One question that has intrigued me for a while – how much of the transmittance (and change in transmittance) from CO2 in the atmosphere is caused by weak lines, and how much is caused by the “far wings” of individual lines. Take a look back at Part Nine. Here is the calculated change in transmittance [...]
Archive for April, 2011
Understanding Atmospheric Radiation and the “Greenhouse” Effect – Part Twelve – Curve of Growth
Posted in Atmospheric Physics on April 30, 2011 | 8 Comments »
The Mystery of Tau – Miskolczi – Part Two – Kirchhoff
Posted in Basic Science, Commentary, Debunking Flawed "Science" on April 25, 2011 | 87 Comments »
In Part One we looked at the usefulness of “tau” = optical thickness of the atmosphere. Miskolczi has done a calculation (under cloudless skies) of the total optical thickness of the atmosphere. The reason he is apparently the first to have done this in a paper is explained in Part One. The 2010 paper referenced the [...]
The Mystery of Tau – Miskolczi
Posted in Atmospheric Physics, Commentary on April 22, 2011 | 60 Comments »
Many people have requested an analysis of Miskolczi’s theories. I start with his more recent paper: The Stable Stationary Value of the Earth’s Global Average Atmospheric Planck-Weighted Greenhouse-Gas Optical Thickness, Energy & Environment (2010). It’s an interesting paper and clearly Miskolczi has put a lot of time and effort into it. I recommend people read the paper [...]
Understanding Atmospheric Radiation and the “Greenhouse” Effect – Part Eleven – Heating Rates
Posted in Atmospheric Physics on April 21, 2011 | 32 Comments »
The subject of atmospheric heating rates is one which is worth spending time on. What is a heating rate? To see the usefulness of a heating rate let’s consider the per capita income of a country. Per capita income compares the ratio of total $ to the total population. If we compare the total income [...]
Simple Atmospheric Models – Part Two
Posted in Basic Science on April 7, 2011 | 18 Comments »
In Part One we saw how a very simple energy balance model with some very basic assumptions provided some insight into how the surface and atmospheric temperatures are determined. We assumed that the atmosphere was transparent to solar radiation (radiation less than 4 μm), that the atmosphere was totally opaque to terrestrial radiation (greater than 4 μm), [...]
Simple Atmospheric Models – Part One
Posted in Basic Science on April 5, 2011 | 36 Comments »
Most good textbooks introduce simple models to help the student gain a conceptual understanding. In Elementary Climate Physics, Prof. F.W. Taylor does the same. Now the atmosphere is mostly transparent to solar radiation (shortwave) which is centered around 0.5 μm, and quite opaque to terrestrial radiation (longwave) which is centered around 10 μm. Note that absorptivity is [...]
Understanding Atmospheric Radiation and the “Greenhouse” Effect – Part Ten
Posted in Atmospheric Physics on April 3, 2011 | 21 Comments »
In his excellent book, A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation, Grant Petty introduces a number of spectral measurements of atmospheric radiation which are very illuminating. In this article I am going to reproduce them, along with a lot of Petty’s comments and explanations – hard to improve on what he has to say. (See the [...]
Pages
-
Recent Posts
- Potential Temperature
- Density, Stability and Motion in Fluids
- “Blah blah blah” vs Equations
- The Coriolis Effect and Geostrophic Motion
- The Rotational Effect
- Kramm & Dlugi On Dodging the “Greenhouse” Bullet
- Kramm & Dlugi On Illuminating the Confusion of the Unclear
- Measuring Climate Sensitivity – Part Three – Eddy Diffusivity
- Measuring Climate Sensitivity – Part Two – Mixed Layer Depths
- The Creation of Time
- Measuring Climate Sensitivity – Part One
- Radiative Forcing and the Surface Energy Balance
- Statistics and Climate – Part Five – AR(n)
- Statistics and Climate – Part Four – Autocorrelation
- Statistics and Climate – Part Three – Autocorrelation
-
Recent Comments
TheBigYinJames on The Amazing Case of … RW on The Amazing Case of … scienceofdoom on The Amazing Case of … TheBigYinJames on The Amazing Case of … RW on The Amazing Case of … TheBigYinJames on The Amazing Case of … WarmingCheck on About this Blog dsl350 on Potential Temperature Graham Thompson on Potential Temperature Frank on Potential Temperature Frank on Potential Temperature Bryan on Potential Temperature Graham Thompson on Potential Temperature Graham Thompson on Potential Temperature Graham Thompson on Potential Temperature Categories
- Atmospheric Physics (35)
- Basic Science (44)
- Climate History (5)
- Climate Models (29)
- Commentary (28)
- Debunking Flawed "Science" (23)
- Feedback (5)
- Measurement (19)
- Ocean Physics (8)
- Statistics (6)
- Uncategorized (1)
Subscribe by RSS
Archives
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
Meta
The Mystery of Tau – Miskolczi – Part Three – Kinetic Energy
Posted in Basic Science, Commentary, Debunking Flawed "Science" on April 26, 2011 | 123 Comments »
In Part One we looked at the calculation of total atmospheric optical thickness. In Part Two we looked at the claim that the surface and atmosphere exchanged exactly equal amounts of energy by radiation. A thermodynamics revolution if it is true, as the atmosphere is slightly colder than the surface. This claim is not necessary [...]
Read Full Post »