Questions.....RE: The Greenhouse Effect

[jc456]

Global air temperature anomaly, Climatic Research Unit (CRU):

We had reading accurate to a tenth of a degree back in 1880...who knew?

Essay: I have confidence in the deep ocean temperature reading from 1890 because...

the aliens gave us the their findings as archived to a tenth of a degree. That's why. Hey, you seen that temperature CO2 lab experiment yet from that list of links?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Global air temperature anomaly, Climatic Research Unit (CRU):

We had reading accurate to a tenth of a degree back in 1880...who knew?

Essay: I have confidence in the deep ocean temperature reading from 1890 because...

the aliens gave us the their findings as archived to a tenth of a degree. That's why. Hey, you seen that temperature CO2 lab experiment yet from that list of links?

So many links, so little evidence and still not one lab experiment

The lab work must be the Missing Link

 

[RollingThunder]

Global air temperature anomaly, Climatic Research Unit (CRU):

We had reading accurate to a tenth of a degree back in 1880...who knew?

Essay: I have confidence in the deep ocean temperature reading from 1890 because...

the aliens gave us the their findings as archived to a tenth of a degree. That's why. Hey, you seen that temperature CO2 lab experiment yet from that list of links?

So many links, so little evidence and still not one lab experiment

The lab work must be the Missing Link

So many links to scientific facts, so much hard evidence, and still no indication of rational thought or intelligence from the denier cult dingbats.

The CrazyFruitcake must be The Missing Link.

 

[jc456]

Global air temperature anomaly, Climatic Research Unit (CRU):

We had reading accurate to a tenth of a degree back in 1880...who knew?

Essay: I have confidence in the deep ocean temperature reading from 1890 because...

the aliens gave us the their findings as archived to a tenth of a degree. That's why. Hey, you seen that temperature CO2 lab experiment yet from that list of links?

So many links, so little evidence and still not one lab experiment

The lab work must be the Missing Link

So many links to scientific facts, so much hard evidence, and still no indication of rational thought or intelligence from the denier cult dingbats.

The CrazyFruitcake must be The Missing Link.

here, I'll explain it to you since it went over your head when Frank posted it:

So many links, so little evidence and still not one lab experiment

The lab work must be the Missing Link

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Global air temperature anomaly, Climatic Research Unit (CRU):

We had reading accurate to a tenth of a degree back in 1880...who knew?

Essay: I have confidence in the deep ocean temperature reading from 1890 because...

the aliens gave us the their findings as archived to a tenth of a degree. That's why. Hey, you seen that temperature CO2 lab experiment yet from that list of links?

So many links, so little evidence and still not one lab experiment

The lab work must be the Missing Link

So many links to scientific facts, so much hard evidence, and still no indication of rational thought or intelligence from the denier cult dingbats.

The CrazyFruitcake must be The Missing Link.

So according to your side, you only need 1 single CO2 molecule to ignite the irreversible "Manmade global climate warming change" or whatever you call it today

 

[Wuwei]

Thanks for that second link of yours. Interesting but it did nothing to dissuade me from believing the IGL law has a very real ability to estimate the temperature at a specific pressure.

The IGL was discovered by experiment using a piston and cylinder. The relationship was found to be the constant R. The assumptions are that the molecules are points and that they are perfectly elastic and don't interact with each other.

Transferring the argument, and the relationship R, to an atmosphere is done by replacing the piston and cylinder with gravity, and using density rather than a specific amount of molecules. Local properties to universal properties. Knowing the energy input does not matter, because energy in equals energy out, only the amount of energy stored in the atmosphere as kinetic and potential counts.

This is under idea conditions, myriad complexities ensue in reality, but it is the basic framework of an atmosphere and the reason why the IGL gives decent estimates even for wildly differing planets.

If you are dealing with the atmosphere, you are right, the density should be used in the ideal gas law.

It is a simple rewrite since density (d) is mass per unit volume.
Temperature is, T = P / (d R)
Ideal Gas Law Equations Formulas Calculator - Density

So, in order to compute temperature, you need pressure and density. Those two variables must come from something else.

You can compute P from the usual exponential decrease in pressure with altitude.
Atmospheric pressure - Wikipedia

That leaves density still unknown. I still don't see how the IGL can fill in the blanks. Especially with solar energy and GHG's.

Do you agree with SSDD that the IGL is sufficient, and back-radiation is not needed to explain atmospheric temperature?

.

 

[IanC]

You guys are arguing with SSDD (and me to a certain extent) because you think everything he says is wrong.

He is saying you can derive the temperature at a certain pressure of an existing atmosphere by examining it. I concur with the minor improvement of using density as a universal quality rather than the local quality of volume, because my method picks up GHG composition as well.

I think you guys who disagree should put forth your own explanation of how an atmosphere stays in place. You cannot have mass suspended in the gravity field without stored energy, and that stored energy is proportional to the temperature.

Many things he says are just plain wrong. The rest are non sequitars. Yes the ideal gas law can give you temperature if you know all the other variables in the IGL as they change. His problem is that you don't know all the other variables.

Of course there is stored energy, and it is proportional to temperature along with density and other things. But you still can't calculate things like lapse rate with just the IGL alone. Yet that is all he has. He avoids the question of how the IGL can compute the temperature and how the computation differs from the desert to the arctic circle. Obviously because he can't. He ignores the sun energy input and the fact that the surface is radiating close to 400 W/m2.

.

I agree that SSDD is wrong on many things. But you have to look at everything he says with fresh eyes every time. You cannot assume he is wrong just because he has usually been wrong in the past.

The Reference Frame: Hyperventilating on Venus

I know you are sick and tired of this topic but...

Here is a post by a real physicist who assumed a 'denialist blogger' was wrong, mostly from reputation.

After giving it more thought and investigation, he came to the conclusion that the blogger had been essentially right in principle but that many other factors come into play.

Kinda like what I was saying. Both with respect to SSDD'S claim for the IGL and for the need to investigate claims on their intrinsic worth despite who utters them.

 

[IanC]

Thanks for that second link of yours. Interesting but it did nothing to dissuade me from believing the IGL law has a very real ability to estimate the temperature at a specific pressure.

The IGL was discovered by experiment using a piston and cylinder. The relationship was found to be the constant R. The assumptions are that the molecules are points and that they are perfectly elastic and don't interact with each other.

Transferring the argument, and the relationship R, to an atmosphere is done by replacing the piston and cylinder with gravity, and using density rather than a specific amount of molecules. Local properties to universal properties. Knowing the energy input does not matter, because energy in equals energy out, only the amount of energy stored in the atmosphere as kinetic and potential counts.

This is under idea conditions, myriad complexities ensue in reality, but it is the basic framework of an atmosphere and the reason why the IGL gives decent estimates even for wildly differing planets.

If you are dealing with the atmosphere, you are right, the density should be used in the ideal gas law.

It is a simple rewrite since density (d) is mass per unit volume.
Temperature is, T = P / (d R)
Ideal Gas Law Equations Formulas Calculator - Density

So, in order to compute temperature, you need pressure and density. Those two variables must come from something else.

You can compute P from the usual exponential decrease in pressure with altitude.
Atmospheric pressure - Wikipedia

That leaves density still unknown. I still don't see how the IGL can fill in the blanks. Especially with solar energy and GHG's.

Do you agree with SSDD that the IGL is sufficient, and back-radiation is not needed to explain atmospheric temperature?

.

Sufficient? No. A basic building block? Yes.

 

[Wuwei]

Sufficient? No. A basic building block? Yes.

I can agree with that. As a building block it subtracts one from the number of degrees of freedom in any atmospheric formula.

 

[Olde Europe]

The Reference Frame: Hyperventilating on Venus

I know you are sick and tired of this topic but...

Here is a post by a real physicist who assumed a 'denialist blogger' was wrong, mostly from reputation.

I'd suggest you do some research on Luboš Motl. He may have excelled in his undergrad years on string theory (and my admiration for that couldn't possibly be greater), but was thrown out of Harvard for cause, and hasn't published anything of any note since. He knows not one whit about atmospheric physics, and by now he's an insulting, know-it-all crackpot. And no, the adiabatic lapse rate doesn't make Venus hot, and his rambling blog post (linked by you) doesn't prove anything. He can't even get a simple calculation right (and it's disconcerting to watch):

The concentration of CO2 on Venus is something like 300,000-500,000 times greater than the same quantity on the Earth (92 times higher total pressure; 3,000-5,000 times higher a percentage, depending on whether we calculate the molar/mass percentage) - but the warming attributed to this gas is only 100-200 times greater than it is on the Earth (at most 3 °C from all the CO2, including the natural one).

Clearly, the warming increases much more slowly than linearly with the amount of CO2 when the concentrations get really large. However, it increases faster than logarithmically when they're large: 300,000 is equal to 2^{18} or so and 18 CO2 doublings should give about 18 x 1.2 °C = 22 °C (no water feedbacks on Venus): that would be a sensible calculation if the greenhouse effect were the cause.​

I didn't even bother to check whether or not the 3°C value for CO2-induced warming was correct.

 

[IanC]

Sufficient? No. A basic building block? Yes.

I can agree with that. As a building block it subtracts one from the number of degrees of freedom in any atmospheric formula.

Sure. There are hundreds of them. Like speed of rotation, longer days lower average temps.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The Reference Frame: Hyperventilating on Venus

I know you are sick and tired of this topic but...

Here is a post by a real physicist who assumed a 'denialist blogger' was wrong, mostly from reputation.

I'd suggest you do some research on Luboš Motl. He may have excelled in his undergrad years on string theory (and my admiration for that couldn't possibly be greater), but was thrown out of Harvard for cause, and hasn't published anything of any note since. He knows not one whit about atmospheric physics, and by now he's an insulting, know-it-all crackpot. And no, the adiabatic lapse rate doesn't make Venus hot, and his rambling blog post (linked by you) doesn't prove anything. He can't even get a simple calculation right (and it's disconcerting to watch):

The concentration of CO2 on Venus is something like 300,000-500,000 times greater than the same quantity on the Earth (92 times higher total pressure; 3,000-5,000 times higher a percentage, depending on whether we calculate the molar/mass percentage) - but the warming attributed to this gas is only 100-200 times greater than it is on the Earth (at most 3 °C from all the CO2, including the natural one).

Clearly, the warming increases much more slowly than linearly with the amount of CO2 when the concentrations get really large. However, it increases faster than logarithmically when they're large: 300,000 is equal to 2^{18} or so and 18 CO2 doublings should give about 18 x 1.2 °C = 22 °C (no water feedbacks on Venus): that would be a sensible calculation if the greenhouse effect were the cause.​

I didn't even bother to check whether or not the 3°C value for CO2-induced warming was correct.

Yeah none of the Warmers ever bothers to check their assumptions, it's an article of Faith

 

[Crick]

YOU check YOUR assumptions? HAHAHAHHAAAHAHAHAAaaaaaa

 

[Olde Europe]

Yeah none of the Warmers ever bothers to check their assumptions, it's an article of Faith

Is that so... Except, the 3°C value for CO2-induced warming was Motl's claim, not mine. Look, Motl is confusing the adiabatic lapse rate with the environmental lapse rate (just like SSDD), one describing a local phenomenon in a chaotic atmosphere (an updrift), the other a stable atmosphere. Moreover, since the atmosphere and climate on Venus follow quite different paths and energy flows, Motl's litte curve-fitting exercise may somehow yield results close to the temperature of Venus (that's what curve-fitting is all about), but conclusions from that concerning the Earth's climate and energy flows forbid themselves. For one, little if any energy from the sun directly heats the surface of Venus, and, what Motl also doesn't know, GHGs become vastly more efficient at trapping heat if vastly more compressed than on Earth. There's more than that, which I can't care to list here. The conclusion that Motl knows very little about climate science is well-founded.

So, the whole thing doesn't make all that much sense, is riddled with errors, and thus I decided it isn't worth my time to analyze and check the whole thing in greater detail. Your claim thus falls flat on its face for multiple reasons, not least because there's no evidence you've read, let alone understood, Motl's blog post. So I am led to conclude, you're just brawling, venting your anger at the obnoxious "Warmers". It's what you do, isn't it?

 

[Wuwei]

Sufficient? No. A basic building block? Yes.

I can agree with that. As a building block it subtracts one from the number of degrees of freedom in any atmospheric formula.

Sure. There are hundreds of them. Like speed of rotation, longer days lower average temps.

?
I don't think we are talking about the same thing.

 

[IanC]

It's hard to believe that OE and I read the same article.

Motl predominantly described lapse rates. The physical basis for them and why atmospheric composition affects them. All in a comparison to Goddard's article which I have not read (at least lately).

How OE arrives at his mistaken claims baffles me. Poor comprehension, or just a need to insult regardless of what was actually said?

Death Valley is warmer because it is lower than sea level. Lower still would even be warmer because of the physical properties of the stored energy needed to keep the atmosphere aloft. Higher altitudes have a higher proportion of potential energy, lower altitudes have a higher proportion of kinetic energy (temperature). The reason for lapse rates.

Are there different ways of inputting energy into the various types of atmospheres? Of course. But the physical requirements to keep an atmosphere in place are universal, with adjustments made for a thousand other factors.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

So if clicks IR chart with no temperature axis is all the Warmers have to offer as evidence, we can infer that one single CO2 molecule is all it takes to cause, what do you call it today, "global climate warming change"?

Volume is irrelevant

 

[IanC]

Sufficient? No. A basic building block? Yes.

I can agree with that. As a building block it subtracts one from the number of degrees of freedom in any atmospheric formula.

Sure. There are hundreds of them. Like speed of rotation, longer days lower average temps.

?
I don't think we are talking about the same thing.

So make it more obvious what you mean.

 

[Crick]

So if clicks IR chart with no temperature axis is all the Warmers have to offer as evidence, we can infer that one single CO2 molecule is all it takes to cause, what do you call it today, "global climate warming change"?

Volume is irrelevant

The information in that graphic would apply to single molecules, yes.

 

[SSDD]

You warmers never stop cracking me up.....when CO2 in the atmosphere increases...the emissivity of the atmosphere increases...FACT....

Now, by definition, what happens to the temperature of an object or system when you increase its emissivity?