Er, isn't Fourier correct? Power is energy transferred per unit time. If you continuously transfer energy to something, and it doesn't lose it, it will gain and keep gaining energy. Alan says the enclosed lightbulb is not much hotter than the unenclosed lightbulb, but "not much" hotter is still nonetheless - hotter. And as Ender said in his reply, the extent to which heat increases will depend on the physical properties of the enclosure.

Jennifer

don't you realise that publish such ignorant waffle as this demeans the integrity and repuation of your site and the organistion you represent?

Wow SJT,

That was an impressive counterpoint post!

How about the fantastic idea of presenting a counter argument against it?

We will still be arguing the increments [sweating the small stuff] in a 100 years time.
The facts are obvious.
There are no tipping points or we would not BE here.
Get used to it. Concentrate on the real problems.
As I said at BB's blog, "good economies don't guarantee good eco-ethics but crook ones almost certainly guarantee crook ones."
Especially with 12 billion people.

Alan's example could possibly be better as FIG 1 from Robitaille's paper on Stewart's Law shows;

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0805/0805.1625.pdf

But ender is most definitely not correct; look at Eli's piece on LTE's, in particular, anonymous's comment at 7.33 pm where he defines a LTE in terms of the mean free path of atmospheric nitrogen or oxygen, the main components of the atmosphere;

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-is-local-thermodynamic-equilibrium.html

Amidst the numbers the point is that there are discrete gaseous parcels of air which have an effective internal thermal equilibrium; according to Stewart's Law the GHG's within that parcel of air will emit as much as they absorb; an infinitesimal increase due to an increase in CO2 content of the LTE parcel of air will not cause a layer opaqueness because, as Chilingar et al show, adiabatic convective exchange takes that air upwards; CO2 emission within the parcel of air, because it is a LTE, will be upwards as per the thermal gradient (which contradicts Philopona's model predictions and conclusions); again this is an example of how heat transfer negates LTE heat and energy build-up. Alan's example is not right because there is not an LTE in the atmosphere which is internally sourced with power (apart from his globe!) and seperated from the thermal and radiative equlibrising mechanisms in the atmosphere. In fact his light bulb proves his point sufficiently without a cover, just as ender's engine at another post, disproves his.

"There are no tipping points or we would not BE here."

In geological terms, we have only just turned up. In geological terms, there have been massive and rapid swings in climate, due to the so called 'tipping points', which have resulted in mass extinctions. We could be in the middle of triggering such a swing right now.

mitchell porter said.."If you continuously transfer energy to something, and it doesn't lose it, it will gain and keep gaining energy".

There's more to it than that. For example, if you set up a simple electric circuit with a voltage source and one resistor in the circuit, electrical energy will be transfered to heat energy. The relationship is P = EI and Energy, e = EIt in watt-hours.

That energy is driven by a potential difference in the source. Heat operates in the same way, you need a difference in heat potential for heat to flow. So, if you transfer heat to something it will only transfer till a state of equilibrium is reached.

In this article: http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~wsoon/ArmstrongGreenSoon08-Anatomy-d/Lindzen07-EnE-warm-lindz07.pdf

Lindzen states:

"...in current models, the natural greenhouse substances (water vapor and clouds) act in such a manner as to greatly amplify this warming. This is
referred to as positive feedback. There is something very seriously wrong with this oversimplified picture. Namely, the surface
of the earth does not cool primarily by thermal radiation".

It's pretty obvious that modelers have bitten off away more than they can chew. They are wrong, pure and simple. The IPCC is wrong by association.

“That energy is driven by a potential difference in the source. Heat operates in the same way, you need a difference in heat potential for heat to flow. So, if you transfer heat to something it will only transfer till a state of equilibrium is reached.”

Well put!

The subject is radiative equilibrium, so I presented a scenario in which the object is incapable of transferring any heat at all. In reality, if a watt goes in and a watt of heat can’t get “out,” the body stays at a temperature that a watt can deliver, nothing more. It can not gradually acquire a radiative strength of a billion watts — although science charlatans will tell you different. Heat transfer is a ‘meet its own level’ kind of thing; it’s not like pent-up rage leading to a primal scream. X input leads to Y temperature. If the object is already at Y temperature, X input has no effect. That is THERMAL equilibrium, a legitimate concept. But radiative equilibrium is a fiction.

Energy out must equal energy in, says this theory. Which does sound plausible on its face. In this view, however, if the light emitted by a heated object is suppressed in some way, its radiant energy output will exceed the input until it breaks through the barrier... in obedience to the law.

This notion originates from a long-ago misconception about how glass greenhouses work, thus the family name this "effect" goes by. It was believed that glass blocked the passage of "dark radiation" (infrared) and kept storing energetic photons inside it. Once those photons had accumulated enough power to overcome the barrier, radiative equilibrium was achieved. Ergo, sunlight enters, heat is generated and dark light is emitted. This dark light is amplified because of the blockage and finally exits at the same magnitude as the entering sunlight. But only after the light "trapped" inside has raised the greenhouse's temperature. Since the barrier will keep raising the temperature until the barrier is broken, increasing the barrier's strength will get you any amount of internal heat you want.

It is 19th century poppycock. And here’s a telltale sign of it: Why do you always see a "layer of greenhouse gases" depicted overhead in illustrations, when you KNOW that these molecules are at their densest concentration right at your feet? Because these illustrations are showing you the theory's genetic lineage. That "layer of greenhouse gases" is merely a pane of ceiling glass in another guise.

"How about the fantastic idea of presenting a counter argument against it?"

How can you argue against someone telling me about the power of crystals? It's just as ignorant.

It would be nice if people are going to argue about thermodynamics that they had at least a small understanding of thermodynamics. It would help if they had a small understanding of just what AGW theory claims. I think I have at least that, and the topic is nonsense, and embarassingly so.

It claims there is no such thing as a radiative equilibrium, for example, then goes on to directly describe one.

The 'leaky bucket' is just as good a description of the greenhouse effect. Imagine pouring water into a bucket at a fixed rate. It leaks, so the water pours out the bottom. Depending on the rate at which the water pours in, and the rate at which it leaks out, there will be a set water level in the bucket. Change the rate at which it enters the bucket, and the level will rise or fall. Change the rate at which it leaks out, and the water level will rise or fall. The water entering the bucket is analogous to the sun. The greenhouse gases are like the the hole in the bottom of the bucket. They can't close the hole, which some people seem to think AGW theory claims, but they can close it smaller to a certain extent. The only debate is over how much smaller they can close that hole and cause the water level, (or temperature), to rise.

"That energy is driven by a potential difference in the source. Heat operates in the same way, you need a difference in heat potential for heat to flow. So, if you transfer heat to something it will only transfer till a state of equilibrium is reached."

Seriously, you guys need to actually study some thermodynamics. What Lindzen is claiming has nothing to do with what you are saying. Your argument is so wrong it is hard to know where to start.

The light bulb is not being heated by radiant or convective heat, it is being heated by an electric cirucuit that is quite happy to keep pumping in one watt of power for as long as that power source lasts. If no energy can escape from that system, it's just going to keep getting hotter.

However, that external power source is a good example of a 'forcing', which so many people here fail to understand.

SJT,
You mean astronomical or volcanic tipping points?
You might be tipping one but I don't think we are triggering one.

SJT

As captain Mannering would say to Jones "now you are in the realm of fantasy"
Not that you are far away from it, mind!

Alan, I do apologise; your little analogy is an elegant sucker punch; I misunderstood its purpose which was only revealed to me when SJT did his usual 'fools rush in where angels fear to tread' routine; on another post ender did his negative energy pitch; here we have SJT and the usual suspects doing their cosmic cube pitch; perpetual motion folks; step right up and get the perfect battery; something for nothing; I've referred to Zeno's arrow before and infinite divisibility in the context of how AGW would depend on increasing amounts of CO2 to keep adding to the radiative imbalance in the atmosphere; that is defeated by, amongst other things, heat transfer mechanisms, and Stewart's Law; well, this is the reverse; here we have an infinite incremental increase machine; the steady flow of energy into the 'heat trap' of Alan's perpetual machine will, just like H G Wells' waking sleeper and compound interest, eventually contain all the energy and heat in the universe! Actually the analogy is a timely reminder against tipping points and runnaway, the default positions of AGW; in the real world, as Gordon explains, nothing of the sort can occur; also in the real world, heat transfer negates any LTE becoming increasing hot or straying from thermal equilibrium; and with LTE's not straying from thermal E, neither will the Earth (unless you have NASAGISS's or CSIRO's temp adjustment methods).

The concept of radiative equilibrium seems pretty easy to motivate, for an object floating in a vacuum:

According to the catechism, heat transfer occurs only via conduction, convection, and radiation. Conduction and convection are not possible across a vacuum, so heat can only get in and out via radiation. Therefore, thermal equilibrium in this context must mean radiative equilibrium.

What am I missing?

What am I missing?

Simply this - there's no such thing as anthropogenic global warming (First Law of AGW Denial). And if it's necessary to make nonsense of the Laws of Physics to prove that, then so be it.

The First Law of AGW Denial trumps all the laws of science as we used to know them; they're no more than guidelines really.

mitchell' "What am I missing?"

if you take in the whole system solid core and atmosphere from the top of the atmosphere outward all further heat transport is radiative but below this all factors play. The distribution of heat within the system is dependent on all the factors you mention with convection being the biggest player. Remember this is for heat transport within the atmospheric shell it doesn't get it out to space.

mitchell' "What am I missing?"

if you take in the whole system solid core and atmosphere from the top of the atmosphere outward all further heat transport is radiative but below this all factors play. The distribution of heat within the system is dependent on all the factors you mention with convection being the biggest player. Remember this is for heat transport within the atmospheric shell it doesn't get it out to space.

Alan Siddons - "This notion originates from a long-ago misconception about how glass greenhouses work,......."

What I am having the biggest problem with is reconciling your demonstrated knowledge of AGW and radiative physics with the actual body of knowledge. I mean you must have read something about and/or done it at school and to get you your present completely wrong ideas you must have completely misinterpreted it or not understood it so you fill in the blanks with made up stuff.

As Mitchell pointed out the Earth is considered for the purposes of thermal transfer to be the Top of the Atmosphere or TOA. At the TOA radiated energy is equal to the incident radiation. It has to be otherwise the Earth would warm or cool.

As for the rest are you the NZ guy that thinks the CO2 sinks to the ground because it heavy?

Ender

"As Mitchell pointed out the Earth is considered for the purposes of thermal transfer to be the Top of the Atmosphere or TOA. At the TOA radiated energy is equal to the incident radiation. It has to be otherwise the Earth would warm or cool."

Is this from observation or,......thought.

Twisted physics. You'd heat the pocket of air around the bulb and/or the bulb itself. The fact is, most light bulbs already do this.

Of course, you should compact fluorescents; they don't give off as much waste heat.

ender bender, Mr TOA;

'At the TOA radiated energy is equal to the incident radiation. It has to be otherwise the Earth would warm or cool."

I can think of 3 reasons why that would be wrong;
1. Whether the incoming featured more SW, X-Ray and UV, which has a greater warming effect than other radiation
2 Where the radiation was being emitted; "A 1C increase in the polar latitudes in the winter, for example, would have much less of an effect on the change of longwave emission than a 1C increase in the tropics. The spatial distribution matters."
3 How much heat is wrapped up in Enthalpy; more LW may be going out but if there is a lot of moisture in the air, there will not be a linear reduction, if any at all, in temp.

Not knowing the physics but the NU-Physics, Ender and his looks decided to leave the dialectic.

What to make of it?

Oh, poor argument, what shallow basis you be based.

Mr. Siddons, allow me to explain your error. There are a number of different variables here, and you seem to be confusing them. These are:

Temperature: a measure of the average kinetic energy per molecule
Heat: a form of energy
Radiation: a form of energy, of which light is a subset
Blackbody radiation: the radiation emitted by an object due to its temperature.
Blackbody: a theoretical construct for an object that absorbs 100% of all radiation incident upon it.
Albedo: the percentage of energy diffusely reflected by an object. Does not include specular reflection. A blackbody has an albedo of 0.0

Now, the relationship between a blackbody's temperature and the amount of blackbody radiation it emits is given by the Stefan-Boltzmann equation:

power emitted per square meter = sigma * temperature**4

where sigma is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.

Radiative equilibrium is achieved when the amount of radiation emitted by a blackbody is equal to the amount of radiation absorbed by the blackbody. Let's walk through the case of the earth.

First, we acknowledge that the earth is not a blackbody; it has clouds and snow and other sources of diffuse reflection. Its albedo is in fact about 0.30.

The amount of sunlight incident upon the earth is about 1366 W-m**-2 (this number is called the solar constant). We use the cross-section of the earth to calculate the total amount of solar radiation incident upon the earth:

collecting area = pi * (radius of earth)**2
= 3.14 *( 6.36 * 10**6m)**2
=1.27 * 10**14 m**2

so total solar radiation hitting the earth is

total solar radiation = solar constant * collecting area
= 1.37 * 10**3 W m**-2 * 1.27 * 10**14 m**2
=1.74 * 10**17 W

However, only 70% of this solar radiation is actually absorbed by the earth (albedo); the other 30% is reflected away into space. So the actual solar radiation absorbed is:

0.70 * 1.74 * 10**17 W
= 1.22 *10**17 W

For the earth to be in radiative equilibrium, it must emit this same amount of power. The amount it emits per square meter is given by the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, adjusted for the albedo (albedo applies to both incoming and outgoing radiation):

Power out = (1-albedo) * sigma * temperature**4 * emitting area

So we can invert this to solve for the temperature required to keep the earth in radiative equilibrium with the sun:

temperature = {Power out / [(1-albedo) * sigma * emitting area]}**-4

and since we know, because of radiative equilibrium, that the power out must be equal to the power in, we just plug in the value we calculated earlier:

temperature = { 1.22 * 10**17 W / [0.70 * 5.67*10**−8 W·m**-2·K**-4 * 4 * 3.14 * (6.36 * 10**6)**2]**-4
= 279K

Uh-oh! This is too cold! The earth's average temperature is actually about 300K, not 279K. Why the discrepancy?

Answer: the greenhouse effect! Water vapor (the primary contributor to the greenhouse effect) intercepts some of the outgoing radiation and reflects it back to the earth's surface. That increases the temperature of the earth's surface to its actual value of 300K.

An additional note for those people who claim that variations in solar output are responsible for changes in the earth's temperature: the Stefan-Boltzmann equation shows that a 1% change in solar output would result in only a 0.25% change in equilibrium temperature on the earth. You need a LOT of change in solar output to get much change in temperature here.

Maybe this other scenario will satisfy ender and SJT: use the physical equivalent of a blackbody itself. Despite possibly needed revisions that cohenite refers to, the operating principle of a laboratory blackbody is straightforward enough. Light is beamed into the tiny hole of a cavity whose interior bounces light around so much that it can't get out and HAS to be absorbed. As a (near) perfect absorber, then, it heats up to the maximum level, thus setting an upper limit on radiant heat transfer. So simply insert a dichroic filter over that hole: visible light goes in but infrared can’t get out. Radiative disequilibrium.

Greenhouse theory insists that the temperature inside the cavity will rise higher than a filterless blackbody has ever seen. The internal temperature will keep climbing and climbing — one will have constructed a “radiant bomb.” I say that’s nonsense. The internal temperature doesn’t rise, only now you can’t determine that temperature from an observable Planck profile. But prove me wrong. Show me how to cook my dinner with a flashlight.

Surely the surface area (spherical) of the TOA increases as atmospheric temperature increases (expansion) and provides more radiative surface until balance is achieved. A quite small increase of the radius of a sphere gives a large increase for the surface area of the sphere. Runaway temperature increase of the atmosphere is simply not possible with a constant energy input. (OK the sun is hotting up, but very slowly)

"Greenhouse theory insists that the temperature inside the cavity will rise higher than a filterless blackbody has ever seen."

Let's assume that you have a theoretically perfect dichroic reflector: it reflects 100% of the incident radiation below a certain frequency. Then the temperature of the blackbody will rise -- and here's the important part -- its peak radiative frequency will rise (as an object's temperature rises, it goes from emitting infrared to dull red to red to orange to yellow to blue). At some point, the amount of energy ABOVE the critical frequency, escaping through the filter will equal the amount of energy coming in, at which point radiative equilibrium is achieved.

"Show me how to cook my dinner with a flashlight."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

No, Chris, you haven’t got a handle on it. Only high-energy, high frequency light goes in, correct. But no thermal IR goes out. Radiative equilibrium states that the interior will thus surpass a standard blackbody temperature and will keep on climbing. Yet it doesn’t. Or else we’d have a source of inexhaustible energy, a magical furnace. Were it only so.

As for your long post, the atmospheres of all planets — all planets — show a dramatic temperature climb from 0.1 bar of atmospheric pressure and above. This occurs whether the planet has a "surface" to speak of or not and is independent of the atmosphere’s composition. "Greenhouse gases" are not involved. To 19th century thinkers, the earth’s near-surface temperature was a mystery. Well, guess what? It’s still a mystery. Because climatologists have been barking up the wrong tree for decades, never even imagining that earlier conjectures could be wrong. The old theory lacks evidential support and cannot withstand modern scrutiny. A new theory is demanded.

"But no thermal IR goes out."

This is correct, but as the temperature of the blackbody increases, it starts to emit higher frequency radiation, and THAT radiation -- not the IR -- DOES escape.

"the atmospheres of all planets — all planets — show a dramatic temperature climb from 0.1 bar of atmospheric pressure and above. "

You appear to be talking about the highest reaches of the atmospheres. This gets us into some very tricky thermodynamics, because these regions are transition zones between empty space and the lower atmosphere. Now, we can readily define the temperature of the lower temperature, but the temperature of empty space is a theoretically tricky issue, because there are actually three different ways of talking about temperature in solar space. The first is the 3K background radiation temperature. The second is the temperature of the solar wind, which is thousands of degrees K. Then there's the temperature of the solar radiation, also thousands of degrees. The problem is, these latter components are at extremely low densities. At the junction between atmosphere and space, we have a disequilibrium situation where the concept of temperature is very misleading. Yes, the temperature you measure is really high. But comparing it to the equilibrium temperatures of the atmosphere below is very misleading, because you really are talking about apples and oranges.

And no, the surface temperature of planets is not a mystery, at least not to physicists. I just provided an explanation with calculations. Have you any objections to the calculation I carried out above?

No, Chris, I’m talking about the bottom — progressive heating with diminishing altitude. Having only hydrogen and helium available — and with 50.5 W/m² of solar radiance compared to 1368 W/m² — Jupiter acquires a higher atmospheric temperature than the Earth.

“the surface temperature of planets is not a mystery”

Dream on.

Jovian internal temperatures are driven by energy production in Jupiter. That's why it's hotter as you go deeper.

If you disagree with my claim that surface temperatures of planets are not a mystery, please state your disagreement. I have provided a detailed quantitative explanation of the surface temperature of the earth. You have not disputed that calculation. So, what do you dispute?

Chris,

Just one or two small points: you're assuming that the outgoing albedo equals the incoming albedo. This is clearly wrong, as the wavelengths, reflectivity etc are different. In any case, if incoming albedo equaled outgoing albedo then you'd get the same temperature (279K) from your equation for any value of albedo between 0 and 100%.
Also, if the outgoing albedo remains constant then a 1% change in incoming albedo equates to a temperature change of about 1K. Has cloud cover remained constant to within 1% over the last century?
Lastly, over a 24-hour period the collecting area is doubled, because both sides of the Earth are irradiated, whereas the emitting area remains constant, equal to the surface area of the Earth.
This is significant, because the surface, heated by the Sun, retains that heat for a considerable time. If you double the collecting area you get a temperature of 331K,

Yes, Peter, that's right: albedo is a highly variable notion. My calculation is an averaging calculation for the entire planet and it certainly doesn't cover the whole story. For example, it assumes that the entire planet is isothermal -- everything at the same temperature. That's way wrong! My calculation is what's called a "first-order" calculation -- it takes into account only the most fundamental physical principles. However, Alan is questioning fundamental principles, and so the calculation shows what those principles are and how they operate.

There are a hundred ways to correct this first-order calculation: albedo varying both spatially and temporally; differential greenhouse effects (much weaker at the poles than in the equatorial regions); the fact that the earth rotates; the oceans as a thermal reservoir; and so on. But again, Alan is questioning the basic physics of radiative emission, a subject that has been nailed down well for more than a century (did you know that Einstein received his Nobel Prize not for relativity but for his contribution to blackbody radiation theory?)

Actually, what Alan is challenging is now known as the conservation of mass-energy; he rejects this statement:

"For the Earth to neither warm or cool, the incoming radiation must balance the outgoing."

In other words, he's saying that the thermal budget of the earth need not balance. The conservation of mass-energy is one of the fundamental laws of physics, and Alan is declaring that this law is wrong. Once again I ask the question: whom do you trust, scientists, or Alan?

Also, Peter, you're correct in noticing that albedo cancels out in the first-order calculation. And another thing: the whole point of the greenhouse effect is that the albedo for sunlight is higher than the albedo for infrared.

Chris: "Jovian internal temperatures are driven by energy production in Jupiter. That's why it's hotter as you go deeper."

The same could be said of the Earth. The core of the Earth is about the same temperature as the surface of the Sun, and we have molten rock a few miles beneath us. So what keeps the surface relatively cool? If there was no outgoing radiation then the entire Earth would still be a glowing ball of molten rock, and we certainly wouldn't be around having this discussion.

Chris: "And another thing: the whole point of the greenhouse effect is that the albedo for sunlight is higher than the albedo for infrared."

That would make the equilibrium temperature even lower than 279K

We're not questioning the physics, we're questioning the application (or mis-application) thereof

Peter, the energy production inside the earth is much, much lower than the energy production inside Jupiter. The earth's energy production comes primarily from the decay of radioactive elements (there's also a tiny amount of energy production from internal tidal friction). In other words, the earth is a huge nuclear reactor. However, the rate of energy production is extremely low. The only reason why the internal temperature is so high is that the earth's mantle and crust are very good thermal insulators. The internal heat leaks out to the surface very, very slowly. I don't have the numbers at hand, but this contribution to the earth's surface temperature is negligible.

By contrast, Jupiter is generating huge amounts of energy, mostly by thermonuclear reactions in its core. It's a bit smaller than the critical mass necessary to become a functioning star, but it still has a small amount of thermonuclear energy release going on inside. And a "small" amount of thermonuclear energy is still a very "large" amount of energy!

"That would make the equilibrium temperature even lower than 279K"

Oops, yes, I got it backwards: the albedo for sunlight is LOWER than the albedo for infrared. I keep confusing albedo-reflectivity-emissivity-absorptivity. Also, there's the difference between the albedo of the surface of the earth and the albedo of the atmosphere. In any event, the basic concept still holds.

Chris Crawford,

You seem to know your physics. I have a question for you. Why not simply measure the energy incident upon the atmosphere (via satellite) and the energy radiated away (also by satellite) and subtract. The difference should give us the long term temperature trend on earth, right? Or what am I missing (besides a brain)?

The atmosphere (without the greenhouse effect) is also quite a good thermal insulator, meaning that the surface doesn't lose heat as quickly at night as it would without an atmosphere. This, in itself, makes the equilibrium temperature greater than 279K

Steve, your question is a good one. We can do the first half of your suggestion: measuring incoming solar radiation. We've been doing that since the 1970s. However, the second half -- measuring outgoing radiation) is the killer. You see, the amount of outgoing radiation depends on where and when. Dark surfaces, such as bare mountainsides, emit lots of radiation, while snow and ice emit much less. So which ones do you measure: the bare mountains or the snow? It gets even worse when you take into account cloud cover, which dramatically lowers emissions, and diurnal (day/night) differences. Suppose that you've got a big parking lot in the middle of the desert. All the dark, dark asphalt soaks up lots of sunlight and gets very hot, so it emits lots of IR. When the sun goes down, it continues to emit IR, but its temperature falls and it emits less and less IR through the night. So when do you measure its IR output: noon, sunset, sunrise, or midnight?

All these complexities make it impossible to carry out your experiment. But it's a sound idea in principle.

"The atmosphere (without the greenhouse effect) is also quite a good thermal insulator, meaning that the surface doesn't lose heat as quickly at night as it would without an atmosphere."

The only form of thermal transfer from the earth to space is radiative. Yes, air is a good insulator for convective and conductive thermal transfer, and so it works great for insulating one part of the surface (say, the inside of your house) to another part (say, the outside of your house). That's why double-pane windows work well.

However, the only place the earth can transfer heat to is space, and space has no matter to take the heat by convection or conduction. Hence the only means of thermal transfer is radiative transfer, and the insulation that an atmosphere provides for radiative transfer is what we call "the greenhouse effect".

Chris: "the albedo for sunlight is LOWER than the albedo for infrared"

Has this been calculated exactly? For one thing, clouds have a high albedo for sunlight but a relatively low albedo for IR. Ice, which has a high albedo to sunlight has effectively zero albedo to IR - being on the surface. Both of these vary very considerably. Water vapor, which also varies very considerably, has a high albedo to IR but a low albedo to sunlight.

Chris,

Thanks for the reply. I see the devil is in the details as usual.

Chris: "However, the only place the earth can transfer heat to is space, and space has no matter to take the heat by convection or conduction. Hence the only means of thermal transfer is radiative transfer"

Exactly. Radiation is the only possible vehicle for heat transfer from the TOA into space. However, as you go lower through the atmosphere the role of radiation gets less and less, and that of convection becomes more and more. At the surface boundary layer it's chiefly conduction.

Chris: All these complexities make it impossible to carry out your experiment."

What makes it so difficult to measure this by satellite? Satellites cover practically the whole surface, both day and night.

Peter, our problem here is that albedo is truly a global notion that breaks down when you try to get specific. It's easy to talk about the albedo of an entire planet -- that's where the notion originated. But when we start breaking albedo down by components, it gets confusing very quickly:

What's the albedo of North America?
What's the albedo of Utah?
What's the albedo of Salt Lake City?
What's the albedo of the Utah State Capitol?
What's the albedo of the windowsill on the Utah State Capitol?

What's the albedo of Utah at 9:00 local time?
What's the albedo of Utah at midnight local time?

What's the albedo of Utah when it's snowing?
What's the albedo of Utah when it's raining?
What's the albedo of Utah when it's clear?

What's the albedo of Utah in blue light?
What's the albedo of Utah in red light?
What's the albedo of Utah in infrared light?

As you can see, this gets horribly complicated. Albedo is really an aggregative idea that integrates all the pieces into one simple number. You can shift gears and talk about emittivity, absorptivity, reflectance, luminance, and so on -- but that takes us even deeper into physics.

And when you try to measure it from space, you have to decide how to put all the different pieces together. How much weight do we give to Utah? How much weight to nighttime versus daytime? And so on. And how do you handle the anisotropy of the radiation (differing amounts in different directions)?

it's been suggested that the end goal of the what-me-agw movement is to eliminate tha pst 500 years of scientific progress, but i've never before believed that explicitly.

well, since we've overturned conservation of energy, i'll go invent a perpetual motion machine and get us out of the energy crunch.

Chris,

If the albedo cannot be measured then it can only be estimated.
And it's not at all clear to me, given all the 'horrible complications', how it can be estimated to any degree of confidence.

The earth's albedo in sunlight, considering only visible light, is best measured by measuring the brightness of earthshine on the dark side of the moon. This is where we get the figure of 0.30. However, this is not a bolometric (entire spectrum) measure, and it applies only to the sunlit earth.

Albedo is thus useful only for the first-order calculations. The calculations we actually use in the models are vastly more complicated and do not include a concept so gross as albedo.

Confine a lightbulb inside an infrared barrier (like a globular mirror) and electrically feed one watt to it. After a while, will it be generating the heat of a thousand watt bulb?

Imagine if a Watt was a unit of power and not energy and you had implied that you could add energy indefinitely to a lightbulb without heating it up, that would be embarrassing.

Chris Crawford,

since the radiative effect we are arguing over includes greenhouse gases, why do you use 6.36*10e6 as the radius to compute the radiative area instead of, say, the top of the stratosphere??

I would point out that the higher in the atmosphere a molecule is when it radiates, the lower the chance that the LR will strike the ground due to the smaller number of degrees the earth will occlude... The higher you are the less chance there is that the emitted radiation will strike another molecule unless it is going down...

Obviously I am not smart enough to quantify this. Can you help?

Another issue is that Climatologists, and many scientists, agree with your statement that internal heat of the earth is well insulated from the surface. With all the recent discoveries of underwater volcanos and vents, is there anyone looking into the possibility that the actual contribution to temps are a bit higher? One vent system in the Pacific was estimated to be heating BILLIONS of gallons of water a year. Also, the number of under water volcanoes estimated to exist has been increased.

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12218-thousand-of-new-volcanoes-revealed-beneath-the-waves.html

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/1904.asp

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/23/content_8423894.htm

http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2001/02/021601_volcano.jhtml

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060727/full/news060724-11.html

http://www.bobkrumm.com/blog/?p=1927
(how much ice could an eruption melt? The important point for me is NOT that volcanoes caused the Arctic ice to melt, they didn't, but, just how much energy is involved in eruptions that heat the oceans)

Chris: "The calculations we actually use in the models are vastly more complicated and do not include a concept so gross as albedo."

If you don't use albedo in your calculations then why do you use it in your attempt to explain the physics to us?
Many of us are capable of understanding 'vastly more complicated calculations'. Why not share them with us?

Chris: "The earth's albedo in sunlight, considering only visible light, is best measured by measuring the brightness of earthshine on the dark side of the moon. This is where we get the figure of 0.30"

That's the incoming albedo. The outgoing albedo cannot be measured in this fashion, and can only be estimated.
But this can only be estimated by using, as terms, the very parameters we're trying to measure. This seems a bit of a topsy-turvy way of doing things.

SJT said..."The light bulb is not being heated by radiant or convective heat, it is being heated by an electric cirucuit that is quite happy to keep pumping in one watt of power for as long as that power source lasts. If no energy can escape from that system, it's just going to keep getting hotter".

In your comments, you are taking my comments out of context. I was responding to a post in the context of global warming theory that claimed energy would keep building up if it had no escape. I replied "there is more to it than that". I was infering that we are not talking about an idealized system in which energy cannot escape. I was also making the point that heat flows from a higher potential to a lower potential.

Heat does not flow in an idealized or closed system on Earth. It is surrounded by an infinite sink whose mean temperature is slightly above 0 K. Any energy absorbed by the Earth from the Sun, will eventually find its way out to that sink. As far as the Earth is concerned it is at a higher heat potential and that heat is flowing to what might be termed a zero heat potential in the universe.

Greenhouse gases interfere with direct radiation from the surface, by absorbing the radiation, warming, and raising the surface temperature from about -19 C to +15 C. Eventually, that heat too will escape to the sink, so it is a temporary reprieve.

Most of the CO2 in the atmosphere is from natural sources (~97%) and should be part of the base greenhouse warming. Anything we humans have contributed is less than 3%. Considering that water vapour is ~1% of the atmosphere and CO2 ~3/100ths of the atmosphere, based on that ratio alone, CO2 should account for no more than 1.0 C warming, and that includes our pitiful contribution of <3%.

Heat radiated from CO2 goes up as well as down and laterally. Exactly how much is getting back to the surface? How much is being absorbed by water vapour and other CO2 molecules in the atmosphere and re-radiated, up, down and sideways?
This is a complex issue for which simplistic answers have been provided.

As I write this, I have become curious about something. The core of the Earth is alleged to be molten. It's also a fact that the deeper you dig into the Earth, the warmer it gets. Where is that heat coming from...surely not from the Sun. What's the possibility that the Earth generates some of it's own heat from geothermal processes?

When I studied a bit of geology, we learned that the Earth is actually oblate, like a pumpkin. That shape apparently comes from the stress of the gravitational pull of the Sun the Moon. As the Earth moves in its orbit about the Sun, it is flexing due to those stresses, and cracks in the Earth heat up as they rub against one another.

There are estimates that the Earth's core may be in the vicinity of 5,000 to 6,000 °C. That heat has to go somewhere. There is also a theory that the core may be turning at a differnt rate than the rest. There would be immense friction in that case, and immense heat generated.

Why not simply measure the energy incident upon the atmosphere (via satellite) and the energy radiated away (also by satellite) and subtract. The difference should give us the long term temperature trend on earth, right? Or what am I missing ...?"

Triana,of course. The instrument has to be far enough away to see the whole disk of the earth at once. The thing you want has not on;y been designed, it has been built built, but it's in storage for some reason.

Why not simply measure the energy incident upon the atmosphere (via satellite) and the energy radiated away (also by satellite) and subtract. The difference should give us the long term temperature trend on earth, right? Or what am I missing ...?"

Triana,of course. The instrument has to be far enough away to see the whole disk of the earth at once. The thing you want has not only been designed, it has been built built, but it's in storage for some reason.

KuhnKat, the atmosphere is very thin relative to the diameter of the earth. Most of the mass of the atmosphere is within, what 10 km of the earth's surface, and the earth's radius is 6000 km, so we can treat the effects you are mentioning as negligible. They're real, to be sure, but their total effect will surely be tiny.

Yes, the discoveries of undersea volcanoes and heat sources (black smokers) have been a surprise, but their overall contribution to the heat budget of the earth is still negligible. For example, a big volcanic eruption might release 10**17 Joules of energy -- about as much as strikes the earth as sunlight in one second. So you can see, vulcanism doesn't really contribute much to the earth's overall heat budget.

Peter suggests that I go through some of the vastly more complicated calculations involved in more detailed calculations of the earth's heat budget. The problem here is that the next round of calculations takes us out of the realm of direct analytical calculation and into numerical solutions; in other words, you can't just write some formulae, plug in numbers, and get numbers coming out. Instead, you start writing computer programs. And that's getting us into REALLY hairy stuff.

And you're right: there's not much point in messing with albedo in any generalized sense beyond the first order of calculation. You *can* use it when you build an albedo function in a big computer program, which calculates the specific albedo of an area of surface based on its physical properties. So we could say that a chunk of Greenland has an albedo of 0.85, while a similar chunk of the Pacific Ocean has an albedo of 0.03.

Gordon Robertson inquires into the source of the high temperatures into the sun and then correctly speculates that tidal friction might be one source. However, decay of radioactive nuclei is considered to be the more important source, although I don't have the numbers at hand. We can calculate the amount of energy coming from tidal friction by measuring the rate at which the earth's rotation is slowing down.

You don't understand physics or you wouldn't have made such an inane argument. The system you describe is open (that is it consists of more then just the light bulb, the reflector and the gasses between the two).
If you could perfectly seal in the light bulb with this reflector the equilibrium temperature of the reflector + gasses inside the reflector + light bulb can be found by a black body radiation calculation based on the size of the reflector.
There are the added problems of ambient temperature and that is is not possible to create a perfect seal like mentioned so hot gasses escape and are replaced by cooler gasses.

Gordon Robertson says: "Most of the CO2 in the atmosphere is from natural sources (~97%) and should be part of the base greenhouse warming. Anything we humans have contributed is less than 3%. Considering that water vapour is ~1% of the atmosphere and CO2 ~3/100ths of the atmosphere, based on that ratio alone, CO2 should account for no more than 1.0 C warming, and that includes our pitiful contribution of <3%."

There are a lot of mistakes here. First of all, we have contributed raised CO2 levels from about 280ppm to over 380ppm...a 35% increase. And thus, over 1/4 of the CO2 currently in the atmosphere is due to us.

(Your 3% statement comes from comparing the gross output from natural and manmade sources...but those natural outputs are balanced, in fact now more than balanced by uptakes, i.e. absorptions. The additional carbon from fossil fuels that we are rapidly liberating in the form of CO2, by contrast, is accumulating in the atmosphere. To give an analogy: Let's say that you had a bank account with $10000 to which you were adding $1000 from your paycheck and taking out $1000 a week for your expenses, so it was staying steady at $10000 over the years. Then, let's say I come along and start withdrawing $100 a week from your bank account. After about 2 years (100 weeks), I will have drained your whole account. However, using your logic, I could argue that I am responsible for only 10% of the drop in your account since you were withdrawing 10 times as much as I was.)

Furthermore, you can't determine the amount of warming simply from the relative concentrations of CO2 and H2O. They have different warming potentials...and in fact very different absorption spectra. Besides, the amount of radiative forcing depends approximately logarithmically on concentration for the concentration regime we are in.

Gordon Robertson says: "Heat radiated from CO2 goes up as well as down and laterally. Exactly how much is getting back to the surface? How much is being absorbed by water vapour and other CO2 molecules in the atmosphere and re-radiated, up, down and sideways?
This is a complex issue for which simplistic answers have been provided."

Provided by who? The radiative transfer calculations have been done. You may not have read the relevant works but that is not anyone's fault but your own.

Louis - "Not knowing the physics but the NU-Physics, Ender and his looks decided to leave the dialectic."

Actually I was taking the dog for a walk on the beach and generally interacting with my family.

I guess I should spend far more time on the computer.

Louis - Actually Louis I did not have to say anything - Chris did a far better job at explaining the physics that I would have done.

Thank you Chris.

Chris Crawford; your use of so much maths on a Sunday morning constitutes cruel and unusual punishment; nonetheless, I'm glad you have because you are wrong; the gist of what you have presented has been covered in Smith's recent paper;

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.4324v1.pdf

Smith was seeking to rebut the Gerlich paper's dismantling of the AGW concept of a greenhouse;

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v3.pdf

As a digression it is beyond doubt that the atmosphere has an insulating effect but that effect is nothing like the misrepresentitive AGW greenhouse concept.

Where Smith has gone wrong is that he relies on average albedo, SB, temperature and ender's funny TOA nonsense. AGW is based on these averaging and uniform concepts. Essex, McKitrick and Andresen have written a paper lampooning the concept of global average temp;

http://www.vogue.ca/~rmkitri/research/globaltemp/GlobTemp.JNET.pdf

Naturally Eli and the lads at Deltoid have jumped all over the Essex paper with some collegial but firm advice to Essex et al's contumacious efforts; but Eli has been hoisted by his own petard; in a related post he rabbits on about LTE's;

http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-is-local-thermodynamic-equilibrium.html

A LTE is a discrete parcel of atmosphere gas with an internal uniform or average temp; as Chilingar et al show, such parcels of air are subject to abiabatic convective heat exchange with higher cooler air; the lower parcel is subject to Stewart's Law which says that the GHG's within that parcel will emit at the same rate as they absorb; as the parcel rises the emission will be upwards pursuant to the thermal gradient, thus defeating Philopona's model's obstensibly increasing downward LW; it is at this stage that the first nonsense of AGW's greenhouse with its averages and uniformities becomes apparent; for it to be true all such LTE's would similtaneously be going upwards and delivering their IR to space; this clearly is not happening; so what you say, TOA balance doesn't require similtaneous convective uplift of all LTE's; this is true and it is this point which really defeats TOA and AGW; SB determines the temp based rate of emission from the surface; SB, like temp is not unifrom (doh); a recent paper explores this aspect of the issue;

http://climatesci.colarado.edu/publications/pdf/R-=321.pdf

The paper says;

"The radiative temperature of the Earth is used by IPCC and CCSP to represent the portion of the radiation emitted at the top of the atmosphere which originates from the Earth's surface. However, the outgoing long wave radiation is proportional to the fourth power of T [T4] from Stefan-Boltzman's Law, not temperature itself. A 1c increase in the polar latitudes in the winter, for example, would have much less of an effect on the change of long wave emission than a 1C increase in the tropics. The spatial distribution matters, but this important distinction has been ignored. A more appropriate measure of radiatively significant surface changes would be to evaluate the change of the global average of T4 with time."

Fortunately this has been done but before I turn to that let's consider the ramifications of this for ender's TOA radiative balance exingency; what this means is that a considerably greater amount of LW could leave Earth at the poles and still be matched by by less radiation coming in at the equator; conversely, a greater amount of radiation could be coming in at the poles and still be matched by much less radiation leaving at the equator, as expressed in the thermal response within the atmosphere. As I said a measurement of this discrepancey has been done;

http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/05/average-temperature-vs-average.html

Motl has compared the difference in Watt/m2 energy between the average of the fourth power of temperature and the fourth power of the average temperature (SB) as being 9W/m2; per unit of time this is a lot and is the equivalent, not only of the energy available for heat transfer between LTE's (ie weather), but also a measure of the radiative imbalance which can exist before a global thermal disequilibrium occurs.

With such a radiative imbalance possible the greenhouse concept as promulgated by AGW is absolute garbage; but then so is AGW.

"Triana,of course. The instrument has to be far enough away to see the whole disk of the earth at once. The thing you want has not only been designed, it has been built built, but it's in storage for some reason."

We are about to spend trillions on carbon abatement and they won't launch a satellite to see if it is necessary!? Me thinky, something stinky.

Thanks for the info.

Joel; the old shibboleth that isoptopic ratio decline is proof that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is attributable to anthropogenic sources is due for a bit of a dusting; Steve Short has done a lot of work to do with biomass depletion of CO2; anchillary to this is the fact that certain phyloplanckton are prone to feed on C13 CO2; as Julian Flood observed in an interesting post, "its not the production end which is causing the light C signal, its the extraction by oceanic biology." Your post is also problematic when it says the natural flux of CO2 is in balance; this is patent rubbish as the hemispheric disparity indicates; CO2 is also not uniformly mixed as a look at global albedo and upward LW maps indicates;

http://www.exploratorium.edu/climate/atmosphere/data2.html

Obviously the CO2 from burning fossil fuels went to Venus.

cohenite, I have difficulty making sense of your writings; you sling around all sorts of impressive technical terminology, but the underlying physical reasoning doesn't make any sense.

For example, you start off with this statement:

"I'm glad you have because you are wrong"

But then you don't follow up anything addressing what I wrote; instead you refer to some rather oddball papers arguing over some basic physics that was pretty much worked out about 100 years ago -- as if there really is some sort of controversy here.

First, let me point out something important: I presented first-order calculations. These kinds of calculations have only heuristic value: they're good for laying out the basic physics for beginners, but they're never what you would use for real-world analysis. It's actually rather silly to argue about whether my earlier analysis is right or wrong, because it is neither: it's first order. For real-world analysis, you carry out far more detailed numerical calculations.

You write:

"A LTE is a discrete parcel of atmosphere gas with an internal uniform or average temp"

Actually, the link you provide describes a condition called "Local Thermal Equilibrium", which is a necessary condition for applying most thermodynamic laws. So there is no such thing as "a LTE", and it is most certainly not a parcel of atmospheric gas.

This is why I have trouble making sense of your post; the terms are all jumbled around in random ways. So I'll ask you to try to articulate your ideas in greater detail.

Here's another example:

"as the parcel rises the emission will be upwards pursuant to the thermal gradient"

Say what? Are you saying that the radiative emissions from a parcel of air will be non-istotropic? And why in the world would the thermal gradient have any effect on the isotropy of the radiative emissions?

"...thus defeating Philopona's model's obstensibly increasing downward LW"

This comment does not appear to have any logical relevance to the rest of your comment, although I can't be sure I understand what your topic is.

Your paragraph describing the point made by Mr. Motl regarding the difference between average T and average T**4: that point is valid but it seems silly to me to try to tweak a first-order calculation when what is needed is to make the jump to a proper numerical calculation using location-specific information. Another way of saying this is that Mr. Motl is arguing about what might be called the second-order calculation, when the second-order calculation presents us with nothing more than a somewhat better approximation than the first-order calculation. We shouldn't rely on the first-order calculation for all our answers -- it's only to show the basic physics. Mr. Motl's calculation takes into account an additional detail, but it's still of little predictive value. There are a ton of additional details to take into account -- why should differential T**4 be the most important factor to consider? In the end, we have to consider as many of these factors as we possibly can.

You conclude with what seems to me to be a total non-sequitur:

"With such a radiative imbalance possible the greenhouse concept as promulgated by AGW is absolute garbage; but then so is AGW."

I think you'll need to spell our your reasoning here. Your statement reminds me of an old cartoon showing two physicists at a blackboard covered with equations. At one place on the blackboard, the first physicist has written "and then a miracle happens", with an arrow pointing to his grand conclusion. The second physicist is pointing to the 'miracle' note on the blackboard and saying "I think you need to make this step a little more explicit."

It also reminds me of Cato's concluding comment for every speech he made before the Roman Senate: Carthago delenda est: "Carthage must be destroyed" -- even if his speech had nothing to do with Carthage.

cohenite - "As a digression it is beyond doubt that the atmosphere has an insulating effect but that effect is nothing like the misrepresentitive AGW greenhouse concept."

So what does the insulation and please present the peer reviewed papers that describe and quantify this insulation effect independent of greenhouse gases.

"Motl has compared the difference in Watt/m2 energy between the average of the fourth power of temperature and the fourth power of the average temperature (SB) as being 9W/m2;"

No Motl said that if you calculate the emitted radiation and then average it you would be wrong however if you do the averaging first and then calculate the emitted radiation you get the correct answer. It is an artifact of not being able to add T^4. You nor anybody has been able to demonstrate in what calculations this error has been comitted. I challenged this the last time you brought this up and you failed to produce it then.

So you have 2 tasks this fine Sunday morning apart from learning maths. One isto find the peer reviewed papers quantifying the 'insulation' that you have made up and second to show where climate scientists are doing the calculations incorrectly.

Smith BTW is not wrong - that is the basic textbook physics that you would have to overturn with peer reviewed work of your own.

Chris; you have every right to be proud of your equations; as to your points; you need to read the Eli link again; LTE's do exist; read the anonymous link in the comments; do you deny that there are vertical convective movements of discrete parcels of air which are internally temp consistent but differ from external air? If you do I suggest you take a ride in a plane and pray for turbulence.

I am not saying radiation is non-isotropic; the Philopona reference was for luke; as to the upward emissions point; look at this link, and thanks to JanP for providing it; I hope I'm interpreting it correctly;

http://www.climateaudit.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=268#p5125

The key statement is; "In a large part of the IR (eg 15u), at the ground, the upward IR (blue curve) exactly matches the downward IR. The nett heat transfer is zero. But in the window (eg 11u), the back radiation is zero. That is where the heat gets out."

There is a net radiative escape, which happens to follow or create the thermal gradient.

Now, as to your obfuscation and cherry-picking; the Pielke paper (which you have ignored) clearly establishes that ender's, and AGW's, requirement for a TOA radiative balance, as ender defined it, is not necessary; in fact it is contradictory; and if a radiative balance does not cause a global heating response then what is AGW about? As to Carthage; it was defeated, was it not?

ender, I have no idea what you are talking about; Motl's paper explains the difference between average temp and average SB; the difference is profound and is confirmed by the Pielke paper; and if you think I'm running around after you, you must be mistaken; the evidence is plain and the fact is, only your closed mind prevents you from seeing it.

"An additional note for those people who claim that variations in solar output are responsible for changes in the earth's temperature: the Stefan-Boltzmann equation shows that a 1% change in solar output would result in only a 0.25% change in equilibrium temperature on the earth. You need a LOT of change in solar output to get much change in temperature here."

If the equilibrium temperature is 286 degrees Kelvin, for example, than you are saying that the equilibrium temperature of the earth would increase by only about .72 degrees celsius.

This really is ridiculous and a failing testimony for the flat earth model you are working with.

Such a powerful increase in solar output would punch heaps of extra joules into the oceans leading to a cumulative response of the planet that wouldn't top out for a very long time.

The oceans would warm, than the deeper oceans, which would inhibit heat transfer to the deeper oceans from the earths mantle. Leading to a heat buildup there as well.

The extra solar activity would enhance the shield to the cosmic rays leading to less cloud cover. This would magnify the effect. The buildup of joules would continue leading to a massive buildup of water vapour in the air which itself would magnify the effect.

The buildup of water vapour would indeed be so huge as to spread the water vapour around to areas that do not now have it. Pushing up average temperatures massively. As the climate system changed dramatically the night-time temperatures in previously frigid areas would increase allowing for more water vapour to be held overnight thus pushing up average global temperatures by massive amounts.

This is the problem if you are working on otherworldly models rather than concentrating on the world as it is.

What you are saying might be true for a flat earth, twice as far from the sun, that is a black body, where the water vapour is magically uniform throughout, where the planet cannot accumulate joules, and where it is noon all the time.

Get your feet on the ground and get back to the real world.

cohenite - "I have no idea what you are talking about;"

The last statement of the article is:

"There are two basic lessons to be learned from this exercise:

1. The impact of nonlinearities shouldn't be neglected and climatology should carefully observe the evolution of the differences between climate zones; seasons; weather variations; regional changes of albedo; day-and-night differences.
2. In the calculations of forcings, it is not the arithmetic average of temperatures that should be substituted but rather the fourth root of the arithmetic average of the fourth powers of the (absolute) temperatures. In this way, the bulk of the problems discussed in the previous point - and in this whole article - can be circumvented.

And that's the memo."

Note point two the problems mentioned in the article can be circumvented if you do the sums properly which as far as I know all climate scientists do. Knowing the problems summing 4th powers the temperature is averaged first and then the radiative energy is calculated using the Boltzman equations. If you do it the other way round you get it wrong. Thanks heaps Lubos however I am sure that everyone knows this including Fermat .

For every section of the globe you can do independent calculations and take into account the polar regions that have a higher albedo and so on. Chris's and Smith's crude first order calculations uses 0.3 as the albedo for the whole Earth which is pretty close to the mark.

Large GCMs use small grids where as many factors as they can stuff into the calculations are done on a grid by grid basis taking into account the average temperature of the grid, the albedo, the estimate cloud cover, whether it is sea or land or ice and so on.

To make Lubos's point you would have to show where the modellers are committing the mistake otherwise as Lubos himself says the problems can be overcome and the correct answer found.

If you don't understand this then you have no business saying that Smith is wrong.

Stip: We are about to spend trillions on carbon abatement and they won't launch a satellite to see if it is necessary!? Me thinky, something stinky.

Well, big policy sure looks necessary, but I agree with you about the satellite. Only sombody who had something to hide would oppose launching it if most of the costs had already been sunk, right?

NASA could launch the instrument and put the whole of climate science to some serious objective tests that it hasn't gotten yet. It would help refine current knowledge if and when it's valid or replace it with something better if and when it isn't.

It turns out that it's the global-warming-is-hooey crowd that has prevented the satellite from being launched, though. See, the original champion of the thing was Al Gore. They called it Goresat and accordingly went and "sat" on it.

You'd think they'd want us to lay our cards on the table, like that, but no, they seem to want to keep on betting.

===

http://www.desmogblog.com/how-politics-conspired-to-kill-dscovr
or
http://tinyurl.com/6s7zyq

The latest news is the most encouraging:

===
In a stunning break from years of inaction, the US Congress has tabled legislation ordering NASA to finally deal with the critically important Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR).

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2008 was submitted last week to the House of Representatives. Section 207 of this Act is plainly entitled: “Plan For Disposition Of Deep Space Climate Observatory.”

If this Act becomes law, NASA must finally cough up some answers on why this vital piece of space hardware has been sitting in a box for the last seven years.
===

http://www.desmogblog.com/congress-orders-nasa-to-deal-with-dscovr
http://tinyurl.com/55723w
===

Thank you for supporting NASA's traditional earth observation mission.

ender; you are a cherry-picker par excellence; you have ignored Pielke's paper which proves Motl; the Pielke paper disproves your TOA assertion, which coincidentally happens to be the AGW paradigm; and which incidentally corresponds to Alan Siddon's analogy of this thread; the atmosphere is the IR barrier according to AGW and the sun is the power to the light, Earth; hey presto, a cosmic cube; well done ender, all our energy problems are solved; just keep churning out CO2 to maintain the IR barrier.

Cool! Alan Siddons has persuaded god to repeal the Law of Conservation of Energy. (I wonder how you bribe a god to do something like that?)

That means perpetual motion machines are possible after all. Sweet.

Ender bender is trying to talk to people about science when he sings the virtues of Hives Hamilton. How Amusing.

David thats what all the ridicule is about right? The conservation of energy. Perhaps we would want to ask Alan if thats the case. If he believes he is violating that principle. Somehow I doubt it. And it would be worthwhile listening and trying to get a fuller picture of the angle Alan is taking. Whether its an entirely different paradigm. Or a different angle that fleshes out more standard assumptions.

Joel Shore said..."There are a lot of mistakes here. First of all, we have contributed raised CO2 levels from about 280ppm to over 380ppm...a 35% increase. And thus, over 1/4 of the CO2 currently in the atmosphere is due to us".

Here's the stats for the 1990's from the US Department of Energy (DOE):

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/environment/057304.pdf (see p.26 - Table 3)

I don't have the source at my finger tips for the emission of heat from GHG's (up, down, lateral) but it's a moot point since I was raising a hypothetical question. I do have the inference somewhere and I will keep looking. Meanwhile check this site for the irrelevance of anthropogenic CO2 density:

http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm#satellite-temps

Spencer claims that only 38 molecules of CO2 are found in 100,000 molecules of air. Your 380 ppmv pretty well corrobortes that. (i.e. 380 cups of CO2 per 1 million cups of air would be 38 cups of CO2 per 100,000 cups of air, or 38 molecules of CO2 per 100,000 molecules of air).

Considering the DOE table, that natural CO2 accounts for over 97% of all CO2 in the atmosphere and that 98% is reabsorbed, Spencer claims 1 molecule of human-made CO2 is added to 100,000 molecules of CO2 every 5 years.

He has other reasons for thinking the model-based AGW theory is wrong. For one, he's an expert on MSU telemetry on satellites, having specialized in that at NASA. Now he works with John Christy and they claim satellite measurements are not corroborating model predictions. If you live by the arguement that the satellite data is wrong, please read what he has to say on the above URL.

Secondly, he thinks precipitation systems are behind the greenhouse effect and control it. Ultimately, he claims, the Sun drives the greenhouse effect based on the amount of available sunlight. Clouds affect the amount of available sunlight and are the Earth's natural climate control.

correction on last post from Gordon Robertson @ 05:59 PM:

change "...Spencer claims 1 molecule of human-made CO2 is added to 100,000 molecules of CO2 every 5 years".

to:

...Spencer claims 1 molecule of human-made CO2 is added to 100,000 molecules of air every 5 years.

Michael Tobis said..."Why not simply measure the energy incident upon the atmosphere (via satellite) and the energy radiated away (also by satellite) and subtract. The difference should give us the long term temperature trend on earth, right? Or what am I missing ...?"

Michael...read my post at 05:59 and see second link. Spencer explains that satellite instrumentation is not sensitive enough to do that and that such calculations are purely theoretical.

Chris Crawford said..."Answer: the greenhouse effect! Water vapor (the primary contributor to the greenhouse effect) intercepts some of the outgoing radiation and reflects it back to the earth's surface. That increases the temperature of the earth's surface to its actual value of 300K".

Chris...I mean absolutely no disrespect, but why did you cut off the math when it got to the good part? :-)

I presume that if you had the math for that, you'd be in line for a Nobel.

Folks,

reread Irving Langmuire's criteria for pathological science - AGW satsifies all of them.

Jennifer wrote: Confine a lightbulb inside an infrared barrier (like a globular mirror) and electrically feed one watt to it. After a while, will it be generating the heat of a thousand watt bulb? No.

When its temperature is consistent with the input, further heating stops.

It’s like water seeking its own level. Lacking any means to radiate to its surroundings, the lightbulb merely gets as hot as a watt of power can make it, which is not much hotter than what it would be in the open.
---------

You're still putting energy in, right? But it's not getting out. So it's staying in there as heat. Add more energy, get more heat. Forever (assuming you have a perfect heat shield).

Where do you think the energy is going at the point that it "gets as hot a a 1 watt bulb can get"? You're still adding more energy - where's it going if it's not radiating? Into a box? Turning to fairy dust? Teleporting back to hades?

Where's it going?

This post is so utterly idiotic I have a hard time believing it's real. If you keep adding energy to a system, without letting the energy leave the system, the system's energy will increase. This is not complicated.

Magpie; the idiocy is that AGW is built on a similar analogy to your's; you confuse a shield with storage, and a constant supply of energy with an increasing rate of supply; as a thought experiment there's no doubt the concept needs some further information, such as; is the surround a non-quantum unit of space; is it in a non-vacuum; if so then it becomes similar to, but not identical with a greenhouse, because the photons cannot escape; heating of the space will be subject to entropy with that forming a balance with the constant rate of energy coming in; since the energy supply is constant, as is the enthropic response, per unit of planck time there cannot be an overall increase in accessible microstates, and therefore temperature.

Magpie: "Where do you think the energy is going at the point that it "gets as hot a a 1 watt bulb can get"? You're still adding more energy - where's it going if it's not radiating? Into a box? Turning to fairy dust? Teleporting back to hades?"

Firstly, the whole argument about the lightbulb is ridiculous and has no analog in the real world.
As the temperature increases the electrical resistance increases, so less power is dissipated.
If the temperature rises to beyond the melting point of the filament, the light will stop working.

Having dispensed with that, if it's heat energy you're pumping in and not electrical energy, the temperature cannot increase beyond the temperature of the heat source.

Any analogy that starts with conflating temperature, energy and power is destined to fail. This was an epic fail.

There's too much stuff to deal with properly here, but I would like to address an important point: cohenite, I have great difficulty responding to your comments because they contain so much garbled terminology. Let me give you some examples:

You confuse Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium (LTE), a condition that is required of a parcel of air if we are to apply standard thermodynamic laws to it, with the parcel itself. If you want to talk about the parcel of air, call it a "parcel of air".

You ask: "do you deny that there are vertical convective movements of discrete parcels of air which are internally temp consistent but differ from external air?"

Of course not! Vertical motion of air is the driver of much of our weather. But such vertical motion is not to be confused with Local Thermodynamic equilibrium, nor with anisotropy of radiation.

On the matter of anisotropic radiation, you link to a very nice article explaining clearly and in great detail the radiative processes in the atmosphere. The article, however, does not say that parcels of air emit radiation anisotropically; it instead explains how radiation that started on the ground and is moving upwards is affected differentially by the atmosphere. He is describing, in technical detail, the greenhouse effect. Yes, radiation does escape; if it didn't the earth's temperature would rise monotonically. The key idea here is that the obstruction to radiation presented by greenhouse gases raises the temperature until a new equilibrium is reached at a higher temperature.

Here's another example of garbled terminology:

" the Pielke paper (which you have ignored) clearly establishes that ender's, and AGW's, requirement for a TOA radiative balance, as ender defined it, is not necessary; in fact it is contradictory; and if a radiative balance does not cause a global heating response then what is AGW about?"

Here you use the term "radiative balance" -- I believe you mean "radiative equilibrium" -- but in fact radiative equilibrium is really just a version of the conservation of energy. Are you denying the conservation of energy? And how could the conservation of energy be contradictory. WHAT is it contradicting? And what is a "global heating response"? Do you mean "increase in average global temperature"?

Over the centuries scientists have learned that, without precisely-defined terminology, you end up with confusing, muddled arguments like this one. Science has developed a jargon of precise terms that are rigorously defined. Sometimes you don't use those terms; and sometimes you use them incorrectly. Please, if we are to sort out our differences, we need to first sort out our terminology.

Gordon Robertson, I think that the problem with your reasoning arises from the belief that the concentration of CO2, measured in parts per millions, is so tiny as to be impossible to create large effects. Yes, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is only 380 ppm. But tiny concentrations aren't negligible concentrations. Taipoxin, a snake venom, kills if its concentration in the bloodstream exceeds 2 parts per billion. CO2 concentrations can have a big effect even at concentrations as low as 380 ppm. It might not seem like much, but you just follow the math.

You do raise an excellent point in asking how I ascribe the discrepancy between the first-order calculation of earth's equilibrium temperature and the earth's actual temperature to the greenhouse effect. You're right, I didn't follow through on the calculations. I won't go through them here because they get us into some more complicated physics, but I'll present the results: CO2, all by itself, at the concentrations we're seeing, should cause a temperature increase of only a few degrees K at most. If there were no other forces at work, anthropogenic emissions of CO2 would not pose a serious threat to the climate for at least a century. The real fight concerns the possibility that the overall feedback mechanism is positive. That is, CO2 will raise temperatures slightly, which will cause more CO2 to be released naturally, which will cause even higher temperatures, which will cause even more natural CO2 to be released naturally, etc. There's plenty of controversy here. This is important! There is no controversy (except among the ignorant) as to whether CO2 by itself can raise global temperatures. Nor is there any controversy about the fact that, by itself, CO2 will not raise temperatures by much. The real controversy concerns the relative magnitudes of the differing feedback effects. Some of those feedbacks are positive and some are negative. The evidence suggests that the overall feedback system is positive, meaning that a small increase in CO2 concentrations will ultimately lead to a large increase in temperature. But there is room for people of good faith to argue about the magnitudes of these feedbacks.

Have you considered what would happen if the properties of the infrared barrier gradually change?

Of course, you could argue that the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere cannot increase indefinitely. I don't even mean that planetary resources are finite, or that we'll all be dead at some point. Theoretically, even if our emissions remain constant, some new point of GHG concentration equilibrium should be reached eventually. But maybe that's way too far into the future.

In the end, it's a pointless exercise. We end up arguing about the eventual magnitude of the effect, and that's already pretty much what the argument is about.

I’m disappointed to see how far afield the discussion went. But that’s the nature of evasion, isn’t it? I provided an experimental test for progressive heat-gain due to radiative disequilibrium: Dichroic filter over a laboratory blackbody. Visible goes in, no infrared goes out. Progressive heat-gain will not occur — otherwise we’d have a magical furnace. Just bleed off the interior heat every so often and you have a miraculously cheap oven or boiler on your hands.

http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/ipcc_oven.html

Radiant energy is a heat source. When an object’s temperature corresponds to the amount of energy feeding it, heat transfer stops. Only sunsettommy got the point. Radiative equilibrium is a fiction.

Alan, your thought experiment is nonsense because you confuse heat, temperature, and power. You set it up as a light bulb emitting one Watt of power. You then ask whether its power output will increase to 1000 Watts. Yes, the temperature will rise, but temperature isn't power. That's why your idea is nonsensical.

He's not saying that at all Crawford.

Of course, if it's just one watt-femtosecond and no more, then you'll not get an increasing amount of heat. But the light won't shine. If the light continues to shine, for a watt-hour, for example, the heat will rise throughout that hour.

Alan, did you mean "calorie" instead of "watt?"

Ed, be careful on your units here. A Watt-second is one Joule. A Joule is a unit of energy and a Watt is a unit of power.

Chris, I have no idea why you’re so obtuse. 1000 watts per square meter radiated on a blackbody will raise it to 364 Kelvin. That’s it. You could radiate that power for a million years and you’ll still have 364 Kelvin. W/m² do not accumulate and temperature doesn’t blow up like a balloon. When temperature corresponds to heat input, heat-transfer stops. A laboratory blackbody subjected to 1000 W/m² does not become a “heat bomb” if its infrared emission is suppressed. Radiative equilibrium is thus a provably false concept, which means that you have no empirical support for anything you’re alleging. Doesn’t this BOTHER you?

Alan Siddons said:"Just bleed off the interior heat every so often and you have a miraculously cheap oven or boiler on your hands."

If we assume perfect insulation for the container, it will cost exactly the same to heat up the volume of air inside the container to a certain temperature, whether you use a small power source for heating, like your 1 W light bulb, or a large one, like a 1000 W electric heating element, as commonly found in commercial electrical ovens. The only difference is that the large power source will heat it up quicker. Power (unit: W = J/s), put simply, is a of measure energy (unit: J) per time unit (unit: s). So running your 1 W light bulb for 1000 hours will introduce the same amount of energy into the volume of air of your perfectly insulated container as running the 1000 W heating element for 1 hour: in both cases, you spent 1 kWh of energy (3.6*10^6 J), which will be converted into heat. And since the energy company charges you per kWh, you pay the energy company the same in both scenarios. So you won't have a miraculously cheap furnace, just a really slow one.

You dismiss your conclusion of ever increasing temperature as absurd. Well, you're right, but not because there's some made-up balance between the heat and the power input. No, it's simply because in real life, we don't have perfect insulation, which is why real ovens don't keep getting warmer and warmer, but have a maximum temperature.

So I hope I've made more clear what the difference is between power and energy, and why confusing the two has led you to draw false conclusions. Really, this is basic, basic physics, so you may want to lay off making such strong physics claims until you understand even these basics.

Alan, again you are using your terminology in a way that confuses things. I will attempt to rephrase your comments in a form that is rigorous, and I think that you'll see that your reasoning is flawed.

You write: "1000 watts per square meter radiated on a blackbody will raise it to 364 Kelvin."

A more rigorous statement of that idea is:

A blackbody in equilibrium at 364K will radiate 1000 Wm**-2, and so will require a thermal input of 1000 Wm**-2.

You write: "W/m² do not accumulate and temperature doesn’t blow up like a balloon."

No, power per unit area does not accumulate but heat energy does, and as the heat energy of a reservoir increases, its temperature increases. Hence, if you pump energy into an isolated system, its temperature will increase monotonically. Remember, I'm talking about an isolated system -- that means that it has no other inputs or outputs. If you're talking about an open system, such as a blackbody in free space, then it will come to an equilibrium temperature at which its radiative output is equal to its heat input. I carried out this calculation for a simplified version of earth to show how it's done.

You write: "When temperature corresponds to heat input, heat-transfer stops."

This is a somewhat sloppy way of stating what I wrote above [' it will come to an equilibrium temperature at which its radiative output is equal to its heat input']

You write " A laboratory blackbody subjected to 1000 W/m² does not become a “heat bomb” if its infrared emission is suppressed."

What do you mean by "suppressed"? Do you mean "completely blocked"? If so, what band of frequencies are you specifying? This sloppy terminology renders your statements meaningless.

"Radiative equilibrium is thus a provably false concept, "

Inasmuch as your previous statements are vague and indefinite, you certainly haven't proven anything. Please, try to express yourself in the precise terminology of science.

Chris Crawford' it was your verballing, cotton-picking, cherry-picking mate, ender, who said;

"At the TOA radiated energy is equal to the incident radiation."

And you condone this because I use the word balance instead of equilibrium? Nit-picker; how many types of picking can you guys do?

I said I wasn't promoting anisotropic radiative transfer; the article I link to shows that there is a net upward flow, not downward; argue with it not me since you seem to think it supports the AGW greenhouse; and like ender you have once again ignored the ramifications of the Pielke paper; a gross figure for an 'imbalance' of radiative transfer at the TOA doesn't mean global heating; even if one allows for CO2 interception of IR to the extent that AGW demands.

"The evidence suggests the overall feedback is positive"; for gawds sake, you must be joking.

Congratulations to Chris Crawford for his extremely clear and accurate explanations of fundamental physics. Alan Siddons et al should be grateful that a person of Chris's ability and patience is willing to spend the time to point out where they are mistaken. Alan's thought experiment with a perfect insulator is an interesting one, but the conclusions he draws are incorrect.

cohenite writes: ""The evidence suggests the overall feedback is positive"; for gawds sake, you must be joking."

No, I'm quite serious. If you'd like to discuss the various feedback mechanisms, I'd be happy to explain those. However, we should start with the largest factors and work downward from there.

cohenite - "and like ender you have once again ignored the ramifications of the Pielke paper"

That would be a bit hard as your link does not work. I think however RC also posted something on this and their link to it does not work either. However here is some of the text from their discussion:

"Recently, Roger Pielke Sr. came up with a (rather improbably precise) value of 26.5% for the CO2 contribution. This was predicated on the enhanced methane forcing mentioned above (though he didn't remove the ozone effect, which was inconsistent), an unjustified downgrading of the CO2 forcing (from 1.4 to 1.1 W/m2), the addition of an estimated albedo change from remote sensing (but there is no way to assess whether that was either already included (due to aerosol effects), or is a feedback rather than a forcing). A more appropriate re-calculation would give numbers more like those discussed above (i.e. around 30 to 40%).

But this is game anyone can play. If you're clever (and dishonest) you can take advantage of the fact that many people are unaware that there are cooling factors at all. By showing that B explains all of the net forcing, you can imply that the effect of A is zero since there is nothing apparently left to explain. Crichton has used this in his presentations to imply that because land use and solar have warming impacts (though he's simply wrong on the land use case), CO2 just can't have any significant effect (slide 18). Sneaky, eh?"

I think that RC did not agree with the Peilke paper either, if this is the right one, I guess they did not really read it either.

And also here are a comment reproduced in full from the same post on RC
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/attribution-of-20th-century-climate-change-to-cosub2sub/#more-355

"Roger Pielke Sr Says:
4 October 2006 at 10:24 PM

Hi Gavin- Thank you for your reply to #7.

With respect to your comment on the fractional contribution of methane, I used the information from http://www.pollutiononline.com/content/news/article.asp?DocID=%7B92402192-8574-45C2-8319-32A75F1E8ECE%207D&Bucket=Current+Headlines&VNETCOOKIE=NO that stated,

“According to new calculations, the impacts of methane on climate warming may be double the standard amount attributed to the gas. The new interpretations reveal methane emissions may account for a third of the climate warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases between the 1750s and today. The IPCC report, which calculates methane’s affects once it exists in the atmosphere, states that methane increases in our atmosphere account for only about one sixth of the total effect of well-mixed greenhouse gases on warming.”

Were your conclusions misrepresented?

On the magnitude of the radiative forcing of CO2, if the fraction of the radiative forcing attributed to the well-mixed greenhouse gases of methane is increased, and the total radiative forcing of the well-mixed greenhouse gases is unchanged, the fractional contribution attributed to CO2 must decrease. Are you thus suggesting that the IPCC value for the total of the well-mixed greenhouse gases needs to be increased to a value above 2.4 Watts per meter squared (the IPCC figure is presented, for example, at http://darwin.nap.edu/books/0309095069/html/3.html) ?

Finally, there is also the issue of time over which these radiative forcings have been increasing. CO2 has been a significant radiative forcing since the industrial period began, while the large increase in the input of black carbon into the troposphere, for example, has been more recent. If this is so, the “global average temperature” has responded (i.e. equilibrated) to a fraction of the CO2 that was input in the earlier years, such that IPCC Figure overstates the current contribution of CO2 to the global average radiative forcing (since that Figure presents a difference between preindustrial times and 2000, not the current radiative forcing). In the preparation of our 2005 NRC Report, the estimate in our discussions was that a value of 80% is a reasonable estimate of the added CO2 since preindustrial times which has not equilibrated.

I do agree with the theme of your post on the arbitrary aspect of attributing specific numbers to each of the radiative forcings.

However, it is an important issue to estimate the fractional contribution to positive radiative forcing due to CO2. If it dominates the other radiative forcings (and other “non-radiative climate forcings), than policy actions that focus on CO2 make good sense. However, if it is only one of several important radiative forcings, such as I summarize on Climate Science (in the hyperlinks for my weblogs given in #7), and, if we also need to be concerned about the spatial scales of the radiative forcing as is presented in

Matsui, T., and R.A. Pielke Sr., 2006: Measurement-based estimation of the spatial gradient of aerosol radiative forcing. Geophys. Res. Letts., 33, L11813, doi:10.1029/2006GL025974.
http://blue.atmos.colostate.edu/publications/pdf/R-312.pdf,

as well as the “non-radiative” forcings as reported in the 2005 NRC Report “Radiative Forcing of Climate Change: Expanding the Concept and Addressing Uncertainties”,

than the emphasis of CO2 alone is an inadequate recommendation for us as scientists to give to policymakers.

[Response: When in doubt, read the original paper (Shindell et al, 2005) - figure 1 is extremely clear. On the second point, if you change the forcing attributed to one gas, why should the total remain the same? There are no constraints of the total - it’s merely the sum of the individual contributions. Why the line-by-line calculation of forcing by CO2 should be affected by our atmospheric chemistry calculation is a little puzzling… IPCC used an abundance based calculation for the current forcings and that’s fine. Our point was that for emissions reductions in the future, it helpful to know the forcing associated with each emitted component, so that targets can take account of atmospheric chemistry changes too. However, CO2 remains the largest single component and is the one with the largest projected growth, and while there is a lot that can be done to reduce the other forcings, the climate change problem in future is in many ways a CO2 problem. You and I clearly disagree on that, and that’s fine, we should however be able to agree on 20th Century forcings. -gavin]"

As you can see Roger Peilke is not in doubt of the effect of CO2 only the magnitude. The argument is about climate sensitivity not whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

ender bender; you could drive someone to drink; here is the Pielke link;

http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publications/pdf/R-321.pdf

Now, I repeat very slowly, I did not suggest or say or in any way shape or form that CO2 did not absorb IR radiation; I just totally disagree with the AGW model of forcing for the absorption which occurs; and I probably disagree with the AGW mechanism of absorption, including the capacity, whatever that is; and I disagree with the EG theory of positive feedbacks, whatever they are. Got it?

Chris has shown amazing patience here; as I discovered on the CO2 accumulation thread, trying to debate Alan is like trying to wrestle with Jello. Once again, Alan cannot keep clear the difference between the rate of change of something and the level of something, so his arguments are quite often literally meaningless.

I'll try to restate some of Chris' arguments in different wording that might make it more clear to others.

Point 1: The only significant energy interaction between the earth/atmosphere system and the rest of the universe is through thermal radiation. Any other mechanisms are completely trivial in magnitude.

Point 2: The only significant source of energy into the earth/atmosphere system is solar radiation. Internal radioactive decay and tidal friction effects are very small comparatively and can be ignored in the first-cut models like we are talking about here.

Point 3: The First Law of Thermodynamics ("conservation of energy") tells us that for any system we define, the difference between the power transfered into the system and the power transfered out of the system is equal to the rate of change of the internal energy of the system. This is at root a simple accounting problem, like balancing your checkbook. If you have $1000/month coming in and $900/month going out, your checkbook balance is increasing at a rate of $100/month.

Note: This is true for any system you define. Some defined systems are easier to work with than others, and some provide more insight than others. Students spend much of an introductory thermodynamics class learning to define useful systems. I will choose the entire earth/atmosphere system so I am dealing with power transfers across the top of the atmosphere (TOA).

Point 4: It is possible for a change in internal energy to take many forms, but the only form significant for our purposes here is a change in temperature. Substances have "thermal capacitances" defined such that the rate of change of temperature is equal to the net power input to the substance divided by the thermal capacitance.

Combining the above points: Since the earth/atmosphere system only interacts energetically with the rest of the universe through radiative transfer in both directions, the difference between the total power transfer in and the total power transfer out is equal to the change in internal energy of the overall earth/atmosphere system. (If you insist, you could add a small fraction of 1 W/m^2 power input to the system for radioactive decay in the earth's core, but this would not change the argument.) Such a change would manifest itself as a change in temperature.

In the special case where the incoming and outgoing power transfers are equal, the change in internal energy is zero, and temperature would not change. This is the case of "radiative equilibrium" (and it is in fact based on the laws of thermodynamics, not contradictory to it).

Jim Hansen of GISS recently claimed to have quantified an average radiative imbalance with a flux density of 0.85 W/m^2 +/-0.15 W/m^2. I'm extremely dubious of these numbers, but for the sake of argument, let's say his upper limit of 1.0 W/m^2 is correct. This means that, on average, each square meter of the earth is taking in 1 Watt more power than it is giving off. In one second, each square meter is accumulating 1 Joule of energy, in each hour 3600 Joules of energy, and so on.

As the earth accumulates this energy (remember that energy is power multiplied by time) its temperature goes up. As its temperature increases, its own thermal radiative output will increase. This very basic property means that the earth/atmosphere system will tend toward radiative equilibrium -- it may never actually be in radiative equilibrium because too many things are always changing, but it definitely tends toward it.

Alan's points of confusion are many. In addition to confusing rates of power transfer with levels of internal energy and resulting temperature, he is confusing systems that can easily radiate away energy with those whose radiative output is blocked. The results are very, very different.

If I had a slab with one square meter of surface area that was free to radiate as a black body to outer space, and I were pumping 1000W into the slab (think of a heat sink on a satellite's power source), if it started below 364K, it would be radiating less than 1000W away, and would start to increase in temperature. As its temperature increased, its radiative power output would increase, until when it reached 364K, it would be radiating just enough power away to balance the input, and its temperature would hold constant.

However, anything that you did to inhibit that radiative output (remember that a "blackbody" is the perfect radiator) would result in it reaching higher temperatures. In theory there is no limit to the temperature reached if you had total inhibition of outgoing radiation (and no other thermal path output), but in the real world, you cannot get this total inhibition, and besides, something would "give" first.

A real-world example that I had to deal with this month. On a new power-electronic product, the designers (despite my orders) put a thin cosmetic metal sheet over the heat sink that draws the heat out of the power transistors. Initial thermal testing on the prototypes showed the power transistors getting alarmingly hot. They came to be with their concerns, and I told them to take off the cosmetic metal sheet and repeat the test. Lo and behold, the power transistors reached thermal equilibrium at a temperature 20K (36F) lower than before. (Yes, there was some convective as well as radiative inhibition, but there would have been a substantial change from radiative inhibition alone.

Alan says, "Show me how to cook my dinner with a flashlight." Alan's obviously never had a sister or a daughter, or he would be familiar with the "Easy Bake Oven", which uses a light bulb for cooking. I remember being stunned as a kid that my sister's Easy Bake Oven actually could bake things.

cohenite - "ender bender; you could drive someone to drink; here is the Pielke link;"

Thanks for the link howevert that is Pielke whingeing about the surface temperature record not anything to do with greenhouse gases - whats your point?

"I just totally disagree with the AGW model of forcing for the absorption which occurs;"

Well you can disagree until you are blue in the face (or drinking again) however unless you post some actual physics that backs up what you say your really are just pissing in the wind.

All the physics from real physicists says you are wrong and nothing you have written or posted confirms what you say.

I couldn't resist putting in a small post (at the end of a busy day) because I'm really glad that some people here truly believe in thermodynamics, at least in the gas phase!

As a specialist in solution phase chemo-thermodynmics (up to melts) I'm sure y'all would have noticed my difficulties in convincing steven watkinson of the over-riding importance of solution phase thermodynamics (;-) ahem.

While the thread debate is floating around radiative effects in the atmosphere I thought I'd just pop in the following recent reference of 15 August:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/321/5891/946

I have a copy on order. There is also another fascinating paper which came out in July on the synergistic effects of aerosols and clouds (using those neat remotely controlled mini-aeroplanes to image clouds up close) but I have lent the journal with the reference to it to a colleague. Will post it when he gives it back.

"Well you can disagree until you are blue in the face (or drinking again) however unless you post some actual physics that backs up what you say your really are just pissing in the wind.

All the physics from real physicists says you are wrong and nothing you have written or posted confirms what you say."

No thats bullshit and lies Ender. The claims of the alarmists don't come direct via radiative physics but are instead mediated by outrageous aggregations and simplifying assumptions.

Lies don't count Ender.

Curt your sisters easy bake oven was backed up by the mains. The mains were generated by extremely hot coal fires turning huge turbines.

I'm not sure I understand all of what Alan is saying but you don't want to dismiss any of it until you are clear as well with exactly what he means.

"As you can see Roger Peilke is not in doubt of the effect of CO2 only the magnitude."

If the effect is there but tint you crowd are still science frauds. Roger still works off the failed paradigm. But he's a scientist so he doesn't ignore the data.

"
"Recently, Roger Pielke Sr. came up with a (rather imp