Physicist: Cooling Effect of CO2 is 100x Greater than Warming Effect

Charles Anderson PhD, a materials physicist, has a new post today which calculates the cooling effect of CO2 and other "greenhouse" gases to be 100 times greater than the heating effect.

"the cooling effect due to keeping incoming solar IR radiation away from the surface is about 100 times the re-heating effect proclaimed by greenhouse gas alarmists"

As also shown in Rescue from the Climate Saviors, CO2 and other IR-active gases do not act “like a blanket” but rather “like a sunshade”. They keep a part of the solar energy away from the earth’s surface. IR-active gases cool the earth: 70% of the entire cooling power originates from these molecules. Without these gases in the air, the surface and the air immediately above the ground would heat up more. The notion that a concentration increase of IR-active gases would impede earth’s cooling is impossible.



Dr. Anderson's post:

On Some Flaws in Greenhouse Gas Global Warming

Preface: I realized after writing this that I had forgotten to add a term for IR absorption by so-called greenhouse gases of the IR radiation which was reflected from the surface without being absorbed in the surface. This term is larger than that due to the radiation of IR due to the absorption of the solar radiation by the surface, but the sum of the two terms will still be smaller than the absorption by so-called greenhouse gases on the first pass through the atmosphere of incoming solar radiation. Also, please note that the incoming IR absorption process tends to deposit energy in the atmosphere at higher altitudes, while the outgoing absorption of IR by greenhouse gases deposits that energy closer to the ground. The discussion below is a simple attempt to see if adding IR-absorbing gases to the atmosphere tends to result in more or less warming of the surface. The most effective warming of the surface is that radiation first absorbed by the surface, rather than somewhere in the atmosphere. The remainder of this post is as it was earlier today posted and distributed.



I have just finished reading an excellent article by Alan Siddons called The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory on American Thinker from way back on 25 February 2010. The article is a little slow in developing, but finishes with a death blow to the usual theory put forth by catastrophic anthropogenic global warming advocates. I intend to explain more concisely what Siddons explained and to add comments of my own in this post which make the deathblow much more gory.



First of all, I am going to enlarge the context of the discussion. The primary source of heat for the surface of the Earth is the radiant energy of the sun. The solar wind of the sun, materials dumped into the atmosphere from space, heat from the deep interior of the earth, and the interplay of changes in the Earth's magnetic field and the sun's magnetic field are also contributors of heat, though the sum of these is much less than that from the sun's radiant energy spectrum of ultraviolet (UV), visible, and infra-red (IR) light. The entire catastrophic greenhouse gas hypothesis ignores effects upon the incident IR portion of this spectrum of light from the sun. This is foolish.



UV light is 11% of the radiant energy from the sun. The UV light variance of 0.5 to 0.8% with the solar cycle is much larger than is the visible light variance of 0.22%. UV light is absorbed throughout the atmosphere, but much still reaches the ground and is absorbed there. The amount of UV radiation absorbed in the upper atmosphere is highly dependent upon the amount of ozone there. The amount of ozone is highly dependent upon the solar wind, CFCs, and volcanic activity. When UV light is more absorbed in the stratosphere than the ground, its surface warming effect is diminished. The absorbed energy is re-emitted as IR radiation and much of that energy is quickly lost to space.



The entire atmosphere is transparent to visible light which is the form of 44% of the radiant energy from the sun, so aside from reflection from clouds and aerosol particles, the visible light reaches the ground or oceans and warms them near their surfaces.



Finally, the IR radiation is not absorbed by nitrogen, oxygen, and argon gases which make up 99% of the atmosphere, so a large fraction of it directly warms the Earth's surface. Some, is absorbed by the dominant greenhouse gas, water vapor, and small amounts are absorbed by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The incoming IR radiation absorbed in the atmosphere is less effective in warming the Earth's surface than is that which is absorbed by the Earth's surface directly. This is because some this energy absorbed in the atmosphere then is radiated again in the form of IR radiation, but now half or more of that is directed out to space. In other words, more water vapor and CO2 in the atmosphere results in a less effective warming of the surface than does less of these gases with respect to the incoming IR energy from the sun. The greenhouse gases have a cooling effect on the original solar radiance spectrum for the 45% of the solar energy in the form of IR.



In each case, whether UV, visible light, or IR, not all of the radiation of that form striking the Earth's surface is absorbed. Some fraction is reflected and the fraction is very dependent on whether the ground is covered with snow, plowed earth, grasses, forests, crops, black top, or water. There are two real ways that man does have some effect on the Earth's temperature. He changes the surface of the earth over a fraction of the 30% of its surface which is land. He also converts fossil and biomass fuels into heat. Compared to the overall natural effects, these man-made effects are small, yet they are probably large compared to the effect of his adding CO2 and methane to the atmosphere.



Wherever the atmosphere is heated, there is transfer of heat. In the outer, very low density atmosphere, the primary means of heat transfer is radiant transfer by IR emission from an energetic molecule or atom, since collisions of molecules and atoms for direct energy transfer are rare. In the denser atmosphere, most energy transfer is due to collisions and the convective flow of masses of warmed air. Near the Earth's surface, almost all of the energy lost by the warmed surface is due to gas molecules striking the surface and picking up heat and then colliding with other molecules to transfer heat from one to another. Once a body of air is so heated, then masses of warmed molecules are transported upward into the cooler atmosphere at higher altitudes or laterally toward cooler surface areas by convection. Any warmed molecule, most of which are nitrogen, oxygen, and argon will radiate IR radiation. However, no molecule or atom at a low temperature such as that near the Earth's surface is a very effective energy radiator, since the Stephan-Boltzmann equation depends upon the fourth power of the absolute temperature, which commonly near the Earth's surface is about 290K. Thus, gas molecule collisions and convection are the very dominant means of heat transfer. These processes on balance cool the surface of the Earth and redistribute some of the heat back into the upper atmosphere and cooler places such as those shaded from the sun or the arctic regions.



The favorite claim of the catastrophic greenhouse gas global warming people is that an increase of carbon dioxide and methane gas in the atmosphere will cause energy radiated into the atmosphere from the ground to be absorbed by these molecules and they will radiate half of it back toward the ground, where that energy will warm the surface again and reduce the cooling due to the ground originally radiating that heat into the atmosphere. According to Alan Siddons, less than 1% of the cooling of the Earth's surface is due to IR emission of the surface or the gases near the surface. More than 99% is due to direct contact and convection.



Since the dominant source of energy warming the surface of the Earth is the sun, let us do a simple calculation based upon the facts presented above. Let us say that greenhouse gases absorb a fraction f of the incoming IR radiation from the sun, which is 45% of the sun's incoming energy. Thus the energy absorbed by greenhouse gases from the incoming spectrum of solar energy is 0.45f and a fraction of this, say k is radiated back into space without coming near the surface. NASA says k is 0.5, but it is actually slightly larger than that given that much of this absorption occurs at appreciable altitudes. The total cooling due to greenhouse gases, somewhere in the atmosphere, is now 0.45fk. Of this energy, had it become incident upon the surface as IR radiation, a part would have been reflected rather than absorbed. The fraction that would have been absorbed is q. The net energy then lost to the warming of the surface is then 0.45fkq.



Now, let us suppose that a fraction g of the total energy from the sun is absorbed in the Earth's surface or in the very lower part of the atmosphere. We know that g is a larger fraction of 1 than is f, since most of the solar radiation does reach the ground, including that part in the IR part of the spectrum. Of the energy g absorbed in the surface, only 0.01 times it is emitted as IR radiation according to Siddons. Since the greenhouse gas content of the atmosphere is unchanged the amount of outgoing radiation, serving to cool the surface, is now 0.01gf. A fraction j of this energy will be emitted by the IR warmed greenhouse gas molecules back toward the ground. NASA has said this fraction is 0.5. Let us then say j is about 0.5. The greenhouse gas warming of the surface due to absorbing IR radiation from the ground would then be about 0.005gfq, where q is the fraction of back-reflected IR radiation that was incident upon the surface and absorbed. Remember that some radiation is reflected.



Now we will compare the greenhouse gas cooling effect upon the incoming solar radiation of 0.45fkq to the re-warming of the surface due to 0.005gfq times the total solar radiant energy. Breaking down the parts:



0.005 is much less than 0.45, in fact it is 0.011 times as large.

f appears in both factors, so the comparative effect is cancellation.

The factor q appears in both the cooling and the warming quantities, so it cancels.

k is somewhat more than 0.5, while g is the surface absorptivity for the entire solar spectrum and is likely to be near 0.7, or quite comparable.





So let us say g and k are an approximate trade-off.





Thus the net cooling effect of greenhouse gases is very greatly dominant because the re-heating effect is approximately 0.01 times the cooling effect.





In sum, using a simple calculation we can approximate the effect of greenhouse gases on the surface temperature of the Earth. It turns out that the cooling effect due to keeping incoming solar IR radiation away from the surface is about 100 times the re-heating effect proclaimed by greenhouse gas alarmists. Now, if the effect were very large in either case, this might be cause for concern. We would likely be better off heating our planet than cooling it. But, then we are heating with land use changes and the release of energy from fossil fuels, so the generation of cooling CO2 may simply be compensating for these other small effects. Much more important to this issue than CO2 and methane is water vapor in any case. So, most of this cooling effect is due to water vapor and only a small part is due to CO2 and methane.



Now, of course so much is going on here that this calculation is but an indicator of the likely net effect of greenhouse gases. A more careful calculation would consider the different weight of IR frequencies in the original spectrum of the sun and in the Earth surface emission spectrum. But, any changes due to these secondary issues are likely to be small compared to a factor of 100. In any case, this calculation makes mincemeat of the usual simple rationale for greenhouse gas warming alarmism. It is insane to focus only on the outgoing IR radiation from the Earth's surface while ignoring the large part of the sun's total incident radiation which is IR from the get-go. It is also insane to ignore gas collisions and convection currents as mechanisms for heat transfer.



I used the greenhouse gas term in the presently conventional way, but in reality, all gases when warm radiate IR energy and as pointed out by Alan Siddons, they are all really greenhouse gases. But, here I used the term only for those gases that absorb IR energy.

Greenhouse Theory disproven in 1909, 1963, 1966, 1973...but still refuses to die

Robert W. Wood, a professor of experimental physics at the Johns Hopkins University, was perhaps the first "skeptic" of the greenhouse gas "heat trapping" theory, and in 1909 performed a series of classic experiments which disproved its three major assumptions. This excerpt from Rescue from the Climate Saviors illustrates Woods experimental findings:

Alan Siddons, a radiochemist, has forwarded a new essay which culls from the Gerlich and Tscheuschner paper and other sources to show that, in addition to Wood's classic 1909 paper, a number of subsequent papers also disproved the greenhouse "heat trapping" theory, but nonetheless this false construct continues to be propagated by the IPCC, educators, and in the scientific literature:





"This serves as an important reminder that R.W. Wood wasn't the last or the only one to investigate the presumed heating effect of infrared-opaque glass. As Richard Lee shows here, many others explored this question and reached the same conclusion. You might notice, though, that meteorologist Lee uses some reverse logic in his explanation.



From greenhouse theory's inception, remember, a glass enclosure was alleged to prove the existence of what we now call "radiative forcing," i.e., heating caused by a build-up of infrared photons that cannot escape. As a result of this misconception it was extrapolated that certain atmospheric components behaved much like IR-opaque glass, with infrared radiators playing the role of an infrared barrier (illogically enough). But even after it was found that the very basis of greenhouse theory was phony, experts like Lee insisted that the atmosphere does do what a solid IR-opaque barrier somehow can not do, namely generate extra heat by radiative confinement. Flimflam excuse-making has a long tradition in climate science, then. It's not just a recent invention.



Yet Lee was absolutely correct that there was no longer any excuse to teach glass-box radiative forcing: the evidence was in, and it was final. Nevertheless, as I demonstrate below, this deceptive crap is still being pushed on students and the public alike.



Now here's Richard Lee in The Journal of Applied Meteorology, 1973:

The so-called radiation ‘greenhouse’ effect is a misnomer. Ironically, while the concept is useful in describing what occurs in the earth’s atmosphere, it is invalid for crypto climates created when space is enclosed with glass, e.g., in greenhouses and solar energy collectors. Specifically, elevated temperatures observed under glass cannot be traced to the spectral absorbtivity of glass.



R. W. Wood demonstrated the misconception experimentally more than 60 years ago (Wood, 1909) and recently in an analytical manner by Businger (1963). Fleagle and Businger (1963) devoted a section of their text to the point, and suggested that radiation trapping by the earth’s atmosphere should be called ‘atmosphere effect’ to discourage use of the misnomer. Munn (1966) reiterated that the analogy between ‘atmosphere’ and ‘greenhouse’ effect ‘is not correct because a major factor in greenhouse climate is the protection the glass gives against turbulent heat losses’. In one instance, Lee (1966), observed that the net flux of radiant energy actually was diminished by more than 10% in a 6-mil polyvinyl enclosure.



In spite of the evidence, modern textbooks on meteorology and climatology not only repeat the misnomer, but frequently support the false notion that ‘heat retaining behavior of the atmosphere is analogous to what happens in a greenhouse’ (Miller, 1966), or that ‘the function of the [greenhouse] glass is to form a radiation trap’ (Peterssen, 1958). (see also Sellers, 1965, Chang, 1968, and Cole, 1970). The mistake obviously is subjective, based on similarities of the atmosphere and glass, and on the ‘neatness’ of the example in teaching. The problem can be rectified through straightforward analysis, suitable for classroom instruction.

And now a brief survey of what's being said in the current day. Lee's jaw would drop, I think.



Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)



The realisation that Earth’s climate might be sensitive to the atmospheric concentrations of gases that create a greenhouse effect is more than a century old. Fleming (1998) and Weart (2003) provided an overview of the emerging science. In terms of the energy balance of the climate system, Edme Mariotte noted in 1681 that although the Sun’s light and heat easily pass through glass and other transparent materials, heat from other sources (chaleur de feu) does not. The ability to generate an artificial warming of the Earth’s surface was demonstrated in simple greenhouse experiments such as Horace Benedict de Saussure’s experiments in the 1760s using a ‘heliothermometer’ (panes of glass covering a thermometer in a darkened box) to provide an early analogy to the greenhouse effect.

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-4.html



United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change



Greenhouse gases make up only about 1 per cent of the atmosphere, but they act like a blanket around the earth, or like the glass roof of a greenhouse -- they trap heat and keep the planet some 30 degrees C warmer than it would be otherwise.

http://unfccc.int/essential_background/feeling_the_heat/items/2903.php



The U.S. government's Environmental Protection Agency; Climate Change Kids Site



Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere behave much like the glass panes in a greenhouse. Sunlight enters the Earth's atmosphere, passing through the blanket of greenhouse gases. As it reaches the Earth's surface, land, water, and biosphere absorb the sunlight’s energy. Once absorbed, this energy is sent back into the atmosphere. Some of the energy passes back into space, but much of it remains trapped in the atmosphere by the greenhouse gases, causing our world to heat up.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/greenhouse.html



A state of Connecticut Teacher's Guide



If the greenhouse is made up of glass, a second "greenhouse effect" comes into play as well. Glass is transparent to sunlight, but is effectively opaque to infrared radiation. Therefore, the glass warms up when it absorbs some of the infrared radiation that is radiated by the ground, water, and biomass. The glass will then re-radiate this heat as infrared radiation, some to the outside and some back into the greenhouse. The energy radiated back into the greenhouse causes the inside of the greenhouse to heat up.

http://www.planetconnecticut.org/teachersadministrators/pdfs/lesson1.pdf



Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences



In a greenhouse, visible light (e.g., from the Sun) easily penetrates glass or plastic walls, but heat (in the form of infrared radiation) does not. The greenhouse effect refers to the physical process by which atmospheric gases allow sunlight to pass through but absorb infrared radiation thus acting like a blanket trapping heat. Life as we know it could not exist on Earth without the warming produced by the greenhouse effect.

http://www.bigelow.org/virtual/handson/greenhouse_make.html



The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)



The "greenhouse effect" is the warming of climate that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space. Certain gases in the atmosphere resemble glass in a greenhouse, allowing sunlight to pass into the "greenhouse," but blocking Earth's heat from escaping into space.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/world_warmth.html



NASA



Why is this process called "The Greenhouse Effect?"



Because the same process keeps glass-covered greenhouses warm. The Sun heats the ground and greenery inside the greenhouse, but the glass absorbs the re-radiated infra-red and returns some of it to the inside.

http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Lsun1lit.htm



NASA



The Greenhouse Effect obtained its name from the behavior of a greenhouse. A greenhouse's glass allows shortwave radiation to enter but then prohibits outgoing longwave radiation from exiting, thus warming the air in the greenhouse.

http://gcmd.nasa.gov/Resources/FAQs/glob_warmfaq.html



Dr. Elmar Uherek - Max Planck Institute for Chemistry



The role of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can be compared to the glass of a greenhouse: The glass lets the sunlight in, and the light warms the soil and plants in the greenhouse. These send out heat radiation, but when this heat radiation hits the glass, it doesn't pass through like the sunlight, but is absorbed and re-emitted by the glass. (Note, that glass is solid and also a barrier in the convection of warm air, so the comparison is not perfect.) This is in some way what greenhouse gases in the atmosphere do: They let the sunlight in, but they don't let the heat radiation from Earth out again.

http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/2__Greenhouse__light___biosphere/-_Greenhouse_effect___light_1kf.html



How Stuff Works



Light passes through the glass into the greenhouse and heats things up inside the greenhouse. The glass is then opaque to the infrared energy these heated things are emitting, so the heat is trapped inside the greenhouse.

http://home.howstuffworks.com/question238.htm



Number Watch



The reason that glass is such a valuable material is that it exhibits a very low absorption of electromagnetic radiation in the visible part of the spectrum, which is a wordy way of saying that it is transparent. It is not, however, transparent either side of the visible range (ultra violet and infra red).

...Thus the greenhouse glass acts as a one-way energy valve.

...Like the greenhouse glass, the water vapour acts as a one-way energy valve.

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/greenhouse_effect.htm



The Pembina Foundation, a federally-registered charitable organization (Canada)



If all the long-wave heat energy simply radiated back into space there would be very little warming above the surface, and Earth would be much cooler. However, certain gases in the atmosphere act like the glass panes of a greenhouse. Called greenhouse gases, these gases have physical properties that allow most of the incoming short-wave energy in sunlight to pass through. At the same time, they block or trap much of the outgoing long-wave heat energy (infra-red radiation) and re-radiate it back to the Earth's surface.

http://www.greenlearning.ca/climate/science/greenhouse-effect



Enviropedia



Greenhouse gases like water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide trap the infrared radiation released by the Earth's surface. The atmosphere acts like the glass in a greenhouse, allowing much of the shortwave solar radiation to travel through unimpeded, but trapping a lot of the longwave heat energy trying to escape back to space. This process makes the temperature rise in the atmosphere just as it does in the greenhouse. This is the Earth's natural greenhouse effect and keeps the Earth 33°C warmer than it would be without an atmosphere, at an average 15°C. In contrast, the moon, which has no atmosphere, has an average surface temperature of -18°C.

http://www.enviropedia.org.uk/Climate_Change/Greenhouse_Effect.php



University of Alaska-Fairbanks Physics Department

Greenhouse gases act as a blanket



Some of you may wonder how a green house takes solar energy and turns it into thermal energy. A good example of this is something you can observe every day in the summer in you own car. It happens when you leave you car in a sunny parking lot with the windows up. The solar energy is passing through the glass and is heating the cars interior. Whats really happening is the short wave infrared waves are going in and are turning into long wave infrared waves, which cannot escape.

http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/102spring2002_web_projects/c.levit/web%20page.html



State of Utah Office of Education



On a global scale, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and other gases present in the atmosphere are similar to the glass in a greenhouse. Ultraviolet radiation from the sun (having a short wavelength) can pass through the glass. Once inside the greenhouse, the ultraviolet radiation is absorbed by soils, plants, and other objects. Upon absorption, it becomes infrared radiation or heat energy having a shorter wavelength. Because of this, infrared radiation cannot escape through the windows. The windows act like a large blanket in which they reradiate the infrared energy back into the greenhouse. This phenomenon naturally causes the overall temperature within the greenhouse to increase.

http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/curr/science/core/earth/sciber9/Stand_6/html/1e.htm



Penn State University



This partial trapping of solar radiation is known as the greenhouse effect. The name comes from the fact that a very similar process operates in a greenhouse. Sunlight passes relatively unhindered through glass panes, but much of the infrared radiation reemitted by the plants is blocked by the glass and cannot get out. Consequently, the interior of the greenhouse heats up, and flowers, fruits, and vegetables can grow even on cold wintry days.

http://www2.yk.psu.edu/~kxt7/Astro001/06-Astro001.ppt



TeachEngineering, a K-12 program



The "greenhouse effect" is so called because it is analogous to the process that keeps the air inside greenhouses (and parked cars) warmer than the air outside. The glass in greenhouse windows is transparent to visible light radiated from the sun. This light heats the surface of materials inside the greenhouse, which emit longer wavelength infrared radiation. Infrared radiation cannot penetrate the glass and is trapped, causing the inside air to warm up.

http://www.teachengineering.com/collection/cub_/activities/cub_air/cub_air_lesson07_activity2_reading.pdf



Wichita State University



Visible sunlight enters the car through the windows. This light is absorbed by the interior of the car, which therefore is slightly warmed. The warmer interior then radiates infrared light to get rid of this extra energy, in an attempt to return to its original temperature. The infrared light is not able to escape from the car because glass is opaque to infrared light.

http://webs.wichita.edu/astronomy/wqquestions/earth_Questions.htm



Weather-Climate.org



This warming effect is called the "greenhouse effect" because it is the same process as that which occurs in a greenhouse on a sunny day. The glass is transparent to short-wave radiation but absorbs the outgoing long-wave radiation, causing a rise in temperature inside the greenhouse.

http://www.weather-climate.org.uk/04.php



School for Champions



A greenhouse uses glass windows to trap the infrared in the building, thus heating its air. In the Greenhouse Effect, gases in the Earth's atmosphere absorb the radiation and thus heat the air.

http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/infrared_greenhouse_effect.htm



Practical Chemistry.org, a joint project of the Nuffield Foundation Curriculum Programme and the Royal Society of Chemistry in association with CLEAPSS



In a garden greenhouse, visible light passes through the glass and is absorbed by darker surfaces inside. This absorbed energy heats up the materials, also warming the surrounding air. But convection is restricted by the enclosing glass and the inside temperature of the greenhouse rises. This is the main cause of warming in a garden greenhouse.



However, in addition the warm surfaces re-radiate some of the absorbed energy, but at longer wavelengths in the infrared region of the spectrum. Some of this infra-red radiation is absorbed by glass and contributes to the warming of the greenhouse. It is this latter effect that is called the ‘greenhouse effect’.

http://www.practicalchemistry.org/experiments/advanced/environmental-chemistry/the-greenhouse-effect,296,EX.html



Ohio Wesleyan University



Global Warming



Analogous to a greenhouse



Visible light and short-wavelength infrared radiation are absorbed by contents of greenhouse, resulting in the emission of longer-wavelength infrared radiation (IR)



Longer-wavelength IR absorbed by glass

Glass emits IR, half of which is emitted back inside the greenhouse

Convection currents are inhibited by the glass (although this is not mirrored in Earth’s atmosphere)

Earth’s atmosphere fills role of glass roof in greenhouse

“Greenhouse gasses” like CO2 are particularly good absorbers of IR

More greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere means more IR is absorbed and Earth’s surface becomes warmer

http://go.owu.edu/~rakaye/PHYS115/Thermal%20Energy.ppt



TV station meteorology page



Greenhouse Effect is the natural process whereby gases in Earth's atmosphere act like the glass in greenhouse, letting the Sun's energy in, but keeping some of it from going back out.

http://www.wchstv.com/newsroom/wx/weatherglossary2.shtml



National Geographic



The "greenhouse effect" is the warming that happens when certain gases in Earth's atmosphere trap heat. These gases let in light but keep heat from escaping, like the glass walls of a greenhouse.

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/global-warming/gw-overview/ (Good to know that certain gases are like solid heat barriers.)



Wikipedia



The glass used for a greenhouse acts as a selective transmission medium for different spectral frequencies, and its effect is to trap energy within the greenhouse, which heats both the plants and the ground inside it. This warms the air near the ground, and this air is prevented from rising and flowing away. This can be demonstrated by opening a small window near the roof of a greenhouse: the temperature drops considerably. Greenhouses thus work by trapping electromagnetic radiation and preventing convection.

http://www.factbook.org/wikipedia/en/g/gr/greenhouse.html



University of Michigan



The "greenhouse effect" is the heating of the Earth due to the presence of greenhouse gases. It is named this way because of a similar effect produced by the glass panes of a greenhouse. Shorter-wavelength solar radiation from the sun passes through Earth's atmosphere, then is absorbed by the surface of the Earth, causing it to warm. Part of the absorbed energy is then reradiated back to the atmosphere as long wave infared (sic) radiation. Little of this long wave radiation escapes back into space; the radiation cannot pass through the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/greenhouse.htm



________________________________________

To repeat Lee's words, "elevated temperatures observed under glass cannot be traced to the spectral absorbtivity of glass." But it's obvious that this doesn't matter to many educators, experts, and others who provide information, isn't it."



Alan Siddons

More on the Solar Controversy

A physicist for The European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) has a post today addressing the controversy over the IPCC claim that anthropogenic forcing of climate dominates over natural forcings such as changes in the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI). The post agrees with and quotes the scientists who operate the ACRIM satellite missions who state: "TSI variation has been the dominant forcing for climate change during the industrial era." The author also discusses why the alleged anthropogenic forcing is only one-twelfth of the uncertainty and thus far from statistical significance, as well as other uncertainties which show the IPCC conclusions to be unjustified or unqualified. [Google translation + editing]:

The mysterious role of anthropogenic radiative forcings - what's behind it?

Radiative forcing is the difference between of the incoming solar and outgoing long-wave radiation intensity. The IPCC defines this slightly differently: "The RF from the definition of TAR and earlier IPCC assessment reports is retained. Ramaswamy et al. (2001) define it as ' the change in net (down minus up) irradiance (solar plus longwave; in W/m2) at the tropopause after allowing for stratospheric temperatures to readjust to radiative equilibrium, but with surface and tropospheric temperatures and state held fixed at the unperturbed values "(AR4, Ch.2, p.133).

This implies that there is a balance, which corresponds to the assumption of an optimal climate, according to the IPCC. The total solar radiation intensity is given by the IPCC as RFTSI = 1367W/m2. The following graph shows the measurements from three satellites:

 

The reason for the difference of 0.35% (RFmeas = 4.8W/m2!) is not currently understood.

The IPCC says in its latest report:

"The differences in radiative forcing estimates between the present day and the start of the industrial era for solar irradiance changes and volcanoes are both very small compared to the differences in radiative forcing estimated to have resulted from human activities. As a result, in today's atmosphere, the radiative forcing from human activities is much more important for current and future climate change than the estimated radiative forcing from changes in natural processes. "(Ch.2, p.137) This position will be more closely considered.

The change in the total solar radiation since 1750 is estimated by the IPCC to 0.12 (-0.06 / +0.18) W/m2 (Ch.2, Table 2.12). This value is of the order of the relative change per decade of satellite measurements. ACRIM has measured as for the cycles 21-23% or 0.5W/m2 0037. The absolute error is about the satellite but with ± 3W/m2. How could you determine, however, without satellites in the past such small changes is not explained. To a completely different result, however come Solanki and Fligge (CRL 26 (1999) 2465). Their reconstruction shows the next graphic:

Both the absolute and the relative values are more than one order of magnitude larger than the values specified by the IPCC.

The anthropogenic CO2 according to the IPCC causes RFCO2 = (1.66 ± 0.17) W / m 2 (determined Ch.2, Table 2.12). In the following we will compare this value with other uncertainties and question its relevance.

Kevin Trenberth, one of the leading authors of the IPCC, author of the sentence "The fact is that we can not account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can not", has a new article on the global energy budget (published March, 2009 BAMS 311-323). Here is his flow chart:

The following table shows the differences to his earlier publication (J. Climate 10 (1997) 1771-1790).

The problem is not that there are corrections in the values and that many differences are greater than the ominous 1.66W/m2, but the fact that these values are used as input into the model calculations. Even under the unrealistic assumption that gains and losses offset each other, there remains a difference of 5W/m2 (3 times RFCO2) left (with no net absorption, see below). Errors were not taken into account for the different sizes in the table above. Before we come to that, another table from the work is discussed:

Kt97 represents Trenberth, NRA, ERA and JRA for the American, European and Japanese climate research and the remaining two for measurements. When the absorbed radiation (ASR), the maximum difference is 10.2W/m2 and the emitted radiation (OLR) 20.6W/m2. When the difference in the absorbed radiation is six times higher than the anthropogenic contribution, then, how can you be sure of the anthropogenic temperature contribution. Although the authors write: "It is not possible to give very useful error bars to the estimates.", they provide error bars elsewhere. The error values for entry into the atmosphere to be ± 3% and that on the surface are estimated to be ± 10%. The 3 percent add up again around 10W/m2 to the above 10.2W/m2 for the absorbed radiation, thus reducing the anthropogenic value to one-twelfth of uncertainty.

Understand you can not, however, that there should be a four-year averaged net absorption. When a body absorbs more energy than it emits, it must increase its temperature and as long again sets up a balance between radiation absorbed and emitted energy. But perhaps this is meant to be simple.

Another discrepancy is found if you look at the issue. The IPCC used for the emission of the Earth the value of one. A more realistic value can be estimated from the next graph (http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/browsesurft2 ).

The average is about = 0931 (0.70 ° 92 [water] + 0.15 ° 0.15 ° 0.95 + 0965 = 0931). For  = 1, the radiated intensity in accordance with the Stefan-Boltzmann law at T = 288K I = 390.1W/m2. But if we take the more realistic mean = 0931, we obtain I = 363.2W/m2. The difference is clear to 26.9W/m2, or 17 times the value corresponds to RFCO2.

The claim of the IPCC, that human influence is much greater than natural changes, will be by the numbers not supported and must be considered incorrect. This is supported by the last graph, which shows a clear correlation between total solar radiation and sunspots. 

Consequently, the scientists in charge of the ACRIM missions (http://www.acrim.com/) come to the following statement:

"The Earth's weather and climate regime is determined By The total solar irradiance (TSI) and its interactions with the Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses. TSI proxies during the past 400 years and the records of surface temperature show that TSI variation has been the dominant forcing for climate change during the industrial era. ". (Emphasis mine)

Dr. rer.nat. B. Huettner (physicist) for EIKE





also see: 



Recent Peer review papers on the solar earth climate connection

Long-term solar activity as a controlling factor for global warming in the 20th century, (Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, Volume 49, Number 8, pp. 1271-1274, December 2009) - V. A. Dergachev, O. M. Raspopov

A solar pattern in the longest temperature series from three stations in Europe (Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Volume 72, Issue 1, pp. 62-76, January 2010) - Jean-Louis Le Mouel, Vladimir Kossobokov, Vincent Courtillot

Solar Minima, Earth’s rotation and Little Ice Ages in the past and in the future: The North Atlantic�European case (Global and Planetary Change, January 2010) - Nils-Axel Morner

Solar activity and climatic variability in the time interval from 10 to 250 Ma ago (Geomagnetism and Aeronomy, Volume 50, Number 2, pp. 141-152, April 2010) - O. M. Raspopov et al.

A statistically significant signature of multi-decadal solar activity changes in atmospheric temperatures at three European stations (Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Volume 72, Issues 7-8, pp. 595-606, May 2010) - Vladimir Kossobokov, Jean-Louis Le Mouel and Vincent Courtillot



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1467310/The-truth-about-global-warming-its-the-Sun-thats-to-blame.html

The AGW Myth of Back Radiation

Prior posts have shown intuitive examples that the theory of back radiation from greenhouse gases causing warming is fictitious, that NASA's Earth energy budget does not include back radiation at all (in stark contrast to the IPCC which shows it to be unidirectional and 95% of the solar input), and that at least 28 other analyses of the physics agree that back radiation can not cause additional increase in global temperature. The IPCC Earth energy budget was created by Kevin Trenberth, author of the climategate email stating "The fact is we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't". Most likely, the reason the Trenberth/IPCC Earth energy budget can't account for the lack of warming is because warming from greenhouse gas back radiation doesn't exist.





Claes Johnson, professor of applied mathematics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, has a blog for those interested in the mathematics & physics of the atmosphere, and has a new post today which also finds the conventional greenhouse gas theory of back radiation or reradiation causing global warming to be fictitious:



AGW Myth of Reradiation:



AGW alarmism is  based on an idea of "reradiation" from an atmosphere with greenhouse gases, but the  physics of this phenomenon remains unclear. 

To test if  "reradiation" is a real phenomenon, we suggest the following experiment: On a night with moon-light so feeble that you can cannot read a newspaper, place yourself in front of a mirror letting the moonlight reflect from the newspaper to the mirror and back again, and check if you can now read. You will probably find that the paper is still unreadable as if the "reradiation" does not give more light.

To give this experiment theoretical support we consider the mathematics of wave propagation from a source at x=0 (Earth surface)  to a receiver at x=1 (atmospheric layer) described by the wave equation:

U_tt - U_xx = 0 for x in the interval (0,1)

with solution U(x,t) being a combination of waves traveling with velocity +1 and -1 along the x-axis, and with subindices indicating differentiation with respect to space x and time t. The boundary condition at the receiver may take the form

AU_t(1,t) + U_x(1,t) =0

with a positive coefficient A signifying:

• A = 0: soft reflection with U_x(1,t) = 0


• A large : hard reflection with U_t(1,t) = 0


• A = 1: no reflection: transparent absorption of all incoming waves at x = 1.

The basic energy balance is obtained by multiplying the wave equation by U_t and integrating 

with respect to x to give:

K_t + AU_t(1,t)^2 = -U_x(0,t)U_t(0,t) = Input Energy.

where K(t) is the energy of the wave over the interval (0,1). Assuming that K(t) stays constant so that energy is no accumulating, we have that 

Output Energy = A U_t(1,t)^2 = Input Energy.

In particular, with soft reflection with A = 0, the Input Energy is also zero. We learn that  it is not possible to "pump the system" by reflection at x = 1: If you change from transparency with A = 1 to reflection with A = 0, the system reacts by refusing to accept Input Energy.

Ergo: Reflection/reradiation cannot increase the insolation to the Earth surface. 

[added note: insolation refers to the radiation energy received on a given surface area in a given time.]

'Judithgate' Update

The evolving 'Judithgate' 'consensus of one' 'solargate' 'scandal' has gone viral worldwide with Klimaskeptik.cz now hosting an English version of the original post along with new supporting materials. Included are the original quotes and a letter from astrophysicist Richard C. Willson (head of the ACRIM satellites):

Fröhlich [and co-author Judith Lean] made unauthorised and incorrect adjustments...  He did it without any detailed knowledge of the  ACRIM1 instrument or on-orbit performance...The only obvious purpose was to devise a TSI composite, that agreed with the predictions of Lean's TSI proxy model.

And from Douglas Hoyt (the famous inventor of GSN - Group Sunspot Number indicator) - who agrees with Willson. Klimaskeptic.cz:"The graph tampering done by Judith [Lean] and Claus [Frohlich}was scientifically unjustified. Hoyt must know that. The questionable changes were done to the data from the Nimbus 7 satellite, where he used to be in charge."

Nicola Scafetta. Climate Change and Its Causes - A Discussion About Some Key Issues. (Presented at EPA, Feb 2009) Source 

From astrophysicist Douglas Hoyt's letter regarding the paper by Lean and Frolich: "Thus, Frohlich’s PMOD TSI composite is not consistent with the internal data or physics of the Nimbus7 cavity radiometer."

Klimaskeptic background material on the "incorrect" adjustments Lean and Frohlich applied to the ACRIM satellite data: (Google translation)



Fellow Czech blogger & physicist Luboš Motl (The Reference Frame) has a post stating

This is a typical story showing the character of the [IPCC] "consensus".

Whenever there are questions that really matter, the IPCC minimizes the number of people who have something to say about the subject. The goal is clear, the small number of authors (in this case, a single author) are expected to say that nothing aside from CO2 really matters - so that the important question isn't even discussed. This task for Ms Lean was determined from the very beginning: after all, this task is what the IPCC is all about. She was selected for her ability to fulfill this task in a disciplined way which is what she has done, indeed.

Joe D'Aleo (Icecap.us) has linked the story to his 2007 essay Shining More Light on the Solar Factor, A Discussion of the Problems with the Royal Society Paper by Lockwood and Frohlich:.:

Claus Frohlich, meanwhile, constructed a composite time series from satellite observations of total solar irradiance (TSI) made since the late 1970's. His composite, the so-called 'PMOD' model, modifies the published results of the Numbus7/ERB and ACRIM1 science teams to provide better agreement with the predictions of a statistical model by Judith Lean based on linear regressions against solar emission and absorption line proxies for TSI.  (emphasis added)

IPCC "Consensus" on Solar Influence was Only One Solar Physicist who Agreed with Her Own Paper

Klimaskeptik.cz, a Czech climate skeptic blog, has posted today an interesting article "Judithgate: The IPCC was only one Solar Physicist" (google rough translation). Her name is Judith Lean (photo at right). On the basis of this "consensus of one" solar physicist, the IPCC proclaimed solar influences upon the climate to be minimal. Objection to this was raised by the Norwegian government as shown in the AR4 second draft comments below (and essentially dismissed by the IPCC): "I would encourage the IPCC to [re-]consider having only one solar physicist on the lead author team of such an important chapter. In particular since the conclusion of this section about solar forcing hangs on one single paper in which J. Lean is a coauthor. I find that this paper, which certainly can be correct, is given too much weight"...:

Klimaskeptic.cz continues [google translation + editing]: "As I wrote elsewhere (article on pmode ACRIM), Judith Lean, along with Claus Frohlich, are responsible for the scandalous rewriting of graphs of solar activity. Satellites showed that the TSI (measured in watts) between 1986 and 96 increased by about one third. Judith Lean and Claus Frohlich (authors of the single study noted above) "manipulated" the data. People who were in charge of the satellites and created the original graphs (the world's best astrophysicists: Doug Hoyt, Richard C. Willson), protested in vain against such manipulation. Willson: "Fröhlich has made changes that are wrong ... He did not have sufficient knowledge of (satellite) Nimbus7 ... pmode composites are useful for those who argue that global warming may be primarily due to anthropogenic causes." [cautionary note English->Czech->English translation of Willson]





...Since the appropriate questions were not asked, the IPCC knows little about the sun. While the rest of the IPCC AR4 is rich in graphics, there is not a single graph of cosmic radiation, solar cycle lengths,  or geomagnetism - which is very strange because they are important indicators of solar activity. The IPCC reports should be a comprehensive, complete summary of current scientific knowledge. It's due to the fact that these indicators say what alarmists don't want to hear. These indicators of rising solar activity 1970-1990s show global warming (in whole or in substantial part) can be explained naturally and is not the fault of humans. The IPCC deliberately hid these graphs from readers under the principle of hide the decline."



The graphs the IPCC didn't want you to see:

Solar Geomagnetic Activity shows increase starting in 1970's The length of the sunspot cycle - the shorter the cycle, the greater the solar activity. compare with the graph above.
The evolution of ground temperatures from Phil Jones (CRU) in 1986.  Retrieved from famous Christensen study 1991. See here and here.  The rewriting of the history of 20th century temperatures, see article here.
Red is the original graph of satellite measurements of solar constant TSI  (composite ACRIM). ACRIM measurements show that in 1996, the sun was  more active than ten years before, in contrast to the "manipulated" estimates  of the sole IPCC solar physicist Judith Lean (2004) (blue).
Cosmic ray counts (decreases when solar activity increases. The solar wind protects  the Earth against space radiation, which in turn may increase cloud formation  -see Cosmoclimatology)

Earth temperature correlated to solar activity. The blue line is a reconstruction of solar activity. (Jones 1993). 

Black is the Northern hemisphere temperature (Jones 1993).

Graph from IPCC AR4 showing global temperatures in black and modeled

temperatures in blue assuming no anthropogenic forcing. The graph allegedly 

proves that anthropogenic greenhouse emissions must be the cause of global 

warming, but since the increase in solar activity 1970-1990 seen in the first 

graph above is not taken into account, the blue model is inadequate and 

proves nothing. (added: The models also fail to account for the huge 

influences of ocean oscillations.)

Conclusion:

The IPCC conclusion about human influence on climate - and plans for reworking the entire energy economy on the basis of the carbon footprint - stands and falls with the question of how significant is the influence of solar activity. Yet the IPCC devoted only a few paragraphs to this essential topic, and based the "consensus" on a single astronomer, who agreed with herself.