GW Skeptics vs Scientific Concensus

[jamesr]

The ‘surface’ as far as incoming radiation goes doesn’t have to be the solid planet surface. For Venus the surface for the Sun’s visible light is the layer of dense sulphuric acid clouds around 60km high where most of it is absorbed/reflected. The dense mid-level atmosphere is warm and so is the entity re-radiating in IR, blanketing the planet.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the total radiation coming from Venus is more than is coming from the Sun. The planet like ours (but less so) still has a hot core producing some heat through radioactivity but is overall cooling by radiating the heat into space. This is not anomalous.

The day/night side temperatures are not the same – see http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Venus_Express/SEM5A373R8F_0.html for more details.

[KeithPickering]

Brian H wrote: About 3% of incident radiation reaches the surface of Venus, as far as most sources can tell. Significant ground re-radiation in longer wavelengths absorbed by CO2 and then re-re-radiated (?!) thus doesn’t occur, which is the basis of any “greenhouse” effect.

So if there’s no greenhouse effect, why is Venus hotter than Mercury? I’ve got a theory that explains the phenomena. You’ve got bupkus.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t matter whether the incoming solar radiation is absorbed by the surface or the clouds. Greenhouse works either way, because there’s still a lot of CO2 above the cloud layer. (Cloud tops of Venus are at about 50 km, pressure 0.1 bar, with a 96% CO2 atmosphere, that puts roughly 300 times more CO2 above Venus’s cloudtops than above anywhere on the surface of the Earth.)

And that 3%? What happens to it? It gets radiated away in IR, then gets absorbed, re-radiated, absorbed, re-radiated, until it eventually hits a CO2 molecule that absorbs the energy and keeps it as heat. So much, much less than 3% of that 3% ever gets out again. Which is why the surface is so hot.

It certainly cannot be taken as any kind of “example”, cautionary, horrible, or otherwise.

In other words: you’ve got bupkus.

[Brian H]

jamesr wrote: …

The fraction of absorbed radiation being re-radiated down would be almost exactly a half, since the CO2 molecule will deexcite in a random direction. The half that is re-radiated upwards still has a chance of being absorbed again higher up. Of course one initially scattered down could also be re-scattered upwards. This kind of linear chance of interaction and being scattered out of a particular direction is the similar to say gamma rays being absorbed/scattered as they pass through sheets of metal. If you double the thickness (equiv to doubling the thinkness of the atmosphere) you half the amount getting through. Similarly if you double the density of atoms/molecules, and so increase the probability of an interaction, you half the amount getting through. The result is an exponential fall off of radiation of those particular energies corresponding to the CO2 absorbtion bands with height, with the constant in the exponent being proportional to the number density of CO2 molecules.

The total effect is small compared to the infuence of water vapour, but CO2’s absorption bands are at different wavelengths – that happen to lie around the black-body emmision from the earth.

How specifically significant the anthropogenic CO2 contribution to greenhouse warming is, I would happily debate on, but the effect itself I think is sound.

It is no such thing. Just as a geometrical consideration, the Earth is a sphere, and the ground is falling away significantly towards the sides. Such a bias in terms of miss vs. hit on the surface has a major multiplier effect overall. Secondly, radiation is a tiny part of the energy equation within an atmosphere. Ever hear of the “Heat Pipe” hypothesis, for example?

Atmospheric Heat Pipes
At the bottom of the atmosphere there is liquid water. Without changing its temperature, heat is used to convert this to vapor. On land, plants help to perform this task. Because humid air is actually lighter than dry air (simply because water molecules weigh less than nitrogen and oxygen molecules), the humid air rises. As the air rises, it tends to expand and rise faster the higher it rises.

The fact that air at the surface is usually warmer than the air above it helps – but it is not always necessary.

At some point, the expansion cools the rising air mass to the point where water begins to condense (forming clouds). Since the energy released is equal to the heat of vaporization, [a very great deal of] heat has been moved from the surface of the planet to the top of the clouds. At this point, the clouds act like mirrors reflecting the heat out into space.

This is a vastly more potent and efficient energy transport system than absorption/re-radiation, and renders the radiative GH hypothesis trival and moot.

[Brian H]

KeithPickering wrote:

About 3% of incident radiation reaches the surface of Venus, as far as most sources can tell. Significant ground re-radiation in longer wavelengths absorbed by CO2 and then re-re-radiated (?!) thus doesn’t occur, which is the basis of any “greenhouse” effect.

So if there’s no greenhouse effect, why is Venus hotter than Mercury? I’ve got a theory that explains the phenomena. You’ve got bupkus.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t matter whether the incoming solar radiation is absorbed by the surface or the clouds. Greenhouse works either way, because there’s still a lot of CO2 above the cloud layer. (Cloud tops of Venus are at about 50 km, pressure 0.1 bar, with a 96% CO2 atmosphere, that puts roughly 300 times more CO2 above Venus’s cloudtops than above anywhere on the surface of the Earth.)

And that 3%? What happens to it? It gets radiated away in IR, then gets absorbed, re-radiated, absorbed, re-radiated, until it eventually hits a CO2 molecule that absorbs the energy and keeps it as heat. So much, much less than 3% of that 3% ever gets out again. Which is why the surface is so hot.

It certainly cannot be taken as any kind of “example”, cautionary, horrible, or otherwise.

In other words: you’ve got bupkus.
“Ever gets out again”. You’ve really lost it. All even the most classic simplistic GH mechanism can do is introduce a lag, like directing a hose into a pail which fills then overflows, instead of directly hosing the ground beyond. Once the pail is full and overflowing (which would have happened long, long, ago – and very quickly) the total flow-through is exactly the same as the source volume from the hose. In other words, no run-away. [See above for explanation of why the positive feedback loops are mathematically, historically, and empirically imaginary.]

“keeps it as heat”. O Rly? Still just a temporary energy boost, a small temperature increase (on Earth) overall; contact transfer and convection take over right away. Net energy is on balance always moving from surface to atmosphere, employing every available mechanism (contact, convection, evaporation (if applicable and available), and radiation. All stronger from down to up than up to down. All.) The reason Venus is hot is most likely simply that the convection and heat transfer mechanisms in the absence of water are so slow, making for a longer lag. By the by, the boffins are still resorting to double-talk about instrumentation anomalies trying to explain why sensors suggest much more energy flux from than onto Venus. LOL

It can be argued that the main reason that Venus is so hot is because there is no mechanism to rapidly move surface heat above the cloud layer. As a result, it does not matter if the atmosphere is mainly CO2 or not, the planet is hot because the atmosphere does not contain a substance that is liquid at surface temperatures and condenses to form clouds above most of the atmospheric mass.

and

The fact that the Venusian surface temperature is the same after 58 days of sun light and 58 days of darkness is really the main reason I claim that the Sun does not heat the surface. (Venus rotates with respect to the Sun once every 116.75 Earth days.)

On Earth, the minimum expected difference would be 50°C for a 2,800 hour day, on Venus, no difference is reported.

The “official” explanation for Venus having a constant surface temperature is strong winds – I am not convinced and I have not seen any evidence to support that position.

IBID
The winds operate only miles above the surface anyway, where the thick and heavy gasses move very sluggishly, if at all.

Based on the available facts
–No Surface wind
–Constant surface temperature
–Extremely slow planetary rotation
I conclude that
–The Sun has no effect on the surface weather
–The temperature of the surface is driven by internal heating
–Because the atmosphere has only a single green house gas, the surface temperature is much cooler than would otherwise be the case.

IBID

Occam’s Razor is sometimes quite sharp. On GH theory, it operates as a very efficient guillotine. As Phil Jones is discovering. More drum and head rolls to come!

[KeithPickering]

Brian H wrote:

About 3% of incident radiation reaches the surface of Venus, as far as most sources can tell. Significant ground re-radiation in longer wavelengths absorbed by CO2 and then re-re-radiated (?!) thus doesn’t occur, which is the basis of any “greenhouse” effect.

So if there’s no greenhouse effect, why is Venus hotter than Mercury? I’ve got a theory that explains the phenomena. You’ve got bupkus.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t matter whether the incoming solar radiation is absorbed by the surface or the clouds. Greenhouse works either way, because there’s still a lot of CO2 above the cloud layer. (Cloud tops of Venus are at about 50 km, pressure 0.1 bar, with a 96% CO2 atmosphere, that puts roughly 300 times more CO2 above Venus’s cloudtops than above anywhere on the surface of the Earth.)

And that 3%? What happens to it? It gets radiated away in IR, then gets absorbed, re-radiated, absorbed, re-radiated, until it eventually hits a CO2 molecule that absorbs the energy and keeps it as heat. So much, much less than 3% of that 3% ever gets out again. Which is why the surface is so hot.

It certainly cannot be taken as any kind of “example”, cautionary, horrible, or otherwise.

In other words: you’ve got bupkus.
“Ever gets out again”. You’ve really lost it. All even the most classic simplistic GH mechanism can do is introduce a lag, like directing a hose into a pail which fills then overflows, instead of directly hosing the ground beyond. Once the pail is full and overflowing (which would have happened long, long, ago – and very quickly) the total flow-through is exactly the same as the source volume from the hose. In other words, no run-away. [See above for explanation of why the positive feedback loops are mathematically, historically, and empirically imaginary.]

“keeps it as heat”. O Rly? Still just a temporary energy boost, a small temperature increase (on Earth) overall; contact transfer and convection take over right away. Net energy is on balance always moving from surface to atmosphere, employing every available mechanism (contact, convection, evaporation (if applicable and available), and radiation. All stronger from down to up than up to down. All.) The reason Venus is hot is most likely simply that the convection and heat transfer mechanisms in the absence of water are so slow, making for a longer lag. By the by, the boffins are still resorting to double-talk about instrumentation anomalies trying to explain why sensors suggest much more energy flux from than onto Venus. LOL

It can be argued that the main reason that Venus is so hot is because there is no mechanism to rapidly move surface heat above the cloud layer. As a result, it does not matter if the atmosphere is mainly CO2 or not, the planet is hot because the atmosphere does not contain a substance that is liquid at surface temperatures and condenses to form clouds above most of the atmospheric mass.

and

The fact that the Venusian surface temperature is the same after 58 days of sun light and 58 days of darkness is really the main reason I claim that the Sun does not heat the surface. (Venus rotates with respect to the Sun once every 116.75 Earth days.)

On Earth, the minimum expected difference would be 50°C for a 2,800 hour day, on Venus, no difference is reported.

The “official” explanation for Venus having a constant surface temperature is strong winds – I am not convinced and I have not seen any evidence to support that position.

IBID
The winds operate only miles above the surface anyway, where the thick and heavy gasses move very sluggishly, if at all.

Based on the available facts
–No Surface wind
–Constant surface temperature
–Extremely slow planetary rotation
I conclude that
–The Sun has no effect on the surface weather
–The temperature of the surface is driven by internal heating
–Because the atmosphere has only a single green house gas, the surface temperature is much cooler than would otherwise be the case.

IBID

So Venus doesn’t have an atmospheric heat pipe. But neither does Mercury. So why is Venus hotter than Mercury? Your only remaining shot seems to be: internal heating (i.e., volcanic processes). So how come the volcanoes operate more at night on Venus than during the day? Because the surface temp of Venus is the same, day and night, and the Sun is only heating the daytime side. And, by your own admission, there are no surface winds to move the heat around to the night side. So now you need a mechanism that causes volcanoes to shut down when the Sun rises.

Talk about Occam’s razor!

[Brian H]

KeithPickering wrote:
…

So Venus doesn’t have an atmospheric heat pipe. But neither does Mercury. So why is Venus hotter than Mercury? Your only remaining shot seems to be: internal heating (i.e., volcanic processes). So how come the volcanoes operate more at night on Venus than during the day? Because the surface temp of Venus is the same, day and night, and the Sun is only heating the daytime side. And, by your own admission, there are no surface winds to move the heat around to the night side. So now you need a mechanism that causes volcanoes to shut down when the Sun rises.

Talk about Occam’s razor!

Nope. Reading error. The sun has no effect on the surface temp of Venus, day or night. All its radiation is rejected by the cloud cover etc.!

[KeithPickering]

Brian H wrote:

Talk about Occam’s razor!

Nope. Reading error. The sun has no effect on the surface temp of Venus, day or night. All its radiation is rejected by the cloud cover etc.!

If that were true, Venus would have an albedo of 1.0, while its actual albedo is 0.6 — so what happens to that other 40% of incoming sunlight?

[Brian H]

KeithPickering wrote:

Talk about Occam’s razor!

Nope. Reading error. The sun has no effect on the surface temp of Venus, day or night. All its radiation is rejected by the cloud cover etc.!

If that were true, Venus would have an albedo of 1.0, while its actual albedo is 0.6 — so what happens to that other 40% of incoming sunlight?
Still trying to “balance the radiation”, are we? There is no conservation of radiation! Only of total energy. I’d guess much of the 40% goes to driving the 200+ mph high-altitude winds, etc., but in any case, the rock-steady surface temps absolutely rule out solar energy participation there. Even if there were high winds on the surface (which there are not! — they’re well under 10 mph average) they would have to be driven by major heat-source and -sink regions and pressure gradients, etc., which also do not exist.

And give it up with the “Mercury” stuff. Mercury has no atmospheric phenomena, nor internal convection or other processes. What is going on inside Venus is still a deep, dark, intensely interesting and significant mystery. It is certainly the source of its heat and atmosphere. As for the nighttime volcanoes, no idea, other than perhaps gravity tides in the crust, or even magnetically modulated magma movements as Venus interacts with the solar fields. But it will be fascinating to discover!

[Breakable]

There seems to be some clear explanations about what cycles earth goes trough (not very relevant to radiation Venus though)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWJeqgG3Tl8
While the channel itself speaks from the GW defender perspective it seems to contain accurate information and simple explanations. I think I will spend some time studying it:
http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610

Edit: for example did you know that more co2 does not necessary mean more plant growth?

[Breakable]

Btw here is the rebuke of the “EPAGreenhouseGasEmissions.pdf”

[Brian H]

Runawaylessness

The postulate of positive feedback in the system (i.e., that water vapor multiplies the effect of CO2, which raises air and ocean temperatures driving even more CO2 and H2O into the atmosphere, and so on) has been disproven soundly in thorough experimentation … by Planet Earth. The geological record shows that every combination of low and high CO2 (slightly lower than present up to 20X current numbers) and high and low temperature (from tropical poles to ice sheets nearly to the equator) has been tried, at great length, and no “runaway” has occurred. The minute range of values we’re now experiencing and playing with thus has no more chance of causing runaway than spitting in the ocean has of causing a tsunami.

[Breakable]

I think the Author might be interested in your comments, and should start a dialog so I would suggest adding them on you-tube.

[Augustine]

Anecdotal story describing the damage the CRU data dumps have done to AGW theory and adherence:

I work for a large software development company. I’m an algorithms guy. Some of the greybeard programmers have taken to using “climatologist” to be a slur for someone who should be banned from interacting with a compiler.

[benf]

I have an art background not a scientific one, so I can’t claim to be an authority on research. I am able see and interpret what I see and make deductions. I’m seeing pictures of the polar caps receding, pictures of dead coral reefs and vast areas of the ocean that are uninhabitable. I see and hear less songbirds and frogs. I have to watch out for Mosquitos now carrying diseases that were tropical. Whole forest are dying from beetle infestations. It goes on and on. I rely on what experts have to say and have written on the subject, just like I’ve learned from scientists like Darwin and Einstein, without necessarily really knowing the science. I’ve just read this article posted on the NY Times website by Paul Krugman:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html?scp=1&sq=krugman cap and trade&st=cse
I’ve looked at graphs from climate researchers from MIT that show sea levels rising some 30 ft. in the coming decades. I’ve read books and articles such as A Reef In Time by J.E.N Veron which describes the negative impact of ocean acidification. There was the article in Scientific American describing how global warming started with agrarian farming some 8,000 years ago and it has halted the next ice age in it’s tracks. So I’m thinking of what Isaac Azimov once wrote about an alien planet that mechanically controlled it’s global temperature, but maybe this is a subject for another thread!
I don’t necessarily believe everything I read, but when I’ve read lot’s of compelling information from people who devote their lives pursuing research and their conclusions corresponds with some of what I and others see hear and feel, it carries a lot of weight. Regarding what Focus Fusion should leverage, GW or GWD, I think there are some major obstacles that have to be overcome with convincing people that Focus Fusion (using pB11) is a safe and benign nuclear power alternative that makes economic sense, compared to traditional fission or even “enhanced safety” fission designs. The anti-nuke movement of the 70’s and 80’s was a really big deal imho. It stopped fission nuclear power in this country and slowed it elsewhere. It was part of the growing concern for the environment by the public. People haven’t forgotten or changed their view that transporting and burying spent fuel rods is a bad thing. They haven’t forgotten about Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. I’m not one to stifle debate, but as far as what carries weight…the public with it’s concern for the environment, could certainly, for example, impact how the NRC handles emerging technologies such as FF. Additionally we have the issue of nuclear weapons proliferation and brinksmanship that reinforces fear of the word nuclear. Lots of work has to be done to allay this fear. Focus Fusion caught my interest because the society has been directly engaging in the discussion that must take place with people who fear advanced technology solutions to the both the energy crisis and global warming.
The global warming debate will go on, partly genuine, partly a diversionary tactic for the big oil and coal industries. Global warming deniers have made contributions to this debate and in these forums on other topics as well, but I fear what I see.

[Brian H]

benf wrote:
…
The global warming debate will go on, partly genuine, partly a diversionary tactic for the big oil and coal industries. Global warming deniers have made contributions to this debate and in these forums on other topics as well, but I fear what I see.

The images you have fixated on are, of course, selected. Science, however, depends on clean data, not emotive mental images.

Here’s some info about how unclean the AGW data is: http://69.84.25.250/blogger/post/ClimateGate-Data-Series-Part-I-A-break-down-of-large-data-file-for-manipulating-global-temperature-trends-from-2006-2009.aspx

Kids and teens call it “making shit up”.

[Author]

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