Trenberth's Energy Budget

[OohPooPahDoo]

how many of you think it is a deception to have 390 (W/m2) going up and 324 coming down?

Is that not the case?

while it is true in an absolute way it disguises the fact that only 66 w/m2 is available as the difference between the temps of the surface and the lower atmosphere. out of that 66, 40 leaves directly with only 26 W/m2 warming the lower atmosphere.

LOL! It only 'disguises' that fact to imbeciles that can't do subtraction. You've got to be kidding me, right?

so 26 W/m2 is the greenhouse effect

NO. The "greenhouse" effect refers to the gross trapping of energy by the atmosphere - not the net difference. Without it we'd all freeze to death.

and I have never seen any estimates higher than 26% for CO2's share of the GHE so that means ~8 W/m2 or less for the total amount of CO2. the absorption of CO2 is logrithmic so that means we are into the ninth doubling (256-512) so every doubling is ~(8W/m2)/8 doublings= 1 W/m2 or less.

Wow you've said a lot in a little amount of space, care to back it up and explain yourself a bit more?

I find it hard to believe that something that is responsible for ~1 W/m2 is the grand control knob of the climate. it is an amount that is lost in the error bars of measurement. but that is just my opinion but now you know why I think that way.

Whether or not 1 W/m2 - wherever you got that number - is within the error bars isn't really a matter of opinion.

 

[IanC]

all of the numbers are approximations taken from Trenberth's graph and public sources.

most sources say that we are 33C warmer because of the green house effect. and most sources say that CO2 is responsible for 1/4 or less of that effect. therefor 8 doublings of CO2 is responsible for ~8C. ~1C per doubling. another way of calculating and another result showing the minor result from CO2.

we are just about 400ppm CO2 now. that means ~1C increase from now when we get to about 800ppm.

is that the sort of answer you were looking for?

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

all of the numbers are approximations taken from Trenberth's graph and public sources.

most sources say that we are 33C warmer because of the green house effect. and most sources say that CO2 is responsible for 1/4 or less of that effect. therefor 8 doublings of CO2 is responsible for ~8C. ~1C per doubling. another way of calculating and another result showing the minor result from CO2.

we are just about 400ppm CO2 now. that means ~1C increase from now when we get to about 800ppm.

is that the sort of answer you were looking for?

stop at the bold highlighted letters and explain further where you are getting your logic.

 

[IanC]

1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512. eight doublings, working on the ninth

33C times 1/4 = ~8C

~1C per doubling of CO2

CO2 has a warming effect of about 8C on the climate, about 1C per doubling. if we add another 395ppm then it should be about 1C warmer than now.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512. eight doublings, working on the ninth

33C times 1/4 = ~8C

~1C per doubling of CO2

CO2 has a warming effect of about 8C on the climate, about 1C per doubling. if we add another 395ppm then it should be about 1C warmer than now.

According to who?

 

[IanC]

1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512. eight doublings, working on the ninth

33C times 1/4 = ~8C

~1C per doubling of CO2

CO2 has a warming effect of about 8C on the climate, about 1C per doubling. if we add another 395ppm then it should be about 1C warmer than now.

According to who?

which part? the 30 odd degree increase for the GHE? the roughly 25 percent allocation to CO2? the number of doublings? the 1C increase for the next 400ppm?

I must admit I have taken the numbers from authorities but they are similar from both sides of the debate. is there something in particular that you dont agree with?

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512. eight doublings, working on the ninth

33C times 1/4 = ~8C

~1C per doubling of CO2

CO2 has a warming effect of about 8C on the climate, about 1C per doubling. if we add another 395ppm then it should be about 1C warmer than now.

According to who?

which part? the 30 odd degree increase for the GHE? the roughly 25 percent allocation to CO2? the number of doublings? the 1C increase for the next 400ppm?

I must admit I have taken the numbers from authorities but they are similar from both sides of the debate. is there something in particular that you dont agree with?

The part where you assume a function that relates warming due to CO2 to the amount of Co2. You seem to be suggesting warming due to Co2 is always exactly proportional to the base 2 logarithm of the quantity of Co2 in the atmosphere - yet provide no source for that information.

 

[IanC]

According to who?

which part? the 30 odd degree increase for the GHE? the roughly 25 percent allocation to CO2? the number of doublings? the 1C increase for the next 400ppm?

I must admit I have taken the numbers from authorities but they are similar from both sides of the debate. is there something in particular that you dont agree with?

The part where you assume a function that relates warming due to CO2 to the amount of Co2. You seem to be suggesting warming due to Co2 is always exactly proportional to the base 2 logarithm of the quantity of Co2 in the atmosphere - yet provide no source for that information.

are you suggesting that it is not logarithmic? I have put up the graph a few times in the past. if you want to disagree find one for CO2 that shows a different relationship.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

which part? the 30 odd degree increase for the GHE? the roughly 25 percent allocation to CO2? the number of doublings? the 1C increase for the next 400ppm?

I must admit I have taken the numbers from authorities but they are similar from both sides of the debate. is there something in particular that you dont agree with?

The part where you assume a function that relates warming due to CO2 to the amount of Co2. You seem to be suggesting warming due to Co2 is always exactly proportional to the base 2 logarithm of the quantity of Co2 in the atmosphere - yet provide no source for that information.

are you suggesting that it is not logarithmic? I have put up the graph a few times in the past. if you want to disagree find one for CO2 that shows a different relationship.

No, I'm asking how you know its exactly proportional to a base 2 logarithm always? I'm not disagreeing. I'm asking you to justify your statements.

 

[IanC]

JoNova- Greenhouse gases don’t warm the planet but they do create a situation where the Sun can warm the world to a temperature above where it previously was without the gases

So what is the Second Darn Law? « JoNova: Science, carbon, climate and tax


an interesting blog entry with participation by some of the 'Slaying the Skydragon' principals. it really is a matter of how you frame the question and how you define the system.

In the end this boils down to the energy flows in a whole system, and people who think that the addition of greenhouse gases to our atmosphere won’t warm the planet (due to a conflict with the Second Law) are forgetting that the system includes the sun, and the extra energy flowing in continuously is what drives the system. CO2 may have little effect on Planet Earth, but that’s for other reasons. You can’t just make a comment about “the Earth-Atmosphere” part of the system and ignore the {sun}

and for extra things to think about, Monckton has another interesting piece-

The posting begins by making the common error of assuming that a blackbody cannot have an albedo. Of course it can. The Stefan-Boltzmann equation accounts for albedo in the simplest possible way: by simply taking it that the fraction of incident radiation that is reflected away by the albedo of the Earth plays no part in the radiative transfer at the characteristic-emission surface. Here is how it’s done.

The characteristic-emission surface of the Earth is not the surface we stand on. It is about 5 km up in the troposphere, varying quite a bit with latitude. At that surface, by definition, incoming and outgoing radiative fluxes balance, and there are no non-radiative fluxes as there are at the Earth’s surface.

Monckton on blackbody radiation « JoNova: Science, carbon, climate and tax