Why do you go to a haematologist to treat your CLL? Surely a lay person would do a better job than a doctor? After all, 97% of haematologists must be wrong.

Mar 13, 2017 at 11:35 PM | Entropic man

Why do you assume (incorrectly) that I have CLL?

The Haematology Dept at the hospital has a track record of being right. Their diagnosis and the treatment, including chemo, has not been fun, but I can "feel" improvements, whereas they rely on blood tests, spread sheets, graphs, trend analysis etc. They do not adjust data, past or present, to sell me more chemo. I trust Haematology.

If there was a reputable trade organisation representing Climate Scientists, they might have raised questions about the validity of some of the "Science". Instead, it gets endorsed and incorporated into the IPCC.

With US Funding reduced for the IPCC, Climate Scientists are going to have to find some convincing evidence, without much money.

Radical rodent

When I shine a beam of light on a mirror the energy reflects off the mirror without warming it. When you shine light on a plant some of it reflects without warming the planet. That is albedo.

Huffman's hypothesis only worked if the energy reflected as albedo was counted as warming the planet. This is physically impossible.

EM: "For the same reason that your house does not warm to infinity when you turn up the thermostat. You get an initial increase in energy flow into the house and an increase in temperature."

My house doesn't warm to infinity because the heating is turned off when it reaches the temperature set on the thermostat.

In any event there is no such temperature as inifinity.

The Earth's climate could be modelled as an electric circuit I suppose using the Sun as the energy supply, but it isn't a good model because an electric circuit has been designed by an engineer and therefore there is no chaos in the system, at least at the molecular level, So that's not a good analogy either.

I pointed out early on the thread that I was aware of potential negative feedbacks, and am probably unaware of other negative feedbacks.

I'm grateful that EM and andthenth... have put forward reasons why the world doesn't go POOF, I'm not sure they are the real reasons, although physically possible (and neither, by the way, am I expecting the world to go POOF because clearly it's not unstable), however, as always with discussion of the science of climate there's a lurking elephant in the room and that is that the Earth has indeed been at higher temperatures than 3C over its history. It was around 14C over the 1961 -1990 GAT around 55 million years ago. Also given the smoothing in the long time series of global temperatures there could, of course, have been many times when the Earth was much hotter than today.

"Rhoda

Of course not, you silly girl!

Lay an egg on the ground and it would receive about half a watt from DWLR. You would boil it faster by breathing on it."

I'd be careful throwing words like "silly" around and then referring to the radiation coming from the Sun as "longwave" of I were you EM.

Mar 14, 2017 at 9:35 AM | Entropic man

What are your qualifications for misdiagnosing my leukaemia?

What are your qualifications for misdiagnosing the "Climate" with a problem for which there is no evidence?

I'd be careful throwing words like "silly" around and then referring to the radiation coming from the Sun as "longwave" of I were you EM

He didn't.

Geronimo

It's been fun. I think ATTP won best comment with his Planck Response calculation.

In climate science discussion shortwave radiation refers to visible light, is insolation. Longwave radiation is outward infrared radiation or downwelling infrared radiation.

Rhoda asked "Can you boil an egg at night with DW IR?"

Since it is night there will be no radiation coming from the Sun. IIt will all be longwave radiation emitted by CO2 or water vapour.

If you can't boil an egg, what can you do with it, 100+ w/m2. should be able to do something. However, round here, if there are no clouds, it seems to get cold at night. Even though there is the equivalent of a 100 watt bulb every square metre.

Geronimo

It's been fun. I think ATTP won best comment with his Planck Response calculation.

In climate science discussions shortwave radiation refers to visible light, ie insolation. Longwave radiation is outward infrared radiation or downwelling infrared radiation.

Rhoda asked "Can you boil an egg at night with DW IR?"

Since it is night there will be no radiation coming from the Sun. IIt will all be longwave radiation emitted by CO2 or water vapour.

Radical rodent

I love you too.

Clearly you do not understand albedo, or you would not be defending Huffman.

as always with discussion of the science of climate there's a lurking elephant in the room and that is that the Earth has indeed been at higher temperatures than 3C over its history.

Why is this an elephant in the room? Hundreds of millions of years ago atmospheric CO2 was much higher than today, therefore we'd expect it to have been warmer (admitedly, Solar insolation was lower, but I think the GHG forcing still means we'd have expected it to be higher).

It was around 14C over the 1961 -1990 GAT around 55 million years ago.

Would be good to see some reference for this, because this seems a bit high. However, atmospheric CO2 100 million years ago might have been around 1500ppm. This means that the GHG forcing would have been about 9 W/m^2 greater than pre-industrial. If the ECS is 3K, then this would be 9/3.7 x 3 = 7.3K. So, we might expect it to be 7-8K warmer than pre-industrial using exactly the same reasoning that we'd expect the ECS to be about 3K.

Also given the smoothing in the long time series of global temperatures there could, of course, have been many times when the Earth was much hotter than today.

It was the Eoceene, when CO2 was at 1000ppm, the elephant in the room being that both attp and EM had indicated some in-built negative feedback which stopped the temperature running out of control. The graph shows a steady fall in temperature then the Holocene, and the sharp rise at the end, I don't know over what period the smoothing was during the Holocene, but I don't think it's wise to tack an unsmoothed measurement onto the end of a time series. But what do I know?

You can read about it here

The Eocene global climate was perhaps the most homogeneous of the Cenozoic; the temperature gradient from equator to pole was only half that of today’s, and deep ocean currents were exceptionally warm. The polar regions were much warmer than today, perhaps as mild as the modern-day Pacific Northwest; temperate forests extended right to the poles, while rainy tropical climates extended as far north as 45°. The difference was greatest in the temperate latitudes; the climate in the tropics however, was probably similar to today’s.

Stanley, Steven M. Earth System History. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1999. ISBN 0-7167-2882-6.

Now everybody, are we absolutely sure that those explaining GE are not confusing cause and effect?

"Geronimo

It's been fun. I think ATTP won best comment with his Planck Response calculation.

In climate science discussions shortwave radiation refers to visible light, ie insolation. Longwave radiation is outward infrared radiation or downwelling infrared radiation.

Rhoda asked "Can you boil an egg at night with DW IR?"

Since it is night there will be no radiation coming from the Sun. IIt will all be longwave radiation emitted by CO2 or water vapour."

" When your in a hole stop digging", has been a phrase that I've treasured (along with "Never make an unnecessary enemy.")

I was wrong, I apologise.

It was the Eoceene, when CO2 was at 1000ppm, the elephant in the room being that both attp and EM had indicated some in-built negative feedback which stopped the temperature running out of control.

Maybe you can explain what you're suggesting? All we're pointing out is that the net feedback response (when you also include the Planck response) is negative, hence it can't run out of control. It will eventually return to equilibrium and - to first order - we would expect the warming to about around 3K per doubling of atmospheric CO2 (it is state dependent and there are clearly uncertainties). You seem to be suggesting that the Eocene somehow contradicts this, but it doesn't.

Geronimo

Thank you for your gracious apology.

No worries.

OK, there's a predictable temp rise per doubling, except when there is not because of some negative feedback which comes in at different threshholds depending on..well, actually, depending on whatever warmist claim is under threat by logic. Anyhow, that means you can't express CS in terms of per doubling because it won't even work for two doublings. As for equilibrium ECS, that is an even less valid concept, because nothing is ever IN equilibrium, only headed towards it.

Now, would anyone like to point out why I can't get any useful work out of downwelling IR. And if I can't, how is it heating the world?

None of this physics, explains the pause. Therefore the Climate Science experts have made a mistake.

As Climate Scientists have never admitted to a mistake, it is their problem to find and deal with, and until they work it out, they can carry on, but in their own time and without Taxpayer Funding. It will be interesting to see how many private investors think Climate Science is worth investing in.

Rhoda: "Now, would anyone like to point out why I can't get any useful work out of downwelling IR. And if I can't, how is it heating the world?"

Adding CO2 raises average atmospheric altitude of radiation to space. Down the lapse rate, temperatures increase at all altitudes until the full GE temperature (33+delta degC) is realised at the bottom of the atmosphere. The atmosphere expands as the average temperatures increase. The centre of mass of a column of atmosphere increases in altitude with this expansion. The work done is all in the lifting against gravity from altitude A to altitude A+delta. Downwelling IR is a phenomenon of an atmosphere with greenhouse gas and it does no work. It was the incoming solar radiation that did the work as it is the only source of energy. IR is produced after the complete absorption of that sunshine.

So the answer to your question of how it is heating the world is that it isn't. However;

I understand the argument that it is runs: DWIR delays the escape of radiation, radiation is therefore retained, temperatures rise (presumably by collision induced absorption / thermalisation). But as there is already an explanation of GE from atmospheric mass, gravity and altitude change, it can be seen that observations of radiation do nothing more than confirm that it exists and behaves exactly as physicists such as Plank, Wien etc have discovered and explained.

I could, of course, be wrong. But if the GE affect can be calculated by radiative physics and shows a larger temperature rise than that from m.g.h and the lapse rate, then where is that materialising? If it can't show a larger rise then isn't effect being confused with cause?

ssat, I was asking one of my naive questions again. EM attributed a portion of the claimed heating to DW IR. EM also claims a rise in the effective radiation ceiling, TOA, of 45 metres. I don't know how he gets there either. But I do have an equivalent naive question re the TOA/lapse rate explanation. If the TOA goes up 45m, or any other figure, what heats the air at the surface in the absence of an increase in pressure. Lapse rate is not a sufficient explanation, there still has to be energy making the air warmer at the surface. How does the air know about the height of the tropopause in the absence of a message from seven miles up?

Rhoda, as I see it;

There is additional energy in the atmosphere from collision induced absorption because of the additional CO2.

Link

It is that process which at steady state supports the current atmospheric volume via temperature. That temperature is the T^4 difference between radiating temperature and space required by Stefan–Boltzmann law: The total radiant heat energy emitted from a surface is proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature.

The lapse rate is just a number but as pressure increases with decreasing altitude, there is more gas in any given volume and therefore more energy which translates to higher temperature at the near-surface. With additional CO2, there is a greater energy density and a higher temperature.

ssat, I don't quite get that. NOW it's a temp increase due to 'trapped' radiation warming the CO2 and adjacent molecules directly. I can buy that, except that that requires no radiation from the CO2 itself, or some mixture of effects. A lot of radiative theory requires that CO2 re-emits. Thus DWIR. This is like killing the villain at the end of Die Hard. I disposed of DWIR and lapse rate/TOA, now this. I observe that the former two explanations have been relied on by warmists. If the science were settled, they would have this down cold, with observations to support it.