Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In my previous articles, taken from “Greenhouse Effect” and “Multiplier”, I described a metric that I developed to look at how successful the “greenhouse effect” is. has a very poor name in surface warming. The metric is the high-surface longwave radiation (in watts per square meter, W/m2) divided by the solar power actually absorbed by the system (solar energy minus albedo reflection).
And of course, since the radiation emitted by an object can be used to determine temperature, this metric also measures how effectively the incoming sunlight is converted to surface temperature.
Here’s how that metric has changed over time, as discussed in my previous two articles.
Figure 1. Greenhouse multiplier. The multiplier is calculated as the rising long-wave surface radiation divided by the incident solar radiation (after albedo reflection). A multiplier of 2 means that the surface will emit two W/m2 of energy for each W/m2 solar energy actually enters the system. This suggests that greenhouses have increased solar radiation by about two-thirds, as measured at the surface.
I had to think about it, and after a while I realized that doesn’t tell the whole story. I realized that the answer was distorted because I didn’t include the upvote.
Infiltration is the horizontal transport of heat. Generally, it is in the form of oceanic and atmospheric motion. As you might expect, it usually flows from warm to cold – from the equator to the poles. This is a map showing average transport, both exports (in red) and imports (in blue) of energy.
Figure 2. Penetration (horizontal transport) of electricity from the tropics to the poles.
The problem with excluding convection appears especially in the polar regions. There, a large amount of energy input is from reflection and a small part is from sunlight. So it would seem that one would think that the power in sunlight is greatly multiplied, but it is not – the additional power is from the embellished atmosphere and ocean.
Since I want a measure of total watts divided by watts in, the real multiplier, I have to include power favorites as well. Since the advertised net energy is zero, I don’t expect it to change the overall average multiplier much. But I would have expected it to be more accurate on a square-by-square basis as it no longer lacks the energy of favourites.
And indeed, here are the results. Figure 3 shows the previous calculations as shown in Figure 1 (blue), plus the calculation including the added energy (red).
Figure 3. Comparison of two metrics, including (in red) or omitting (in blue) the complement.
Now, there are some interesting things about this number.
First, as I had hoped, regarding the standard deviation (SD) of the hindered results, it gets smaller when we include the admired power. This means that they cluster more closely around the trendline. The SD of the original method (in blue) is 0.0040 and that of the method including the advection (in red), is 0.0026.
Including convection also fixes the problems at the poles where electricity is abundantly imported and the problems in the tropics, where exports are the same.
Figure 4. Mean multiplier, both with (red) and without (blue) as the complement. Average CERES data, March 2000 to February 2021
I love the surprises of science. The surprise in this for me is that once we have included the effects of convection, its multiplier is relatively equal from the North Pole down to the North Pole of Antarctica.
Next, a small digression. Ramanathan points out that we can directly measure the so-called “greenhouse effect” that is less efficient. It is the amount of high-level longwave power absorbed by clouds, aerosols and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Note that the absorbed energy ends up returning to the earth’s surface.
The size of the “greenhouse effect” is measured as long waves up at the surface minus long waves up at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). The difference between the two is the “greenhouse effect”, in watts per square meter.
This is the most surprising strange thing. It turns out that when we include convection in our change in surface power, the new multiplier is exactly one plus the greenhouse effect (measured as above) divided by the solar energy. available heaven. Math in the footnotes.
And this tells us what is happening in Figure 2. The blue trend is the change in surface coating per unit of input energy. This is measured above in W/m2, but it can be converted using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to surface temperature. That number is decreasing.
The red trend is the trend of the change in total surface power, not only radiation but also reflection per unit incident energy. That coefficient is increasing as we would expect with increasing CO2 levels.
And that’s very interesting. It shows that overall, the amount of greenhouse gases is increasing get a raise amount of radiation falling on an input solar power unit. And in fact, they are increasing at the expected rate due to the increasing concentration of CO2. But that’s not what was expected overall.
Figure 6. Changes in the effect of the “greenhouse effect”, as measured by the multiplier.
The first cause of the less-than-expected increase is the presence of greenhouse gases other than CO2 (methane, N20, chlorofluorocarbons). So, for other gases, the increase in greenhouse efficiency measured by a multiplier should be more than it actually is.
There is also a positive feedback about the cloud and the feedback of steam. Like the effects of other greenhouse gases, they must also increase the coefficient.
Thus, there appear to be unknown antagonistic forces that prevent a larger increase in greenhouse gas efficiency despite increases in many greenhouse gases. However, the reality of all this is that greenhouse efficiency increases slightly.
But oddly enough, this is balanced by a palliation (per input solar power unit) as the surface temperature increases, along with get a raise in advection.
And the net result of both is that in Figure 2, the multiplier shown by the blue line (how effectively the system multiplies the energy transferred by the surface temperature) is trending downward, although increasing performance of the “greenhouse effect” due to increased GHGs. as shown by the red line.
“Simple Physics”?
I do not think so.
w.
MATH: Here are the equations showing that
raised surface + advection / solar available
plain
one plus greenhouse (as defined by Ramanathan)/solar energy is available.
Where:
- SOLAR = Arrival solar TOA
- SWcar = Shortwave uplift (reflection) measured at the top of the atmosphere
- LWcar = Long wave raised (emitted) measured at the top of the atmosphere
- LWsurfup = Long waves rise at the surface
Advection is measured as the amount of solar energy (short wave) entering the grid cell (SOLAR) minus the amount of radiant power leaving the grid cell into space (SWcar + LWcar). The difference must be respected, with the exception of a very small increase or decrease in surface temperature and can be ignored at this level of analysis.
My Usual Note: When you comment PLEASE quote the exact words you are discussing. I can defend my own ideas. I can’t defend other people’s random claims of what they think I’ve said.
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