14.877...(a)REMOVETHISix.netcom.com>, Bill >>>> > Ward wrote: >>>> >>On Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:29:43 +0000, Don Klipstein wrote: >>>> >>>> >>> In article >>>> >>> <pan.2008.11.27.18.38.37.222...(a)REMOVETHISix.netcom.com>, Bill >>>> >>> Ward wrote: >>> >>> <snip> >>> >>>> > Â GHG presence in Earth's atmosphere is great enough for >>>> > radiation from the surface to often be absorbed and re-emitted a few >>>> > times before getting to outer space. Â At night, radiation is >>>> > largely how the surface cools. Increasing GHGs will increase the >>>> > number of times radiation will be absorbed and re-emitted before >>>> > getting to space, with more chances for the radiation to be >>>> > re-radiated downward. Â Increase of GHGs will impede radiational >>>> > cooling of the surface, and make the surface get a warmer head start >>>> > for the next day. >>>> >>>> I think that is one of the major sources of confusion, and needs to be >>>> explained. Â Assume a layer of pure CO2 at some temperature, in a >>>> stable non-turbulent atmosphere. Â Illuminate it with in-band IR >>>> from the bottom and watch what happens. The lower layer will absorb >>>> the IR, and get warmer. The hot gas will convect up and share it's >>>> energy with other CO2 molecules. Â At equilibrium, the layer of CO2 >>>> will be warmer, and, as all warm CO2 will do, radiating IR from the >>>> top at the new temperature. What goes on radiatively (or convectively) >>>> inside the gas is immaterial. It's just hot gas. Â It doesn't know >>>> or care how it was heated. >>> >>> You miss the point that the top of the CO2 layer is going to be cooler >>> than the bottom. Where there's an energetically significant difference >>> in pressure between the top and the bottom (as there is in the >>> troposphere) you can rely on non-radiative mechanisms to maintain this >>> difference. >> >>That would be convection, as I mentioned. >> >>> The CO2 molecules at the bottom of the layer are radiating at the >>> intensity and energy distribution across the active lines in the >>> spectrum that matches the higher temperature at the bottom of the >>> layer. >>> >>> By the time the radiation has been absrobed and re-emitted a couple of >>> times on the way up, it has been re-emitted from cooler molecules, and >>> there's less of it - as you have pointed out, the power radiated per >>> molecule (and there are fewer of them at the top of the layer) is >>> proportional to the fourth power of temperature, and more is being >>> emitted at longer wavelengths. >>> >>>> EM travels at c. Â It doesn't matter how many times it's "absorbed >>>> and re-radiated", it still just heats the gas. Â The only way energy >>>> can be "trapped" in the gas is to raise it's temperature. >>> >>> Half the re-radiated energy goes back the way it came, Every time a >>> photon is absorbed - as opposed to scattered - the energy is >>> distributed amongst all the degrees of freedom available to the >>> molecule, including rotation and translation. All of this means that >>> the infra-red radiation coming out of the top of the layer carries >>> aappreciably less energy than the infra-red radiation that was absorbed >>> at the bottom of the layer. >> >>Do you have some waiver freeing you from the conservation of energy? I >>specified "at equilibrium". It seems to me that guarantees the incoming >>and outgoing energy is equal. >> >>>> Now if I have any major misconceptions about IR and CO2, I'm sure >>>> you'll take this opportunity to straighten me out. >> >>> To try an straighten you out ... >> >>Where did the missing energy go? > > Increasing absorption/re-emission of thermal radiation in the atmosphere > does not have any energy missing - what happens is that the balances and > the transports change. If the balances require temperature change to be > maintained, then the temperature accordingly changes where it has to > change to maintain energy outgo equalling energy income both locally and > globally. That's why I specified "at equilibrium". You can't "trap" heat in a gas that's free to convect, as you point out below. > One thing that increase of GHGs is good for is increase of convection > - > and not all of it vertically, but some of it in the form of "global > atmospheric circulation" - much of that is within a degree of > horizontal! > Such "global circulation" transports heat from the tropical areas to > the > polar areas. > Any increase of that would warm the polar areas, and make them darker > due to being less-covered by ice and snow - although disproportionate > warming of such polar areas would impair "global circulation" until the > tropics warmed. > I expect that if an increase of GHGs warmed the globe, then polar > regions (primarily in the northern hemisphere where snow/ice cover has > more mobility to change) would warm more than the tropics, whether > global atmospheric circulation increases or decreases. > Global warming should accomplish both increase of "global atmospheric > circulation" and decrease of temperature difference between equator and > poles, although one feedback mechanism (surface albedo) is positive for > global temperature change and negative for "global circulation" varying > with global temperature change. > > - Don Klipstein (don(a)misty.com)
From: Bill Ward on 18 Dec 2008 03:06 On Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:29:13 +0000, Don Klipstein wrote: > In <pan.2008.12.09.17.20.42.535715(a)REMOVETHISix.netcom.com>, B. Ward > wrote: >>On Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:33:06 +0000, Don Klipstein wrote: >> >>> In <pan.2008.12.02.04.09.57.211078(a)REMOVETHISix.netcom.com>, Bill Ward >>> wrote: >>>>On Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:14:02 +0000, Don Klipstein wrote: >>>> >>>>> In <pan.2008.11.23.15.47.04.647543(a)REMOVETHISix.netcom.com>, Bill >>>>> Ward wrote in part: >>>>>> >>>>>>Wrong fiasco. I meant this one: >>>>>> >>>>>>http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm >>>>> <SNIP> >>>>>>Here's the original, with graphics: >>>>>> >>>>>>http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf >>>>>> >>>>>>> but subsequent observations doesn't suggest that it is to slowing >>>>>>> down any more. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Do try to get your facts right. >>>>>> >>>>>>Right about now, you should be feeling a bit foolish. >>>>> >>>>> Check out HadCRUT-3v - good enough for The Register! >>>>> >>>>> Graph: >>>>> >>>>> http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/climon/data/themi/g17.htm >>>>> >>>>> Data in text form: >>>>> >>>>> http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3vgl.txt >>>> >>>>It's all depends on how you pick your data: >>>> >>>>http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-images/loehle_fig2.JPG >>> >>> Eeyore likes to post that one as a binary attachment in this >>> newsgroup >>> (though I'm not saying that's where he got it from). The paper it >>> comes from has a link to the data in text form for that one - ending >>> with 1980. >>> >>> The paper that comes from also has a "corrected global temperature >>> reconstruction" ending much earlier - I forget for the moment whether >>> 1920 or 1930. Splice HadCRUT-3 global or HadCRUT-3v global (smoothed) >>> onto that at any year covered by both Loehle's "corrected global >>> temperature reconstruction" and HadCVRUT and it looks like we are now >>> warmer than peak of MWP. >>> >>>>http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2400 >>> >>> Points to Loehle. >> >>http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4475 > > I took about a minute there, and so far it appears to depend on Loehle. > > Dependence on Loehle over other sources of historical temperature data > depends on tree rings being inaccurate over centuries despite giving good > indication on shorter time scales. ISTR some issue with crosstalk between the effects of temperature and water on some of the tree rings. > > My argument is not that Loehle waas wrong to exclude tree rings, but > that Loehle fails to show height of MWP to be warmer than our world is > now. Many of the attempts to determine temperatures by proxy seem rather far fetched to me, but it's outside my experience. I'd put more reliance on historical accounts. > The most-Google-findable publication by Loehle with search terms > including his name and "tree rings" in my experience is a publication > that appears to me to be not 1 but 2. > > Often-mentioned-in-this-newsgroup is one graph in the first one, with > omission of link to a data file largely in text format and notably > ending with 1980 - and the globe has warmed quite a bit since. > > The second part has Loehle publishing a "Corrected Global Temperature > Reconstruction". > I invite anyone to splice smoothed-global-temperature according to > smoothed-global either HadCRUT-3 or HadCRUT-3v anywhere those and > Loehle's "Corrected Global Temperature Reconstruction" both exist > (1852-1920), and see what we got! > >>This is also kind of interesting. >> >>ClimateAudit seems a bit more credible to me than RealClimate for some >>reason. > > I manage to argue with low reliance on RealClimate - I even argue with > data presented by The Register! Stay skeptical. > - Don Klipstein (don(a)misty.com)
From: Whata Fool on 18 Dec 2008 05:58 don(a)manx.misty.com (Don Klipstein) wrote: >In article <6rtqj4humr72mcg31j203tulsur5ldnkk3(a)4ax.com>, Whata Fool wrote: >>Martin Brown <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote: >> >>>On Dec 8, 1:20Â am, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...(a)hotmail.com> >>>wrote: >>>> Martin Brown wrote: >>>> > Eeyore wrote: >>>> > > z wrote: >>>> >>>> > >> and the fact that water vapor partial pressure rises with temperature, >>>> > >> thereby making it an amplifier of other effects, such as CO2. >>>> >>>> > > An unproven hypothesis. i.e random noise. >>>> >>>> > You are clueless. That warmer air can carry more water vapour is a well >>>> > known experimental fact. >>>> >>>> You fail to address the idea it's an *amplifier*. >>> >>>I would not use the word "amplifier" myself to describe what is >>>actually a positive feedback mechanism. But his meaning is clear and >>>the physics are baiscally correct more CO2 in the atmosphere makes it >>>warmer and the extra warmth allows more water vapour into the air >>>before it saturates. >> >> >> Total nonsense resulting from the 19th century comparison of >>the Moon and Earth temperatures. >> >> Lets try to sort this out and resolve it, many texts comment on >>the Earth being warmer than the moon because the Earth has an atmosphere, >>and that is correct, but it doesn't matter what gases are in the atmosphere >>if that is the premise, any atmosphere at all should cause higher average >>and more moderate temperatures than the moon. > > An atmosphere free of GHGs will smooth the peaks and dips. To do that, it means not as hot, but also not as cold. > One with >GHGs will make the surface warmer than one without GHGs. Yet it is liquid water and phase change that causes a constant cooling of the ocean surface and most places on Earth where there is moist soil and vegetation. The problem with moon temperatures are that they are too hot in day time and too cold at night. And many writings on GHG theory makes the claim that it is GHGs that increase the average temperature of the surface, which in the case of the moon means solid surface, and your use of "surface" seems to also means NOT the atmosphere. I don't really see where the temperature of the ground affects the temperature of the air as much as the temperature of the air affects the temperature of the ground. A simple radar or weather map shows temperature changes moving with the wind and clouds. >> Then other texts say that the Earth is warmer because of GHGs, >>which jumps over the scenario where the Earth could have an N2 and O2 >>atmosphere. >> >> The N2 and O2 atmosphere, without GHGs would be warmer, maybe >>"hotter" is a better word, than present, > > How? With GHGs, some of the radiation from the surface is absorbed by >the GHGs and some of the radiation emitted by the GHGs is back towards the >surface. I'm sorry, that has been overplayed in the effort to blame man, or maybe more energetically, the USA and CO2 emissions for the increase in temperature perceived by averaging weather station temperature data. There is no specific temperature associated with a certain humidity that I am aware of. Desert is defined by amount of precip, not by humidity. CO2 is a very minor player, and discussion of the percentage effect of CO2 in the absence of water and water vapor can only be viewed as an attempt to give the impression that CO2 is a bigger factor than it is. >With GHGs, surface warms to have radiation leaving the planet >matching what it receives. The IR leaving the atmosphere must be greater than the amount that is radiated by the surface, or at least must provide the cooling that the surface radiation does not. >> and that is what must be >>considered before coming up with a comment about GHGs warming the >>Earth. GHGs may help the solid or liquid surface stay warmer, but >>the annual average global temperature is not of the surface, it is >>of the lowest level of the troposphere at about 2 meters above ground. > >> N2 and O2 have to be cooled some way at night to get the temperatures >>measured, and GHGs are what cools the N2 and O2. > > At 2 meters above the ground, the air is cooled at night by the surface. On a windless night, but even wind can reduce both frost and dew, and also fog. >Air has enough heat conductivity for the surface to cool the air 2 meters >above over a few hours. For that matter, a breeze easily mixes the lowest >hundred or two meters of air, allowing radiational cooling of the surface >to cool air that high. A strong breeze on a clear night with sufficient >humidity can force turbulent mixing high enough to form a low cloud deck, >which can itself cool radiationally - and be warmer than otherwise if GHgs >above it are throwing any radiation back down. Another factor in the cooling process. Clouds are welcome on a cooler night or a hot day, not as much on warm nights or cold days. These things diminish the effect of CO2 on the temperature. >> Scientists consider every thought and premise, but have missed >>the fact that the early studies skipped around from the moon to an >>Earth with no atmosphere at all, to an Earth with GHGs in the atmosphere, >>so with that information posted here, scientists need to consider an >>Earth with an N2 and O2 atmosphere and NO GHGs, then decide if they >>want to perpetuate the myth that GHGs warm the atmosphere, or the >>weather service recorded temperatures, which are atmospheric temperatures. > > I think that has been modelled already somewhere, and it may not take me >long to find such a model. Expect much cooler, with a much lower >tropopause. Expect the 350 mb level to have temperature close to what it >has now, but to be in the stratosphere. What? How is the stratosphere defined? By lack water and water vapor? Wouldn't the whole atmosphere be stratosphere if there was no water or GHGs? >>>Warmer seas and warmer air over them will contain more water vapour as >>>a result. >>> >>>Regards, >>>Martin Brown >> >> Probably, but general statements are tricky, saying a higher annual >>global temperature would mean high humidity may not hold true, and saying >>moist air causes higher temperatures is definitely misleading. > > Relative humidity may not rise - in fact should stay about the same if >oceans warm to the same extent as everything else on and near the surface. >However, percentage of atmosphere being water vapor would increase, and >water vapor is a greenhouse gas - currently having roughly double to a few >times as much GHG effect as CO2 has now. > > - Don Klipstein (don(a)misty.com) Does that infer that CO2 could ever have as much GHG effect as water vapor? It would take 50 times as much. But water cools the surface by at least 10 or 20 degrees, and the phase change is a big part of that cooling process. Doesn't the fact that water evaporation provide a lot of cooling of the "surface" suggest that the surface would be warmer without water or GHGs?
From: Bill Ward on 18 Dec 2008 12:35 On Thu, 18 Dec 2008 06:12:47 +0000, Don Klipstein wrote: > In <pan.2008.12.08.01.48.50.915298(a)REMOVETHISix.netcom.com>, B. Ward > wrote: >>On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 07:01:08 +0000, Don Klipstein wrote: >> >>> In <pan.2008.12.01.17.23.08.108895(a)REMOVETHISix.netcom.com>, B. Ward >>> wrote: >>>>On Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:31:17 -0500, Whata Fool wrote: >>> >>>>> don(a)manx.misty.com (Don Klipstein) wrote: >>>> >>>>>>In article <pan.2008.11.27.18.38.37.222361(a)REMOVETHISix.netcom.com>, >>>>>>Bill Ward wrote: >>>> >>>><big snip> >>>> >>>>>>> I think the troposphere is there because of convection lifting the >>>>>>> surface energy up to the cloud tops, maintaining a near adiabatic >>>>>>> lapse rate. Radiative transfer is blocked by GHG's, and plays >>>>>>> little part below the tropopause. Radiation models are thus >>>>>>> largely irrelevant. >>>>>> >>>>>> The lapse rate is well short of adiabatic in much of the world, >>>>>>especially much of the time where surface albedo is prone to change >>>>>>from temperature change. Those parts of the world have upward >>>>>>mobility in surface temperature. >>>>>> >>>>>> Should the arctic and antarctic warm, then global convection from >>>>>> the >>>>>>tropics to the arctic and antarctic will slow down until the tropics >>>>>>warm - though I still expect the arctic and antarctic (especially the >>>>>>arctic) to warm more than the tropics. >>>>>> I do expect much warming in the portions of the world where there >>>>>> is >>>>>>usually convection or lapse rate just short of causing convection to >>>>>>depend on global albedo change - which is actually occurring, and >>>>>>expected to occur as global warming causes loss of snow and ice >>>>>>cover. >>>>>> Furthermore, much of the actual problems to result from global >>>>>> warming >>>>>>is from loss of snow and ice cover - and most of that is in parts of >>>>>>the world where the lapse rate from surface to tropopause is mostly >>>>>>far short of producing thunderstorms. >>>>> >>>>> Aren't you confusing lapse rate with moisture laden air and >>>>> maybe also low pressure caused by precipitation volume reduction of >>>>> 200 to one? >>> >>>>> I don't understand Bill W saying something about lapse rate >>>>> depending so much on convection, all air has to do to cool is to >>>>> expand, it doesn't have to rise to normalize the lapse rate. >>>> >>>>If it expands, where can it go but up to the new pressure level? >>>>Another way of looking at it is that warm air is less dense than cold >>>>air, so it must rise to be replaced by cold air. As it rises, it >>>>expands into the lower pressure, cooling in the process. If the lapse >>>>rate is low enough that the new temperature is still warmer than the >>>>new environment, it repeats. >>> >>> When a parcel of rising air maintains warmth relative relative to its >>> surroundings, that means the local lapse rate is high rather than low. >>> If the local lapse rate is low, the the parcel of rising air would >>> quickly cool to cooler than its surroundings by cooling not at the >>> local lapse rate but at one of the two adiabatic ones (the dry one >>> until/unless cloud forms or is present in the rising air parcel, and >>> then cooling as a result of rising at the wet one). >> >>You are right, of course. I got the lapse rate exactly backwards even >>though you were clearly referring to the positive convention. My bad. >> >>My point is that warming the surface will eventually lead to convection >>as the temperature exceeds that of the adjacent atmosphere. >> >>>>>> Radiative transfer is actually significant within the troposphere. >>>>>>Radiative transfer can easily involve repeated absorption and >>>>>>emission of photons along the way, such as (for extreme example) >>>>>>within the "radiative layer" of the Sun. That excluding the core is >>>>>>a layer over 100,000 km thick, and most of the heat produced by the >>>>>>sun is produced in the core and has to pass through the core-exluding >>>>>>portion of the "radiation zone", there is no convection, and most >>>>>>radiation gets absorbed before going mere micrometers. >>>>>> >>>>>> Likewise, the Earth's surface receives significant radiation from >>>>>> clear >>>>>>air below the 500 millibar level. >>>>>> >>>>>> - Don Klipstein (don(a)misty.com) >>> >>>>> And convection is what warms that air. The bottom line is that >>>>> _IF_ N2 and O2 can't cool without >>>>> GreenHouse Gases, then the atmosphere would be warmer than now, >>>>> meaning the present GreenHouse Gas theory is faulty, as the basis was >>>>> a comparison of Earth and moon temperatures. >>> >>> The "effective radiation level" without GHGs will be at a much lower >>> altitude - with same temperature, to have radiation outgo matching >>> radiation income. (Temperature of "effective radiation level" will >>> change if such an atmospheric change changes the albedo to incoming >>> radiation.) >> >>Won't daytime clouds always increase albedo? >>> >>> Even though most of the world usually has mobility in average local >>> lapse rate in either direction, there is significant positive >>> correlation between surface temperature and height of the "effective >>> altitude of radiating to space" as GHG concentration varies. >> >>Would that be both water vapor and CO2? Or just stratospheric GHGs? >> >>>>> So when will somebody start thinking, rethink the basics, >>>>> and concede that GreenHouse Gases cool the atmosphere? >>>> >>>>I think they do, but in the process, they keep the surface from cooling >>>>as fast as it would otherwise. >>> >>> GHGs above the "effective average radiating level" do indeed cool >>> such >>> higher levels of the atmosphere. >>> It is true that GHGs increase ability of the atmosphere to radiate >>> heat >>> to outer space (or/and-also to GHGs or clouds in other layers of the >>> atmosphere and sometimes to surface). >>> What - we agree on something? >> >>Looks like it. Thanks for your patience and coherent explanations. > > At this late hour at so busy a time of year, best I can say in response > here is "You're Welcome", along with: > > Thanks for honorability in debate. > > I see too much debate with too much bias - not that I lack bias, but I > like to consider myself honest enough to "let facts get in the way". I > dispute ones I don't like where I can with further facts and concede them > otherwise. Maybe not perfectly - though I think I have done so at least > 80% of the way! :) :) :) > Other than that, for one thing I learn "atmospheric science" a bit more, > though I have already put so much bleeping time and effort into that > already, in major part by being a weather nut! > > I would admist that open reasonably honest debate is not perfectly > unbiased - such debate between those trying to maintain status as > "honorable opponents" "clears the air" to an extent exposing biases and > reqwuiring corrections thereto. > > I admit that I have a personal bias in favor of existence of AGW. I > find that being "tempered" by debate-surviving data on global and regional > and specific-atmosphere-level temperatures, trends thereof, ... > Along with myself continuing my education as to how Earth's atmosphere > works - such as issues of atmospheric radiation balance represented by a > specific pressure level (350 mb level globally so far as I have done, and > I did mis-calculate 300 mb maybe a week and a half ago or closer to a week > ago), and I consider that quite an oversimplification since some > wavelengths radiated by ground have majority chance of passing through the > atmosphere to deep space and other wavelengths to a notable extent are > bogged down by GHGs for outward heat transport by radiation. I assume you're talking about the 10u window, which does seem to be taken somewhat for granted. I started out with the assumption that AGW seemed plausible, but when I tried to get a better understanding of it, I was assaulted by a barrage of insult and intimidation for daring to question the unquestionable. Applying my limited general science knowledge and personal experience to some of the "explanations" offered (e.g. RealClimate) convinced me that the subject has been politicized beyond any semblance of objectivity. Until the questions can be answered by actual data, not climate model outputs, I will likely remain a skeptic. The energy balance is a small difference between two large numbers. It's too easy to make simplifying, but wrong, assumptions in models which allow attaining any desired result. I think your approach of learning enough theory to understand what you observe going on in the climate system will serve you well. Good luck with it. I do enjoy discussion with someone like yourself who's more interested in the issues than in trading insults. Stay skeptical, and thanks for the comments.
From: Richard The Dreaded Libertarian on 18 Dec 2008 13:54
On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:59:49 -0800, Bill Ward wrote: > > Cooling doesn't have to take place equally all over the globe. Of course > some areas will cool less effectively than others. Shouldn't the emphasis > be on understanding the most effective mechanisms, rather than focusing on > places that don't play much of a part? That's not the way warmingism works. Their dogma is "Damn the Facts! You MUST BELIEVE!" Hope This Helps! Rich |