Update 10 March, 2012: I have realized (on my own) that my blackbody understanding was wrong, and why my physical interpretation of the facts of my Venus/Earth comparison is nevertheless correct. I have posted on this at "My Own Blackbody Error". This post no longer reflects my scientific position, and should not be taken as such.
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UPDATE 03 March, 2012: I have obtained a better value for the mass mean temperature in the stratosphere [T(strat)] used in this article. From computerized numerical integration of the relevant stratosphere formulas (for T(h) and ρ(h)) in the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere, I found T(strat)=223.9K, not the 240K used in the article below. This does not change the analysis here or its conclusions substantially, as I will allow others to verify; it basically only means a slightly larger amount of solar absorption by the surface (from 50-52% of the incident solar, in the original article here, to perhaps as high as 54%). I also obtained a more precise mass mean temperature in the troposphere, through finer numerical integration on the computer, which merely confirms the 259.3K used here.
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When I posted the landmark article, "Venus: No Greenhouse Effect", which fundamentally corrects climate science, in November, 2010, I hoped that other competent scientists would quickly see the validity of my contribution and use it to re-establish climate science on a sound basis, stop the insanity of a politically promulgated, false consensus, and also establish my scientific worth to the world, thus allowing my far greater discoveries to gain serious attention and the worldwide recognition they deserve.
But that has not happened. I have seen NO positive advance in climate understanding since I proved, with the definitive facts, that there is no greenhouse effect, of increasing atmospheric temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
So here is yet another advance of my own, elementary but decisive.
In my recent post, "On the Fundamental Warming of the Atmosphere", I summarized the energy taken up, from the incident solar radiation, by the Earth-plus-atmosphere system, using widely used numbers (see, for example, the Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget). Based upon my simple Venus/Earth analysis, the relevant fractions are:
Incident solar energy = 100%
Solar energy reflected = 30%
Solar energy directly absorbed by surface = 50%
Solar energy directly absorbed by atmosphere = 20%
Of the 70% that goes to heating either the surface or the atmosphere, 2/7 directly heats the atmosphere, and 5/7 directly heats the surface. In the new understanding provided by my Venus/Earth comparison, the atmosphere and surface are separately and independently heated by incoming solar energy, and the governing hydrostatic temperature lapse rate structure of the troposphere moderates any inequality in their heating, with upward heat transport, "down" the temperature gradient, contributing to no further warming of the atmosphere, in my view.
The question should quickly have been taken up by any real climate experts, or competent scientists: Can the above energy balance be quantitatively validated (or invalidated)? The answer is yes, it can be validated.
The consensus claims that the radiating temperature of the system is 255K, based upon using "incident minus reflected" solar intensity in the Stefan-Boltzmann formula:
342 W/m^2 (mean incident) - 30% reflected = 239 W/m^2 (mean absorbed)
which gives a mean radiating temperature of 255K. (I am using whole numbers as much as possible throughout, reflecting the uncertainty I have seen in the numbers used by others.)
I know this 255K is wrong, and the radiating, or equivalent blackbody, temperature, is to be found from the incident radiation alone:
342 W/m^2, giving an equivalent blackbody temperature of 279K,
BUT THE CONSENSUS CALLS THIS RIDICULOUS, and everyone, from alarmists to the mildest skeptics, seems to accept the consensus radiation numbers, and believes 255K is the physical fact.
Here is what I find:
Incoming solar energy is absorbed in both the stratosphere and the troposphere, as well as by the surface. Because my Venus/Earth comparison looked at the Earth troposphere region, and got such definitive results, I first left out the stratosphere as being of minor importance, considered the troposphere the sole relevant atmosphere, and considered the following:
If we know the mean temperature of each of the two absorbing systems, atmosphere and surface, we can determine the mean temperature of the total surface-plus-atmosphere system, in the following way:
fraction of absorbed power given to atmosphere = f1 (= 2/7)
fraction of absorbed power given to surface = f2 (= 5/7)
mean temperature of atmosphere (troposphere) = T(trop)
mean temperature of surface =T(surf)
mean temperature of surface-plus-troposphere system = T(all)
where the consensus says T(all) is 255K, and I (and other critics of the consensus) say it should be 279K.
Then
f1 x T(trop) + f2 x T(surf) = T(all) (Equation 1)
Physically, this means that the fraction of the total power retained in the total system by a given subsystem, times that subsystem's mean temperature, gives that subsystem's contribution to the mean temperature of the whole.
For T(trop), I calculated the mass mean temperature of the troposphere, according to the formula:
T(trop) = Integral [T(h)dm] / Integral [dm] (Equation 2)
where h = altitude above the surface, and
dm = element of atmospheric mass,
with dm = ρ(h) dV, ρ = density and dV = element of volume,
and dV = volume of spherical shell of thickness dh, radius = Re + h
with Re, the radius of the Earth.
The following equations hold in the Standard Atmosphere troposphere:
T(h) = To x (1 - 6.5 h/To)
ln[ρ/ρ(o)] = 4.2559 x ln(1 - 6.5 h/To)
I plugged these into Equation 2 and solved it numerically, by dividing the troposphere between 0 and 11 km into spherical shells of thickness 0.2km, and found:
T(trop) = 259.3K (NOT 255K, note)
T(surf) = 288.15K, so Equation 1 becomes
(2/7)259.3K + (5/7)288.15K = 279.9K = 280K approximately.
Compare this to 279K obtained by using the Stefan-Boltzmann formula with INCIDENT mean solar intensity. I consider this a quantitative verification of my usage of the Stefan-Boltzmann formula, and a disproof of the consensus usage.
But WARNING:
If one uses 255K for T(trop)--as many do in their narratives, both consensus and skeptics--in the above equation, one gets
(2/7)255K + (5/7)288.15K = 278.7K,
an apparently more exact result for the true radiating temperature of the total system--by a mere 1.2K, however, which I suspect is well within the uncertainty of the calculation. And using 255K for the troposphere alone is inconsistent with making that the radiating temperature of the whole Earth-atmosphere system, and still makes the consensus wrong in its usage of the Stefan-Boltzmann formula, since 279K is still clearly the true effective radiating temperature of the total system, not 255K.
Even more importantly, from the use of Equation 1 it should be clear that the warming of the atmosphere must be independent of the warming of the surface, since the coefficients f1 and f2 on the left-hand side of the equation are independent of my Venus/Earth findings (they represent the actual solar power absorbed by the troposphere and the surface, as shown in the Kiehl-Trenberth Earth Energy Budget), and the above verification is thus an independent check upon my Venus/Earth conclusion (that is, it uses my conclusion, as expressed by Equation 1, with real-world numbers). So the atmosphere IS fundamentally warmed only by direct absorption of a fraction of the incident solar radiation (and the other upward heat transfers from the surface, in the K-T Energy budget, DO NOT CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUNDAMENTAL WARMING OF THE ATMOSPHERE--the incident 20% directly absorbed by the atmosphere does the job).
Now let's do the same budget calculation, but with the stratosphere properly included, so that we have an equation with three absorbing terms:
f1 T(strat) + f2 T(trop) + f3 T(surf) = T(all),
where f1 etc. are the fractions of the total absorbed radiation in each subsystem.
I do not have what I consider a definitive number for T(strat), the mean temperature in the stratosphere, so I estimated it from a graph of the TEMPERATURE PROFILE of the atmosphere, as a function of altitude (I leave it to the reader as an independent exercise, to check my work). I estimated T(strat) = 240K (+/- 5K, judging from what I could glean from a short internet search on the topic). The stratosphere absorbs ultraviolet (UV)--as much as 95% of the incident solar UV, internet sources say--and UV comprises between 8% and 8.5% of the incident solar energy, so I first took 8% to be the fraction of the incident solar absorbed by the stratosphere, leaving 12% to warm the troposphere and about 50% to warm the surface. The absorption equation becomes:
(8/70)x240K + (12/70)x259.3K + (50/70)x288.15K = 277.7K = 278K
I have provided this sample calculation to show that, given the uncertainties in the absorption numbers, one can still see that the true radiating temperature of the Earth-plus-atmosphere system MUST BE 279K, not 255K.
One can also play with the above equation (with 279K, on the right-hand side, as a physical constraint). Using numbers in the Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget, the reflected solar is 107 W/m^2, which is 31.3% of the incident 342 W/m^2. This makes the total absorption, spread over the stratosphere, troposphere, and surface, 68.7% of the total mean solar, rather than the 70% I used earlier. This gives us some idea of the uncertainties involved in the numbers used by different sources.
Using a reasonable variation in the absorbing fractions attributed to each of the three subsystems of stratosphere, troposphere, and surface, and using a total absorbed percentage between, say, 68.5% and 70% of the incident solar, I found 7-8% stratosphere, 10-12% troposphere, and 50-52% surface to be the most likely range for the solar fractions absorbed by each subsystem. For example, for a total of 68.7% of incident solar absorbed, as in the K-T Earth energy budget, I found 7.5% in the stratosphere, 10% in the troposphere, and 51.2% at the surface to give particularly good results:
(7.5/68.7) 240K + (10/68.7) 259.3K + (51.2/68.7) 288.15K = 278.7K
but I consider that just a good educated guess, and about as good as one can do with the numbers provided by climate science so far.
Summarizing: My evaluation of the fundamental warming of the atmosphere, separately from the warming of the surface, and both by direct absorption of entirely different fractions of the incident solar radiation, is quantitatively verified by a correct usage of the blackbody formula (to obtain 279K for the radiating temperature of the Earth-atmosphere system).
Friday, February 24, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Incompetent Skeptics III: Roy Spencer, PhD
I have made the following comment on Roy Spencer's web site, concerning his defense of the greenhouse effect.
Roy Spencer wrote: "
...the cooler object (the atmosphere) keeps the warmer object (the ground) warmer than if the atmosphere was not there. That’s the (so-called) greenhouse effect."
Two points of simple fact, no three:
1) That is NOT the greenhouse effect that the IPCC and all of our suborned institutions are foisting upon the public. The greenhouse effect is an increase in atmospheric temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. You are dissembling (intentionally or not) in refusing to admit that, and adhere to it. (And so is "steveta_uk", who commented above, "The absurd idea that GHE results in INCREASING surface temperatures is simply a misreading of the theory." That statement itself, in the face of the public debate over "global warming", is the height of absurdity, and in a sane intellectual atmosphere, could rightly be called a bald-faced lie. However, I understand that it is just the madness of those whose religiously-held belief in the greenhouse effect--and in the inerrancy of an overwhelming, albeit incompetent, consensus--is being strongly challenged by skeptics.)
2)I have DISPROVED the greenhouse effect, in my comparison of the temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth. YOU ARE INCOMPETENT as a physical scientist if you cannot see that simple fact.
3)You delude yourself by thinking the atmosphere keeps the surface warmer due to "backradiation", a.k.a. "downwelling longwave radiation". Since there is no greenhouse effect, I think it should be obvious that the atmosphere at night is keeping the surface from cooling faster, because upward heat transfer is not by radiation alone, with an atmosphere present, but also by convection and conduction, and these are SLOWER THAN RADIATION, and I would think can even reverse direction, against the temperature gradient, and even reverse it locally (downdrafts, precipitation, temperature inversions). That's what the radiative transfer theory does to you: It makes you forget there ARE even convection and conduction.
Your miseducation makes you part of the problem, Dr.--and of course you are not alone, climate scientists have been miseducated for, what, forty five years (I have read that 1967 or 1968 is when the current radiative transfer theory, applied to atmospheric warming, was brought out and accepted), and there has not been a competent climate scientist for at least the last 20 years, since the detailed temperature and pressure data of Venus, which should have signaled the death of the greenhouse effect as accepted science, was obtained by the Magellan spacecraft. Of course, the bottom line is, the very idea of "runaway climate", and thus of looking at climate as something balanced on the knife edge of "radiative forcings", only came into science through a mass turning away from, or forgetting of, the stability of the Standard Atmosphere (which of course my Venus/Earth comparison confirmed). Climate scientists' faith in radiative transfer theory is blind to the definitive facts, and has caused the failure--FAILURE, SIR--of their science. I am ashamed of all of you, and of what you continue to do, unseeing and undeterred by the strongest admonitions, to the integrity and natural authority of science.
Roy Spencer wrote: "
...the cooler object (the atmosphere) keeps the warmer object (the ground) warmer than if the atmosphere was not there. That’s the (so-called) greenhouse effect."
Two points of simple fact, no three:
1) That is NOT the greenhouse effect that the IPCC and all of our suborned institutions are foisting upon the public. The greenhouse effect is an increase in atmospheric temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. You are dissembling (intentionally or not) in refusing to admit that, and adhere to it. (And so is "steveta_uk", who commented above, "The absurd idea that GHE results in INCREASING surface temperatures is simply a misreading of the theory." That statement itself, in the face of the public debate over "global warming", is the height of absurdity, and in a sane intellectual atmosphere, could rightly be called a bald-faced lie. However, I understand that it is just the madness of those whose religiously-held belief in the greenhouse effect--and in the inerrancy of an overwhelming, albeit incompetent, consensus--is being strongly challenged by skeptics.)
2)I have DISPROVED the greenhouse effect, in my comparison of the temperatures in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth. YOU ARE INCOMPETENT as a physical scientist if you cannot see that simple fact.
3)You delude yourself by thinking the atmosphere keeps the surface warmer due to "backradiation", a.k.a. "downwelling longwave radiation". Since there is no greenhouse effect, I think it should be obvious that the atmosphere at night is keeping the surface from cooling faster, because upward heat transfer is not by radiation alone, with an atmosphere present, but also by convection and conduction, and these are SLOWER THAN RADIATION, and I would think can even reverse direction, against the temperature gradient, and even reverse it locally (downdrafts, precipitation, temperature inversions). That's what the radiative transfer theory does to you: It makes you forget there ARE even convection and conduction.
Your miseducation makes you part of the problem, Dr.--and of course you are not alone, climate scientists have been miseducated for, what, forty five years (I have read that 1967 or 1968 is when the current radiative transfer theory, applied to atmospheric warming, was brought out and accepted), and there has not been a competent climate scientist for at least the last 20 years, since the detailed temperature and pressure data of Venus, which should have signaled the death of the greenhouse effect as accepted science, was obtained by the Magellan spacecraft. Of course, the bottom line is, the very idea of "runaway climate", and thus of looking at climate as something balanced on the knife edge of "radiative forcings", only came into science through a mass turning away from, or forgetting of, the stability of the Standard Atmosphere (which of course my Venus/Earth comparison confirmed). Climate scientists' faith in radiative transfer theory is blind to the definitive facts, and has caused the failure--FAILURE, SIR--of their science. I am ashamed of all of you, and of what you continue to do, unseeing and undeterred by the strongest admonitions, to the integrity and natural authority of science.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Incompetent Skeptics II: Willis Eschenbach
In the interests of openness, which is one of my prime watchwords, the following is a submission I made today to Anthony Watt's site, wattsupwiththat.com (which takes a strong "lukewarm greenhouse believer" stance), and the quick result of that submission, which I made to correct ideas being promulgated on that site, according to the definitive facts I have uncovered, and to register my displeasure at the unbridled arrogance increasingly displayed by Willis Eschenbach on the WUWT site:
Submission:
In comments following a recent post by Willis Eschenbach, that author repeatedly and arrogantly dismissed those he called "Pressure-Heads", at one point with the following words:
" ... I have clearly shown, in 'A matter of some gravity' that if there are no GHGs and the atmosphere is transparent, then no pressure or gravity mechanism, or any other method, can raise the surface above the S-B blackbody temperature.... Duh."
The following is my response, for informational purposes only, to such naive hubris:
WARNING: The following does not come from a "Pressure-Head", so empty your mind of that prejudice. Of course pressure does not determine the temperature. But in a planetary gravitational field, with input solar energy, the atmosphere DOES take on a vertical pressure distribution, described by the elementary physics of the hydrostatic condition, which determines the vertical temperature distribution known as the lapse rate structure. The empirical Standard Atmosphere is defined by that structure, and the Standard Atmosphere is confirmed as the governing STABLE state of our atmosphere, by my Venus/Earth temperatures comparison (which also corrects current climate science on a whole handful of basic physical points).
Your assumptions, in your quoted words above, are irrelevant to the real situation in our atmosphere. The REAL atmosphere absorbs 15-20% of the incident solar energy. It is NOT "transparent" to IR radiation. Duh.
In fact, the atmosphere is fundamentally warmed, and the governing hydrostatic, vertical temperature lapse rate structure maintained, by that IR absorption (not by convection, and particularly not from the surface, which is independently heated by the Sun and does NOT fundamentally warm the atmosphere--does not change the governing lapse rate structure--but only contributes to the "weather"). Duh.
Atmospheric IR absorption does not mean there is a greenhouse effect, of increasing atmospheric temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Again, there is no such effect (that is the hard, definitive fact, from the comparison of two detailed atmospheres, having hugely different concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide). Duh.
But even without the definitive Venus/Earth comparison, there are no competent scientists defending the greenhouse effect (including, in particular, you), because such defenders fail to see that the atmospheric "backradiation", from the cooler atmosphere to the Earth's surface, is, in the theory, re-emitted by the surface at its own, higher temperature--which violates both energy conservation, as any first-year physics student SHOULD be able to see in the infamous Kiehl-Trenberth Earth Energy Budget diagram, and the second law of thermodynamics. Duh.
The reason you refuse to see the obvious is because you have been miseducated to believe in the radiative transfer theory, that falsely indicates the unphysical consensus greenhouse effect. Not only is that greenhouse effect nonexistent, but the radiation transfer theory that indicates that effect must also obviously be wrong--given my Venus/Earth findings--in its assumed thermodynamic effects, and misses the real thermodynamics of the atmosphere completely. The reason for that is also clear, to me: The radiation theory starts from the assumption of detailed thermodynamic equilibrium, that is, of a strict, set temperature distribution, because it ASSUMES not only that the surface is a blackbody--the 390 W/m^2 surface emission is just the power emitted by a blackbody at the 288K temperature of the Earth's surface--but also that every differential layer of the atmosphere emits as a "gray body", i.e., as local emissivity times the Planck distribution function. These assumptions are only valid, and only formally so, in the presence of a strict, set temperature distribution. It is therefore a formal theory only, whose apparent empirical confirmation is only the EFFECT of the lapse rate structure (which provides the set temperature distribution), not the CAUSE of it, or of any real thermodynamics. This point has also been made independently by Prof. Claes Johnson, who has written that so-called measurements of downwelling and upwelling longwave radiation are really only temperature measurements, (formally) converted to equivalent blackbody radiation levels.
Incompetent (duh) and angry (duh) arguments are damaging the credibility (duh) of WUWT (duh), and other sites critical of the consensus global warming scare. (DUH)
Anthony Watts e-mailed back:
"Sorry, not going to publish this, especially with all the 'duhs'. It will do nothing but create even bigger divides."
to which I replied:
"You are creating your own divides, that is now perfectly clear (you can't take your own medicine, as doled out by Eschenbach). Duh. Nevertheless, you--and Willis Eschenbach (duh)--have been informed of the facts, which is my intent. I will put this up on my own blog, for the sake of openness."
This is merely information for readers, and not intended to evoke arguments and vain debate over speculative theories. This is just how it is, between believers in the greenhouse effect--skeptic or otherwise--and those relative few of us who know better. I don't want to be part of vain arguments, and I don't think those who have become interested in my views would want me to indulge in them.
Submission:
In comments following a recent post by Willis Eschenbach, that author repeatedly and arrogantly dismissed those he called "Pressure-Heads", at one point with the following words:
" ... I have clearly shown, in 'A matter of some gravity' that if there are no GHGs and the atmosphere is transparent, then no pressure or gravity mechanism, or any other method, can raise the surface above the S-B blackbody temperature.... Duh."
The following is my response, for informational purposes only, to such naive hubris:
WARNING: The following does not come from a "Pressure-Head", so empty your mind of that prejudice. Of course pressure does not determine the temperature. But in a planetary gravitational field, with input solar energy, the atmosphere DOES take on a vertical pressure distribution, described by the elementary physics of the hydrostatic condition, which determines the vertical temperature distribution known as the lapse rate structure. The empirical Standard Atmosphere is defined by that structure, and the Standard Atmosphere is confirmed as the governing STABLE state of our atmosphere, by my Venus/Earth temperatures comparison (which also corrects current climate science on a whole handful of basic physical points).
Your assumptions, in your quoted words above, are irrelevant to the real situation in our atmosphere. The REAL atmosphere absorbs 15-20% of the incident solar energy. It is NOT "transparent" to IR radiation. Duh.
In fact, the atmosphere is fundamentally warmed, and the governing hydrostatic, vertical temperature lapse rate structure maintained, by that IR absorption (not by convection, and particularly not from the surface, which is independently heated by the Sun and does NOT fundamentally warm the atmosphere--does not change the governing lapse rate structure--but only contributes to the "weather"). Duh.
Atmospheric IR absorption does not mean there is a greenhouse effect, of increasing atmospheric temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Again, there is no such effect (that is the hard, definitive fact, from the comparison of two detailed atmospheres, having hugely different concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide). Duh.
But even without the definitive Venus/Earth comparison, there are no competent scientists defending the greenhouse effect (including, in particular, you), because such defenders fail to see that the atmospheric "backradiation", from the cooler atmosphere to the Earth's surface, is, in the theory, re-emitted by the surface at its own, higher temperature--which violates both energy conservation, as any first-year physics student SHOULD be able to see in the infamous Kiehl-Trenberth Earth Energy Budget diagram, and the second law of thermodynamics. Duh.
The reason you refuse to see the obvious is because you have been miseducated to believe in the radiative transfer theory, that falsely indicates the unphysical consensus greenhouse effect. Not only is that greenhouse effect nonexistent, but the radiation transfer theory that indicates that effect must also obviously be wrong--given my Venus/Earth findings--in its assumed thermodynamic effects, and misses the real thermodynamics of the atmosphere completely. The reason for that is also clear, to me: The radiation theory starts from the assumption of detailed thermodynamic equilibrium, that is, of a strict, set temperature distribution, because it ASSUMES not only that the surface is a blackbody--the 390 W/m^2 surface emission is just the power emitted by a blackbody at the 288K temperature of the Earth's surface--but also that every differential layer of the atmosphere emits as a "gray body", i.e., as local emissivity times the Planck distribution function. These assumptions are only valid, and only formally so, in the presence of a strict, set temperature distribution. It is therefore a formal theory only, whose apparent empirical confirmation is only the EFFECT of the lapse rate structure (which provides the set temperature distribution), not the CAUSE of it, or of any real thermodynamics. This point has also been made independently by Prof. Claes Johnson, who has written that so-called measurements of downwelling and upwelling longwave radiation are really only temperature measurements, (formally) converted to equivalent blackbody radiation levels.
Incompetent (duh) and angry (duh) arguments are damaging the credibility (duh) of WUWT (duh), and other sites critical of the consensus global warming scare. (DUH)
Anthony Watts e-mailed back:
"Sorry, not going to publish this, especially with all the 'duhs'. It will do nothing but create even bigger divides."
to which I replied:
"You are creating your own divides, that is now perfectly clear (you can't take your own medicine, as doled out by Eschenbach). Duh. Nevertheless, you--and Willis Eschenbach (duh)--have been informed of the facts, which is my intent. I will put this up on my own blog, for the sake of openness."
This is merely information for readers, and not intended to evoke arguments and vain debate over speculative theories. This is just how it is, between believers in the greenhouse effect--skeptic or otherwise--and those relative few of us who know better. I don't want to be part of vain arguments, and I don't think those who have become interested in my views would want me to indulge in them.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Sunshine and Fair Weather Skeptics
The Bishop Hill site today asks why persons in authority talk about healthy scientific skepticism, but deny its applicability to the climate science, a.k.a. global warming, debate. I submitted the following answer:
Nobody wants to hear it, but the reason is because DOGMA--received, rather than reasoned, belief--is ascendant in the world today. Science, it was once hoped, would counter the old dogmas, and so it did, but only so long as it didn't become addicted to dogma itself (and it never wiped out the endemic dogmas of established religions, superstitions, and ethnic traditions, whose dogmas continue to pound relentlessly upon the shores of reason and civil society). But with Darwin (yes, and denying it doesn't make it less true, in the final analysis), science made a fundamental error, cut off a whole line of valid reasoning about this strange and wonderful world--that it was in fact subjected to wholesale, intentional design, as my epochal research has uncovered for science--and has increasingly become mired in dogma, over sound (air-tight) logic, and sound experimental discovery and verification. A broad and deep, entrenched incompetence in science has been the result. Science has become just another part of the problem of Man on Earth, trying to learn how to treat, and how to live with, others of different beliefs.
As the discoverer of unprecedented new knowledge about the origin of the world as we find it today, I can only keep harping on the need to FOCUS, upon the DEFINITIVE FACTS that alone can correct current false theories. I have discovered, and verified, the definitive facts for correcting climate science (see my climate science posts, such as "Venus: No Greenhouse Effect"), but the world community of scientists needs to focus upon them, and accept them, in order to recover a competent climate science.
And the whole paradigm, of blind, undirected "evolution" of the Earth, and all the life on it, needs to be let go, because there is new knowledge, correcting both science and religion, waiting to be acknowledged, studied, and accepted by all. If you are not ready to hear that, you are part of the problem, that vexes us all.
Nobody wants to hear it, but the reason is because DOGMA--received, rather than reasoned, belief--is ascendant in the world today. Science, it was once hoped, would counter the old dogmas, and so it did, but only so long as it didn't become addicted to dogma itself (and it never wiped out the endemic dogmas of established religions, superstitions, and ethnic traditions, whose dogmas continue to pound relentlessly upon the shores of reason and civil society). But with Darwin (yes, and denying it doesn't make it less true, in the final analysis), science made a fundamental error, cut off a whole line of valid reasoning about this strange and wonderful world--that it was in fact subjected to wholesale, intentional design, as my epochal research has uncovered for science--and has increasingly become mired in dogma, over sound (air-tight) logic, and sound experimental discovery and verification. A broad and deep, entrenched incompetence in science has been the result. Science has become just another part of the problem of Man on Earth, trying to learn how to treat, and how to live with, others of different beliefs.
As the discoverer of unprecedented new knowledge about the origin of the world as we find it today, I can only keep harping on the need to FOCUS, upon the DEFINITIVE FACTS that alone can correct current false theories. I have discovered, and verified, the definitive facts for correcting climate science (see my climate science posts, such as "Venus: No Greenhouse Effect"), but the world community of scientists needs to focus upon them, and accept them, in order to recover a competent climate science.
And the whole paradigm, of blind, undirected "evolution" of the Earth, and all the life on it, needs to be let go, because there is new knowledge, correcting both science and religion, waiting to be acknowledged, studied, and accepted by all. If you are not ready to hear that, you are part of the problem, that vexes us all.
Monday, February 6, 2012
On the Fundamental Warming of the Atmosphere
I have posted the following comment on the tallbloke web site, in response to a discussion there which involves both my Venus/Earth atmospheric temperatures comparisonand the "Unified Theory of Climate" of Nikolov and Zeller:
(Nikolov wrote:) "However, Huffman needs to correct his terminology."
No, Nikolov is obviously incapable of following what I consider a simple train of thought--because he thinks he already knows better, and refuses to follow the logic. And Tallbloke, who wrote on my site that "I don't feel ready to tackle your logic", indeed doesn't get it either. I don't know if it will do any good to try once again to spell it out, but here is the real logic:
1) The OBSERVED Venus/Earth atmospheric temperature ratio (over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures) is very precisely 1.176 (except within the Venus cloud layer). THAT IS A FACT.
2) That temperature ratio corresponds to an ABSORBED POWER RATIO (watts/sq. meter) of 1.91. THAT IS ANOTHER FACT. (i.e.: Two bodies, isolated in space, are subject to two different incident radiation intensities, with one intensity 1.91 times that of the other. What is the ratio of the equilibrium temperatures of the two bodies? By the Stefan-Boltzmann formula, it is 1.176.)
3) The actual (ACTUAL) INCIDENT POWER RATIO, from the ratio of the two planets' average distances from the Sun (i.e., calculated beyond the atmosphere), is also 1.91. Yet another FACT.
4) Ergo (and that means no fooling, this is just the unavoidable truth): a) the actual power per unit area absorbed by Venus's atmosphere is 1.91 times that absorbed by Earth's atmosphere--this is just factual statement (2) above; and b) that is also equal to the INCIDENT POWER RATIO (calculated beyond the atmosphere, BEFORE ANY REFLECTION of solar radiation)--this is just factual statement (3) above.
Statement (4a) above is the empirical fact, DESPITE THE FACT that Venus's albedo is much larger than Earth's. So you see I don't argue about the value of the albedo, there is no need to; instead I continue, logically and very simply in my professional opinion:
Thus, the portion of the solar radiation that goes to warm either planet's atmosphere DOES NOT INCLUDE the portion that is REFLECTED, by either planet--if it did, and Nikolov knew what he was talking about, then the observed Venus/Earth temperature ratio would NOT, could not, indicate statement (4a) above (that is, it would not BE 1.176, indicating an absorbed power ratio of 1.91)--but that temperature ratio DOES indicate statement (4a), and the two planets' difference in albedo OBVIOUSLY makes no difference in the amount of power absorbed by either atmosphere. Simply stated, their temperature ratio is completely and precisely explained by the ratio of their distances from the Sun, nothing else.
I gave David Socrates some numbers to indicate what is going on. Given that 30% of the solar radiation incident upon the Earth-plus-atmosphere system is reflected, and about 50% absorbed by the surface, then 20% is directly absorbed by the atmosphere, warming it. For Venus, given 70% is reflected, and the same 20% that warms Earth's atmosphere also warms Venus's atmosphere (only Venus is closer to the Sun, so that 20% contains 1.91 times the power that is in the same 20% hitting the Earth's atmosphere), then Venus's surface must absorb the remaining 10% (or, if the reflection is 75%, the surface absorbs about 5%). The approximate 20% of the incident solar power that warms BOTH planets is in the infrared, practically none is in the visible or in the ultraviolet (the latter, they tell us, is absorbed in the stratosphere).
So forget "albedo is a function of pressure and solar proximity", or "a function of the internal energy of the system" as Nikolov wrote at the top of this page. I am astounded that any physical scientist would make such a statement. The reflected radiation is simply not that radiation which can and does warm the atmosphere. All the above facts, plus the fact that the surfaces of Earth and Venus differ greatly (Earth being 70% ocean, while Venus is all solid crust) and would absorb different fractions of any radiation reaching them, also mean that THE ATMOSPHERES OF VENUS AND EARTH ARE BOTH WARMED BY DIRECT ABSORPTION OF INCIDENT SOLAR RADIATION (the approximate 20% of the total solar power just discussed), and NOT FROM THE SURFACE. The corollary to this is that, ANY UPWARD HEAT TRANSPORT, INCLUDING BY WAY OF THE ABSORPTION AND EMISSION OF UPWELLING LONGWAVE RADIATION, DOES NOT FUNDAMENTALLY WARM THE ATMOSPHERE (that is, has nothing to do with the tropospheric temperatures as established in the Standard Atmosphere, by its lapse rate structure and the incident solar intensity, but only has to do with the "weather"). ONLY DIRECT ABSORPTION OF INCIDENT SOLAR RADIATION FUNDAMENTALLY WARMS THE ATMOSPHERE. The only other person I know who independently came to this conclusion is William R. Pratt, but mine is the only factual demonstration of this revolutionary finding that I know of, and it is as important as the factual finding that there is no increase in global average atmospheric temperature with increasing carbon dioxide--no "greenhouse effect" as promulgated by the IPCC.
Some of you also need to stop saying "most of the Sun's radiation is in the visible". That is not correct, the PEAK of the Sun's spectrum is in the visible, but about half of the solar power is in the infrared (beyond the visible in wavelength).
(Nikolov wrote:) "However, Huffman needs to correct his terminology."
No, Nikolov is obviously incapable of following what I consider a simple train of thought--because he thinks he already knows better, and refuses to follow the logic. And Tallbloke, who wrote on my site that "I don't feel ready to tackle your logic", indeed doesn't get it either. I don't know if it will do any good to try once again to spell it out, but here is the real logic:
1) The OBSERVED Venus/Earth atmospheric temperature ratio (over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures) is very precisely 1.176 (except within the Venus cloud layer). THAT IS A FACT.
2) That temperature ratio corresponds to an ABSORBED POWER RATIO (watts/sq. meter) of 1.91. THAT IS ANOTHER FACT. (i.e.: Two bodies, isolated in space, are subject to two different incident radiation intensities, with one intensity 1.91 times that of the other. What is the ratio of the equilibrium temperatures of the two bodies? By the Stefan-Boltzmann formula, it is 1.176.)
3) The actual (ACTUAL) INCIDENT POWER RATIO, from the ratio of the two planets' average distances from the Sun (i.e., calculated beyond the atmosphere), is also 1.91. Yet another FACT.
4) Ergo (and that means no fooling, this is just the unavoidable truth): a) the actual power per unit area absorbed by Venus's atmosphere is 1.91 times that absorbed by Earth's atmosphere--this is just factual statement (2) above; and b) that is also equal to the INCIDENT POWER RATIO (calculated beyond the atmosphere, BEFORE ANY REFLECTION of solar radiation)--this is just factual statement (3) above.
Statement (4a) above is the empirical fact, DESPITE THE FACT that Venus's albedo is much larger than Earth's. So you see I don't argue about the value of the albedo, there is no need to; instead I continue, logically and very simply in my professional opinion:
Thus, the portion of the solar radiation that goes to warm either planet's atmosphere DOES NOT INCLUDE the portion that is REFLECTED, by either planet--if it did, and Nikolov knew what he was talking about, then the observed Venus/Earth temperature ratio would NOT, could not, indicate statement (4a) above (that is, it would not BE 1.176, indicating an absorbed power ratio of 1.91)--but that temperature ratio DOES indicate statement (4a), and the two planets' difference in albedo OBVIOUSLY makes no difference in the amount of power absorbed by either atmosphere. Simply stated, their temperature ratio is completely and precisely explained by the ratio of their distances from the Sun, nothing else.
I gave David Socrates some numbers to indicate what is going on. Given that 30% of the solar radiation incident upon the Earth-plus-atmosphere system is reflected, and about 50% absorbed by the surface, then 20% is directly absorbed by the atmosphere, warming it. For Venus, given 70% is reflected, and the same 20% that warms Earth's atmosphere also warms Venus's atmosphere (only Venus is closer to the Sun, so that 20% contains 1.91 times the power that is in the same 20% hitting the Earth's atmosphere), then Venus's surface must absorb the remaining 10% (or, if the reflection is 75%, the surface absorbs about 5%). The approximate 20% of the incident solar power that warms BOTH planets is in the infrared, practically none is in the visible or in the ultraviolet (the latter, they tell us, is absorbed in the stratosphere).
So forget "albedo is a function of pressure and solar proximity", or "a function of the internal energy of the system" as Nikolov wrote at the top of this page. I am astounded that any physical scientist would make such a statement. The reflected radiation is simply not that radiation which can and does warm the atmosphere. All the above facts, plus the fact that the surfaces of Earth and Venus differ greatly (Earth being 70% ocean, while Venus is all solid crust) and would absorb different fractions of any radiation reaching them, also mean that THE ATMOSPHERES OF VENUS AND EARTH ARE BOTH WARMED BY DIRECT ABSORPTION OF INCIDENT SOLAR RADIATION (the approximate 20% of the total solar power just discussed), and NOT FROM THE SURFACE. The corollary to this is that, ANY UPWARD HEAT TRANSPORT, INCLUDING BY WAY OF THE ABSORPTION AND EMISSION OF UPWELLING LONGWAVE RADIATION, DOES NOT FUNDAMENTALLY WARM THE ATMOSPHERE (that is, has nothing to do with the tropospheric temperatures as established in the Standard Atmosphere, by its lapse rate structure and the incident solar intensity, but only has to do with the "weather"). ONLY DIRECT ABSORPTION OF INCIDENT SOLAR RADIATION FUNDAMENTALLY WARMS THE ATMOSPHERE. The only other person I know who independently came to this conclusion is William R. Pratt, but mine is the only factual demonstration of this revolutionary finding that I know of, and it is as important as the factual finding that there is no increase in global average atmospheric temperature with increasing carbon dioxide--no "greenhouse effect" as promulgated by the IPCC.
Some of you also need to stop saying "most of the Sun's radiation is in the visible". That is not correct, the PEAK of the Sun's spectrum is in the visible, but about half of the solar power is in the infrared (beyond the visible in wavelength).
Thursday, January 26, 2012
"Unified Climate Theory" III
The tallbloke climate site appears to have warmly (and all too quickly) embraced the "Unified Climate Theory" of Nikolov and Zeller. Here I offer my physical understanding, and my reasons for rejecting that theory, even though it supports my Venus/Earth analysis, and appears, to many commenters, to extend my findings to other planetary bodies in the solar system.
Among the many comments at the tallbloke site, are the following:
Stephen Wilde wrote: "If temperature is set by pressure and solar input then in the end the effects of both volcanoes and GHGs [greenhouse gases, esp. carbon dioxide] must be neutral unless they affect total atmospheric mass."
and tallbloke wrote: "quite a lot of the Sun’s energy is directly absorbed in the atmosphere"
These observations basically follow from my Venus/Earth temperature comparison, and I have emphasized for more than a year, not only that the Venus/Earth temperature ratio, at points of equal pressure over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures, depends only upon the planets' distances from the Sun, but also (and Nikolov & Zeller have not said this) that the atmosphere is fundamentally warmed by direct absorption of incident solar infrared radiation, as tallbloke seems to understand (although his statement is evasive about making my point, contenting himself with saying only "quite a lot" of the Sun's energy is directly absorbed).
Stephen Wilde is right about the effect of increased GHGs being neutral, that is neither warming nor cooling, because from my Venus/Earth analysis, the temperature at any given pressure in the troposphere depends only on its position within the lapse rate structure (physically, due to the weight of the atmosphere above, pressing down on that level) and the solar input. It does not depend upon the composition of the atmosphere (how much of GHGs there are), nor even upon the planetary albedo. It should be noted that every pressure level is receiving energy (during the daylight hours) by direct absorption of solar radiation (so we are not talking about a temperature lapse rate appearing spontaneously, out of nowhere, or from pressure differences alone, without energy input from the Sun--OR EVEN FROM VERTICAL CONVECTION, as defenders of the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect claim; but, no matter how it is formed, it dominates over all other processes to govern the temperatures, because my Venus/Earth temperature comparison confirms the Standard Atmosphere, with its lapse rate, as the stable thermodynamic state of the atmosphere). Even before performing my simple analysis of Venus and Earth, I deduced from the most basic understanding of heat transfer, that GHGs cannot either trap heat or slow down its transport within the atmosphere; increasing their concentration in the atmosphere can only speed up heat transport, by providing a greater radiation path for it (in addition to whatever convection and conduction is going on). One of my blog readers insightfully likened the effect as that of a "lubricant" for heat transport, rather than a "furnace" producing more heat (or a refrigerator producing more cooling, for that matter). So increasing the amount of carbon dioxide neither warms nor cools, it only quickens the re-attainment of the physically dominant lapse rate structure, which the atmosphere is always trying to do.
But Wilde is not necessarily right about volcanoes having no effect, as my Venus/Earth comparison shows there is a further effect, within the clouds of Venus, and presumably in the clouds on other planets, amounting to about 5K cooling below the temperature predicted by the lapse rate structure itself. I found the same modest temperature effect (7K) for Titan (which has a particulate haze, rather than water-based clouds, throughout its troposphere), and pointed it out in my observations on the "Unified Climate Theory", here and here.
So there is good reason to think that Nikolov and Zeller's "Theory", which is really only an arbitrary fitting of planetary data to a (rather extreme) mathematical form of their own devising, is hiding a real, although modest (5-7K), physical effect--a cooling effect--upon the temperature inside clouds and haze alike.
More telling than the hiding of that clear physical effect by the "Unified Climate Theory", however, and indeed more outrageous, is the shape of their NTE function. They tried to give that function some physical support by comparing its shape to that of the Poisson formula for temperature as a function of pressure, but it should be noted (using their own Figure 5) that their NTE function WOULD APPEAR TO BE USELESS for calculating the surface temperature of 5 of the 8 planetary bodies they considered, as all of those 5 bodies (Mercury, Moon, Mars, Europa, and Triton) have practically zero surface pressure, while their surface temperatures vary greatly (in other words, the NTE function is a vertical straight line, at a surface pressure of zero, in their Figure 5). Yet they claim, in their Table 1, perfect prediction of the surface temperatures of 2 of those 5 bodies (Mars and Europa), and near perfect prediction of another (Triton). It is my understanding, in the case of Mars, that its surface temperature varies widely, one would presume precisely because its pressure is so low, thus unstable. Even if their data and calculations are correct in this, this unphysical result explains the extreme form of their NTE function; and the extreme accuracy of their predicted temperatures cannot possibly be true. And sure enough, if one checks their values for the OBSERVED surface temperatures, one finds they claim to know every one of those temperatures to within 0.1K! I do not hesitate to call this delusionary.
So I reject the "Unified Climate Theory", as it now stands, just as I reject the consensus greenhouse effect, as unphysical and incompetent. There is no physical insight in it, that is not already in my Venus/Earth analysis.
Among the many comments at the tallbloke site, are the following:
Stephen Wilde wrote: "If temperature is set by pressure and solar input then in the end the effects of both volcanoes and GHGs [greenhouse gases, esp. carbon dioxide] must be neutral unless they affect total atmospheric mass."
and tallbloke wrote: "quite a lot of the Sun’s energy is directly absorbed in the atmosphere"
These observations basically follow from my Venus/Earth temperature comparison, and I have emphasized for more than a year, not only that the Venus/Earth temperature ratio, at points of equal pressure over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures, depends only upon the planets' distances from the Sun, but also (and Nikolov & Zeller have not said this) that the atmosphere is fundamentally warmed by direct absorption of incident solar infrared radiation, as tallbloke seems to understand (although his statement is evasive about making my point, contenting himself with saying only "quite a lot" of the Sun's energy is directly absorbed).
Stephen Wilde is right about the effect of increased GHGs being neutral, that is neither warming nor cooling, because from my Venus/Earth analysis, the temperature at any given pressure in the troposphere depends only on its position within the lapse rate structure (physically, due to the weight of the atmosphere above, pressing down on that level) and the solar input. It does not depend upon the composition of the atmosphere (how much of GHGs there are), nor even upon the planetary albedo. It should be noted that every pressure level is receiving energy (during the daylight hours) by direct absorption of solar radiation (so we are not talking about a temperature lapse rate appearing spontaneously, out of nowhere, or from pressure differences alone, without energy input from the Sun--OR EVEN FROM VERTICAL CONVECTION, as defenders of the carbon dioxide greenhouse effect claim; but, no matter how it is formed, it dominates over all other processes to govern the temperatures, because my Venus/Earth temperature comparison confirms the Standard Atmosphere, with its lapse rate, as the stable thermodynamic state of the atmosphere). Even before performing my simple analysis of Venus and Earth, I deduced from the most basic understanding of heat transfer, that GHGs cannot either trap heat or slow down its transport within the atmosphere; increasing their concentration in the atmosphere can only speed up heat transport, by providing a greater radiation path for it (in addition to whatever convection and conduction is going on). One of my blog readers insightfully likened the effect as that of a "lubricant" for heat transport, rather than a "furnace" producing more heat (or a refrigerator producing more cooling, for that matter). So increasing the amount of carbon dioxide neither warms nor cools, it only quickens the re-attainment of the physically dominant lapse rate structure, which the atmosphere is always trying to do.
But Wilde is not necessarily right about volcanoes having no effect, as my Venus/Earth comparison shows there is a further effect, within the clouds of Venus, and presumably in the clouds on other planets, amounting to about 5K cooling below the temperature predicted by the lapse rate structure itself. I found the same modest temperature effect (7K) for Titan (which has a particulate haze, rather than water-based clouds, throughout its troposphere), and pointed it out in my observations on the "Unified Climate Theory", here and here.
So there is good reason to think that Nikolov and Zeller's "Theory", which is really only an arbitrary fitting of planetary data to a (rather extreme) mathematical form of their own devising, is hiding a real, although modest (5-7K), physical effect--a cooling effect--upon the temperature inside clouds and haze alike.
More telling than the hiding of that clear physical effect by the "Unified Climate Theory", however, and indeed more outrageous, is the shape of their NTE function. They tried to give that function some physical support by comparing its shape to that of the Poisson formula for temperature as a function of pressure, but it should be noted (using their own Figure 5) that their NTE function WOULD APPEAR TO BE USELESS for calculating the surface temperature of 5 of the 8 planetary bodies they considered, as all of those 5 bodies (Mercury, Moon, Mars, Europa, and Triton) have practically zero surface pressure, while their surface temperatures vary greatly (in other words, the NTE function is a vertical straight line, at a surface pressure of zero, in their Figure 5). Yet they claim, in their Table 1, perfect prediction of the surface temperatures of 2 of those 5 bodies (Mars and Europa), and near perfect prediction of another (Triton). It is my understanding, in the case of Mars, that its surface temperature varies widely, one would presume precisely because its pressure is so low, thus unstable. Even if their data and calculations are correct in this, this unphysical result explains the extreme form of their NTE function; and the extreme accuracy of their predicted temperatures cannot possibly be true. And sure enough, if one checks their values for the OBSERVED surface temperatures, one finds they claim to know every one of those temperatures to within 0.1K! I do not hesitate to call this delusionary.
So I reject the "Unified Climate Theory", as it now stands, just as I reject the consensus greenhouse effect, as unphysical and incompetent. There is no physical insight in it, that is not already in my Venus/Earth analysis.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
A Second Response to the "Unified Climate Theory"
The tallbloke climate website continues to resound with excited discussion of the "Unified Climate Theory" of Nikolov and Zeller, which I initially made a few basic observations on here.
One of the readers of my site, who uses the name "David Socrates" in blog comments, tried to alert the above tallbloke thread to my initial observations, with the intent of assuring a happy consensus for all concerned, as he thought the "Unified Climate Theory" was an important confirmation of my Venus/Earth findings, supposedly by extending them to a total of eight planetary bodies in the solar system. My seemingly reticent initial response to the new "theory" has apparently caused concern for those who see the possibility of a new skeptical consensus on the greenhouse effect.
David initially posted the following comment:
"Ned,
Before we get too carried away, I suggest that we should pause for a moment to read and carefully absorb today’s reponse from Harry Huffman to your N&Z paper. He has posted this on his own website at:
http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com/2012/01/observation-on-unified-climate-theory.html
"First of all he shows, very eloquently in my opinion, that the grey body calculation that is at the heart of your ‘Nte’ ratio calculations for each planet (which generate the last line of data in your Table 4) is actually mathematically equivalent to his method of comparing the planetary temperatures directly without recourse to the concept of a ‘grey body’. He shows mathematically that both methods end up doing the same two things:
(1) They adjust for the relative amounts of the Sun’s energy that the planets receive (using the relative distances of the planets from the Sun and applying the inverse square law of electromagnetic radiation).
(2) They convert the adjusted energy values to their corresponding temperatures (using the standard Stefan-Boltzmann black body relationship).
So people will ask: what’s the difference? Well what Harry shows is that the additional parameters that you use, emissivity and albedo for your presumed grey body version of each planet are unnecessary. I suspected this when I first read your paper and now I have seen his exposition I am sure he is right.
"I would be interested to know whether you agree. If you do, I think this is good news, not bad. It simplifies your proposition considerably and avoids diversion into endless theoretical discussions about the significance of grey body (“atmosphere-less”) versions of each planet – evidently a fruitful source of confusion and disagreement.
"At the same time, I do not think that, if you were to adopt Harry’s simpler method of calculation for your planetary comparisons, this would negate your separate and, in my opinion, incredibly important finding that, hitherto, climate scientists have been using the wrong math when calculating the temperature difference between an atmosphere-less Earth (which is arguably a grey body) and its actual measured temperature, leading to a discrepancy between the two methods of calculation of no less than 100K! I think this is a very important result in its own right because it knocks the GHG warming theory on the head anyway, it being very difficult to see how the warmists can put such a huge additional difference down to the effect of GHGs.
So my positive thought is that there are now two separate arrows to our bow: Firstly an impossible temperature gap for the GHG theorists to bridge. Secondly, even if they try (and they will), some cast iron empirical planetary data and an empirical formula that provides no room for a GHG effect anyway."
After a follow-up comment by David, Ned Nikolov responded:
"David Socrates:
There is nothing to align between Hoffman’s ‘work’ and ours. He simply tried to express (cast) our gray-body temperature equation in terms of the conventional black-body model. This does not alter in any way the theoretical implications of our work regarding the effect of pressure on the surface thermal enhancement (ATE). Hoffman appears to have not even understood these theoretical implications, because he says he is surprised that pressure can alter the black-body temperature of a planet. Also, his mathematical simplification of our Eq. 6 only confuses the main point we tried to make in our reply paper, which is that one SHOULD NOT use the average absorbed radiation by a sphere to calculate the actual mean temperature of that sphere. The confusion arises from the fact that Hoffman’s modified black-body equation contains the therm (So/4), which is the AVERAGE radiation absorbed by a sphere … In summary, his ‘simplification’ only worsens the accuracy of our Eq. 8 in predicting planetary temperatures without providing any additional insight …"
David Socrates wrote me about this, asking for my response. I was of two minds about doing so, since, as tallbloke commented on my initial "Unified Climate Theory" article, there has been "more smoke and heat than clarity and light", in the past two weeks, on this subject, and my site is not about theoretical discussions, but about the simplest, most definitive facts, offering new knowledge, not ever more vain theorizing. With that last thought in mind, the following response to Nikolov is all fact.
First, my name is Harry Dale Huffman, not Hoffman.
Second, I am sure I never wrote, anywhere, that I am surprised "that pressure can alter the black-body temperature of a planet". Of course I thoroughly disagree with such a statement; it is simply inane, as my Venus/Earth analysis shows: 1) I used the Stefan-Boltzmann "blackbody equation" only implicitly, in the statement, "the radiating temperature of an isolated body in space varies as the fourth-root of the power incident upon it". I didn't even have to bother with the explicit form of the formula in my analysis, as anyone can, and should, verify. 2) Implicit, of course, in my just-quoted statement is that the boundary of the "equivalent blackbody" must be drawn beyond the atmosphere, beyond all conduction and convection of heat (only radiation in and out, as through the little hole in the traditionally described "blackbody cavity"), so there is no possibility, no reason to even consider the idea, that "pressure can alter the blackbody temperature of a planet", in my Venus/Earth analysis. 3) My usage of the blackbody formula (which was not controversial, but taught as fact, when I was an undergraduate physics major, over 40 years ago) is confirmed by the results of my Venus/Earth analysis, which shows the OBSERVED Venus/Earth temperature ratio, at points of equal pressure in the two atmospheres over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures, is precisely explained by the ratio of the two planets' distances from the Sun, and by nothing else -- that is the amazing fact, not theory. 4) Of course, there is no pressure variable in the Stefan-Boltzmann formula (which is why I say it is inane to say, "pressure can alter the blackbody temperature" of a planet; 5) Finally, the Stefan-Boltzmann formula fundamentally deals with the INCIDENT radiation, NOT the ABSORBED radiation (and it is just a fact that So/4 is not the "average absorbed radiation", as Nikolov wrote, but is instead the mean value of the INCIDENT solar radiation (incident upon the atmosphere, from outside) normal to the surface, as determined by integrating So dA cos(angle of incidence) over the sunlit side of the planet, and dividing by the area of the sunlit hemisphere (thus the factor of "4" in the formula).
Third, whether Nikolov thinks it "confuses" his "main point" or not, it is a mathematical fact that the Tgb formula CAN be simplified as I showed, and the result of that simplification shows there is no need for a "gray body" temperature at all, when the same result is obtained using the simple blackbody temperature as I gave it. This is essentially (and I think obviously) due to the fact that Nikolov and Zeller used the same albedo and emissivity for the "gray body" temperature they associated with each planetary body. The ONLY variable from one body to the next, in their formula for Tgb, is the incident solar intensity, So. This means, as I explicitly showed, that one can use the simple blackbody formula I wrote in my post, instead of their Tgb, AND GET THE SAME ANSWER FOR THE SURFACE TEMPERATURE OF THE PLANET. So my simplification CANNOT WORSEN THE ANSWER TO BE OBTAINED BY THEIR FORMULAS, THEY SHOULD GET THE SAME ANSWER USING EITHER THE BLACKBODY TEMPERATURE AS I CALCULATED IT OR THEIR "UNIVERSAL GRAY BODY" TEMPERATURE -- which means (my final point, and see my initial "Unified Climate Theory" post) that, since I found a discrepancy of 7K in the predicted versus observed surface temperature on Titan, using my simple procedure, while Nikolov found perfect agreement between the predicted vs observed surface temperature for Titan, THEIR ANSWER IS UNACCOUNTABLY BETTER THAN IT SHOULD BE, as I duly noted in my previous post on the "Unified Climate Theory".
That Nikolov responded so inanely and dismissively to David Socrates's polite query, raises the strongest danger signals in my mind. I stand by what I wrote in my first post, that his work is not a physical theory, but only an ad hoc model which he has arbitrarily constructed to fit the planetary data -- but it fits too well, in my present view, so that important physical effects, providing a modest but real 5-7K discrepancy (not only for the surface temperature of Titan, but within the cloud layer of Venus, as shown in my Venus/Earth comparison post), may be hidden by his mathematical modelling efforts. He needs at the very least to show his calculations for the surface temperatures he predicted, using the Ideal Gas Law as he claimed.
One of the readers of my site, who uses the name "David Socrates" in blog comments, tried to alert the above tallbloke thread to my initial observations, with the intent of assuring a happy consensus for all concerned, as he thought the "Unified Climate Theory" was an important confirmation of my Venus/Earth findings, supposedly by extending them to a total of eight planetary bodies in the solar system. My seemingly reticent initial response to the new "theory" has apparently caused concern for those who see the possibility of a new skeptical consensus on the greenhouse effect.
David initially posted the following comment:
"Ned,
Before we get too carried away, I suggest that we should pause for a moment to read and carefully absorb today’s reponse from Harry Huffman to your N&Z paper. He has posted this on his own website at:
http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.com/2012/01/observation-on-unified-climate-theory.html
"First of all he shows, very eloquently in my opinion, that the grey body calculation that is at the heart of your ‘Nte’ ratio calculations for each planet (which generate the last line of data in your Table 4) is actually mathematically equivalent to his method of comparing the planetary temperatures directly without recourse to the concept of a ‘grey body’. He shows mathematically that both methods end up doing the same two things:
(1) They adjust for the relative amounts of the Sun’s energy that the planets receive (using the relative distances of the planets from the Sun and applying the inverse square law of electromagnetic radiation).
(2) They convert the adjusted energy values to their corresponding temperatures (using the standard Stefan-Boltzmann black body relationship).
So people will ask: what’s the difference? Well what Harry shows is that the additional parameters that you use, emissivity and albedo for your presumed grey body version of each planet are unnecessary. I suspected this when I first read your paper and now I have seen his exposition I am sure he is right.
"I would be interested to know whether you agree. If you do, I think this is good news, not bad. It simplifies your proposition considerably and avoids diversion into endless theoretical discussions about the significance of grey body (“atmosphere-less”) versions of each planet – evidently a fruitful source of confusion and disagreement.
"At the same time, I do not think that, if you were to adopt Harry’s simpler method of calculation for your planetary comparisons, this would negate your separate and, in my opinion, incredibly important finding that, hitherto, climate scientists have been using the wrong math when calculating the temperature difference between an atmosphere-less Earth (which is arguably a grey body) and its actual measured temperature, leading to a discrepancy between the two methods of calculation of no less than 100K! I think this is a very important result in its own right because it knocks the GHG warming theory on the head anyway, it being very difficult to see how the warmists can put such a huge additional difference down to the effect of GHGs.
So my positive thought is that there are now two separate arrows to our bow: Firstly an impossible temperature gap for the GHG theorists to bridge. Secondly, even if they try (and they will), some cast iron empirical planetary data and an empirical formula that provides no room for a GHG effect anyway."
After a follow-up comment by David, Ned Nikolov responded:
"David Socrates:
There is nothing to align between Hoffman’s ‘work’ and ours. He simply tried to express (cast) our gray-body temperature equation in terms of the conventional black-body model. This does not alter in any way the theoretical implications of our work regarding the effect of pressure on the surface thermal enhancement (ATE). Hoffman appears to have not even understood these theoretical implications, because he says he is surprised that pressure can alter the black-body temperature of a planet. Also, his mathematical simplification of our Eq. 6 only confuses the main point we tried to make in our reply paper, which is that one SHOULD NOT use the average absorbed radiation by a sphere to calculate the actual mean temperature of that sphere. The confusion arises from the fact that Hoffman’s modified black-body equation contains the therm (So/4), which is the AVERAGE radiation absorbed by a sphere … In summary, his ‘simplification’ only worsens the accuracy of our Eq. 8 in predicting planetary temperatures without providing any additional insight …"
David Socrates wrote me about this, asking for my response. I was of two minds about doing so, since, as tallbloke commented on my initial "Unified Climate Theory" article, there has been "more smoke and heat than clarity and light", in the past two weeks, on this subject, and my site is not about theoretical discussions, but about the simplest, most definitive facts, offering new knowledge, not ever more vain theorizing. With that last thought in mind, the following response to Nikolov is all fact.
First, my name is Harry Dale Huffman, not Hoffman.
Second, I am sure I never wrote, anywhere, that I am surprised "that pressure can alter the black-body temperature of a planet". Of course I thoroughly disagree with such a statement; it is simply inane, as my Venus/Earth analysis shows: 1) I used the Stefan-Boltzmann "blackbody equation" only implicitly, in the statement, "the radiating temperature of an isolated body in space varies as the fourth-root of the power incident upon it". I didn't even have to bother with the explicit form of the formula in my analysis, as anyone can, and should, verify. 2) Implicit, of course, in my just-quoted statement is that the boundary of the "equivalent blackbody" must be drawn beyond the atmosphere, beyond all conduction and convection of heat (only radiation in and out, as through the little hole in the traditionally described "blackbody cavity"), so there is no possibility, no reason to even consider the idea, that "pressure can alter the blackbody temperature of a planet", in my Venus/Earth analysis. 3) My usage of the blackbody formula (which was not controversial, but taught as fact, when I was an undergraduate physics major, over 40 years ago) is confirmed by the results of my Venus/Earth analysis, which shows the OBSERVED Venus/Earth temperature ratio, at points of equal pressure in the two atmospheres over the range of Earth tropospheric pressures, is precisely explained by the ratio of the two planets' distances from the Sun, and by nothing else -- that is the amazing fact, not theory. 4) Of course, there is no pressure variable in the Stefan-Boltzmann formula (which is why I say it is inane to say, "pressure can alter the blackbody temperature" of a planet; 5) Finally, the Stefan-Boltzmann formula fundamentally deals with the INCIDENT radiation, NOT the ABSORBED radiation (and it is just a fact that So/4 is not the "average absorbed radiation", as Nikolov wrote, but is instead the mean value of the INCIDENT solar radiation (incident upon the atmosphere, from outside) normal to the surface, as determined by integrating So dA cos(angle of incidence) over the sunlit side of the planet, and dividing by the area of the sunlit hemisphere (thus the factor of "4" in the formula).
Third, whether Nikolov thinks it "confuses" his "main point" or not, it is a mathematical fact that the Tgb formula CAN be simplified as I showed, and the result of that simplification shows there is no need for a "gray body" temperature at all, when the same result is obtained using the simple blackbody temperature as I gave it. This is essentially (and I think obviously) due to the fact that Nikolov and Zeller used the same albedo and emissivity for the "gray body" temperature they associated with each planetary body. The ONLY variable from one body to the next, in their formula for Tgb, is the incident solar intensity, So. This means, as I explicitly showed, that one can use the simple blackbody formula I wrote in my post, instead of their Tgb, AND GET THE SAME ANSWER FOR THE SURFACE TEMPERATURE OF THE PLANET. So my simplification CANNOT WORSEN THE ANSWER TO BE OBTAINED BY THEIR FORMULAS, THEY SHOULD GET THE SAME ANSWER USING EITHER THE BLACKBODY TEMPERATURE AS I CALCULATED IT OR THEIR "UNIVERSAL GRAY BODY" TEMPERATURE -- which means (my final point, and see my initial "Unified Climate Theory" post) that, since I found a discrepancy of 7K in the predicted versus observed surface temperature on Titan, using my simple procedure, while Nikolov found perfect agreement between the predicted vs observed surface temperature for Titan, THEIR ANSWER IS UNACCOUNTABLY BETTER THAN IT SHOULD BE, as I duly noted in my previous post on the "Unified Climate Theory".
That Nikolov responded so inanely and dismissively to David Socrates's polite query, raises the strongest danger signals in my mind. I stand by what I wrote in my first post, that his work is not a physical theory, but only an ad hoc model which he has arbitrarily constructed to fit the planetary data -- but it fits too well, in my present view, so that important physical effects, providing a modest but real 5-7K discrepancy (not only for the surface temperature of Titan, but within the cloud layer of Venus, as shown in my Venus/Earth comparison post), may be hidden by his mathematical modelling efforts. He needs at the very least to show his calculations for the surface temperatures he predicted, using the Ideal Gas Law as he claimed.
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