A serious question – Are you interested in that?

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Obviously I must be a glutton to punish, because here I am again in the arena, discussing the results of my research and preparing for insults and stones.

However, there’s no place I’d rather be — I’m a Teddy Roosevelt man. He famously said:

“It’s not the critics who count; not one to show how strong men stumble, or where people do things that can make them better.

The credit goes to the real man in the arena, his face stained with dust, sweat and blood; heroic striver; who is wrong, who is flawed, because there is no effort without errors and omissions; but who really put in the effort to do those things; who knows great enthusiasts, great contributions; who dedicates himself to a worthy cause; in the end who knows best about the triumph of high achievement, and who is worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring to do so, so that his place will never be with those cold and timid souls do not know victory and defeat. “

But I digress…

Earth’s climate is an approximate steady-state mean energy flow system. In the steady state, the amount of energy absorbed by each part of the system is equal to the amount of energy lost by that part of the system. If this is not true, the affected parts will continuously heat up or cool down.

And this is true of the earth’s surface. It essentially lost a lot of energy as it gained, and as a result, the earth’s surface temperature in the 20th century stabilized at less than one percent.

Let me start this spillover with the fact that not all energy flux absorbed by the surface is converted to surface temperature and lost to thermal radiation. Some of the energy is lost as “perceived” heat, which we can feel, through conduction into the atmosphere and convection away from the surface. And some is lost from the surface as “latent heat”, meaning heat is removed by evaporation at the surface. After those losses, the remaining energy heats the surface and is lost as wave radiation extends from the surface.

Figure 1 shows the relative amount of energy absorbed and lost by the surface.

Figure 1. Energy budget of the surface, showing energy gained (longwave and shortwave) and energy lost (in the form of longwave radiation and latent/perceived heat.) Since the planet is in a state the steady state should be obtained and the loss is ~ equal.

Now suppose that we want to increase the earth’s surface temperature by 1°C. What is the additional energy flux that will be needed to create that new, warmer steady state?

Well, since at steady state we need equal gain for equal loss, we need as much flux as the amount of additional energy flux that will be radiated at the new higher temperature. Using what is known as the “Stefan-Boltzmann Equation”, we can calculate that we need a minimum of 5.5 extra watts per square meter (W/m²) of the energy flux to raise the black body at earth temperature by one degree Celsius. (This is the minimum because the latent/perceived heat loss ratio increases slightly with increasing temperature, but we can ignore it. that in this analysis.)

However, we should also note that from Figure 1, only about 78% of the absorbed energy flux is converted to temperature and lost as radiation. So including potential/perceived heat loss we will need 5.5/.78 ≈ 7 W/m² the total additional energy flux absorbed by the surface to raise the surface temperature by one degree.

Now consider the main position of the IPCC, that CO doubles₂ would increase the “top-of-atmospheric” (TOA) downwind by 3.7°C. This means that if you immediately double CO2₂the amount of long wave escaping the planet at the top of the atmosphere would be reduced by 3.7 W/m².

And this supplement 3.7 W/m² radiation from CO₂ IPCC claims double to increase surface temperature by 3°C.

Key point? According to IPCC, it only takes ~1.2 W/m² addition of TOA forced an increase in surface temperature by 1°C.

So this is the serious question I alluded to in the title…

How high is CO in the atmosphere?₂ fastening 1.2 W/m² mysteriously turns into 7 W/m² of the additional surface energy flux we need to warm the earth by 1°C?

IPCC members wave and vaguely refer to “cloud feedback” and “water vapor feedback” that increase descending IR from the atmosphere to descending IR at the surface.

But this would require feedback that amplifies the original signal by a factor of nearly six… and my understanding is that a feedback factor greater than one leads to runaway.

So my question remains:

What mysterious force is changing 1.2 W/m² of CO₂ Forced TOA, coercion that the IPCC says will increase the surface temperature by 1°C, to 7 W/m² of the surface absorbed energy flux really needed to raise global temperature by 1°C?

All serious answers are welcome.

My best wishes to all,

w.

Footnotes at the bottom of the page: The idea that the feedback from the cloud is positive is completely unlikely. First, Le Chatelier’s Principle states that if a dynamic equilibrium (a steady state condition such as climate) is disturbed by changing conditions, the position of the equilibrium will shift to counteract the change in conditions. change to reestablish equilibrium.

Next, the net positive feedback statement in the cloud contrasts with the CERES data. Below is the net cloud radiation effect (CRE) versus temperature on a grid basis.

Figure 2. Net cloud radiation effect (CRE). This is the change in the lower stratum irradiance in W/m² when it’s cloudy. It includes both long wave and short wave effects. Below the horizontal line, the net effect is cooling.

The slope of the yellow line indicates the direction of the cloud’s response. If it cools more as the temperature increases (negative slope), then the slope will go down to the right. And if the feedback is positive, if it cools less as the temperature increases, then the slope will go up to the right.

In the tropics, about 40% of the planet, the feedback is cathode, the slope is almost vertical. And from -15°C to 15°C, another 33% of the planet, the feedback is also negative.

So it seems the answer to my question is not “cloud response”.

Attention: As with my previous two articles, I am examining the ramifications and mathematics of the greenhouse effect. If you think the greenhouse effect violates the laws of physics, read my two articles, People who live in the glass planetand Steel greenhouse. And if, after reading them, you still think that the GH effect does not exist, or that the diminishing radiation does not exist, or that the radiant energy flux does not increase further, then go away. Don’t get mad, in fact, you can keep reading the comments…but this is NOT a topic of debate about diminishing radiation or the greenhouse effect. Those topics tend to completely thread the topic to an endless discussion that resolves nothing, and I don’t care about that. Please include those and related topics to some other topic.

I’m interested in a serious answer to my question about how it should work, 1.2 W/m² at TOA converted to 7 W/m² at the surface, and where that additional energy is thought to come from.

MATH: The radiation change from a 1°C temperature change of some objects is given by the differential of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation:

dWdTC = function(c,epsilon=1) 2.27 * 10-7 * epsilon * (c + 273.15)3

where c is the temperature in degrees and epsilon is the emissivity. Under steady-state conditions, where the average loss is equal to the mean gain, this is also the amount of additional energy required to raise the object’s temperature by 1°C. As is common practice in this type of analysis. , and since the earth’s emissivity is somewhere above 0.95, for simplicity I’m using epsilon = 1.

My usual: Please quote exactly the words you are discussing in a comment so we can all follow your thought process.