Atmospheric CO2 has gone up 20% since 1960

[Beerina]

The standard "no yard waste in landfills" laws, AFAIK, have nothing to do with global warming, but rather with the facts that (a) trucking waste around is expensive NIMBY, and (b) the most-convenient municipal landfills are filling up; it's hard to open new ones and they're invariably further away (=more expensive still) than the ones they replace. leftover '70s Chicken Little scares based on numerical illiteracy that we're producing so much waste it we'll run out of places to put it.

Fixed it for you.


Nobody passes a law because they're concerned about shipping or landfill costs. That's the kind of thing capitalism does best.

 

[lomiller]

Nobody passes a law because they're concerned about shipping or landfill costs. That's the kind of thing capitalism does best.

No it really isn’t. Left to it’s own devices the market would “solve” this problem by putting up landfills anywhere and everywhere. While this provides someplace to put the garbage it does so at the cost of lowering the land value of the surrounding area.

This is a classic externality, where you make a profit by pushing off costs to your neighbor. By definition, if the companies building the landfills are not paying all the incurred costs out of their own pocket it isn’t a free marketplace.

Landfills, therefore, must be tightly regulated in order to minimize the costs they create for their neighbors, restricting yard waste is frequently one such regulation.

 

[macdoc]

Originally Posted by bobdroege7
Big deal, the equation still provides a general idea of the amount and frequency of the radiation emitted by the earth.

The balance of the incoming and outgoing radiations still determine whether the earth is cooling or warming. Whether the forcing is cooling or warming.

Planck and all the quantum mechanics still rule the day.

There are huge lags in response times in the various geosystems which cannot be discounted as those lags make the planet habitable.

The energy gain /loss of course obeys physics but how it is realized may not be in temperature...focusing on that is a luzer approach

Melting glaciers show almost NO local temperature variations as it's all sucked into latent heat

You cannot ignore the hysteresis of the various systems as each is on a different time scale from daily to 100k years

Deep ocean and cryosphere are huge buffers while aerosol and albedo operate on a very short time scale.

This tunnel vision on temperature is ludicrous...

The devil is indeed in the details when it comes to climate and we have altered our radiative balance....consequences will unfold for millenia.

 

[Wangler]

There are huge lags in response times in the various geosystems which cannot be discounted as those lags make the planet habitable.

The energy gain /loss of course obeys physics but how it is realized may not be in temperature...focusing on that is a luzer approach

Melting glaciers show almost NO local temperature variations as it's all sucked into latent heat

You cannot ignore the hysteresis of the various systems as each is on a different time scale from daily to 100k years

Deep ocean and cryosphere are huge buffers while aerosol and albedo operate on a very short time scale.

This tunnel vision on temperature is ludicrous...

The devil is indeed in the details when it comes to climate and we have altered our radiative balance....consequences will unfold for millenia.

Do we have any idea of the response time of the system as a whole?

 

[mhaze]

Mhaze, the "Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service"?

Are you serious?

What's the IMPACT of that journal? Where does it rate in the cite databases?

This paper's probably not even worth a speed read.

Sheesh.

One man's garbage is a deniers treasure, I guess.

Hehehehee....

"It's simple physics".

 

[Raze]

You are looking at absorption via GHG - that's not what I'm referring to.

Actually, I am only mentioning that as one among the many many factors that would change the constant for emissivity.

I do believe either you're not understanding what I'm saying or that I'm failing to explain it properly.


Basically it is like this:

With the Stefan-Boltzmann law as a rough approximation of the radiation system, every single factor that changes how the earth radiates energy out is included in the constant for emissivity. It is basically saying,"This equation describes the radiation system- IF we either have a complete understanding of the local phenomena that alters how the planet radiates energy into space OR we can simply sum all of it together and represent it as a single constant."

In other words it is inappropriate to apply it in detail to the minutia of what affects how the earth absorbs and radiates energy.

You are missing latent heat ( amongst other factors ). Until the cryosphere is eliminated you have tremendous energy going to melt and that includes permafrost - Siberian river volume is up substantially 10% or more.
These changes will not show directly in temperature - the temperature on a melting glacier will remain near zero yet the energy in the phase change is enormous.

Yes, but you see that that energy that would remain? That energy? That energy remains because the phenomena you just described lowered the emissivity of the body in question.

The application for the law I am talking about is one that throws all of these factors into one constant. i.e. it is not applicable to such a detailed analysis.

In addition the evaporative nature of the the ocean is also an energy transform - as more water vapour shifts to the atmosphere from the ocean that turns to to wind and wave and also magnifies the C02 trapping.

Which would lower the planet's emissivity.

Stay off the temperature fixation and look at the larger energy balance.

The misunderstanding here is the particular magnifying glass chosen. The Stefan-Boltzmann law gives an approach for looking at it "from the outside," with one constant representing ALL of the internal affects that alter how energy radiates out of the body.

We are no where near equilibrium in the climate and every year we change the equation by accumulating more GHG.

Every year? I'd suspect things change every unit of time.

The orbital driver is on a very slight cooling trend.

We have nil in volcanoes.

Albedo is shifting somewhat to loss of reflective ice and snow cover and increased vegetation in the north.

We have some unknowns in the plus/minus aerosols.....some are positive ( carbon black ) drivers some negative. ( S02 )

Methane is the 900 gorilla..and it just jumped.
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/10/29/methane.gas.levels.begin.increase.again

and far too many indications of increased release

http://www.adn.com/269/story/916689.html

Yes, but 100% of the factors you just listed are represented in the emissivity constant in the formula I gave.



Again, just to make sure we are clear:

I am NOT providing some formula that explains the mechanisms of the greenhouse effect, etc. The ONLY thing it does is it provides an equation that relates energy radiated out with temperature (one factor) and an emissivity constant (THOUSANDS of factors).

So basically, the only thing anyone could ascertain from the angle I am coming from is that there have been some sort of changes in the way the planet radiates energy. The only way to really get to the bolts at it coming from my angle is to gain a very detailed understanding of HOW and WHY the emissivity of the body changes- i.e. to understand all the factors you have listed.


Are we on the same page now?

 

[DogB]

This paper's probably not even worth a speed read.

Have you tried? If you can speed read that puppy you're better than I. Talk about information dense!

Here's a powerpoint of a talk the author gave at a climate change conference. It's no more accessible, but it is prettier.

 

[macdoc]

Do we have any idea of the response time of the system as a whole?

How could you??
As Raze noted there are thousands of factors...

•••

Raze we are on a discontinuity somewhere..

Emissivity as far as radiative balance goes includes direct reflection/transmission of incoming radiation from outside the atmosphere ( mostly constant )
and also reflection/transmission from radiation leaving the atmosphere. - very variable overall even down to moment by moment
....two different phenomena as the incoming is in a different freqency range than outgoing.

I'm not sure useful information can be gleaned from your approach in regard to climate outlooks and phenomena.
I'm willing to listen tho.

 

[DogB]

As I pointed out above, the transfer function applies equally to warming and cooling. As long as the system is approximately linear that is. For a non-linear system this may not be true, hence the concept of a tipping point.

OK I understand now. We're basically on the same page. Thanks.

 

[bobdroege7]

I agree. Your approach is reasonable. Given the stated limits of the theory and variables used for the analysis, the conclusions follow.

You may find this of interest - more later but I've just ran out of available time!

"Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres" 2007, Ferenc M. Miskolszi

Abstract—In this work the theoretical relationship between the clear-sky outgoing infrared radiation and the surface upward radiative flux is explored by using a realistic finite semi-transparent atmospheric model. We show that the fundamental relationship between the optical depth and source function contains real boundary condition parameters. We also show that the radiative equilibrium is controlled by a special atmospheric transfer function and requires the continuity of the temperature at the ground surface. The long standing misinterpretation of the classic semi-infinite Eddington solution has been resolved. Compared to the semi-infinite model the finite semi-transparent model predicts much smaller ground surface temperature and a larger surface air temperature. The new equation proves that the classic solution significantly overestimates the sensitivity of greenhouse forcing to optical depth perturbations. In Earth-type atmospheres sustained planetary greenhouse effect with a stable ground surface temperature can only exist at a particular planetary average flux optical depth of 1.841 . Simulation results show that the Earth maintains a controlled greenhouse effect with a global average optical depth kept close to this critical value. The broadband radiative transfer in the clear Martian atmosphere follows different principle resulting in different analytical relationships among the fluxes. Applying the virial theorem to the radiative balance equation we present a coherent picture of the planetary greenhouse effect.


References and background material:

PHYSICS OF THE PLANETARY GREENHOUSE EFFECT
2008 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GLOBAL WARMING New York, New York, March 2-4, 2008 PHYSICS OF THE PLANETARY GREENHOUSE EFFECT Dr. Ferenc M. Miskolczi 3 Holston Lane, Hampton, VA 23664, USA, e-mail: f
http://www.heartland.org/bin/media/newyork08/PowerPoint/Tues...

Ferenc M. Miskolczi Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres IDŐJÁRÁS, Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, Vol. 111, No. 1, January–March 2007, pp. 1–40 *

Miklós Zágoni, An Introduction into the Greenhouse Theory of Ferenc Miskolczi, http://hps.elte.hu/zagoni/Miskolczi/hartcode_v01.pdf {LINK not working 2008/12/17.

Ferenc M. Miskolczi and Martin G. Mlynczak The greenhouse effect and the spectral decomposition of the clear-sky terrestrial radiation IDŐJÁRÁS, Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, Vol. 108, No. 4, October–December 2004, pp. 209–251

Ken Gregory The Saturated Greenhouse Effect June 2008

An introductory review -
http://landshape.org/enm/greenhouse...-planetary-atmospheres-by-miskolczi-a-review/

Discussion
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2008/10/miskolczi-climate-model.html

More discussion
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/05/the-work-of-ferenc-miskolczi-part-1/

Critical presumption of optical depth
http://www.climateaudit.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=556

But wouldn't the feedback proposed by Miskolczi operate on any warming forcing?

Meaning any warming that would cause the icecaps to melt would be impossible.

Wait, they've melted in the past due to normal climatic variations from obital forcings.

You draw the conclusion.

 

[Wangler]

Have you tried? If you can speed read that puppy you're better than I. Talk about information dense!

Here's a powerpoint of a talk the author gave at a climate change conference. It's no more accessible, but it is prettier.

No, but I have printed it out for a read later on. I'm not confident of my ability to usefully understand, to be honest!

 

[Wangler]

....two different phenomena as the incoming is in a different freqency range than outgoing.

Are you sure they are two different phenomena? They are both governed by the same basic physical laws.

 

[Dr. Imago]

Yesterday, I went outside with two pennies in my pocket. That's right, 2 whole cents. I looked on the ground, and to my surprise I found another penny.

Just at that very instant in time, my immediate net worth on my person increased 33% percent! Isn't that unbelievable?!? By finding one penny and placing it in my pocket, I now had 50% more money than I did before!!!

However, right now I've got about $22,000 cash in my savings account. So, my total net worth increase was so minuscule that it was almost meaningfully incalculable.

I believe it was Benjamin Disraeli, not Mark Twain, that said... "Lies, damned lies, and statistics."

~Dr. Imago

 

[bobdroege7]

There are huge lags in response times in the various geosystems which cannot be discounted as those lags make the planet habitable.

The energy gain /loss of course obeys physics but how it is realized may not be in temperature...focusing on that is a luzer approach

Melting glaciers show almost NO local temperature variations as it's all sucked into latent heat

You cannot ignore the hysteresis of the various systems as each is on a different time scale from daily to 100k years

Deep ocean and cryosphere are huge buffers while aerosol and albedo operate on a very short time scale.

This tunnel vision on temperature is ludicrous...

The devil is indeed in the details when it comes to climate and we have altered our radiative balance....consequences will unfold for millenia.

No argument from me on those points Mac.

Yes and No. The surface of the Earth responds approximately as a black body, so it’s still useful for determining the characteristics of the energy that must ultimately escape the top of the atmosphere, but the greenhouse gasses in between create a layer of thermal resistance that must be overcome. This means the earth is ~33 deg warmer then Stephan Boltzman would otherwise predict for a planet with no atmosphere.

Details, Details, you are correct of course.

 

[mhaze]

But wouldn't the feedback proposed by Miskolczi operate on any warming forcing?

Meaning any warming that would cause the icecaps to melt would be impossible.

Wait, they've melted in the past due to normal climatic variations from obital forcings.

You draw the conclusion.

Here I answer your question based on the Miskolczi theory (If you asked my opinion then I would not be looking for specific sections of Miskolczi, of course)

No.

If the model is correct, the real cause of recent warming is not related to the enhanced greenhouse effect, as the surface temperature can only change through changes in the energy input to the system.



​

 

[mhaze]

No, but I have printed it out for a read later on. I'm not confident of my ability to usefully understand, to be honest!

Start with the virial theorum and it's application to star size and evolution, get an understanding of "optical depth", move to the concept of a max temperature (nothing on our planet seems to go above 22C). Well, that's where I started, anyway. Lots of new material since then.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

The ClimateAudit discussion of the Miskolczi paper was hilarious. If you want a good laugh, read it!

 

[G O R T]

Err, the law does apply, and it's not just for black bodies.

That's why the previous poster wrote the power form of the law with the emissivity included.

Derivations of the Stefan–Boltzmann law have their uses but the Stefan–Boltzmann law applies to steady state. The Earth is seldom steady state.

Big deal, the equation still provides a general idea of the amount and frequency of the radiation emitted by the earth.

True, but not at any given time.

Upon further reading, I see that Raze has covered some of the problems with an actively changing emussivity.

 

[mhaze]

The ClimateAudit discussion of the Miskolczi paper was hilarious. If you want a good laugh, read it!

They often times are. But which of the CA threads on Miskolczi do you refer to?

 

[G O R T]

Read my previous post on feedback loops, your understanding of how such reinforcement behaves is fundamentally wrong. You are committing a classic argument from ignorance, just because you don’t understand the science and math involved does not mean it’s incorrect or that it isn’t well understood by others.

As mentioned above feedback amplifies temperature movements in *both* directions. When something causes temperature to drop, CO2 is absorbed causing more cooling, which causes a further temperature drop.

You mean this:

No, not ever close, that just isn't how feedback loops work. An amplified positive feedback loop can run away, but since we have no gain that isn’t likely to happen from CO2. Instead, what happens is the loop converges on a limiting value.

The value it converges on is entirely determined by the forcing and the characteristics of the feedback loop itself. For a positive feedback look the result is to *magnify* the result of *any* forcing. (A negative feedback look would attenuate the result of any forcing)

If you had a feedback loop that resolved to 3 deg/W and

If you had an increase in solar activity that would result it a 1 deg change without the feedback, with the feedback you would get 3 deg or warming

If that solar activity revered that negative forcing would also be amplified to cause 3 deg of *cooling*

Unless you hit a non-linearity (tipping point) an increase or decrease in forcing followed by a decrease to the original value would always result in the output returning to the original value. If you hit a tipping point all bets are off, however.

You cannot even agree with yourself. By definition there is always gain in a positive feedback loop. There is always a limiting value. Non-linearity is not synonamous with tipping point. Removal of an input forcing from a system with positive feedback does not guaranty that the system will return to its previous state by any stretch of the imagination. If you still do not understand these things just say so.

There is also an irregularity in your application of negative forcing. Removal of an increase in insolation (the forcing) that originally caused a 1 degree temperature increase does not "force" a 1 degree decrease because the system has changed to a new state of lower emissivity. In this limited scenario, application and removal of a forcing do not have the same result. I suggest that you actually try to understand why this is true before throwing out more insults. Obviously the inequity of this increases as the gain rises from unity. For comparison, the temperature of a black body Earth would rise and fall proportionately with changes in insolation (after any latency).


While I agree that forcing temperature down would reduce atmospheric CO2, I am still waiting for the full cause of that temperature forcing to be explained. Even given a factor temporarily overriding CO2 that causes rapid temporary temperature dips, the graphs clearly show a longer term trend of temperature leading the way down with CO2 slowly following and this defies logic or requires another significant forcing.