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.