Water is the refrigerant of the troposphere.

[Derek]

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/04...ment-25530

Brego said
April 17, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Joining this thread late, but…

JeffId
Mosher
Others

You are all making the same mistake that scientists made years ago when they failed to recognize that
the troposphere contains great abundances of water in all three of it’s phases; vapor, liquid and ice.
The absorption spectra of the three phases of water are very different.
Liquids and solids absorb/emit energy along a continuous spectrum,
not discrete spectral lines with gaps in between like water vapor (a gas).

An examination of the spectrum for liquid water is very telling:

http://i42.tinypic.com/54aes8.jpg



Note the position of the strongest spectral peak for liquid water, right at the location where CO2 absorbs.
This unfortunate coincidence has resulted in a great deal of unfortunate confusion and wild speculation.

I was going to add the absorption spectrum for CO2 to this chart, but
the absorption coefficient for CO2 at it’s spectral peak (667 wavenumber (cm^-1)) is just 10.56.
It wont show up on this chart. Too tiny.
The absorption by liquid water at this spectra is 300+ times more intense than is CO2.

The absorption spectrum for water ice is also interesting:

http://i39.tinypic.com/wb2s6c.jpg



Note the shift of the peaks and the changes of the intensities.

Then, of course, we should consider the relative abundance of H2O and CO2 in the atmosphere:

http://i44.tinypic.com/24zayi1.jpg



(YES, CO2 is the purple line along the bottom of the plot......)

On average, at the surface water is 300+ times more abundant than CO2. Even at 300 mB, H2O is 8 times more abundant than CO2.
(The other day, the radiosonde report for my location revealed that
H2O was 8 times more abundant than CO2 at 10mB, near the top of the stratosphere).

These facts, taken together, should make it obvious
why CO2 and those other trace gases cannot possibly have any effect on tropospheric or surface temperatures.
It is because those gases don’t do anything radiatively that water isn’t already doing and doing much better.

Water absorbs IR upwelling from the surface and warms the atmosphere near the surface via collisional excitation.
The warmed air then slowly begins to rise. At various altitudes, the water condenses, freezes and sublimates and
radiates away the latent energy of the phase change, cooling the troposphere at altitude.
This phenomenon keeps tropospheric and surface air temps cooler than they would be otherwise.

If this phenomenon didn’t exist, or if the troposphere was somehow transparent to IR,
the troposphere would still be warmed via conduction with the surface, but
it would have no way of cooling again, because no other atmospheric gas works to cool the troposphere.
Tropospheric temperatures would be very warm and would stay that way year-round.
There would be no difference between day and night temperatures.

Fortunately, that is not the case.
Water is the refrigerant of the troposphere.

[Richard111]

Interesting find Derek, thanks for posting it.

Now to find what effect the drop in upper tropospheric water vapour levels are having. (if any)

[Derek]

Richard111, I think we may have found the long lost reference to Segelstein MS thesis 1981.
Look at the first plot above.

[Richard111]

Yes indeed! Well found. I need a quick lesson in converting wavenumbers to microns before this makes any more sense to me.

[Derek]

It occurs to me that,

MLO use a dry air sample to measure CO2.
This apparently agrees with outside CO2 measurements and spectra.

How can this be, MLO has no (liquid) water in it's sample measured, the atmosphere always does.
There should be a massive and varying discrepancy between MLO and atmospheric spectra / CO2 levels,
because a lot of the atmospheric spectra is not CO2 but liquid water - clouds, mist, etc that has not been allowed for / realised...

[Derek]

(04-18-2010 04:39 AM)Richard111 Wrote:  Yes indeed! Well found. I need a quick lesson in converting wavenumbers to microns before this makes any more sense to me.

Closer still, but no cigar yet...
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe/abstrac...-13-6-1860
Reference 20.

Will keep trying. This looked promising, but just draws a blank page...
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/view_artic...q%3D0&org=

21. D. J. Segelstein, “The complex refractive index of water,” (University of Missouri-Kansas City, 1981), as reported
at http://atol.ucsd.edu/%7Epflatau/refrtab/...H2Orefind.

Now we know the target, any help greatly appreciated,
myself and Richard111 have been trying to track this paper down for about two years now.
So near, yet seemingly still so far away...This damned thing is becoming a Holy Grail.

[Derek]

(04-18-2010 04:39 AM)Richard111 Wrote:  Yes indeed! Well found. I need a quick lesson in converting wavenumbers to microns before this makes any more sense to me.

http://www.harricksci.com/faq-micron-to-...conversion

10,000 divided by wavenumber in cm-1 = wavelength in microns

For example 10,000 divided by 667 = 14.9925 microns.

It's a wonderful thing a search engine, and thanks now I know it is sooo easy.
The other way round is just as easy, using the above example,

10,000 divided by 14.9925 microns = a wavelength of 667.0016

[Derek]

Sitting back and looking at the plots again, there seems to be quite a large issue.
The spectra for liquid and solid water seem to have frequency peaks.
So far "we" have been under the impression that is only a property of gases emitting thermal IR.
Liquids and solids emit IR according to their temperature. ?
I would not be surprised if the real situation is a little more complex than that simple "rule of thumb",
and I'd also not be surprised if water, being as complicated as it is, is an exception.
I'm hoping Richard111 might profer some insight here, he is our resident water specialist. - Sorry Richard111, but comparatively you are.

The above said, the plot I have used numerous times that is also presumably from the same Segelstein paper, ie,



has never been queried anywhere yet. Nor has anyone ever asked about or questioned it's source / data / processing / technique.
There's something fishy here, given the importance to the missing heat is in the oceans arguements / discussions. Why no questioning. ?
Maybe something does not want to be more widely read, or gotten out, and it may well be in the paper.
Hence I am refering to Segelstein MS thesis 1981 as our "Holy Grail"...
Which may well become "that damned elusive paper"............

[Derek]

Optical Absorption of Water Compendium
http://omlc.ogi.edu/spectra/water/abs/

Between this thread, the global energy budgets thread, this is all adding upto somethnig confirmed from several different directions.
Read the comments on this thread at the air vent blog as well.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/04...f-science/

It all harks back to, and consideranly updates the "We" do NOT measure CO2 thread...
I'll try to compile it all again, and resurect the old lost thread, which I still have some partial copies of.

Do you remember the times when we used to think of the radiative effect of water in the atmosphere as only a gas.........



Not as a liquid and solid too.

If this is correct and liquid (and solid) water HAVE been ignored in interpretting IR flows / plots,
then this could at least partially explain the order of nagnitude misrepresentation in global energy budgets of latent heat movements.
They have been interpretted as CO2 (gas) originated IR, when they are mostly water (liquid) originated IR.

[Richard111]

(04-20-2010 01:41 AM)Derek Wrote:  If this is correct and liquid (and solid) water HAVE been ignored in interpretting IR flows / plots,
then this could at least partially explain the order of nagnitude misrepresentation in global energy budgets of latent heat movements.
They have been interpretted as CO2 (gas) originated IR, when they are mostly water (liquid) originated IR.

Amazing, isn't it. Here is me with no scientific training what so ever and I allways assumed clouds are visible because they are made up of droplets of water therefore they emit/absorb same as any body of water. Most definitely not a gas.

This made it easy for me to understand why cloudy nights remain warm but clear nights get cold. It also made it difficult for me to understand how CO2 did anything at all. Which is why I have been a sceptic from day one.

Nice graph Derek. And thanks for the conversion lesson.

[Derek]

(04-20-2010 05:24 AM)Richard111 Wrote:  Amazing, isn't it. I always assumed clouds are visible because
they are made up of droplets of water therefore
they emit/absorb same as any body of water.
Most definitely not a gas.

OK, OK, so I was a bit slow on the uptake.


But, I'm not alone.......................

BTW - I posted the below rather too rapidly at the air vent.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/04...e-warming/
It sort of sums up where I'm coming from at present, and will in a better form
be the "end" of the resurrected "We" do NOT measure CO2 thread.
My reasoning is to get some feedback there before I start in ernest on the resurrection this weekend.
I ain't expecting positive comments there, but, hey, it's worth asking in several places.
So, I greatly appreciate any feedback here as well please, both positive or negative.

" Derek said (post 33)
April 20, 2010 at 6:29 am
Carrick Post 21

” I always want somebody that doesn’t think CO2 is GHG to explain why
the surface of the Earth is 33°C or so warmer than it would be without the GHGs.
How does that work out in a universe where GHGs don’t exist? ”

I’ll have a go at my partial explanation..(with a few kitchen sinks thrown in for good measure..)

“GHG”s in this sense slow down the rate of escape of heat from the earth’s surface / atmosphere.
Any atmospheric constituent that abosrbs heat or is heated (by radiation) must loose that heat.
Gases due to their chemical bonds, and because they are (relatively) free to move around, can loose some heat by conduction (and / or convection).
But gases that can radiate IR can loose more heat and more quickly, than by conduction (and / or convection) alone.

“GHG’s” can not trap heat, they have to loose it by conduction, (and / or convection). If a gas can also radiate (heat) it can loose heat faster,
so is less of a “GHG”. The only way a gas can “trap” heat is by changing heat to the latent heat of change of state. Water is the only atmospheric constituent that can do this (change of state within atmos. temps and pressures found it the atmosphereof this planet), and does so in massive amounts. Water can also transport massive amounts of cold down in the atmosphere as cool rain, undeniably cooling the atmosphere at lower levels and the earth’s surface where it lands. As liquid water has such a high specific heat content this is a massive effect globally, usually seemingly ignored in IR / radiation / energy budgets discussions.

Gases like O2 and N2 are heated by conduction AND radiation, as mentioned in post 20 by kuhnkat. They can only cool by convection and conduction.
Gases like CO2 can be warmed by conduction AND radiation. CO2 (and similarly presently described “GHG” gases) can also “store” heat in a changing chemical bond, which can be released to a lower energy state chemical bond by radiating a photon. They can cool by conduction, convection, AND radiation.
Water can be warmed by conduction, convection, AND radiation. I am assuming water has very many differing forms of it’s chemical bondings, andin changes of these cause it’s such wide spectra. It can cool by conduction, convection AND radiation. Water further complicates things because it can also “store” heat in a different form namely, latent heat (of change of state), which it can either absorb or release depending upon the change of state. Many think of this as evapouration, but it is really vapourisation. H20, is peculiar, it is a very light gas, but yet a very heavy liquid, and then a lighter solid.
Elsewhere physicists say CO2 (gas) has a very high specific heat content, yet chemists say their mass equations work with CO2 having a very low heat content. ?

From the above it seemingly appears that
O2 and N2 will insulate the atmosphere best from heat escaping. O2 also seems to have a good heating capacity as well. (the actual greenhouse gases)

CO2 within an atmosphere (chemists mass calculations) has a low specific heat and therefore acts as a cooling agent because it can radiate heat.
CO2 (mostly) aids cooling the atmosphere by radiating heat, as well as possibly some heating by thermalisation.

Water is the daddy of both warming and cooling, and in it’s differing states / abilities seems to cloud the picture beyond recognition.
IF Brego is correct in his comments (and I strongly suspect he is) regarding it’s liquid ability to emit CO2 wavelength IR then all present interpretations of “measured” IR flows and plots are seemingly possibly massively misinterpreting “things”.
It could easily “explain” what I suspect is an order of magnitude misinterpretation of latent heat movements
found in all the present W/m2 based global energy budgets,
by atributing massive amounts of energy (thermal radiation) measurements / movements to CO2, when they should be to H2O.

My “understanding” may well be summed up as, our present versions of the greenhouse effect are
probably way off the actual effects, and players responsible for what.
I suspect we have the actual effects and players almost perfectly reversed.
O2 (20%) both heats and insulates the atmosphere, and N2 (79%) also insulates.
CO2 (0.04%) is a powerful cooling agent, that can also warm of occasion.
Water (variable %) does both warming and cooling by a variety of mechanisms (and has more mechanisms) that dwarfs all other players.

Furthermore, space is not cold, how can nothing have a temperature, space has no temperature, the earth is just an object in space. It’s temperature is mostly “governed” by a balance between constant solar input and losses, however there is the massive influence of the oceans on a daily and longer term basis as the oceanic currents and phases change, we know not how or when they will change. They will change however. We do know the oceans have a heat capacity in excess of 800 times the heat capacity of the thin film of an atmosphere that covers this planet.
How thin is the atmosphere, if the earth were a soccer ball, the atmosphere would be a layer of cling film.

I do not agree with the calculations or assumptions used to suggest the planet is 33 degrees warmer than it would be otherwise,
for virtually all the reasons mentioned above, and many more not covered yet.
That is not to say the earth is warmer than it would otherwise be, it is partently,
but why, it may not be a greenhouse effect at all.
Photons do move at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) afterall
- in an atmosphere mostly contained in under the first 32 kilometres, that’s merely an instant.
The earth is the temperature it is, we know not why, or how.

Trying to justify a false dogma by claiming a certain temp above what would otherwise be,
is merely another form of pandering to the consensus.
Something no science should ever do.

This is before mentioning the second law of thermodynamics and “all radiation is positive”…… "

[Richard111]

It's a long hard road we are travelling and there are many potholes.

You might find a few more potholes here:

ATMOSPHERIC WATER (menu)

Went and checked out the wavenumber for the main CO2 band at 15 microns... turns out to be 666 cm^-1.

Seems like the Big Guy up there has a sense of humor.

[Derek]

(04-20-2010 10:22 AM)Richard111 Wrote:  It's a long hard road we are travelling and there are many potholes.

You might find a few more potholes here:

ATMOSPHERIC WATER (menu)

Went and checked out the wavenumber for the main CO2 band at 15 microns... turns out to be 666 cm^-1.

Seems like the Big Guy up there has a sense of humor.

Thanks for the exact link I was thinking of Richard111.

The longer "we" travel this road, the more I am enclined to agree.
There has to be Big Guy upstairs, he's heck of a practical joker.
Although at times it is difficult to see the funny side of things...

[Sunsettommy]

Quote:This made it easy for me to understand why cloudy nights remain warm but clear nights get cold. It also made it difficult for me to understand how CO2 did anything at all. Which is why I have been a sceptic from day one.

What about ground fog?

It seems that fog when it persist,there is very little temperature change.

I have seen in my area some winters where fog is around all day and all night and only a two degree change at most is noticed,even if the sky above the fog layer of a few hundred feet is clear.

Yet we know that the majority of CO2 is within 300 feet (100 Meters) of the surface,but no suppression of cooling is noted on a clear night.

Hmm...

[Richard111]

Early morning fog, or radiation fog, used to be a pain during early morning flying lessons in the dim and distant past at White Waltham.

Check this link out: RADIATION FOG

Quote:After sunset, Earth receives no heat from the Sun, but its surface continues to reradiate heat. The surface begins to cool because of this heat loss. As Earth cools, the layer of air adjacent to the surface is cooled by conduction (the transfer of heat from warmer to colder matter by contact). This causes the layer near Earth to be cooler than the air immediately above it, a condition called an inversion. If the air beneath the inversion layer is sufficiently moist and cools to its dew point, fog forms. (See fig. 5-2.) In case of a calm wind, this cooling by conduction affects only a very shallow layer (a few inches deep), since air is a poor conductor of heat. Wind of low speed (3 to 5 knots) causes slight, turbulent currents. This turbulence is enough to spread the fog through deeper layers. As the nocturnal cooling continues, the air temperature drops further, more moisture is condensed, and the fog becomes deeper and denser. If winds increase to 5 to 10 knots, the fog will usually thicken vertically. Winds greater than 10 knots usually result in the formation of low scud, stratus, or stratocumulus.

No CO2 needed at all.