Off topic musing.

Shub, funny you should mention rotation. As I was saying to Professor Jones only the other day (!!!) rotation matters. He said it didn't and the convo spun away into the TOA. However, I always wonder why the Nikolov and Zeller theory doesn't seem to address length of day when assessing what 'average temperature' planets 'should be'. It seems to me in my dull housewife way that the surface on the dark side of a non-atmospheric planet will tend towards absolute zero, will approach asymptotically the temperature of outer space (a little above zero, apparently), whille the temp on the hot side will rise until it reaches radiative balance, severely limited by T to the fourth.. I don't see how that average temp will be the same independently of the length of day. And that means that the 33k they always talk about is not independent of length of day either, and that any daft sum depending on so many doublings giving 33K with so much CO2 with this much insolation giving a useful figure for future doublings iis founded on dubious assumptions. In short, the 33K is wrong, and N&K aren't right unless their formula includes length of day.

" all done in a sort of peevish whine which is almost audible."

Yes Mike, that's how it strikes me. Why do they never do humour or levity (except in a Brigstockian sneer), after all, it's not the end of the world. Is it?

Perhaps now is the time for a recap. What we know and what we would wish to see demonstrated. I do not doubt the absorption of IR by CO2. Nor the radiation at a different wavelength. I'd like to see demonstrated in the lab that this in fact leads to the back-radiation scenario, that the presence of CO2 in some concentration affects the rate of radiation by the surface. The Klein experiment claims to show that the mylar bags of greenhouse gas do not have any effect on the surface. I'd like to see that reproduced or someone explain why it does not apply and propose a better method. I want to see a differing effect depending on the concentration of CO2, and preferably see that effect in concentrations equivalent to plausible atmospheric scenarios. I really do not understand why this sort of experiment is not in the logical chain used to produce the hypothesis in the first plce. It is plain to me that theory is not enough. Handwavers who dismiss the need for testing seem to take far too much on trust or have an investment in the consensus which will not admit failure.

If the hypothesis fails the lab test we don't really need to go any further. If it passes, we do need to go outside and to test that lab results are reflected in the real atmosphere. Without water, in the Atacama or similar, and with it, everywhere else. How much does a high humidity affect what CO2 does? My guess is that it will not be the sum of each effect taken separately (I know this is the mydog/spartacus/AlecM theory, but it seems no less plausible for that). My guess is that water dominates, but I could be wrong. Length of day also has a strong effect on the relationship of theory to reality. And averaging, my bete noir. The same process are having different and possible opposite effects on each square metre. What is a positive feedback here is a negative there and makes no difference somewhere else. You can't average. You can model it, but the first thing you ought to do is check model results against local reality. In my view climate models are too global. If they can't do the square metre, they can't do the world. Whereas if they CAN do the square metre there's a pretty good chance they still can't do the world. Strangely, I made no progress trying to explain that to Richard Betts.

Mike, there is supposed to be a physical mechanism going on. To claim that there is no experiment which could show it is to claim that there is no effect. If you can't measure it, don't ask me to believe it. I am just a little confused now about back-radiation. The other side appears to be backing off from it, or more accurately the use of it as a concept to explain GHE, just as the old CO2 blanket story was not meant to be accurate but merely illustrative to the proles. What they are using now is this TOA story, which I don't fully understand. I can see that an imbalance at TOA leaves some energy to be accounted for, but I wonder whether any 'natural' warming would not also imply a TOA imbalance. I find in general experience that when an explanation changes whenever you get close to understanding it that is an indication of faith-based reasoning.Or epicycles.

RKS, I was reading climate papers yesterday trying to discover a bit more about TOA. I stumbled across a nominal height of 20km. Of course there is no actual boundary, but 20km is well within the limits of heavier-than-air flight. I believe global hawk drones go up there. So it can all be measured all the way up, with radiation balance, temps and actual air samples. Some of this is being done. I found no relevant results though. It ain't easy comparing the one-day one-place observation of reality with the averaged stuff we are fed as illustrations of the problem. That's why I want modellers to do one-day one-place, simplest conditions they can find. I'll bet they can't match model with reality even at that scale. So refine the model until you can do it, then expand it. They do check models against observations, but not it appears on less than regional scale. Which they can't actually get right.

David Hoffer at WUWT has put in numerical terms what I have been trying to say about averages on this thread and others. Now it may well be that the climate crew give us averages as a simplification for the masses, but sometimes things can be simplified too far. Although as I understand it the derivation of 3.7 watts/sq m/ doubling is not derived in the way Hoffer illustrates it is clear that it cannot stand for successive doublings no matter what or if it did it would not lead to an anomaly temp rise which was also repeated over successive doublings. It would be nice if we understood how the 3.7 gets into the models.

Leaving this thread for the so-far fruitless search for an experimental demo, I am planning a new one on CO2 theory, about which I need some clarity.