After posting Part Two on water vapor, some people were unhappy that questions from Part One were not addressed. I have re-read through the many comments and questions and attempt to answer them here. I ignore the questions unrelated to the feedbacks of water vapor and clouds – like the many questions about the moon, [...]
Archive for August, 2010
Clouds and Water Vapor – Part One – Responses
Posted in Atmospheric Physics, Feedback on August 29, 2010 | 104 Comments »
Clouds and Water Vapor – Part Two
Posted in Atmospheric Physics, Feedback on August 25, 2010 | 26 Comments »
In Part One we covered a lot of ground. In this next part we will take a look at some basics about water vapor. The response of water vapor to a warmer climate is at the heart of concerns about the effect of increasing the inappropriately-named “greenhouse” gases like CO2 and methane. Water vapor is [...]
Heat Transfer Basics and Non-Radiative Atmospheres
Posted in Climate Models on August 22, 2010 | 43 Comments »
Without a firm grasp on the basics it can be hard to choose between a good and bad explanation. In The Hoover Incident I explained what would happen if the atmosphere didn’t absorb or emit radiation – i.e., if the radiatively active gases were “hoovered up”. Have a read of that post for a full [...]
Convection, Venus, Thought Experiments and Tall Rooms Full of Gas – A Discussion
Posted in Atmospheric Physics, Basic Science on August 16, 2010 | 122 Comments »
During a discussion about Venus (Venusian Mysteries), Leonard Weinstein suggested a thought experiment that prompted a 2nd article of mine. Unfortunately, it really failed to address his point. In fact, it took me a long time to get to grips with Leonard’s point and 500 comments in (!) I suggested that we write a joint article. I [...]
Height of emission of OLR and DLR
Posted in Atmospheric Physics on August 15, 2010 | 17 Comments »
A lot of people have asked about this. I haven’t been so interested in the subject, but because I came across it in a paper I thought I would post it. What is the effective height of outgoing longwave radiation? I.e., the radiation from the climate system that leaves the planet. What is the effective [...]
Darwinian Selection – “Back Radiation”
Posted in Measurement on August 11, 2010 | 31 Comments »
In the The Amazing Case of “Back-Radiation” series, which included Part Two and Part Three, someone commented that it would have been good to see more than a few days of DLR (downward longwave radiation, aka “back radiation”) data. There were some monthly summaries from a number of locations, but the BSRN (baseline surface radiation network) data that I selected [...]
Vanishing Nets
Posted in Atmospheric Physics on August 8, 2010 | 18 Comments »
Many commenters have expressed the opinion that the net radiation at the earth’s surface is quite small and therefore radiation doesn’t play a big part in establishing the temperature of the lower atmosphere. The lower atmosphere, for reference, is usually known as the troposphere. Here is an often misunderstood reference diagram, from Trenberth and Kiehl [...]
Do Trenberth and Kiehl understand the First Law of Thermodynamics? – Part Two
Posted in Basic Science, Debunking Flawed "Science" on August 5, 2010 | 50 Comments »
In Part One we looked at a thought experiment designed to make it easier to understand a basic principle – that inner surfaces of systems can have higher temperatures and therefore higher values of radiation than the outside of a system. We looked at a PVC hollow sphere out in the vastness of space: The [...]
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Updated CO2 – An Insignificant Trace Gas – Part One
Posted in Commentary on August 6, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Just a note that CO2 – An Insignificant Trace Gas? – Part One has been significantly rewritten. There’s probably too not much of interest for regular readers, as I’ve taken material from more recent posts to replace the old. And I didn’t try to cover the 500 different reasons why people think CO2 IS an [...]
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