If your window shade absorbs 99.9% of all incoming light, will two window shades absorb 199.98% of incoming light?
If you believe that, then you are ready to become a climate scientist. LW absorption in CO2 bands has been almost saturated since 20 PPM. Adding more CO2 doesn’t affect the energy balance very much, because there is little LW in those bands which isn’t already absorbed.
CO2 molecules can’t capture non-existent photons.
What is funny is that warmist scientists and skeptic scientists generally agree on this part,but the rank and file AGW believing scientifically illiterate morons think it is wrong and argue for a huge increase in temperature based on how much MORE CO2 is floating around in the future.
They get it mixed up with the Warmists computer modeled fantasy that claims we are in danger of a run away warming trend in the near future because of the awesome power of the Positive feedback loop,which has never happened in the last 550 million years or so.
With a number of empirically based science papers being published in recent years showing the evidence that NEGATIVE feedbacks dominates the system making clear Positive feedbacks simply does not exist at the scale commonly argued for.It remains stuck in computer generated models.
Leftists love theory, and abhor reality.
Leftists love emotion- theory is too close to science for comfort. As long as there is an emotional argument that “feels” like science, they’ll gleefully jump aboard
I would agree about leftists ‘feeling’ over ‘thinking’, as they tend to be right-brained, versus our left-brained tendencies. You can often see it spelled out in their arguments, when they say ‘I just feel…’.
But this right-brained tendency also lends itself to conjecture (fantasy) over hard facts. Which is why we see so many of them go into academia, where they are not required to produce anything of value, and can follow their whimsies where ever they lead. Theories are not necessarily scientific in nature, but they do only exist in the mind, unlike facts.
AVery is not going to read this….or understand it if he does
Once you saturate something, you can’t saturate it more,no matter how much more you add.
Each little CO2 molecule gets together and decides on how to keep warm. The 2 oxygens decide to burn the carbon and that is where AGW comes from.
Correct.
And then having heated some H2O molecules, these excited H2O molecules get together and decide that the warmer ones should become heavier and sink to the bottom of the ocean, and wait to be summoned.
God – I love science!
The change of sky radiation with carbon dioxide depends
largely upon this change in the altitude of the radiation focus,
because the present quantity in the atmosphere (equal to a layer
of z m. at N.T.P.) can absorb nearly the maximum of which this
gas is capable.
The above is from Callender’s 1938 paper. Note the z should be a 2. According to him back when CO2 was at 275 ppm it was at nearly ” the maximum of which this gas is capable”.
I have always looked at it from another perspective. The mean free path of the typical radiation that CO2 absorbs was about 15 feet in pre- industrial times. Now its about 11 ft. Both distances are vanishingly small compared to the thickness of the atmosphere so this change makes very little difference to the radiative balance.
That’s all well and good to point out, but the more basic question is what happens to a Co2 molecule once it captures a LW photon?
Unless it has it’s own special properties I am unaware of, a Co2 molecule rises until it reaches a level in the air column where it is chilled, then falls back to earth.
There is no point where it acts as a “blanket”, trapping and forcing it’s neighboring molecules to take the heat.
It isn’t saturated at high altitudes, so extra CO2 raises the height of ‘99.9% saturation’ to a higher colder altitude, thus the ‘top of the atmosphere’ is radiating at a colder temperature, thus less heat loss to the 3 Kelvin of outer space, thus more Solar heat retained on a warming Earth.
Define high altitude. CO2 mixing ratio actually decreases with height
http://ps.uci.edu/~rowlandblake/publications/177.pdf
Machida, T., K. Kita, Y. Kondo, D. Blake, S. Kawakami, G. Inoue, and T. Ogawa, Vertical and meridional distributions of the atmospheric CO2 mixing ratio between northern midlatitudes and southern subtropics, J. Geophys. Res., 107, 8401, doi:10.1029/2001JD000910, 2002. [printed 108 (D3), 2003.]
What little CO2 that gets up there has a definite effect.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/
Ben,
I looked at your offered paper, but the change is insignificant. What IS significant is that there is reduced H2O vapor at the ‘top of the atmosphere,’ having precipitated our already, so CO2 is a far more significant player.
Thanks TomOmason, but your map is for 100 km to 250 km altitude, much higher than the ‘roof’ of the greenhouse.
Pfffftttt…. cough … bullshit…
if you move the saturation higher, you’re saying that the capture of LW is happening at higher altitudes. Higher altitudes gives more direct exposure to the 3K temperature of space. Saturating higher means you are radiating at a higher temperature at that altitude, not a lower temperature. If the altitude of saturation is raised, that allows for more of the heat being absorbed to radiate off into space which equals less net heat transferred to earth. Your scenario argues for the opposite effect of what you stated: cooling the earth.
RE: bobmaginnis – “thus less heat loss to the 3 Kelvin of outer space”
There is greater heat loss than predicted, the opposite of your prediction.
http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/3/8/1603/pdf
The bigger problem are the positive feedbacks that are claimed by the warmist climate scientists. They form the largest portion of the modeled temperature increase. The warmists were only able to make this claim after Mann’s hockey stick was published. This totally bogus “stick” started the entire warmist agenda. Without the hockey stick, they had nothing. Though it has been falsified a number of times, the positive feedbacks are still claimed; though the hockey is rarely shown. It does not matter to the warmists that we had similar, and greater, temperatures in the past. They cling to the hockey stick as if their warmist religion depended on it. And it does.
Page 20 of the IPCC SPM says,
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. I’ve been beating this drum for 20 years. The theory is all screwed up from the beginning. Nothing that can be descibed as a true greenhouse effect is occuring with CO2. It is way more complicated than that.
When 1 in 20,000 parts of the atmosphere changes from something to CO2, ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE! or so they say.
That’s good that adding more CO2 doesn’t matter, because
we added about 31,600,000,000 tons of CO2. in 2012.
http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/world-co2-emissions-set-new-record-in-2012-at-31-6-gigatons-on-current-path-world-locks-in-dangerous-2-degree-warming-before-2029/
Meanwhile, we cook…
http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/august-2013-hottest-ocean-surface-temperatures-on-record-defies-enso-spurs-continental-deluges/
Pffffttt … cough … bullshit
“we added about 31,600,000,000 tons of CO2. in 2012.”
======================================
Don’t numbers look big when you write them out in full.
Total mass of atmosphere = 5,135,200,000,000,000 tons
CO2 31,600,000,000 tons
H2O 15, 000,000,000,000 tons
The southern hemisphere in August is experiencing winter. The alledged “hottest ocean surface temperatures” in the southern hemisphere are at odds with the Antarctic sea ice extent which has been at record. ENSO is well within normal and is forecast to be so for next 12 months by the BOM in Australia. And don’t bring up Eastern Australia’s bushfires or temperatures or I’ll bring up the Marble Bar world record and Western Australia’s mildest spring. I also notice Rob Scribbles like fantasy books.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
This argument willfully ignores that we are ever still in an effectively linear response region of the logarithmic curve of the diminishing warming effects and overlaps with properly WUWT-banned Sky Dragon (“physics in a box”) claims that there is no greenhouse effect at all.
Presenting such truly maverick arguments destroys the cultural effectiveness of simple data-based refutation of alarmist philosophy. It also masks the central scandal of all that alarm is *all* based not on the textbook greenhouse effect but on highly speculative water vapor amplification of it.
Scott above psychologically discounts a whopping 27% reduction in the mean free path of IR radiation in our atmosphere.
This blog regularly attaches skepticism to shock jock partisanship, Godwin’s law incivility, and a reader roster of daughter rapists and lunatic fringe “ancient gods” gurus.
A single post like this a year, complete with cheerleader squad, cements John Cook’s positive reputation outside of skeptical circles, effectively enough to render the work of a hundred outspoken skeptical voices moot.
Censoring ideas is for Nazis.
The Venus/Earth temperatures comparison is the definitive evidence that proves there is no greenhouse effect (defined as an increase in global mean surface temperature, or the temperature at any given pressure, with increasing atmospheric CO2). That has nothing to do with “ancient gods” (about which I, as the one physical scientist who has discovered and verified their world design, know and am uniquely competent to discuss, while you, as a practicing ecclesiastic of popular scientific dogma, have no worthwhile idea); the Venus/Earth temperature ratio and its obvious physical interpretation is the hard fact, which the refusal to recognize and accept brands you (and everyone else who does the same) as incompetent to judge. In your self-pride, you have no idea how bad is the present tattered intellectual atmosphere, and the near-universal, blind conceit over false fundamental theories, that only add layer upon layer of supposition instead of actually progressing our understanding of the world and the universe beyond.
NIck here is a link to a picture showing the huge effect CO2 radiation has on frost. If the 330 W/m^2 cannot melt frost how can it heat the world?
http://climaterealists.com/?action=report&uid=8100&id=9004
The greenhouse effect is the property of glass to let through high energy short wave radiation and to trap longer wave radiation. It is mostly transparent in the visible spectrum and mostly opaque in the infrared. It’s why your car is hotter inside than outside on a sunny day. There is no extra energy, just more sensible heat.
Carbon compounds in the atmosphere can and do absorb and reemit long wave radiation, some of which is directed back toward the earth. This, however, is one simple aspect of an extremely complicated system. Carbon also absorbs short wave radiation directly and reemits it in the IR in all directions keeping the system in equilibrium as some of the radiation never makes it to earth. Carbon compounds also absorb heat during this process. Hot air rises and cools. Hotter air rises more rapidly.
If you know of experiments that fully take into account all of the relevant factors but still show a net increase of energy in the biosphere I would be grateful if you would share it with me. Observations of atmospheric temperature gradients have not changed with the increase of CO2 as the greenhouse models predicted.
This is huge. I was not aware of this. If it’s really true that all the IR in the bands that CO2 absorbs are completely absorbed by 20 ppm of CO2, or those wave lengths are completely stopped in only 15 (11) feet of air, then why are we here? Is there a source that can link to this information? I will investigate this but I really think this is huge. It positively debunks AGW from CO2, once and for all.
This is the puck for the hockey stock and I think it’s the game winning goal.
It isn’t completely absorbed, but radiative transfer models show that an increase to 1,000 PPM would only increase downwelling longwave radiation in the tropics by half a percent.
And still, a cooler atmosphere could not make a warmer surface warmer still …
An experiment would be easy to do. Forget about models and just fill a room with 20 PPM CO2 and another room with 20,000 PPM CO2, set up some heat lamps and see how hot the rooms get. I think a good old-fashioned Newtonian experiment like this is worth 100 computer models. It’s positive proof.
Already been done, numerous times. What do you suppose the results were?
What were they?
The room would have to be very long so the heat not absorbed by the IR won’t just hit a wall and heat the room that way. You measure the temperature gain of the air at different distances from the heat lamps.
I meant, the heat not absorbed by the CO2. Why is there no edit feature on wordpress blogs?
The IR would have to be collimated which would be easy to do.
You can even use wide-beam IR lasers which is better than collimated IR
So, when you point your IR TV remote control at your forehead and hold down a button, does your head feel warmer?
It’s pretty hard to warm bone, I would think.
Not if I’m over 11 feet away.
Scratch lasers, not enough wavelengths. Need broad spectrum IR.
If you’d understand that Owl Gore is right, and send him some tax money this would all go away.
Question:If your window shade absorbs 99.9% of all incoming light, will two window shades absorb 199.98% of incoming light?
Yes it will!
Trust me I am a “respected” IPCC/UN scientist, winner of a Nobel Prize in “respected global warming science”!
Would I lie to you?
Signed: A “respected” IPCC/UN scientist.
You forgot the additional tag of “Nobel Peace Prize Laureate”
This theory is wrong. CO2 does not become saturated with IR. It passes its heat on to the air. That means nitrogen and oxygen. The CO2 molecule absorbs the photon of IR and heats the air and becomes cool again. Only when the air is warm does the CO2 stop absorbing the IR.