Discussion with Pete Ridley #3

At first I had intended to go through our longish email exchange and pick out highlights I wanted to discuss, but I'm over it.  Ridley's given me plenty of fodder in real time plus he's taken up enough of my time already.  Here we go with the third installment.  

This time I am not posting Ridley's complete 1400 words since, quite frankly, too much of it is confusing gobbledegook, to borrow his own term.  If you're into the slough check out his link below, see if you don't agree that Ridley seems conflicted and unsure if he wants to talk political shenanigans or science, although I'm getting the feeling it's all the same to him.

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http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/spotlighton-psi-acumen-ltd.html?showComment=1404767773627#c6142771578776265384

Pete Ridley - July 7, 2014 14:16 PART 1 

What on earth gave you the idea that I wanted to Talk science here? My blog name gives the game away about my topic of interest – Global Political Shenanigans. Anyone deciding to read articles on this blog should recognise from its name that they are likely to encounter comments from politicians and political pundits like Christopher Booker, Matt Ridley, Nigel Lawson and his GWPF. {...} 

I did try to help you to find reliable sources of information about greenhouse gases to help you better understand the impact of atmospheric CO2. It seems to me that you need all the help that you can get. 

{...} “ .. It seems that the difference between thee and me is that I am searching for the truth about CACC while you are simply promoting your environmentalist agenda .. ”.

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Yea, my agenda... like honestly learning about our Earth's geophysical processes.  What do you have against learning about our planet or being concerned about our biosphere's wellbeing?  

You do realize it's our life support system, don't you?

Incidentally, why shouldn't Earth have an advocate?

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{...} You claim to have been following the scientific developments relating to CACC for several decades so it is hard to believe that you have such poor understanding of the MODTRAN tool.

The reason why I pointed you to the MODTRAN plots on 3rd July and to the explanation provided on the blog of scientists Jack Barrett and David Bellamy was to try to get you to acknowledge the reality of the impact on OLR  of increasing atmospheric CO2 content.  

The reason why I pointed you to the MODTRAN plots on 3rd July and to the explanation provided on the blog of scientists Jack Barrett and David Bellamy was to try to get you to acknowledge the reality of the impact on OLR  of increasing atmospheric CO2 content. 

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Therein lies a difference between us, I understand that having a grasp of the outlines of a complex field of study - is light-years from having the understanding that a full-time educated and full-time scientist working in a field does.

You seem to think that waving around a few graphs, making vague insinuations couched in riddles is making some profound point.  But, it ain't.

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Pete Ridley - July 7, 2014 14:16 - PART 2 

{...}It allows the calculation of the emission intensity of the chosen gaseous mixture .. ”. MODTRAN is nothing like your description “ .. subjects .. that contain nuances and complexities light years beyond our thorough understanding .. ”.

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You give the impression that you think it's simple as 1+1=2 don't you, anyone who can read the manual can process or evaluate the data?  I happen to believe there's a bit more to understanding what you're looking at there - even more importantly, for knowing how that piece of information fits into the bigger picture.

MODTRAN Infrared Light in the Atmosphere 

http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu/modtran/modtran.doc.html 

The MODTRAN model simulates the emission and absorption of infrared radiation in the atmosphere. The smooth curves are theoretical emission spectra of blackbodies at different temperatures. The jagged lines are spectra of infrared light at the top of the atmosphere looking down. The total energy flux from all IR light is labeled as Upward IR Heat Flux, in units of Watts / meter². The model demonstrates the effect of wavelength-selective greenhouse gases on Earth's outgoing IR energy flux.

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{...} The hope was that you would acknowledge the diminishing impact on OLR of increasing atmospheric CO2 content. 

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I imagine at the root of your riddle is that you want me to leap on the contrarian "discovery" that CO2's insulating effect get's saturated, thus we have nothing to worry about and can add as much as possible.  Am I close?

But, you know Pete, from everything I've read by real practicing experts such an argument comes from a two-dimensional misunderstanding, one that ignores all sorts of important processes that occur in our real life atmosphere, as opposed to pages of inspired equations - by folks with incomplete understanding of the topic they have tackled.

Here's some reading for those interested in learning:

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The first global warming skeptic 

"After the his famous paper in 1896, where Arrhenius did the first calculations of the CO2 greenhouse effect, his theory was dismissed by Angstrom with a simple experiment. He let an infrared beam pass through a tube filled with CO2 and measured the emerging light intensity. Upon reducing CO2 concentration in the tube, only a tiny difference could be found and he concluded that even a small number of CO2 molecules is sufficient to completely absorb the IR beam. 

The conclusion was that a CO2 increase could not matter. This was the birth of the first skeptic of what was then called "CO2 theory" and of the more recent skeptic argument "the CO2 effect is saturated". 

Thirty years later, E. O. Hulburt (Phys. Rev. 38, 1876–1890 (1931)) considered convection in addition to the purely radiative equilibrium assumed by Arrhenius. 

He found that convective equilibrium holds in the lower part of the troposphere up to about 10 Km, while radiative equilibrium holds above. The important consequence is that the details of the absorption in the lower troposphere do not matter since heat "is spread around and transferred upward by convection". 

In other words, what governs the energy balance of the earth is the radiative balance in the upper troposphere and CO2 concentration there does matter. …"

http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=414  

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Visualizing Atmospheric Radiation – Part One

January 3, 2013 by scienceofdoom 

http://scienceofdoom.com/2013/01/03/visualizing-atmospheric-radiation-part-one/

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Atmospheric Physics Thermodynamics 2 

N. Kämpfer
Institute of Applied Physics University of Bern
5.3.2013

http://www.iapmw.unibe.ch/teaching/vorlesungen/atmosphaerenphysik/FS_2013/AT_FS13_Thermodynamics_2_handout.pdf

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{...}

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Ironically, for all your verbosity, you still haven't explained how you think Dr. Barrett would dispute my previous explanation of our situation.
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If so then I highly recommend Professor Grant Petty’s excellent introductory book “A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation” (http://www.sundogpublishing.com/shop/a-first-course-in-atmospheric-radiation-2nd-ed/) {...}

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I challenge you to find where Petty's text book disagrees with my basic claims!

Thanks all the same for some of those other 'interesting sources' but my time is limited and precious, I prefer to stick to the real experts and avoid discredited wingnuts.
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Pete Ridley - July 7, 2014 14:17 PART 3 

As for your disingenuous claim that I knew you were talking about only the CO2 component of the atmospheres constituent greenhouse-gases, once again you demonstrate you inability (or unwillingness) to recognise the impact of each of those components at different concentrations. In December 2013 you made the same pseudo-scientific claim about us “ .. increasing our planet’s atmosphere’s insulating medium (GHGs) by a third .. ” (http://judithcurry.com/2013/10/02). Once again you made no mention of CO2.

It’ll be interesting seeing how you wriggle and squirm in response to this set of comments

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What in the world are you going on about?  I wrote our atmosphere's insulating medium (GHGs) has increased by a third.  

Are you claiming that is false?
CO2 has increased by 40%(today)
As of 2000: "Until the past two centuries, the concentrations of CO₂ and CH₄ had never exceeded about 280 ppm and 790 ppb, respectively. Current concentrations of CO₂ are about 390 ppm and CH₄ levels exceed 1,770 ppb. Both numbers are much higher than at any time during the last 650,000 years. (N2O from below 270 ppb to over 400 ppb)" http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/greenhousegases/industrialrevolution.html

Water vapor is the tricky one because it is temperature dependent and varies a great deal with time and location.  The basic thumbnail figure I've read is that for every degree C° of warming water vapor increases 7%, but like you hinted at, H2O packs the greatest insulating punch.

OK, now what's your issue Ridley?
Are you complaining that my 1/3 was a convenient round number and that I didn't bother to figure it out to a few decimal points?
Is it H2O?
Is it long lived greenhouse gases?

Although none of that actually has to do with ModTran, or the OLR reading at the TOA... does it?  {outgoing longwave radiation at the top of atmosphere} That's a different issue.

Check out the University of Chicago's on-line course 

by Professor David Archer PhD  

http://climatemodels.uchicago.edu  

Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast is a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of global warming. Written in an accessible way, and assuming no specialist prior knowledge, this book examines the processes that control climate change and climate stability, from the distant past to the distant future. 

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Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-QLBjLHnxg 

UChicagoCIS

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Also see these interesting webpages by Ontar Corporation who develop, deploy and integrate software applications including ModTran.  

http://www.ontar.com/software/productdetails.aspx?item=modtran 

MODTRAN5® is an atmospheric radiative transfer model co-developed by the US Air Force Research Laboratory and Spectral Sciences Inc. The atmosphere is modeled as stratified horizontal layers and molecular and particulate constituent profiles may be defined either using built-in models or by user-specified vertical profiles. The spectral range extends from the UV into the far-infrared (0 - 50,000 cm^-1), providing resolution as fine as 0.2 cm^-1. ...

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{Footnote...}

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I don't have a clue what you expect me to get out of that footnote?

Oh yea, I remember: "What on earth gave you the idea that I wanted to Talk science here? My blog name gives the game away about my topic of interest – Global Political Shenanigans." (Pete Ridley - July 7, 2014 14:16)."

For someone who doesn't want to talk science you sure do jump back and forth a lot, too much, get's dizzying.  Me?  It's all about learning about our planet and how we got here - and I learn a little more every day. 

PS.  "At 2 ppm rise per year, humans are increasing CO₂ at a rate that is about 80 times that of the fastest natural rate and almost 2000 times the average rate over the past hundreds of thousands of years!" 

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/greenhouse_gases.html

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