I have a question about CO2

[Spud1k]

As IPCC AR4 conclusions continue to be falsified by the research it chose to ignore, by new ongoing research and more accurate/precise data from instrumentation, it is actually your side that are the deniers of science.

I'm bored, so I'll pull you up on that comment as well, because it's seriously at odds with reality. I again challenge you to come up with the references to back up your argument.

If what you described had any sort of truth to it, there'd be a lot of very hacked off governments coming after the scientists and demanding their money back. They paid for a comprehensive assessment of the state of the science and that's what they got.

Where's that list of IPCC's "2500 of the world's top scientists" at? Did you ever find it?

Funnily enough, it's in the report. Specifically, in the appendices in each WG section. Not counted them to make sure there are exactly 2500 of them, but there are a lot.

Oh, and where's the experimental evidence that re-emitting LW IR from rising CO2 levels can warm the oceans? You won't provide evidence because it does not exist. Rather, we will get lectures and opinion on how this phenomenon can occur despite the fact that IR does not penetrate liquid water beyond .03mm, but can somehow magically induce OHC gain. The problem you see, is OHC is not continuing to rise as it should.

Not quite sure what you're going on about (the reason IR doesn't penetrate water is because it is turned into heat) but how about the abstract from PNAS 2007, 104(26) 10768-10773?

Observations show both a pronounced increase in ocean heat content (OHC) over the second half of the 20th century and substantial OHC variability on interannual-to-decadal time scales. Although climate models are able to simulate overall changes in OHC, they are generally thought to underestimate the amplitude of OHC variability. Using simulations of 20th century climate performed with 13 numerical models, we demonstrate that the apparent discrepancy between modeled and observed variability is largely explained by accounting for changes in observational coverage and instrumentation and by including the effects of volcanic eruptions. Our work does not support the recent claim that the 0- to 700-m layer of the global ocean experienced a substantial OHC decrease over the 2003 to 2005 time period. We show that the 2003–2005 cooling is largely an artifact of a systematic change in the observing system, with the deployment of Argo floats reducing a warm bias in the original observing system.

 

[Ocelot]

Ocelot babble short version. Really sciency.

Yes there is a certain science to the practice of denialism. I study to detect it rather than perform it.

This for example, is a nice quote mine. You make it look like I have no evidence for saying your arguments are denialist rhetoric and lies. That makes me look rather mean spirited and unfair.

Care to address any of the points made that demonstrate your denialist arguments to be lies?

Care to retract the affront you feign at having your lies exposed?

From my experience of denialist rhetoric I'd guess no. You'll merely try to change the subject.

For the record. Your lies are as follows.

You were called on the straw man that the "far extreme" argues that all warming is caused by CO₂

In trying the wriggle out of this charge you quote mined the IPCC FAR in an attempt to support your straw man suggestion. You deliberately missed out the word "MOST"

Other evidence of denialism amongst your arguments include this feigned affront on being called a liar.

We're skeptics here. We address the arguments. If your arguments are lies and we have the evidence to prove it, that's what we'll say. Subesquently claiming that it's unfair that you're being called a liar is a bit rich. What do you want a license to make up anything you like?

You'll note that you made another point in the post to which I responded. I addressed that too. I take it you're letting that slide as you now acknowledge that heat can heat things up. Care to admit it was a silly question?

 

[Tubbythin]

Dodging the question with an irrelevant fantasy. Stick to insults.

Maybe you should read up on the first law of thermodynamics.

 

[mhaze]

It may have contributed, but like you say, it doesn't explain it all.



Please, that theory about cosmic rays has been dead in the water for a long time in serious scientific circles. The original hypothesis was founded on a passive relationship noted in the seventies but now that we have a bigger dataset to work with, it has been shown to have been simply a coincidence at the time.

ETA: I knew there was a picture somewhere:

This (specifically the bit in the late seventies) was the original source of the hypothesis about cosmic rays being inversely correlated with climate, which turned out to be completely bogus in hindsight. However, some people, such as Svensmark and Friis-Christensen, still cling onto the notion despite the fact that there is scant evidence to support it. They used it as a way of explaining the relationship they claimed to have found over ten years ago, which as discussed before, also turned out to be more than a little flimsy.

Actually the article you've referenced is not really the best, is it? It seems you, me and Rasmus all are in agreement we don't understand solar.

You've picked one excerpt from that article, and I could debate that point on a half dozen issues easily, leaving aside the numerous other points that stick out in that article. But this is nothing new for a Realclimate article, they don't tend to be hard to pick holes in.

More interesting, though, is the assertion Rasmus makes and I'll paraphrase here, going from memory, but it is the sentence right above the graph "We do understand CO2, so we'll blame it". It's the reducto ad absurdo of "Having eliminated everything else (albeit by confirmation bias, ignoring of contrary published research, and circular argument) it must be CO2!!!" that seems highly unscientific.

We can not only point to remarkable correlations between sunspots and the LIA, but numerous other correlations, can't we? That is without even starting on the isotope evidence.

Warmer:

• We don't understand solar, let's just ignore it or assign some tiny effect to it
• We think we understand CO2's effect, so we'll blame it.

Skeptic:

• We don't understand solar and no, we can't just ignore it.
• Your take on CO2 and positive feedbacks is likely wrong, negative feedbacks dominate in natural systems.

 

[Tubbythin]

Warmer:

• We don't understand solar, let's just ignore it or assign some tiny effect to it
• We think we understand CO2's effect, so we'll blame it.

Skeptic:

• We don't understand solar and no, we can't just ignore it.
• Your take on CO2 and positive feedbacks is likely wrong, negative feedbacks dominate in natural systems.

Er no:

Scientist:
The world is getting warmer. Its correlated with an increase in CO2. CO2 is a strong absorber of infra-red giving a greenhouse like effect and leading to a heating.

Denialist:
Its not warming.
Or:
It is warming but you can't prove with 100% certainty that CO2 causes it. Therefore we'll doctor loads of graphs and blame cosmic rays.

 

[mhaze]

Er no:

Scientist:
The world is getting warmer. Its correlated with an increase in CO2. CO2 is a strong absorber of infra-red giving a greenhouse like effect and leading to a heating.

Denialist:
Its not warming.
Or:
It is warming but you can't prove with 100% certainty that CO2 causes it. Therefore we'll doctor loads of graphs and blame cosmic rays.

I understand well the point you are making about your beliefs; however, the subject is whether solar can be disregarded when not well understood.

 

[Tubbythin]

I understand well the point you are making about your beliefs; however, the subject is whether solar can be disregarded when not well understood.

And my point is that your making up strawmen.

 

[Spud1k]

Actually the article you've referenced is not really the best, is it? It seems you, me and Rasmus all are in agreement we don't understand solar.

There are things we don't understand, yes, but there are also lots of things we do, so there's no justification for dealing in absolutes.

You've picked one excerpt from that article, and I could debate that point on a half dozen issues easily, leaving aside the numerous other points that stick out in that article. But this is nothing new for a Realclimate article, they don't tend to be hard to pick holes in.

I'm sure that's your opinion. The main reason I keep linking back there instead of going to the original journal articles is because most are subscription-only. I could access them but the average internet user wouldn't be able to.

More interesting, though, is the assertion Rasmus makes and I'll paraphrase here, going from memory, but it is the sentence right above the graph "We do understand CO2, so we'll blame it". It's the reducto ad absurdo of "Having eliminated everything else (albeit by confirmation bias, ignoring of contrary published research, and circular argument) it must be CO2!!!" that seems highly unscientific.

I don't see what your problem is. CO2 does happen to be one of the better understood parts of climate science and the majority of the evidence points to that being the main driver behind climate change. So when the relationships between sunspot activity and climate don't hold, surely that supports, not undermines the argument that CO2 is the prime suspect?

We can not only point to remarkable correlations between sunspots and the LIA, but numerous other correlations, can't we? That is without even starting on the isotope evidence.

You can point all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that the correlations don't hold, which instantly falsifies any hypotheses you can make about solar being the sole cause of climate change.

Warmer:

• We don't understand solar, let's just ignore it or assign some tiny effect to it
• We think we understand CO2's effect, so we'll blame it.

Out of interest, do you even know how the effects are 'assigned' when people do top-down climate sensitivity studies? People don't just arbitrarily invent these numbers, you know. I refer you back to chapter 9 of AR4WG1.

Skeptic:

• We don't understand solar and no, we can't just ignore it.
• Your take on CO2 and positive feedbacks is likely wrong, negative feedbacks dominate in natural systems.

No, we don't fully understand a whole bunch of process-level stuff about climate science, of which solar effects are just one of a litany of things. Yes, they should be and indeed are being investigated. None of that changes the fact that the evidence points to CO2 being the most important factor. As time goes on and the science improves, that point just becomes more and more certain.

And FYI, positive feedbacks exist all the time in nature. To take but one example, the only reason the Amazon rainforest exists is because it rains so much and the only reason it rains so much is because of the amount of vegetation there. If you were to cut it all down, it would revert to a savannah much like the equivalent part of Africa.

 

[Ocelot]

I understand well the point you are making about your beliefs; however, the subject is whether solar can be disregarded when not well understood.

You know what's really not understood? Magic. Maybe Magic did it? Or God or sky pixies. We're just ignoring these questions because we simply don't know how to address them.

Solar cosmic rays on the other hand we do know quite a lot about. What causes them, what their composition's, what energies they have, how to find out much of them there are at any present time. What those readings were for a few decades. How these readings relate to sunspot activity and from that we have a rough guide of how cosmic ray activity varied over the centuries for which we have records of sunspot activity.

Cloud cover we know a bit about. How much of it there is at any present time. What those records directly over a few decades. How it's likely to affect temperature. What temperatures were for centuries. That sort of thing.

Now I grant you it's would be a plausible hypothesis that cosmic rays may have some effect on cloud cover. At least that theory doesn't invoke magic.

Correct me if I'm wrong but are you saying that climate scientists have assigned a very small value to the probable size of this effect simply because they don't know how to find out how big the effect is?

What a strange idea. Why would they plum for a very small effect rather than a large effect or a medium size effect? Why couldn't they just say, we don't know?

Given that we know directly what the cloud cover is and what the cosmic ray output is couldn't they watch for some sort of corelation? Given that we've got rough estimates of what these values have been over a long period of time could they use statistics to quantify these uncertainties and give at least a rough idea, an upper and lower bound for how much cloud cover is affected by cosmic rays.

Couldn't they at least give us a best guess rather than making up arbitary stuff.

If someone had this to llok for a corelation that and found one over a small period of time then it'd be worth taking a further look wouldn't it? I mean it might be be the sort of a false alarm you expect from time to time by chance (or all the time if you want to cherry pick yourself some data that fits) but if you also analysed all that extra data available then you'd get more certainty for your upper and lower bound of how much cosmic rays actually affect cloud cover. You might find that the initial analysis with it's smaller data set had a result free to roam over all possibility and just happened to suggest that cosmic rays might have an appreciable effect on cloud cover whilst an analysis of the larger data set had a result far more certain that demonstrated without a doubt that if cosmic rays did have such an effect it was drowned out by other factors.

If that happened then those scientists would be justified in saying cosmic rays had at most a minimal effect on cloud cover.

Making stuff up because you don't know how to answer the question is one thing, but making stuff up because you can't be bothered to look at the reams of evidence that would at least give you a range in which the answer must lie. Well that's just lazy.

Could be worse though, it could be that they were ignoring the reams of evidence because they DID know what the result was and didn't like it.

I'm sure you'd agree that's something only a liar would do.

 

[Ocelot]

Dodging the question with an irrelevant fantasy. Stick to insults.

Look at your denialist script again. That's not your line, it's a stage direction. The bizarre thing is that by reading it out you actually followed it.



Seriously though. I'll explain to anybody as ignorant of basic science as you're pretending to be.

Infra red radiation is heat is energy.

Logically when you add heat to something it has more heat. Either that or the heat changes into something else or disappears.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed so we can discount heat disappearing.

That's one of them there laws of thermodynamics we tipped you off about earlier, the others make it pretty likely that different forms of energy turn to heat rather than the other way round. So heat turning inot some other form of energy is pretty unlikley

So in response to your question of how infrared radiation can heat water. Cuddles simply asked how can it not? After all transmitting heat into things what infra red radiation is known for. So much so that devices designed to emit infrared radiation are called heaters. Cuddles suggested that maybe you think the heat just disappears. That indeed would be a fantasy, but it's not irrelevant, as it stands it's the only rationale put forward for how your earlier question could make any sense.

Your going to leave it that way are you? Wondering how it is that heat heats things up when for all anybody, almost completely ignorant of science knows, it might just as well disappear instead.

 

[mhaze]

Look at your denialist script again. That's not your line, it's a stage direction. The bizarre thing is that by reading it out you actually followed it.

There are no denialist scripts that I'm aware of, but there are quite a few Warmer scripts published on the web "how to talk to a climate skeptic" scripts. Can you support your claim of denialist scripts? Have a source? Got cites? Got links?

Seriously though. I'll explain to anybody as ignorant of basic science as you're pretending to be. Infra red radiation is heat is energy.

Logically when you add heat to something it has more heat. Either that or the heat changes into something else....them there laws of thermodynamics we tipped you off about earlier, the others make it pretty likely that different forms of energy turn to heat rather than the other way round. So heat turning inot some other form of energy is pretty unlikley

So in response to your question of how infrared radiation can heat water. Cuddles simply asked how can it not? After all transmitting heat into things what infra red radiation is known for. So much so that devices designed to emit infrared radiation are called heaters. ....

Well, I take it your answer regarding "how can IR heat the water?" is along the lines of "how can it not?" At least that's what I can pull out of the monologue that seems of merit, so if I missed something, let me know, and since you are having a rare moment of civility, I'll answer your non answer:

IR can only get a very short distance into water (Beer's law), unlike other frequencies. IR, then, must heat up just the very first couple of millimeters of water, that which it penetrates into. This layer then has something occur called e-v-a-p-or-a-t-i-o-n.

Evaporation would seem to be the major mechanism for the removal of heat sunk into that skin-thick surface layer by IR.

I'm sure this is a simplified case, of course it disregards absorption of IR by the microdroplets everywhere over the water, the heavy IR-opaque layer of water vapor increasing over the body of water as evaporation occurs, increased absorption of IR by said vapor before reaching the surface layer, many other factors.
​

How can IR heat the water?

 

[David Rodale]

Why would I, or anyone else, need a physics degree for that? Unless you have an explanation for how energy can somehow disappear between it's point of emission and the Earth's surface, we are not the ones that need to explain anything.

Oh but yes, you do need to explain.

[FONT=&quot]So then, is there more energy being created than is received by the sun? If it cannot be accounted for, where is it going? Really, since this energy cannot just disappear, is not being "trapped" and accumulating in the tropical troposphere as climate models predict (yes they do), that doesn't leave many options does it? Where is the missing heat?

Therefore, those with a degree in physics and others with common sense, does energy flow from a cold body to a warm one causing its temperature to rise?


Aerosol and cloud effects on solar brightening and the recent rapid warming

Abstract

[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The rapid temperature increase of 1°C over mainland Europe since 1980 is considerably larger than the temperature rise expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases. Here we present aerosol optical depth measurements from six specific locations and surface irradiance measurements from a large number of radiation sites in Northern Germany and Switzerland. The measurements show a decline in aerosol concentration of up to 60%, which have led to a statistically significant increase of solar irradiance under cloud-free skies since the 1980s. The measurements confirm solar brightening and show that the direct aerosol effect had an approximately five times larger impact on climate forcing than the indirect aerosol and other cloud effects. The overall aerosol and cloud induced surface climate forcing is [/FONT][FONT=&quot]∼[/FONT][FONT=&quot]+1 W m−2 dec−1 and has most probably strongly contributed to the recent rapid warming in Europe.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]
Like any paper, it could be wrong, but I tend to gravitate toward empirically derived conclusions based on instrumental measurements.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]and[/FONT]


Oceanic Influences on Recent Continental Warming

Abstract Evidence is presented that the recent worldwide land warming has occurred largely in response to a worldwide warming of the oceans rather than as a direct response to increasing greenhouse gases (GHGs) over land. Atmospheric model simulations of the last half-century with prescribed observed ocean temperature changes, but without prescribed GHG changes, account for most of the land warming. The oceanic influence has occurred through hydrodynamic-radiative teleconnections, primarily by moistening and warming the air over land and increasing the downward longwave radiation at the surface. The oceans may themselves have warmed from a combination of natural and anthropogenic influences.

Hmm, climate models disagreeing with climate models. What do you think? We know that the sun warms the oceans, so by what mechanism(s) are from anthropogenic influences? By what amounts do they share the daunting task of ocean warming?


Couple that with Spencer's recent work with satellite data, and you've definitely got some explaining to do.


Does LW IR penetrate liquid water?
Again, the absorption coefficient for water.


[FONT=&quot]It shouldn't be that difficult to figure out; much like whether a water droplet freezes from the inside out or the outside in.



[/FONT]

 

[Ocelot]

How can IR heat the water?

Well you've just answered that question. You've acknowledged that IR heats water. In return I acknowledge that evapouration cools the water. The question is whether the the cooling evapouration fully compensates for the heating of the IR.

I suggest an experiment. A tub of water at one degree celcius. Above the water air at one degree celcius. Seal all that inside two layers of rock salt plates. Sepateated by a good thermal insulator and evacuate the space between the plates. Put the whole assembly in a room at room temperature.

There are four ways heat moves. Conduction, convection, radiation and transportation.

Heat can move about within the water by conduction, convection and radiation. Heat can move about within the air by conduction, convection and radiation. Heat can move from the water to the air by conduction, radiation and transportation (as water vapour transports its heat with it as it evapourates) Heat can move from the air to the water through conduction radiation and transportation (as condensation transports its heat with it as it condenses)

Heat can only enter or leave the system through the rock salt plates by IR. Essentially this is similar to a vacuum flask which effectively insulates the contents from heat exchange with the outside world by stopping conduction, convection or transportation through the vacuum but unlike the vacuum flask it's surfaces are not slivered glass which reflects IR but rock salt which is tranparrent to IR. The IR can only enter the water through the top surface as the tub is designed to be opaque to IR.

Any body above absolute zero emits IR at a rate proportional to the four power of it's absolute temperature. So the air and the water at the begining of the experiment will be emitting IR at a rate proportional to 274⁴ and the surroundings will be emitting IR at a rate proportional to 293⁴ I'll let you check my sums but seems to me that 30% more IR goes in through the rock salt than out.

So as Cuddles says if more heat is entering a system than leaving it we've got warming irregardless of where the heat is. Eventually a new thermal equilibrium will be reached.

However your suggestion that all the heat inside the system will stay in the air and none of it will enter the water sounds a little counter intuitive to me.

YEs more heat leaves the surface of the water through evouration into the air than leaves the air through condensation into the surface of the water. Yes the surface of the water heats first but it doesn't loose all that heat through evapouration. Some is conducted and reradiated to lower levels of the water. Sure you'll get a temperature gradient and the lower levels of the water will take the most time to react but to deny that they will actually heat up seems to me a little silly.

So I think I've answered your question as to how I think the heat moves about and the water ends up with more than it started with. It's high school level science rather than degree level.

So now what was your purpose in aking the question. Do you want to suggest that in this experimental set up the water will remain at 1 degree celcius. What about a deep bath full of cold water at 1 degree. Will that warm up if the air above it is at room temperature?

 

[Spud1k]

Aerosol and cloud effects on solar brightening and the recent rapid warming
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
Like any paper, it could be wrong, but I tend to gravitate toward empirically derived conclusions based on instrumental measurements.[/FONT]

Aerosol concentrations have been decreasing over mainland Europe for some time, so an increase in solar radiation hitting the ground in Europe is expected. Of course, the reason they're decreasing is because of emission controls, which is human activity still.

That doesn't mean to say the climate models are wrong; they include treatments of aerosols and they find it is necessary if you want to catch some of the kinks in the temperature trend. What this means is that if the aerosols hadn't been there, the big rise in temperature in the 80s wouldn't have happened because the temperature would already be high as it is.

[FONT=&quot]and[/FONT]


Oceanic Influences on Recent Continental Warming
Hmm, climate models disagreeing with climate models. What do you think? We know that the sun warms the oceans, so by what mechanism(s) are from anthropogenic influences? By what amounts do they share the daunting task of ocean warming?

OK, so they say that you can simulate the temperature variations over land by just exerting the influence of the sea, but then use a prescribed temperature trend for the ocean. They state that "The oceans may themselves have warmed from a combination of natural and anthropogenic influences" so despite their big claims about CO2 and stuff, they're not actually explaining how the extra heat is getting into the ocean. To that end, there's been no changes in solar irradiance or cloud cover that can explain the increase in SST over the years.

ETA: The more I think about that article, the more the conclusions don't make sense to me. There are continuously big heat interchanges between the land, the lower troposphere and the sea surface. If you fix the trend on one of these and then turn off the external warming effects on the others, of course the fixed one is going to lead the others because in effect, you are defining it as the source of the warming.

To reiterate: you can't do any climate change attribution unless you model the complete system.

Couple that with Spencer's recent work with satellite data, and you've definitely got some explaining to do.

I think it's Spencer that has the explaining to do.

Does LW IR penetrate liquid water?
Again, the absorption coefficient for water.


[FONT=&quot]It shouldn't be that difficult to figure out; much like whether a water droplet freezes from the inside out or the outside in.

[/FONT]

IR goes into the water. It warms it. What's so hard to understand about that?

 

[Spud1k]

Well, I take it your answer regarding "how can IR heat the water?" is along the lines of "how can it not?" At least that's what I can pull out of the monologue that seems of merit, so if I missed something, let me know, and since you are having a rare moment of civility, I'll answer your non answer:

IR can only get a very short distance into water (Beer's law), unlike other frequencies. IR, then, must heat up just the very first couple of millimeters of water, that which it penetrates into. This layer then has something occur called e-v-a-p-or-a-t-i-o-n.

Evaporation would seem to be the major mechanism for the removal of heat sunk into that skin-thick surface layer by IR.​

Ever hear of mixing? Wave action? Apparently not.​

 

[mhaze]

Ever hear of mixing? Wave action? Apparently not.

The question was "How can IR heat the water".

You've realized you've just moved out of the domain of radiative balance into convection, which destroys your argument (IR is radiation, not convection), but let's leave that aside for a moment.

The basic mechanism we are discussing here (over the oceans) is as follows:

1. Solar energy hits the oceans, is absorbed, warms the oceans, and the oceans emit IR.
2. That emitted IR is absorbed in the mid to upper troposphere creating the "greenhouse effect" and then about half of the energy is re radiated down to the oceans. We are ignoring for this discussion the fact that empirical measurements show far far less of a hotspot, eg, as is believed by AGW to exist. We are simply looking at the AGW greenhouse theory as it is stated, since it's fun to pick holes in it.
3. The question is what happens to this hypothetical (in amount) "re radiated energy". Of course it is in magnitude far less than the IR already being emitted by the oceans.
4. Of the energy in the "Hotspot", half went up and half went down, and of that which went down, a lot got absorbed on its way down. The shreds of remaining IR which hit the ocean can't penetrate deeper than a few millimeters, and on the liquid to air interface, evaporative effects dominate. It's likely we don't need to go into heat transfer during evaporation or the effect of a heavy and/or increasing water vapor layer over the water, or the effects of that largely IR opaque layer.
5. Cuddles said "How can IR not heat the ocean".

• In the finest of JREF tradition, he should "support his claim".
• Otherwise, in the finest of JREF tradition, ridicule and scorn is due.

 

[quarky]

I'm ok with CO2 and warming, but if I wasn't, I'd have to wonder about the earth itself as a warmer. Aren't there nuclear rxns going on in the core? Do we assume they remain constant? What about undersea volcanoes and vents? Couldn't they vary enough to be a factor in the warming?

 

[Spud1k]

The question was "How can IR heat the water".

You've realized you've just moved out of the domain of radiative balance into convection, which destroys your argument, but let's leave that aside for a moment.

I'm not talking about convection. I'm talking about the mixing brought on by shear forces caused by wind action.

The basic mechanism we are discussing here (over the oceans) is as follows:

1. Solar energy hits the oceans, is absorbed, warms the oceans, and the oceans emit IR.

2. That emitted IR is absorbed in the mid to upper troposphere creating the "greenhouse effect" and then about half of the energy is re radiated down to the oceans.

3. Now we are looking at the question of what happens to this hypothetical "re radiated energy". It is in magitude far lower than the IR already being emitted by the oceans. It cannot penetrate deeper than a few millimeters into the surface of the ocean. Evaporative effects dominate in the layer in question.

4. Maybe Cuddles can help out with this? He's the one that said "How can IR not heat the ocean". In the finest of JREF tradition, he should "support his claim".

OK, this is getting ridiculously off-topic but I feel I have to address this because it is starting to get silly. The whole thing about how far the IR can penetrate into the ocean is a daft, because the same logic means that only the very upper layers that can emit it, so if you're going to ignore inconveniences like mixing, the argument defeats itself.

And I also may as well point out that your evaporation argument is a complete non-starter. The coupling of the temperatures of the water in the sea surface and the air in the marine boundary layer (MBL) is a two-way process (big weather events aside). When water in the sea surface evaporates, it takes heat from the sea and put it in the MBL. However, as the energy in the MBL increases, then that just means it will transfer more heat back to the surface in due course (see below). The inescapable bottom line is that the more heat you put into the coupled sea surface/MBL system, the warmer the sea gets.

But in the grand scheme of things, the whole argument is a bit on the daft side anyway (I only joined it because of some of the howlers that people came out with). Upwelling IR from the oceans gets absorbed by atmospheric CO2, manifesting as local warming in the atmosphere. However, that's not to say that the only way for the heat to get back down again is through re-emission as IR. Far from it, there are many ways a warmed-up atmosphere can transfer its heat to the ocean, e.g. sensible heat transfer, rain, etc.

The bit that you have to remember is that the fundamental process behind the greenhouse effect is not that CO2 and other gases 'reflect' the heat back down (as your point 2 seems to imply that you think), it simply traps heat in the earth system that would otherwise have been lost to space. A warmer atmosphere means a warmer ocean and vice versa.

 

[Spud1k]

I'm ok with CO2 and warming, but if I wasn't, I'd have to wonder about the earth itself as a warmer. Aren't there nuclear rxns going on in the core? Do we assume they remain constant? What about undersea volcanoes and vents? Couldn't they vary enough to be a factor in the warming?

No. I don't have the figures, but the heating effect of the earth is tiny compared to that of the sun. Increases in volcanic activity actually cause cooling (through putting sulphur in the atmosphere).

 

[Spud1k]

Good grief, you had to go changing it all, didn't you...

The question was "How can IR heat the water".

You've realized you've just moved out of the domain of radiative balance into convection, which destroys your argument (IR is radiation, not convection), but let's leave that aside for a moment.

Ermmm.... no. I'm talking about mixing as a means of transferring heat away from the immediate surface downwards.

The basic mechanism we are discussing here (over the oceans) is as follows:

1. Solar energy hits the oceans, is absorbed, warms the oceans, and the oceans emit IR.
2. That emitted IR is absorbed in the mid to upper troposphere creating the "greenhouse effect" and then about half of the energy is re radiated down to the oceans. We are ignoring for this discussion the fact that empirical measurements show far far less of a hotspot, eg, as is believed by AGW to exist. We are simply looking at the AGW greenhouse theory as it is stated, since it's fun to pick holes in it.
3. The question is what happens to this hypothetical (in amount) "re radiated energy". Of course it is in magnitude far less than the IR already being emitted by the oceans.
4. Of the energy in the "Hotspot", half went up and half went down, and of that which went down, a lot got absorbed on its way down. The shreds of remaining IR which hit the ocean can't penetrate deeper than a few millimeters, and on the liquid to air interface, evaporative effects dominate. It's likely we don't need to go into heat transfer during evaporation or the effect of a heavy and/or increasing water vapor layer over the water, or the effects of that largely IR opaque layer.
5. Cuddles said "How can IR not heat the ocean".

• In the finest of JREF tradition, he should "support his claim".
• Otherwise, in the finest of JREF tradition, ridicule and scorn is due.

Your edit has actually made your argument make less sense. Besides all the points I made previously, you've made a whole bunch of sweeping statements that you have no hope of ever backing up with hard maths. Plus that 'IR opaque layer' is spectacularly self-defeating. If that were the case, how would the IR get up through it in the first place?