- Planck’s Law and the theory of blackbody radiation does in fact prove my statement “A low frequency/energy photon (eg 15um CO2 photons) cannot transfer any quantum energy to a higher frequency/energy/temperature blackbody because all of those lower frequency/energy microstates & orbitals are already completely filled/saturated in the hotter body. This fact alone from quantum mechanics falsifies CAGW.”As shown on these calculated Planck curves, CO2 (+H2O overlap) absorbs and emits in the LWIR the same as a true blackbody would at an emitting temperature of ~217K over the LWIR band from ~12 or 13um to ~17um
Even though CO2 has emissivity less than a true black body and line emissions centered around 15um, and observations also show CO2 emissivity decreases with temperature unlike a true BB, for purposes of this simple question, we’ll assume (like climate scientists incorrectly do) that CO2 emits and absorbs as a true BB.gammacrux: Can a BB at 217K cause a BB at 255K to warm by 33K to 288K as the Arrhenius theory claims?The lower energy/temperature/frequency microstates of a BB at a given temperature are by definition “saturated” in a perfect blackbody absorber/emitter and that explains why classical physics shown by the dashed lines in fig 4.8 does not happen in nature and instead a Planck curve of emission and absorption is found in nature. If those lower energy/temperature/frequency microstates of a BB were not saturated, then any energy level photons could be thermalized by a blackbody and the frequency vs BB energy intensity curve would go to infinity as shown by the (false) dashed lines in fig 4.8: - Phil: Yes or No: Can a blackbody at 193K warm a warmer blackbody at 255K by 33K to 288K?Phil says: “Since the ‘blackbody at 193K’ is a figment of your imagination there’s no reason to answer it, I would point out that in your pure nitrogen atmosphere the blackbody at 193K would be replacing a background at 4K, that would make quite a difference.”NO not even wrong.Phil claims the blackbody at 193K is a figment of the OLR spectra that both he and I have posted!Phil look very closely: do you see the blackbody Planck curves calculated for blackbodies with emitting temperatures of 220K-320K?Do you see that the CO2+H2O overlap corresponding Planck curve is ~217K (it is higher than 193K for pure CO2 due to presence of water vapor overlap) in the LWIR spectra of any relevance to the AGW debate 12-17um?THAT is the 217K “partial blackbody” I’m asking about. YOU are effectively claiming that radiation from a “partial blackbody” at a peak emitting temperature of ~217K in the 12-17um band can make a true black body e.g. the Earth warm from the 255K equilb temp with Sun by 33K to 288K!Secondly, I’ve already shown you (and so does Feynman’s chapter 40, vol 1, and the US Std Atmosphere, Maxwell, etc) that a pure N2 or pure N2/O2 Boltzmann distribution atmosphere would have almost the same temperature gradient as our current atmosphere:The “ERL” on a planet with pure N2 atmosphere is located at the surface h=0 and is exactly equivalent to the equilibrium temperature with the Sun for that planet, NOT “a blackbody at 193K” as you falsely claim above!
- hockeyschtick August 11, 2015 at 2:10 pm
Phil look very closely: do you see the blackbody Planck curves calculated for blackbodies with emitting temperatures of 220K-320K?
Do you see that the CO2+H2O overlap corresponding Planck curve is ~217K (it is higher than 193K for pure CO2 due to presence of water vapor overlap) in the LWIR spectra of any relevance to the AGW debate 12-17um?No I don’t.
At 667cm-1(15 micron) I see the CO2 emission at about 235K, (no H2O).
At ~660 and 680 cm-1 I see CO2 emission at about 217, (no H2O).
At ~620 and 718 cm-1 I see CO2 emission at about 255.THAT is the 217K “partial blackbody” I’m asking about.Which doesn’t exist.Secondly, I’ve already shown you (and so does Feynman’s chapter 40, vol 1, and the US Std Atmosphere, Maxwell, etc) that a pure N2 or pure N2/O2 Boltzmann distribution atmosphere would have almost the same temperature gradient as our current atmosphere:Yes the same lapse rate, it has nothing to do with actual temperature, just the way it falls off with altitude. - hockeyschtick August 11, 2015 at 2:50 pm
Phil says “So where does the BB emission in the 15 micron band that was emitted by the earth’s surface go to? Conventional science says that it is absorbed by the CO2 in the lower troposphere, i.e. it is ‘removed’, you say that it is not ‘removed’.”
Since when does absorption and re-emission in the 15 micron band equal “removed” energy?Energy transmitted to atmosphere via collision = absorption – re-emission - Phil. says, August 11, 2015 at 9:09 am:“… in a reply above here so have you!
In reality, 85-90% of the IR in those ToA spectras are emitted to space from the atmosphere itself (and not from one particular layer, but cumulatively from all layers, from top to bottom), only the remaining 10-15% from the actual surface. The Earth system emits an average flux of 240 W/m^2 to space, not because the atmosphere happens to absorb 150 W/m^2 of a much larger original flux, but because … that’s the flux it absorbs from the Sun on average. 240 IN, 240 OUT.”Surely you’re joking, Phil.Did you notice how I wrote “not because the atmosphere happens to absorb 150 W/m^2 of a much larger original flux” and NOT “CO2 does not absorb IR from the surface”? You are not this dumb, Phil. So why do you feel the need to pretend you are …?This pattern of playing stupid, “misunderstanding” what I’m actually saying, so as to avoid having to relate directly to it, runs through your entire reply. It’s a common misdirection tactic employed by internet trolls. Are you a troll, Phil.?“This is incorrect, most of the emission is from the surface (…)”Phil., what is this nonsense?“The emission from the surface in the 15 micron CO2 band is absorbed low in the atmosphere removing the ‘chunk’, what emission is seen in that band is from cold CO2 high in the atmosphere.”There is no energy “removed”, Phil. That’s all in your head. Earth’s spectrum as seen from space is an EMISSION spectrum, not an absorption spectrum. It is not the surface spectrum eaten into by the intervening atmosphere. I know you’d prefer to think of it that way, but no. The emissions making up the full spectrum comes to 85-90% from the atmosphere, a mere 10-15% directly from the surface. You assume a LARGE surface flux being absorbed by the atmosphere and a resultant much SMALLER atmospheric flux to space. There is nothing in this spectrum suggesting there is.I explained this all to Bart above. You can’t compare the potential (mathematically calculated) 390 W/m^2 from a 288K BB radiating straight into space with the real OLR radiant heat through the ToA. Then you only end up confusing yourself. They are in no way equivalent entities. This is when you end up thinking that energy is somehow “missing” on the way out. It’s not, Phil. Those 150 W/m^2 of “trapped” energy are imaginary. Made up. The global surface on average releases a total of 145 W/m^2 worth of heat into the atmosphere. For it to absorb and thus warm from. That’s it. That’s the transfer of energy. Anything beyond this is merely part of a mental construct. Moreover, only ~33 of those 145 W/m^2 represent radiant heat. The rest is non-radiative. This is compared to the 220 W/m^2 emitted through the ToA to space (final heat flux from the Earth system), which include also the 75 W/m^2 absorbed by the atmosphere of the incoming solar flux. There’s no energy missing anywhere at dynamic equilibrium/steady state, Phil. That’s sort of the point. All that enters exits. Balance.“the GHE effect on Mars is about 5K.”No. This is nothing but a perpetuated myth. The myth of a Martian “greenhouse effect”. People just keep stating it as a defined Truth, not referring to anything of substance, any real-world evidence of any kind. And you’re naturally all too eager to regurgitate it here once more. Thing is, it’s just assumed and thus claimed to be. But assuming and claiming something to be true doesn’t make it true. The ~5K Martian rGHE is simply an old guesstimate from before any global data was available. Or as your second link describes it: “It is estimated that the Greenhouse effect on Mars warms the atmosphere at the surface by less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit.” Of course it’s “estimated” to be present and working. Because that’s what the rGHE hypothesis itself DEMANDS. The “estimate” in question is based solely on the fundamental premise behind the rGHE hypothesis. There has never been any actual observational data to support it. It’s the common method of circular reasoning of “modern climate science”: There just HAS TO be an rGHE on Mars, simply because there’s so much CO2 in its atmosphere, absorbing outgoing surface IR. It doesn’t have to be big, but there MUST be one. Because there SHOULD be. According to the hypothesis. “Radiative forcing,” after all.So, by simply starting out by stating there is one of, say, 5K, the hypothesis effectively verifies itself. The conclusion is already decided upon. Based on what the original premise requires. And the original premise is thus also neatly confirmed by the conclusion. No need to go out and actually observe anything at all. And we’ve come full circle.This is the reason why I specifically referred you to the “Mars Global Surveyor” (TES) and “Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter” (MCS) projects of NASA. To avoid this circularity. Its hard, though, when you just choose to ignore it, pretend that you didn’t see it. Playing stupid …
http://faculty.washington.edu/joshband/publications/bandfield_mcs_tes.pdfBack in the days before consistent, comprehensive, global, multiyear measurements of the Red Planet were in place, all one had was scattered atmospheric profiles from descending probes, plus in situ measurements from various landers and rovers. Most of these operated preferably during the summer and landed preferably in the tropics and subtropics. Also, the strong inversions at the Martian surface during nighttime and high-latitude winters tend to be ‘forgotten’ when extrapolating the mean tropospheric temperature gradient all the way down to the ground. The diurnal average ((day+night)/2) is actually quite close to isothermal (zero gradient) in the lowermost 2-3 km of the Martian atmosphere:
NASA now seems to have it pretty well established now that the mean global surface temperature of Mars is in fact around 210K (-63C), taking in also the winters and high latitudes.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/allaboutmars/facts/
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/marsfact.html210K is exactly the number you get when you calculate Mars’s effective planetary blackbody temperature in space. So, the rGHE is zero, no raised ERL. You might wish for there to be some rGHE warming. But there isn’t.I understand that it’s more convenient for you, Phil., to refer to outdated (and unsupported) assumptions about what SHOULD be the case, so that you can lean back and just dismiss offhand this quite intriguing circumstance rather than actually dealing with it. I agree with Bart above in his description of you:
“(…) he has latched onto an erroneous conclusion without adequate consideration of alternatives to his POV.” - The ~217K “partial blackbody” and corresponding 220K emitting temperature Planck curve is circled right here Phil, please get some reading glasses:
Secondly, I’ve already shown you (and so does Feynman’s chapter 40, vol 1, and the US Std Atmosphere, Maxwell, etc) that a pure N2 or pure N2/O2 Boltzmann distribution atmosphere would have almost the same temperature gradient as our current atmosphere:Phil says “Yes the same lapse rate, it has nothing to do with actual temperature, just the way it falls off with altitude.”Baloney, it has everything to do with temperature from the surface to edge of space, and the HS greenhouse eqn calculates a perfect replica of the US Standard Atmosphere, Triton, and overlapping portions of T/P curve on Venus without any knowledge of surface temperature in advance. The only radiative forcing in that equation is that from the Sun, no radiative forcing from GHGs.
Since when does absorption and re-emission in the 15 micron band equal “removed” energy?Phil says “Energy transmitted to atmosphere via collision = absorption – re-emission”This is how GHGs preferentially transfer heat to N2/O2 to accelerate convective cooling. Thus, the “removed energy” is sent to the tropopause and then “removed” to space. You continue to fantasize that the CO2+H2O ~217K “partial blackbody” emitting temperature can warm the 255K Earth by 33K to 288K.Lalaland fizzikxs - Kristian August 13, 2015 at 12:17 pm
Phil. says, August 11, 2015 at 9:09 am:
“… in a reply above here so have you!In reality, 85-90% of the IR in those ToA spectras are emitted to space from the atmosphere itself (and not from one particular layer, but cumulatively from all layers, from top to bottom), only the remaining 10-15% from the actual surface. The Earth system emits an average flux of 240 W/m^2 to space, not because the atmosphere happens to absorb 150 W/m^2 of a much larger original flux, but because … that’s the flux it absorbs from the Sun on average. 240 IN, 240 OUT.”Surely you’re joking, Phil.Did you notice how I wrote “not because the atmosphere happens to absorb 150 W/m^2 of a much larger original flux” and NOT “CO2 does not absorb IR from the surface”? You are not this dumb, Phil. So why do you feel the need to pretend you are …?This pattern of playing stupid, “misunderstanding” what I’m actually saying, so as to avoid having to relate directly to it, runs through your entire reply. It’s a common misdirection tactic employed by internet trolls. Are you a troll, Phil.?“This is incorrect, most of the emission is from the surface (…)”Phil., what is this nonsense?“The emission from the surface in the 15 micron CO2 band is absorbed low in the atmosphere removing the ‘chunk’, what emission is seen in that band is from cold CO2 high in the atmosphere.”
There is no energy “removed”, Phil. That’s all in your head. Earth’s spectrum as seen from space is an EMISSION spectrum, not an absorption spectrum. It is not the surface spectrum eaten into by the intervening atmosphere. I know you’d prefer to think of it that way, but no. The emissions making up the full spectrum comes to 85-90% from the atmosphere, a mere 10-15% directly from the surface. You assume a LARGE surface flux being absorbed by the atmosphere and a resultant much SMALLER atmospheric flux to space. There is nothing in this spectrum suggesting there is.No it’s reality. Here’re the spectra from Petty’s book:
Note that looking up in the 800 – 1000 cm-1 range and 1100 – 1200 cm-1 range there is no IR emitted downwards from the atmosphere whereas there is upward emission corresponding to the surface BB radiation. That is consistent with my explanation, not yours.
- Phil. says, August 14, 2015 at 8:55 am:“No it’s reality.”What’s reality? What exactly are you referring to, Phil.? I said: “You assume a LARGE surface flux being absorbed by the atmosphere and a resultant much SMALLER atmospheric flux to space. There is nothing in this spectrum suggesting there is.” Your reply: “No it’s reality. Here’re the spectra from Petty’s book:” Er, again: Both of these spectra are EMISSION spectra. It is the radiation actually reaching the detector of the measuring instrument. This is ALWAYS the radiant HEAT (what you would call the ‘net flux’) moving between source and target. If you cool an IR detector sufficiently, it will detect IR even from a cold sky. That doesn’t mean that this cold sky transfers any radiant energy to Earth’s warm surface. It transfers radiant energy to the much colder detector. That’s how these spectra are produced, Phil. Perhaps you didn’t know.You seemingly want to claim that what we see from space is the emission spectrum of Earth’s actual, solid/liquid surface with bits of it somehow removed by the intervening atmosphere. There is, however, no way that you could’ve interpreted the situation the way you do unless you perceived that incidentally drawn outline of a perfect Planck curve on top of the actual spectrum as somehow the original surface emission flux and the real, measured Earth spectrum only as this original after atmospheric absorption.“Note that looking up in the 800 – 1000 cm-1 range and 1100 – 1200 cm-1 range there is no IR emitted downwards from the atmosphere whereas there is upward emission corresponding to the surface BB radiation. That is consistent with my explanation, not yours.”No, it’s completely consistent with my ‘explanation’.
- Bart writes “The GHE hypothesis says it heats the surface, raising the temperature, and thereby allowing the energy to escape at different frequencies when the distribution shifts.”Well that possibility is an assumption of the AGW theory. The “settled science” part says that the altitude of the atmosphere radiating as the “effective radiation level” (ERL) increases due to the increase in CO2 above and then due to the lapse rate, is radiating from a cooler place and hence radiates less energy. The settled science part says that the temperature of the atmosphere at the ERL must increase to regain equilibrium.There is no “settled science” requirement at ground level for any change in temperature. AGW theory simply extrapolates that heating at the ERL back to the ground through changed lapse rate all the way to the ground where your secondary effect helps to compensate.And it supposedly does so with feedbacks that IMO appear to decrease entropy.
- Phil. says, August 17, 2015 at 7:18 am:“Your hypothesis is that almost all of the outgoing spectrum at the ToA is emission from the atmosphere.”It is not my ‘hypothesis’, Phil. All Earth energy budgets that I’ve seen (starting with the Kiehl-Trenberth ’97 one) say basically the same thing. The only part of our planet’s average total emission to space (240 W/m^2) that originates straight from the surface is that portion escaping through the atmospheric window (~8-13 microns). This makes up ~10-15% of the total spectrum. Note that far from all of Earth’s emission to space even in this 8-13 micron interval comes directly from the surface. Much of it is emitted rather by clouds (covering ~60% of Earth) somewhere aloft in the tropospheric column. The atmospheric window is only a ‘window’ through the gases making up our atmosphere (ozone being one important exception), not through its clouds. This is often forgotten about.“In which case looking up in the 800 – 1000 cm-1 range and 1100 – 1200 cm-1 range should show emission just as when looking down in those same ranges, however as shown it does not (however in the ranges where GHGs absorb/emit downward emission is seen). The reason is that the atmosphere is transparent to those wavelengths and the emissions from the surface go directly to space there.”Er, yes. And I have never claimed otherwise? That’s the atmospheric window that I was speaking of.“In the regions where components of the atmosphere absorb the surface emissions are attenuated and only the emissions from the GHGs high in the atmosphere where it is optically thin (lower than surface values) are able to escape.”Indeed. But the atmosphere absorbs most of the energy (radiative and non-radiative) transferred from Earth’s surface, about 80-85% of it. ALL atmospheres absorb some of the outgoing heat from the solar-heated planetary surfaces beneath. Thick atmospheres absorb most of it.“MODTRAN calculates this effect and produces a very good match to the observed spectrum. Here’s a sample MODTRAN calculation showing all the GHG ‘notches’, and the same calculation with each GHG progressively removed. You’ll notice that the resultant spectrum approaches the blackbody spectrum of the surface.”Staring at these spectra has apparently made you go blind to reality, Phil. They seem to muddle your thinking. You think you ‘see’ in them something you quite frankly do not, an effect you are in fact only imagining in your mind, by first mentally placing a perfect outline of a surface (288K) Planck curve as an overlay on top of the actual ToA spectrum, then automatically interpreting notches in thereal spectrum as observed as somehow notches rather in your hypothetical surface (288K) Planck curve outline, as if the ToA spectrum were just the surface spectrum ‘eaten into’ by the GHGs on its way through the atmosphere.Once again, Phil., the ToA spectrum is an EMISSION spectrum, NOT an absorption spectrum.Once again, you believe there is “energy missing” on its way from the surface to space, and so in your mind, this energy must rather make the surface warmer; I guess, by being re-radiated back down.You need to wake up and see the whole picture, Phil. It’s about more than just outgoing IR. The atmosphere is NOT like in these contrived MODTRAN spectra of yours. You cannot just clinically remove separate IR active constituents at your own will from the atmosphere and then expect the atmosphere in all other respects to remain unchanged, only with more radiation going out than before. In reality, you change the WHOLE atmosphere.Earth as a thermodynamic system is in a relative steady state, in a sort of dynamic equilibrium with the Sun and space (its ‘surroundings’). In such a state, ALL energy that enters the system also exits. On average. Across some defined cycle. 240 W/m^2 comes in from the Sun. Then, in such a steady state, 240 W/m^2 also needs to go out from the Earth to space. And it does. None of the energy coming in is “held back” or “trapped” within the system. The notches do not represent “missing energy”, Phil. And the transfer fluxes sure don’t amplify internally by looping up and down between atmosphere and surface. That’s a mental model that’s completely absurd. There is no energy transfer from the cool atmosphere to the warm surface. The energy transfer only goes from the surface UP. The only energy transfer TO the surface comes from the Sun.You seem to forget (or overlook) two crucial aspects:1) Of the surface heat transferred to the atmosphere, less than one fourth is radiant, the remaining being non-radiant. However, ALL the heat (100%) transferred from the atmosphere to space is radiant. So the atmosphere absorbs 25-35 W/m^2 of radiant heat (IR) from the surface, but emits 200-220 W/m^2 into space. (This includes the ~75 W/m^2 of SOLAR radiant heat absorbed by the atmosphere coming in through the ToA. See next point.)2) The atmosphere (the IR active gases + aerosols + liquid and icy clouds) not only absorbs outgoing IR from the surface. It also reflects AND absorbs a large portion of the incoming solar radiant heat, on average globally/annually about 77 and 75 W/m^2 respectively of the original 340 W/m^2, leaving only 165 W/m^2 og solar heat to be absorbed by the actual surface (23 W/m^2 reflected by the surface itself).So when you try to argue that as a MODTRAN spectrum fills up and starts moving towards a full 288K Planck curve, then the surface will automatically have to warm, you have completely missed the point.First of all, there is no full 288K Planck curve originally being emitted from the surface. That’s just something that’s being arbitrarily drawn onto the actual recorded spectrum. As sort of an artificial reference or benchmark spectrum: This is how it should’ve looked! It’s fully hypothetical. And it obviously and totally confuses your eyes and your mind into thinking you see something you don’t.The mean planetary emission temperature of Earth is 255K, not 288K, if you go by the 240 W/m^2 global average flux. But since this flux is emitted NOT from a single solid blackbody surface at 255K, but rather from a full 3D dynamic volume of gases, clouds and aerosols, tens of kilometres thick + a solid/liquid surface at the bottom, the outline will necessarily look a far cry from a smooth 255K Planck curve. You cannot and should not try to fit a 2D blackbody Planck curve to the emission spectrum of a gaseous VOLUME. If you still choose to do so, you will have to find the total flux intensity first. In our case it’s 240 W/m^2. Well, then the hypothetical 2D blackbody would be one at 255K, and the resulting Planck curve would be one peaking at ~11.4 microns, not ~10 microns (288K). Some of the 3D spectrum will be above this ideal 255K Planck curve, and other parts will be below it. But all in all, the ragged real spectrum will match the total flux intensity of the smooth hypothetical one: 240 W/m^2.Secondly, let’s say, Phil., that you were to compare two Earth spectra to space and that the one is recorded during a dry, cloud-free day, and the other during a cloudy, humid day. This could be at the same spot at different times, or at different spots, only in the same general latitudinal zone.Using your logic, the second spectrum will be a lot more ‘closed up’ than the first one, allowing a lot less energy from the surface out to space, and thus the “removed” energy will necessarily make the surface underneath warmer than in the first case, where substantially more of the energy is allowed through to space. MODTRAN also would agree with you. This would be the naturally inferred conclusion.And it would be wrong!Because, is this what we actually observe in the real world? Is the surface of the Earth generally warmer when there are lots of clouds and lots of water vapour in the tropospheric column above than when its dry and cloudless? It sure isn’t! Clouds and humid air definitely reduce nighttime cooling of the surface, but they also reduce daytime heating of that same surface. And the latter effect turns out to be invariably stronger. And quite significantly so. This is pretty easy to verify empirically through consistent observations from the real Earth system.
Some great stuff and I appreciate posting it here where it is easy to find and refer to. Good show! (and of course I agree)
ReplyDeleteRegards, Mark
Thanks Mark!
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