Global warming/climate change

[claudiu]

@Andrew

This paper linked previously, is saying all of the O2 and N2 have a combined effect of “about 15% of that due to CH4”.

Indeed it does , but from a cursory glance it looks like it’s focusing on the infrared absorptive capacity of N2 and O2.

The point is that after N2 and O2 and the other gases are heated by conduction and convection — they too are emitting infrared light towards the surface even without absorbing any at all! That’s because all hot objects (including gases) emit light based on their temperature. This “all hot gases emit infrared light towards the surface” is what is assumed to have 0% effect on the surface temperature.

In other words the ‘greenhouse effect’ is thought to only occur with IR-absorbing gases, which the paper you link to also presumed. And this is said to be entirely responsible for the planet being 15C instead of -18C. The gases that don’t absorb IR but do emit IR are not even considered.

And also the reason they think it should be -18C is because they model the Earth as a flat black disk with a Sun that never sets whose strength is 1/4 the real Sun’s … …

[Andrew]

Ok .

The paper did give more depth to the topic. I can now see where the controversy can come in. Not that I didn’t already have an idea if how complex it, the climate, is.

However, where is the evidence that the O2 and N2 are emitting IR at levels which explain why is is more than a 3% difference?

What my simple understanding of thermodynamics tells me is that something can’t emit more than it already has. Even a fusion reaction “obeys” this principle.

It still sounds like “look the horizon looks flat!” Sorta argument.

Perhaps, there is a specific climate model which we can discuss?

I keep bouncing off this, because short of a 4 year degree in climatology, I can’t see myself getting to any position that I could say “they are wrong” with any certainty.

I, being a simple citizen, can comment on the politics of it all though, because that’s my job -by law no less ! (and requiring zero qualifications apart from being age over 18 and punishable if I indeed don’t vote), that the money being spent of promoting “carbon neutral”, whilst well meaning, is better spent on building sustainable living solutions within the ecosystem.

One can dream.

[Andrew]

Reflecting on this whilst contemplating moving to the Philippines

It reminds me of the “dis franchisement” (spelling…UGG!) discussions of many years back.

Being squeezed by my own desires to be here “where the action is” when it probably more sensible to “make like the wind” and go where it’s more comfortable.

Whatever happens, it’s very clear that the human condition has to be gone for any lasting solution to climate change/ environmental degeneration.

[claudiu]

@Andrew

What my simple understanding of thermodynamics tells me is that something can’t emit more than it already has. Even a fusion reaction “obeys” this principle.

The point is there’s 3 ways objects can become heated: conduction, convection, radiation.

Then there’s 3 ways they can lose heat: conduction, convection, and radiation.

All objects lose heat via radiation, including all gases, not only select gases. The amount they lose and the wavelengths of the light emitted depend on the temperature of the object, which is in the infrared range for temperatures on Earth.

A gas can become heated by conduction & convection and then lose heat by radiation. No thermodynamics violation here.

The 99% of gases that do this in the atmosphere (including O2 and N2) are simply presumed, a-priori, as an axiom, that they have nothing to do with the ‘greenhouse effect’. This is a given in the model, it’s not a proof! It’s not experimentally demonstrated, it’s the starting point!

[Andrew]

Ok, but according to that paper, the entire 99% accounts for 3% of the “effect”.

So while I get that it seems they discounted it, it’s still 3%

Granted, if I fuck up 3% in my job, there is plenty of apologies needed, but still, not the end of my career.

I always go back to my hands on touchy feely understanding.

Which others would also have experienced, no doubt.

If I pick up a piece of metal which has been out in the Perth sun, I am going to be very sorry for doing so.

However, if I pick up a piece of fibre cement (not sure what it’s called in America, a type of compressed lining board), I am going to have no problem at all.

Some materials just don’t absorb much heat. No matter what one does, it resists storing heat. Some materials get so hot, under exactly the same conditions, that it’s a certain burn.

That 99% of the atmosphere is of elements which really don’t like storing heat is just so normal in my mind.

I used to install insulation. A long time ago. The whole principal of bulk insulation is that is traps air and stops it circulating. Air really sucks at transmitting heat. It’s an excellent insulation. All glass fibre batts ( or any bulk insulation) does it stop the air movement. The air does the rest.

So, 99% of the atmosphere really isn’t very good at storing heat. The 1% of water vapour is amazingly good at it, the 0.4 CO2 also great , and apparently methane and others even better at it.

I really don’t see anything in the argument that that 99% is contributing more than the 3% that article said it did.

It’s like trying to convince me that steel left in the sun is going to be the same temperature as fibre cement.

[claudiu]

@Andrew

Ok, but according to that paper, the entire 99% accounts for 3% of the “effect”.

So while I get that it seems they discounted it, it’s still 3%

Hmm not quite. The paper is addressing infrared absorption (“weak absorption features of N2 and O2 in the infrared”). What I’m talking about here is infrared emission due to the 100% of the gases in the atmosphere that emit IR simply because they are hot (i.e. heated by conduction & convection). The paper doesn’t address this at all, in any way whatsoever.

@Andrew

Some materials just don’t absorb much heat. No matter what one does, it resists storing heat. […] That 99% of the atmosphere is of elements which really don’t like storing heat is just so normal in my mind. […] Air really sucks at transmitting heat. It’s an excellent insulation. […] So, 99% of the atmosphere really isn’t very good at storing heat. The 1% of water vapour is amazingly good at it, the 0.4 CO2 also great , and apparently methane and others even better at it.

And yet according to atmosphere science, the first 10km worth of atmosphere is virtually unaffected by the effects of radiative heating (ie the infrared-absorbing qualities of that 1% of gases):

[E. O. Hulburt] found that convective equilibrium holds in the lower part of the troposphere up to about 10 Km, while radiative holds equilibrium above. The important consequence is that the details of the [infrared] absorption in the lower troposphere do not matter since heat “is spread around and transferred upward by convection”.
Is the CO2 effect saturated?

Take note well of that. For the entire 10km worth of atmosphere closest to the ground, the IR absorptive qualities of the gases don’t matter! In other words the 1% of gases that you say are “amazingly good at”/“great”/“even better at” the act of “storing heat” don’t matter. The entire 100% of the atmosphere matters for these first 10km, because “convective equilibrium holds” (i.e. convection dominates, not radiation, in the first 10km).

I think the issue you’re running into is that the global warming arguments intentionally conflate “heat” with “infrared radiation”. They aren’t the same thing. A purely 100% oxygen & nitrogen gas mixture, even though it doesn’t absorb any (or very little) infrared radiation, still will get hot if you put a space heater in there or a flame below it etc. And it will still emit infrared radiation. This latter bit is what is ignored in the climate models (as far as I have seen).

[Andrew]

@claudiu

. What I’m talking about here is infrared emission due to the 100% of the gases in the atmosphere that emit IR simply because they are hot

It does address it implicitly because if something can’t absorb much heat, and can’t emit much heat.

It’s not adding anything more just because it’s 99%, because it didn’t absorb it to being with.

That’s the whole point. It’s really shit at absorbing, and thus having anything to emit.

One can a 1000 gallon tank, but if there is only 1 gallon in it, then that’s what you will get out of it. In this case, it looks like a huge tank, but it’s capacity is really low.

@claudiu

emit IR simply because they are hot

They aren’t hot for long. Minutes at best. That’s what the “lapse rate” is telling us. The dry air lapse rate is 9.8 degrees drop for every kilometre in altitude.

Which is pretty fast. If it’s 30C at ground level, it’s dropped to 21.2 in a kilometre.

Whilst wet air, might have rate of 4 degrees, which means the lift heat will be twice as high as dry air.

@claudiu

And yet according to atmosphere science, the first 10km worth of atmosphere is virtually unaffected by the effects of radiative heating (ie the infrared-absorbing qualities of that 1% of gases):

Yes. They are basically saying that. I haven’t seen any evidence apart from the potential 3% in that paper, to suggest they are wrong.

@claudiu

doesn’t absorb any (or very little) infrared radiation, still will get hot if you put a space heater in there or a flame below it etc

And that same air will get cold very quickly.

That’s the whole point. O2 and N2 store heat/infrared really really badly.

@claudiu

This latter bit is what is ignored in the climate models (as far as I have seen).

Yes, to the tune of perhaps 3%. Which was my calculation based on the paper. Which admittedly, I don’t know how it actually effects the final temperatures of the models.

Air will get hot, but nowhere near as hot as water.

To use your fan heater example.

The air is being forced over an electrical element which is glowing red hot. The total current draw may be 1kw but the heat you feel Infront of it is nowhere near that.

Take a 1kw and boil the same equivalent mass of water, and it will be a whole lot hotter very very quickly.

So, from my reading, air has a mass of 1.225 kg per cubic metre at sea level.

Water has a mass of 1000 kg per cubic metre. Which is also 1000 litres.

So the equivalent is easy to calculate. 1 cubic metre of air is the equivalent mass of 1.225 litres.

One can, set up a insulated box of one cubic metre of air, and boil a insulated 1.225 lires. Making sure that the input wattage is the same.

Time both to see when the have reached 100 degrees (boiling point).

Then time how long it takes for each to lose their heat when the insulation is removed.

Not really an easy set up, but not outside amateur capacity.

[Andrew]

@claudiu

I think the issue you’re running into is that the global warming arguments intentionally conflate “heat” with “infrared radiation”. They aren’t the same thing

Indeed, though I am only vaguely familiar with why.

What I did read was that the heat stored in the air (whatever type, wet or dry) expends work as it expands. So it doesn’t transfer the heat anywhere at all because it was converted from energy as heat, to energy as movement.

This, all this convection we witness, in and of itself, uses a lot of heat up as it rises without it contributing to warning anything at all.

It’s the same as a car. If we had an conventional petrol engine which was 100% efficient, the exhaust would be at the ambient temperature. There wouldn’t be any excess heat at all.

Which, would explain why the models didn’t take the effect of the 99% into account, because it was assumed that air is essentially using whatever heat it had when it expands as work.

Water, has plenty of excess energy left as it expands which is why steam engines work, and hot air engines don’t exist.

[Andrew]

@Andrew

hot air engines don’t exist

They do actually exist, in Stirling cycles, but are very inefficient for their relative weight. Infact they rely on the fact that air is so shit* at storing energy to even work at all. (I actually love these engines, so quiet and graceful).

*They rely on the air very quickly changing temperature between the hot and cold sides.

Also, the very best Stirling engines use pure compressed nitrogen* internally, because it is extra shit at storing heat.!

*Note: compressed nitrogen. It’s that shit at storing heat, they put more of it in!

And that gas is 80% of the atmosphere.

[Andrew]

So, to connect the dots here, 99% of the atmosphere is using whatever heat it has to do work when it expands. There is only water, CO2 CH4 and a couple of others, which have the capacity to expand and also radiate heat.

The are givers, not takers.

[Andrew]

It’s that excess radiant heat which we rely on in the bottom of the troposphere, to keep us in somewhat liveable temperatures.

Somewhat. There are plenty of places I have been with unlivable temperatures.

[Andrew]

Getting back to personal application of this, I really like how detailed this discussion is. How the complexity reveals itself.

It actually played a big role in some monumental decision making yesterday. I am now planning on exploring the Philippines. I have this vision of the green I want around me. Lot’s yet to consider, an exploration trip will be needed, but being in the optimal environment makes so much sense to me now.

Just because I grew up here, doesn’t mean it’s the best place to live.

[Andrew]

To keep my own interests at the forefront; loving the discussion. It helps with other investigations.

So many times my “investigations” have been applications of very shallow morality.

I never asked myself the “lapse rate” of relationship desire. How and why does this or that feeling arise?

Why are some more persistent than others?

What drives my “climate change”.

[claudiu]

@Andrew

It does address it implicitly because if something can’t absorb much heat, and can’t emit much heat.

It’s not adding anything more just because it’s 99%, because it didn’t absorb it to being with.

That’s the whole point. It’s really shit at absorbing, and thus having anything to emit.

It’s not “shit at absorbing” heat. It’s “shit at absorbing” infrared radiation. It absorbs heat just fine via convection and conduction. See:

@claudiu

@solvann

Tyndall and Foote showed that nitrogen and oxygen, which together account for 99 percent of the atmosphere, had essentially no influence on Earth’s temperature because they did not absorb heat.

This is demonstrably false, though. Just start a fire in a fireplace. The air (99% of which is nitrogen & oxygen) warms as a result of contact with the fire. All of it warms, not just 1% of it.

Alternately turn on a heater that heats the air near the floor. The hot air will rise to the top. Then stand up and wave your hands in the air. You’ll feel the heat. The air as a whole (99% of which is nitrogen & oxygen) warms up. It is absorbing the heat from the air below. All the air is hotter, not just 1% of it.

The paper doesn’t even contemplate or consider the capacity of N2 and O2 to become heated outside of infrared absorption. It’s not something it addresses because it’s not in the model it’s all based on in the first place.

@Andrew

@claudiu

And yet according to atmosphere science, the first 10km worth of atmosphere is virtually unaffected by the effects of radiative heating (ie the infrared-absorbing qualities of that 1% of gases):

Yes. They are basically saying that. I haven’t seen any evidence apart from the potential 3% in that paper, to suggest they are wrong.

What I quoted here contradicts your point, it doesn’t prove it!

This is a graph of temperature vs. altitude (source):

What is accepted in atmosphere science is that the temperature of the entire first 10km of this – from 15°C on the Earth to -50°C at the 10km mark – is due essentially entirely to the heat storing and transferring qualities of the gases that do not participate in infrared absorption.

If the 1% of trace gases had a 33x stronger effect than the 99% of regular gases like you say they do, then this wouldn’t be true. The first 10km of the atmosphere would also be dominated by the properties of that 1% of gases – after all they would account for 97% of the effect (everything but the 3% you calculated).

But the facts are the opposite. The 10km is dominated by the 99% of gases not the 1%.

@Andrew

So, to connect the dots here, 99% of the atmosphere is using whatever heat it has to do work when it expands. There is only water, CO2 CH4 and a couple of others, which have the capacity to expand and also radiate heat.

Everything radiates heat! That’s how an object’s temperature is measured. If O2 and N2 didn’t radiate heat then you could heat them up forever and they’d never get hot.

@Andrew

Which, would explain why the models didn’t take the effect of the 99% into account, because it was assumed that air is essentially using whatever heat it had when it expands as work.

Despite whatever the case may be there, the fact is that the atmosphere up to the 10km maintains the temperatures that it does. However the mechanism by which it gets there, work expended or not, this is the equilibrium temperature. And, being at that equilibrium temperature… the entire atmosphere is emitting infrared light, some towards the ground, some towards space. How the entirety of the atmosphere emitting infrared light can be automatically assumed to have zero effect, as the starting point of a model, boggles the mind!

It’s also worth reiterating that all this does is show the model to be self-contradictory. The model claims that the entirety of the effect of the Earth being 33°C than it “should” be, is due to infrared light being emitted to the ground. And they ignore the infrared light that 99% of the atmosphere emits in their calculation!!

It is a self-defeating model. But it doesn’t mean that the Earth indeed should be -18°C and that 100% of the atmosphere is responsible for it being 15°C as opposed to just 1%. The entire basis of thinking the Earth “should be” -18°C is flawed. For the full ridiculosity of the argument see Richard’s article .

Cheers,
Claudiu

[Andrew]

Completely missing the point of what air does with heat.

Of course it can get hot, but it’s really no very good at it.

Bringing out the charts of the very scientists one wants to discredit?

It make zero sense.

It’s almost as if the wonder is lost.

Why can’t they just be almost right?

I never got the impression that Richard was arguing any point except to wonder about it.

Not to blindly believe , but to wonder.

It perfectly ok if they are indeed, mostly correct.

It’s the blind belief that is the point.

I see many issues in the way science is manipulated. But lasers ultimately don’t lie. People do.

But someone else with a laser will come along, and not lie.

I really enjoy just wondering about it.

Wondering if a monsoon will be bearable. Whether it really was such a great idea. Then laughing. It’s all really a trip after all. We just get the choice where we get off.

[Andrew]

Let me put it this way;

If air is the amazing conductor of heat, as you claim, then standing in the shade, walking in the shade, otherwise experientially deciding that “shade” is better, would make no difference.

Air is absolutely no good at transmitting heat. Or even carrying it the scant meter from the roasting sidewalk, to the shady tree.

Granted, it still warm, but not even close to the heat of standing in the sun.

If I were to believe that air was capable of what you claim it is, then I would have to also stop walking in the shade; because such actions are insane! Obviously.

Seems to me you are building a sand castle around an opinion that Richard and Vineeto have, rather than openly discussing it.

Again, I am happy we are discussing it. And it seems that any sensible, if unpolished reply, is met with the same recalcitrance that I am well known for.

Bravo! Now that’s an achievement I can applaud.

Personally, I want to reiterate that my impression of the very same type of discussions which Job thought were “biased” and you seem adamant of building a case for, were actually encouragement to Wonder.

I hope we can indeed continue to wonder. It’s encouraging me to consider all sorts of life changing things which I had not the courage to try.

[claudiu]

@Andrew

If air is the amazing conductor of heat, as you claim, […]

I’m not the one claiming it… this is the accepted understanding of atmosphere/climate science at least since 1972 apparently. It was in one of the links you yourself posted:

Things Climate Science has Totally Missed? – Convection

The following are excerpts from the link, from Atmospheres , by R.M. Goody & J.C.G. Walker (1972):

@Andrew

If I were to believe that air was capable of what you claim it is, then I would have to also stop walking in the shade; because such actions are insane! Obviously.

It is atmosphere scientists that are claiming it, not me, so you will have to take it up with them! I see no reason to dispute what they say in this case.

@Andrew

Seems to me you are building a sand castle around an opinion that Richard and Vineeto have, rather than openly discussing it.

Yet all I’m doing is re-presenting, re-iterating, and re-stating the argument that they are making, without really adding anything to it.

@Andrew

Again, I am happy we are discussing it.

Glad to hear it!

@Andrew

And it seems that any sensible, if unpolished reply, is met with the same recalcitrance that I am well known for.

Lol now my replies are “unpolished”??

@Andrew

It’s almost as if the wonder is lost.

@Andrew

I hope we can indeed continue to wonder.

What about what I’m writing makes you think I’m not wondering?

@Andrew

Why can’t they just be almost right?

They could be of course, but just because they could but doesn’t mean they are…

@Andrew

I never got the impression that Richard was arguing any point except to wonder about it.

You might want to re-read the article then.

@Andrew

Not to blindly believe , but to wonder.

Indeed.

@Andrew

It perfectly ok if they are indeed, mostly correct.

It’s the blind belief that is the point.

Yes, but if the wondering leads to seeing that their whole argument is baseless… then… how does it somehow cease to be wondering to point that out??

@Andrew

I really enjoy just wondering about it.

Ok, but part of the thing that makes wondering fun is figuring things out too! If we could never say anything about anything concretely then there would be no facts and really no way to make sense of any of it.

Cheers,
Claudiu

[Andrew]

@claudiu

Lol now my replies are “unpolished”??

Haha, somewhat. I approve.

[Andrew]

@claudiu

! If we could never say anything about anything concretely then there would be no facts and really no way to make sense of any of it.

Indeed.

Which is why I will continue to choose the shade of a tree. I didn’t even have to think about it really.

You know, the question isn’t really “where we get off” but “why we get on”.

I respect that I am talking to a rather accomplished professional programmer. (If programmer is beneath your accomplishments… kindly insert what is befitting). Edited for unintended meaning.

What I do know, is that I am highly unlikely to accumulate the knowledge necessary to be as sure as you are about the climate. I enjoy the journey. Very much so in fact.

I do wonder, are you so sure of arriving at facts when the entire scientific enterprise of whom there are those equally professionally proficient, if not more so, than yourself, are saying otherwise?

Would it be absurd for me to question you on some point of programming? Maybe. Sometimes a rank amateur can spot a flaw. However, it’s the aspect of having new eyes, (also know as wonder) which allows that; not the amateur status.

If someone where to lecture me, as sometimes happens, about a costing I have done, I have indeed learnt over the years that although 999 out of 1000 times they are wrong, I will do the exercise of checking.

Which is what science is, after all the politics and economics is stripped away; checking repeatable findings.

So until (never) I have a degree in climatology, a fully stocked lab, with lasers of course, and preferably a few rather dashing assistants, just because, I really can only stand in the shade and otherwise wonder; is Claudiu going to become a climatologists?

I think you would be very good. If not somewhat poor and left field.

Edit; I don’t mean that last statement as a slight, but rather a recognition that anyone who stays from the “mean” inevitably has to pay their own way. Whether it’s worth it, well, that’s a personal judgement. I am all for walking away from the crowd. However, I am careful now , in considering it for reals, exactly what that means.

[Andrew]

@claudiu

They could be of course, but just because they could but doesn’t mean they are…

This is indeed a fact. The chances however a usually slim that science doesn’t otherwise correct itself.

I have come to discover that every good thing came to me through cooperation. Competition, is usually a very wasteful and marginal activity.

Too much cooperation, when it descends into conformity for the sake of the imagined peace; not great results at all. Usually bad.

I wonder though, is it really the science that is in question, or the political/ economic aspects which are in question?

Not to say that fundamental errors are not made through the politics and economics coming first.

My 10 year old self was enraged at the Catholic church for just such reasons. The cover ups, the blatant power hungry sexual predatation… (Spelling…agg! The more I learn Russian, the less I care about english spelling. Such a mess…,)

Parenthetical point in case, convention can indeed come before factual practically.

To the point of whether the one in a thousand times a rank amateur is correct;

Is there any properly qualified voices that you could recommend me reading?

So that instead of a back and forth, I could get a better grip of the topic?