2014 hottest year on record

[vintage cessna]

To make it even easier for VC, here is the NASA link:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.surfaceflux.html

and a link to the abstract of a paper describing measurements of the back radiation (the paper itself is apparently paywalled):

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00262.1

Finally there was a somewhat interesting discussion on Judith Curry's blog about all this a while back:

http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/30/physics-of-the-atmospheric-greenhouse-effect/

Lots of back and forth there with good contributions by Chris Colose and Leonard Weinstein, and even some participation from Harry Huffman (and a good rebuttal by TomP, who I think may have a good explanation for the Venus coincidence). With ~700 replies it's kind of tl;dr, but it's still worth a skim.

A lot of the whackier skeptic arguments seem to be driven by a need for a simpler, more transparent explanation for why it's warmer on the surface than it "should be". That's a laudable goal, I think we need to make the physics as simple as it can be and still be correct, *but no simpler*. The atmosphere doesn't seem to be like QED or even classical gravity where a simple mathematical formalism underlies all the apparent complexity. Even if you make lots of simplifying assumptions it's still a very complex system in which thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and radiative transfer interact in subtle ways. The bottom line is that it's never going to be as simple as distance from Sun + Stefan-Boltzmann + PV=nRT = temperature as a function of pressure, and trying to make things too simple only leads to wrong physics, which is if anything worse than overly complex physics.

Yes, the Judith Curry piece is interesting. She is yet another scientist who believes there is a Greemhouse Effect, but has no idea of how it exactly works. She has seen enough data and evidence though to separate herself from the alarmists.

Seems like Huffman carried himself well in the conversation.

 

[vintage cessna]

You may think it's clear but I don't. He can post whatever he wants in his blog and it's obvious from his other theories that scientific accuracy doesn't mean much to him.

Then read the "climategate" E mails.

 

[Everskyward]

Then read the "climategate" E mails.

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/12/climategate/

 

[vintage cessna]

You may think it's clear but I don't. He can post whatever he wants in his blog and it's obvious from his other theories that scientific accuracy doesn't mean much to him.

I can seperate the merits of Huffman's observation of the pressure/temperature relationship from his other thoughts or beliefs.

The same way I don't prejudge the merits of what someone has to say when that someone adheres to religious beliefs I may find incongruent to my own.

For example, I find a lot of what Henning has to say about some things "different". But when he discusses a subject like LOP, I listen carefully.

 

[Everskyward]

I can seperate the merits of Huffman's observation of the pressure/temperature relationship from his other thoughts or beliefs.

The same way I don't prejudge the merits of what someone has to say when that someone adheres to religious beliefs I may find incongruent to my own.

For example, I find a lot of what Henning has to say about some things "different". But when he discusses a subject like LOP, I listen carefully.

Neither Henning's nor anyone else's beliefs about ethics (if that is what you are talking about) need to be proven by any sort of scientific method.

 

[vintage cessna]

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/12/climategate/

You can do it the hard way, go and read the actual source material, or the easy way and let someone tell you what the Emails mean.

 

[Everskyward]

You can do it the hard way, go and read the actual source material, or the easy way and let someone tell you what the Emails mean.

I know that the emails don't paint a flattering picture but there were only a small group of bad actors which doesn't invalidate all the rest of the research done by other people. Climate gate and Al Gore were the worst things that happened to serious researchers.

 

[vintage cessna]

Neither Henning's nor anyone else's beliefs about ethics (if that is what you are talking about) need to be proven by any sort of scientific method.

So? Real data is real data. True data has nothing to do with the person presenting the data. No one is disputing the temperature/pressure gradients in the atmosphere of Venus or Earth. They do dispute why there is similarity between the two planets. Huffman happens to be the first one to point it out and it has generated a lot of conversation.

 

[Everskyward]

So? Real data is real data. True data has nothing to do with the person presenting the data. No one is disputing the temperature/pressure gradients in the atmosphere of Venus or Earth. They do dispute why there is similarity between the two planets. Huffman happens to be the first one to point it out and it has generated a lot of conversation.

You are really going to believe someone who would post this? Again from his blog.

I am more concerned with the new knowledge I have found, however, and how it relates to the current incompetence across all of science. The harder I have tried to put forward my new knowledge, the more widespread and confrontational has been the public exhibition of epidemic incompetence in science. I know, as a fact, that the Earth was deliberately put together, in exquisite detail, and that it was changed, wholesale but not fundamentally, less than 20,000 years ago. I know the logical hysteria to which so many scientists have been driven by their wrong-headed paradigm, is what we are seeing in the promulgation of "runaway climate change". This same hysteria is behind the closed-minded defense of current theories, and the simplistic and relentless presentation of them to the public as facts, across all the physical sciences. Through such hysteria and continual, vain argument, dogma is being revealed to mankind as merely divisive, and like sand, upon which true and lasting knowledge cannot be built.

http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com/2010/10/runaway-global-warming-is-scientific.html

 

[vintage cessna]

You are really going to believe someone who would post this? Again from his blog.


http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com/2010/10/runaway-global-warming-is-scientific.html

No one has said he has conjured the numbers up when comparing temperatures
at the same atmospheric pressure levels of Earth and Venus. Mainstream scientists are responding to him on this issue like they would anyone else. The numbers are the numbers. We have heard of comparisons of the surface temperature of Venus compared to Earth, but I don't think anyone thought of comparing temperatures at the same atmospheric pressures before.

 

[vintage cessna]

I know that the emails don't paint a flattering picture but there were only a small group of bad actors which doesn't invalidate all the rest of the research done by other people. Climate gate and Al Gore were the worst things that happened to serious researchers.

That small group was the group everyone was listening to. They are the ones that controlled peer review of climate papers and prevented dissent from being published. They also provided the " data" that created great alarm.

 

[Norman]

WARNING! OFF TOPIC.

Wondering what those who believe so seriously in MMGW have done to curtail their carbon footprint.

Have you begun flying/driving less?, installed solar at home?, bicycled to work on a regular basis?. reduced your use of fossil fuels?, or are you comfortable with the status quo?

 

[Florida Cracker]

WARNING! OFF TOPIC.

Wondering what those who believe so seriously in MMGW have done to curtail their carbon footprint.

Have you begun flying/driving less?, installed solar at home?, bicycled to work on a regular basis?. reduced your use of fossil fuels?, or are you comfortable with the status quo?

It wasn't that long ago that the news covered the energy saving home built by GWB, and how carefully the media avoided giving him credit for having such a positive energy footprint, while completely ignoring al gore's energy hogging home in tennesee.

When the people demanding that we bow and worship their bull****, prove by their actions that they believe it, then I'm interested.

It's like the head of the Sierra club driving a huge SUV to give a speech about the evils of gas hogging vehicles, and the nut bag mmgw clowns flying private jets to Jackson Hole to talk about global warming and greenhouse gases.

It's also no different than "civil rights" activists who only believe in civil rights for their side.

Hypocrisy is a great way to measure your movement's integrity.

 

[Everskyward]

No one has said he has conjured the numbers up when comparing temperatures
at the same atmospheric pressure levels of Earth and Venus. Mainstream scientists are responding to him on this issue like they would anyone else. The numbers are the numbers. We have heard of comparisons of the surface temperature of Venus compared to Earth, but I don't think anyone thought of comparing temperatures at the same atmospheric pressures before.

I read his blog and the discussion following it and it seems that the big hole in his theory is that he is assuming that the Earth and Venus absorb radiation from the sun only in proportion to their distance from it. He is not considering the reflectivity of their atmospheres. When called out on it, he revises his theory but now considers the reflectivity of both planets to be the same, which is untrue.

Update March 14, 2012: This analysis is so easy, the result so immediately amazing, and the interpretation just above so obvious to me, yet the opposition to accepting it so universal and so determined, that I was led to unconsciously accept, partially but nevertheless wrongly, the premise of incompetent critics, that my findings were invalid because I had not "corrected for albedo", or in other words had wrongly assumed the Earth and Venus atmospheres were blackbodies, absorbing all the radiation incident upon them. I inadvertently got caught up, over time, in claiming the Earth-plus-atmosphere system behaves like a blackbody (although I never claimed it absorbs all the radiation incident upon it, as a blackbody is defined to do, and as the incompetent dismissers of my analysis have determinedly, dogmatically insisted). Although this has thoroughly hindered the acceptance of my analysis, my initial approach to the problem was in fact sound (even if too simple-minded for most), and my above, initial interpretation is quite correct, and in fact unavoidable, although it is not a complete statement. The complete interpretation, which I have stressed (as a logical fact) ever since, both in comments below this article, and on other internet sites, is that the two atmospheres must DIRECTLY absorb the SAME FRACTION of the incident solar radiation.

http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html

 

[N801BH]

It wasn't that long ago that the news covered the energy saving home built by GWB, and how carefully the media avoided giving him credit for having such a positive energy footprint, while completely ignoring al gore's energy hogging home in tennesee.

When the people demanding that we bow and worship their bull****, prove by their actions that they believe it, then I'm interested.

It's like the head of the Sierra club driving a huge SUV to give a speech about the evils of gas hogging vehicles, and the nut bag mmgw clowns flying private jets to Jackson Hole to talk about global warming and greenhouse gases.

It's also no different than "civil rights" activists who only believe in civil rights for their side.

Hypocrisy is a great way to measure your movement's integrity.

Yup.... I shake my head in absolute disbelief when they do that too.....

TOTAL frauds.....

 

[Henning]

Government is a parasite. It's useful if it is controlled by the host, the voters, but if the voters aren't on the ball, government grows and begins devouring the host, like most parasites, government has to be controlled.

Yes, but it is not a terminus for the money, government as we have applied, is a way to funnel everyone's money into the hands of a few families who have been competing for the title "World's richest and most powerful dynasty" for nearly 600 years now.

We gave up the ideals the Founders fought for, to have an economy free of the tyranny of those families and wrote in provisions on the rules of currency to protect us from the influence and drain of greed on our society. We signed the official document of surrender that handed the United States wealth production back to those families in 1913 with the Federal Reserve Act.

 

[N801BH]

Yes, but it is not a terminus for the money, government as we have applied, is a way to funnel everyone's money into the hands of a few families who have been competing for the title "World's richest and most powerful dynasty" for nearly 600 years now.

We gave up the ideals the Founders fought for, to have an economy free of the tyranny of those families and wrote in provisions on the rules of currency to protect us from the influence and drain of greed on our society. We signed the official document of surrender that handed the United States wealth production back to those families in 1913 with the Federal Reserve Act.

Hmmmm..

Sam Walton was not even born yet,, and that family has the most money in the U.S.A.....

How did he pull that off..

 

[vintage cessna]

I read his blog and the discussion following it and it seems that the big hole in his theory is that he is assuming that the Earth and Venus absorb radiation from the sun only in proportion to their distance from it. He is not considering the reflectivity of their atmospheres. When called out on it, he revises his theory but now considers the reflectivity of both planets to be the same, which is untrue.



http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html

What I get from it is that the albedo doesn't seem to make a difference. What I find interesting is that at each pressure level in the atmosphere, Venus is about 17.5 percent warmer than Earth. According to his calculations without factoring in the albedo, this is what you would expect given that Venus is closer to the sun.

His chart for each pressure level of atmosphere depicts a roughly 17.5 percent difference in temperature between Earth and Venus. If his calculation of the difference in solar radiation between the Earth and Venus is correct, then I would say his chart is very interesting.

 

[Everskyward]

What I get from it is that the albedo doesn't seem to make a difference. What I find interesting is that at each pressure level in the atmosphere, Venus is about 17.5 percent warmer than Earth. According to his calculations without factoring in the albedo, this is what you would expect given that Venus is closer to the sun.



His chart for each pressure level of atmosphere depicts a roughly 17.5 percent difference in temperature between Earth and Venus. If his calculation of the difference in solar radiation between the Earth and Venus is correct, then I would say his chart is very interesting.

What I get is that he ignores the effect of albedo which makes his whole theory suspect.

 

[azure]

His chart for each pressure level of atmosphere depicts a roughly 17.5 percent difference in temperature between Earth and Venus. If his calculation of the difference in solar radiation between the Earth and Venus is correct, then I would say his chart is very interesting.

I'll grant you that it is interesting. It kinda works for Titan too - at a distance of 9.5 AU compared to 1 AU at Earth, his calculation predicts 93 K at P = 1000 mb on Titan. The actual temperature as measured by the Huygens probe is about 90 K, from a graph in Pierrehumbert's book.

The problem is that as simple as it looks, there doesn't seem to be a correspondingly simple physical explanation for it, at least not one based on correct physics. Huffman's derivation is flawed because he uses the Earth's surface temperature instead of its perfect absorber, zero albedo blackbody temperature and his explanation, that the temperature profile is determined by the ideal gas law, is just WRONG. The ideal gas law doesn't determine the lapse rate because there's another variable in the equation of state besides T and P, namely V, or equivalently, density. Without density you can't understand why hot air rises, the basis for convection in an atmosphere. Figuring out the lapse rate for a real atmosphere is very complex, but the average lapse rate over some altitude ranges often works out to be what you'd expect if air parcels expanded adiabatically - without exchanging heat with neighboring parcels - as they rise to levels where the pressure is lower. The actual lapse rate as compared with the appropriate adiabat is a measure of atmospheric stability, used by meteorologists - and pilots reading Skew T diagrams too.

This Venus thing reminds me a little of Bode's rule - the idea that the distances of the planets from the Sun obey a simple, geometric rule. The rule worked for the six known planets in the early 18th century. It worked for Uranus too, and was used to predict the existence of a planet between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. When the asteroid Ceres was discovered, it was considered a confirmation of Bode's rule. But the rule doesn't work too well for Neptune, and as far as we know, there is no corresponding rule for extrasolar planetary systems. People have long speculated that there might be some kind of orbital resonance due to the gravities of the planets, but no one has been able to derive Bode's rule or anything approximately close to it from the basic physics that predicts the planets' motions so accurately.

The point to science is to understand nature, and not just to find interesting patterns. Noticing patterns can be useful as a first step, but not all patterns lead to deeper understanding, some are just coincidences. When the underlying laws are well understood - as we have strong reason to believe is true for planetary atmospheres - interesting coincidences that seem to suggest a simple underlying explanation aren't a strong enough reason to reject more complex explanations that are based on the underlying laws.

 

[Florida Cracker]

Hmmmm..

Sam Walton was not even born yet,, and that family has the most money in the U.S.A.....

How did he pull that off..

I think he must've stolen it all from Jimmy Cooper.

 

[Gary F]

I'll grant you that it is interesting. It kinda works for Titan too - at a distance of 9.5 AU compared to 1 AU at Earth, his calculation predicts 93 K at P = 1000 mb on Titan. The actual temperature as measured by the Huygens probe is about 90 K, from a graph in Pierrehumbert's book.

The problem is that as simple as it looks, there doesn't seem to be a correspondingly simple physical explanation for it, at least not one based on correct physics. Huffman's derivation is flawed because he uses the Earth's surface temperature instead of its perfect absorber, zero albedo blackbody temperature and his explanation, that the temperature profile is determined by the ideal gas law, is just WRONG. The ideal gas law doesn't determine the lapse rate because there's another variable in the equation of state besides T and P, namely V, or equivalently, density. Without density you can't understand why hot air rises, the basis for convection in an atmosphere. Figuring out the lapse rate for a real atmosphere is very complex, but the average lapse rate over some altitude ranges often works out to be what you'd expect if air parcels expanded adiabatically - without exchanging heat with neighboring parcels - as they rise to levels where the pressure is lower. The actual lapse rate as compared with the appropriate adiabat is a measure of atmospheric stability, used by meteorologists - and pilots reading Skew T diagrams too.

This Venus thing reminds me a little of Bode's rule - the idea that the distances of the planets from the Sun obey a simple, geometric rule. The rule worked for the six known planets in the early 18th century. It worked for Uranus too, and was used to predict the existence of a planet between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. When the asteroid Ceres was discovered, it was considered a confirmation of Bode's rule. But the rule doesn't work too well for Neptune, and as far as we know, there is no corresponding rule for extrasolar planetary systems. People have long speculated that there might be some kind of orbital resonance due to the gravities of the planets, but no one has been able to derive Bode's rule or anything approximately close to it from the basic physics that predicts the planets' motions so accurately.

The point to science is to understand nature, and not just to find interesting patterns. Noticing patterns can be useful as a first step, but not all patterns lead to deeper understanding, some are just coincidences. When the underlying laws are well understood - as we have strong reason to believe is true for planetary atmospheres - interesting coincidences that seem to suggest a simple underlying explanation aren't a strong enough reason to reject more complex explanations that are based on the underlying laws.

Translation: We don't have a f&%*$&* clue how things actually work but hey, it's still "settled science".

 

[EppyGA]

Still lots of discussion.

If this is so all fired important and serious why are we allowing China and India to coast along polluting like crazy? Shouldn't the U.N tell them to cut it out?

Too much politics for my liking.

 

[Everskyward]

Truthfully, I think people on both sides try to dumb it down so the masses (like me) can attempt to understand it. However, that doesn't work very well because it is much more complex than that.

 

[PaulS]

Truthfully, I think people on both sides try to dumb it down so the masses (like me) can attempt to understand it. However, that doesn't work very well because it is much more complex than that.

It's so complex that nobody understands it, and I mean NOBODY.

 

[denverpilot]

I'm glad 2014 is almost over. We'll need a new thread to argue incessantly about this in 2015.

 

[Everskyward]

It's so complex that nobody understands it, and I mean NOBODY.

I think people can make educated guesses based on scientific principles but no one has the definitive answer. However, no one has the definitive answer on anything that will happen in the future.

 

[vintage cessna]

To make it even easier for VC, here is the NASA link:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.surfaceflux.html

and a link to the abstract of a paper describing measurements of the back radiation (the paper itself is apparently paywalled):

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00262.1

Finally there was a somewhat interesting discussion on Judith Curry's blog about all this a while back:

http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/30/physics-of-the-atmospheric-greenhouse-effect/

Lots of back and forth there with good contributions by Chris Colose and Leonard Weinstein, and even some participation from Harry Huffman (and a good rebuttal by TomP, who I think may have a good explanation for the Venus coincidence). With ~700 replies it's kind of tl;dr, but it's still worth a skim.

A lot of the whackier skeptic arguments seem to be driven by a need for a simpler, more transparent explanation for why it's warmer on the surface than it "should be". That's a laudable goal, I think we need to make the physics as simple as it can be and still be correct, *but no simpler*. The atmosphere doesn't seem to be like QED or even classical gravity where a simple mathematical formalism underlies all the apparent complexity. Even if you make lots of simplifying assumptions it's still a very complex system in which thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and radiative transfer interact in subtle ways. The bottom line is that it's never going to be as simple as distance from Sun + Stefan-Boltzmann + PV=nRT = temperature as a function of pressure, and trying to make things too simple only leads to wrong physics, which is if anything worse than overly complex physics.

Fact is , every planet in our solar system that has an atmosphere temperature rises with pressure. So, it is very possible to attribute the warmer than expected to something other than a Greenhouse Effect.

 

[Tom-D]

My question is :::: So What ?

We know it is getting warmer, other wise we would have glaciers in Yosemite Valley.
We can see that Portage Glacier has retreated 6 miles in 5 years. as has Mendenal Glacier at Juneau, All the old ice has gone from all mountains in the lower 48 except the ones which are above 10,000'

Yeah its getting warmer, I have humming birds on my feeder in December, my fuchsia are blooming as I type.

So What? I'm good with that.

 

[azure]

Translation: We don't have a f&%*$&* clue how things actually work but hey, it's still "settled science".

Do you think that we don't have a f***ing clue about orbital mechanics because we don't understand why Bode's rule works so well for 7 planets plus Ceres?

 

[azure]

Fact is , every planet in our solar system that has an atmosphere temperature rises with pressure. So, it is very possible to attribute the warmer than expected to something other than a Greenhouse Effect.

The reason temperature rises with pressure is that air that moves to lower pressures cools as it expands (it does work on the surrounding air and thus loses energy - provided it takes in negligible heat in the process). Note though that in the stratosphere it's the reverse because of strong UV absorption by ozone.

The greenhouse effect lowers p_rad, the effective pressure level from which radiation escapes into space. If there was a significant atmosphere but no greenhouse effect, the radiation emitted from the surface should escape directly into space and so the surface should be at the expected blackbody temperature. There would still be a lapse rate because of adiabatic cooling, at least in the troposphere.

 

[vintage cessna]

The reason temperature rises with pressure is that air that moves to lower pressures cools as it expands (it does work on the surrounding air and thus loses energy - provided it takes in negligible heat in the process). Note though that in the stratosphere it's the reverse because of strong UV absorption by ozone.

The greenhouse effect lowers p_rad, the effective pressure level from which radiation escapes into space. If there was a significant atmosphere but no greenhouse effect, the radiation emitted from the surface should escape directly into space and so the surface should be at the expected blackbody temperature. There would still be a lapse rate because of adiabatic cooling, at least in the troposphere.

The point is, atmospheric pressure in and of itself causes higher temps. The hottest places on Earth are below sea level and have the highest atmospheric pressures. When a gas is compressed doesn't it heat up.

To say that without a Greenhouse effect the Earth would radiate like a black body is a big assumption. You don't think the oceans absorb heat and transport the heat lower? Or the land masses? Is this calculation assuming the Earth is a black body done because it is convient?

 

[vintage cessna]

The reason temperature rises with pressure is that air that moves to lower pressures cools as it expands (it does work on the surrounding air and thus loses energy - provided it takes in negligible heat in the process). Note though that in the stratosphere it's the reverse because of strong UV absorption by ozone.

The greenhouse effect lowers p_rad, the effective pressure level from which radiation escapes into space. If there was a significant atmosphere but no greenhouse effect, the radiation emitted from the surface should escape directly into space and so the surface should be at the expected blackbody temperature. There would still be a lapse rate because of adiabatic cooling, at least in the troposphere.

I have a lot of issues that the Earth would radiate like a black body if not for the Greenhouse effect. Black body assumes no heat is absorbed, the Earth doesn't rotate and the entire globe is receiving radiation 24 hours a day. None of this approximates reality. I know the equation must have some use, but not to determine what the temp of the Earth should be.

 

[azure]

The point is, atmospheric pressure in and of itself causes higher temps. The hottest places on Earth are below sea level and have the highest atmospheric pressures. When a gas is compressed doesn't it heat up.

The question is, higher than what? Yes, the temperature will be higher down low than higher up. But what will the actual temperature be at the surface, or at, say, 1000 mb? The problem is, I don't think there is any world in the solar system that has an atmosphere but no greenhouse effect. Even Titan has a strong greenhouse effect due to methane and also, I believe, N2 and H2. Mars might be the best example, but its atmosphere is very thin and during the winter there is very little vertical variation of temperature.

To say that without a Greenhouse effect the Earth would radiate like a black body is a big assumption.

Basically it's assuming that the Earth's emissivity is 1. The emissivity is a function of wavelength, and in the IR where most of the Earth's radiation falls, it's pretty close to 1. A tiny fraction is at shorter wavelengths where the emissivity is < 1. I think overall it works out to something like 0.96.

You don't think the oceans absorb heat and transport the heat lower? Or the land masses? Is this calculation assuming the Earth is a black body done because it is convient?

Now you've lost me. What does ocean transport have to do with whether or not the radiation from the surface obeys the S-B law?

 

[vintage cessna]

The question is, higher than what? Yes, the temperature will be higher down low than higher up. But what will the actual temperature be at the surface, or at, say, 1000 mb? The problem is, I don't think there is any world in the solar system that has an atmosphere but no greenhouse effect. Even Titan has a strong greenhouse effect due to methane and also, I believe, N2 and H2. Mars might be the best example, but its atmosphere is very thin and during the winter there is very little vertical variation of temperature.

Basically it's assuming that the Earth's emissivity is 1. The emissivity is a function of wavelength, and in the IR where most of the Earth's radiation falls, it's pretty close to 1. A tiny fraction is at shorter wavelengths where the emissivity is < 1. I think overall it works out to something like 0.96.

Now you've lost me. What does ocean transport have to do with whether or not the radiation from the surface obeys the S-B law?

How have I lost you? You assume the Earth's emissitity is 1. Why do you assume that? Could it be that the oceans, or land for that matter, are not radiating out everything received? Are you saying the Greenhouse effect warms these massive oceans as well? No heat is absorbed by the oceans and thermaly transferred to lower depths? CO2 should be getting overtime pay.

 

[vintage cessna]

The question is, higher than what? Yes, the temperature will be higher down low than higher up. But what will the actual temperature be at the surface, or at, say, 1000 mb? The problem is, I don't think there is any world in the solar system that has an atmosphere but no greenhouse effect. Even Titan has a strong greenhouse effect due to methane and also, I believe, N2 and H2. Mars might be the best example, but its atmosphere is very thin and during the winter there is very little vertical variation of temperature.

Basically it's assuming that the Earth's emissivity is 1. The emissivity is a function of wavelength, and in the IR where most of the Earth's radiation falls, it's pretty close to 1. A tiny fraction is at shorter wavelengths where the emissivity is < 1. I think overall it works out to something like 0.96.

Now you've lost me. What does ocean transport have to do with whether or not the radiation from the surface obeys the S-B law?

Now you are imposing your belief system on other planets. It has already been shown that the moon was warmer than expected . The moon doesn't have an atmosphere so that can't be explained by a Greenhouse effect. If the moon doesn't radiate like a black body, why would it be surprising that the Earth doesn't either?

Is there nothing else in the universe that could possibly explain why celestial bodies are warmer than expected other than the Greenhouse effect?

 

[vintage cessna]

The reason temperature rises with pressure is that air that moves to lower pressures cools as it expands (it does work on the surrounding air and thus loses energy - provided it takes in negligible heat in the process). Note though that in the stratosphere it's the reverse because of strong UV absorption by ozone.

The greenhouse effect lowers p_rad, the effective pressure level from which radiation escapes into space. If there was a significant atmosphere but no greenhouse effect, the radiation emitted from the surface should escape directly into space and so the surface should be at the expected blackbody temperature. There would still be a lapse rate because of adiabatic cooling, at least in the troposphere.

What you have explained here is how the atmosphere cools the surface. Which is why the Earth's surface temperature is cooler than the moons' during the daytime. What you haven't explained is why the atmosphere is warmer at higher pressures.

 

[Gary F]

Do you think that we don't have a f***ing clue about orbital mechanics because we don't understand why Bode's rule works so well for 7 planets plus Ceres?

What's your point? Does that fully describe the thermodynamics of Earth's atmosphere? I didn't think so. Celestial mechanics is quite straightforward compared to climate science so you really can't make comparisons.

 

[azure]

How have I lost you? You assume the Earth's emissitity is 1. Why do you assume that? Could it be that the oceans, or land for that matter, are not radiating out everything received? Are you saying the Greenhouse effect warms these massive oceans as well? No heat is absorbed by the oceans and thermaly transferred to lower depths? CO2 should be getting overtime pay.

It is NOT an assumption, that's the point. We live on the surface of the Earth, we can measure the properties of the materials that make it up. The emissivities are measurable and have been measured. They're close to 1 around 10 um for nearly all of them that are present in appreciable quantities. Including water, I might add.

Where the trapped heat goes is a different question, along with what the dominant mechanisms are for transferring it to the surface. I don't know the breakdown, conduction vs. radiation, but I have to believe that radiation is not negligible given how large the back radiation is - it is less than but comparable to the flux radiated from the surface.

Transfer of heat to the deep ocean does NOT affect whether the surface radiates as a blackbody. (Read that again, be sure you understand what I'm saying there. I'm talking about the S-B law and not saying anything about what the surface temperature actually is.) It DOES, of course, affect the surface temperature. Go back to our discussion of how heat capacity and thermal diffusion affect the daily temperature cycle on a world like the Moon. The oceans have a huge heat capacity and the lag time between changes in forcing and changes in surface temperature could be of order years or longer. In the meantime the OLR from the planet might be less than the net incoming solar flux (incident minus reflected), i.e. the planet would be out of equilibrium.

But the surface, and the TOA, would still be radiating very nearly as a blackbody.

(In fact the energy budget charts show that the planet IS not quite in equilibrium, there is a net absorbed flux of something like 0.6 W/m2. I'm not sure whether that is really significant or whether it could be due to measurement uncertainty in the other terms.)

 

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What's your point? Does that fully describe the thermodynamics of Earth's atmosphere? I didn't think so. Celestial mechanics is quite straightforward compared to climate science so you really can't make comparisons.

No, what is your point? That because we don't fully understand the atmosphere we don't have the foggiest idea of how it works? If that were true, weather forecasts even a day or two out would be no better than guessing. In fact they are MUCH better than guessing, and better today than they were 10 years ago because of improvements in computational speed and raw sounding data. The basic physics is not really in question.

There's a big difference between not having a full understanding, and not having a f---ing clue.