by Berthold Klein
Table of Contents
Section 1. Mixing the energy
Section 2. Chasing Photons
Section 3. What happens in an IRag molecule (or any compound molecule)?
Section 4. Quality of Sun light
Section 5. Dr. Alan Carlin of the US-EPA -No effect of CO2
Section 6. All sources of Photons:
Section 7. What is the magnitude of the heating?
Section 8. Measuring temperatures:
Section9. How much variation ?
Section 10. The Demonstration
Appendix
Eine kleine Nacht Hypotheses of IR and other EM radiation from the Sky at night
___________________________________________
Section 1. Mixing the energy
This started as a response to Dr. Leonard @ G2@2 and covers a lot more. While I agree with much of Dr. Leonard, he does not go far enough.
You don’t “activate” GHG to get the effect. The atmosphere is in LTE. This means that absorbed photons are almost immediately used to put energy in all the surrounding gas (by collision) and could heat them some. However, the surrounding gases are at some temperature (with a velocity distribution including some higher velocity ones), such that the GHG gives off photons, and the lost energy is replaced from the surrounding gas collisions. The balance of absorbed and INDEPENDENTLY emitted photons determines if the radiation contributes to some heating or cooling of the local gas.
However, whichever occurs, free convection mixes and readjusts the gas temperature profile to fit (on average) the adiabatic lapse rate. Thus incoming absorbed energy makes no difference to the so called atmospheric greenhouse effect. The papers you keep quoting do not in general totally disagree with what Al and I keep telling you. They just disagree with a claim that back radiation is the cause of heating, and it is not as I clearly stated. They just do not go on from there to explain what the cause of heating is. Both sides on this issue seem to confuse cause and effect.
Evidence obtained under different experimental conditions cannot be comprehended within a single picture, but must be regarded as complementary in the sense that only the totality of the phenomena exhausts the possible information about the objects.
Excerpt from Niels H. Bohr Atomic structure 1921:
The general lines of the latter considerations are known from various recent theories of atomic constitution, such as those of A. Kossel and G. Lewis, based on a systematic discussion of chemical evidence. In these theories the electro-positive and electro-negative characters of these families in the periodic table are interpreted by the assumption that the outer electrons in the atoms of the inactive gases are arranged in especially regular and stable configurations, without, however, any attempt to give a detailed picture of the constitution and formation of these groups.
In this connection it may be of interest to direct attention to the fundamental difference between the picture of atomic constitution indicated in this letter and that developed by Langmuir on the basis of the assumption of stationary or oscillation electrons in the atom referred to in Dr. Campbell’s letter.
Quite apart from the fact that in Langmuir’s theory the stability of the configuration of the electrons is considered rather as a postulated property of the atom, for which no detailed a priory interpretation is offered, this difference discloses itself clearly by the fact that in Langmuir’s theory a constitution of the atoms of the inactive gases is assumed in which the number of electrons is always in the outermost shell.
Thus the sequence of the number of electrons within the groups of a niton atom is, instead of that indicated above, assumed to be 2, 8, 18, 18, 32, such as appearance of the periods in the sequence of the elements might seem to claim at first sight.
To Leonard Weinstein:
My use of the word “activate” in referring to the physics of an IRag absorbing IR radiation is not the commonly used nomenclature, it has been used by Niels H. Bohr in his Atomic Structure paper of 1921. This would be the process of appropriate wave lengths light entering the IRag molecules and exciting the electrons to jump from their “inactive shell” to a higher active shell. As each IRag molecule can absorb many photons of IR energy and other radiation depending on the number of electrons in the molecule; they still must be at the correct wavelengths for energy to be absorbed. This is why Infrared spectrograph works to identify different gases.
This absorbed energy is only released again as IR radiation at the same wavelength when the “activated/excited” electron returns to it original orbit. (See the Bohr model.)
Now let’s look at one of your erroneous statements in your first paragraph above:
“The atmosphere is in LTE.”
As the atmosphere is receiving constantly changing amounts of energy from the sun in the form of UV, visible light IR, gamma, electromagnetic radiation, there is no such thing as LTE.
Assumed definition of LTE = light transmission equilibrium
Leonard, your next to final sentence is very profound:
“They just do not go on from there to explain what the cause of heating is. Both sides on this issue seem to confuse cause and effect.”
I find your love affair with the Adiabatic lapse rate both dry and wet to be unwarranted for several reasons.
As is stated in the definition of an Adiabatic Process:
“An adiabatic process is one in which no heat is gained or lost by the system. The first law of thermodynamics with Q=0 shows that all the change in internal energy.”
Going back to a very basic course in thermodynamics this tells me that someone has simplified the equations to be able to approximate what is really happening. Thus the equation contains many terms – the adiabatic lapse rate is the effect and not the cause.
| Planet | g cm/s2 | Cp J/gm/K | Adiabatic Lapse Rate K/Km | Rg J/gm/K | Auto- convective Lapse Rate K/Km |
| Venus | 889.89 | 0.8501 | 10.468 | 0.18892 | 47.104 |
| Earth | 979.86 | 1.0040 | 9.760 | 0.28710 | 34.130 |
| Mars | 374.10 | 0.8312 | 4.500 | 0.18892 | 19.802 |
| Jupiter | 2425.61 | 12.3591 | 1.963 | 3.74518 | 6.477 |
| Saturn | 1000.09 | 14.0129 | 0.714 | 3.89246 | 2.569 |
| Uranus | 880.07 | 13.0137 | 0.676 | 3.61491 | 2.435 |
| Neptune | 1110.46 | 13.0137 | 0.853 | 3.61491 | 3.072 |
| Titan | 135.80 | 1.0440 | 1.301 | 0.29000 | 4.683 |
Leonard Weinstein says in G1: November 27, 2010 at 3:47 am
G1@8, Leigh,
You have asked several very good questions. I will try to answer them, but if I miss some point please repeat or modify your response.
Please understand that the description I gave was a simplified one, and thus easy to confuse.
To start, remember that light consists of photons with a range of energies. This is also equivalent to different wavelengths. The first point was about the atmosphere window. This window is due to the fact that the solar heated ground, oceans, and even some atmospheric materials (aerosols, clouds, and even some gases) absorb solar energy (photons) with relatively short wavelengths (most in the range of 0.3 to 3 microns, with a peak at about 0.5 microns). Most of the atmosphere, including the so-called atmospheric greenhouse gases, is mainly transparent to this range of wavelengths (there is some of the specific short wavelengths absorbed going down, but it is small for gases). The Earth absorbs these photons, and this heats it up. The initial thermal radiation from the Earth is nearly like that of a black body that radiates longer wave thermal energy outward corresponding to the surface temperature (most is in the range of 4 to 20 microns). There are some gases in the atmosphere that absorb very strongly in certain spectral regions of that outgoing radiation. The main one is water vapor, and the second is CO2, but others, such as methane also contribute some. These are the ones called atmospheric greenhouse gases. However, the absorption is not uniform, but in selected spectral bands (mainly due to specific molecular vibration modes). With the combined absorption bands of all absorbing gases (ignoring clouds and aerosols) there still are spectral regions not being absorbed on the average. These result in some radiation direct from Earth’s surface to space (about 8%). A point to note is that the wavelengths that exist in the “window” came only from the surface. Those wavelengths absorbed and those radiated by the gases are not in the “window”, so this window does not repeat as you go up re absorbing and re radiating.
Gases that absorb the long wave radiation also radiate long wave radiation at wavelengths determined by their local temperature. The absorbed wavelengths and re-radiated wavelengths have to travel a certain distance before about 50% of the energy at that wavelength is absorbed. Twice that distance results in 50% of the remainder being absorbed and so on. That is, it takes a finite distance to absorb a certain fraction of any absorbed wavelength (due to interacting with a finite number of molecules per area over a distance).
The atmospheric density drops with increasing altitude, so the amount of a particular absorbing gas per volume also decreases with increasing altitude. Thus the distance to absorb a certain fraction of a given wavelength gets larger with increasing altitude. At some point, most the energy at that particular wavelength escapes to space because there is not enough of the blocking gas left over it. Increasing the atmospheric concentration of CO2 (for example) means that the concentration at a particular altitude increases, and you have to go higher to be clear enough of more molecules to escape. This is not a sudden process. Some photons escape from lower altitudes, and the relative amount escaping increases with increasing altitude. Thus the so called altitude of outgoing radiation is not a specific altitude, but a band of varying transmission, and it can be a fairly large thickness. I use an effective average to describe this band only to simplify the discussion.
However, the effective average altitude increases with increased concentration (it is not the atmospheric density that matters, but the number density of the greenhouse gases), and this was the point I was trying to make.
The comment on convection is only to indicate that most of the radiation from the ground does not go directly to space, but is absorbed and re emitted several times before going to space. If the radiation heat transfer were strong enough, it would lower the lapse rate, and we know the lapse rate is the adiabatic lapse rate. Therefore the convection heat transfer has to be dominating to assure the lapse rate will be the adiabatic lapse rate. In order to understand the effect of adiabatic lapse rate you would best go to the wiki write up. The adiabatic lapse rate is not a set of particular temperatures it is a temperature gradient. You have to specify (force) the value of a specific temperature at a particular location to then specify the actual temperature variation with altitude (you only need to force it at one location).
If there were no atmospheric greenhouse gases, the absorbed solar energy at the ground would have to match the radiated thermal energy from the ground, and this would result in an average ground temperature about 255 K (-18 C). The atmospheric temperature would then decrease above the ground by about 9 C drop per km altitude (dry adiabatic lapse rate assuming no water vapor). With the actual gases in the atmosphere, the “effective” location in the atmosphere where the temperature is about 255 K (the temperature needed to match outgoing energy to incoming) is about 5 km, and the adiabatic lapse rate we need to use (which is different due to liquid water evaporation) is 6.5 C drop per km (the so called wet adiabatic lapse rate). The 6.5 C times 5 km plus 255 K gives the ground temperature of 288 K (15 C). This is an over simplification, but basically correct.
Back radiation is not the cause of anything, it is a result of the fact that atmospheric greenhouse gases absorb and radiate long wave radiation. I realize it is non obvious, but the greenhouse gas is a radiation insulator but the atmosphere heat transfer is dominated by unbounded convection. The up and down radiation at the ground will be larger than expected from direct absorbed solar radiation, but the up and down heating will be exactly balanced, and is based on the absorbed solar heating, the effective location of outgoing radiation, and the adiabatic lapse rate.
Quit chasing photons, convection dominates up to near the outgoing radiation.
I question this last statements for several reasons.
This development fails to discuss the Atmospheric temperature inversions that occur regularly throughout the world – meteorologists can address this more completely.
The wind patterns throughout the world from ground zero to the stratosphere do more mixing than can the “atmospheric lapse rate”. High pressure , lower atmospheric pressure hurricanes,tornadoes, wind storms with velocities up to 100 miles /hr and even an occasional “calm”, etc.
The surface velocity of the earth at the equator is calculated at 2000 miles /hr. this varies to theoretical zero at the pole of rotation- plenty of surface to atmosphere shear. The gradients in 3 dimensions are significant. What happens to the atmospheric lapse rate in the real world?
What happens to the atmospheric lapse rate over the oceans compared to over summer land vs snow covered winter snow covered land, the atmospheric lapse rate changes?
Dr. Leonard said his description was a simplification. How much “simplification” can we accept when we are trying to determine the “supposed effect” of > 400 ppm of CO2?
Yes the atmospheric lapse rate exists – the “adiabatic lapse rate” is a mathematical toy that cannot exist in the atmosphere.
When I had thermodynamics lab we were able to perform good approximations to “adiabatic conditions for a few types of experiments” but they are very limited and not related to the conditions in the atmosphere.
No one doubts that the amount of inbound radiation is again radiated back to space every rotation of the earth.
Section 2-Chasing Photons
“Quit chasing photons, convection dominates up to near the outgoing radiation.”
This is a very foolish decision to “not chase the “photon.”
1. Radiation (photons) are the only known method of delivering energy to the Earth from the Sun.
2. Photons have both a known velocity and momentum.
3. Photons have a mass.
4. Radiation has the properties of waves thus they have a frequency.
5. Photons have various levels of energy related to frequency/wavelength.
6. Because of the properties of photons ,they can exert force on masses that they strike.
7. The energy of the photon can be converted to Kinetic energy in the mass -it moves the mass faster or it can be absorbed in the mass as inter molecular movement.
8. As is the case of IR radiation and IRag’s if the photon colloids/interacts with an electron the electron “jumps” to a higher energy orbit but the molecule does not move any faster (Bohr’s model” -heating of the gas.
9. If the photons collides with the nucleus of the atom or a molecule it can cause a change is kinetic energy of the atom or molecule. This is defined as causing the heating of the mass.
10. We know that photons can travel hundreds of million Light years through space- man’s photon detectors “his eyes” or cameras with film or electronics came record this information.
11. When these photons from stars or the sun strike the earth they can be reflected,or absorbed. What is really happening when the photon is absorbed – it means that the energy has been captured by the nuclease of atoms or molecules and converted into molecular kinetic energy(heat). As we know different materials have different Heat capacities thus the depth of penetration of the photon will differ with each materials. The higher the density of the material the less the penetration before the photon strikes a nucleus and gets absorbed. As is know from modern physics is that even the atom of even the dense material is mostly a “void”. Thus photons of some energy level and frequency can travel through even the densest material (gamma radiation).
12. Now let’s back off to “transparent materials” -by definition visible Light-(photons) can travel through the material with minimal chance of colliding with a nucleus and being absorb. But every transparent material will absorb some frequency of light-photons- common glass absorbs certain frequencies of IR and UV, but not all. If you want to absorb IR you use special cyan colored heat absorbing filters. IF you want to photograph in the UV range you use lenses made of quartz. If you want to let IR through you use panels of salt(sodium chloride) as was done by R.W. Wood in 1909. One should look up the biography of R.W. Wood, it is a lesson in science itself.
13. Now let’s back off one more level of density- liquids- the most common liquid water will absorb many frequencies of light , it absorbs IR of many frequencies, visible light of the reds to greens are absorbed with various degrees depending on the impurity in the water. UV and blue has the greatest penetration before it is totally absorbed at fairly great depth. I believe that some surface light will penetrate to 50 or more Meters. Ask any underwater photographer.
14. The next level of density with the most concern to the current debate are gases. The number of nucleus per unit volume varies greatly from the surface of the earth to the top of the stratosphere and beyond until we get into “space”. Is there something in the void we call space we don’t know yet. Anyway what happens when photons from the sun or other stars enter the atmosphere, the vast majority travel through the gases and strike the earth, some are reflected at different interfaces thus to change direction of a mass-the photon has a force acting on it and a change of energy results. Basic physics. Now some of the photons (a minuscule number have to strike gas molecules and have their energy converted to kinetic energy (heat). Some of the photons of the correct wavelength ( frequency) IR will strike IRag’s and the energy is absorbed thus converted to increased electron energy.(not heat). Now after some period of time maybe in the range of nanoseconds or minutes or years the energy is again sent into the atmosphere as photons of the IR frequencies, they go in any direction. Now they are just IR frequency photons- if they strike the nucleus of a O2 molecule they can convert their energy to Kinetic energy of the O2 molecule or they may be reflected out into “space”or they might be heading down to earth where they might be reflected to space or might be absorbed by the earth. The length of travel has been calculated and is in another posting.
15. Now let’s look (seeing) at another aspect of photons and the Human and animal photon detectors- eyes and heat sensors in the skins of all living things including plants. The “eye” receives photons which strike the retina and the energy is converted to electrical signals that go to the computer (brain)that converts the patterns of photons streams to what we call vision. The miracle of vision where photons reflected off the branches of a tree a half mile away or the photons reflected from a hair on the back of a pet or a microscopic partial can be seen at a millimeter, it tells us that photons are everywhere traveling in every direction, obviously the vast majority get through the atmosphere but we know that some are striking molecules of gas or other surfaces. Some are absorbed,some are reflected , some are converted to Kinetic energy (heat). These are the properties of photons and have nothing to do with the supposed “greenhouse gases”.
16. Below is the abstract and intro of a paper about the increase of UV from the Sun of approximately 50% over the past 400 years . We are aware that skin cancer has been increasing this may have something to do with it. I do not agree with this articles references to “greenhouse gases” but they will learn.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. ???, XXXX, DOI:10.1029/, Reconstruction of solar spectral irradiance since the Maunder minimum, N. A. Krivova1, L. E. A. Vieira1, and S. K. Solanki1.
Abstract
Solar irradiance is the main external driver of the Earth’s climate. Whereas the total solar irradiance is the main source of energy input into the climate system, solar UV irradiance exerts control over chemical and physical processes in the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
The time series of accurate irradiance measurements are, however, relatively short and limit the assessment of the solar contribution to the climate change. Here we reconstruct solar total and spectral irradiance in the range 115–160 000 nm since 1610. The evolution of the solar photospheric magnetic flux, which is a central input to the model, is appraised from the historical record of the sunspot number using a simple, but consistent physical model. The model predicts an increase of 1.25 W/m211 , or about 0.09%, in the 11-yr averaged solar total irradiance since the Maunder minimum. Also, irradiance in individual spectral intervals has generally increased during the last centuries, the magnitude of the trend being higher towards shorter wavelengths. In particular, the 11-yr averaged Ly- irradiance has increased by almost 50%. An exception is the spectral interval between about 1500 and 2500 nm, where irradiance has slightly decreased (by about 0.02%).
Introduction
Various observations suggest that the Earth’s climate has always being changing. Both internal sources and external drivers contribute to this variability. The most recent strong increase of the global surface temperature appears to be rather unusual, however [Solomon et al., 2007]. Although human activity has being widely recognized to be a major contributor, the relative roles of different drivers are still not well understood and need more accurate evaluations.
The solar radiative output is the main external driver of the Earth’s coupled atmospheric and oceanic system [Hansen, 2000; Haigh, 2001, 2007]. A prime solar quantity for the Earth’s climate is solar irradiance, which is the total solar energy flux at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere.
With the advent of coupled chemistry and general circulation models (GCM), the variability of solar spectral irradiance (SSI) is increasingly coming into the focus of attention of climate research due to its importance for the chemistry and dynamics of the Earth’s atmosphere [Haigh,1994, 2001, 2007; Langematz et al., 2005]. Whereas the total solar irradiance (i.e. the irradiance integrated over the whole spectrum, TSI) changes by about 0.1% between solar activity minimum and maximum [Fr¨ohlich, 2006], the UV emission changes by a few percent at 200–300 nm to up to 100% around the Ly-alpha emission line near 121.6 nm [Floyd et al., 2003; Krivova et al., 2006]. The variability in the IR is comparable to or lower than the TSI variations.
In the range between about 1500 and 2500 nm, i.e. in the vicinity of the atmospheric water vapor absorption bands, the variation over the solar cycle is even reversed with respect to the TSI cycle [Harder et al., 2009; Krivova et al.,47 2010]. Max-Planck-Institut f¨ur Sonnensystemforschung, D-37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany Laboratory for Physics and Chemistry of the Terrestrial Environment/CNRS, Orleans, France School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University, Yongin, Gyeonggi 446-701, Korea Copyright 2010 by the American Geophysical Union.0148-0227/10/$9.00.
Unfortunately, the time series of accurate measurements of solar and geophysical parameters prior to the increase of man-made greenhouse gases are relatively short, which limits the assessment of the Sun’s role in present-day climate change relative to contributions of humanity and to other natural drivers. Reconstructions of these parameters prior to the satellite era are therefore needed in order to obtain further insight into the nature of solar influence on the Earth’s climate on longer time scales.
Recent century-scale reconstructions of the total solar irradiance [Foster, 2004; Lockwood, 2005; Wang et al., 2005; Balmaceda et al., 2007; Krivova et al., 2007; Crouch et al., 2008; Steinhilber et al., 2009] suggest that the magnitude of the secular increase in the total irradiance since the Maunder minimum, which was a period of extremely low solar activity observed prior to 1700 [Eddy, 1976], is comparable to the solar cycle variation. In most earlier reconstructions, the secular trend was not derived consistently but was assumed based on solar-stellar comparisons. Such an approach was later criticized and the derived values, between XX and 8 W/m268, were found to be significantly overestimated [for a discussion, see Krivova et al., 2007].
Reconstructions of solar UV irradiance since the Maunder minimum have earlier been presented by Fligge and Solanki [2000] and by Lean [2000]. Of these, the first one was based on LTE (Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium) calculations of the solar spectrum, whereas the latter was scaled using UARS/SOLSTICE measurements. The LTE approximation gives inaccurate results below approximately 200 nm and in some spectral lines, whereas the long-term uncertainty of SOLSTICE (indeed, of all instruments that measured solar UV irradiance before SORCE) exceeded the solar cycle variation above approximately 250 nm, thus leading to incorrect estimates of the UV irradiance variability at longer wavelengths [see Lean et al., 2005; Krivova et al., 2006]. Furthermore, both reconstructions assumed a higher value of the secular trend than currently accepted, as discussed in the previous paragraph.
In this paper, we present a new reconstruction of solar total and spectral irradiance back to the Maunder minimum.
It is based on the SATIRE-T (Spectral And Total Irradiance Reconstructions for the Telescope era) model developed by Krivova et al. [2007], which is modified and updated here to take into account the latest observational data and theoretical results. These include: the new model of the evolution. End of intro. The link to the full report is on www.climatedepot.com . Sorry Al Tekhasski just take another tranquilizer or more meds.
Having just read the work of Roy Spencer on cloud effects and listened to Roy Spencer and Lord Monckton at the junk science conference in Cancum, there is a lot to learn.
One thing I have learned is the more I learn the more there is to learn.
“The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.” —Albert Einstein