Saturday 30 May 2020

Another little mystery solved!

Now that I have finally stumbled across the basic physics (which the Consensus keeps well hidden) that tells you 99% of what you need to know about why there has to be a lapse rate (and hence why the sea level temperature is warmer than you'd expect from solar radiation alone) and how to calculate it (between 8K/km and 10K/km, depending on which method you use - water vapour and water droplets moderate that to the observed 6.5K/km lapse rate), lots of other things just fall into place.

The infamous IPCC 'world energy budget' diagram (scroll down here) shows that the troposphere is emitting twice as much IR radiation back down to the hard surface as it is radiating to space. So with a straight face, the Consensus segues into the claims that 'greenhouse gases' are trapping heat and/or actually reflecting it, in other words the IR bounces back and forth between hard surface and troposphere, the 'greenhouse gases' act like a layer of insulation etc.

This all seems very implausible to me. In any sane world, a hot object emits IR evenly in all directions. The Consensus are also confusing cause and effect - the lower layers aren't hotter because they are absorbing and hence emitting more radiation; they are hotter anyway because of the inevitable lapse rate, so of course they emit more radiation!

The effect is actually measurable though, so it's a question of finding the actual explanation. There is no point picking holes in a flawed explanation (I wasted far too much time and mental effort on that), just start again with the basic physics (and get cause and effect the right way round!).

The actual explanation is - as ever - quite simple.

We've already established that the actual surface of Earth is not the hard surface, it is the troposphere (and the top few inches of land or ocean that are part of the troposphere for calculation purposes). The average overall temperature of the troposphere is - unsurprisingly - the same as the effective temperature' (the temperature you can calculate on the basis of the amount of solar radiation coming in adjusted for albedo, on the assumption that there is no atmosphere), which is 250-255K. The temperatures lower down are higher and the temperatures higher up are lower than the effective temperature, because of the lapse rate.

So the troposphere at sea level is 288K. This is - according to the Consensus, and I am taking their word for it - emitting twice as much radiation (half of which hits the ground) as the layer of the troposphere that is high enough to be emitting radiation directly to space (half of which actually goes to space).

You can easily work out the temperature of the layer higher up that is emitting radiation to space, and then you can work out its likely altitude.

Just divide sea level temperature (= 288K) by the fourth root of 'double' (assuming the "twice as much" figure to be reliable) (= 1.19) = 242K.

How high is that layer?

Deduct 242K from 288K (= 46K) and divide that by the expected/calculated lapse rate (between 8K/km and 10K/km, call it 9K/km for sake of argument) = 5.1 km.

The Consensus figure is "about 5 km", so we are not far off!

10 comments:

James Higham said...

Just divide sea level temperature (= 288K) by the fourth root of 'double' (assuming the "twice as much" figure to be reliable) (= 1.19) = 242K.

Springs immediately to mind - I'll do it over dinner.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JH, that it is quite tricky, I usually need two or three attempts.

Dinero said...

You have the gravity role in the Vertical distribution but no origin of the heat that is being distributed, and that origin is the infra red absorption bit.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Din, the origin is the Sun!!

Dinero said...

The atmosphere would not be at, or near, the Effective temperature without the infra red absorption.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Din, yes it would. It would be warmed by conduction, convection, latent heat of condensation etc. We've covered that. If, in the Alarmist parallel universe N2 and O2 cannot absorb or emit infra red, how would the top layers ever cool down? They wouldn't, so the equilibrium temperature would still be effective temperature. Don't forget - the troposphere IS the surface of the earth, not the hard surface at the bottom of it.

Robin Smith said...

Good work

The thing is you're not dealing with rational people.

Just like with LVT, people prefer protection of an authority over self obligation to natural social forces

Climate change doctrine uses fear to bring about messianic change over self obligation

I respect your efforts here.

But if you were to accept the fantasy world above as the lot of the majority, would you take a different approach?

Mark Wadsworth said...

RS, I like to make sense of things. Taxation, temperatures, whatever. I don't make up my mind until I've got to the bottom of something.

Dinero said...

The latent heat of condensation is in itself a characteristic of the composition of the atmosphere.
Conduction and subsequent convection, cannot amount to a substitute for radiation and absorption into the atmosphere. The three amount to a total, and without the infra red absorption the temperature is less.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Din:

"The latent heat of condensation is in itself a characteristic of the composition of the atmosphere."

Nope. It's a characteristic of water/water vapour.

"Conduction and subsequent convection, cannot amount to a substitute for radiation and absorption into the atmosphere. The three amount to a total.."

You mention four things, and then say "the three amount to a total".

There are lots of different manifestations of 'energy' and it has a lot of different ways of trying to spread as evenly as possible. Total energy is a fixed amount, and left to its own devices, it will end up as kinetic energy, the lowest common denominator.