On Aug 30, 4:25*am, Whata Fool wrote:"*So unless
somebody is willing to describe a process by which the N2 and O2
could cool themselves without GHGs, I have to go on claiming GHGs cool
the atmosphere, even if they supposedly warm the surface (and the
surface can warm the air, it just can't cool
the air much)."

laughing, why stop a fool from making a fool of himself...

On Aug 30, 1:55 am, William Asher wrote:
Whata Fool wrote:
Whata Fool wrote:

For the sake of making this point, consider water vapor and CO2
to both be GreenHouse Gases having identical attributes as far as the
IR electromagnetic radiation energy transfer is concerned.

Greenhouse Gas theory talks about gases able to absorb and
radiate
Infra-Red radiation, with water vapor being the only major GHG, and
CO2 the only minor GHG in concentration in the atmosphere of more than
100 PPMV.

There are other very minor GHGs, but they are of no import to
this
discussion.

AGW theory seems to focus unduly on CO2, and that is what AGW is
about, man does put additional CO2 into the atmosphere every day.
But GHG theory is about water vapor mostly, and CO2 as an
adjunct.

And as I try to write about a subject I have considerable
interest
in, it is a fight to avoid the browser hijackers, illegal malware scan
sales practices and suffering the damages from forged messages posted
by a criminal who can have no reason to attack me other than my views
on GreenHouse Gas theory.

Two gases that can and do absorb and radiate Infra-Red are
present
in 99 percent of the mass of the atmosphere at any and all times, CO2
at better than 380 PPMV presently, and water vapor usually at more
than 10,000 PPMV and often at more than 20,000 PPMV.

If temperature changes are affected by changing CO2
concentration,
then changes in water vapor concentration should affect temperatures,
in the same direction with increases.

This does not change any presumption about what causes the
surface
region of Earth to be 30 degrees warmer than the moon, that is a
separate issue entirely.
If increased concentration of CO2 were to cause additional IR
radiation, and it should, then increased water vapor concentration
should cause additional IR radiation, and it may.

The problem here is that increased CO2 has been blamed for some
small temperature rise, upon the assumption that increased IR
radiation must mean higher temperatures, and this has to be a
real-time effect.
But increased humidity does not cause temperature rise, even if
it causes increased IR radiation.

The driest days can be the hottest, and the driest days can also
be the coldest. And with high humidity, air temperatures seem to
change more slowly.

And the AGW argument is that CO2 is a "permanent" GHG, while
water
vapor is considered to be more transitional or even transient.

GHGs are responsible for considerable distribution and
re-distribution
of thermal energy, but the major heat sink for the atmosphere is the
N2 and the O2 atmosphere itself, with the limited ability of those
gases to radiate IR, they would warm in daytime, and resist cooling at
night, and there is only the GHGs to cool them and to produce
survivable and even comfortable temperatures on Earth

Foo-Foo:

Just.

Do.

Some.

Math.

That's a real problem for old 'uns like us, believe it or not. I can
spend hours trying to dissect some straightforward piece of calculus
that would have occupied me for less than 5 minutes when I was twenty
years old.

On Aug 29, 10:22 pm, Bill Ward wrote:
On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:42:08 +0000, William Asher wrote:
Whata Fool wrote:

Peter Muehlbauer wrote:

Whata Fool wrote:
[snip]
I just can't ignore that man puts CO2 in the air, but I also
can't attribute everything that happens in weather to a trace gas that
is a small fraction of the major GreenHouse Gas 'water vapor'.

I'm absolutely conform with you, if man-made CO2 really has any effect,
which is, until now, not evidenced.

I thought you were doing studies of CO2 compared to temperature.

CO2 is no different than any other GHG except for concentration
and minor attributes.

So if GHG concentrations were closely related to temperature,
then if water vapor concentration increased, temperatures would
increase.

See how closely this describes AGW presumptions?

It seems so silly that it doesn't even seem worthwhile to think
it through, temperatures are wildly all over the place, whether humidity
changes or not, up or down.

As I see it, all CO2 can do is add about 2 percent to the thermal
transfer process that water vapor causes.
But that is only a small part of the many ways water and water
vapor affect the weather or climate.

I had the impression that you were suffering from a bad case of
"reverse Anthropogenic Global Warming" where CO2 concentrations follow
temperature changes closely. :-)

I think the annual global average temperature has two ups and two
downs each year, but the CO2 plot seems to have only one distinct up and
down each year.

I feel the proper way to view GHG effect and the optimum climate
conditions on Earth is to accept that the N2 and O2 warm in daytime, but
cool little at night, reaching a balance where the GHGs radiating in all
directions what they absorb limiting the warming by convection from the
surface in daytime.

And if this has any merit, a little extra CO2 each year should
cool the atmosphere a little more each year, but that small amount of
extra cooling of the atmosphere is overwhelmed by the larger swings in
temperatures caused by El Nino-La Nina and orbital patterns of the sun
and giant planets plus the random natural patterns due to variations in
cloud cover and the resulting changes in evaporation and the wind
patterns and pressure zones.

Basing climate or climate change on such a simplistic trivial
trace gas like CO2 is an adolescent approach to a very complex system.

Foo-Foo:

Coming from a guy who had to have the ideal gas law, insolation on a
sphere, and atmospheric circulation repeatedly explained to him, and even
then wouldn't take the time to understand the physics because he didn't
like the source, your attempts to change tactic here are laughable at
best. Really, you need to leave the skeptic science to people who are idea
men, like Bilbo the Flyboy, who just *knows* it's all water vapor, even
though he hasn't done a calculation in his life because a) you don't need
to do calculations to be a pilot since they got GPS and stuff and b) he's
afraid he'll get the numbers wrong and confuse himself.

All of what you've written above is wrong, if you had a smattering of
science you would actually take the time to calculate the energy budgets.
For example, the outgoing longwave flux is around 400 W/m^2 at 300 K.

From what altitude? IIRC, the effective outgoing radiation level is
somewhere in the upper troposphere, about where the cloud tops are. They
radiate LW, you know.

If the average outgoing LW flux is 400Wm-2, and the incoming average is
~340Wm-2, how would you explain global warming? Can you show your
calculations for such an "energy budget"?

You
would be hard pressed to get anywhere near that number for a convective
flux or a latent heat flux (even combined).

OK, show us your calculations, including the measurements of the source
intensities. Hint: Trenberth only used estimated global precipitation to
determine latent heat transfer. He completely omitted the water cycle in
TS, which repeatedly circulates water and ice up and down, quite
vigorously. He also missed virga, but that's probably not as significant.

http:www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring04/atmo451b/pdf/Radia...

Convection is covered on pdf pages 8 and 9.

BTW, he gets 235Wm-2 outgoing LW, where did you get your number?

Of course, you'll ignore
this advice, and keep talking silliness, just like you do with the
"greenhouse gases cool the atmosphere" argument, which if you were at
all clued in would realize was nonsense. (If what you were arguing were
true, then the temperature profile of the Earth with altitude would
deviate below the adiabatic profile. However, it's above the adiabatic
line, a lot.) Of course, you understand none of what I just said, or
why it's relevant, so I realize I am just talking to the people who do
get it.

Or yourself.

But, like all skeptics, especially the ones on the internet, your
science skills are weak to nonexistent so that, like your pal Capt.
Smith, you believe any little idea that someone feeds you, or pops into
your head, regardless of whether it makes physical sense.

I'm sorry your dislike for me keeps you from understanding how the
atmosphere really works, but then, it's more amusing for me this way, so
I'm not really complaining.

Back to the bad-ass persona already? I think you're just a pussycat with
an image problem.

Haha. BW described BA as a real gentleman as I recall. Now he's
slagging him off (or is this perhaps one of those forged posts.)

On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:50:39 +0000, William Asher wrote:

Bill Ward wrote in
news
On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:54:26 +0000, William Asher wrote:

Bill Ward wrote:

snip

Bilbo Flyboy:

I'm not going to bother fisking this because you're not going to
understand it anyway. Try to follow along as best you can, 'k?

It's easy to fix. I'll just reinsert the relevant text of my post
you're trying to avoid:


begin repost
Subject: Keep Your Winter Woolies Handy: Sunspots May Vanish By
2015 From: Bill Ward Newsgroups:
alt.global-warming,sci.environment,sci.geo.meteorology Date: Fri,
29 Aug 2008 13:22:21 -0700

On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:42:08 +0000, William Asher wrote:

Whata Fool wrote:
I feel the proper way to view GHG effect and the optimum climate
conditions on Earth is to accept that the N2 and O2 warm in daytime,
but cool little at night, reaching a balance where the GHGs radiating
in all directions what they absorb limiting the warming by convection
from the surface in daytime.


And if this has any merit, a little extra CO2 each year should
cool the atmosphere a little more each year, but that small amount of
extra cooling of the atmosphere is overwhelmed by the larger swings in
temperatures caused by El Nino-La Nina and orbital patterns of the sun
and giant planets plus the random natural patterns due to variations
in cloud cover and the resulting changes in evaporation and the wind
patterns and pressure zones.

Basing climate or climate change on such a simplistic trivial
trace gas like CO2 is an adolescent approach to a very complex system.

[WH begins]
Foo-Foo:

Coming from a guy who had to have the ideal gas law, insolation on a
sphere, and atmospheric circulation repeatedly explained to him, and
even then wouldn't take the time to understand the physics because he
didn't like the source, your attempts to change tactic here are
laughable at best. Really, you need to leave the skeptic science to
people who are idea men, like Bilbo the Flyboy, who just *knows* it's
all water vapor, even though he hasn't done a calculation in his life
because a) you don't need to do calculations to be a pilot since they
got GPS and stuff and b) he's afraid he'll get the numbers wrong and
confuse himself.

All of what you've written above is wrong, if you had a smattering of
science you would actually take the time to calculate the energy
budgets. For example, the outgoing longwave flux is around 400 W/m^2 at
300 K.

From what altitude? IIRC, the effective outgoing radiation level is
somewhere in the upper troposphere, about where the cloud tops are. They
radiate LW, you know.

Still no response, I see.

If the average outgoing LW flux is 400Wm-2, and the incoming average is
~340Wm-2, how would you explain global warming? Can you show your
calculations for such an "energy budget"?

You
would be hard pressed to get anywhere near that number for a convective
flux or a latent heat flux (even combined).

OK, show us your calculations, including the measurements of the source
intensities. Hint: Trenberth only used estimated global precipitation
to determine latent heat transfer. He completely omitted the water
cycle in TS, which repeatedly circulates water and ice up and down,
quite vigorously. He also missed virga, but that's probably not as
significant.

http:http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students...atmo451b/pdf/R
adiationBudget.pdf

Convection is covered on pdf pages 8 and 9.

BTW, he gets 235Wm-2 outgoing LW, where did you get your number?

Of course, you'll ignore
this advice, and keep talking silliness, just like you do with the
"greenhouse gases cool the atmosphere" argument, which if you were at
all clued in would realize was nonsense. (If what you were arguing
were true, then the temperature profile of the Earth with altitude
would deviate below the adiabatic profile. However, it's above the
adiabatic line, a lot.) Of course, you understand none of what I just
said, or why it's relevant, so I realize I am just talking to the
people who do get it.

Or yourself.

But, like all skeptics, especially the ones on the internet, your
science skills are weak to nonexistent so that, like your pal Capt.
Smith, you believe any little idea that someone feeds you, or pops into
your head, regardless of whether it makes physical sense.

I'm sorry your dislike for me keeps you from understanding how the
atmosphere really works, but then, it's more amusing for me this way,
so I'm not really complaining.

Back to the bad-ass persona already? I think you're just a pussycat
with an image problem.

end repost



I wouldn't expect you to understand this, keeping in mind your aversion
to math. Anyway, the 400 W/m^2 number comes from plugging 300 K into
the Stefan-Boltzman Law.

So it's surface emission, not actual outgoing LW.

It also comes from direct measurements of upwelling LW flux.

Got a link? To a measurement, not a model.

Still no response. I see.

Direct measurements of the latent and sensible heat fluxes are a
relatively small fraction of this, a large surface latent heat flux in
the tropics, for instance, is 150 W/m^2 (this also comes from direct
measurements)

Show a credible link and someone might believe you.

Still no link. How surprising.

and sensible heat fluxes are smaller still, on order of 10 W/m^2
(because there is no temperature gradient across the air-water
interface to speak of). The point is that Foo-Foo seems to think that
the upward fluxes of latent and sensible heat are *larger* than the
upwelling longwave flux, which is nonsense. That neither you, nor he,
appreciate this is not surprising.

Because it can easily be shown to be wrong. Latent heat dominates in
thermals.

Anyway, the 235 W/m^2 is the net outgoing TOA LW flux, I believe. It's
been a while since I worked through Trenburth. The idea is, if you
could do the math anyway, that 400 W/m^2 goes up from the surface due
to blackbody radiation, and the GHGs radiate approximately half of that
back down, to balance the 350 that comes from solar (with the other 150
W/m^2 going up due to the latent and sensible heat fluxes (so that the
total exchanged between the surface and atmosphere is like 500 W/m^2,
except 150 W/m^2 of that is "recycled" energy from the GHGs (no really,
this is going to confuse the hell out of you))).
I know it's confusing, the details are precisely why skeptics like
you think that latent heat flux *has* to be important, even though
you've never actually sat down and worked it out.

I see no response to the example I gave below of the magnitude of latent
heat flux in thermals.

You confuse only yourself. Blathering on about it doesn't help. Just
look at Trenberth's cartoon, and see where the 75Wm-2 comes from.

People may notice that in the post above (which you didn't respond to),
I posted a link to Trenberth. I think he badly underestimated the
latent heat flux. Look at the repost above for more.

Please don't start telling me about how there is a large latent heat
flux out of the desert, or some other stupid pilot nonsense. Just go
through Trenburth's numbers, apply the Stefan-Boltzman law, and you'll
see I'm correct.

Better yet, let's take a real world example. Good thermals rise at
around 1800-2000ft/min, say 10m/s. Air weighs about 1kg/m^3, so a m^3
of air lifted 10m takes mgh work, or 1 x 9.8 x 10 = ~98J/sec
mechanical energy, or 98W/m^2, which is what lifts sailplanes. Long
wingspans cover a lot of m^2/sec.

Then there's latent heat of say 12g/m^3 (35C,30%RH) of water @
40kJ/mole = ~26kJ/m^3, and ten of those cubic meters go by each second,
so the flux is 260kJ/sec, or 260kW/m^2. Steam carries a lot of energy.

I'll omit the sensible heat flux as insignificant compared to the
above.

So that makes 98W + 260kW = ~260kW/m^2 total energy flux in a good
thermal, give or take a few. Oh, yeah, there's supposed to be 75W/m^2
radiative transfer in there, too, but who's counting?

Thunderstorms are even more impressive, because the velocities are much
higher.

If you look at a satellite picture of the Earth, most of those white
things in the tropics are clouds with thermals underneath them, sucking
heat up from the surface and emitting it to space as IR. Too bad
they're so hard to model that they're mostly ignored. Or parameterized,
which has roughly the same effect.

Now where are your numbers?

Foo-Foo is a lost cause, but at least he hasn't claimed GHGs cool the
atmosphere in 12 hours or so.

Are you claiming they don't? How could they fail to radiate if they
absorb?

AgainI see no response to that question.

Up in the air, junior birdman!

I pity you. You've apparently missed a lot in life. There's nothing
quite like soaring the Crestline ridge in a hang glider at 8000ft, with
a little hawk flying formation 10 feet off your wingtip. "Birdman", I
can only aspire to, and that's as close as I've ever got.

Now deal with my post, or admit you can't. Can you find any
significant error in my rough calculations?



Bilbo Flyboy:

Before I get to your error, let me clear something up for you, since you
are confused.
The TOA LW flux is 230 W/m^2, that's top-of-atmosphere. Now, just for
grins, multiply 300*300*300*300 and then multiply that by 5.67x10^-8 and
you will get a number that is around 400. That would be 400 W/m^2 and
300 would be kelvins, or the temperature of the equatorial ocean, more
or less. So the outgoing *surface* LW flux is 400 W/m^2. The atmosphere
intercepts most of that, I forget exactly, but it's something like 350
W/m^2 on average. Of that 350 W/m^2, half gets radiated back downwards
by the greenhouse gases. Combine that 175 W/m^2 with the downwelling
fraction of the solar shortwave flux and you match, approximately, the
upwelling *surface* LW flux (because the Earth is in radiative
equilibrium). The figures you are calculating above include energy
provided to the atmosphere via the upwelling longwave flux, so it's not
a good estimate of the radiative balance number (another way to think
about this is that what you are talking about is transporting heat
through the troposphere (where there is no argument that convection due
to latent heat is huge), whereas I am talking about how that heat got
into the troposphere to begin with)

So you think the latent heat radiated there? Perhaps you could explain
how you can radiate hundreds of kW/m^2 with a surface T of 300K. Or maybe
you just couldn't follow the calculations. FYI, the water came from the
surface, evaporated by the sun.

(as an aside, this is another example of how
using stuff you learned in pilot school is not a good idea for climate,
which is why you thought formation of clouds aloft indicated there was a
large latent heat flux from a desert).

I still do, and posted an example above showing why. Where's your evidence
that they don't? And where is your rebuttal to the example I gave?

The upwelling *surface* latent
heat flux, which is the relevant parameter as far as the energy balance is
concerned is around 100 W/m^2, I'm not going to look that up for you, you
can use google as well as I can. Google "ocean surface latent heat flux"
or something like that ("tao heat flux" will give you lots of links to the
TOGA-TAO array data set). But like I said, it's been a while since I
worked through Trenberth, but it does all work out like above, even if my
memory led me to get some of the numbers a little off. (I am rock solid
sure about the surface LW flux though.)

Well, I'm not talking about "surface LW flux", I'm talking about the
latent heat flux due to the convection of water, which overwhelms
radiation. You still haven't addressed the example I gave above. You're
still all wrapped around the axle with radiation.


What you should do, which you won't, is sit down with Trenberth's paper
and try to figure out why it's correct, rather than read it thinking it
*has* to be wrong because you don't like the implications if it is
correct.

Not at all. I posted an example of latent heat transfer based on personal
experience, which shows several orders of magnitude more latent heat flux
than radiation. Can you find an error or not? Surely it wasn't
completely over your head.

What you are arguing, in essence, is that you understand
radiative transfer better than Lindzen, since even he agrees with
Trenberth's radiative budget (Lindzen just thinks that the latent heat
flux will increase to offset the increase in GHG forcing from CO2 (which
is not a very large number yet even so takes a *huge* increase in the
latent heat flux, from around 100 W/m^2 to something like 140 W/m^2)).

Why should I need to believe something I can show is wrong? Radiative
transfer is trivial compared to latent heat transfer. I'm not just
arguing it, I'm giving an example which you apparently can't understand.

That you seem to believe that a few dozen hours of glider school about
thermals matches Lindzen's background is absurd. If I were in your
shoes, and had a shred of introspection left, that even a staunch
climate skeptic like Lindzen accepts Trenberth's numbers on the
radiative balance might give me pause for concern about my position.

But apparently, in your shoes, you can't even critique my example, much
less come up with your own numbers.

I like it when you get all poetic about flying. For a second I thought
you were going to go on about how you had slipped the surly bonds of
earth and danced the skies on laughter's silvered wings.

Nope, that was someone else, but I know the feeling.

Now, are you going to show me an error in my rough calculations of surface
latent heat flux, or are you going to admit you were wrong, again?

Do you ever stop to think how ridiculous your lame little derogatory
comments make you look, when you can't even follow a simple example? Or
are you like John M, who thinks since it's Usenet, he has to be rude?

On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:26:17 -0700, John M. wrote:

On Aug 29, 10:22 pm, Bill Ward wrote:
On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:42:08 +0000, William Asher wrote:

snip purely to annoy John

But, like all skeptics, especially the ones on the internet, your
science skills are weak to nonexistent so that, like your pal Capt.
Smith, you believe any little idea that someone feeds you, or pops
into your head, regardless of whether it makes physical sense.

I'm sorry your dislike for me keeps you from understanding how the
atmosphere really works, but then, it's more amusing for me this way,
so I'm not really complaining.

Back to the bad-ass persona already? I think you're just a pussycat
with an image problem.

Haha. BW described BA as a real gentleman as I recall. Now he's slagging
him off (or is this perhaps one of those forged posts.)

No, I think he's a gentleman at heart who for some reason puts on a
bad-ass persona. I'm encouraging him to drop the act and enjoy life.

As for you, I'm not so sure it's an act...

On Aug 30, 7:08 pm, Bill Ward wrote:
On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 07:50:39 +0000, William Asher wrote:
Bill Ward wrote in
newsan.2008.08.30.06.35.39.346001@REMOVETHISix. netcom.com:

On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:54:26 +0000, William Asher wrote:

Bill Ward wrote:

snip

Bilbo Flyboy:

I'm not going to bother fisking this because you're not going to
understand it anyway. Try to follow along as best you can, 'k?

It's easy to fix. I'll just reinsert the relevant text of my post
you're trying to avoid:

begin repost
Subject: Keep Your Winter Woolies Handy: Sunspots May Vanish By
2015 From: Bill Ward Newsgroups:
alt.global-warming,sci.environment,sci.geo.meteorology Date: Fri,
29 Aug 2008 13:22:21 -0700

On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:42:08 +0000, William Asher wrote:

Whata Fool wrote:
I feel the proper way to view GHG effect and the optimum climate
conditions on Earth is to accept that the N2 and O2 warm in daytime,
but cool little at night, reaching a balance where the GHGs radiating
in all directions what they absorb limiting the warming by convection
from the surface in daytime.

And if this has any merit, a little extra CO2 each year should
cool the atmosphere a little more each year, but that small amount of
extra cooling of the atmosphere is overwhelmed by the larger swings in
temperatures caused by El Nino-La Nina and orbital patterns of the sun
and giant planets plus the random natural patterns due to variations
in cloud cover and the resulting changes in evaporation and the wind
patterns and pressure zones.

Basing climate or climate change on such a simplistic trivial
trace gas like CO2 is an adolescent approach to a very complex system.

[WH begins]
Foo-Foo:

Coming from a guy who had to have the ideal gas law, insolation on a
sphere, and atmospheric circulation repeatedly explained to him, and
even then wouldn't take the time to understand the physics because he
didn't like the source, your attempts to change tactic here are
laughable at best. Really, you need to leave the skeptic science to
people who are idea men, like Bilbo the Flyboy, who just *knows* it's
all water vapor, even though he hasn't done a calculation in his life
because a) you don't need to do calculations to be a pilot since they
got GPS and stuff and b) he's afraid he'll get the numbers wrong and
confuse himself.

All of what you've written above is wrong, if you had a smattering of
science you would actually take the time to calculate the energy
budgets. For example, the outgoing longwave flux is around 400 W/m^2 at
300 K.

From what altitude? IIRC, the effective outgoing radiation level is
somewhere in the upper troposphere, about where the cloud tops are. They
radiate LW, you know.

Still no response, I see.

If the average outgoing LW flux is 400Wm-2, and the incoming average is
~340Wm-2, how would you explain global warming? Can you show your
calculations for such an "energy budget"?

You
would be hard pressed to get anywhere near that number for a convective
flux or a latent heat flux (even combined).

OK, show us your calculations, including the measurements of the source
intensities. Hint: Trenberth only used estimated global precipitation
to determine latent heat transfer. He completely omitted the water
cycle in TS, which repeatedly circulates water and ice up and down,
quite vigorously. He also missed virga, but that's probably not as
significant.

http:http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students...atmo451b/pdf/R
adiationBudget.pdf

Convection is covered on pdf pages 8 and 9.

BTW, he gets 235Wm-2 outgoing LW, where did you get your number?

Of course, you'll ignore
this advice, and keep talking silliness, just like you do with the
"greenhouse gases cool the atmosphere" argument, which if you were at
all clued in would realize was nonsense. (If what you were arguing
were true, then the temperature profile of the Earth with altitude
would deviate below the adiabatic profile. However, it's above the
adiabatic line, a lot.) Of course, you understand none of what I just
said, or why it's relevant, so I realize I am just talking to the
people who do get it.

Or yourself.

But, like all skeptics, especially the ones on the internet, your
science skills are weak to nonexistent so that, like your pal Capt.
Smith, you believe any little idea that someone feeds you, or pops into
your head, regardless of whether it makes physical sense.

I'm sorry your dislike for me keeps you from understanding how the
atmosphere really works, but then, it's more amusing for me this way,
so I'm not really complaining.

Back to the bad-ass persona already? I think you're just a pussycat
with an image problem.

end repost

I wouldn't expect you to understand this, keeping in mind your aversion
to math. Anyway, the 400 W/m^2 number comes from plugging 300 K into
the Stefan-Boltzman Law.

So it's surface emission, not actual outgoing LW.

It also comes from direct measurements of upwelling LW flux.

Got a link? To a measurement, not a model.

Still no response. I see.

Direct measurements of the latent and sensible heat fluxes are a
relatively small fraction of this, a large surface latent heat flux in
the tropics, for instance, is 150 W/m^2 (this also comes from direct
measurements)

Show a credible link and someone might believe you.

Still no link. How surprising.

and sensible heat fluxes are smaller still, on order of 10 W/m^2
(because there is no temperature gradient across the air-water
interface to speak of). The point is that Foo-Foo seems to think that
the upward fluxes of latent and sensible heat are *larger* than the
upwelling longwave flux, which is nonsense. That neither you, nor he,
appreciate this is not surprising.

Because it can easily be shown to be wrong. Latent heat dominates in
thermals.

Anyway, the 235 W/m^2 is the net outgoing TOA LW flux, I believe. It's
been a while since I worked through Trenburth. The idea is, if you
could do the math anyway, that 400 W/m^2 goes up from the surface due
to blackbody radiation, and the GHGs radiate approximately half of that
back down, to balance the 350 that comes from solar (with the other 150
W/m^2 going up due to the latent and sensible heat fluxes (so that the
total exchanged between the surface and atmosphere is like 500 W/m^2,
except 150 W/m^2 of that is "recycled" energy from the GHGs (no really,
this is going to confuse the hell out of you))).
I know it's confusing, the details are precisely why skeptics like
you think that latent heat flux *has* to be important, even though
you've never actually sat down and worked it out.

I see no response to the example I gave below of the magnitude of latent
heat flux in thermals.

You confuse only yourself. Blathering on about it doesn't help. Just
look at Trenberth's cartoon, and see where the 75Wm-2 comes from.

People may notice that in the post above (which you didn't respond to),
I posted a link to Trenberth. I think he badly underestimated the
latent heat flux. Look at the repost above for more.

Please don't start telling me about how there is a large latent heat
flux out of the desert, or some other stupid pilot nonsense. Just go
through Trenburth's numbers, apply the Stefan-Boltzman law, and you'll
see I'm correct.

Better yet, let's take a real world example. Good thermals rise at
around 1800-2000ft/min, say 10m/s. Air weighs about 1kg/m^3, so a m^3
of air lifted 10m takes mgh work, or 1 x 9.8 x 10 = ~98J/sec
mechanical energy, or 98W/m^2, which is what lifts sailplanes. Long
wingspans cover a lot of m^2/sec.

Then there's latent heat of say 12g/m^3 (35C,30%RH) of water @
40kJ/mole = ~26kJ/m^3, and ten of those cubic meters go by each second,
so the flux is 260kJ/sec, or 260kW/m^2. Steam carries a lot of energy.

I'll omit the sensible heat flux as insignificant compared to the
above.

So that makes 98W + 260kW = ~260kW/m^2 total energy flux in a good
thermal, give or take a few. Oh, yeah, there's supposed to be 75W/m^2
radiative transfer in there, too, but who's counting?

Thunderstorms are even more impressive, because the velocities are much
higher.

If you look at a satellite picture of the Earth, most of those white
things in the tropics are clouds with thermals underneath them, sucking
heat up from the surface and emitting it to space as IR. Too bad
they're so hard to model that they're mostly ignored. Or parameterized,
which has roughly the same effect.

Now where are your numbers?

Foo-Foo is a lost cause, but at least he hasn't claimed GHGs cool the
atmosphere in 12 hours or so.

Are you claiming they don't? How could they fail to radiate if they
absorb?

AgainI see no response to that question.

Up in the air, junior birdman!

I pity you. You've apparently missed a lot in life. There's nothing
quite like soaring the Crestline ridge in a hang glider at 8000ft, with
a little hawk flying formation 10 feet off your wingtip. "Birdman", I
can only aspire to, and that's as close as I've ever got.

Now deal with my post, or admit you can't. Can you find any
significant error in my rough calculations?

Bilbo Flyboy:

Before I get to your error, let me clear something up for you, since you
are confused.
The TOA LW flux is 230 W/m^2, that's top-of-atmosphere. Now, just for
grins, multiply 300*300*300*300 and then multiply that by 5.67x10^-8 and
you will get a number that is around 400. That would be 400 W/m^2 and
300 would be kelvins, or the temperature of the equatorial ocean, more
or less. So the outgoing *surface* LW flux is 400 W/m^2. The atmosphere
intercepts most of that, I forget exactly, but it's something like 350
W/m^2 on average. Of that 350 W/m^2, half gets radiated back downwards
by the greenhouse gases. Combine that 175 W/m^2 with the downwelling
fraction of the solar shortwave flux and you match, approximately, the
upwelling *surface* LW flux (because the Earth is in radiative
equilibrium). The figures you are calculating above include energy
provided to the atmosphere via the upwelling longwave flux, so it's not
a good estimate of the radiative balance number (another way to think
about this is that what you are talking about is transporting heat
through the troposphere (where there is no argument that convection due
to latent heat is huge), whereas I am talking about how that heat got
into the troposphere to begin with)

So you think the latent heat radiated there? Perhaps you could explain
how you can radiate hundreds of kW/m^2 with a surface T of 300K. Or maybe
you just couldn't follow the calculations. FYI, the water came from the
surface, evaporated by the sun.

(as an aside, this is another example of how
using stuff you learned in pilot school is not a good idea for climate,
which is why you thought formation of clouds aloft indicated there was a
large latent heat flux from a desert).

I still do, and posted an example above showing why. Where's your evidence
that they don't? And where is your rebuttal to the example I gave?

The upwelling *surface* latent
heat flux, which is the relevant parameter as far as the energy balance is
concerned is around 100 W/m^2, I'm not going to look that up for you, you
can use google as well as I can. Google "ocean surface latent heat flux"
or something like that ("tao heat flux" will give you lots of links to the
TOGA-TAO array data set). But like I said, it's been a while since I
worked through Trenberth, but it does all work out like above, even if my
memory led me to get some of the numbers a little off. (I am rock solid
sure about the surface LW flux though.)

Well, I'm not talking about "surface LW flux", I'm talking about the
latent heat flux due to the convection of water, which overwhelms
radiation. You still haven't addressed the example I gave above. You're
still all wrapped around the axle with radiation.



What you should do, which you won't, is sit down with Trenberth's paper
and try to figure out why it's correct, rather than read it thinking it
*has* to be wrong because you don't like the implications if it is
correct.

Not at all. I posted an example of latent heat transfer based on personal
experience, which shows several orders of magnitude more latent heat flux
than radiation. Can you find an error or not? Surely it wasn't
completely over your head.

What you are arguing, in essence, is that you understand
radiative transfer better than Lindzen, since even he agrees with
Trenberth's radiative budget (Lindzen just thinks that the latent heat
flux will increase to offset the increase in GHG forcing from CO2 (which
is not a very large number yet even so takes a *huge* increase in the
latent heat flux, from around 100 W/m^2 to something like 140 W/m^2)).

Why should I need to believe something I can show is wrong? Radiative
transfer is trivial compared to latent heat transfer. I'm not just
arguing it, I'm giving an example which you apparently can't understand.

That you seem to believe that a few dozen hours of glider school about
thermals matches Lindzen's background is absurd. If I were in your
shoes, and had a shred of introspection left, that even a staunch
climate skeptic like Lindzen accepts Trenberth's numbers on the
radiative balance might give me pause for concern about my position.

But apparently, in your shoes, you can't even critique my example, much
less come up with your own numbers.

I like it when you get all poetic about flying. For a second I thought
you were going to go on about how you had slipped the surly bonds of
earth and danced the skies on laughter's silvered wings.

Nope, that was someone else, but I know the feeling.

Now, are you going to show me an error in my rough calculations of surface
latent heat flux, or are you going to admit you were wrong, again?

Do you ever stop to think how ridiculous your lame little derogatory
comments make you look, when you can't even follow a simple example? Or
are you like John M, who thinks since it's Usenet, he has to be rude?

Nope . I think that since it's Usenet, it's a perfect opportunity to
be rude.

"John M." wrote:

On Aug 30, 1:55 am, William Asher wrote:
Whata Fool wrote:
Whata Fool wrote:

For the sake of making this point, consider water vapor and CO2
to both be GreenHouse Gases having identical attributes as far as the
IR electromagnetic radiation energy transfer is concerned.

Greenhouse Gas theory talks about gases able to absorb and
radiate
Infra-Red radiation, with water vapor being the only major GHG, and
CO2 the only minor GHG in concentration in the atmosphere of more than
100 PPMV.

There are other very minor GHGs, but they are of no import to
this
discussion.

AGW theory seems to focus unduly on CO2, and that is what AGW is
about, man does put additional CO2 into the atmosphere every day.
But GHG theory is about water vapor mostly, and CO2 as an
adjunct.

And as I try to write about a subject I have considerable
interest
in, it is a fight to avoid the browser hijackers, illegal malware scan
sales practices and suffering the damages from forged messages posted
by a criminal who can have no reason to attack me other than my views
on GreenHouse Gas theory.

Two gases that can and do absorb and radiate Infra-Red are
present
in 99 percent of the mass of the atmosphere at any and all times, CO2
at better than 380 PPMV presently, and water vapor usually at more
than 10,000 PPMV and often at more than 20,000 PPMV.

If temperature changes are affected by changing CO2
concentration,
then changes in water vapor concentration should affect temperatures,
in the same direction with increases.

This does not change any presumption about what causes the
surface
region of Earth to be 30 degrees warmer than the moon, that is a
separate issue entirely.
If increased concentration of CO2 were to cause additional IR
radiation, and it should, then increased water vapor concentration
should cause additional IR radiation, and it may.

The problem here is that increased CO2 has been blamed for some
small temperature rise, upon the assumption that increased IR
radiation must mean higher temperatures, and this has to be a
real-time effect.
But increased humidity does not cause temperature rise, even if
it causes increased IR radiation.

The driest days can be the hottest, and the driest days can also
be the coldest. And with high humidity, air temperatures seem to
change more slowly.

And the AGW argument is that CO2 is a "permanent" GHG, while
water
vapor is considered to be more transitional or even transient.

GHGs are responsible for considerable distribution and
re-distribution
of thermal energy, but the major heat sink for the atmosphere is the
N2 and the O2 atmosphere itself, with the limited ability of those
gases to radiate IR, they would warm in daytime, and resist cooling at
night, and there is only the GHGs to cool them and to produce
survivable and even comfortable temperatures on Earth

Foo-Foo:

Just.

Do.

Some.

Math.

That's a real problem for old 'uns like us, believe it or not. I can
spend hours trying to dissect some straightforward piece of calculus
that would have occupied me for less than 5 minutes when I was twenty
years old.


Before doing math, the problem has to be structured and first
estimates made. It is common to not use any precision math until
there is a reason to.


I have read millions of words of technical literature, and
both Climate Change and AGW have the least well specified or defined
science ever. But this is common in a lot of writing, it is
usually more just sloppy writing than a properly structured problem.

In climate science, the "surface" of the real Earth might be
described in such a way so that the weather services temperature
data is quite adequate.
But in discussions of an Earth with N2 and O2 atmosphere, but
no GHGs, the surface is simply the solid rock surface.


In order to correctly model and evaluate the effect of GHGs
with an increasing concentration of atmospheric CO2 on the real
Earth, understanding the physics of the Earth with NO GHGs can
help a lot.

If GHGs cool the atmosphere, then will increasing atmospheric
CO2 cause more warming or more cooling?


Obviously CC science has already said that the effects vary
according to latitude, but there are still some questions about
certain aspects, and apparently some writers have said that certain
problems are not well understood.

If this August would have been like last August here locally,
then many of us might have looked at AGW differently, but the nights
this August have fallen down well into the 60s at night, and even
into the 50s.

The daytime temperatures have been as much as 25 degrees cooler
than last August, and there would need to be a lot of warmer anomalies
elsewhere to get back to average.


It seems as though there should be more horizontal transfer of
energy from warm to cold, my impression is that most of the horizontal
temperature changes are cold fronts moving into warmer air, and often
moist warmer air.

So this seems to make thermal transfer more of a pressure thing
than Infra-Red radiation. Maybe weather is different other places
than here, most of our weather comes down from Canada, with some from
the southwest, occasionally a Bermuda High from the southeast.


The cooling has presented a problem, and it may take time to
re-evaluate the situation. I am praying that increased atmospheric
CO2 is not the cause of the cooling.

On Aug 30, 7:37 pm, Bill Ward wrote:
On Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:26:17 -0700, John M. wrote:
On Aug 29, 10:22 pm, Bill Ward wrote:
On Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:42:08 +0000, William Asher wrote:

snip purely to annoy John

But, like all skeptics, especially the ones on the internet, your
science skills are weak to nonexistent so that, like your pal Capt.
Smith, you believe any little idea that someone feeds you, or pops
into your head, regardless of whether it makes physical sense.

I'm sorry your dislike for me keeps you from understanding how the
atmosphere really works, but then, it's more amusing for me this way,
so I'm not really complaining.

Back to the bad-ass persona already? I think you're just a pussycat
with an image problem.

Haha. BW described BA as a real gentleman as I recall. Now he's slagging
him off (or is this perhaps one of those forged posts.)

No, I think he's a gentleman at heart who for some reason puts on a
bad-ass persona. I'm encouraging him to drop the act and enjoy life.

As for you, I'm not so sure it's an act...

I never claimed to be acting, so now you can be sure I mean what I
say. When I say you're a pillock, that's because you are, indeed, a
pillock.

Whata Fool wrote:

"John M."
wrote:

On Aug 30, 1:55 am, William Asher
wrote:
Whata Fool wrote:
Whata Fool wrote:

For the sake of making this point,
consider water vapor and CO2
to both be GreenHouse Gases having identical
attributes as far as the IR electromagnetic
radiation energy transfer is concerned.

Greenhouse Gas theory talks about gases
able to absorb and radiate
Infra-Red radiation, with water vapor being
the only major GHG, and CO2 the only minor
GHG in concentration in the atmosphere of
more than 100 PPMV.

There are other very minor GHGs, but
they are of no import to this
discussion.

AGW theory seems to focus unduly on
CO2, and that is what AGW is
about, man does put additional CO2 into the
atmosphere every day.
But GHG theory is about water vapor
mostly, and CO2 as an adjunct.

And as I try to write about a subject
I have considerable interest
in, it is a fight to avoid the browser
hijackers, illegal malware scan sales
practices and suffering the damages from
forged messages posted by a criminal who can
have no reason to attack me other than my
views on GreenHouse Gas theory.

Two gases that can and do absorb and
radiate Infra-Red are present
in 99 percent of the mass of the atmosphere
at any and all times, CO2 at better than 380
PPMV presently, and water vapor usually at
more than 10,000 PPMV and often at more than
20,000 PPMV.

If temperature changes are affected by
changing CO2 concentration,
then changes in water vapor concentration
should affect temperatures, in the same
direction with increases.

This does not change any presumption
about what causes the surface
region of Earth to be 30 degrees warmer than
the moon, that is a separate issue entirely.
If increased concentration of CO2 were
to cause additional IR
radiation, and it should, then increased
water vapor concentration should cause
additional IR radiation, and it may.

The problem here is that increased CO2
has been blamed for some
small temperature rise, upon the assumption
that increased IR radiation must mean higher
temperatures, and this has to be a real-time
effect.
But increased humidity does not cause
temperature rise, even if
it causes increased IR radiation.

The driest days can be the hottest,
and the driest days can also
be the coldest. And with high humidity,
air temperatures seem to change more slowly.

And the AGW argument is that CO2 is a
"permanent" GHG, while water
vapor is considered to be more transitional
or even transient.

GHGs are responsible for considerable
distribution and re-distribution
of thermal energy, but the major heat sink
for the atmosphere is the N2 and the O2
atmosphere itself, with the limited ability
of those gases to radiate IR, they would
warm in daytime, and resist cooling at
night, and there is only the GHGs to cool
them and to produce survivable and even
comfortable temperatures on Earth

Foo-Foo:

Just.

Do.

Some.

Math.

That's a real problem for old 'uns like us,
believe it or not. I can spend hours trying to
dissect some straightforward piece of calculus
that would have occupied me for less than 5
minutes when I was twenty years old.


Before doing math, the problem has to be
structured and first
estimates made. It is common to not use any
precision math until there is a reason to.


I have read millions of words of technical
literature, and
both Climate Change and AGW have the least well
specified or defined
science ever. But this is common in a lot of
writing, it is usually more just sloppy writing
than a properly structured problem.

In climate science, the "surface" of the
real Earth might be
described in such a way so that the weather
services temperature data is quite adequate.
But in discussions of an Earth with N2 and
O2 atmosphere, but
no GHGs, the surface is simply the solid rock
surface.


In order to correctly model and evaluate
the effect of GHGs
with an increasing concentration of atmospheric
CO2 on the real Earth, understanding the physics
of the Earth with NO GHGs can help a lot.


If GHGs cool the atmosphere, then will
increasing atmospheric
CO2 cause more warming or more cooling?

My completely unscientific "guess" would be a
moderation of both warming and cooling.



Obviously CC science has already said that
the effects vary
according to latitude, but there are still some
questions about certain aspects, and apparently
some writers have said that certain problems are
not well understood.

If this August would have been like last
August here locally,
then many of us might have looked at AGW
differently, but the nights this August have
fallen down well into the 60s at night, and even
into the 50s.

The daytime temperatures have been as much
as 25 degrees cooler
than last August, and there would need to be a
lot of warmer anomalies elsewhere to get back to
average.


It seems as though there should be more
horizontal transfer of
energy from warm to cold, my impression is that
most of the horizontal temperature changes are
cold fronts moving into warmer air, and often
moist warmer air.

So this seems to make thermal transfer
more of a pressure thing
than Infra-Red radiation. Maybe weather is
different other places than here, most of our
weather comes down from Canada, with some from
the southwest, occasionally a Bermuda High from
the southeast.


The cooling has presented a problem, and
it may take time to
re-evaluate the situation. I am praying that
increased atmospheric CO2 is not the cause of
the cooling.

Peter Muehlbauer wrote:

Bill Ward wrote:


The TOA LW flux is 230 W/m^2, that's top-of-atmosphere. Now, just for
grins, multiply 300*300*300*300 and then multiply that by 5.67x10^-8 and
you will get a number that is around 400. That would be 400 W/m^2 and
300 would be kelvins, or the temperature of the equatorial ocean, more
or less. So the outgoing *surface* LW flux is 400 W/m^2. The atmosphere
intercepts most of that, I forget exactly, but it's something like 350
W/m^2 on average. Of that 350 W/m^2, half gets radiated back downwards
by the greenhouse gases.

Really the half?
Half would fit at infinite altitude of the radiating molecule.
At the active height of tropopause (10 km or so) you have to keep in mind the
horizon, respectively the tangential visible calotte.
So less than a half really hits the earth.


Less than half _starts_ downward, whether or not and what portion
is absorbed by other molecules on the way down is in question.


This is essentially the gist of why I think the whole premise of
upper atmosphere CO2 playing a big part in warming the surface is too
simplistic.
After dark, and even as the sun goes down, the air cools usually,
and the surface cools. While the surface has greater mass per unit
of volume, far more mass of the air is involved in the thermal and IR
energy transfer.
Fog reduces energy transfer, clouds stop up-down energy transfer
and radiate and absorb broadband.
So the amount of energy reaching the surface from the upper
atmosphere CO2 may be nil, but there is a lot of energy transfer going
on in between the upper atmosphere and the surface.


I am trying to reason out the claimed up-down Infra-Red transfer
with what seems to be zero horizontal IR transfer, with most of the
horizontal energy transfer being thermal and as cold air moving in and
taking the place of warmer air.

Where the warm air goes isn't clear, the cooling can be very
rapid, with very little noticeable IR energy from the upper atmosphere.
Except on exceptionally clear nights, there is little notice
of Infra-Red energy transfer, and then it is seen as dew or frost
forming, which is the radiation to space.