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Saturday, December 17, 2011

Blog Science is Sneaking Up on the Answer

With all the confusion on the internet with too much and too biased and too inaccurate information, it is nice to see some bloggers and commentators gradually moving toward the solutions of complex problems. DeWitt Payne and Joel Shore are two of the denizens of the climate blog world that have taken on the task of proving instead of accepting theory.

In this comment on Dr Judith Curry's blog, DeWitt is highlighting the exact issue I have with the science. He determines the emissivity of carbon dioxide from the surface to the top of the atmosphere. While that is useful information, the impact of carbon dioxide on the surface is centered in the lower atmosphere. Where carbon dioxide's impact is greatest is also where conductive and convective energy transfer interact to amplify, positively or negatively, that impact.

In the lower atmosphere, the thermal coefficient of conductivity of CO2 and its mixed gas environment is on the same order of magnitude of its radiant properties. This relationship is non-linear in that conductive and radiant properties vary differently with temperature and that decreased temperature is inversely related between the two.

Hopefully, these guys can combine their work and start a technical post so we can get away from all the political BS.

Note: The emissivity of the surface of the Earth is approximately 0.996 due to water being nearly a perfect black body. The effective emissivity of the surface is approximately 0.825 based on the "benchmark" greenhouse effect. That effective emissivity should be on the order of 0.857. That difference appears to indicate the magnitude of conductive/radiant interaction at the surface, which I have not seen considered in the debate thus far.

This emissivity change requires us to Concentrate on Concentrations.

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