Deltoid

All journals receive a multitude of crazy, crackpot, duplicitous and fraudulent papers e.g. DEjavuMedline_study. To publish one such paper represents a serious lapse by a journal trying to be a serious player in modern physics. Or is it? The celebrated case of the Elsevier journal "Chaos, Solitons and Fractals" shows how a journal can go bad (see here. So who were the journal editors on this nonsense as they are the ones who failed in this case. And as shown by the Medline story linked above, journals can retract articles that become too embarrassing for them. In the case of CSF, Elsevier acted only after a concerted campaign to have that journal removed from subscription lists by several US universities.

Posted by: bruced | March 20, 2009 6:29 AM

(1) There are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effect, which explains the relevant physical phenomena. The terms “greenhouse effect” and “greenhouse gases” are deliberate misnomers.

Geez, do these people have Asbergers?

It's almost as if they were expecting to find a sheet of glass surrounding the atmosphere and if not then we don't have a 'greenhouse' effect!

What they are really doing is trying to apply science to language.

Posted by: Paul | March 20, 2009 8:44 AM

I respectfully submit that my comments and those of Ray Ladbury and others in this thread on Open Mind may be useful in this discussion:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/03/07/open-thread-11/

Posted by: Barton Paul Levenson | March 20, 2009 9:13 AM

Jacques Benveniste had a paper published in Nature in 1987 that caused that august journal much embarrassment.

There was a rapidly ensuing debunking soon after.

Posted by: Bernard J. | March 20, 2009 9:53 AM

E-mail the IJMPB Editors-in Chief.

Posted by: P. Lewis | March 20, 2009 12:53 PM

Re my #9. Sorry JM, I see you'll already have seen my post there on that! Should have checked back first.

Posted by: P. Lewis | March 20, 2009 1:49 PM

Good question.
Also good reminder the bunkum merchants don't tell anyone where they got the stuff they're reposting.

Have you done any searching for chunks of the frequently posted text, to try to pick out the earliest appearance? I find that often works, though it's utterly tedious.

It's a good reminder that there's usually one bullshit artist, who inspires great many bullshit emulators.

Posted by: Hank Roberts | March 20, 2009 5:38 PM

So what's the source? Who has injected the G&T tripe into the denial machine for another spin? Watts? Icecap? Inhofe?

My guess is Paul Biggs.

While on the subject: I'm starting to think it's useful to classify inactivist 'news' outlets into

1. those that publish original nonsense, e.g. co2science.org;
2. those that regurgitate nonsense from elsewhere, e.g. climatescienceinternational.org; and
3. those that are a mixture of the two, e.g. wattsupwiththat.com.

Posted by: bi -- IJI | March 21, 2009 2:39 AM

Re #15, too recent, the article is only 4 days old and I saw independent instances of deniers bringing up G&T over a week ago. Someone had to set the ball rolling.

Posted by: Fred | March 21, 2009 12:14 PM

Eli, I get "page not found."

Posted by: Barton Paul Levenson | March 22, 2009 6:36 AM

Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales. WTF does he know about physics.

Posted by: Shirley Tipper | March 23, 2009 1:12 PM

Shirley,

As someone with a PhD in physics, I can say that Tim seems to know a lot more about physics than G&T do...or at least a lot more correct physics. (Assuming that their paper is a product of ignorance rather than willful deception...And, you know the line about not attributing to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity, although that is sometimes hard to adhere to when you really think that the people involved could not possibly be as stupid as they appear to be!)

Posted by: Joel Shore | March 23, 2009 8:04 PM

Shirley,

I only have a B.S. in physics and even I can see elementary mistakes G&T made. Trust me, and the real physicists posting here -- their paper is garbage. Not just controversial, although it is that, not just going against the consensus, although it certainly does that, but raving pseudoscience lunacy.

Posted by: Barton Paul Levenson | March 24, 2009 6:27 AM

Sorry for the double post above. I just noticed it. I think Deltoid wasn't responding that day and I hit "Post" twice.

Posted by: Barton Paul Levenson | March 25, 2009 8:29 AM

Have any of the physicists commenting here actually read the G and T paper?

Eli Rabett is threatening to publish a rebuttal. He claims that the G and T paper is absurd. It is worth comparing and contrasting the two.

The main point of the G and T opus is to demolish the conventional back-warming radiation theory of the greenhouse effect. Rabett attempts to substantiate it, as follows: (1) At the surface: S(1-α)/4 + σT14 = σTsur4 (2) At Layer 1: σT24 + σTsur4 = 2 σT14 (3) At Layer 2: σT14 = 2 σT24 Starting with the observed solar flux at the top of the atmosphere, 1364 W/m2, he solves for T2 = 255 K T1 = 303 K Tsur = 335 K

Tsur in this simple model is too high, Rabett asserts, because of the assumption that only radiation governs the atmospheric thermal equilibrium. In reality, the latent and sensible heat fluxes, remove substantial amounts of energy from the surface. In the global, annual mean these terms equate to roughly 100 W/m2 of energy removal from the surface and put in the atmosphere (Trenberth et al., 2009). Taking this into account, the Tsur would be close to the observed 288 K.

It looks plausible. The results seem sensible, and, as G and T say, people think they understand it. It depends on each layer receiving and absorbing radiation from above and below, and re-radiating half up and half down as heat energy, capable of raising temperature.

The idea can be reduced to absurdity by demonstrating that the answer depends on the number of layers into which the atmosphere is divided, which is arbitrary. To simplify the equations, assume that the net incoming radiation is W, and eliminate the constants by calculating the ratio of the top layer temperature, 255 degrees K, to the surface.

First consider an atmosphere of just one of layer, perfectly absorbing and emitting, half up and half back to the surface. If the solar radiation is W, the surface will receive 2W, (W from the sun and W from the atmosphere), and must therefore emit 2W. The atmosphere will receive 2W from the surface, return W, and emit W to space.

The temperature ratio will be the fourth root of 2W/W, or the fourth root of 2, which is 1.19. The surface temperature will be 1.19 multiplied by 255, which is 303 degrees K

Now assume two layers, as in Eli Rabetts paper. The top layer receives 2W, and emits W to space and W back to the first layer. The first layer sends 2W up and down, and so must receive 4W, 3W from the surface and W from the top layer. The surface receives W from the sun, and 2W from the first layer, emitting 3W.

Our temperature ratio is now the fourth root of 3, or 1.315.and the surface temperature increases to 335 degrees K, which is Eli’s result. Three layers increases the ratio to the fourth root of 4, and the temperature to 381 degrees K, not bad for the stroke of a pencil on a diagram. If n is the number of layers into which you divide the atmosphere, the ratio of Tsurface to T1 (the top) is the fourth root of (n+1). It is easy to prove, and is set as a problem in Grant Petty’s book on Atmospheric Radiation, Page 144.

This reduces to absurdity the notion of back-warming radiation, as G and T (and R W Woods with his famous terrestrial greenhouse experiment) point out, without invoking the second law of thermodynamics in any way.

So, fellow physicists, which paper is absurd?

Posted by: Fred Staples | May 3, 2009 5:21 PM

You will get there, Lee, if you take enough steps. The sum to infinity of your series is ½ divided by (1 -1/2) which equals 1.

But that is not the point. The conventional “half up, half down” greenhouse theory of greenhouse warming is absurd because it depends on the number of layers you assume foe the atmosphere, which is arbitrary.

For one layer (Page 110 Elementary Climate Physics, Professor F W Taylor) you will get 303 degrees K, which is not far from the right answer. Or two layers, which Eli Rabbett assumes, the surface temperature becomes 335 degrees K. For three layers, the surface temperature increases to 381 degrees K.

As G and T say, there must be something wrong here. There is. It is the half up, half down greenhouse theory.

Posted by: Fred Staples | May 5, 2009 10:34 AM

Wow, Eli could earn a Source Watch reference if he chose to do this with me!

If THAT isn't enough of an incentive then I don't know what is.

Posted by: Brian Valentine | May 16, 2009 12:08 PM

Lee, if you want AGW to be authentic, why don't you just come right out and say it?

"I don't care what Gerlich and Tscheuschner or any other stupid denier says, I just WANT AGW TO BE REAL."

[oh, no I don't wand AGW to be real I just wanna call Gerlich and Tscheuschner stupid, that's all.]

Posted by: Brian Valentine | May 16, 2009 3:52 PM

Who cares about the distinctions anyway, Staples -

Heat moves any direction Eli wants it to move, so long as the Earth overheats from CO2 in the air.

When you're Eli, you can do anything you want to with the atmosphere.

Posted by: Brian Valentine | May 19, 2009 4:59 PM

Ah, the old Fred Staples "there is no greenhouse effect, an atmosphere of pure N2 would do the trick just as well" argument.

Once again, if the atmosphere was pure N2, the surface of the Earth would be the blackbody temperature of 255K. The atmosphere's temperature would decrease by the standard lapse rate to something really cold. The heat lost by the system would all come from the surface of the earth - the atmosphere itself, since it is transparent to all radiation, will not emit any radiation, and the vacuum of space is perfectly insulating for convection and conduction losses.

With respect to the "many layers are different than one layer argument" that Staples puts out: well, duh, if you stack two greenhouse atmospheres on top of each other, of course, the surface temperature is going to be higher. A better thought experiment would be:

Surface of the earth absorbs 240W/m2 of heat directly from the sun, emits as a blackbody. The total atmosphere is assumed to absorb some percentage of that - let's call it 50 for simplicity. We can calculate the heat of our slab atmosphere, assume equal radiation up and down, and we can get temperatures for both the surface and the atmosphere - in this case, 273 and 230.

Now, if we want to do the Staples experiment, we don't just throw another layer of atmosphere that absorbs another 50% of all radiation on top of the first one. What we want to do is actually divide the first slab into two slabs: and each slab will transmit SQRT(0.5) or 71% of the light (absorb 29%). That way, the two slabs together transmit 50%, or equivalent to the one slab case. Now, if we do the calculation, we do get a slightly different number, depending on exactly how we assume the slabs interact with each other, but the surface is still about 273 or 274 degrees.

Posted by: Marcus | August 5, 2009 4:52 PM

Just to set the record straight here:

Arthur Smith has noted the error that Fred Staples is making here, namely that the division of the atmosphere into a number of blackbody layers is NOT arbitrary. (See comments section here.) In fact, an atmosphere with more such layers represents an atmosphere with more IR absorption. If you used graybody layers and adjusted the absorption (and hence emissivity) of the layers as you adjusted the number of layers in the correct way such that the total optical properties remained unchanged, then you presumably would converge to a well-defined limit as you increased the number of layers. However, that is not what was done in the simple example presented, which looked at layers that were blackbodies and hence where adding more layers made the atmosphere optically-thicker.

The explanation of the atmospheric greenhouse effect that invokes the lapse rate is the better one in the sense that it gets at the fundamental issue controlling the radiative balance between the Sun-Earth-Space system. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the basic qualitative notion of the back-radiation explanation. However, in the real world, some of the back-radiation gets absorbed by the atmosphere before it gets back down to the ground and, of course, there is also convection in the atmosphere along with the evaporation of water and the subsequent re-condensation of the water vapor with release of latent heat. So, the details of the temperature structure in the troposphere end up being determined in large part by these mechanisms. That is why considering the change in the radiation emitted back out into space is the more fundamental quantity...And then one must subsequently deal with the various ways that energy flows in the atmosphere in order to determine how the temperature change gets distributed. (For example, in the tropics, the expectation is that the vertical temperature distribution is basically controlled by the moist adiabat.) But, for a basic understanding of what is going on, the back-radiation picture is fine just as long as you remember the other issues that would enter into things if you wanted to make it more quantitative.

Posted by: Joel Shore | October 28, 2009 11:31 PM

I also have a degree in Physics and see nothing stupid at all in the Gerlich/Tscheuschner paper. Where's the "stupidity" you speak of?

Through almost the entire book.

Very Simple One:

Their model of how AGW is wrong because radiative losses don't work like that shows two layers radiating toward each other and then has maths to show that no temperature change would occur.

Problem:

Their model had reradiation only going one way. This is a mirror, not an absorbing medium, therefore has no application to the atmosphere which is absorbing not a mirrored surface.

Posted by: Mark | October 29, 2009 5:10 AM

You will get there, Lee, if you take enough steps. The sum to infinity of your series is ½ divided by (1 -1/2) which equals 1.

Fred, did you EVER take a maths class beyond 15?

You can never, I repeat NEVER get to infinity.

What ever number you get to, infinity is still just as far away as it was when you started.

THAT is how far away infinity is.

Now, given Fred's posted such an insanely wrong statement, who is more absurd?

Posted by: Mark | October 29, 2009 5:20 AM

I also have a degree in Physics and see nothing stupid at all in the Gerlich/Tscheuschner paper. Where's the "stupidity" you speak of?

Posted by: Johanus Dagius

I would ask, then, as a physicist, how do you reconcile the idea that absorption in a medium and reradiation cannot cause IR to reverse direction and go from hot to cold as G&T state and "prove" in their paper, and the idea in the same paper that the transparent medium of glass redirects IR radiation and causes it to go from hot to cold.

If a paper is internally inconsistent, why did a physicist like yourself not see this as silly?

Posted by: Mark | October 29, 2009 6:53 AM

It now March 2010 and it's post climategate, post the worst winter for years, post artic ice trapping sjips in the Baltic, post UK Met Office getting it wrong, etc. ,etc. Gerlich and Tscheuschner are not looking quite so stupid.

Posted by: Lord Stansted | March 6, 2010 1:02 PM

Yup, worst winter indeed, with the satellite record showing record high temperatures...

I guess Roy Spencer and John Christy will soon be accused of doctoring their data, too.

Posted by: Marco | March 6, 2010 2:04 PM

@suibhne: Why take on a fatally flawed paper published in a fringe journal?

The basic facts are that Gerlich & Tscheuschner have dismissed, without any evidence but with loads of handwaving, well over a hundred years of knowledge on radiative transfer.

Maybe they should spend a bit more time on their actual area of expertise. Who knows, they might actually get some publications (Gerlich currently(!) has a lower publication record than I had 1 year after my PhD).

Posted by: Marco | March 13, 2010 6:58 AM

Marco .......The basic facts are that Gerlich & Tscheuschner have dismissed, without any evidence but with loads of handwaving, well over a hundred years of knowledge on radiative transfer.... G&T are well aware of radiative transfer but think that the radiative effects of a trace gas are pretty marginal. They cite as evidence the experiment carried out by Woods.

Posted by: Suibhne | March 13, 2010 12:46 PM

Marco

Yes and the Wood discussion was carried on by Fred Staples;

http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/thearroganceof_physicists?page=2

G&T further cite Alfre Schack as concluding that radiative losses at room temperatures can be ignored.

Posted by: Suibhne | March 14, 2010 10:06 AM

Suibhne,

To expand on Marco's last post, in case you can't make the connection, which is apparently very likely, the atmosphere (and by extension the whole planet) cannot lose heat energy to space except by radiation. Conduction and convection just won't work in a vacuum.

Posted by: luminous beauty | March 14, 2010 4:20 PM

Suibhne wonders why Gerlich & Tscheuschner have sunk without a trace.

Because the smarter skeptics who feed the denialosphere recognise a lemon when they see it.

Posted by: MikeH | March 15, 2010 6:23 AM

@Suibhne: If you do not get (at least one part) where Gerlich & Tscheuschner go wrong, luminous beauty actually has a quite proper comment: you do not see the connection between the work of Schack and Wood, and how it does not apply to the atmosphere.

That most scientists don't go directly after Gerlich & Tscheuschner is because they don't see the need to react to what most people consider cranks. You will be hard pressed to find any refutations of Oliver Manuels iron sun articles either. Doesn't make them any less wrong.

That Smith and the Rabett are possibly trying to publish something will reignite the debate between them and the few followers G&T have (let's see if Kramm steps back into the fight, after essentially having to admit (without daring to openly admit he admitted) that G&T were wrong). The Rabett has a reasonable following, and so does Arthur Smith, but to claim "every prominent blogger in the 'consensus' camp"...Spencer just put up a note on his website (yep, he's in the 'consensus' camp when it comes to the greenhouse effect), Realclimate has had a short note on their website, Hans von Storch has dismissed it with a simple handwave, getting G&T so pissed they added a footnote in the final publication referring to him, etc etc.

Posted by: Marco | March 15, 2010 12:25 PM

Shorter Suibhne:

Criticism form many sources means the criticism is ill founded.

Posted by: Shorter Suibhne | March 15, 2010 9:48 PM

MikeH No Arthur P Smith and CHRIS HO-STUART are in the process of trying to get a peer reviewed article published. I was in dialogue with Chris (Feb 2010), so obviously it does not refer to these older attempts you indicated. They must have felt that the previous attempts were inadequate. I would tend to agree with them.

Posted by: Suibhne | March 16, 2010 12:38 PM

Marco

I think Eli is actually a chemist but I could be wrong. G&T are fully aware of CO2 radiative physics but think that back radiation from this trace gas in the atmosphere is so small it can be ignored. I did not mean to open up arguments that have been dealt with above; my intention was to update those who are interested in G&Ts new contribution to atmospheric physics.

Posted by: Suibhne | March 16, 2010 3:32 PM

@Suibhne
It may be a response to this paper.

Posted by: MikeH | March 17, 2010 1:53 AM

G&T are fully aware of CO2 radiative physics but think that back radiation from this trace gas in the atmosphere is so small it can be ignored.

That's akin to saying that X&Y are fully aware that pi is transcendental but think that the difference between its actual value and 3 is so small it can be ignored. Only a fool or an ideologue would care what someone so inept thinks.

Posted by: truth machine | March 17, 2010 6:11 AM

In all of science it is quite common for a residual effect to be ignored . For instance in calculating the speed of a dropped ball we often ignore the air resistance.

This is not a case where the effect is ignorable, and to think so is grossly inept.

I think that personal insults demean the perpetrator and further replies are pointless.

Again, there's no reason to care what you think.

Posted by: truth machine | March 17, 2010 7:23 AM

Suibhne
If you want to be a tout for Gerlich you should first read his sourcewatch entry which documents his membership of the now defunct European Science and Environment Forum.

As sourcewatch says

Like other "sound science" front groups, its real mission is to disparage the science upon which environmental safety regulations are based, and it was initially a creation of the tobacco industry, which promoted the idea of "junk science" and overregulation.

Posted by: MikeH | March 17, 2010 7:46 AM

Shorter Suibhne:

If Gerlich weren't a crank it would be wrong to dismiss him as a crank. Therefore the fact that he's a crank doesn't matter.

Posted by: Dave R | March 17, 2010 9:48 AM

I'm afraid that I have misled the readers of this thread. I thought that a peer reviewed article was about to be released. Instead it is a comment.

Suibhne, what do you call a peer reviewed article that is a comment on another's article?

Posted by: jakerman | March 25, 2010 8:55 PM

I'm afraid that I have misled the readers of this thread.

No, your attempts to do so have failed.

Is there no one with a background in thermodynamics that can give G&T a reasonable debate?

Yes, there is. One can have a background in thermodynamics without being prominent as a physicist; duh.

OTOH, G&T are neither prominent in nor have a background in climate science.

Posted by: truth machine | March 25, 2010 9:14 PM

Define prominent. Use google scholar.

Posted by: Eli Rabett | March 25, 2010 10:42 PM

Define prominent.

Best talk to Chris Ho-Stuart; he's the one who made the claim.

Posted by: truth machine | March 25, 2010 11:30 PM

Use google scholar.

Posted by: Eli Rabett | March 26, 2010 12:13 AM

This JB Halpern character has a mother load of publications and citations. He seems to publish a lot about about the interaction of radiation (various specrtra) with various materials/chemicals.

So Suibhne will need to fabricate some other bogus distraction to try and sheild his pet G&T hyp from criticism.

Posted by: jakerman | March 26, 2010 1:28 AM

Shorter Suibhne: I understand the 2nd Law as well as any creationist.

Posted by: Dave R | March 26, 2010 12:45 PM

@Suibhne: What makes you think a physicist understands thermodynamics better than any non-physicist? Neither Gerlich nor Tscheuschner are working with thermodynamics at all. Josh Halpern (just to mention one of the people rebutting the G&T paper) does. I myself (no physicist either) also do. Hell, Lee the neurogeneticist, who likely does not use much thermodynamics in his research, appears to understand it better than G&T.

But to add some more physics to the discussion, how about your understanding of physics in general? You said: "In all of science it is quite common for a residual effect to be ignored. For instance in calculating the speed of a dropped ball we often ignore the air resistance."

"Quite common"? "Often"? That all depends on the magnitude of the error introduced by ignoring the 'residual effects'. Air resistance can be life-savingly important: a parachute does not work when in your backpack, but saves your life when you open it (on time). Aerodynamics are crucial for race cars: those few tenths of a second faster per lap is the difference between winning or coming in last. No way you ignore that!

Analogously, if you forget radiative heat transfer in the earth's atmosphere, you make a mistake that may appear small, but is actually crucial for life as we know it. 14 vs 16 degrees (Celsius) may not matter much as a day-to-day variation, but as a global annual average it is, e.g., the difference between tens of thousands of square kilometers of land being available or being inundated.

Posted by: Marco | March 26, 2010 1:36 PM

From Radiative Heat Transfer, 2nd edition:

L4 EMISSIVE POWER Every medium continuously emits electromagnetic radiation randomly into all directions at a rate depending on the local temperature and on the properties of the material. The radiative heat flux emitted from a surface is called the emissive power, E. We distinguish between /o/a/ and spectral emissive power (i.e., heat flux emitted over the entire spectrum, or at a given frequency per unit frequency interval), so that spectral emissive power, Ey s emitted energy/time/surface area/frequency, total emissive power, E = emitted energy/time/surface area.

Posted by: Lee | March 26, 2010 2:19 PM

Lee @ 98

I presume Suibhne has not heard of scale analysis.

Posted by: Stu | March 26, 2010 2:50 PM

Heat is an exchange of energy between objects in thermal contact, from an object that emits energy to an object that receives that energy in any way other than by doing work.

I'll freely admit that my use of the terminology is not rigorous. Been a long time since I took thermogoddamics.

But I will reiterate that there is nothing in thermodynamics that prohibits the emission of an energy-carrying IR photon from excited molecules in a relatively cool gas, toward a region or surface that is relatively hotter.

And there is nothing in thermodynamics that prohibits the absorption of that photon of IR when it collides with a suitably excitable molecule in that relatively warmer gas or surface - and thereby transfer energy to the warmer gas or surface.

Nice try, though.

Posted by: Lee | March 26, 2010 4:39 PM

Text book definition:

Heat or, thermal energy is the total energy associated with random atomic and molecular motions of a substance. Heat is transferred in three ways. Radiation is the transfer of energy via electromagnetic waves. Radiation does not need an intervening medium to pass heat energy from the emitter to the absorber. When radiation from the Sun is absorbed by the Earth it does work by setting molecules in motion and raising their kinetic energy level. In a solid, the molecules may vibrate more rapidly and collide with one another and transfer heat from warmer to colder portions of the mass by conduction. Though conduction is typically thought of occurring within a solid, it can occur between a solid and a fluid. When air, a fluid, comes in contact with the ground, a solid, heat can be transferred through molecular collisions. In fluids like air and water, heat is transferred by the circulation of molecules via the process of convection. Convection implies a vertical transfer of heat, like that which is occurs in a heated pot of water. As water warms it circulates to the surface. The same is true for air. When air is heated by the earth's surface it too circulates upward. While convection is applied to vertical transfer of heat, advection is a term that is applied to the horizontal transfer of heat by the wind.

Space, being effectively a vacuum, at a near constant temperature of ≈3K, only allows for the radiative transfer of thermal energy and effectively zero conductive or convective transfer away from the Earth in order to achieve thermodynamic equilibrium between Space and the Sun, at a temperature of ≈6000K. Greenhouse gases effectively slow the rate of transfer of radiant energy from a warm planet to cold Space, in effect causing the temperature (energy density) near the Earth's surface to be higher than it would otherwise be.

There is no net movement of heat from a cooler atmosphere to a warmer surface.

Posted by: luminous beauty | March 26, 2010 6:39 PM

It has just occurred to me that perhaps you dudes don't have any Physics text books to consult.

From University Physics by Harris Benson page 382

Modern definition of Heat Heat is energy transferred between two bodies as a consequence of a difference in temperature between them.

University Physics Young and Freedman

Energy transfer that takes place solely because of a temperature difference is called heat flow or heat flow transfer and energy transferred in this way is called heat page 470

Heat always flows from a hot body to a cooler body never the reverse. pg 559

Hope that helps. It really is important to get the basic definitions right or you will get very confused as the discussion progresses

Posted by: Suibhne | March 27, 2010 5:15 AM

Suibhne's quoted definitions make no difference, other than adding confusion and showing Suibhne still doesn't get it. (And it's apparently the same error G&T make.)

It's very simple. A radiated photon still doesn't choose which direction to go depending on what's located in that direction. Hence some energy flows from colder radiating bodies to hotter ones, whilst even more energy flows the reverse direction. Accordingly nett energy flow is from hot to cold, but this does not imply that zero energy flows in the cold body -> hot body direction.

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 27, 2010 6:02 AM

Suibhne

They say seeing is believing. Well, let's see. (If you can't see this in the abstract, then do the experiments.)

Get yourself the following three pieces of equipment: a thermal imager, a heater (IR, 2-bar electrical, whatever), and an object to capture the image of.

Experiment 1. Set up your object to image. At a suitable distance from the object place the heater (off) and place the thermal imager immediately above and in the same plane as the heater.

What do you see in the imager? Why, a thermal image of the object at some ambient temperature, meaning that photons of a particular energy are leaving that object and forming an image "within" the imager.

Experiment 2. Set up as Experiment 1. Turn on the heater to irradiate the object.

What do you see in the imager? Why, a thermal image of the object at some temperature above ambient, meaning that photons of a particular (range in) energy are leaving that object and forming an image "within" the imager.

Now, since the irradiated object's IR output is basically parallel to the heater and imager, why would you think that the thermal energy leaving the irradiated object (which is at a lower temperature than the surface of the heater) and forming an image in the imager is not also impinging on the much hotter heater, i.e. that thermal energy from the lower temperature body is being transferred to a body at a higher temperature?

Are they magical photons that avoid bodies emanating higher energy photons?

Why would you think anything different would be happening if the imager were not present (unless you think that the image is formed by some other magical mechanism)?

Posted by: P. Lewis | March 27, 2010 8:19 AM

"Ye canny deny the Laws of Physics captain" said Engineer Scotty from Star Trek. And of course he is absolutely correct.

A colder body and a hotter body can radiate to one another. The colder body cannot radiate HEAT to the hotter body. The one which is at the higher temperature can radiate HEAT to the one at the lower temperature.

Check this out with the definitions of heat I have given in the post above.

Posted by: Suibhne | March 27, 2010 11:32 AM

Suibhne is insisting on one of the narrow technical definitions of heat, in which heat is defined as the transfer of energy by means that don't do work, between two bodies in thermal contact and not in thermal equilibrium with each other.

In this definition, yes, heat can not move from a warmer to a colder body - because the energy that we see moving from a warmer to a colder body is not 'heat' in this definition. Suibhne is correct that radiation from the atmosphere to the surface is not "Heat" under this definition. It doesn't mean it doesn't happen - it simply means that it doesn't meet this narrow definition. Radiation dos, however, transfer thermal energy from a colder to a warmer region - and most of us, except when we're doing work that requires us to use that narrow technical definition, are perfectly happy to use the technically-incorrect but useful and generally accepted broader definition of heat that includes transfer of thermal energy.

We also tend to get a bit disgusted with people who intentionally parse definitions to try to imply that a physically-observed phenomenon can't happen. That would be you, Suibhne.

Energy does in fact move by radiative transfer from the colder atmosphere to warmer lower layers of the atmosphere or to the warm surface, and it happens whether you insist on the technical thermodynamic definition of 'heat', or let heat refer - as it often does, if a bit sloppily - to the 'radiative transfer of thermal energy.'

Posted by: Lee | March 27, 2010 12:17 PM

Lee

I think we are making some progress although you perhaps don't see it yet. Physicists will use technically correct language. What you believe and perhaps know to be happening will not be communicated to others if inappropriate use of language is used in the description. That produces needless confusion and it stops us moving on to more substantive matters. Some Physics words have quite a different meaning to the everyday use. For instance Heat Power Couple Work Moment Mass Weight. We used to get a laugh when we asked our Physics teacher if it was true "that every couple has its moment" to which the embarrassed teacher would say correctly "Yes".

Posted by: Suibhne | March 27, 2010 1:59 PM

Some Physics words have quite a different meaning to the everyday use.

And that fact does not appear to refute any of the explanations given to you above. So do you acknowledge them to be correct enough, allowing for sloppy use of terms in written English? Failing that, would you care to pick one and restate it in precise terms that you can agree with?

Or are you hoping that a discussion of precision in the written language of physics will let you avoid acknowledging that there is a radiative flow of energy from a cooler to a warmer body, as well as a larger flow in the opposite direction?

Or do you propose some mechanism by which the warmer body somehow avoids absorbing any radiation emitted from the cooler body? If so, please share it - it should open up an entire new field of consequence-adaptive physics ;-)

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 27, 2010 6:39 PM

Suibhne - I am actually rather grateful if our comment obviated the need for those who have better things to do to deal with the G&T nonsense. But I would also note that at least 3 of us appear to have more peer-reviewed physics publications in our past than either Gerlich or Tscheuschner themselves, so your "disappointment" in a lack of "big hitters" is a little ironic.

Since you haven't raised any actually interesting physics issues regarding the paper and subsequent discussion, I'd like to know what your evidence is for something completely different: how do you know you hold a "political position well to the left of most people", and why do you think that has any bearing on science? Have you donated to certain parties or causes? How did you acquire this political position? Do you have a background in science at all? Do you generally believe scientists, or do you general distrust us?

Posted by: Arthur Smith | March 27, 2010 11:16 PM

Chris Ho-Stuart has indicated that he was reluctant to get involved in this "comment" project however he was persuaded by the other five.

That's a lie, or at least intentionally misleading. What he said is

I'm very pleased, but to keep this in perspective, it is in a comparatively minor journal, and the accepted paper is a "comment" on a preceding paper, and the paper we comment on is an oddity which has no real scientific influence, and the content of our paper is easily within what is accessible to an undergraduate studying the relevant aspects of thermodynamics. Originally I had felt it wasn't even worth writing a paper on it, but I was persuaded to join in the project.

..........there is a radiative flow of energy from a cooler to a warmer body, as well as a larger flow in the opposite direction? ......... No I have no problem with this formulation

Good, because it's enough to refute G&T.

Posted by: truth machine, OM | March 28, 2010 12:38 AM

Arthur, how are we going to get anywhere if you won't at least acknowledge the correctness of Suibhe's point that only communists believe in global warming?

I've charted my belief in global warming on the wall by the door frame (right now it's about 5'11") after I joined the Revolutionary Communist People's Worker Youth Struggle Party Vanguard against Racism and Imperialism and War and Oppression (RECOPWYSPVARIW). Back when I was a Steve Forbes campaigner who supported a flat tax and a Social Security rollback, I wasn't sure whether ENSO or cosmic ray-driven cloud formation caused the trivial amount of warming we may or may not have had.

That's why it's important to list exactly how far you'd have been sitting to the left or right of the hall in the French Assembly in 1760.

Posted by: Marion Delgado | March 28, 2010 12:55 AM

Arthur Smith

.....how do you know you hold a "political position well to the left of most people", and why do you think that has any bearing on science?.......

If you check my reply was in response to Marco who brought up the political aspect when he asked if I had looked up "source watch" w.r.t. G&T.

For the record here is my position

People who take a position based on political conviction on what is after all a matter of scientific fact might well look pretty foolish when there is a reality check.

The climate will do what the climate will do.

There have of course been politically inspired frauds in science before;

Lysenko from the left

Sir Cyril Burt from the right

All rational people should support non politically inspired open science.

Posted by: Suibhne | March 28, 2010 5:37 AM

Lee

.........Are you seriously trying to argue that this somewhat informal use somehow disqualifies the authors of the reply to G and T?

I think that the dialog between G&T and H=>Z has long ceased to be informal. I like your sense of humour though!

Posted by: Suibhne | March 28, 2010 5:53 AM

Arthur Smith

......Since you haven't raised any actually interesting physics issues regarding the paper and subsequent discussion, I'd like to know what your evidence is for something completely different......

I haven't read your publication but I am certainly going to. I would certainly hold yourself and Joel Shore to account in your duties as physicists if the paper continues with incorrect and unnecessarily ambiguous phrases. G&T are not responsible for the diagrams and text showing Heat moving from a colder atmosphere to a warmer surface Heat radiation moving from a colder atmosphere to a warmer surface. ......and so on that pepper the literature proposing AGW.

My recent postings here is to update readers with the information of what I thought was going to be a peer group reviewed article is in fact a comment. I think that your paper is very welcome as it will act as a focus for discussion. When the paper is freely available perhaps one of the major forums such as Deltoid, Realclimate or WUWT could do a feature on it. I would suggest for readers to follow your paper completely and join in in an informed way, rather than "but in" with personal insults and irrelevancies, they should have to hand the following, preferably printed out; The original G&T "Falsification" paper The various "refutations" the G&T paper and replies. A good Physics book K&Ts ipcc_fig1-2 Anything you would like to add?

Posted by: Suibhne | March 28, 2010 6:51 AM

Suibhne.

Can you address a straightforward question?

Compare two atmospheres, identical in all respects (insolation, composition of major gases, lapse rates, et cetera) but one atmosphere has present a small additional content of gases that absorb short wavelengths and that re-emit at longer wavelengths in completely random directions, where the other atmosphere doesn't.

What do you predict the temperature profiles through the atmospheres will be, and why?

Posted by: Bernard J. | March 28, 2010 9:30 AM

Suibhne,

You clearly are still replying to posts from me. So let me ask:

Can you address a straightforward question?

Compare two atmospheres, identical in all respects (insolation, composition of major gases, lapse rates, et cetera) but one atmosphere has present a small additional content of gases that absorb short wavelengths and that re-emit at longer wavelengths in completely random directions, where the other atmosphere doesn't.

What do you predict the temperature profiles through the atmospheres will be, and why?

Posted by: Lee | March 28, 2010 1:36 PM

Lee Most discussions around G&T seem to get stuck around accusations and counteractions regarding 2nd law of TD. I blame this principally for the language used by AGW advocates. The language used seems to imply a violation of 2nd law of TD. When discussed with them they say that they never intended that meaning to be taken. I blame for this frustrating muddle the physicists who are friendly to the Climate Science fraternity. They could quite easily have made efforts to make the language underpinning the theories more rigorous. If you think about it it is pretty condescending to think that Climate Science can get by with woolly (pass with a shove) definitions that would not be tolerated in Physics and engineering. For the record I think that the most important part of the G&T presentation lies between pgs 23 to 34. Its pretty annoying that that area is passed over with very little comment. Perhaps the new paper will address this area, I hope so. I don't think that Climate Science stands or falls because of the radiating properties of CO2. Other climate drivers such as solar activity and factors not yet postulated may turn out to be more important. Its a very interesting field of study and with recent satellite probes to distant planets and their moons giving new atmospheres to analyse for comparison. I live in the UK and tonight on BBC2 Professor Bryan Cox is presenting part four of a series on the solar system. Tonight's programme compares the Earth to Mars. My efforts over the last few days have been to try to get us using the same language to avoid confusion. A major debate will hopefully centre around the new paper. Until then make sure you do your homework.

Posted by: Suibhne | March 28, 2010 2:35 PM

Suibhne:

"For the record I think that the most important part of the G&T presentation lies between pgs 23 to 34. Its pretty annoying that that area is passed over with very little comment. Perhaps the new paper will address this area, I hope so."

Are you freaking kidding us, Suibhne? Pages 23-24 are the part where G&T show us that glass greenhouses work by means of blocking convection, and that back-radiation is negligible from the single thin layer of glass that a greenhouse uses. That is all that is shown in those 12 pages - and everyone, I mean EVERYONE, already knows that.

It is a freaking straw man - no one claims that the atmospheric greenhouse effect is modeled by glass greenhouses. No one. Those 12 pages can be - and have been, repeatedly - dealt with in one sentence, pointing out that they are irrelevant to the atmospheric greenhouse effect, which is caused by back-radiation of the longwave radiation absorbed by the optically-dense presence of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and not by blocking convection. The fact that the glass in a greenhouse hasn't enough long-wave absorption and back-radiation capacity to mimic this atmospheric phenomenon, is absolutely utterly irrelevant.

And to be blunt, Suibhne, the fact that you consider those 12 pages to be the most interesting thing in G&T pretty much renders you absolutely, utterly irrelevant as well.

Posted by: Lee | March 28, 2010 3:05 PM

Lee - not sure what you were getting at, but your "gases that absorb short wavelengths and that re-emit at longer wavelengths in completely random directions" is actually impossible - see Kirchoff's law. Greenhouse gases like CO2 are such because they absorb (and emit) at long wavelengths. Also, the main issue that makes radiative heat transfer an important consideration in atmospheric heat flow for the atmosphere is the large distances involved, which suppress the effectiveness of other heat transfer mechanisms - that's why the analogy to a glass greenhouse is poor (but despite the separate mechanisms, not totally invalid) and in fact laboratory-scale demonstrations always run into essentially this issue of the importance of the length-scale and associated temperature differential between absorbing and emitting regions.

For those interested, thanks to my name Google Scholar doesn't make it easy to find my publication list but you can see a not quite complete list and other profile info here: http://www.aipuniphy.org/Profile/PersonDetailPage.aspx?pid=293332

On the question of heat and terminology: heat is not a fundamental physical quantity, it has been a secondary term since Joule killed the "caloric" theory (and replaced it with the first law of thermodyanmics) - the important quantity is the conserved one, energy. Energy is conserved; heat is not. Energy is well-defined at the microscopic quantum scale; heat is not. Energy (partitioned into various separate components) is a well-defined property of a material body; heat is not. The term "heat" is now primarily used to describe energy exchanged between macroscopic systems in local thermodynamic equilibrium. Radiation through a partially transmitting medium like the atmosphere does not meet the conditions of local thermodynamic equilibrium, which leads to a variety of slightly conflicting notions in discussion of radiative energy transfer if the term "heat" is used, although the meaning can always be made clear by replacing the term "heat" with the more fundamental term, "energy". This should confuse nobody, though some people are apparently rather easily confused.

By the way, if this issue of the term "heat" applied to radiative energy transfer was Gerlich and Tscheuschner's complaint, they certainly made it very hard to tell from their paper - I don't see a specific claim of that sort there. They did make a general claim that back-radiation from atmosphere to surface is itself impossible, a demonstrably false statement.

Suibhne - your compassion for British coal miners sounds admirable; do you believe environmentalists had something to do with their loss of jobs? I was in England shortly after the 1974 miner's strike; it seemed to have a rather dramatic effect on the country, and I suspect that effect was what doomed the miners more than anything else (Thatcher bringing things to a head). In any case, some of us are pretty sure that care for the environment should lead to many more local manufacturing and construction jobs in the energy sector as we replace coal with better solutions.

Posted by: Arthur Smith | March 28, 2010 4:50 PM

I haven't read your publication

That says it all.

Posted by: truth machine, OM | March 28, 2010 6:48 PM

In my mind that kind of language demeans the perpetrator

What about continual evasion and misrepresentation; what do those say about the perpetrator?

Take a look at T. Edward Damer's Code of Intellectual Conduct for Effective Discussion. You're in gross violation of a number of the stated principles, especially 8-10 and 12.

Posted by: truth machine, OM | March 28, 2010 7:23 PM

Lee

I see we are still on definitions

A cold object can radiate to a hotter object.

It cannot radiate HEAT.

Heat has the thermodynamic property of the capacity to do Work.

Ask yourself if this applies to the above statement. The radiation going from colder surface to hotter surface cannot do WORK. It is therefore incorrect to say heat travels from cold to hot surface. Likewise the phrase heat radiation is unnecessarily ambiguous as it implies a violation of 2nd Law of TD Look at the definition of HEAT in any physics textbook It would be unfair to speculate on how the new paper deals with the area 23 to 34

I prefer to see the new paper before further comment.

Posted by: Suibhne | March 28, 2010 7:36 PM

Shorter Suibhne - The global warming scam is a massive Thatcherite conspiracy!!

But still no substance.

Posted by: Lee | March 28, 2010 9:03 PM

So now it's gone from being a left-wing scam to deindustrialise the west to a right-wing scam to break the unions.

Posted by: John | March 28, 2010 10:59 PM

Suibhne - sure, it would be a big help if we "all used the traditional Physics definitions" - in particular it's much better to stick to the well-defined quantities such as "entropy" and "energy", rather than the rather more nebulous "heat" (see my earlier comment on that).

In fact, you yourself seem very confused about what heat is. You claim:

"A cold object can radiate to a hotter object. It cannot radiate HEAT."

But what it does radiate is energy (a flux of photons), and that radiative energy transfer is a component of a heat exchange process with the hotter body, as has been repeatedly explained in this thread. In particular, IF a cold object radiates energy to a hotter object, then the hotter object radiates even more energy to the colder object; the heat transfer involved is determined by the difference between the two quantities of energy, and computationally and physically use of the term "heat" to refer separately to the radiated energy on each side of the process leads only to misunderstanding if a person happens to forget that (by Kirchoff's law) it must always be a two-sided process.

Heat has the thermodynamic property of the capacity to do Work.

Actually you have this backwards. Heat is the component of energy use that is "wasted", thermalized, incapable of doing further work. But if you have a system that can provide heat energy at a relatively high temperature (low entropy), you can extract some work from it through a heat engine that has the effect of splitting a quantity of high temperature heat energy into zero-entropy energy ("work", mechanical, electrical or potential forms that don't involve thermalization) and low-temperature waste heat. But in general, creation of heat is the least useful thing you could possibly do with a quantity of energy.

Ask yourself if this applies to the above statement. The radiation going from colder surface to hotter surface cannot do WORK.

That depends on your system definitions - the energy in radiative flux from a cold surface can certainly do work if intercepted with an appropriate measuring device. Otherwise we'd never be able to measure the cosmic microwave radiation background, for instance. It is real measurable energy, not some fantasy.

It is therefore incorrect to say heat travels from cold to hot surface. Likewise the phrase heat radiation is unnecessarily ambiguous as it implies a violation of 2nd Law of TD "

All modern expressions of the 2nd law of thermodynamics use the term entropy, not heat, since that provides a far more precise and fundamental exposition of the law. That said, do you actually have proof that anybody describing the greenhouse effect has said that "heat travels from cold to hot surface" without expressing clearly the net heat flow in some fashion? There is no violation of physical law in using nebulous terms such as "heat" loosely; if it really confuses people perhaps you can provide evidence of somebody besides yourself and G&T who have found it an issue?

Posted by: Arthur Smith | March 29, 2010 10:12 AM

Arthur Smith

...Heat has the thermodynamic property of the capacity to do Work....... Actually you have this backwards. Heat is the component of energy use that is "wasted", thermalized, incapable of doing further work.

No Arthur I think I'm quite correct

From University Physics Harris Benson page 419 A HEAT ENGINE is a device that converts heat into mechanical work. The engine absorbs Heat Qh from the hot reservoir some of this is used to do Work (W) the remaining Heat Qc is discharged to the cold reservoir.

W = Qh - Qc

Bensons book is quite modern and any other similar Physics book would say the exactly the same.

....That depends on your system definitions - the energy in radiative flux from a cold surface can certainly do work if intercepted with an appropriate measuring device...

Remember that the measuring device would obstruct the heat radiation from Th, and probably the device contains a battery. You are getting very close to repeating Pictet's Experiment.

.....All modern expressions of the 2nd law of thermodynamics use the term entropy, not heat.....

Somebody should tell the authors of University level textbooks.

.....net heat flow....

You have introduced a redundant word here. There is no net heat flow only heat flow. I think William of Occam would not be pleased.

I think that I have stayed within the Framework of Physics and you have gone for a little wander outside it. As far as can see there has been no new fundamental physics in this area for the last 80 years. Einstein and Feynman walked this path and did not feel the need to be creative with the definitions. I will invoke the recently discovered zeroth Law of Physics "if its not broke don't fix it".

Posted by: Suibhne | March 29, 2010 11:39 AM

Back to Suibhne @111, just to reiterate how completely he gets this bollixed.

"A colder body and a hotter body can radiate to one another. The colder body cannot radiate HEAT to the hotter body. The one which is at the higher temperature can radiate HEAT to the one at the lower temperature. "

Suibhne, neither of them is radiating 'heat' to each other. They are radiating energy to each other, and the net transfer of energy is heat.

BOTH the hotter and the colder body are radiating ENERGY to each other. There is MORE energy radiated from the hotter to the colder body than from the colder to the hotter. The net result is a transfer of energy from the hotter to the colder body, and that transfer of energy, if it meets certain requirements, is 'heat.'

See, Suibhne, you keep making exactly the error you accuse other of. You look at that 2-way radiative transfer of energy between a hotter and a colder body, and point out (correctly, in your reference frame) that radiation from the colder to the hotter is not 'heat.' But you then claim that the remaining energy transfer, by radiation from the hotter to the colder, IS heat. Radiation is the mechanism by which heat moves - it is not heat. Heat is the NET transfer of energy from the hotter to the colder, under your definition, and calculating it requires that one consider radiative transfer in BOTH directions.

Your claim here that radiative energy transfer from the hotter to the cooler is 'heat' is ludicrous, even under the definitions that you say are the One Twue Way.

Bernard was right - you're a tosser.

Posted by: Lee | March 29, 2010 12:09 PM

All modern expressions of the 2nd law of thermodynamics use the term entropy, not heat...

I think what Arthur meant to say here is the term (thermal) energy as a substitution for the term heat, not entropy. Heat is not a real physical entity, even less is Cold. Much like the color 'blue', these are subjective sensate perceptions of the human brain.

And, yes, Comrade Sweeney, net energy transfer is an essential concept for understanding modern (statistical) thermodynamics. Nothing 'redundant' about it.

As for William of Ockham, you might not have heard of Einstein's corollary 'Make things as simple as possible, but take care not to make them too simple'.

Posted by: luminous beauty | March 29, 2010 12:50 PM

I think William of Occam would not be pleased.

William of Ockham was concerned with explanatory parsimony, not linguistic quibbling. He would have slashed you to bits with his razor for your "Other climate drivers such as solar activity and factors not yet postulated may turn out to be more important".

Posted by: truth machine, OM | March 29, 2010 1:36 PM

It is not a physical entity, but a conventional artifact of the process of mensuration.

As opposed to " subjective sensate perceptions of the human brain". Sheesh.

I won't bother to debate the rest, which reveals a rather muddled ontology but isn't relevant to the point I was making.

Posted by: truth machine, OM | March 29, 2010 3:38 PM

Oh, it makes something clear, alright.

Posted by: truth machine, OM | March 29, 2010 4:43 PM

Arthur Smith ................. There is no violation of physical law in using nebulous terms such as "heat" loosely; if it really confuses people perhaps you can provide evidence of somebody besides yourself and G&T who have found it an issue?

Some people still believe that the Sun goes round the Earth but that does not mean we should encourage them to do so. Eventually sloppy thinking leads to even more sloppy thinking.

Posted by: Suibhne | March 29, 2010 6:48 PM

Most people understand and accept the Sun centered model of the Solar System, yet continue to speak of 'sunrise' and 'sunset'. Does that mean we should constantly upbraid them for such 'sloppy thinking'?

Posted by: luminous beauty | March 29, 2010 8:38 PM

<popcorn> :-)

Posted by: Lotharsson | March 29, 2010 9:51 PM

Barton... in case nobody else said it, it's very nice to see you back.

Posted by: Bruce Sharp | March 30, 2010 3:42 AM

I realise there are several readers wanting to move on to more "advanced" items. However try to understand it from my perspective. Not being clear on the definitions is as bad as a primary class wanting to try out multiplication without a working knowledge of addition. In my previous post I mentioned sloppy thinking and the dangers thereof. A useful illustration of this is shown in the Kiehl/Trenberth diagram. However all this stuff is going to get a good airing when the H=>Z article is freely available and I prefer to wait till then. In the meantime here is an offer all backwarming enthusiasts will find hard to resist http://www.vermonttiger.com/content/2008/07/nasa-free-energ.html If you order one now from Amazon you can get it before 1/4/2010

Posted by: Suibhe | March 30, 2010 3:55 AM

Arthur, the clarity with which you communicate is compelling. Thank you.

Posted by: jakerman | March 30, 2010 4:30 AM

I still have a lot of popcorn because I think this is going to be a slooooooow movie. Suibhne seems to be one of those directors who makes the audience waaaaaaiiiiiiiitttttttt for something to happen.

Posted by: Lotharsson | April 1, 2010 10:19 PM

There are 3 points that I will cover in this post.

G&T Summary item 2 The are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet.

In the "refutations" of G&T considerable effort has been put into this topic. G&T have also provided an alternative number which in this context is also meaningless. Readers who are firmly in the "consensus" camp may even agree with G&T on this point. In my opinion it is a bit of a side issue and has no real bearing on whether "greenhouse co2" is a real problem or not.

I have been reading Thermal Radiation heat Transfer, by Siegel&Howell(freely down loadable set of files on the NASA , 3 volumes 1968-1971, NASA Ref SP-164. Check http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp. Alternatively you can pay over $100 at Amazon for a bound copy of new edition. In fig I.I of volume 3 they show a graph of the attenuation of solar spectrum by Earths atmosphere. From the graph it is clear that in the region of wavelengths 1=>15 micrometres less than 40% is absorbed, all other parts of spectrum are unaffected.

I think that this graph shows that if we exclude the visible and uv regions there is more than enough energy to account for the measured "downwelling backradiation". Only we cannot call it "back" radiation as it hasn't come "back" from anywhere.

I have also been looking at the Kiehl/Trenberth.IPCC fig 1-2 diagram. I would agree with G&T that diagrams of this kind are very odd. With a mixture of intensity and energy quantities it does look like a bit of a shambles and is more likely to confuse than reveal. However lets try to work with what we've got;

The incoming solar radiation is given as 342W/m2 which is one quarter of 1368W/m2 given the correct geometric scaling is fine.

The next most obvious straight forward figure is the upward surface radiation. It is given as 390 W/m2. Strangely enough this is exactly the calculated value given by Stephan Boltzmann but with emissivity of 1. The Earth as a perfect blackbody radiator! Would a more realistic value not be 195W/m2 based on the often used emissivity of 0.5?

Posted by: Suibhne | April 4, 2010 8:05 AM

Shorter Suibhne:

"I don't understand, so thousand of qualified scientists must be wrong."

Posted by: Lee | April 5, 2010 2:18 PM

Suibhne claims, galloping away from previous concerns:

if we exclude the visible and uv regions there is more than enough energy to account for the measured "downwelling backradiation". Only we cannot call it "back" radiation as it hasn't come "back" from anywhere.

You are very confused. The total time-averaged intensity (defined as radiated energy per unit area) of "back radiation" is GREATER than the total time-averaged intensity of incoming solar radiation. Kiehl-Trenberth has the numbers - 324 W/m^2 is greater than 265 W/m^2 (absorbed incoming solar). The infrared portion of incoming solar (after you have chopped off visible and uv) is a tiny fraction of that. Downwelling spectrum is quite measurable from infrared to UV, and there's a peak in the atmospheric bands. You're really denying physics here.

Posted by: Arthur Smith | April 5, 2010 3:23 PM

Much later than everyone else..

An article on the intrepid duo - On the Miseducation of the Uninformed by Gerlich and Tscheuschner (2009) - at:

http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/04/05/on-the-miseducation-of-the-uninformed-by-gerlich-and-scheuschner-2009

I also emailed International Journal of Modern Physics B to ask if I could publish an article explaining many of the flaws of Gerlich and Tscheuschner, but expect I am outside the first 100 people offering the same.

Posted by: ScienceofDoom | April 6, 2010 3:17 AM

Arthur Smith

.......The total time-averaged intensity (defined as radiated energy per unit area) of "back radiation" is GREATER than the total time-averaged intensity of incoming solar radiation. Kiehl-Trenberth has the numbers - 324 W/m^2 is greater than 265 W/m^2 (absorbed incoming solar). The infrared portion of incoming solar (after you have chopped off visible and uv) is a tiny fraction of that. Downwelling spectrum is quite measurable from infrared to UV, and there's a peak in the atmospheric bands. You're really denying physics here......

My point here is not to accept the KT diagram as a proof of anything. I get the impression that KT have used theoretically calculated values rather than those gained by experiment. I have no doubt that those with a thermopile pointed up will measure something. I will question whether it is backradiation. I am on holiday at the moment and using a friends laptop to give brief replies. When I get hope to my records I will give a more comprehensive reply.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 6, 2010 11:51 AM

Suibhne I'll answer your question in good faith that you'll address the points I raise in comment 184.

Kiehl and Trenberth assume an emissivity of 1 from the surface because the emissivity of most terrestrial surfaces is very close to 1. Water, land and ice have high emissivity near 1: http://www.icess.ucsb.edu/modis/EMIS/html/em.html

Approximating the surface as a blackbody is therefore valid within the error in the measurements in question.

Your suggested emissivity of 0.5 is close to the stated emissivity of the whole Earth, including clouds, which is about 0.64. However, the emissivity from the terrestrial surface obviously doesn't include clouds, hence this lower value of emissivity is not applicable.

Posted by: Stu | April 6, 2010 12:01 PM

Stu Yes you have found the correct graph. Its a pity that the axis have not been labelled. You would need to look up the reference to get actual values. However I have taken the y-axis to have an origin of zero. If this is not the case then it can only weaken the theory of backradiation further. The graph you have supplied contradicts the graph fig I.I of volume 3 Siegel&Howell.

One thing I would say about the S&H graph is it comes from 1970 before anyone had any idea about putting a "spin" on graphs of this kind.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 6, 2010 12:10 PM

Just found a paper detailing fluxes in Antarctica - also suitably dry - will do some reading and get back to you. Might also be able to find one for a desert.

Tell me, how does the graph I provided contradict fig 1.1? You need to back up that kind of assertion. Do you understand that the y-axis is not linear in fig 1.1?

Posted by: Stu | April 6, 2010 12:38 PM

On looking over this thread, I see Suibhne referring to discussions with me in several places. I have used the pseudonym sylas for some years, but my own name is Chris Ho-Stuart; and the particular discussion Suibhne refers to can be seen at my blog on the physicsforums website.

Physicsforums is an excellent website for discussion of almost all things related to physics, but unfortunately they recently closed down the climate discussions. My blog there has an article in which I list four examples for various different fields in which peer review failed to stop a complete rubbish paper appearing in a normally credible journal. G&T was one of the examples, Suibhne declared himself unable to see anything wrong with it. We had a brief discussion as a result, extracts of which have been repeated here by Suibhne.

Accordingly, I have altered the permissions so that the blog can be viewed even if you are not registered at the site, and here is the link for those who would like to see the full context. When peer review fails

As I said at the time:

As I suggested previously, I am not particularly interested in "debating" this whole issue; certainly not here. If that is what you would like, you'll find better places for it than my little PF blog, seriously.

Neither is my interest really about "challenging" the G&T paper, or defending Arthur or other physicists. My interest is basically education, and you can't force that down the throat of people who don't think they need it. So if someone thinks they understand the issues already, then they are not actually my target audience. We both know there are plenty of folks who are confused and looking for help, and don't know who to trust. They see a paper like G&T and wonder if it really does mean the whole greenhouse effect is just wrong. Or else they suspect the paper must be mistaken and would like to know where.

After all, G&T is not refuting global warming or climate change, They are attempting to "refute" the whole physics of the greenhouse effect itself, which was first described around 1863 or so by John Tyndall. See msg #76 of thread "Need Help: Can You Model CO2 as a Greenhouse Gas (Or is This Just Wishful Thinking?)". The physics of how the atmosphere results in a warmer surface temperature is elementary, and G&T's attempt to portray this as a violation of thermodynamics because the atmosphere is cooler than the surface is a failure to grasp first year level physics.

So that is where we stand, and where we must leave it. If you have read the paper and believe you understand it, and think it is correct (or even "best account of the topic"!), then go in peace. I don't see any prospect of my changing your mind. You may read further on the topic, but my guess is that nothing will change for you as a result.

You apparently do not accept that I have a good understanding of the relevant physics. I don't mind, because I don't think you have the remotest comprehension either, so we are even on that score. The point is, given this, our "discussion" on physics will not be productive. Similarly, Arthur has done a first rate job in the thread you list, and needs no defense from me. If you think he's wrong, that's fine. I expect nothing else. And if anyone is reading these comments, then they can read the thread themselves what Arthur actually says. If they can't follow his account then I don't think anything I can add is likely to help them.

Thanks for your comments, really. But I'm not going to debate physics with you here.

The fact is, the G&T paper is complete rubbish, and the only reason one would bother to publish any kind of response is simply because the topic is being followed by people like Suibhne or others who do not have the background in physics to see the problems in G&T. It's certainly not a normal scientific debate between competing scientific ideas. You don't need great expertise to see the problems.

Cheers -- sylas

Posted by: sylas | April 6, 2010 2:20 PM

Sylas @ 194,

the fact that there is back radiation at night should at a stroke falsify both Suibhne's claims and G&T's notion that there is no greenhouse effect as currently understood.

Suibhne, Town et al (2005) find that in the southern polar winter the downward flux of IR due to CO2 is 23W/m2 (on page 10). That would be the ballpark figure for a very cold part of the atmosphere...

Posted by: Stu | April 6, 2010 9:47 PM

Chris Ho-Stuart(sylas)

I will get back to the Physics shortly but in the meantime I'm worried about your ability to READ. You say;

.....Most of the greenhouse effect on Earth arises from water vapour, which is another point on which G&T is simply ignorant. They speak of a "CO2" greenhouse effect; but in reality, of course, water carries most of the greenhouse effect.....

What G&T say

Page 71 on Schack........he emphasised the important role of water vapour...

page 75 .......he absorption of the infra red portion of the incoming radiation by water is non negligible and leads to a drop in temperature......

Page 91 .....water vapour is responsible for most of the absorption of the infra red radiation in the Earths atmosphere........

...and so on..

Chris, these silly mistakes are quite avoidable if you take the time to read the paper properly before you pronounce "rubbish". Any interested reader will perhaps not even bother with any further substantive remarks you wish to make if you don't even appear to have read the paper you criticize so heavily.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 8, 2010 12:59 PM

Stu , ScienceofDoom

Emissivity values

http://www.monarchserver.com/TableofEmissivity.pdf

Here we find that Water 0.67 Snow 0.82=>0.89 Sand 0.76 There are wavelength and temperature dependencies as well.

However the main point I was raising is that the Kiehl/Trenberth.IPCC fig 1-2 diagram seems to be based largely on values calculated from a theory rather than experimentally derived. Hence the use of e = 1 for the planets surface.

It makes the task of any person trying to work through each stage of the complex problem almost impossible if there is no universally accepted values for the constants used.

One worry in all of this is the financial implications behind the debate.

People have personal interests running into billions of pounds riding on the outcome.

It would be a little naive to assume all players are interested in the pure advancement of knowledge.

In actual fact your arguments are more convincing when coming from real experiments. I thought that this would be the approach followed by H => Z in their new comment on G&T, perhaps it will, who knows!

Posted by: Suibhne | April 8, 2010 4:49 PM

sylas

You quote G&T

...Just a Infrared absorption does not imply "backwarming". Rather it may lead to a drop of the temperature of the illuminated surface...... You find this "hilarious "

If say co2 absorbs an IR photon the energy will be found in increased intermolecular rotational or vibrational modes that is KE of molecule.

A common mistake is to assume that the absorption will lead to an electron moving to a higher orbit.

The molecule is in an environment where the mean free path is of the order of 5*10^-8 metres. Put another way it makes 10 to the power 10 collisions per second. It will most likely interact mainly with N2 and O2. Because of the equipartition of energy the KE of the molecules will equalise.

If the CO2 molecule loses some of its KE in an interaction then its temperature will drop. So the G&T scenario is not so far fetched after all!

Posted by: Suibhne | April 9, 2010 4:26 AM

I do not think you will be able to back that up electron jump red herring as a common mistake, of anyone.

The real situation is quite straightforward. It is as you say. CO2 and H2O absorb thermal radiation, and then this is quickly transferred as kinetic energy to other molecules of the atmosphere. The mode of absorption is vibrations of the molecules, not electron jumps. The net result is that the atmosphere heats up as radiation is absorbed.

So, you have the energy asorbed resulting in the whole atmosphere increasing in temperature. Also, if the gases absorb, they also emit. This is Kirchoff's law. Greenhouse gases at a given temperature will radiate thermal radiation. But the radiation emitted from the atmosphere depends on the temperature of the atmosphere, and it goes up as easily as it goes down. End result; some goes out into space, and some goes back down to the surface again. This is the backradiation.

The backradiation exists. It is directly measured, and it is in exactly those bands that correspond to emission from H2O and CO2.

I had a question for you. Let's try again and see if you can answer it THIS time. What do you think, Suibhne? If you have an atmospheric layer that absorbs heat radiation from the ground, will that that layer also emit heat radiation? If so, will that result in a warmer surface than you would have without that layer?

This is a useful question which will help you understand the physics of the situation much better. And surely thats worth trying.

Posted by: sylas | April 9, 2010 9:23 AM

I'm glad to see that the mutual support shown here by the backradiation enthusiasts to keep their flakey theory alive.

There is absolutely no physical mechanism that supports their belief, so it comes as a welcome relief to find a fellow believer to take help keep the doubt away.

The 99% of the air is made up of gases that don't radiate in IR region, any re-radiation has to be carried out by the remaining 1%.

However as I pointed out in post above its not certain that even the 1% will re radiate the absorbed IR photon. It seems much more likely that the energy will be shared out amongst the other 99% as you have agreed above.

Radiation is not the only means of heat transfer. Consider also the methods of conduction and convection.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 9, 2010 12:06 PM

Try answering this adjusted version then Suibhne:

I had a question for you. Let's try again and see if you can answer it THIS time. What do you think, Suibhne? If you have an atmospheric layer that absorbs electromagnetic radiation from the ground, will that that layer also emit electromagnetic radiation? If so, will that result in a warmer surface than you would have without that layer?

Also, Suibhne says:

The 99% of the air is made up of gases that don't radiate in IR region, any re-radiation has to be carried out by the remaining 1%.

This is a massive howler. Any substance, so long as it is above absolute freezing, emits electromagnetic radiation. The wavelength at which this radiation is at peak intensity is given by Wien's displacement law.

However as I pointed out in post above its not certain that even the 1% will re radiate the absorbed IR photon. It seems much more likely that the energy will be shared out amongst the other 99% as you have agreed above.

Which then radiate in the IR, as per my point above.

Posted by: Stu | April 9, 2010 1:44 PM

Practice, practice, practice

Posted by: Eli Rabett | April 9, 2010 3:17 PM

Suibhne, your intuitions on magnitudes are incorrect, but you almost have recognized the general physical procinple of heat flow in the atmosphere which G&T did not understand. So I'll leave it for the moment.

Stu, you've made a thermodynamic error, and Suibhne was correct on the main idea, though without following through on the implications. It's worth looking at this more carefully. Here's the exchange:

Also, Suibhne says:

The 99% of the air is made up of gases that don't radiate in IR region, any re-radiation has to be carried out by the remaining 1%.

This is a massive howler. Any substance, so long as it is above absolute freezing, emits electromagnetic radiation. The wavelength at which this radiation is at peak intensity is given by Wien's displacement law.

However as I pointed out in post above its not certain that even the 1% will re radiate the absorbed IR photon. It seems much more likely that the energy will be shared out amongst the other 99% as you have agreed above.

Which then radiate in the IR, as per my point above.

The first part of Suibhne’s statement is correct. The same gases that absorb IR also emit IR. This is means a greenhouse gas can have a cooling effect, if it is being heated by some other means than thermal IR absorption. Consider, for example, the effect of CO2 in the stratosphere. The upper stratosphere has a negative lapse rate, meaning that temperatures increase with altitude. Clearly then this is not being heated from below. The major source of heating here is absorption of long wave solar radiation, which has bands that can be absorbed by oxygen and ozone.

As radiation is absorbed by certain molecules, they gain energy, and this is also transferred to other molecules, so that the whole gas heats up. But the temperature is still very cold, with peak emissions in the thermal radiation region. So to shed this heat, it radiates in the infrared. Oxygen and Nitrogen don’t radiate at all effectively in the infrared, but CO2 does. So CO2 radiates thermal radiation, effectively cooling the stratosphere.

The thermal radiation coming into the stratosphere is not emitted from the surface, because it is being emitted and absorbed by the atmosphere. So in these bands, what the stratosphere "sees" is the cooler gases of the lower stratosphere and tropopause. There isn’t enough thermal radiation there to give much heat, and the net effect is therefore cooling, shedding the heat obtained by long wave absorption.

Now consider the troposphere. This region has a positive lapse rate; temperatures fall with altitude. The thermal radiation coming up from surface, or from lower regions in the troposphere, is from warmer regions, and so the net effect for thermal absorption in the troposphere is heating. Note that this doesn’t necessarily mean higher temperatures, because the temperature is governed by the lapse rate; convection maintains the lapse rate at near the adiabatic rate regardless of thermal radiation. But there is this important consequence. The thermal radiation from the surface is absorbed into the atmosphere, which is then emitted as well. Note that the absorption AND emissions is all by CO2 and H2O and a few other greenhouse gases, while heat with other molecules is exchanged by conventional kinetic diffusion.

As for magnitudes, it is not actually particularly complicated. The atmosphere, thanks to greenhouse gases, is opaque in certain bands. That radiation gets absorbed. The atmosphere also radiates in those same bands, and the radiation depends on temperature. But the atmosphere is cooler than the surface, so there’s less infrared getting to space than would be lost if the atmosphere wasn’t there. The whole planet thus has a net input of energy, until it heats up sufficiently to radiate all the heat to space.

This is the physics that G&T do not understand.

For getting the full technical details of how this works, you are best to use a text book in atmospheric physics, or else read an excellent summary by Chris Colose: at Greenhouse effect revisited….

Posted by: sylas | April 9, 2010 6:15 PM

...so does energy absorbed by GHGs then get 'shared around' by bumping into other nearby molecules, but only gets radiated away when random motion dumps it (to, uh, use the technical term!) back onto a GHG molecule?

I've been waiting for this question to arise, because as far as I can tell Suibhne seems to assume that once a CO2 molecule that previously absorbed IR imparts (some or all of that) energy to another non-CO2 molecule then ... well, that through some sort of magic that energy has no impact on anything of significance to the climate. It's a cool disappearing trick if you're into sleight of hand ;-)

Posted by: Lotharsson | April 10, 2010 2:25 AM

For Suibhne who said, like many other internet commenters searching for climate understanding and thinking this CO2 stuff is really overplayed:

..Radiation is not the only means of heat transfer. Consider also the methods of conduction and convection..

Check out the post written to explain these basics, you can see measured values in a few typical locations of all of the different heat transfer mechanisms at:

Sensible Heat, Latent Heat and Radiation

Posted by: ScienceofDoom | April 10, 2010 7:46 AM

It could appear as if we agree on most aspects of the physical mechanism of the thermodynamics of the troposphere.

Let us make it explicit.

If Co2 and H2O vapour had the same radiative properties as say N2 then I would contend that;

The temperature profiles that we are used to would stay substantially the same. The troposphere would have a positive lapse rate,temperatures would fall with altitude as before.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 10, 2010 10:38 AM

If Co2 and H2O vapour had the same radiative properties as say N2 then I would contend that...

They don't, and thus your contention is irrelevant.

So, are CO₂ and H₂O able to re-radiate absorbed EM radiation?

Posted by: Bernard J. | April 10, 2010 11:31 AM

Stu

Thanks again for coming up with source

... Town et al give 23 W/m2 downwelling IR at night, in Antarctica, due to CO2 alone.....

I looked through the article and (this is not being critical) it had rather a large margin of error + or - 6w/m2. This is to be expected as the instrument was reading such low figures.

Another source of radiation reaching the instrument would be from scattering. Siegel&Howell tell us that the predominant method at these IR wavelengths would be Rayleigh Scattering(RS) Pg 281,294. The preferred directions are strongly forward or strongly backward, There is a nice polar diagram on page 299.

I think that some useful work could be done down at these low limits teasing out the contributions due to CO2,RS and any other radiative source. If a careful note was taken of humidity then the contribution of H2O vapour could be identified and so on. Pursuing the experimental route I think is your best bet in identifying whether AGW is a real problem or not.

Some people either innocently (or by wilful mischief) draw the wrong conclusion from the following statement.

G&T say no heat travels from cold atmosphere to hotter planet surface.

This some people interpret as G&T saying no radiation travels from cold atmosphere to hotter planet surface.

I certainly do not think that is a reasonable interpretation of G&Ts position.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 10, 2010 12:24 PM

Suibhne says:

G&T say no heat travels from cold atmosphere to hotter planet surface. This some people interpret as G&T saying no radiation travels from cold atmosphere to hotter planet surface. I certainly do not think that is a reasonable interpretation of G&Ts position.

Well, fine. If you want to interpret G&T as talking about heat in a macroscopic "net" sense then great; I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But then, what is all the nonsense in their paper about the greenhouse effect violating the 2nd Law and such? I mean, it is not as if G&T have come along and said, "We think some of the terminology that people use in describing the greenhouse effect is imprecise and they should be more precise about it." (See here for a meteorologist who is rather a stickler on getting the terminology precise and does make this sort of argument: http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadGreenhouse.html )

Rather, they have claimed to have "falsified" the atmospheric greenhouse effect. We aren't quibbling with G&T in regards to their terminology. What we are saying is that their physics is very clearly wrong. What aspects of the terminology or the physical processes led them astray is difficult to determine since their paper is such a mess but that they make wildly incorrect claims on the basis of this confusion is a fact.

Posted by: Joel Shore | April 10, 2010 1:05 PM

Joel Shore

... We aren't quibbling with G&T in regards to their terminology. What we are saying is that their physics is very clearly wrong.......

You could make this a bit clearer by giving examples of their wrong physics.

.....what is all the nonsense in their paper about the greenhouse effect violating the 2nd Law and such?......

G&T cite several variations of "Greenhouse Theory". You may have a particularly sophisticated version that they have not covered. Who knows?

G&T are certainly not responsible for diagrams showing "heat" moving from the colder atmosphere to the warmer surface and similar descriptions such as "heat radiation" both implying a violation of the 2nd Law that pepper the support material for the IPCC.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 10, 2010 2:27 PM

Suibhne: "G&T say no heat travels from cold atmosphere to hotter planet surface."

No,Subhne. The entire premise of G&T (albeit somewhat obscured), is the claim that no heat can transfer from the cold atmosphere to the hotter surface (fair enough) and that therefore back radiation can not cause 'greenhouse' warming, because that would be a violation of the 2nd law - which is where they enter absurdity.

If we restrict ourselves to a strict use of the term 'heat', we can say that increased back radiation due to greenhouse gasses transfers energy for the atmosphere to the surface, and therefore reduces the flow of heat from the surface to the atmosphere - which causes the surface to warm. Nowhere in this is there any hint of a violation of the second law.

Posted by: Lee | April 10, 2010 4:33 PM

Sylas

.......Give just one figure, please, which suggests any kind of violation of the second law........

These statements are not unusual.

G&T give examples pages 38=>43

This is one I looked at about two months ago which had it in both "basic" and "advanced" explanations. http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/climate/greenhouse_effect

When I find some others I will add them to the list if your still interested.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 10, 2010 6:56 PM

Suibhne just pointed us to pages 38-43 of G&T. In section 3.3.4, on page 39, G&T say regarding absorption and back radiation, leading to warming of the lower atmosphere and cooling of the upper atmosphere:

"Disproof: This would be a Perpetuum Mobile of the Second Kind. "

It seems to me that this is precisely the statement that Suibhne keeps claiming G&Td dont make.

Further, Suibhne cited those pages in response to a challenge to "Give just one figure, please, which suggests any kind of violation of the second law." That section of G&T cites NO figures - it consists entirely of short quote-mened paragraphs, which G&T dispute largely on semantic criteria - exactly what Suibhne keeps doing here.

Posted by: Lee | April 10, 2010 8:35 PM

Joel Shore

The link I gave was given as part of the dialog between Terry Oldberg and Arthur P Smith-The Arrogance of Physicists.

I looked up both basic and advanced explanations and they both had "heat radiation" moving from cold to hotter surfaces.

The fact that they have now apparently "pulled" the diagram is to be welcomed. A careless use of terminology is in nobodies interest. You say nobody really meant what it implies is pure guesswork. What if they really meant it, who's to judge?

Why not treat people as adults who say just exactly what they mean.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 11, 2010 2:57 PM

Suibhne, you keep switching between criticisms of "careless use of terminology" and claims that AGW violates laws of physics - as if one provides evidence for the other. This is exactly what G&T do, in that section you cited so approvingly just above.

So, drop the semantic bullcrap, and tell us precisely where AGW theory violates any laws of physics.

Posted by: Lee | April 11, 2010 4:09 PM

Woops: @ 237, That should have read:

@ Suibhne, 235:

"This means that the value for e is now 1.015

I don't think that this is physically possible.

What do you think?"

I think that you've just demonstrated that the actual average surface temp is somewhat greater than 15C, is what I think. Why would you think any different?

Posted by: Lee | April 11, 2010 4:14 PM

Why not treat people as adults who say just exactly what they mean.

It is not adult behavior; rather, it is extremely childish behavior to interpret what people say in the least charitable possible way. Some people seem to have made almost a second career out of this, basically trying as hard as they possibly can to misinterpret what people mean; certainly, that is how Gerhard Kramm behaved in reading Arthur Smith's ArXiv paper discussing G&T and the meaningfulness of the 33 K estimate of the greenhouse effect. It is in fact a sign that of extreme scientific immaturity and mental rigidity to do this; and, frankly, a sign of people so desperate to cling to their ideological beliefs that they will stop at nothing to do so.

When I read a scientific paper and I am confused on the interpretation of something that the author says, I try to figure out what interpretation would make the most sense; I don't rigidly adopt one interpretation and then declare the author's work nonsense if it doesn't make sense under this interpretation. (And, I must say that reading G&T required me to do this a lot...except that it was often impossible to come up with any interpretations under which the authors' notions made any sense whatsoever. We were just left to argue about which misunderstanding most likely led G&T to their ridiculous conclusions. To this day, I don't think those of us who co-authored the comment on G&T can agree on whether G&T thought the greenhouse effect violated the Second Law because they didn't understand the distinction between net energy flows and any energy flows, or rather whether they thought it was violated because they just assumed that the net flow must be from atmosphere to the earth in order to cause the earth to be warmer than otherwise...Or, even whether they knew damn well that there was no Second Law violation but were just actively trying to deceive others. We will probably never know.)

And, by the way, this notion that there is only one accepted way to talk about heat transfer is questionable anyway (as Arthur has pointed out above). ScienceofDoom (http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/04/05/on-the-miseducation-of-the-uninformed-by-gerlich-and-scheuschner-2009/ ) shows a page from Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, 6th edition (2007) by Incropera & Dewitt in which they use the term "net heat transfer rate", something that we are now being told by some is some sort of horrible sin of redundancy.

Posted by: Joel Shore | April 11, 2010 10:48 PM

in which they use the term "net heat transfer rate", something that we are now being told by some is some sort of horrible sin of redundancy.

Here is language from G&T themselves:

The relevant quantity is the “net heat flow”, which, of course, is the sum of the upward and the downward heat flow within a fixed system, here the atmospheric system.

but don't expect Suibhne to be consistent in his approach.

Posted by: truth machine, OM | April 11, 2010 11:42 PM

Ah, didn't see this before my previous comment:

...which, of course, is the sum of the upward and the downward heat flow...

Given that this appears precisely the sin of terminology that Suibhne is fixated upon as evidence of ... something or other, I consider this conclusive evidence against my earlier wondering.

Posted by: Lotharsson | April 12, 2010 12:10 AM

Not having the book this would only make sense to me if an object was being heated by two or more heat sources.

........shows a page from Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, 6th edition (2007) by Incropera & Dewitt in which they use the term "net heat transfer rate", .....

On the other hand in nearly 400 pages of volume 3 Siegel&Howell. I did not detect any confusion about terminology.

It is my biggest fear that the current loose, pass with a shove, you know what I mean type language that passes for scientific communications from people such as H=>Z starts slipping into textbooks.

Then 200 years of careful accuracy with language will be undone and babel will reign.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 12, 2010 4:06 AM

Suibhne ... try page 78 of G&T

The relevant quantity is the "net heat flow", which, of course, is the sum of the upward and the downward heat flow within a fixed system, here the atmospheric system.

Given your supercilious comment directed at Arthur Smith at 153

You have introduced a redundant word here. There is no net heat flow only heat flow. I think William of Occam would not be pleased.

perhaps an apology is in order.

Suibhne ... you have proven to be a major disappointment. You joined this thread with great fanfare suggesting that no less that Stefan and Boltzmann risen from the grave would be need to deal with G&T's contribution to thermodynamics. It was pointed out to you at the time that climate change deniers Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer both 'prominent' atmospheric physicists who know something about thermodynamics considered G&T to be a crock and had warned their supporters to stay away.

Of course the science bloggers have had a field day with G&T - it has been a perfect excuse to blog on the physics of climate science using as an entre a clearly flawed and error riddled paper.

You on the other hand have played the sleazy politician. You have never answered any question put to you directly. You either answer by changing the subject or by asking a question. After weeks of this thread it is still impossible to work out what it is you believe.

Have some courage. Tell us what you believe. Come on - you know you want to.

Posted by: MikeH | April 12, 2010 6:36 AM

The questions I proposed earlier as basic are as follows:

If you have an atmospheric layer that absorbs heat radiation from the ground, will that that layer also emit heat radiation? If so, will that result in a warmer surface than you would have without that layer?

The answers are clearly YES, and YES. Suibhne has come close to acknowledging this, although his intuitions about magnitudes are completely incorrect.

His criticisms of diagrams are silly, as I pointed out quite some time ago when he brought up all these same misunderstandings at my blog.

Suibhne says, in comment 129

G&T are not responsible for the diagrams and text showing Heat moving from a colder atmosphere to a warmer surface Heat radiation moving from a colder atmosphere to a warmer surface. ......and so on that pepper the literature proposing AGW.

There are no such diagrams, anywhere, which do not show a GREATER flow of thermal radiation in the reverse direction, so that anyone with even a minimal comprehension of thermodynamics should recognize that the effect of thermal radiation is a flow of heat from the surface to the atmosphere. This is explicit in all the references. Decomposing this into a downwards flow and an upwards flow is not an error; it is what we actually measure. It's the data. There is a downwards flux of thermal radiation, and an upwards flux of thermal radiation, and the associated flow of radiant heat (which is the net flux of thermal radiation) is upwards. This holds in EVERY diagram cited, and to say that any of these diagrams involves a violation of the second law is the mark of an out and out crank.

G&T do not have room to escape that judgment. Their paper is completely over the top in its attacks on really elementary thermodynamics. This is the most up to date set of estimates published in 2009:

The basic reference on Earth's energy budget is the paper by Kiehl and Trenberth (1997) which was updated in 2009. The references are:
* Trenberth, K.E., Fasullo, J.T., and Kiehl, J. (2009) Earth’s Global Energy Budget, in Bulletin of the Amer. Meteor. Soc., Vol 90, pp 311-323. (open access link)
* Kiehl, J. T., and K. E. Trenberth, 1997: Earth’s annual global mean energy budget. Bulletin of the Amer. Meteor. Soc., Vol 78, pp 197–208.

The global mean upwards radiation is estimated as 390 W/m^2 in 1997, and 396 W/m^2 in 2009. Suibhne wondered about these numbers -- apparently without reading the paper.

The explanation is given on page 315, at some length. Basically, the 390 W/m^w was estimated in 1997 using unit emissivity. It was identified as approximate in the paper. The section of the 1997 reference describing the numbers states (p 206)

The values put forward in Fig. 7 are reasonable but clearly not exact. The purpose of this paper is not so much to present definitive values, but to discuss how they were obtained and give some sense of the uncertainties and issues in determining the numbers.

Figure 7 is the same as appears in the UCAR page, but labeled there as "Global heat flows" rather than "Global energy flows", as it appears in the original paper.

The increased value in 2009 is because they use a more thorough calculation, considering that some parts of the globe are a bit cooler and some parts a bit warmer. This results in a higher radiation value over all, by Holder's inequality, and also considering that emissivity is slightly less than unity. Suibhne suggested emissivity of 0.67 or so is much much too low; all that matters here is emissivity in the thermal IR band, which is very close to 1. The paper cites a NASA technical report for emissivity with satellite sensors:
* Wilber, A. C., D. P. Kratz, and S. K. Gupta, 1999: Surface emissivity maps for use in satellite retrievals of longwave radiation. NASA Tech. Publication NASA/ TP-1999-209362, 35 pp.

This uses a broadband water emissivity of 0.9907.

You should also check table 1b of the 2009 reference, as it gives a number of other estimates from the literature, for the upwards thermal radiation flux from the surface, ranging from 394.8 to 395.9 W/m^2.

Cheers -- sylas

Posted by: sylas | April 12, 2010 8:49 AM

MikeH

If you go back to the start of this present series of comments you will find a number of us were awaiting for the publication of the H=>Z article due on 30th March.

This now appears to be postponed.

I think it is pretty pointless trying to guess exactly what will be said.

I would be most surprised if it turns out that they agree wholeheartedly with G&T.

It might show them some courtesy to wait till we see it in print before detailed comment.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 12, 2010 9:08 AM

sylas

Remember these comments

...... you have an atmospheric layer that absorbs heat radiation from the ground, will that that layer also emit heat radiation?......

You then went on later to challenge me to prove that anyone would say such a stupid thing.

.....Most of the greenhouse effect on Earth arises from water vapour, which is another point on which G&T is simply ignorant. They speak of a "CO2" greenhouse effect; but in reality, of course, water carries most of the greenhouse effect.....

After I had produced several quotations from G&T showing exactly the opposite of what you claim your retraction was very grudging.

...and so on.

You may jump up and down on your little feet shouting "G&T are rubbish at Physics" as many times as you like it changes nothing.

You must prove your point.

You have shown very little understanding of Physics so you will find it impossible to do.

I have a good mind to ask you to do some simple physics problems problem with a time limit to find out how much physics you actually know.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 12, 2010 10:46 AM

Sibhne @ 206: "206

I'm glad to see that the mutual support shown here by the backradiation enthusiasts to keep their flakey theory alive.

There is absolutely no physical mechanism that supports their belief, so it comes as a welcome relief to find a fellow believer to take help keep the doubt away.

The 99% of the air is made up of gases that don't radiate in IR region, any re-radiation has to be carried out by the remaining 1%.

However as I pointed out in post above its not certain that even the 1% will re radiate the absorbed IR photon. It seems much more likely that the energy will be shared out amongst the other 99% as you have agreed above.

Radiation is not the only means of heat transfer. Consider also the methods of conduction and convection.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 9, 2010 12:06 PM

2 questions Suibhne - well, three - for starters:

When energy gets moved to some local region of the atmosphere, by radiation, by convection or (negligibly) by conduction, what happens to it?

Second, we all agree that the heat is from the surface, to and through the atmosphere, and then to space. In what way does 'back radiation' violate that picture? And, how precisely do convection and conduction transfer energy from the planet to space?

Yes, that last question is intentionally snarky. "

Posted by: Lee | April 12, 2010 11:37 AM

Arthur, in comment #255

The actual situation on Mars is somewhat in this state - its atmosphere is of course not completely transparent to radiation, and absorbs some from the sun and some from the surface. But it is weak enough that the tropopause on Mars actually touches the surface at night, so temperatures rise from the surface, instead of falling.

That sounds wrong to me, Arthur. The Martian atmosphere is not isothermal. I can believe a deep inversion at night as the surface cools, but that's as far as I can go. In general the Martian atmosphere does have a troposphere, and a stratosphere, and a tropopause and a lapse rate which is about half what we have on Earth. There's an introductory NASA page on the Martian atmosphere here: Mars Atmosphere Model.

The Martian atmosphere is mostly very thin, and nearly all CO2. It is too thin to have much effect on surface temperatures, which are consequently only a slightly above the effective radiating temperature. The atmosphere is heated mainly from the surface, but there is also some solar heating, (I think mainly by tiny traces of oxygen/ozone, so that the tropopause is above the skin temperature, but it is still cooler than the surface in the daytime at least. At night the surface temperature falls rapidly, but the atmosphere cools more slowly, and so an inversion makes sense.

Do you have a reference?

Cheers -- sylas

Posted by: sylas | April 12, 2010 1:28 PM

It would be helpful if you could give a page number for your quotation.

I thought you had read the paper, and thus had a copy, and were capable of searching it.

I think that G&T have here slipped into the same error as Arthur P Smith.

Did you read the context? It's not a "slip" -- like you, they employ a quibble about terminology as if it were a refutation of climate science.

Or should I say "half truth machine"

What was that "personal insults demean the perpetrator", you pathetic hypocrite.

You described me as an Ideologue for the use of the term "flakey theory" Yet comments like Nazi, Denier,tosser and so on are all fine if directed at a sceptic.

Tu quoque. Not only is it a fallacy, it is an admission of guilt.

To show how even handed I am

BWAHAHAHA! You have well demonstrated that you are a dishonest ideologue, a troll, and generally a bad person.

Posted by: truth machine, OM | April 12, 2010 3:18 PM

Sylas - Hmm, it was one of those things I read some time ago but I don't have a reference that I can find now. Perhaps I was wrong - of course Mars isn't exactly an example of a non-radiating atmosphere either (such a thing couldn't exist in practice) and no planet would ever be perfectly isothermal, so there will be some temperature gradients involved, the question is magnitude.

The average lapse rate in the martian troposphere is noticeably less than the adiabatic one - around 2 K/km vs the 4.5 K/km you would expect, and there's no "moist" adiabat issue to explain that. So the troposphere on Mars is sort of half-way between adiabatic and isothermal.

Posted by: Arthur Smith | April 12, 2010 3:50 PM

Posted by: truth machine, OM | April 12, 2010 5:49 PM

I asked:

...... you have an atmospheric layer that absorbs heat radiation from the ground, will that that layer also emit heat radiation?......

Suibhne answers now unambiguously:

The answer to this question is no and if you had read carefully some of earlier posts you would not have had to ask the question.

I asked this question precisely because you did appear to be suggesting that you might answer "no". That is exactly why I honed in on this as a useful question. It allows us to single out a clear point of difference and this is an excellent way to make progress -- IF you are willing to admit to making a mistake.

The only correct answer to this question is "yes". A gas that absorbs a certain wavelength of radiation will also emit that same wavelength. If it cannot absorb a certain wavelength, then it cannot emit that wavelength. Put more precisely, absorptivity is equal to emissivity -- for ANY substance, gases included.

I do not know if Benson's book includes Kirchoff's radiation law, but it is fundamental, and indeed it can be derived as a consequence of the second law. G&T discuss the radiation law, and apply it incorrectly.

Suibhne says:

Any form of expression (be it a diagram or sentence) that suggests "heat" or "heat radiation" moves from a colder to a hotter surface implies a violation of the second law.

That's simply not true. The phrase "heat radiation" refers to the radiation emitted from a body by virtue of its temperature. It is also called "thermal radiation", which is my own preferred term; but "heat radiation" is a perfectly normal way to refer to the radiation emitted from a radiator by virtue of its temperature. Lee got in first with some citations. It is sometimes also called IR (infrared radiation) though this is only strictly true for objects at around room temperature. Hotter objects emit shorter wavelengths.

What the second law requires is that if you have any two bodies, at different temperatures, then thermal radiation exchanged between them gives a net transfer of energy from the warmer body to the cooler one.

In any case, in Keihl and Trenberth's energy budget papers there's no terminology problem. They refer to energy flows. There are basically three ways in which energy is exchanged between the surface and the atmosphere; latent heat, convection, and radiation. EACH of these energy flows results in heat being transferred from the surface to the atmosphere, consistent with the second law.

The diagram (1997 version, used also on the UCAR page) shows a radiant energy flow up from surface of 390 W/m^2, and a radiant energy flow down from the atmosphere of 324 W/m^2. This results in a heat flow of 66 W/m^2 upwards, which is consistent with the second law. Furthmore, this radiation is directly measured, night and day. There is no violation of the second law in decomposing the energy transfers into upwards and downwards fluxes. Both exist, both are measurable, and neither them is called the properly called the "heat" flow by itself. Rather, they represent the heat radiation. The flow of heat is the difference between energy loss by emission of radiation and energy gain by absorption of radiation.

The implication of the second law is not that any one flow of heat radiation isn't there; but rather that the actual heat flow resulting from this radiation results in the COLDER object gaining energy from the HOTTER one.

None of the diagrams you have cited labels a single flux of radiation as a "heat" flow. Not even the UCAR page. The UCAR page labels the whole diagram as "Global Heat Flows", which is correct, because it DOES describe how heat is exchanged. The text with the diagram is as follows:

Now let's look at the outgoing IR radiation. Note that 390 W/m2 of IR energy starts upward from the surface. But wait! We only had 168 W/m2 coming in! Where did all of that extra energy come from? This is where the atmospheric nearly-complete opacity to IR comes into play. Whenever any IR radiation starts upward, nearly 90% of it is trapped by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before it can escape the "black box" and return to space. So the atmosphere is warmed by the 67 W/m2 of incoming sunlight plus most of the IR trying to escape from the surface to space. All of this generates IR radiation emissions from the atmosphere. Some of this IR from the atmosphere does escape to space (the 165 W/m2 arrow flowing upward from the atmosphere plus the 30 W/m2 flowing upward from clouds). Most, however heads back down towards the surface. That's what the 324 W/m2 of "back radiation" is all about. This downward flow is what really pumps up the surface temperature to the point that it can radiate 390 W/m2 of energy upward. The greenhouse gases act as a blanket covering Earth's surface; a lot of energy flows back and forth between the insulating blanket and the "body" of the planet beneath; but relatively little escapes from this efficient insulating cover.

The terminology is all fine, the numbers are all correct, it is a good match with the diagram, and it describes how heat moves from the surface to the atmosphere, all consistent with the second law.

When I found that the Earths surface radiation at 15c gives an e value of 1.015 I could see that the task was going to be daunting. For reasons of time I will not venture any further into the Keihl and Trenberths La La Land for the moment.

I strongly recommend you read the paper again, and particularly read page 315. It explains how to do the calculation. I pointed this out for you already in comment #250. You are not calculating the radiation correctly. The Earth's surface is not all one temperature. Taking temperature variations around the globe into account results in a higher radiation value, even if emissivity is less than 1. This is a consequence of Holder's inequality.

On a more practical level, do you have a firm date for the publication of the H=>Z comment?

At this stage I believe it will be April 20. But until I see the table of contents I won't be completely sure.

I'm not on some kind of ego trip and have no vested interest in the outcome other than a wish to see that the best Physics will win through.

Then you should be fine, seriously. I'm not just trying to browbeat you, but am seriously trying to help, on the assumption that you ARE interested in getting the physics sorted, come what may. In my experience, the best indicator of real aptitude for physics is not that you never make mistakes. It is how quickly you can recognize them. I particular recommend you look again at the question where we have different answers. The question was:

If you have an atmospheric layer that absorbs heat radiation from the ground, will that that layer also emit heat radiation?......

The only correct answer is here is "yes". The emitted radiation goes in every direction, and it can be measured as a flux of longwave from the clear sky, which is called "backradiation". The atmosphere also emits radiation upwards, and that becomes what is measured from space, using microwave sounding satellites. The frequency of radiation from the atmosphere is in those same bands where greenhouse gases are most effectively absorbing radiation.

And where Arthur and I had a difference... (already resolved, I think?) Arthur says:

The average lapse rate in the martian troposphere is noticeably less than the adiabatic one - around 2 K/km vs the 4.5 K/km you would expect, and there's no "moist" adiabat issue to explain that.

This is true also on Earth. Real lapse rates tend to be somewhat less than the adiabatic rate, whether there is a moisture involved or not. Furthermore, condensation of CO2 does help reduce the Martian adiabatic lapse rate a little bit, something like the moist adiabat on Earth; though not as effectively.

Cheers -- sylas

Posted by: sylas | April 12, 2010 6:04 PM

It appears that Suibhne chooses his literary quotes in the same manner as his scientific quotes. i.e. he cherry picks without reading the entire article or in his literary case, song (Comment #249).

He quotes Burns:

The man o' independent mind He looks an' laughs at a' that.

He is thus insinuating that deniers are men of "independent mind" and are scoffing the work of scientists who are not being honest.

This is exactly the opposite of what Burns is in fact saying, which should be obvious to anyone who has actually read the whole piece.

The comment Suibhne quoted actually refers to this person:

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that; Tho' hundreds worship at his word, He's but a coof for a' that:

Was Burns able to see into the future and describe the discount monk?

coof - noun, Chiefly Scot. a silly or stupid person.

Posted by: Ian Forrester | April 12, 2010 7:18 PM

Suibhne says:

To equate a sceptic on this topic to a member of the Klu Klux Clan or a Nazi is a crime against the English Language You should be thoroughly ashamed of such behavior.

Now, you seem to be just making stuff up. I don't see any use of "Klu Klux Klan" or "KKK" in this thread other than yours. As for "Nazi", I used that term in quotes to refer to Alistair Fraser's militance about the correct use of terminology in a playful sense. I meant no harm to Fraser by it and apologize to him if he would talk offense to this; and, furthermore, he is clearly not a sceptic (at least in the context of the greenhouse effect). He is just someone who strongly objects to terminology being used imprecisely. In fact, I pointed you his website as an intelligent contrast to you and G&T because it showed how one could still be very adamant about using terminology correctly and precisely without using this militancy as a jumping off point to making completely wrong conclusions about the physics. Fraser is quite clear that his objections are basically to poor pedagogy in explanation of the greenhouse effect and that he is not arguing that the underlying physics is incorrect.

Rather than just flailing about here, why don't you just admit that G&T and your claims or insinuations about a violation of the Second Law are just utter nonsense?

Posted by: Joel Shore | April 12, 2010 8:10 PM

Well, no

Oops, I think I may have misunderstood Ian Forrester -- I took "The comment Suibhne quoted actually refers to this person" to mean that the independent man and the coof ca'd a lord, are same person, rather than that "a' that" that the independent man laughs at refers to said coof ca'd a lord (which sure does sound like Monckton).

Posted by: truth machine, OM | April 12, 2010 8:18 PM

I wonder what an impartial observer would make of it all.

Well, for starters, they would marvel that Suibhne expended so much energy dissembling in circles trying to avoid the central issue that Lee skewers so effectively.

And they would note Suibhne implying a false accusation that (s)he was called a Nazi on this thread:

Yet comments like Nazi, Denier,tosser and so on are all fine if directed at a sceptic.

Chalk up one more application of Godwin's Law.

And they would note that "denier" appears to describe a philosophical activity rather well.

Posted by: Lotharsson | April 12, 2010 8:20 PM

Previously Suibhne wrote "I think that personal insults demean the perpetrator and further replies are pointless" but all of a sudden he seems to have found some point in replying. The point is obvious: it is the "last refuge", having been utterly refuted on the physics. Near the beginning of this discussion Suibhne wrote

All that seems to happen is consensus advocates hurl abuse. Consensus advocates are now getting a bit reluctant to fully engage G&T on matters such as heat transfer and radiative balance.

But Chris Stuart-Ho has hurled no abuse, instead demonstrating immense patience and charity; it is Suibhne who is "getting a bit reluctant to fully engage" -- not that he has been anywhere near full engagement of the arguments previously. He says "these exchanges form an audit trail that can be followed by say a young student physicist or climate scientist" -- well then, how about getting back to the substance? Suibhne's answer to

you have an atmospheric layer that absorbs heat radiation from the ground, will that that layer also emit heat radiation?

is "no" but, as Chris explained, the only correct answer is "yes", because absorptivity is equal to emissivity. Will Suibhne acknowledge being wrong, or will he continue to create diversions?

And Suibhne claims that

Any form of expression (be it a diagram or sentence) that suggests "heat" or "heat radiation" moves from a colder to a hotter surface implies a violation of the second law

but, as Chris explained, this is mistaken, because "heat radiation" is not a synonym for "heat", it is a synonym for "thermal radiation", which is the radiation emitted from a body by virtue of its temperature. Will Suibhne acknowledge being wrong, or will he continue to create diversions?

Posted by: truth machine, OM | April 13, 2010 12:10 AM

Ian Forrester

There is an old Chinese proverb.

"When you pick up a large stone to throw be careful not to drop it on your toes"

You implied you would like a bit of further textual analysis of Burns.

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,

Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;

Tho' hundreds worship at his word,

He's but a coof for a' that:

For a' that, an' a' that,

His ribband, star, an' a' that:

The man o' independent mind

He looks an' laughs at a' that.

Now who in this context has "hundreds worship at his word"

Certainly not me!

Now sylas seems to fit that description!

Does that necessarily mean he's a "coof"?

You may think so, but I couldn't possibly comment.

I really must bid this thread goodbye for the moment but I will be back when the H=>Z comment is published.

Posted by: Suibhne | April 13, 2010 4:33 AM

Some of Paul Keating's lines come to mind.

Debating with him is like being flogged by a warm lettuce

and

The thing about poor old [Suihbne] is he is all tip and no iceberg

Posted by: MikeH | April 13, 2010 5:48 AM

To be fair I should warn you about truth machine, he is paid by big oil to make the case for AGW seem the option for morons. But how are we to get a proper rational debate? Its up to you to do something about it!

Posted by: Suibhne | April 13, 2010 7:06 PM

If we are continuing discussion, can we all get back to the physics, everyone? There's plenty of substantive questions to address and there is still a prospect for progress.

We've identified a genuine difference of opinion on one fairly straightforward question of physics.

If you have an atmospheric layer that absorbs heat radiation from the ground, will that that layer also emit heat radiation? If so, will that result in a warmer surface than you would have without that layer?

If you prefer "thermal radiation" or "IR radiation", that's fine, or even just "radiation".

There are several good examples that show the atmosphere does indeed emit thermal radiation. It can be directly measured. I've previously cited:

Stern, S.C., and F. Schwartzmann (1954) "An Infrared Detector For Measurement Of The Back Radiation From The Sky". J. Atmos. Sci., 11, 121–129.

I also recommend A First Course In Atmospheric Radiation by Grant W. Petty. Chapter 8 ("Atmospheric Emission") contains a number of more details measurements, showing the spectrum of emissions made in a number of different locations, from ground level and from space.

Note that radiation emitted from a gas will go in all directions. This is how the temperature of the atmosphere is measured by satellites. They measure the emissions of thermal radiation coming from the atmosphere.

Cheers -- sylas

Posted by: sylas | April 14, 2010 4:30 AM

On my comment #285 to Suibhne -

I perhaps should also mention that this is the non-mathematical approach to demonstrating one of the many problems with the comedic paper by Gerlich and Tscheuschner.

They attempt to demonstrate that there is no such thing as a surface temperature via lots of maths - "this approach is just as valid as that approach, therefore, there is no solution" kind of approach.

But, they also say:

While it is incorrect to determine a temperature from a given radiation intensity, one is allowed to compute an effective radiation temperature Te rad from T averages representing a mean radiation emitted from the Earth and to compare it with an assumed Earth’s average temperature Tmean

And there it is.

The work is already done. We have this number. Dependent on the exact approach there is a few W/m^2 variation - but the value is around 396W/m^2.

Therefore, demonstrating the inappropriately-named "greenhouse" effect because the solar radiation absorbed (globally annually averaged) is 240W/m^2.

Of course, if they had stayed with the radiative transfer equations earlier in their paper they wouldn't even need to work through the zero-dimensional model. This is just an appetizer anyway in atmospheric physics - giving the interested student the idea that there is a problem to solve.

For professors of thermodynamics it shouldn't be necessary to work through this zero dimensional model. Just solve the RTE.

Gerlich and Tscheuschner appear to endorse the RTE - but then "skate away" without actually solving it, or demonstrating a problem in the methods that others (like Ramanathan and Coakley) have used in solving it.

Posted by: ScienceofDoom | April 14, 2010 6:37 AM

I do actually think that if Suibhne continues, he should be able to get to the point of recognizing that the atmosphere does emit heat radiation, both upwards into space and downwards back to the surface. I've been round these kinds of discussions before. I don't think progress is inevitable, but it does occur, sometimes, and I am hopeful this will be one of those times.

Cheers -- sylas

Posted by: sylas | April 17, 2010 3:24 AM

I don't think progress is inevitable, but it does occur, sometimes

That's a silly way of saying that it's highly unlikely.

I suspect Suibhne would rather not continue than reach that conclusion. But I have no firm evidence to support that hypothesis.

I think the evidence is more firm than you give it credit for.

Posted by: truth machine | April 19, 2010 9:26 PM

I think the evidence is more firm than you give it credit for.

I'm near certain Suibhne does not want to reach that conclusion. I'm less sure Suibhne would prefer to stop posting than to admit that conclusion - but if I were a betting person, that's where my money would go.

Posted by: Lotharsson | April 20, 2010 8:30 AM

Hmmm, good point - "continue with diversions" are indeed a competitive option with "stop posting". I may have to rethink my betting strategies.

Posted by: Lotharsson | April 20, 2010 9:50 PM

Suibhne showed up at Skeptical Science yesterday, peddling the same 'He used the term heat wrongly like!' argument. Appropriately smacked down in subsequent comments of course.

I take it this might mean Suibhne will wander back over here to answer the ample criticism waiting in this thread. Maybe? No?

Posted by: Stu | April 21, 2010 11:02 PM

The published rebuttal to G&T has now appeared, behind a paywall unfortunately, along with a reply. I am linking to the abstracts, which are available at the IJMP(B) site.

Comment On "Falsification Of The Atmospheric Co2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics, by Joshua B. Halpern, Christopher M. Colose, Chris Ho-Stuart, Joel D. Shore, Arthur P. Smith And Jörg Zimmermann, in IJMP(B), Vol 24, Iss 10, Apr 20, 2010, pp 1309-1332, doi:10.1142/S021797921005555X

Reply To "Comment On 'Falsification Of The Atmospheric Co2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics' By Joshua B. Halpern, Christopher M. Colose, Chris Ho-Stuart, Joel D. Shore, Arthur P. Smith, Jörg Zimmermann", by Gerhard Gerlich And Ralf D. Tscheuschner, in IJMP(B), Vol 24, Iss 10, Apr 20, 2010, pp 1333-1359, doi:10.1142/S0217979210055573

My own name is Chris Ho-Stuart; I am a co-author of the rebuttal. I have also provided a thread for this at Climate Physics Forums; see Published comment, and reply, on Gerlich and Tscheuschner 2009. Registration required, but the process is painless. Courtesy is also a requirement of discussion.

Since the rebuttal is behind a paywall, I don't think this is going to make much difference to the thread here just yet.

Posted by: sylas | May 8, 2010 12:48 AM

From GT's published reply:

their comment is scientifically vacuous

Is that a scientific statement or a vacuous one? How did that get passed peer review? Oh that's right it didn't.

Posted by: jakerman | May 8, 2010 1:24 AM

Silas

Welcome developments.

It looks like the debate will carry on, hopefully without misunderstanding the positions of each side. Clarity and focus on the real differences will no doubt resolve themselves into a better understanding of climate science. I am a fan of Hegel Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Your new climate forum sounds just the place for a rational dialog

Posted by: Suibhne | May 8, 2010 4:01 AM

sylas

Apologies for calling you Silas again.

By the way your on your middle name Ho. One other of that name was Ho Chi Minh a leader of Vietnamese national liberation struggle and hero to progressive people the world over. Are you perhaps related?

Posted by: Suibhne | May 8, 2010 4:09 AM

No, jakerman, I am not really surprised at the reply, but since all I have seen is the abstract (which is not promising, I grant :-) I'll wait until I can read the full thing.

As for debate... there are different debates that go on. I don't think our rebuttal, or the reply, is going to make a scrap of difference to the world of science. It is, as jackerman observes, mainly going to be for discussion with others looking on and trying to figure out what the science is doing, or trying to say what it should be doing.

It can be a powerful learning experience to try and debate and explain things for a non-professional audience. Engagement with discussions like this can really hone your own understandings. I know I have benefited a lot over the years from writing expository material, both professionally and as an amateur. The new forum will hopefully be a structure within which anyone can try their hand at this, from any perspective. They will (or so is my aim) be shielded from personal attacks but not from rigorous criticism of ideas. I hope it will be fun and productive for anyone who risks joining it! I am still sorting out how it will work so feedback and suggestions are very welcome.

Suibhe, no problem about "silas", and the "Ho" is not the same name as Ho Chi Minh, though both are common Chinese names. Ho Chi Minh is 胡, whereas my "Ho" is 何. You'll need Unicode to view those. I've got no Chinese blood myself, but am associated by marriage. Thanks for the encouragement.

Posted by: sylas | May 8, 2010 4:50 AM

I would put my money on his return at some point, but never with the admission that would allow Sylas's hoped for progress.

I chose wisely.

Posted by: truth machine | May 10, 2010 9:25 PM

Sylas - I read the draft version (found it on the web somewhere), and your 'Comment' is very well written. Thanks for taking the time and effort.

As to some of the responses I've seen posted about on the series of tubes; you can lead a horse to thermodynamics, but you can't make him think...

Posted by: KR | May 18, 2010 5:09 PM

Gerlich and Tscheuschner reply to the comment;

Comment On “Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics”, by Joshua B. Halpern, Christopher M. Colose, Chris Ho-Stuart, Joel D. Shore, Arthur P. Smith and Jörg Zimmermann, pp 1309-1332, doi:10.1142/S021797921005555X

Is now available to freely download

Reply To “Comment On ‘Falsification Of The Atmospheric Co2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics’ By Joshua B. Halpern, Christopher M. Colose, Chris Ho-Stuart, Joel D. Shore

(www.skyfall.fr/wp-content/gerlich-reply-to-halpern.pdf)

Posted by: Suibhne | September 15, 2010 5:48 AM

G&T:

Radiation balance diagrams, however, are really useless.

That will come as a surprise to many physicists.

The correct question is, whether the colder body that radiates less intensively than the warmer body warms up the warmer one. The answer is: It does not.

No, I believe the correct question, as even Roy Spencer can elucidate, is "whether the colder body that radiates less intensively than the warmer body causes the warmer one to end up warmer than it would be in a situation identical except for the absence of the cooler body and its radiation". The question G&T substitute for this question appears disingenuous in the context of climate science.

As already emphasized, Halpern et al. do not choose from the existing versions of the greenhouse effect nor define their own one which they prefer to defend. Thus the comment of Halpern et al. is scientifically worthless.

Apparently if someone writes a scientific paper, and you analyse their argument, it's "scientifically worthless" unless you tout a particular definition or position of your own. But if G&T take some definitions and arguments from climatology, their critique is valid, even though as they admit they do not advance a model and "never will".

Very odd.

That's probably enough of my amateur time on it - the actual physicists and climate scientists will have a much more competent look at it if they so choose...

Posted by: Lotharsson | September 15, 2010 9:14 AM

Lotharsson, thanks.

I read through and thought much the same. Not being competent with the details, I was unsure whether I should be confident with an overall judgement. (* chin in hand gazing thoughtfully at screen, wonders if RC will bother with a response *)

Posted by: adelady | September 15, 2010 9:39 AM

I think we ought to know some facts before we exert too much effort over this utterly appalling article.

First of all, the jounral (International Journal of Modern Physics B) in which it is published has an impact factor of 0.408 in 2009 (down from an already miniscule 0.647 in 2008). This is puny, and places it at or near ther bottom of the pile of journals in related fields. It also explains the apparent lack of rigor in the peer-review process. To show you how low this is, very few journals in one of my fields of research (entomology) has an impact factor less than 1.0. The question we have to ask ourselves is this: if the G & T article is so groundbreaking, why submit it to a very fringe journal? Those defending the article on this thread have not come up with a plausible reason for this.

Second, neither of the authors (Gerlich and Tscheuschner) has published much in the empircal literature, and neither has much in the way of citations. And since the paper was published, it has generated only 2 citations - the rebuttal by Halpern et al. and a reply by Gerlich and Tscheuschner. Nobody else in the scientific community has apparently given the article any attention at all. For the simple reason of its quality (or lack thereof). Of course the denial community will always elevate crapola like this and give the impression that it skewers the link between C02 and warming. But all this does is show how intellectually bankrupt that lot really is.

Posted by: Jeff Harvey | September 15, 2010 10:27 AM