The atmosphere cools to space by radiation. Well, without getting into all the details, the surface cools to space as well by radiation but not much radiation is emitted by the surface that escapes directly to space (note 1). Most surface radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere. And of course the surface mostly cools by convection into the troposphere (lower atmosphere).
If there were no radiatively-active gases (aka “GHG”s) in the atmosphere then the atmosphere couldn’t cool to space at all.
Technically, the emissivity of the atmosphere would be zero. Emission is determined by the local temperature of the atmosphere and its emissivity. Wavelength by wavelength emissivity is equal to absorptivity, another technical term, which says what proportion of radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere. If the atmosphere can’t emit, it can’t absorb (note 2).
So as you increase the GHGs in the atmosphere you increase its ability to cool to space. A lot of people realize this at some point during their climate science journey and finally realize how they have been duped by climate science all along! It’s irrefutable – more GHGs more cooling to space, more GHGs mean less global warming!
Ok, it’s true. Now the game’s up, I’ll pack up Science of Doom into a crate and start writing about something else. Maybe cognitive dissonance..
Bye everyone!
Halfway through boxing everything up I realized there was a little complication to the simplicity of that paragraph. The atmosphere with more GHGs has a higher emissivity, but also a higher absorptivity.
Let’s draw a little diagram. Here are two “layers” (see note 3) of the atmosphere in two different cases. On the left 400 ppmv CO2, on the right 500ppmv CO2 (and relative humidity of water vapor was set at 50%, surface temperature at 288K):
Figure 1
It’s clear that the two layers are both emitting more radiation with more CO2.More cooling to space.
For interest, the “total emissivity” of the top layer is 0.190 in the first case and 0.197 in the second case. The layer below has 0.389 and 0.395.
Let’s take a look at all of the numbers and see what is going on. This diagram is a little busier:
Figure 2
The key point is that the OLR (outgoing longwave radiation) is lower in the case with more CO2. Yet each layer is emitting more radiation. How can this be?
Take a look at the radiation entering the top layer on the left = 265.1, and add to that the emitted radiation = 23.0 – the total is 288.1. Now subtract the radiation leaving through the top boundary = 257.0 and we get the radiation absorbed in the layer. This is 31.1 W/m².
Compare that with the same calculation with more CO2 – the absorption is 32.2 W/m².
This is the case all the way up through the atmosphere – each layer emits more because its emissivity has increased, but it also absorbs more because its absorptivity has increased by the same amount.
So more cooling to space, but unfortunately more absorption of the radiation below – two competing terms.
So why don’t they cancel out?
Emission of radiation is a result of local temperature and emissivity.
Absorption of radiation is the result of the incident radiation and absorptivity. Incident upwards radiation started lower in the atmosphere where it is hotter. So absorption changes always outweigh emission changes (note 4).
Conceptual Problems?
If it’s still not making sense then think about what happens as you reduce the GHGs in the atmosphere. The atmosphere emits less but absorbs even less of the radiation from below. So the outgoing longwave radiation increases. More surface radiation is making it to the top of atmosphere without being absorbed. So there is less cooling to space from the atmosphere, but more cooling to space from the surface and the atmosphere.
If you add lagging to a pipe, the temperature of the pipe increases (assuming of course it is “internally” heated with hot water). And yet, the pipe cools to the surrounding room via the lagging! Does that mean more lagging, more cooling? No, it’s just the transfer mechanism for getting the heat out.
That was just an analogy. Analogies don’t prove anything. If well chosen, they can be useful in illustrating problems. End of analogy disclaimer.
If you want to understand more about how radiation travels through the atmosphere and how GHG changes affect this journey, take a look at the series Visualizing Atmospheric Radiation.
Notes
Note 1: For more on the details see
- Part Three – Average Height of Emission – the complex subject of where the TOA radiation originated from, what is the “Average Height of Emission” and other questions
- Kiehl & Trenberth and the Atmospheric Window
Note 2: A very basic point – absolutely essential for understanding anything at all about climate science – is that the absorptivity of the atmosphere can be (and is) totally different from its emissivity when you are considering different wavelengths. The atmosphere is quite transparent to solar radiation, but quite opaque to terrestrial radiation – because they are at different wavelengths. 99% of solar radiation is at wavelengths less than 4 μm, and 99% of terrestrial radiation is at wavelengths greater than 4 μm. That’s because the sun’s surface is around 6000K while the earth’s surface is around 290K. So the atmosphere has low absorptivity of solar radiation (<4 μm) but high emissivity of terrestrial radiation.
Note 3: Any numerical calculation has to create some kind of grid. This is a very course grid, with 10 layers of roughly equal pressure in the atmosphere from the surface to 200mbar. The grid assumes there is just one temperature for each layer. Of course the temperature is decreasing as you go up. We could divide the atmosphere into 30 layers instead. We would get more accurate results. We would find the same effect.
Note 4: The equations for radiative transfer are found in Atmospheric Radiation and the “Greenhouse” Effect – Part Six – The Equations. The equations prove this effect.
Does the surface temperature change with “back radiation”? Kramm vs Gerlich
Posted in Basic Science, Commentary, Debunking Flawed "Science" on July 20, 2014| 113 Comments »
In The “Greenhouse” Effect Explained in Simple Terms I list, and briefly explain, the main items that create the “greenhouse” effect. I also explain why more CO2 (and other GHGs) will, all other things remaining equal, increase the surface temperature. I recommend that article as the place to go for the straightforward explanation of the “greenhouse” effect. It also highlights that the radiative balance higher up in the troposphere is the most important component of the “greenhouse” effect.
However, someone recently commented on my first Kramm & Dlugi article and said I was “plainly wrong”. Kramm & Dlugi were in complete agreement with Gerlich and Tscheuschner because they both claim the “purported greenhouse effect simply doesn’t exist in the real world”.
If it’s just about flying a flag or wearing a football jersey then I couldn’t agree more. However, science does rely on tedious detail and “facts” rather than football jerseys. As I pointed out in New Theory Proves AGW Wrong! two contradictory theories don’t add up to two theories making the same case..
In the case of the first Kramm & Dlugi article I highlighted one point only. It wasn’t their main point. It wasn’t their minor point. They weren’t even making a point of it at all.
Many people believe the “greenhouse” effect violates the second law of thermodynamics, these are herein called “the illuminati”.
Kramm & Dlugi’s equation demonstrates that the illuminati are wrong. I thought this was worth pointing out.
The “illuminati” don’t understand entropy, can’t provide an equation for entropy, or even demonstrate the flaw in the simplest example of why the greenhouse effect is not in violation of the second law of thermodynamics. Therefore, it is necessary to highlight the (published) disagreement between celebrated champions of the illuminati – even if their demonstration of the disagreement was unintentional.
Let’s take a look.
Here is the one of the most popular G&T graphics in the blogosphere:
From Gerlich & Tscheuschner
Figure 1
It’s difficult to know how to criticize an imaginary diagram. We could, for example, point out that it is imaginary. But that would be picky.
We could say that no one draws this diagram in atmospheric physics. That should be sufficient. But as so many of the illuminati have learnt their application of the second law of thermodynamics to the atmosphere from this fictitious diagram I feel the need to press forward a little.
Here is an extract from a widely-used undergraduate textbook on heat transfer, with a little annotation (red & blue):
From “Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer” by Incropera & DeWitt (2007)
Figure 2
This is the actual textbook, before the Gerlich manoeuvre as I would like to describe it. We can see in the diagram and in the text that radiation travels both ways and there is a net transfer which is from the hotter to the colder. The term “net” is not really capable of being confused. It means one minus the other, “x-y”. Not “x”. (For extracts from six heat transfer textbooks and their equations read Amazing Things we Find in Textbooks – The Real Second Law of Thermodynamics).
Now let’s apply the Gerlich manoeuvre (compare fig. 2):
Not from “Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer”, or from any textbook ever
Figure 3
So hopefully that’s clear. Proof by parody. This is “now” a perpetual motion machine and so heat transfer textbooks are wrong. All of them. Somehow.
Just for comparison, we can review the globally annually averaged values of energy transfer in the atmosphere, including radiation, from Kiehl & Trenberth (I use the 1997 version because it is so familiar even though values were updated more recently):
From Kiehl & Trenberth (1997)
Figure 4
It should be clear that the radiation from the hotter surface is higher than the radiation from the colder atmosphere. If anyone wants this explained, please ask.
I could apply the Gerlich manoeuvre to this diagram but they’ve already done that in their paper (as shown above in figure 1).
So lastly, we return to Kramm & Dlugi, and their “not even tiny point”, which nevertheless makes a useful point. They don’t provide a diagram, they provide an equation for energy balance at the surface – and I highlight each term in the equation to assist the less mathematically inclined:
Figure 5
The equation says, the sum of all fluxes – at one point on the surface = 0. This is an application of the famous first law of thermodynamics, that is, energy cannot be created or destroyed.
The red term – absorbed atmospheric radiation – is the radiation from the colder atmosphere absorbed by the hotter surface. This is also known as “DLR” or “downward longwave radiation, and as “back-radiation”.
Now, let’s assume that the atmospheric radiation increases in intensity over a small period. What happens?
The only way this equation can continue to be true is for one or more of the last 4 terms to increase.
So, when atmospheric radiation increases the surface temperature must increase (or amazingly the humidity differential spontaneously increases to balance, but without a surface temperature change). According to G&T and the illuminati this surface temperature increase is impossible. According to Kramm & Dlugi, this is inevitable.
I would love it for Gerlich or Tscheuschner to show up and confirm (or deny?):
Or even, which one of the above is wrong. That would be outstanding.
Of course, I know they won’t do that – even though I’m certain they believe all of the above points. (Likewise, Kramm & Dlugi won’t answer the question I have posed of them).
Hopefully, the illuminati can contact Kramm & Dlugi and explain to them where they went wrong. I have my doubts that any of the illuminati have grasped the first law of thermodynamics or the equation for temperature change and heat capacity, but who could say.
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