Layman struggles with Science

[MostlyHarmless]

(05-18-2010 10:26 AM)Richard111 Wrote:  This post discusses a paper by G. V. Chilingar et al who look into the physics of the atmosphere in detail. The mathematics is way beyond me but there is enough explanation to understand what is being done. Basically the global energy budget is shown to be wrongly calculated and increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will REDUCE the temperature.

From that paper:

Quote:The proponents of this theory take into consideration only one component of heat transfer in atmosphere, i.e., radiation. Yet, in the dense Earth’s troposphere with the pressure p > 0:2 atm, the heat from the Earth's surface is mostly transferred by convection (Sorokhtin, 2001a). According to our estimates, convection accounts for 67%, water vapor condensation in troposphere accounts for 25%, and radiation accounts for about 8% of the total heat transfer from the Earth’s surface to troposphere.

In my post The Greenhouse Effect - A Few Cracked Panes I quoted a figure of 23.79 W/sq.m radiated from a surface at 15°C into an atmosphere at 10°C, compared with a "radiation budget" (Kiehl and Trenberth) figure of 396 W/sq.m. That's 6% of their figure so it's definitely in the right ballpark.